It's a sad thing, really.
For centuries, sex was a strongly repressed taboo in European culture. What we have today is a result of this repression. We snapped out of it and there was a very strong backlash - and yet we're still struggling with the powerful stigma left on us by Christianity. Signs of it are inherent in our language, our ways of thinking, methods of censorship, behaviours...
To this day, there is a significant difference between promiscuous women and men.
If a man has many successful and enjoyable sexual encounters -he's a winner, a conqueror, a real man. On the other hand, a woman who can claim this will rarely find the claim to be seen in positive light. No, she's more likely to be made out into a slut or a cumdumpster.
Vulgar words, for the most part, can all be related to sex in one way or another. Not only that - the very existence of double entendres and puns in such a MASSIVE amount shows how difficult it still is for us to talk about sex in frank and straight ways without either sounding like doctors, sounding immature or being vague.
There are still plenty people who cast those who have an avid interest in human sexuality in a bad light. Crack one too many "perverted" joke and you get the "pervert" or "swine" thrown at you. Admit that you masturbate - you're a disgusting wanker. Admit to owning folders of porn or watching it on YouPorn or whatever... Same pattern there.
"Pervert" - I dislike this term and how it gets used. It's enough that you crack two "indecent" jokes, and you're branded a pervert. ("indecent" - what's so indecent? A vast majority of humans were shoved through a vagina into the world at some point, anyway - and guess what has to happen for a human being to be conceived?) The term "pervert" is completely watered down this way.
You know what really IS perverted? Rape. Sex should always be an act between two people who desire physical contact. If one of them is completely against it and is forced into it - that is truly perverted. It can't even really be called sex.
The post on Drama Llamas I've already linked covers another result of repressed sexuality on the Internet.
Another thing...
Why is it that bloody murder and violence, things DEFINITELY far more gross than a nipple or penis, have lower age limits on them? I mean, blood is okay, but human flesh or love between humans - oh, hell no.
Remember that incident where some singer tore off another woman singer's cloth and exposed her nipple? The resulting soccer-mom outrage concerning how their poor kids might have seen a God FORBID nipple? Come on, what's so damn special about nipples that might endanger a youth's fragile psyche?
Why is it that even mild "porno" stuff such as Hustler or whatever is 18+? A guy needs it the most when he enters puberty and develops a newfound curiosity about the body of the opposite sex - which, incidentally, usually happens BEFORE 18 years of age.
All this just causes unnecessary awkwardness around something that should be an inherent and natural part of being a human and serves to create a poisonous, lingering aura of wrongness about something that is completely fine. Even the most liberal of us have problems breaking completely free from the shackles imposed on us by centuries of conditioning, engraved into the very core of our culture. It's really, really sad.
It's indeed sad that I'm in a healthy sexual relationship and I'm still embarassed or at least uneasy about talking about some aspects of it openly, and who'd have thought that after sppeaking to me online. I blame my strict Catholic upbringing. High five on the usage of cumdumpster.
ReplyDeleteRape is perhaps the lowest of the low, and I wouldn't be averse to castrating every one of the bastards root to stem, ramming it in their mouth before dismembering them and leaving them in the desert with a swarm of fire ants for company.
This is Katie.
ReplyDeleteA really good blog post, Zark. I only just came across it, even though Martyn commented on it and probably knew I would have enjoyed it - he didn't tell me it was here!
Like I said anyway, I went through most of my late teenage years being referred to as a slut for having an active sex life "before marriage", and often outside of committed relationships. I never let it affect me really, of course it bothers me that people think badly of me for something I know so fully is my right as a person to enjoy and experience whenever I want to. But it doesn't bother me in the way that it stops me from making friends with lots of closed-minded people I don't know, it bothers me that they continue to be closed-minded and thus inhibit their own quality of life.
My most prominent view on sex in general is that we should do what we want with our bodies, and there shouldn't be that "stigma" attached anymore. A lot of women are enjoying healthy sex lives, even with tons of different men over the course of a couple of months. If they're protecting themselves and not harming anybody, then what laws are they breaking? The fictional Christian laws. But we all know that if there was a God (which I think there is), he/she/it would want us to be happy and not limit our experience of the world he/she/is gave to us.
The only laws I feel we need to follow in terms of sex are the mutual rules established in a relationship. If me and Martyn are a monogamous couple, which we are, then I have to respect those rules and not cheat on him because then I AM harming somebody else with my sexual activities. But, outside of relationships, I go and do whatever I like. I wish there was some way I could change mass opinion on the matter, I wish sex was as acceptable to the world as conversation (still with its limitations against things like rape, child molesting, etc - just as conversation has limitations against things like racism, sexism..) but it's not going to happen.
So instead I just make myself a self-proclaimed "part of the solution, not part of the problem" by embracing the fact that I AM female, and that this doesn't put me into a box of limitations and expectations from society.
A ramble. :) Quite an important issue for me though.
A ramble it may be, but very insightful and another angle on what I wrote about here. Thanks for your thoughts.
ReplyDelete