I'm still thinking about the objections to "Fifty Shades". So many of the articles I've found on line seem to take it as a necessity that the makers of the film should've consulted "experts and practitioners" about BDSM and followed their admonitions. Understandable, I suppose. There's a "community" that wants to be "properly" portrayed. Didn't we go through all this with gay groups in the 1970s and 1980s--- the insistence by an outsider group that they have the final word on how others portray them? For that matter, hasn't "representation" been a key issue for all marginalized groups over the last fifty years? The BDSM community is desperate to establish itself as a legitimate community, desperate to free itself from being taken as inherently about abuse and violence and misogyny. Understandable, yes. But still something that I find utterly irrelevant.
All things considered, "experts and practitioners" would be the last people I'd go to if wanted to discuss how to present s/m on film or in a novel.
I've never been much for "community". I'm not good at any of the things that build community. Whatever interest I do have in s/m isn't about community, and I suppose it's not about what writers on the topic like to call "the power exchange". I'm not at all sure what I'd ask experts about. I suppose that a skilled practitioner of shibari could tell me how to tie intricate knots and do rope bondage that's as pretty as origami. I have to laugh about that, though. I've been hopeless at knots all my life. I've always told people that repeatedly failing the knot-tying test kept me out of the Scouts. Asking about bondage itself means, well, nothing to me. The BDSM community, like any other community, must have its own terms of art, its own specialized vocabulary. That doesn't mean anything to me, either.
If I asked anyone about portraying s/m, I'd ask designers--- fashion designers and interior designers. I'd ask photographers. I'd ask rare book specialists. Really--- those are the people I'd ask. I'm not interested in the politics or ethical debates. I'm interested in the aesthetics.
I know that means I'll never be someone who's part of the "community" or the "lifestyle". My interest is about style and ritual as part of sex. My interest is always in the idea of crafted moments, in the idea of being part of a performance.
Here in the days of the gender wars, there's a part of the trans* world that is openly hostile to people who think that trans* is about sex, and even more hostile to people who are old-school transvestites, people who dress up for sexual reasons, people who are seen as mere fetishists. Authenticity is what's demanded (though authenticity is a fetish and obsession all its own).
By that standard, then--- no. I can't be interested in s/m for "authentic" reasons. I see it not as an end in itself, but as an occasion for performance. The BDSM groups I've read about disdained those who saw s/m as "dress-up" and not as a way of living. That's fine. What I do with lovely young companions is very much dress-up. It's getting into character. It's learning lines and backstories and finding the right sets and soundtrack. It's about class markers and certain kinds of style. It's a fashion statement and as formal and stylized as eighteenth-century court dances. Yes, it's all about surfaces, about how it looks. It's about its literary pedigree, too...but isn't that tied into style and looks?
I suppose that's why knots don't matter to me. Rope is too material, too...blue collar. Bind with silk, blindfold with silk. Or just cross a lovely girl's wrists and whisper to her that she's to imagine that she's bound with white silk. One more step into abstraction. Decor matters--- and nothing is in red. I just wanted to note that.
I've always said that there are two choices in sex--- hot or cold. I've always leaned toward cold. That doesn't mean heartless, by the way. But it does mean stylized, ritualized, abstract. It means seeing sex as a kind of performance piece, something where decor and dialogue and fashion matter. I've asked lovely girls to be part of what really are scripted pieces, and I've been lucky enough to have them accept. I've been lucky enough to have young companions understand that what we're doing derives from literary sources and fashion photography, that we're doing something abstract and formal.
I'd never consult "experts and practitioners". Nothing that I do is about politics or ethics. What I want with a lovely young companion is not community or even the flesh. What I want, in the end, is to tell a story, to be lost inside something worth reading, something that is about surfaces. But then--- haven't I said for years that pleasure for me is never, never unmediated?
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Sunday, February 15, 2015
One Three One: Red
I've not been to see the film version of "Fifty Shades of Grey", and I can't really see myself making the effort. I never read the novels for the same reason--- I couldn't see myself making the effort.
Nonetheless, I suppose it's something I should comment on, at least in passing. The initial reviews say that it's not much of a film, though that was to be expected. They also say that there's very little on-screen sex or nudity, and that strikes me as a grave failing. A film about s/m that steers away from sex? Unless it's a film that can rely on a deeply thoughtful and clever script--- unless the sex can be made into something very meta ---that's a very grave failing indeed. And even then, you'd need a certain stylish presentation of the young heroine's body.
