I'm told that there's a new standard being raised in issues of sexual consent--- a requirement for "enthusiastic consent". The slogan here is "Yes Means Yes", which replaces "No Means No" with a requirement not just for acquiescence or not saying No, but with a requirement for positive, active consent. There are arguments about what the standard means or entails all over the web. There's also a whole ongoing (and embittered) debate about the legal consequences of a Yes Means Yes standard. I won't go into that here. I'll save that discussion for later. What interests me this evening is the idea of "enthusiastic" consent--- the idea of enthusiasm itself.
I'm a bit perplexed about the whole concept of enthusiastic consent in sex. After all--- how many things in life really generate enthusiasm? Why do we look to sex for something that's not found in pretty much anything else? Job, school, really anything--- how much of life has anything to do with enthusiasm? Now, it does happen. Everyone's life has those moments, but they're far and few between. The first day at a new university, the first day at a job you wanted, the initial prospect of a new life in a new city... But those things are rare and fleeting.
Most of life--- most of the things you do in life ---aren't about enthusiasm. Life and social interactions are mostly about things done faute de mieux, things done out of a sense of social obligation, things done just to get by. Why do we expect sex to be any different?
You'd really like Thai food, but the restaurant you like is across town, and Chipotle is across the street. You'd like to see a particular band, but the tickets are more than you want to pay and the band at the dive bar in the next block over probably isn't that bad and at least you'll get out of the house. The film you really want to see is wait-listed at Netflix, so you move an okay film to the top of the queue. How much of life is like that?
There's a sunk-cost part of things, too. You decided to go see a film and made the trek crosstown. Once you're there, even if you have the sudden urge to go see another film at another cinema, well...you're already here.
How many times have you put on a necktie and looked in the mirror and told yourself to smile and gone to some social function for work and friends when you'd really rather have just stayed home? How many times have you looked at the incoming number on your iPhone screen and answered because it would be rude to ignore your particular caller? It's not that the activity or the conversation either one would be so very dreadful, it's just that there's that vague sense of social obligation that winds through daily life.
Again, why should sex be any different?
No means No; that's a given. But so very few human interactions generate that much enthusiasm, and we do things often enough because we feel like, well, at least it's something to do, or because we do feel a sense of duty or obligation. Expecting an enthusiastic Yes! Yes! from sex is probably as unrealistic as expecting it from anything else on a continuing basis. Many things--- maybe even most things ---in life are done with a shrug and a sigh. No means No, but acquiescence and faute de mieux are the stuff most of social and work life are made of.
Well...if you have any thoughts on this, or on what enthusiasm entails, do leave comments. Let me know what you're thinking.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Monday, September 29, 2014
One One Nine: Filters
A friend suggests that when out on a first date--- when engaged in what is very much an interview process with a potential bedmate ---one key way to determine whether it's worth the risk of discussing one's sexual interests or preferences is first to ask a couple of questions. My friend suggests that the first preliminary question should be: Do you have a Tumblr? If yes, then the next question must be What do you write about? If it's fashion or music or books, then fine. If she says she writes about gender issues and social justice, then it's probably time to call for the check. I think we can take this much as a given: no one who's keenly interested in gender issues or intersectionalist feminism wants to discuss sexual interests or tastes...and they certainly don't regard being out with you as a date, and a fortiori not as a social occasion that leads from going out to making out.
Do you have a Tumblr? Well, that's simple enough, and I may try that with my next Young Companion. It strikes me as something that saves time and disappointment, and there's something to be said for efficiency. Also for saving oneself from being mocked or "called out"--- especially since "calling out" is likely to involve a public scene, and public displays of anger always terrify me.
We're still at the question of how one raises the issue of one's sexual interests and tastes. Yes--- it's an important thing for any relationship. At least in theory, a relationship or an evening moves from going out to making out, and it's no fun for either party if there aren't shared interests in bed. But while no one male should ever risk trying to talk about these things--- or admit to feeling any desires at all ---with someone who has a gender warrior Tumblr, there's always the issue of how to raise the issue.
If you're male, you obviously can't ask the girl, and you just as clearly can't offer up your own presentation speech without an explicit invitation. Or at least not these days. There was a time when I'd have looked at a lovely young first date over my glass and traced a finger along the back of her hand and told her that she had...say...lovely and quite kissable collarbones. Or asked which she liked better--- having her ankles kissed or her spine. Once upon a time, I'd have looked at my date and smiled and thought that the evening was going well, and that the odds were very in my favor for her to smile back and tell me a story or two that would sketch out things she liked.
I've lost a sense of how to do that. These days, I'm certainly not going to state my particular interests or preferences. I've lost my sense of timing, and I'm now deeply terrified of being mocked for those interests and having a savage and contemptuous critique of my tastes, skills, or interests broadcast by social media.
If you're reading this, do suggest your own thoughts on how to raise the issue of comparative sexual interests here in the age of the gender wars...and do offer up your own suggestions on why we're now more willing to mock or be horrified by any non-vanilla interests than we were twenty or thirty years ago.
Do you have a Tumblr? Well, that's simple enough, and I may try that with my next Young Companion. It strikes me as something that saves time and disappointment, and there's something to be said for efficiency. Also for saving oneself from being mocked or "called out"--- especially since "calling out" is likely to involve a public scene, and public displays of anger always terrify me.
