Figleaf's Real Adult Sex

Oof! I can’t believe I missed this the first time! Kink In Exile reflects on Rule #2 of the bogus, corrosive Two Rules of Desire (It’s simultaneously inconceivable and intolerable for a man to be sexually desirable) and finds it wanting. (Italics mine.)

So there is an interesting twist on this whole sex positive thing that I just wanted to mentioned because it’s come up a bunch recently. Think of this as a placeholder for a post…

If sex is something women have and men want how does this impact men’s self confidence? I’ve heard a few men express that it is novel to feel sexually wanted, not because they were not sexually wanted in the past but because there is not a space in which that is typically expressed. This is remarkable because all of the conversations I have had about this with all the various people these conversations have happened were in the last couple of months. Why is it so new and crazy to think that maybe men want to know that they are found attractive and desirable? I mean I want to hear that expressed by a partner…

Read the quote in context here.

I was told for the first time in real life that I’m “handsome” some time last Summer. By a friend I’ve known since we were both teenagers. In the 1970s. What was cool was she wasn’t saying it romantically or anything, just as a casual remark comparing me to someone else our age (who she’s also fond of.)

People have mentioned it in reference to the photos I’ve posted. And I get the impression hetero women talk to each other about attractiveness in men. But as KIE’s friend said, there’s not a space in which it’s typically expressed. To the point that I’m pretty sure women might be surprised how few hetero men have ever heard it said. And certainly ever heard it said about them.

Which harks back, incidentally, to something Holly of The Pervocracy said earlier this month. (For the record I have a quibble only with the quoted paragraph, the rest of her post is dead on and worth reading.)

It always bothers me when straight guys claim they “can’t tell” if another guy is attractive. It’s such an annoying form of overcompensation. (It’s also not true; maybe a totally straight guy can’t make fine distinctions or have a “type,” but he can tell you whether Gilbert Gottfried or Brad Pitt is more attractive.) I didn’t ask if he gave you a boner, all you have to do is use your eyes and a completely detached, theoretic sense of attractiveness. It won’t make you gay.

Read the quote in context here.

See, this isn’t exactly right. We can tell if another guy is attractive to us. Even if he doesn’t give us a boner. That’s not the point. The point is that, outside of maybe Brad Pitt, we don’t have much of an impression of which men are attractive to women. Because, again, physical, visual attractiveness in men, for men, doesn’t really have a lot of vocabulary that… well… doesn’t originate with men. So we can get opinions by the senior George Bush or John McCain that former Vice President Dan Quayle was so handsome they expected women to riot. And I’m pretty sure most men would have agreed that he ought to have been that appealing to women since he embodies a lot of what men think is good looking. But… but… that didn’t happen.

For the record, I still don’t think I personally look all that great in the sense that in no way do I conform to what I consider standards of attractiveness. I get that other people on-line think otherwise, but I still think that’s only because nobody online sees my face.

Since both Rules of Desire are problematic, and since they conspire to make us feel undesirable for any reason but the worthiness of our accomplishments or status (largely, I believe, as a byproduct of accommodating other of men’s preferences), it’s just one more barrier that needs to fall before gender equality is really gonna work. And not because men should be objectified equally to women (wrong direction) but because not understanding that we can appear as physically attractive leads us to go a little overboard on the worthiness front. From which much hilarity does not ensue.

Anyway, it’s great to hear that both Holly and Kink in Exile, as well as MayMay, the authors of Erotica Cover Watch, and maybe a few others, are noticing and/or contributing and/or starting a discussion of the matter in the last few months.

A follow-up on my “Quitcher Bitchin“ post from yesterday since I think I may not have clearly reflected my concern. Turns out last week Kimberlly of of The Errant Wife found herself subjected to a rash of insults that possibly better reflect the point I was trying to make.

Well, who doesn’t love a torrent of abuse on a Thursday?

...