The BDSM community seems to have joined the moralists and the gender studies crowd in despising the film. There are two strands of argument there. One is simple enough, of course: the argument that the film promotes abuse and violence against women. The other argument, the one made by the BDSM community, is that the film fails to present what BDSM is "really" about. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by that. The studies I've read about BDSM scene all talk about how "the lifestyle" tries to downplay the idea that BDSM is about sex rather than "building community". Do I have to say that I have no use for either set of arguments?
I've always said that an s/m film or novel should be a Bildungsroman, that it should be about a kind of learning experience, about learning how to move into a new world and master its rituals and styles. I can't see how an s/m story would work that isn't about discovery and new worlds. That there's a young and innocent girl at its heart is a key thing. Oh, it would still be interesting to write about a young man learning to be a dominant, and I've said before that I'm surprised that no one has done that, but it's the story of a young, lovely, innocent girl discovering a new world and new kinds of pleasure that'll attract me. I'll make a note about about "innocent", though. It doesn't (or needn't) mean "virginal", and here in the second decade of the new century, is there a middle-class or better girl in North America who doesn't know that s/m exists? Still, an inexperienced girl exploring a country that's new to her--- it's the thrill of discovery that's the heart of the story.
Thinking about that for just a moment, it strikes me that of course I'd feel that way. So much of my life has been about learning and discovery. I've been an academic, after all. Learning and discovery mean a great deal to me, and the experience of both learning and teaching is at the core of what my life has been about. Isn't one of the deep pleasures of being a roué that experience of introducing a lovely young companion to new things?
I suppose I don't have any problem with the idea of an s/m story based on the heroine's diaries. That's a classic structure, after all. But I'd want her to be both more introspective and more literary, more willing to associate what's happening to her with books and film. And however shy and innocent she might be, I'd want her to be someone who asks questions, who applies all the things that have made her studious and bookish to the experience she's sought out. That may just be me, of course, and something that's from my own memories. I can close my eyes and recall a lovely young companion grinning at me: I've figured this out. You tie my wrists up with silk scarves because you just totally can't tie knots in rope, right? I can recall long, slender fingers through my own and a girl looking at the displays at a very old-school English riding shop: This one's a bat, this one's a crop, she said. What makes them different from a whip? The girl who's learning about new worlds would do her homework, of course. Any girl who'd be with me would do her homework, would ask questions, would want to get the details right.
Let's note, too, that I find some things in the film silly. A...Red Room of Pain? Really? There's nothing that can't be done there that can't be done in a smallish, book-lined living room with a couch. Minimalism works in these matters, and so does imagination.
I have no moral or political objections to the film. The actress playing the heroine is rather lovely, though of course she could be taller and thinner. Those things go without saying. I don't see that the film promotes abuse, and I'll give the back o' my hand to any moral objections. If the film doesn't do anything for me, it's because it's not sexy enough, because the director stayed away from emphasizing the sexual connection. If the film doesn't do anything for me, it's because there's no sense of delight and discovery.
Nonetheless, I suppose it's something I should comment on, at least in passing. The initial reviews say that it's not much of a film, though that was to be expected. They also say that there's very little on-screen sex or nudity, and that strikes me as a grave failing. A film about s/m that steers away from sex? Unless it's a film that can rely on a deeply thoughtful and clever script--- unless the sex can be made into something very meta ---that's a very grave failing indeed. And even then, you'd need a certain stylish presentation of the young heroine's body.
The BDSM community seems to have joined the moralists and the gender studies crowd in despising the film. There are two strands of argument there. One is simple enough, of course: the argument that the film promotes abuse and violence against women. The other argument, the one made by the BDSM community, is that the film fails to present what BDSM is "really" about. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by that. The studies I've read about BDSM scene all talk about how "the lifestyle" tries to downplay the idea that BDSM is about sex rather than "building community". Do I have to say that I have no use for either set of arguments?
I've always said that an s/m film or novel should be a Bildungsroman, that it should be about a kind of learning experience, about learning how to move into a new world and master its rituals and styles. I can't see how an s/m story would work that isn't about discovery and new worlds. That there's a young and innocent girl at its heart is a key thing. Oh, it would still be interesting to write about a young man learning to be a dominant, and I've said before that I'm surprised that no one has done that, but it's the story of a young, lovely, innocent girl discovering a new world and new kinds of pleasure that'll attract me. I'll make a note about about "innocent", though. It doesn't (or needn't) mean "virginal", and here in the second decade of the new century, is there a middle-class or better girl in North America who doesn't know that s/m exists? Still, an inexperienced girl exploring a country that's new to her--- it's the thrill of discovery that's the heart of the story.