We're still at the question of how one raises the issue of one's sexual interests and tastes. Yes--- it's an important thing for any relationship. At least in theory, a relationship or an evening moves from going out to making out, and it's no fun for either party if there aren't shared interests in bed. But while no one male should ever risk trying to talk about these things--- or admit to feeling any desires at all ---with someone who has a gender warrior Tumblr, there's always the issue of how to raise the issue.
If you're male, you obviously can't ask the girl, and you just as clearly can't offer up your own presentation speech without an explicit invitation. Or at least not these days. There was a time when I'd have looked at a lovely young first date over my glass and traced a finger along the back of her hand and told her that she had...say...lovely and quite kissable collarbones. Or asked which she liked better--- having her ankles kissed or her spine. Once upon a time, I'd have looked at my date and smiled and thought that the evening was going well, and that the odds were very in my favor for her to smile back and tell me a story or two that would sketch out things she liked.
I've lost a sense of how to do that. These days, I'm certainly not going to state my particular interests or preferences. I've lost my sense of timing, and I'm now deeply terrified of being mocked for those interests and having a savage and contemptuous critique of my tastes, skills, or interests broadcast by social media.
If you're reading this, do suggest your own thoughts on how to raise the issue of comparative sexual interests here in the age of the gender wars...and do offer up your own suggestions on why we're now more willing to mock or be horrified by any non-vanilla interests than we were twenty or thirty years ago.
Sunday, September 21, 2014
One One Eight: Interviews
Not so very long ago, Ms. Flox raised the issue of discussing one's sexual interests on a date. Her own argument was that this was very much something one should do on a first date. After all, she wrote, your interests and desires are a critical part of who you are. Discussing them up front allows a potential partner to know more about who you are and about what a relationship with you would be like. It also, she says, opens up a process of negotiation and consent. A potential partner has an opportunity to discuss what you're looking for and explain how they feel about those things.
That's all of it very true. I can't disagree with Ms. Flox on this in principle. And yet...and yet...I'm not sure I can accept her thoughts on an emotional level. Or a tactical one. I'm finding it harder and harder to imagine discussing sexual interests on a date...or even in the bedroom. It's certainly something that's far riskier than it was back in my undergraduate days.
It may be that I've been reading too many websites like Jezebel and Gawker. I've been reading the comments at articles, too, and that's never a good thing. I need to pay more attention to the rule about never reading the comments. What I'm finding, though, is a world where you'd never, never risk discussing your interests and desires on a date. The "call-out culture" of the gender warriors is absolutely hostile to you doing anything like that. To raise the issue at all wouldn't be seen as presenting an important part of yourself, or as part of developing a relationship, or even as beginning a process of negotiating with a potential partner over what she'd like herself and what she'd be comfortable with.
I'm pretty clear that in the age of the gender wars, raising the issue at all would be regarded as aggression and condemned as assuming that sex would be part of a relationship or that the person across the table would have any interest in sex with you at all. Raising the issue or trying to discuss it would be seen as "sexualizing" both the situation and the person you're out with. It would be "called out" as creepy and pervy and an act of male privilege and aggression. I'm not going to risk being called out, and I'm not going to risk having a date suddenly launch into a politicized rant where I'm the villain.
I'm also not going to risk being laughed at. I don't know where the fear is coming from, but I'm becoming more and more reticent about admitting to any of the things I like or desire. At twenty or even thirty, I'd have talked about all those things with some kind of self-assurance. This is what I like, this is what I am, this is what I hope we can do together and both enjoy. Once upon a time, I could say those things. I wasn't afraid that girls would laugh at me or turn away in disgust. I took it for granted that experimenting was part of sex, and that both parties would be willing to try out new things or at least accommodate someone's interests in return for reciprocity. No one's ever made a disgusted face in real life, and no one has ever burst into derisive laughter. But suddenly I'm aware that they could--- that they might. That fear has come out of nowhere, or, well...it's come from reading the comments sections at web articles about dating and male sexuality. So much hostility there, and so much contempt for things a male might ask for or say that he likes.
Ms. Flox is right, I think, about what you desire and what you like sexually being a key part of what you are and a key part of any relationship. But somehow it's become a very risky thing to admit to desires and particular interests, and certainly risky to admit that you see sex as part of a relationship--- that you see a date as part of a social ritual where sex is one of the ends. The world here in the new century is a lot less open to desire than it was twenty years ago, and it's certainly more harsh and less forgiving.
I was never very good at job interviews, and I have this growing feeling that I can't do the kinds of interviewing that you do on a first date. I'm going to talk myself into a kind of paralysis about ever discussing what I like to do with partners or about ever admitting that I see being out with someone as involving desire and physical contact. The trick to things in the age of the gender wars isn't honesty or negotiation. It's silence and refusing to admit to anything ever.
That's all of it very true. I can't disagree with Ms. Flox on this in principle. And yet...and yet...I'm not sure I can accept her thoughts on an emotional level. Or a tactical one. I'm finding it harder and harder to imagine discussing sexual interests on a date...or even in the bedroom. It's certainly something that's far riskier than it was back in my undergraduate days.
It may be that I've been reading too many websites like Jezebel and Gawker. I've been reading the comments at articles, too, and that's never a good thing. I need to pay more attention to the rule about never reading the comments. What I'm finding, though, is a world where you'd never, never risk discussing your interests and desires on a date. The "call-out culture" of the gender warriors is absolutely hostile to you doing anything like that. To raise the issue at all wouldn't be seen as presenting an important part of yourself, or as part of developing a relationship, or even as beginning a process of negotiating with a potential partner over what she'd like herself and what she'd be comfortable with.