So far I have been called despicable, a urinal, a whore, a cunt, a bad mother a bad wife, a swine: and that is just what they are calling me on my comments, you should see what they are saying over there. By a day in it had degenerated completely: apparently I should be killed and I should have AIDS – if the world were fair that is. Interestingly, the comments got uglier as time went on. “Group think” as my husband put it. Much as we bloggers legitimize ourselves via our similar leanings – they draw strength from their numbers.

The use the perceived worst things of femininity: I have my period, I am a bad wife, a bad mother, I am ugly, I am fat, I am rapidly aging, I have a big vagina, I am (god forbid) saggy – they judge me based on a view of what it is to be a woman that I have long since rejected.

It fascinates me that in crafting their insults they see only the female – I am not a terrible person, I am a terrible woman – most of what they hurl at me from their safe anonymity are gendered insults. Because I am not a person, you see, I am an object to be possessed.

Read the quote in context here.

Yes, I’m aware of various etymological and linguistic support for the inevitability, and even, I guess, desirability, of using attribute-denigrating language. That plus various “recovering meaning” initiatives for words like “slut” and “queer.” And the whole “but you n-words say ‘n-word’ all the time” business.

I don’t think Kimberly’s interlocutors have any of that in mind when they call her the words they call her. Instead they call her those things because they believe it specifically, descriptively identifies her as precisely those things. Which, they believe, are the shittiest, crappiest, lowest, most worthless, things they’re capable of imagining: characteristics “of or peculiar to” something with a vagina.

My point in saying it’s hard to be sex-positive and still use those words wasn’t because I thought it’s just naughty to use un-PC words because they might hurt someone else’s feelings. Nor was it because I think there’s a real problem with people using dead metaphors without considering their once-living implications.

Instead I mean what I said, in my usual starchy way, in my first post ever on this site: “it’s hard to use cock-sucker as an epithet once you’ve met someone who knows how to do it.”

It’s not that calling someone a cunt, a cocksucker, or a slut might hurt their feelings. If you want to hurt their feelings go for it — if you pick a really scummy degrading one maybe it will hit home and they’ll feel really bad and you’ll win! It’s just… it’s hard to use those words as insults once you have an actual sexually positive understanding of their “technical” meaning.

Call me naive but I’m pretty sure none of Kimberly’s comments come from particularly sex-positive individuals.

Via economics blogger Tyler Cowen and sex-blogger Violet Blue we’ve got not one but two works of epic fiction, one sociobiology and evolutionary psychology that, together, explain perfectly why so many women can have orgasms the regular way (with fingers, toys, tongues) but no so much from intercourse.

Exhibit #1 would be sociobiologist David Barash (in his first book, incidentally, he claimed the behavior of microscopic, parasitic acanthocephalan worms somehow explains or justifies homosexual rape in humans) who’s new book, How Women Got Their Curves and Other Just-So Stories: Evolutionary Enigmas co-written with long-time collaborator Judith Eve Lipton, M.D., spends an entire chapter on the “Enigmatic Orgasm” (Note: sociobiologists think only women’s orgasms are enigmatic while men’s are thoroughly self-evident… and therefore absolutely unnecessary to explore)

Anthropologist-primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy suggests that female orgasm evolved as a spur to having sex with many different males. “Based on both clinical observations and interviews with women,” writes Hrdy, “there is a disconcerting mismatch between a female capable of multiple sequential orgasms and a male partner typically capable of one climax per copulatory bout.” A potential consequence of this “mismatch” is that females would be inclined to seek multiple partners in order to achieve their orgasmic potential. As for why this potential exists at all, Hrdy suggests that it is ultimately driven by the fitness benefit of taking out an anti-infanticide insurance policy, as proposed earlier for the evolution of concealed ovulation. Thus, female orgasm and its requirement of sustained stimulation may have provided the proximate mechanism underpinning the ultimate payoff deriving from having sex with multiple partners. Here are Hrdy’s own words: “It is possible that as in baboons and chimps the pleasurable sensations of sexual climax once functioned to condition females to seek sustained clitoral stimulation by mating with successive partners, one right after the other, and that orgasms have since become secondarily enlisted by humans to serve other ends (such as enhancing pair-bonds).”

Read the quote in context here.