Thinking about that for just a moment, it strikes me that of course I'd feel that way. So much of my life has been about learning and discovery. I've been an academic, after all. Learning and discovery mean a great deal to me, and the experience of both learning and teaching is at the core of what my life has been about. Isn't one of the deep pleasures of being a roué that experience of introducing a lovely young companion to new things?
I suppose I don't have any problem with the idea of an s/m story based on the heroine's diaries. That's a classic structure, after all. But I'd want her to be both more introspective and more literary, more willing to associate what's happening to her with books and film. And however shy and innocent she might be, I'd want her to be someone who asks questions, who applies all the things that have made her studious and bookish to the experience she's sought out. That may just be me, of course, and something that's from my own memories. I can close my eyes and recall a lovely young companion grinning at me: I've figured this out. You tie my wrists up with silk scarves because you just totally can't tie knots in rope, right? I can recall long, slender fingers through my own and a girl looking at the displays at a very old-school English riding shop: This one's a bat, this one's a crop, she said. What makes them different from a whip? The girl who's learning about new worlds would do her homework, of course. Any girl who'd be with me would do her homework, would ask questions, would want to get the details right.
Let's note, too, that I find some things in the film silly. A...Red Room of Pain? Really? There's nothing that can't be done there that can't be done in a smallish, book-lined living room with a couch. Minimalism works in these matters, and so does imagination.
I have no moral or political objections to the film. The actress playing the heroine is rather lovely, though of course she could be taller and thinner. Those things go without saying. I don't see that the film promotes abuse, and I'll give the back o' my hand to any moral objections. If the film doesn't do anything for me, it's because it's not sexy enough, because the director stayed away from emphasizing the sexual connection. If the film doesn't do anything for me, it's because there's no sense of delight and discovery.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
One Three Zero: Long Con
There's a question worth considering tonight. Suppose you were standing at a party or a bar and someone fairly attractive and of your preferred gender came over and began speaking to you--- flirting with you. What would do you? Assume you're unattached and there on your own. What would you do?
There are nights where I'd very coldly glare at the person speaking to me and walk away. Not because I wouldn't be interested in flirtation and seduction. It's not that at all. There are nights when, the more attractive the girl was who was speaking to me, the more likely I'd be to snarl at her and walk away.
At some basic tactical level, why would I walk away from someone attractive who might be interested in me, who might laugh and flirt and dance and make out? The answer is that I'd find the fact that she was approaching me to be...uncanny. Unheimlich. There are arbitrary social rules and socially-approved courtship norms--- they may be archaic or oppressive or exclusionary, but they do exist, and everyone knows what they are. I'd have to be suspicious of anyone who violates the arbitrary norms, for better or worse. Why would they do this? And why would they do it around me? My thought process on some nights would be simple enough: this is out of the ordinary, and that's suspicious. There's always the possibility that something out of the ordinary, something that comes out of nowhere, may be a good thing. Perhaps the person randomly handing you the $100 bill isn't running some kind of con, some kind of scam. Perhaps the attractive person approaching you at a party isn't going to humiliate you in public or isn't setting you up for some cruel joke. But how much trust do you put in the possibility of sincerity and good fortune?
You can ask yourself why they'd do that to you, but the answers are easy enough: boredom plus because-they-can. Because for certain people, random cruelty is its own reward.
And yet we are social animals. You'll remember the experiments where, when given the choice between a cold, wire-framed replica of a mother that provided milk and a warm, soft, cuddly cloth "mother" than gave no milk at all, infant monkeys bonded with the cloth doll. We need the social interaction and the belief in kindness. We need to think someone might want to bond with us in some way. And so we're...optimistic. And foolishly optimistic at that.
So, then--- how would you answer the question?
What would you do if someone (yes, attractive) began to approach you outside the approved courtship norms? Would you believe in possibilities, or in the likelihood of the long con being played?
There are nights where I'd very coldly glare at the person speaking to me and walk away. Not because I wouldn't be interested in flirtation and seduction. It's not that at all. There are nights when, the more attractive the girl was who was speaking to me, the more likely I'd be to snarl at her and walk away.