I'm pretty clear that in the age of the gender wars, raising the issue at all would be regarded as aggression and condemned as assuming that sex would be part of a relationship or that the person across the table would have any interest in sex with you at all. Raising the issue or trying to discuss it would be seen as "sexualizing" both the situation and the person you're out with. It would be "called out" as creepy and pervy and an act of male privilege and aggression. I'm not going to risk being called out, and I'm not going to risk having a date suddenly launch into a politicized rant where I'm the villain.
I'm also not going to risk being laughed at. I don't know where the fear is coming from, but I'm becoming more and more reticent about admitting to any of the things I like or desire. At twenty or even thirty, I'd have talked about all those things with some kind of self-assurance. This is what I like, this is what I am, this is what I hope we can do together and both enjoy. Once upon a time, I could say those things. I wasn't afraid that girls would laugh at me or turn away in disgust. I took it for granted that experimenting was part of sex, and that both parties would be willing to try out new things or at least accommodate someone's interests in return for reciprocity. No one's ever made a disgusted face in real life, and no one has ever burst into derisive laughter. But suddenly I'm aware that they could--- that they might. That fear has come out of nowhere, or, well...it's come from reading the comments sections at web articles about dating and male sexuality. So much hostility there, and so much contempt for things a male might ask for or say that he likes.
Ms. Flox is right, I think, about what you desire and what you like sexually being a key part of what you are and a key part of any relationship. But somehow it's become a very risky thing to admit to desires and particular interests, and certainly risky to admit that you see sex as part of a relationship--- that you see a date as part of a social ritual where sex is one of the ends. The world here in the new century is a lot less open to desire than it was twenty years ago, and it's certainly more harsh and less forgiving.
I was never very good at job interviews, and I have this growing feeling that I can't do the kinds of interviewing that you do on a first date. I'm going to talk myself into a kind of paralysis about ever discussing what I like to do with partners or about ever admitting that I see being out with someone as involving desire and physical contact. The trick to things in the age of the gender wars isn't honesty or negotiation. It's silence and refusing to admit to anything ever.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
One One Seven: Angles
A couple of years ago there was the Goldman Sachs List. Do you remember that? It had its moment of notoriety on the web--- a list of things "Real Men" needed to know. I may have printed the list off just as a diversion one day at work. Memory says that some of the list was vaguely silly, but there were some things that were useful enough. Some fashion things made perfect sense, and so did some household directives. (Yes, you should have a bottle of very good whiskey somewhere; yes, you do need a small toolkit, even if you're as hopelessly unmechanical as I am) There was one piece of advice that I'd have agreed with for most of my life: When in doubt, kiss her.
I've always thought that was good advice in any affair, or on any date, in any flirtation at a party or club. When in doubt, just...kiss her. Better to do it and be turned down than to hate yourself later for never having tried. I suppose that nowadays we're to assume that all kisses are unwanted.
We're supposed to make other assumptions as well. It's not just that you don't just kiss her, it's that you don't ask her out. The social default is now assumed to be that she doesn't want you to ask her out, and that she doesn't want to go out with you. Also that a date is not a mating ritual.
One of the things I've always liked best is sitting across a table from a lovely Young Companion and flirting over drinks and dinner. Eye contact, a chance to touch glasses, a chance to touch fingertips and hold hands--- all those things are there. Always across a table. It's just perfectly intimate. I've always disliked 1950s-style banquette seating, where you end up side-by-side with your date. I've been in "classic" French restaurants where that was done--- being seated side-by-side down the wall. No romance there. I want to be across from a lovely girl, able to make eye contact, able to flirt face-to-face.
I suppose we're not supposed to want that any more, either. Eye contact is...demanding attention, after all. That's become a grave sin in the era of the gender wars. Banquette seating may say that what you're on isn't a date, that it's just two people having dinner in the same location at the same time, and that the food is what matters, not flirtation---- so side-by-side is more in keeping with gender warriors' ideas. Still, banquette seating may be a micro-aggression. After all, it recalls the "Mad Men" era--- white male privilege and all that.
If you want to avoid being "called out" as"problematic", the best thing may be...right angles. Sit across the table from her, but turn away at right angles. You can still drink; it'll be there at your left hand. But you aren't looking at her, and you can't be accused of either demanding attention or leering. The seating arrangement obviously doesn't suggest flirtation or seduction, so you can't be accused of "sexualising" the situation. You certainly can't kiss her from a right-angled position.
Right angles, then. Not that you should be asking anyone out in any case. But if you somehow find yourself sitting at a table with an attractive girl, sit across the table and turn your chair at right angles. (Not speaking helps, too) It's a good way to avoid ever being "called out" and becoming a casualty of the gender wars. Geometry is everything. That's worth remembering. Geometry is everything. I suppose it takes the place of when in doubt, kiss her.
I've always thought that was good advice in any affair, or on any date, in any flirtation at a party or club. When in doubt, just...kiss her. Better to do it and be turned down than to hate yourself later for never having tried. I suppose that nowadays we're to assume that all kisses are unwanted.
We're supposed to make other assumptions as well. It's not just that you don't just kiss her, it's that you don't ask her out. The social default is now assumed to be that she doesn't want you to ask her out, and that she doesn't want to go out with you. Also that a date is not a mating ritual.