So. Got that? Them gang-bangin’ hoor women somehow evolved multiple orgasms… or maybe evolved… um… difficulty having orgasms with just one partner… in order to encourage them to have lots of group sex. Got that?

But wait, there’s more!

This month’s Scientific American Jesse Bering summarizes the latest word on Ev Psych thinking about the evolution of penis shape in “Secrets of the Phallus: Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?“

It too takes the line that women are just a bunch of train-pulling cum dumpsters, and therefore, mens penises have evolved our evidently atypical bulbous glans and flared coronas in order to…

...effectively displace the semen of competitors from their partner’s vagina, a well-synchronized effect facilitated by the “upsuck” of thrusting during intercourse. Specifically, the coronal ridge offers a special removal service by expunging foreign sperm. According to this analysis, the effect of thrusting would be to draw other men’s sperm away from the cervix and back around the glans, thus “scooping out” the semen deposited by a sexual rival.

See page #2, here.

So. Got that? Men evolved the kind of penises we have becausea them gang-bangin’ hoor womin pulllin alla them trains. Got that?

So we’ve got a little concordance here between “creationist” sociobiology and it’s more sophisticated “intelligent design” ev-psych descendant: them gangbangin’ hoor women forced men to evolve plunger-shaped penises out of reproductive self-defense. We didn’t want to, women made us!

Now this is where things start to get tricky. See, the researchers Bering mentions tested their semen-extraction hypothesis with sex toys. Specifically with “anatomical” vs. smooth-sided dildos inserted into masturbation sleeves. And sure enough, dildos with coronas extract more artificial semen (they boiled precisely measured quantities of flour and water for precisely measured quantities of time so it has to be science) than did dildos without coronas.

All well and good. Except, of course, unlike dime store “pocket pussies,” actual vaginas, rather like actual live human beings with vaginas, are complex, dynamic, muscular, and responsive. Worse, from the ev-psych/sociobiology point of view real women’s vaginas do that darned tenting thing as they get close to orgasm, meaning this carefully selected-for “semen extraction” business isn’t going to do much good at all if the woman’s even slightly aroused. From, say, the cooperative intercourse with preceding partners during these allegedly evolved serial couplings.

Which is where the ev-psych/sociobiology unified field theory rides to the rescue! If penises don’t efficiently displace (other men’s) semen in pre-orgasmically aroused women then men must not be accidentally incompetent about helping their partners have orgasms during PIV intercourse compared to other methods, our incompetence is evolved!

At last! Not just a biological basis but an evolutionarily determined basis for the proscriptions and prescriptions of the no-sex class paradigm! :-)

—-

Now truth be told there are more than a few teeth missing from the ev-psych/sociobiology combs here. Which is fine, of course. There are a few muffins short of a baker’s dozen in my arguments as well. The difference being, however, that I don’t pretend to be a scientist.

Gap #1: Other closely-related species are also promiscuous (hello chimps? bonobos? Orangutans? Though not gorillas) but Bering says they’re not semen pumper-shaped.

Gap #2: Which means we would have had to evolve ours in the ~6,000,000 years, or call it 2-300,000 generations since separate speciation from common ancestors. Which, sorry, isn’t a lot of time for multiple-partner competitive semen-extraction to be a significant selective factor at the margin.

Gap #3: Just because it’s not selected for doesn’t mean that human penis shape doesn’t facilitate semen extraction. The authors Bering cites aren’t the first to notice the effect. Bering cleverly proposes that the male post-orgasmic refractory is evolved to prevent men from pumping their own semen back out of their partners by resuming intercourse too soon after ejaculation. The down side of this, though, would be that if Barash’s interpretation of Hrdy is correct and women “evolved” to favor lots of group sex (um…) then a refractory period would tend to be maladaptive for all men who weren’t a women’s final partner.

Gap #4: So based on #3 the refractory period suggests men and women both evolved having more single-partner sex than Barash, Hrdy, and Bering suggest, or else there’s some other reason for the refractory period. I can see having one, or the other, but both doesn’t make much sense. (And, at least as Barash is willing to admit in his title, these are all “just so” stories so there could be plenty of other reasons instead of the ones proposed.)