At some basic tactical level, why would I walk away from someone attractive who might be interested in me, who might laugh and flirt and dance and make out? The answer is that I'd find the fact that she was approaching me to be...uncanny. Unheimlich. There are arbitrary social rules and socially-approved courtship norms--- they may be archaic or oppressive or exclusionary, but they do exist, and everyone knows what they are. I'd have to be suspicious of anyone who violates the arbitrary norms, for better or worse. Why would they do this? And why would they do it around me? My thought process on some nights would be simple enough: this is out of the ordinary, and that's suspicious. There's always the possibility that something out of the ordinary, something that comes out of nowhere, may be a good thing. Perhaps the person randomly handing you the $100 bill isn't running some kind of con, some kind of scam. Perhaps the attractive person approaching you at a party isn't going to humiliate you in public or isn't setting you up for some cruel joke. But how much trust do you put in the possibility of sincerity and good fortune?
You can ask yourself why they'd do that to you, but the answers are easy enough: boredom plus because-they-can. Because for certain people, random cruelty is its own reward.
And yet we are social animals. You'll remember the experiments where, when given the choice between a cold, wire-framed replica of a mother that provided milk and a warm, soft, cuddly cloth "mother" than gave no milk at all, infant monkeys bonded with the cloth doll. We need the social interaction and the belief in kindness. We need to think someone might want to bond with us in some way. And so we're...optimistic. And foolishly optimistic at that.
So, then--- how would you answer the question?
What would you do if someone (yes, attractive) began to approach you outside the approved courtship norms? Would you believe in possibilities, or in the likelihood of the long con being played?
Monday, January 19, 2015
One Two Nine: Markets
If you haven't been reading a blog called Graphic Descriptions, you really should. It's at GraphicDescriptions.com, and it's done by Stoya, who's become the hip-lit voice of the erotic film world. She's a fine writer--- you can check her stories at Vice.com as well as her blog. I haven't seen any of her films, with the sole exception of the "Hysterical Literature" short video piece she did with Clayton Cubitt. I know her work only in print form, in essays rather than photos. I rather like her writing, mind you. She's thoughtful and has a mix of introspection and dry wit that I do like. I'll recommend her writing at Graphic Descriptions to anyone who might be reading this out over the aether. Let's begin with that.
Her latest entry at Graphic Descriptions begins:
Her latest entry at Graphic Descriptions begins:
A few weeks ago I said “There’s really no nice way to explain to a person that you just don’t care that much about the size of their penis or its turgidity.” This seemed to be largely understood as a comment on unsolicited dick pics, but I just mute or block the people who send those. On twitter, on my phone, if I don’t have a way to shut down unwanted communication I tend to avoid the technology.
What I was referring to was the shy or reluctant penis. The penis attached to a person who thinks they must provide a brick of an erection at the slightest hint of a partner’s sexual desire. Attached to those who apologize profusely for what they interpret as an insult to my physical allure, what they fear is a failure to meet basic requirements.
I encounter the bearers of these complicated cocks fairly regularly in the wild. The thing I struggle with is how to gently communicate the fact that in a recreational setting I really don’t care.
A hard cock is not the key to pleasant or fulfilling sexual interaction. I don’t have any cocks at all and manage to make myself feel quite good whenever I have the desire. Having a lower orifice penetrated by a cock raises the risks of sex. A condom might break, causing a flurry of unscheduled STI testing and a trip to the pharmacy for Plan B. Even if the condom stays intact, the next-day itch from vigorous abrasion by latex is one of my least favorite sensations.
When these male-bodied people begin to stress, I say “It is totally ok. If it presents itself as a viable option for vaginal penetration that might be fun but there’s a whole range of other stuff we could be doing” and they say “Thank you for being so nice.” while believing precisely none of my statement and stressing doubly. They get stuck in their heads about it. Their manhood becomes threatened by their own adherence to a paint-by-numbers conception of heterosex.
But in my bed, the person with the semi or wholly flaccid organ is the only one focused on its absence of tumescence. And I’ve never found a nice way of stating my lack of concern in a way that will be believed.
The essay that goes on from there is really well done, and it's something any rational male reading it has to agree with. I'm a gentleman of a certain age, of course, and I have all the standard culturally-determined fears of performance failure. I suppose that I'm all the more worried because I've always linked performance not so much to physical pleasure or to manhood (whatever that may really be), but to all kinds of other things, to my ability to be inside all the stories and films in my head. I've always seen performance as a gateway to being someone else, someone in other cities, someone who lives a very different set of lives.
I'm male, and straight, and just as prone as any other straight male of my age to disbelieve a girl who says--- in essays, at a party, on a date ---that she doesn't care about size or tumescence. Of course I agree with Stoya that there are a great many other things that two people can do in bed whilst having heterosex. I know (and never doubt) that I'm...reasonably...skilled at some of those things. Yet...whenever I've been with a girl, whenever I consider my contingency plans for what to do if certain basic systems might fail to function, I feel very much as if I'm planning for minimizing my losses in a disaster, and not as if I might be planning ways to give pleasure to someone I like.
