7 posts tagged “sex”
The prairie dress: it's the new burqa.
Here we are in the 21st Century, surrounded by amazing technological advances, access to knowledge beyond our wildest dreams, and opportunities that transcend race, class, and seemingly gender. Yet men are still using the bodies of women as political objects. Covered, uncovered, altered, mutilated, all for the political purposes of men. Certainly, women have used their bodies for politics, but almost always personal politics. Even the bra-burning of the sixties was more personal than cultural politics. An act of defiance by a few women, not a movement.
When we see the women of the FLDS in Texas in their lovely, modest dresses, we're witnessing women being used for two political purposes. The first is the politics inside their own culture. The dresses serve to remind them that they are the property of men, that they are dangerous creatures, whose bodies must be tightly controlled. To remind them that are provokers and promoters of sin and fornication and damnation. Unclean.
Outside, in American consumer culture, it's the politics of faux-freedom. Out here, the women are presented as examples of oppression, repression, the down-trodden, the thwarted. These are women who can't wear make-up, who are forced to wear a strange hairstyle, who don't have modern clothes.
The difficulty, as a woman in 21st century America, is in parsing where the truth lies in between these two political stories. Both steal freedom. Both put women's bodies under the power of men. If you love your body and the freedom of sex, then the burqa-like prairie dress and all its cultural accoutrement seems unbearable. If our cultural obsession with "perfecting" women's bodies horrifies you, or your own body horrifies you as a result, or if you're simply a modest person, that pastel prairie cover-all looks better than a pair of hot pants to bare your less than perfect legs, or a tube top to reveal your less than inspiring cleavage.
At the bottom of both political mechanisms, there is still this truth. We can put a man on the moon* and decode the human genome, but we have not yet undone this sense that the only thing men can truly own, can truly put their mark on, is women. For women, there is the dual cruelty of owning a body that is desired and vilified, almost in the same breath. To be creatures whose capacity for lust is so dark, so consuming that it must be chained, either in modest dresses or in the trappings of sex. To be creatures whose bodies are communal property.
*I cede this point only grudgingly for the purposes of rhetoric.
Unfortunately, I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to cover everything that's wrong with women here, but I'll try to chip a little piece off the iceberg and you'll just have to steer your "unsinkable" luxury liner around the rest of it.
It all started with an e-mail from a friend of mine who writes Battlestar Galactica fanfic/slashfic*. She was excited at finishing a new story, and although I'm not a big fanfic...uh...fan, to be polite, I agreed to read it and make a few suggestions for improvement. It nagged at me afterward. I woke up in the middle of the rainy night and went to check the basement, still sleepy, still thinking about her story. On Tuesday, I started in on my research and by the end of the day yesterday, I had sorted out this little chapter of what's wrong with women? (And by "women" here I mean heterosexual women. I will not even try to help you sort out what's wrong with lesbians. Those are two different sets of 38-volume encyclopedias.)
My conclusion is this: by and large, once they get any kind of commitment out of a man, women want to change him into someone who will no longer resemble the man they were originally attracted to. (Now, I know, this isn't exactly a scientific breakthrough, but I uncovered some very telling details on the subject.)
That fact gets played for laughs in all kinds of stories and movies, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I couldn't pull my examples from books or movies. The problem is that even with books written by women they're filtered through an editing and publishing industry controlled by men. The same is true of the rare movie made by women. Instead, I wanted to really get at the source material, get at what women are thinking when they undertake this man renovation. That's where fanfic comes in handy.
Unlike published novels, fanfic written by women--as is most of it--is essentially unfiltered fantasy. It allows the writer to take a character she likes and do what she wants with that character. If you look through the archives at fanfiction.net, you'll pretty quickly find that a lot of what's there is downright smutty. It's pornography for women. (Hence the "internet pornography" tag for this post. Regular internet pornography? That's pornography for men**.) What you'll also find is the puzzling answer to the puzzling question I wanted to answer.
To illustrate my discovery, I present to you Riddick and Jayne Cobb.