Gap #5: All of the above leaves out… um… y’know… women, even “primitive” proto-human women, making decisions in the matter. A counter experiment I might propose would be instead of using phthalate-laden plastic sleeves to ask real, actual women to try not two types of dildos but three: the original smooth-sided and “anatomical” ones, sure, but also one of the new glass dildos which tend to have lots of extra bulbs and ridges. Oh wait! We don’t have to conduct that experiment, women who can afford them speak highly of glass dildos. (For instance.)

Gap #6: See gap #5.

Gap #7: See gap #6.

Gap #8: For something called “Evolutionary Psychology” these guys (and it’s still mostly guys) don’t spend much time on the psychology part. In fact they’re highly resistant to it. The problem being that humans almost certainly started being able to do mind hacks around the time we learned to make tools — which would have been at least 1.36 million years ago. And the problem with mind-hacks is that they by definition derail predestination.

That doesn’t mean humans haven’t evolved. Or even that human penises haven’t evolved. Or even that human behavior isn’t adaptive or selected for (see human facial expressions, for instance.) It just means you can’t base every flipping hypothesis for human sexual selection on the behavior displayed in reruns of The Flintstones and Mad Max.

%$$!@$!^&*!!!

NSFW Caveat: If and only if you’re an adult you can click here for an extravagantly not-work-safe image possibly related to penis evolution… in a primitive habitat no less. :-)

Turns out it’s hard to show it in photos, but when I wear boxers I always have a contrary problem. Unlike the old Markie Mark and others, it’s not that my pants fall down exposing my boxers. Instead my boxers slide halfway down my ass inside my pants. Which never slip down at all. (Unless, of course, I push them down.)

Happy HNT (or Half-nekkid Thursday!)

More like this here.

[Note: This was an experiment only. I’ve always gotten by fine without underwear and I see no real reason to switch now. :-) —fl]

Amber Rhea of Being Amber Rhea talks about how most of the euphemisms for female genitalia double as insults that imply “weakness, uselessness, and contemptability.”

So, yeah, I will continue to get my panties in a bunch about pussy being used as an insult. Because it is NOT OKAY, and it IS important – not something to be “overlooked.” Likewise, years ago I stopped using “bitch” as an insult – there is no need to use a gendered insult when the non-gendered “asshole” or “jackass” or a million others will do. Plus I just hate the word. It makes me bristle and rankle and feel really bad inside. If I hear someone use it whom I consider a friend, suddenly I find myself questioning how much I should trust them.

And I will not abide those who roll their eyes and insist this is a minor issue and I’m – wait for it, here it comes – too sensitive.

If you give a shit about the status of women in society, you will STOP using those insults. That’s all there is to it.

She said it here.

Yes. Absolutely. It’s not just disgraceful it’s stupid.

I’ll go a step further and say you probably shouldn’t call yourself “sex positive” if you use any gender- or genitalia- or sex-act-specific terms as insults.

And yes, this goes waaaay back for me.

Found here and elsewhere.

From Audacia Ray’s “Speak Up! Media Skills for the Empowered Sex Worker” workshop.

It is not the case that all sex-workers are empowered. It is also not the case that this is either innate or unalterable.

I don’t know if we have to have sex workers, any more than I think we have to have image consultants or quantatative analysts. But since they’re here there’s no real benefit, and quite a lot of mischief, to encouraging them to keep shut just because folks want to Rorschach away about them as if they were random ink blots instead of human beings with own thoughts, words, and deeds. Not to mention personalities, hobbies, course-loads, pets, parents, reading habits, day jobs, and <coughcough>bacon<coughcough> dining preferences.

A couple of thoughts based on reading Cheri of Secret Lover’s Lane response to an anonymous commenter who, evidently informed by the Two Rules of Desire, claimed, roughly, that women want only emotional rewards from sex and men want only physical rewards. (In her post Cheri angrily but ably challenges the commenter, as you can for yourself here.)

