What's Goin' On

Bear with me, as I am resurfacing from the land of the dead...

Only to read via mousewords about a woman's "romantic" memoir about her discovery of self through sodomy: "You open your ass and you open your mind and you open your heart."

WTF?

Oh. She's from New York. I mean, what kind of person gets these sorts of questions about their book "Can you talk a bit about the connections you make in the book between being anally penetrated and finding God?"

I think that pretty much says all you need to know.

Apparently, she's really sure that her book will anger feminists - this is something that really gets her riled up. But you know, I don't think feminism is the issue, here, when she "keeps the condoms-and-K-Y detritus of their [she and her anal lover's] unions and a baggy-full of his pubic hair in a little memory box", probably on her dresser. This has less to do with feminism and more to do with being a wacky, malnurished nut-job. Are all ballerinas this neurotic? She needs to go out to eat more, and find some other hobbies. Sex is great. Fetishes are fun, and no doubt there are some men out there who keep used condoms from their male lovers in little boxes under their beds... or not. You need to get out once in a while, woman. Damn.

Speaking of sex, over at Utopian Hell and Hugo's place, there's some debate going on about how the sexuality of youth is being contained in the bodies of young women - that is, when we talk about curtailing "hook-ups" and other sorts of casual sex behavior, what everybody's argument turns back to is how to convince young girls to be ashamed about having sex whenever they want to - even if it's safe sex.

The assumption being, I suppose, that men have this really amazingly uncontrollable sexuality: whatever. It's interesting, however, that both Hugo and Astarte bring church lingo into the debate, and how the diffusion of church doctrine in our society has targeted young women. Nobody ever asks if a guy regrets having sex "too early" or "with the wrong partner." What really got me about this discussion was what Amanda pointed out: women are encouraged to have deeper feelings for those partners they have sex with, because if they don't have deeper feelings, they're "sluts." I know that's something I've always struggled with: Am I in a deeply loving, committed, monogamous relationship with this person? If the answer was no, I'd feel terribly guilty for getting involved at all, even if I, the Evil Woman, was just interested in something purely temporary.

I've often wondered how much of the cliche of "women always want to get emotionally involved and men don't" thing has to do with putting pressure on men to treat sex casually, and pressure on women to treat sex like one's only item of self-worth. Sure, having sex with someone you feel affection toward is what it's all about - but why does it have to be monogamous and looking-toward-the-longterm before women get to have "guilt free" sex?

Glad there are people moving past that.