We'll start with the Man Named Jayne from the much too short Firefly TV series. As opposed to Cap'n Tightpants, he's more of a Hired Tightpants with a Big Gun. He's big, dangerous, lewd, crude, unhygienic, selfish, untrustworthy, and not terribly bright. He's also a pretty popular character for Firefly fanfics. Is it because women want a foul-mouthed, brutal oaf? If they did, they'd just take the character of Jayne in all his unwashed, insensitive glory and stick him in a "romantic" story. That's not what they want, though. No, the women writing these fanfics want a project. At the end of all these stories, they make him into something he isn't. At the end of the story, Jayne's more articulate, more sensitive, more loving. All that from a guy you'd probably be lucky to get to take a shower and say, "Yer gorramn tits look nice, girl."
Now, let's consider Richard B. Riddick: escaped convict, murderer. Creepy, deadly, badass motherfucker. Also, built for it. Built for what? I don't know--built for whatever you want. They're your masturbation fantasies, you crazy bitches. And apparently they are, because lots of women go for the Riddick thing. Why do you think what was essentially a B horror movie made so much money and got a sequel? Because chicks were all, "Yeah, sure, honey, we can go see that movie if you want," while secretly lusting after Vin Diesel. It's your classic bad boy scenario. The danger, the excitement, the brutality, the brooding darkness. As with the Jayne Cobb scenario, a lot of the fanfic over Riddick involves rough sex. (Need I say it? Rough, but always multi-orgasmic sex.) It starts there anyway, but somehow it ends up with Riddick being a sensitive, lovable guy. Because that's what women want to believe. That a guy whose idea of foreplay involves punching you, choking you, and then throwing you down on your hands and knees before cutting your pants off with a sharp knife...he's got a switch that you can flip and turn him into, of all things, a tender lover.
There it is: a woman wants the rough and manly guy, who makes decisions, who does whatever needs to be done, even if it's wrong, but she also wants to turn him into that guy's opposite. She wants to unmake the thing she wanted in the first place. And it's not just the urge to domesticate. Sure, some small part of it is likely fueled by the need to housebreak a man, but it's something much more insidious. (That domestication thing just goes back to my theory that men and women aren't meant to live together. Yurt in the back yard, my people.)
The thing that kills me about all of this is that science has pretty firmly established that it's a matter of hormones. At certain points in her menstrual cycle, a woman wants a brute. A Jayne or a Riddick. At other points in her cycle, she wants a gentle, nice guy. (A Wash for you Firefly fans.) And men claim they're hardwired for infidelity. Hormonally speaking, women are always going to want two different men, or a man who can figure out how to be both, depending on the calendar.
Culturally speaking, this duality is still very much forbidden, and so ultimately, what women want is a doomed proposition. That's what's wrong with us. We're always engaged in a process of trying to undo the very things we originally fell in love/lust over, and on some level we know it's hopeless, but we keep doing it because we're not allowed to have what we actually want.
*Fanfic, short for fan fiction, are stories written by fans of a particular TV show, movie, comic, or book. Often they involve romantic pairings of canonical characters or the introduction of non-canonical characters. Slashfic involves romantic/sexual pairings of same-sex characters.
**Pornography for men does a pretty good job of revealing what's wrong with men--the elusive and never-ending hunt for new, varied, and uninhibited sexual partners. Gotta scatter your seed.
As an aside: it's interesting that my two examples are characters who've managed to make cool items of clothing that are inherently uncool: swimming goggles and the cunning Jayne Cobb hat.
Being a redhead means I don't just have fragile veins, I have thin skin. I blush with almost no provocation and often without even being aware I am blushing. I get red in the face when I'm mad, when I'm mildly annoyed, when I'm pleased, when I laugh, and certainly when I showed teenagers how to use a condom, I blushed like crazy. I think that's one of the reasons the kids always liked me. I was just this normal 20-something girl who blushed and laughed and had fun while I was showing them how to wrestle a condom onto a penis. This did not, in general, win me any points with public school teachers* in Kansas, though. I could be just as cute and mildly embarrassed and game for being teased as I wanted to be, but they disapproved of me being there at all. They particularly disapproved of my pair of life-sized erect silicone complete-with-testicles penis models: one pink, one brown.