Claims of sociobiology not withstanding, it seems like our social structures make it so that women can’t afford to prize physical enjoyment with multiple partners and men can’t afford to prize emotional rewards with partners either. Our traditional social contract says women must be economically marginalized to the point that they and/or their children will suffer if they don’t hitch their wagons to someone who’s earning power isn’t artificially suppressed. And meanwhile under the same contract men are expected to financially and socially support any partner they form emotional bonds with (see “kept woman,” “mistress.”)

“Can’t afford” is obviously not the same thing as “don’t have.” I’m not necessarily endorsing polyamory. I don’t think it’s bad, I’m just not necessarily endorsing it. But, for instance, rethinking the constructed dichotomies would benefit both men and women in serial monogamy, short-term pre-relationship dating, or the kind of studious “hookup culture” relationships. Especially in areas where there’s enough social and economic parity, sufficient income/productivity/social-infrastructure, and access to fertility management to allow individuals of any gender to raise children independently.

Getting back to Cheri, point #2 would seem particularly clear because while she’s married she’s the primary income earner, the primary household manager, the primary child-care provider (though I could be really mistaken about that) and the one most experienced with what she seeks in multiple relationships.

I keep forgetting to do this but if you’re an adult you can click to see a possibly not-work-safe image.

Via Research Blogging, psychology blogger Dr. Deb says

Uh oh. 

This is sure to spark some debate.

The sexual behavior of teenagers who pledge abstinence does not differ from that of closely matched non-pledgers. Moreover, pledgers are less likely to protect themselves from pregnancy and disease. 

Rosenbaum, J. (2009). Patient Teenagers? A Comparison of the Sexual Behavior of Virginity Pledgers and Matched Nonpledgers PEDIATRICS, 123 (1) DOI: 10.1542/peds.2008-0407

She said it here.

And while we’re at it, from the abstract of the actual paper by Rosenbaum. (Emphasis mine.)

OBJECTIVE. The US government spends more than $200 million annually on abstinence-promotion programs, including virginity pledges. This study compares the sexual activity of adolescent virginity pledgers with matched nonpledgers by using more robust methods than past research.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS. The subjects for this study were National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health respondents, a nationally representative sample of middle and high school students who, when surveyed in 1995, had never had sex or taken a virginity pledge and who were >15 years of age (n = 3440). Adolescents who reported taking a virginity pledge on the 1996 survey (n = 289) were matched with nonpledgers (n = 645) by using exact and nearest-neighbor matching within propensity score calipers on factors including prepledge religiosity and attitudes toward sex and birth control. Pledgers and matched nonpledgers were compared 5 years after the pledge on self-reported sexual behaviors and positive test results for Chlamydia trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and Trichomonas vaginalis, and safe sex outside of marriage by use of birth control and condoms in the past year and at last sex.

RESULTS. Five years after the pledge, 82% of pledgers denied having ever pledged. Pledgers and matched nonpledgers did not differ in premarital sex, sexually transmitted diseases, and anal and oral sex variables. Pledgers had 0.1 fewer past-year partners but did not differ in lifetime sexual partners and age of first sex. Fewer pledgers than matched nonpledgers used birth control and condoms in the past year and birth control at last sex.

CONCLUSIONS. The sexual behavior of virginity pledgers does not differ from that of closely matched nonpledgers, and pledgers are less likely to protect themselves from pregnancy and disease before marriage. Virginity pledges may not affect sexual behavior but may decrease the likelihood of taking precautions during sex. Clinicians should provide birth control information to all adolescents, especially virginity pledgers.

In particular the bit about 82% denying having ever pledged five years later is kind of… interesting. Wonder what the difference is between those who admit and those who deny pledging? So do I! But I’m not going to cough up the extortionate subscription price to look behind the federally-funded-but-somehow-still-for-profit firewall the publishers erect only because for some reason it’s legal.

Image via Bacchus of the generally NSFW ErosBlog: The Sex Blog

I’m not exactly sure what the date is for the comic shown here — I’d say it’s a comic from the early 1950s, when both cars and drive-throughs were pretty new.