One of the things I've always liked best is sitting across a table from a lovely Young Companion and flirting over drinks and dinner. Eye contact, a chance to touch glasses, a chance to touch fingertips and hold hands--- all those things are there. Always across a table. It's just perfectly intimate. I've always disliked 1950s-style banquette seating, where you end up side-by-side with your date. I've been in "classic" French restaurants where that was done--- being seated side-by-side down the wall. No romance there. I want to be across from a lovely girl, able to make eye contact, able to flirt face-to-face.
I suppose we're not supposed to want that any more, either. Eye contact is...demanding attention, after all. That's become a grave sin in the era of the gender wars. Banquette seating may say that what you're on isn't a date, that it's just two people having dinner in the same location at the same time, and that the food is what matters, not flirtation---- so side-by-side is more in keeping with gender warriors' ideas. Still, banquette seating may be a micro-aggression. After all, it recalls the "Mad Men" era--- white male privilege and all that.
If you want to avoid being "called out" as"problematic", the best thing may be...right angles. Sit across the table from her, but turn away at right angles. You can still drink; it'll be there at your left hand. But you aren't looking at her, and you can't be accused of either demanding attention or leering. The seating arrangement obviously doesn't suggest flirtation or seduction, so you can't be accused of "sexualising" the situation. You certainly can't kiss her from a right-angled position.
Right angles, then. Not that you should be asking anyone out in any case. But if you somehow find yourself sitting at a table with an attractive girl, sit across the table and turn your chair at right angles. (Not speaking helps, too) It's a good way to avoid ever being "called out" and becoming a casualty of the gender wars. Geometry is everything. That's worth remembering. Geometry is everything. I suppose it takes the place of when in doubt, kiss her.
Saturday, September 6, 2014
One One Six: PowerPoint
A friend in (of all places) Ghent was talking to me about Elizabeth McNeill's "Nine and a Half Weeks" the other day. You probably remember the film--- mid-Eighties, Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke, John Taylor of Duran Duran on soundtrack. You probably don't remember the book, though. It came out in something like 1978, and it was much darker and much more intense and obsessive and claustrophobic than the film. Much, much sexier, too. It's still in print--- it always did have a small underground following ---so you're encouraged to read it. I do hope you'll tell me your thoughts. I've always loved the book.
My friend in Belgium and I were discussing the idea of how the book would be received if someone published it today. Not well, I suspect. We've mainstreamed s/m imagery, and of course "50 Shades" sold some grotesque number of copies. But I think that we're far more afraid of some things now than we were in 1978. This is a DSM-V world, a gender wars world. We're far less willing to accept an affair that's about dancing into the fire with open eyes, far less willing to see the erotic attractions of obsession. We've stripped obsession and compulsion of any glamour--- even dark glamour. We're a lot less likely to pursue dark fantasies now than in 1978. Maybe that's because those things, all the things in late-'70s Helmut Newton photos, aren't new and shocking anymore. All those things are just passé. Myself, I suspect it's that we over-think everything, that we apply critical analysis to everything, and that the Guardians of the Problematic are teaching us to see every sexual kink, every hint of lust and desire, as something political, as something that needs to be seen as an exercise in power and aggression, as something that needs to be analyzed and corrected and purified.
"Nine and a Half Weeks" is about sexual obsession, about a 30-ish executive who launches herself into an utterly compulsive, devastating, destructive s/m affair with a man she never names. Who'd believe that now--- who'd be able to say that it's sexually exciting without falling foul of the gender warriors?
There are s/m devotees out there who've circled the wagons, who've started using the language of identity politics to defend their kinks--- to defend their identity ---the way that transfolk and gay people and racial minorities have. I don't think they can win, mind you. They're too late to the party. The gender warriors have staked out the field--- "kink" is seen and judged through the language of power and oppression. The s/m devotees, the FetLife crowd, are starting with a clear handicap in trying to appropriate identity language or in trying to reject judgment. In gender wars terms, kink is unacceptable. It's seen as complicit in oppression, and it's seen as inauthentic, as mere play--- something that's always suspect.
I do think it's a lot harder today to admit to a kink than it was in 1978. Having kinks, being able to talk about them, asking a lover to play one out with you...that's all much harder now. Maybe it's just that in 1978 that was all new and thrilling. I think, though, that it's also that it has become risky to admit to any kinks.
Some of that is social media--- the judgment and mockery that fills social media. To admit to anything that can lead to having your tastes and needs attacked or mocked on line--- risky indeed. And there's been a shift in attitudes about kink. If you're male--- and this is always about males ---it's far riskier now to sit on a bed with a new lover and tell her what you like and what you hope she'll do with you. Anger, horror, and mockery are more likely now than they were in 1978. Things that in 1978 might have been seen as something transgressive-exciting, as deliciously new to try, are now subjected to gender wars scrutiny. To be male and admit to particular sexual needs (to admit to desire at all, maybe) is to be seen as confessing to flaws and failures. And what kinks can't be made to seem morally corrupt and evil in gender wars terms? Think of how the term "fetishize" is deployed these days. Girls are encouraged not so much to be able to discuss their own kinks and needs and desires as to regard having those things as a failure in males--- a combination of weakness and aggression.