That's bad strategy, I know. Bad policy, too. It's hard to escape, though. I have always been someone who has to try not to take counsel of his fears. It's likely to get worse with age, too. I know I shouldn't inflict my fears on my Young Companions, and I know that Stoya is very much right in her essay. The fears aren't going away, though. They come from someplace that's pre-rational and very deep-seated.
Here in the second decade of the third millennium, there are ways to mechanically overcome some systems failures. We all know that. There are so many ads for the Blue Pill in all its guises, ads all over cable and print and the web. I haven't had to use the Blue Pill yet, but it's always there at the edge of my thoughts when a lovely Young Companion and I are flirting. What if this time I need it? What if this time is the beginning, if this time is the border to a period where I'll always need it?
A friend in London--- early thirties, a part of the worlds of art and academia ---tells me she habitually carries a small tube of generic Sildenafil or Tadalafil--- generic, grey market Viagra or Cialis ---with her to assignations. There in her designer handbag she has condoms, a small travel toothbrush and toothpaste, and a morning-after shirt--- and a tube of Blue Pills as a guard against her partners' age or drinking habits. She told me that and I found myself laughing. Yes, she prefers much older (and moneyed) admirers, and, yes, I should've been complimenting her on her precautions. I suppose in a way she's contradicting Stoya's essay, but then my friend is trying to avoid what another British friend, a Scots girl at Oxford, describes as "tears and stammered excuses". As a gentleman of a certain age, I'd be sad-yet-grateful to know that my Young Companion had thought about these things.
And yet... I have to laugh here. What the story says about me isn't exactly what you think. When she told me about the tube of Blue Pills, she told me the pills themselves were "grey market", made in someplace like Mexico or India or Hong Kong and sold without a prescription. What fascinated me (excited me, perhaps) was the idea of having a demimondaine's kit in her handbag, the idea of being able to buy the Blue Pill as something semi-illegal.
You do understand about me, right? You understand how much I obsess over lists and gadgetry and the idea of what Wm. Gibson calls "the street". I wanted to know all about how the pills she had were produced--- the equivalent of meth labs in Mexico or Kowloon or Bombay? How does one find them as street drugs in London or Manhattan? Is it a special-order item your coke or MDMA dealer would have? My Scots friend and I had an exchange of e-mails about what the per-pill cost would be--- she argued that £8-£10 per pill would be about right, allowing for profit margin on the street. I've no reason to doubt her, though I suppose I must ask my friend with the tube of pills to confirm that.
I want to be very clear about this. I'm not at all sure I'd ever carry a tube of pills like that on my own. I know all-too-well about taking counsel of my fears, about being hypochondriacal. Having the precautionary tube at all would make it much more likely that I'd talk myself into needing it, into being unable to function without it.
I also want to make it clear that while I appreciate Stoya's essay, and while I know rationally that what she says is true, on some very deep level I'll always connect systems failure with shame. (And isn't an accusation about systems failure--- about size or turgidity ---exactly something the gender warriors use to shame males they don't like?)
I was trained for a very long time to be a historian, and I do obsess over the idea of lists and kits, over the idea of living in a neo-noir story. I can't allow myself to think about the Blue Pills in my friend's tube for their own sake. I can only think of them as markers in a tale about black or grey markets, about the idea of being part of the underground, about how the pills are made and sold and whisper-marketed rather than about what they do. Those are the only ways to keep my fears at bay.
Friday, January 2, 2015
One Two Eight: Reactions
Long ago, a girl told me that everyone wants to be found attractive, but only by people who are themselves attractive. If someone unattractive finds you attractive, she said, you feel like you've done something wrong.
I've thought about what she said over the years, and she's always had a point. Fame, Freud wrote, was "the love of many anonymous people". But fame (or even celebrity) is different from individual desire. And my friend was right. We want to be desired, but only by people we'd desire in return, or at least by people whose desire raises our own social status. There's always the thought that if someone unattractive, someone much less attractive than you, desires you, then it means that your own value is lessened. If they think they can have you, then it means that they can see flaws. They can see something that means you're not out of their league, and your own social status is lessened.