The teachers weren't afraid to disapprove to my face or in front of their students right before my presentation. They were happy to tell students that it was "inappropriate" for this sort of thing to be shown in school. People should learn about this at home, they said. Invariably that meant I started my presentations by asking the kids whether their parents had shown them how to use condoms at home yet. Never, not in three years, not in the estimated 400 public school presentations I racked up, did even one kid raise his/her hand to say, "Yes, my parents have already shown my how to use a condom." Not one.
For those of you who've used them, you know how awkward it is, how embarrassing it is, how difficult it is to get it right, especially when you're new at it. Yet it's one of the most important, life-and-health-saving devices that people need to know how to use. And most schools don't show kids anything about it. (They don't in Kansas anymore, in part because Planned Parenthood in Wichita no longer has a sex educator as stubborn and impervious to insult as I am.)
With current estimates of 7 in 10 Americans sexually active by age 19, this refusal to teach kids about using condoms is on par with giving a kid a driver's license without ever letting him get behind the wheel of a car. Like turning a student loose in woodshop class with just a brochure to show her how the machines work and what safety measures to use. Kids have genitals, they don't need a license to use them, and if we don't offer them some safety training, they're likely to get hurt.
We shouldn't act surprised by recent studies that show 1 in 4 teenage girls have a sexually transmitted infection. Hell, that number is a bit of a lie. If only 70% of teenage girls are sexually active, the more important number that arises is that 1 of those 4 teenage girls isn't even at risk of getting an STI. That means that 1 in 3 sexually active teenage girls have an STI. A third.
Telling kids about condoms isn't enough. Mentioning the word condom during an abstinence presentation isn't enough. Teenagers need to see how a condom works, see an "expert" put one on an erect (model) penis, and they need to be offered a chance to try it themselves. Even at the schools where teachers didn't give me a hard time about my penis, they didn't want their students to touch it.
I always thought that was why my natural tendency to blush worked for me. It allowed me to have some fun, allowed me to confess: yeah, it's kind of embarrassing for me to do this in front of 30 giggling teenagers. Now, imagine what it's going to be like trying to get one on in front of just one giggling teenager. Now, imagine how much more embarrassing it'll be if you have to tell your parents that you're pregnant, or if you have to go to the doctor and explain how you've got some weird yellow stuff coming out of your penis.
The whole thing is embarrassing, but if we can help kids get over that hump, we might be able to cut down on the number of kids whose health and fertility is at risk from infections.
*A special shout out to the employees of various child welfare agencies and group homes in Kansas, especially Jing and Trudy and Leon. You never made me feel unwelcome and you were always eager for your kids to learn the truth about sex and learn to protect themselves.
This one is generally useful for everyone, but it's particularly useful for politicians of all stripes. Just print this out and carry it in your wallet. Better yet, get it tattooed somewhere handy.
Considering contact between your mouth/penis/vagina/anus and another person's mouth/penis/vagina/anus: Is the other person your legally documented spouse or domestic partner?
If YES, proceed.
If NO, put your mouth/penis/vagina/anus away and go home to your legally documented spouse or domestic partner.
It's that simple folks. No complicated diagrams or flow charts or cross-referencing indexes or appendices. Just a simple yes or no question. It'll save you years of anguish and avoid those embarrassing public exposures that can cost you an otherwise promising political career.
P.S. to Eliot Spitzer: Thanks for destroying the last vestige of my hope that American politicians could still have integrity. I had this vaguely fuzzy warm feeling about you, the same I once had about Colin Powell. Sure, screwing a prostitute isn't anywhere near as heinous as lying to America, but I still can't believe that you'd take your reputation and flush it down the toilet alongside a used condom.