At some point in an affair, you do have to do a kind of presentation, to say that you like this, that you like doing these things. Both parties do, of course, but it is more dangerous for the male. I can't imagine ever mocking a lovely Young Companion for her tastes or desires. I've always thought that being open to those things was a clear part of pleasing a lover, and I've always been open to trying things. But when you do a bedside presentation as a male here in the age of the gender wars, you're risking being mocked and held in contempt for what you want. You're risking being told that you're morally and politically evil. It's not even about negotiation, about the two of you constructing exchanges for what you each enjoy. It's about male desires being regarded with a presumption of vileness and being contemptible.
I find it harder and harder to imagine telling a Young Companion what I like. We're defined by our desires; that's always been clear. It's a vulnerable thing to admit to desires--- even to admit to desire itself. "Nine and a Half Weeks" is an example--- desires that would have been treated as wickedly exciting in 1978 are treated as politically and psychologically and socially unacceptable today. How many educated, well-brought-up, attractive professional women of 30 would admit to wanting to do what McNeill did, to wanting those experiences for their own sake? Wouldn't they be risking the wrath of the gender warriors and the moralizers? But I will insist that it's worse for males. I have less and less idea what the Arbitrary Social Rules allow me to feel or admit to. I have less and less confidence in my ability to tell a lovely Young Companion what I'm interested in. There's the fear of having her recoil in horror or contempt and tell me how and why I embody male evil, and certainly the fear of having her rant about it all on social media. This is why I give the back of my hand to all those adjurations to "communicate"--- more risks, more dangers every year in such things. Be clear--- it's not about rejection. It's not that. It's about contempt and derision, about being told that one is morally evil. Funny thing, now. 1978 was a time when so many groups were still marginalized, excluded, reviled. But it was easier then to tell a potential lover what you liked and have her shrug and grin and say that it all sounded interesting and worth trying, easier to think that she'd think that sex was about trying new things.
My friend in Belgium and I were discussing the idea of how the book would be received if someone published it today. Not well, I suspect. We've mainstreamed s/m imagery, and of course "50 Shades" sold some grotesque number of copies. But I think that we're far more afraid of some things now than we were in 1978. This is a DSM-V world, a gender wars world. We're far less willing to accept an affair that's about dancing into the fire with open eyes, far less willing to see the erotic attractions of obsession. We've stripped obsession and compulsion of any glamour--- even dark glamour. We're a lot less likely to pursue dark fantasies now than in 1978. Maybe that's because those things, all the things in late-'70s Helmut Newton photos, aren't new and shocking anymore. All those things are just passé. Myself, I suspect it's that we over-think everything, that we apply critical analysis to everything, and that the Guardians of the Problematic are teaching us to see every sexual kink, every hint of lust and desire, as something political, as something that needs to be seen as an exercise in power and aggression, as something that needs to be analyzed and corrected and purified.
"Nine and a Half Weeks" is about sexual obsession, about a 30-ish executive who launches herself into an utterly compulsive, devastating, destructive s/m affair with a man she never names. Who'd believe that now--- who'd be able to say that it's sexually exciting without falling foul of the gender warriors?
There are s/m devotees out there who've circled the wagons, who've started using the language of identity politics to defend their kinks--- to defend their identity ---the way that transfolk and gay people and racial minorities have. I don't think they can win, mind you. They're too late to the party. The gender warriors have staked out the field--- "kink" is seen and judged through the language of power and oppression. The s/m devotees, the FetLife crowd, are starting with a clear handicap in trying to appropriate identity language or in trying to reject judgment. In gender wars terms, kink is unacceptable. It's seen as complicit in oppression, and it's seen as inauthentic, as mere play--- something that's always suspect.
I do think it's a lot harder today to admit to a kink than it was in 1978. Having kinks, being able to talk about them, asking a lover to play one out with you...that's all much harder now. Maybe it's just that in 1978 that was all new and thrilling. I think, though, that it's also that it has become risky to admit to any kinks.
Some of that is social media--- the judgment and mockery that fills social media. To admit to anything that can lead to having your tastes and needs attacked or mocked on line--- risky indeed. And there's been a shift in attitudes about kink. If you're male--- and this is always about males ---it's far riskier now to sit on a bed with a new lover and tell her what you like and what you hope she'll do with you. Anger, horror, and mockery are more likely now than they were in 1978. Things that in 1978 might have been seen as something transgressive-exciting, as deliciously new to try, are now subjected to gender wars scrutiny. To be male and admit to particular sexual needs (to admit to desire at all, maybe) is to be seen as confessing to flaws and failures. And what kinks can't be made to seem morally corrupt and evil in gender wars terms? Think of how the term "fetishize" is deployed these days. Girls are encouraged not so much to be able to discuss their own kinks and needs and desires as to regard having those things as a failure in males--- a combination of weakness and aggression.
At some point in an affair, you do have to do a kind of presentation, to say that you like this, that you like doing these things. Both parties do, of course, but it is more dangerous for the male. I can't imagine ever mocking a lovely Young Companion for her tastes or desires. I've always thought that being open to those things was a clear part of pleasing a lover, and I've always been open to trying things. But when you do a bedside presentation as a male here in the age of the gender wars, you're risking being mocked and held in contempt for what you want. You're risking being told that you're morally and politically evil. It's not even about negotiation, about the two of you constructing exchanges for what you each enjoy. It's about male desires being regarded with a presumption of vileness and being contemptible.