All of which raises the question of how to respond to desire, of how others' desire is supposed to make one feel. The gender warriors of course disapprove of desire altogether. Desire, they argue, is always an act of aggression, a demand. The gender warriors see desire as a claim on someone else's body and time. Desire is seen as something that always lessens or cheapens the desired, since it reduces them to being seen as merely sexual. They seem to think that the only response to desire is righteous anger.
I've never understand why being desired is considered reductive. We're each of us a whole complicated collection of things, but a sexual being is one of them. There's the whole question there of how we see ourselves--- what we are versus what we've done ---and the question of differentiating desire from admiration. Both involve having status ascribed from others, but which is...better? Which is more "true"? Does being desired as a sexual being, as a physical body, touch on something deeper or more 'authentic' than being desired as someone successful or stylish or intelligent?
I have to say that sometimes there is a feeling that being told that you're smart or fun or charming feels vaguely derogatory. There are times when one wants very much to be desired as a body, as a sexual creature. Desire speaks to something deeper and more personal than social graces or knowledge, and being desired as a body can mean something more personal, more intense, than being seen as bright or charming or good at social graces. I'm used to young companions telling me that what brought them to my bed was all the things I know, all the stories I can tell. I'm not used to being told that I'm simply wanted, or that I invoke any physical desire.
Well, wanting what you've never had, always believing the grass is greener over the hill. I'm used to those things.
The question remains, though. How do you respond to desire? How does desire make you feel? What does being desired tell you about yourself and your social status? If you're reading this, write and tell me. Tell me about desire and what it means to you to desire and be desired.
I've thought about what she said over the years, and she's always had a point. Fame, Freud wrote, was "the love of many anonymous people". But fame (or even celebrity) is different from individual desire. And my friend was right. We want to be desired, but only by people we'd desire in return, or at least by people whose desire raises our own social status. There's always the thought that if someone unattractive, someone much less attractive than you, desires you, then it means that your own value is lessened. If they think they can have you, then it means that they can see flaws. They can see something that means you're not out of their league, and your own social status is lessened.
All of which raises the question of how to respond to desire, of how others' desire is supposed to make one feel. The gender warriors of course disapprove of desire altogether. Desire, they argue, is always an act of aggression, a demand. The gender warriors see desire as a claim on someone else's body and time. Desire is seen as something that always lessens or cheapens the desired, since it reduces them to being seen as merely sexual. They seem to think that the only response to desire is righteous anger.
I've never understand why being desired is considered reductive. We're each of us a whole complicated collection of things, but a sexual being is one of them. There's the whole question there of how we see ourselves--- what we are versus what we've done ---and the question of differentiating desire from admiration. Both involve having status ascribed from others, but which is...better? Which is more "true"? Does being desired as a sexual being, as a physical body, touch on something deeper or more 'authentic' than being desired as someone successful or stylish or intelligent?
I have to say that sometimes there is a feeling that being told that you're smart or fun or charming feels vaguely derogatory. There are times when one wants very much to be desired as a body, as a sexual creature. Desire speaks to something deeper and more personal than social graces or knowledge, and being desired as a body can mean something more personal, more intense, than being seen as bright or charming or good at social graces. I'm used to young companions telling me that what brought them to my bed was all the things I know, all the stories I can tell. I'm not used to being told that I'm simply wanted, or that I invoke any physical desire.
Well, wanting what you've never had, always believing the grass is greener over the hill. I'm used to those things.
The question remains, though. How do you respond to desire? How does desire make you feel? What does being desired tell you about yourself and your social status? If you're reading this, write and tell me. Tell me about desire and what it means to you to desire and be desired.
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
One Two Seven: Place
I'm thinking tonight about the old line: location, location, location.
Everything in real estate depends on that, and in economic history, too, I suppose.
There's something to be said for applying the saying to fantasies, too.
I read an article not so very long ago by a blogger who once had a reputation as a "sex-positive" writer, a writer who'd fought in the 1990s Sex Wars against the moralizing and puritanism of the forerunners of the Social Justice Cult and the gender warriors. Her article, though, was a long rant about how we needed to take sex out of most social settings and social encounters. We would never be truly free until sex was kept in its (very narrow) place. Allowing desire loose in the world, she wrote, would only support...the Patriarchy. Well, one more person lost to age and the blandishments of the Social Justice Cult.
I of course am a gentleman of a certain age and a roué by vocation. And when I walk through the world on any ordinary morning, desire is always there. I was brought up in a time and place where almost any social encounter had its tinge of flirtation. I can't imagine a world where desire, flirtation, and the promise of adventure don't whisper through social spaces. I can't imagine a world where there's not at least the possibility of seductions and adventures there on any ordinary day. The possibility exists that I watched far too many episodes of "Red Shoe Diaries" back in the waning days of the last age. But I can't imagine a world without the hint of adventures and seductions in the air.