But there’s something not… exactly timeless about the representation of genuine but oblivious aloof women in the face of clearly interested, and clearly much older men that’s just…

I mean… the images represent adult women not early teens, whose physical development sometimes begins before cognitive registration of sexuality. Nor do their posture or facial expressions present them as stupid or incapable or even excessively/paternally sheltered. Or even (as compared to, say, wait staff at “Hooters” style restaurants today) as sexually accessible.

Instead the implication is that they’re completely failing to register their own allure despite what appears to be continuous daily sexualized but non-sexual contact with myriad interested men.

No-sex class much?

Update: I think I probably should have been way more clear about that last point: I’m not saying actual people would be as naive about the impact of their appearance as the women represented in the cartoon. Instead I’m saying the cartoon was part of a tradition that represented women to men as that naive. And did so at least in part because that reinforced men’s expectations of women. It certainly would have been the context for the intended humor of that particular punch line.

I’m really looking forward to attending the second Sex 2.0 conference in the Washington, D.C. area early next month. Here’s the press release.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – April 27, 2009. Now in our second year, Sex 2.0, a one-day unconference, will take place on May 9, 2009 in Washington, D.C. Sex 2.0 will focus on the intersection of social media, feminism, and sexuality. How is social media enabling people to learn, grow, and connect sexually? How is sexual expression tied to social activism? Does the concept of transparency online offer new opportunities or present new roadblocks — or both? Sex 2.0 is an unconference, which means that sessions will be informal conversations organized by people attending the event. Session leaders with some knowledge in a subject area facilitate conversations among the participants.

Sessions will include: “Internet Advocacy for Sexual Freedom” with Ricci Joy Levy of the Woodhull Foundation; “Polyamory in Media’s Spotlight” with Anita Wagner; “Craigslist Red, Craigslist Blue: Why we should dismantle the “internet red light district” with Melissa Gira Grant and Joanne McNeill; “Kick Ass Twitter Apps” with Cunning Minx; “Revenge Porn” with Maria Diaz; and “Sex Writing Beyond Erotica, Beyond Porn” with Jack Murnighan, Nerve.com editor-at-large. The keynote speaker will be Nikol Hasler, creator of the Midwest Teen Sex Show (http://midwestteensexshow.com). A complete list of sessions may be viewed at: http://sex20con.com/2009-schedule/sessions/

Sex 2.0 will be held in a Washington, D.C. hotel. (To ensure everyone’s privacy, location information will be email once you are registered). It will offer five conference rooms, a lounge (with free WiFi), vendor area as well as space for various sex-positive outreach groups to set up informational displays and tables.

The event is managed by volunteers and funded by sponsors. We are pleased to have SEXTOY.com as our presenting sponsor this year. SEXTOY.com has been focusing on building a relationship within the blogger community with the recent start-up of its sex toy reviewer program. SEXTOY.com is honored to be the official sponsor for Sex 2.0 and looks forward to a mutually rewarding relationship with the blogger Community. Two SEXTOY.com associates will be attending Sex 2.0 this year: Erik Van Riper and Domina Doll; who both look forward to meeting everyone, attending the talks and participating in discussions. Sex 2.0 is also pleased to have community sponsor Bound Not Gagged (www.boundnotgagged.com), hospitality sponsor Kimberleecline.com and technology sponsor PosAlt.com supporting this years conference.

While the event itself is on Saturday, May 9, there are participant-organized meetups, outings, and parties being planned for Friday night and Saturday evening, as well as a Sunday brunch. For more information, visit the Sex 2.0 website at www.sex20con.com or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/sex20con.

Source: Press Release

The workshops all look interesting. Some of the ones I’m particularly looking forward to include “The Evolution and Democratization of Sex Writing,” “Gender & Technology: How technology influences hegemonic sexual awareness and vice versa,” “Sex Writing Beyond Erotica, Beyond Porn.” And obviously, and especially, “Internet Famous but Conference Shy?”

If you’re going to be there I look forward to either meeting you or seeing you again.