I find it harder and harder to imagine telling a Young Companion what I like. We're defined by our desires; that's always been clear. It's a vulnerable thing to admit to desires--- even to admit to desire itself. "Nine and a Half Weeks" is an example--- desires that would have been treated as wickedly exciting in 1978 are treated as politically and psychologically and socially unacceptable today. How many educated, well-brought-up, attractive professional women of 30 would admit to wanting to do what McNeill did, to wanting those experiences for their own sake? Wouldn't they be risking the wrath of the gender warriors and the moralizers? But I will insist that it's worse for males. I have less and less idea what the Arbitrary Social Rules allow me to feel or admit to. I have less and less confidence in my ability to tell a lovely Young Companion what I'm interested in. There's the fear of having her recoil in horror or contempt and tell me how and why I embody male evil, and certainly the fear of having her rant about it all on social media. This is why I give the back of my hand to all those adjurations to "communicate"--- more risks, more dangers every year in such things. Be clear--- it's not about rejection. It's not that. It's about contempt and derision, about being told that one is morally evil. Funny thing, now. 1978 was a time when so many groups were still marginalized, excluded, reviled. But it was easier then to tell a potential lover what you liked and have her shrug and grin and say that it all sounded interesting and worth trying, easier to think that she'd think that sex was about trying new things.
One One Five: Approaches
The gender wars always bring out the worst in people--- or at least in people who comment at blogs. The other morning I ran across another article at Jezebel.com about cat-calling. The focus was on how even presumed compliments from males in public made women feel threatened and uneasy. The comments, though, veered off very quickly into rants about how horrible it was that males might actually open a conversation in public, even about something innocuous.
Now--- one ranter did make an interesting point. Someone had asked her once about a book she was reading, and she went on and on about how aggressive and oppressive that was, since any male attention is by definition a "micro-aggression", and then offered up as proof the idea that no one male would ever have asked another about something like that. That's a point worth exploring a bit, since there's some truth in it. Males--- straight males ---have very, very limited places where they can engage in any conversation with one another. Commenting down the bar about a sports game is allowed under the Arbitrary Social Rules, and it's allowed to ask someone else at a café table or on a commuter train to borrow a section of a newspaper--- but those two things are about all I can think of. And, yes, it's obvious where that comes from. It's fear of being thought gay, the fear of being thought to be cruising someone.
Does that imply that any attempt to speak with a girl is always cruising--- a cold approach, something sexual? All I can say is that it's not always that--- though when I'm talking to a lovely girl, there's always at least a hint of flirtation, no matter how pro forma. I was brought up in very old-school politeness that looks a lot like flirting these days, and the character I've always tried to become very much believes in that kind of courtesy--- courtesy in a rather eighteenth-century sense. That's not a cold approach, or not always. But I do want to convey that the girl to whom I'm talking is interesting, and that I appreciate her conversation, appreciate her willingness to talk to me. I'd like her to come away from the conversation feeling that someone was at least a bit charmed by her.
[I've said before that I'm taken aback by the anger that blog commenters have for anyone (male) asking a girl about a book she's reading. I'm private and solitary, and I don't want to feel like I'm intruding on anyone. Still, I hate the idea that you can't ask someone about a book--- again, I'd always thought of readers as a kind of freemasonry, as a group who are always looking for recommendations on new books and critiques of books others have read. Even if I don't want to spend a whole afternoon talking with someone, I'm pretty much always ready to answer a question about whatever I'm reading. ]
The ranters at the Jezebel article were rage-filled that anyone would talk to them in public, rage-filled that anyone might try to open a conversation. No one likes a pest, and people are often busy with things--- take that as a given. Sometimes, though, I wonder if three-quarters of blog commenters everywhere are just violently opposed to any kind of social interaction. A friend offered two thoughts--- that all these people are somewhere on the autism spectrum or are all young enough not to recall a time before laptops and smartphones and iPads--- a time when people weren't always absorbed in their own worlds, when people had less choice about in-the-flesh conversations. I have no way to comment on the first idea--- that's something I don't know a thing about. The second thing, though...hmmm. Maybe. I can see how that could be part of things. It's something I need to ask Millennial friends about--- or ask someone like my friend Ms. Flox. The keynote in the rants is that any conversation, any opening question or greeting, is a demand for attention, and that having to take notice of someone else is always oppressive, always a threat.
I'm someone who moves through streets very quietly; I'm someone who tries to take up as little social and physical space as possible. But I'm disheartened by the kind of worlds the ranters seem to envision--- isolated, armoured, atomized. It's a world where no one (meaning no one male) speaks first, where there's no socially acceptable way to speak first. It's not just that the ranters' world has no place for flirtation, it's that almost every contact becomes all about power and aggression. The rants don't even seem to be talking about a world where physical safety for girls is better--- they seem to be about a world where no one speaks to anyone in public, where there are fewer and fewer ways to initiate any social contact, where there are fewer and fewer acceptable reasons to initiate any social contact.
That's not a world where I want to live--- it's not even a world where I could live.
Now--- one ranter did make an interesting point. Someone had asked her once about a book she was reading, and she went on and on about how aggressive and oppressive that was, since any male attention is by definition a "micro-aggression", and then offered up as proof the idea that no one male would ever have asked another about something like that. That's a point worth exploring a bit, since there's some truth in it. Males--- straight males ---have very, very limited places where they can engage in any conversation with one another. Commenting down the bar about a sports game is allowed under the Arbitrary Social Rules, and it's allowed to ask someone else at a café table or on a commuter train to borrow a section of a newspaper--- but those two things are about all I can think of. And, yes, it's obvious where that comes from. It's fear of being thought gay, the fear of being thought to be cruising someone.