Location, location, location....
When I walk through cities, I look at the architecture and the landscapes and what I see are stage sets. I see the possibilities in location, the places where a novel, a film, a "Red Shoe Diaries" episode would focus.
Back in the middle of the last decade there was a website for people at Harvard who'd had sex in Widener Library. I read about that and wondered why there weren't blogs for other places. Why weren't there websites for university libraries and museums and corporate towers? The post-9/11 world put an end to the Mile High Club, I suppose--- any "misbehavior" aboard an airliner now draws the attention of the security services. But there's a whole universe of architectural possibilities out there, of buildings to target, of architectural styles to match to mood and erotic preferences.
No city is ever actually yours until you've had romantic and sexual adventures there. That's always been true of apartments and houses, and it's true of cities as well. We make a city ours by incorporating it in our fantasies, in the films in our heads.
It matters, I think, that we're able to do that. We can still see the world as a stage set, as a series of stages for the adventures we want to have, for the dreams that haunt the corners of our thoughts.
Offices and museums, bridges and libraries, fire escapes and shadowed alcoves in old-guard men's clubs... All those places are there to be sets for the stories we want to inhabit. Place matters, I think. Places have their own magic, their own valence for adventures.
My own tastes in these matters run to libraries, I think. That shouldn't be unexpected. But if you're reading this, tell me about your own dreams of place--- and what the places mean to you.
Everything in real estate depends on that, and in economic history, too, I suppose.
There's something to be said for applying the saying to fantasies, too.
I read an article not so very long ago by a blogger who once had a reputation as a "sex-positive" writer, a writer who'd fought in the 1990s Sex Wars against the moralizing and puritanism of the forerunners of the Social Justice Cult and the gender warriors. Her article, though, was a long rant about how we needed to take sex out of most social settings and social encounters. We would never be truly free until sex was kept in its (very narrow) place. Allowing desire loose in the world, she wrote, would only support...the Patriarchy. Well, one more person lost to age and the blandishments of the Social Justice Cult.
I of course am a gentleman of a certain age and a roué by vocation. And when I walk through the world on any ordinary morning, desire is always there. I was brought up in a time and place where almost any social encounter had its tinge of flirtation. I can't imagine a world where desire, flirtation, and the promise of adventure don't whisper through social spaces. I can't imagine a world where there's not at least the possibility of seductions and adventures there on any ordinary day. The possibility exists that I watched far too many episodes of "Red Shoe Diaries" back in the waning days of the last age. But I can't imagine a world without the hint of adventures and seductions in the air.
Location, location, location....
When I walk through cities, I look at the architecture and the landscapes and what I see are stage sets. I see the possibilities in location, the places where a novel, a film, a "Red Shoe Diaries" episode would focus.
Back in the middle of the last decade there was a website for people at Harvard who'd had sex in Widener Library. I read about that and wondered why there weren't blogs for other places. Why weren't there websites for university libraries and museums and corporate towers? The post-9/11 world put an end to the Mile High Club, I suppose--- any "misbehavior" aboard an airliner now draws the attention of the security services. But there's a whole universe of architectural possibilities out there, of buildings to target, of architectural styles to match to mood and erotic preferences.
No city is ever actually yours until you've had romantic and sexual adventures there. That's always been true of apartments and houses, and it's true of cities as well. We make a city ours by incorporating it in our fantasies, in the films in our heads.
It matters, I think, that we're able to do that. We can still see the world as a stage set, as a series of stages for the adventures we want to have, for the dreams that haunt the corners of our thoughts.
Offices and museums, bridges and libraries, fire escapes and shadowed alcoves in old-guard men's clubs... All those places are there to be sets for the stories we want to inhabit. Place matters, I think. Places have their own magic, their own valence for adventures.
My own tastes in these matters run to libraries, I think. That shouldn't be unexpected. But if you're reading this, tell me about your own dreams of place--- and what the places mean to you.
Friday, December 26, 2014
One Two Six: Apotheosis
I've never really liked the writer Sarah Nicole Prickett. She writes for Hazlitt Magazine and The Hairpin and does her own Tumblr. She contributes at ArtForum and Adult Mag. She's notorious (or famous) for writing scathing articles about how no one male who's over thirty should be allowed to write any more. She dismisses male writers over thirty as "Dads" who shouldn't be allowed to write anything at all, who certainly shouldn't be allowed to have opinions about any female writers, and who probably shouldn't be allowed to even read anything by female writers. These days, here at year's end, I like her even less. She's taken to arguing that all sex should be "humiliating" for males.