While on my usual troll of the internets, looking for weird, I came across this little gem: an excerpt from A Treatise Of all the Degrees and
Symptoms of the Venereal Disease, In both Sexes, The Sixth Edition
corrected and enlarg’d, by John Marten. (Corrected and enlarg'd!)
I had almost forgot to acquaint the Reader, that there is
yet another way of getting the Venereal Infection....by a Man’s putting his erected
Penis, into another Persons (Man or Woman’s) Mouth, using Friction, &c.
between the Lips; a way so very Beastly and so much to be abhorr’d, as to cause
at the mentioning, or but thinking of it, the utmost detestation and loathing....a Man so Infected....assur’d me...that he contracted it no
other way.
....
I being desirous to know the whole of this abominable Encounter, (having never known, tho’ before had heard, that such beastly Abominations were practis’d) ask’d him if ’twas any Pleasure to him, and how he dispos’d of his Semen? he told me ’twas great Pleasure, and that he ejected it into the Person’s Mouth he had to do with, who both willingly receiv’d it, and assisted, as he said, in this foul Act, by sucking his Penis. O monstrous! thought I, that Men, otherwise, sensible Men, should so vilely debase themselves, and become so degenerate; should provoke God so highly, contemn the Laws of Man so openly, wrong their own Bodies so fearfully; and which is worse (without sincere Repentance) ruin their own Souls eternally. A Sin so heinous and aggravating, that God particularly expresses his Anger against those that commit it...
or least favorite Republican, depending on how you look at it. (As I am technically registered as a Republican, perhaps I am your favorite.)
I promised this to IG months ago, but I recently saw something that reminded me of it. Hubby and I watched Babel finally, and the scene that really stuck with me was when Gael Garcia Bernal kills the chicken by using the tried and true "tilt-a-whirl" method, as the little boy looks on in horror/fascination. From there I'll take my first piece of parenting advice.
Principle #1: Knowledge is power
Factual information is one the greatest gifts you can give your children. If you try to always provide them with factual information, they'll learn and you'll build a reputation for being reliable.
- Don't let your children grow up to be ignorant city kids. Children should know where food comes from. That means they need to see a farm or a garden on a regular basis, and they need to know how meat gets on the table.
- Conversely, don't let your children grow up to be ignorant hillbillies. Children need to see a museum, go to a concert or two. Learn how to take a bus or use a subway system. Meet people from other cultures.
- Don't betray your children with an easy lie. They will find out that you lied to them, and then what are you? A liar who can't be trusted to provide good information. Then, when they need information, like about sex or drugs, they will not come to you for it. So don't destroy your credibility with "the stork brings babies." Come on, it's easy: Men have a little seed inside them and women have a little seed inside them. Men have a special part that goes into women, to put their two little seeds together. Women have a special place inside them where the two seeds can grow into a baby.
- Don't betray your children with a ridiculous lie. Why in the world would you try to trick your kids into believing in something you know doesn't exist? Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy? The cultural aspects built into these lies work just as well without the lie. The kid misbehaves, he's getting fewer presents. Losing baby teeth is an important milestone, worthy of gifts. Chocolate bunnies taste good. (Plus, if you've lied about all of these, how is a child supposed to know when you're telling the truth? That's how I became an atheist.)
- Don't try to protect your children from reality. When the family pet dies, don't say it moved away. Unless your kids die young, they're going to experience pain, so it's best to ease them into it. (And this one is as easy as the sex issue: animals and people have to die, so that other animals and people can live. If every dog ever born was still alive, how horrible would that be?) So help your children learn about the world, including the scary parts. It will be less scary if you tell them about it, than if they figure it out on their own. Let your children know that there are dangerous people who will hurt kids. Tell them how to recognize those behaviors and what to do about it. Don't tell your kid, "It's going to be okay," if you know it isn't.
In short, educate your kids and be honest with them. In your personal relationships, you probably expect honesty and respect, why not treat your kids that way?
*Dr. Redzilla is neither a doctor, nor a parent. Her credentials are: being raised as one of five children, being a nanny for six years, powerful observation skills, and having a particularly vivid memory of what being a child is like.