Does that imply that any attempt to speak with a girl is always cruising--- a cold approach, something sexual? All I can say is that it's not always that--- though when I'm talking to a lovely girl, there's always at least a hint of flirtation, no matter how pro forma. I was brought up in very old-school politeness that looks a lot like flirting these days, and the character I've always tried to become very much believes in that kind of courtesy--- courtesy in a rather eighteenth-century sense. That's not a cold approach, or not always. But I do want to convey that the girl to whom I'm talking is interesting, and that I appreciate her conversation, appreciate her willingness to talk to me. I'd like her to come away from the conversation feeling that someone was at least a bit charmed by her.
[I've said before that I'm taken aback by the anger that blog commenters have for anyone (male) asking a girl about a book she's reading. I'm private and solitary, and I don't want to feel like I'm intruding on anyone. Still, I hate the idea that you can't ask someone about a book--- again, I'd always thought of readers as a kind of freemasonry, as a group who are always looking for recommendations on new books and critiques of books others have read. Even if I don't want to spend a whole afternoon talking with someone, I'm pretty much always ready to answer a question about whatever I'm reading. ]
The ranters at the Jezebel article were rage-filled that anyone would talk to them in public, rage-filled that anyone might try to open a conversation. No one likes a pest, and people are often busy with things--- take that as a given. Sometimes, though, I wonder if three-quarters of blog commenters everywhere are just violently opposed to any kind of social interaction. A friend offered two thoughts--- that all these people are somewhere on the autism spectrum or are all young enough not to recall a time before laptops and smartphones and iPads--- a time when people weren't always absorbed in their own worlds, when people had less choice about in-the-flesh conversations. I have no way to comment on the first idea--- that's something I don't know a thing about. The second thing, though...hmmm. Maybe. I can see how that could be part of things. It's something I need to ask Millennial friends about--- or ask someone like my friend Ms. Flox. The keynote in the rants is that any conversation, any opening question or greeting, is a demand for attention, and that having to take notice of someone else is always oppressive, always a threat.
I'm someone who moves through streets very quietly; I'm someone who tries to take up as little social and physical space as possible. But I'm disheartened by the kind of worlds the ranters seem to envision--- isolated, armoured, atomized. It's a world where no one (meaning no one male) speaks first, where there's no socially acceptable way to speak first. It's not just that the ranters' world has no place for flirtation, it's that almost every contact becomes all about power and aggression. The rants don't even seem to be talking about a world where physical safety for girls is better--- they seem to be about a world where no one speaks to anyone in public, where there are fewer and fewer ways to initiate any social contact, where there are fewer and fewer acceptable reasons to initiate any social contact.
That's not a world where I want to live--- it's not even a world where I could live.
Sunday, August 31, 2014
One One Four: Boxes
A girl I once knew--- lost, some years ago, to the ranks of the gender warriors and the Social Justice Cult ---wrote at her blog not so long ago that she'd just received her first subscription box from a site called UnboundBox out on the web. She was thrilled about receiving it, and she made a point of thanking the company. I took a quick look at the website, and found that what she'd subscribed to was a quarterly service that sends out gift boxes with half a dozen "provocative" items--- i.e., a selection of sex toys and gels.
Well, why not? There are subscription services that provide monthly or quarterly boxes with clothing or shaving tackle or books. A subscription service that sends out gift boxes of sex toys isn't really that different. I only glanced through the UnboundBox.com website, but from what I could tell, they do market high-end and highly-reviewed items. I can't criticize the idea of the subscription box, and I can't criticize the idea of sex toys, even though as a male, I don't have any emotional connection to the idea.
I'll just note in passing that the closest thing I've ever owned to a sex toy was a small selection of riding crops, and I bought those at an equestrian sports supply house and not a sex toys shop. I can imagine going to a sex toy shop with a young companion some late evening, but we'd be shopping for her--- I'd just be there to offer support and the occasional tentative comment on colours or styles. I'm male, and the toys that are designed for males seem to be either ghastly (artificial vaginas, powered or otherwise) or grotesque (the Inflatable Love Sheep). Sex toys simply aren't for males...or at least straight, non-Scottish males. I can't imagine a similar box arriving for anyone male.
So, the girl I once knew is thrilled with the box she received, though she didn't provide an inventory. The inventory would've been worth a look, of only for the semiotics.
My bookshelves are full of books with checklists and lists of tribal markers--- the Official Preppy Handbook, the Sloane Ranger Handbook, Paul Fussell's "Class", Pierre Bourdieu, U and Non-U. There are markers for every tribe, every social group: on Wednesdays we wear pink. Everything has its own markers for class, for in-group and out-group. I really do want to know what the semiotics of sex toys are.
Some of that must be ideological. How can it not be, here in the age of the gender wars? Some sex toys must be "problematic" and ideologically suspect. I'm thinking that there may well be lines drawn between vibrators and dildos on that, that it would be easy to argue that a vibrator (especially something like the Hitachi Magic Wand and its cousins) is designed specifically to provide female pleasure, whereas a dildo is too much like a mere (oppressive) penis. I wonder if there isn't a class line, too...though it can't be a simple one. A vibrator is hi-tech and expensive, but a dildo can be a hairbrush handle or a Corona bottle. Still...a dildo can also be something hand-crafted---- something artisanal. A high-end dildo can be a bit like a small Brancusi sculpture, and it's easy to imagine a shop in Portland or Bushwick selling artisanal dildos to trust-fund hipster girls. M. Bourdieu may not have been thinking of dildos, but they're as much markers for social capital as books or wall hangings.