Ms. Prickett--- "SNP", she calls herself ---seems to favor the idea that sex should be as humiliating as possible for males, that it should teach them to accept the flaws in their bodies, that it should force them to recognize that sex shouldn't make them ever feel triumphant or thrilled.
Needless to say, most of the writers I read are male and over thirty. Many are long dead. And while I'm long past thirty, I refuse to be told that I shouldn't read novels or essays by young female writers.
As for the idea that sex should teach you to live inside a flawed and fleshly body, well...I haven't much use for that.
I've said this before, but, well...I've never taken any unmediated physical pleasure in sex. I don't have sex for the body or its needs, and I don't take any real pleasure in the body. Sex feels good; I don't deny that. But I've never felt pleasure through my body. Not during sex, and not with anything else, either. If anything, I want sex to help me escape from my body.
I've always thought of sex as being about more abstract things, and what I want from it is all fairly abstract. Sex is a way of escaping into stories and other lives. It's never been about the flesh or about physical sensations. When I have sex, I get to leave the flesh far behind. I get to act out scenes and be part of stories, part of the films in my head. Sex is a way of stepping outside the flesh and into stories.
SNP is angry because the boy who went berserk in California last spring and killed half a dozen people left a Manifesto in which he wrote that he'd always hoped sex (and of course he died as a lifelong incel) would make him feel "like a god". I've never thought that; it's not even something I've wanted. I've always wanted sex to make me feel like a character in a film or a novel. I could act out scenes, strike poses, and be...someone who wasn't me. I've never seen sex as an apotheosis. I've only seen it as an escape, and as a chance to live out crafted story arcs. Sex has always been a way to escape the flesh and be...part of a story. I've never felt unmediated physical pleasure. Not with sex, not with food, not with wine, not with anything. Anything that gives me pleasure must be something that lets me feel like I'm inside a story.
I've never sought apotheosis. But what I do look for is a chance to be outside the flesh, to be part of something that's crafted and aesthetic and stylish. I've never liked the flesh. What I live for is being part of a story that flows, a story that lets me escape the daily world. And as an aging roué, it matters more and more that I am able to escape this world and have at least a few hours inside stories.
Ms. Prickett--- "SNP", she calls herself ---seems to favor the idea that sex should be as humiliating as possible for males, that it should teach them to accept the flaws in their bodies, that it should force them to recognize that sex shouldn't make them ever feel triumphant or thrilled.
Needless to say, most of the writers I read are male and over thirty. Many are long dead. And while I'm long past thirty, I refuse to be told that I shouldn't read novels or essays by young female writers.
As for the idea that sex should teach you to live inside a flawed and fleshly body, well...I haven't much use for that.
I've said this before, but, well...I've never taken any unmediated physical pleasure in sex. I don't have sex for the body or its needs, and I don't take any real pleasure in the body. Sex feels good; I don't deny that. But I've never felt pleasure through my body. Not during sex, and not with anything else, either. If anything, I want sex to help me escape from my body.
I've always thought of sex as being about more abstract things, and what I want from it is all fairly abstract. Sex is a way of escaping into stories and other lives. It's never been about the flesh or about physical sensations. When I have sex, I get to leave the flesh far behind. I get to act out scenes and be part of stories, part of the films in my head. Sex is a way of stepping outside the flesh and into stories.
SNP is angry because the boy who went berserk in California last spring and killed half a dozen people left a Manifesto in which he wrote that he'd always hoped sex (and of course he died as a lifelong incel) would make him feel "like a god". I've never thought that; it's not even something I've wanted. I've always wanted sex to make me feel like a character in a film or a novel. I could act out scenes, strike poses, and be...someone who wasn't me. I've never seen sex as an apotheosis. I've only seen it as an escape, and as a chance to live out crafted story arcs. Sex has always been a way to escape the flesh and be...part of a story. I've never felt unmediated physical pleasure. Not with sex, not with food, not with wine, not with anything. Anything that gives me pleasure must be something that lets me feel like I'm inside a story.
I've never sought apotheosis. But what I do look for is a chance to be outside the flesh, to be part of something that's crafted and aesthetic and stylish. I've never liked the flesh. What I live for is being part of a story that flows, a story that lets me escape the daily world. And as an aging roué, it matters more and more that I am able to escape this world and have at least a few hours inside stories.
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