Posted by panch from pool0060.cvx20-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.250.60) on Wednesday, September 04, 2002 at 8:51AM :
In Reply to: thank you, Robert Jensen! posted by Lilly from D006077.N1.Vanderbilt.Edu (129.59.6.77) on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 at 11:34PM :
It was only a few years ago that courts agreed a wife could be legalley raped by her husband...till then the idea was that a wife is by definition available to her husband for anything and everything.
Heard an interview on NPR with a lesbian who went through a sex change operation and had been on testosterone for three years already. She always wanted to be a man and was finally happy to have been able to make the change.
It was a hilarious interview because of what testosterone was doing to her. She said before the change she was considered a "cool" dyke...she was cutting edge and "out there"...politically aware and active and all of the right things.
As the testosterone kicked she noticed changes...she found herself becoming sexually aroused far more easily...she'd be standing at the Xerox machine and of a sudden a wave of sensual desire would wash over her...red convertibles got her hot. She caught herself checking out women...walking behind and watching their ass...passing them and fighting an overwhelming desire to turn around and check the rest of them.
The male interviewer lost it...he started laughing uncontrolably...saying things like, ..."My god you're setting us back 100 years". She even said that with testosterone treatment had come an interest in science and Physics...something she'd never experienced before...at times both of them broke out in giggles.
But the best part was when she said she'd gone from being a hip and cool dyke, someone people sought out and all of that...a a complete JERK! At that the announcer sounded like he fell off his chair.
Rape isn't sex...not in prison and not outside. Men who screw other men in prison make great distinctions about who "does" it and who it gets done to...so that the aggressive man doesn't see himself as queer because he has the power...he dominates...he does the fucking.
As for porn...for the life of me I can't see what is 'sexy" about it. You can certainly make erotica...and the best kind is the consensual non-violent or degradaing type. Let me say right up front that I'm the only man or woman on this planet who supports the 50 billion dollar a year porn industry all by himself...that I have seen porn...and I am always fascinated by, first of all the utter lack of conviction...but the almost clinical nature of it. It's too much to just point out that the stuff is made by and geared to people who are devoid of imagination...but the thrill seems to come only from the degradation...that what is sexy HAS to be what is also humiliating for the woman, and doesn't present the man in such a good light either...it's also interesting how the stuff is a turn off more often than not.
In fact "sexiness" seems the farthest thing from anyone's mind. So, it isn't about passion or emotions, cause the people can't even act the part and they are so obviously bored and uninterested. What I really like are the "plots" at the beginning...the part where the director's wife gets to show her acting skills, before they turn her over and make the beast with the two backs. The build up is precious...the drama, the tension...the trip to the houseboat while the woman untangles some knot of a problem, or plays hard to get, or best of all, "aloof" and distant, while we all wait to see her get what's really coming to her, what the "bitch" deserves... and the guy with the sideburns who's trying to be cool and turn her on. Then, no matter what the set-up...they wind up nude and doing the same old same old...and people spend billions on the stuff.
So...if this stuff is sexy to men...what about it is sexy? There is no acting...no dramatic or erotic tension...you already know what you're going to see...there wont be any surprises...there is no relationship between the people. The only thing I can figure is the very lack of emotion or engagement is what is sexy. The knowledge that what you're seeing is degrading to someone...the woman primarily. People like to watch others being degraded, people so often feel powerless and degraded by life in general that'it's "fun" to watch someone else get REALLY humiliated, and what is more humiliating, to a Puritan, than being forced down on your knees?... what is more degrading than this kind of sex...of turning what can be most delightful and intimate between loving or even interested people...to "submission" to what you KNOW the woman especially, doesn't want to be doing.
What shocked me the most, as I used to wonder how a woman ever got into these things in the first place...was the realization that most prositiutes, and these actressess are all prostitutes professionally...started life out as sexually abused girls. I remember girls in Seattle offering themselves to their boyfriends...to strangers...to me...for whatever favor they needed.
How distressing it was to contemplate when and how this behavior likely first started, . I imagined a young girl...could be a girl like my daughter, wanting love and affection...as most children do...but oh so much more so, and in that special way girls can feel affection for their daddies...the first man her life...especially as she gets a little older...but before when she eagerly looks forward to being tucked in at night...or spend time alone getting all the attention from daddy. I remember a couple of girls whose bedrooms and beds...the place you like to feel most cozy in...the place you're most vulnerable in because you lose consciousness there and need to feel safe...but for these girls their bedrooms became horror chambers....and yet, what is a girl to do? Sexual abuse is presented to them as a price they must pay to remain "daddy's little girl"...and what child doesn't want her daddy to be "happy"? Also because it's a lot safer, if not necessarily more pleasant, at home if daddy is satisfied.
And the saddest ones were those who'd lost their real daddies, or never knew them...when a new man came into the house and they so much wanted him to be the daddy they'd imagined and dreamed about. It breaks your heart just to imagine it.
Learning to make that bargain at an early age...it must not be that much "harder" to go on having your needs met by striking the same deal...and now it's your financial needs as well, in this way. I used to think how awful it was that Chinese peasants would be forced to sell their children for a little bread...girls especially. But they were all starving to death...how about selling your daughter into prostitution? That's the beginning of a lot of it...here in the West where no one is starving for food...but human dignity is in short supply.
-- panch
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