Everything social devolves into cliques, sooner or later. There are people and institutions that use Gerber multi-tools and those that use Leatherman--- and each looks down on the other. Tribal markers--- and markers that come with extensive rationalizations. It's never just about actual efficiency or utility. Those criteria are never the key. Sex toys can't be any different. But would it just be a line between vibrators and dildos? Gels and lubes--- would there be lines between those who like flavored gels and those who reject them as promoting the idea of oral sex and hence of female submission? Lingerie seems like a obvious area--- Frederick's versus Victoria's Secret along lines of economic class as well as aesthetics and social class, lingerie wearers versus those who see lingerie as a tool of oppression.
Remember--- it's never about the freedom to choose. In the end, almost no one really believes in such a thing. They really want the freedom not to choose, but the freedom to choose whatever is right, the freedom to insist that their own tribal and class markers are not just theirs, and not just better, but right--- and that others are wrong. Society operates by exclusions, and sex toys aren't any different from clothes or music.
There's a girl tonight with her first subscription box of provocative toys. I'd give a lot to know what she sees in them, what the items represent to her, and what she reads into having them. It's not just that they'll induce orgasm; that may be the least of it. I'd like to know what girls read into sex toys, what tribes they mark and how the toys are deployed as displays of cultural and ideological capital against out-groups. It's always the semiotics that counts--- always the semiotics of the object more than the object itself.
Well, why not? There are subscription services that provide monthly or quarterly boxes with clothing or shaving tackle or books. A subscription service that sends out gift boxes of sex toys isn't really that different. I only glanced through the UnboundBox.com website, but from what I could tell, they do market high-end and highly-reviewed items. I can't criticize the idea of the subscription box, and I can't criticize the idea of sex toys, even though as a male, I don't have any emotional connection to the idea.
I'll just note in passing that the closest thing I've ever owned to a sex toy was a small selection of riding crops, and I bought those at an equestrian sports supply house and not a sex toys shop. I can imagine going to a sex toy shop with a young companion some late evening, but we'd be shopping for her--- I'd just be there to offer support and the occasional tentative comment on colours or styles. I'm male, and the toys that are designed for males seem to be either ghastly (artificial vaginas, powered or otherwise) or grotesque (the Inflatable Love Sheep). Sex toys simply aren't for males...or at least straight, non-Scottish males. I can't imagine a similar box arriving for anyone male.
So, the girl I once knew is thrilled with the box she received, though she didn't provide an inventory. The inventory would've been worth a look, of only for the semiotics.
My bookshelves are full of books with checklists and lists of tribal markers--- the Official Preppy Handbook, the Sloane Ranger Handbook, Paul Fussell's "Class", Pierre Bourdieu, U and Non-U. There are markers for every tribe, every social group: on Wednesdays we wear pink. Everything has its own markers for class, for in-group and out-group. I really do want to know what the semiotics of sex toys are.
Some of that must be ideological. How can it not be, here in the age of the gender wars? Some sex toys must be "problematic" and ideologically suspect. I'm thinking that there may well be lines drawn between vibrators and dildos on that, that it would be easy to argue that a vibrator (especially something like the Hitachi Magic Wand and its cousins) is designed specifically to provide female pleasure, whereas a dildo is too much like a mere (oppressive) penis. I wonder if there isn't a class line, too...though it can't be a simple one. A vibrator is hi-tech and expensive, but a dildo can be a hairbrush handle or a Corona bottle. Still...a dildo can also be something hand-crafted---- something artisanal. A high-end dildo can be a bit like a small Brancusi sculpture, and it's easy to imagine a shop in Portland or Bushwick selling artisanal dildos to trust-fund hipster girls. M. Bourdieu may not have been thinking of dildos, but they're as much markers for social capital as books or wall hangings.
Everything social devolves into cliques, sooner or later. There are people and institutions that use Gerber multi-tools and those that use Leatherman--- and each looks down on the other. Tribal markers--- and markers that come with extensive rationalizations. It's never just about actual efficiency or utility. Those criteria are never the key. Sex toys can't be any different. But would it just be a line between vibrators and dildos? Gels and lubes--- would there be lines between those who like flavored gels and those who reject them as promoting the idea of oral sex and hence of female submission? Lingerie seems like a obvious area--- Frederick's versus Victoria's Secret along lines of economic class as well as aesthetics and social class, lingerie wearers versus those who see lingerie as a tool of oppression.
Remember--- it's never about the freedom to choose. In the end, almost no one really believes in such a thing. They really want the freedom not to choose, but the freedom to choose whatever is right, the freedom to insist that their own tribal and class markers are not just theirs, and not just better, but right--- and that others are wrong. Society operates by exclusions, and sex toys aren't any different from clothes or music.
There's a girl tonight with her first subscription box of provocative toys. I'd give a lot to know what she sees in them, what the items represent to her, and what she reads into having them. It's not just that they'll induce orgasm; that may be the least of it. I'd like to know what girls read into sex toys, what tribes they mark and how the toys are deployed as displays of cultural and ideological capital against out-groups. It's always the semiotics that counts--- always the semiotics of the object more than the object itself.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)