In a short post titled “Vanilla?” Radical Vixen, who’s a phone sex operator, brings up the $64,000.00 question
“The only sex I want to talk about is procreation.”
-regular client
Hugo Schwyzer brought up a similar issue of pregnancy ambivalence last week when he talked about a preview copy of an as-yet unavailable online article a reader had sent him called “Procreation: A Qualitative Analysis of Intermittent Contraceptive Use And Unintended Pregnancy” from September 2008 issue of Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health. The three categories those authors identified were “Active eroticization of pregnancy risk,” “Passive romanticization of procreation,” and “Escapist pleasures.”
Weird, I know, to talk about procreative sex as an (actual psychological-requirement) fetish or kink (eroticizing variation) when, as Radical Vixen notes in her title, that procreative sex (preferably lights off, in bed, man on top missionary position, penis-in-vagina, little or no foreplay, till ejaculation only, for procreation only) is the quintessential definition of “vanilla sex” against which instead every other sexual practice, period is supposed to be a “kink.”
But there you have it.
Submitted by 2511 (not verified) on Mon, 2008-11-17 22:55.
I went and checked that site, and I don't get quite that impression of it. I think they're talking about eroticizing the risk taking inherent to "ultimate vanilla sex" rather than the sex itself. Sort of like skiing just because there's the danger that you might crash into a tree or something. It'd be better if it didn't happen, of course, but the risk-taking makes it more fun. At least, that's how I read it.
Also, there are people with breeder fetishes. You know, the desire to become pregnant as often as possible or make someone pregnant. Again, all about the results of sex rather than the sex itself. You're apparently not supposed to do that. You're supposed to get horny thinking about sex so you can make babies, not getting horny thinking about making babies so you can have sex! Or something like that.
[I guess maybe it's like that kind of puffer-fish sushi where if it's prepared wrong you die -- it almost never is but the symptoms (like tingly fingertips and nose, I think) are such that you can't tell till it's too late. Still, with pregnancy-risk sex, unless, you know, you're actually *interested in having a baby,* is messing with someone else's life. As in, say, you wind up having a child you really didn't want or couldn't afford, maybe parenting him or her with a partner you're actually not that compatible with. It's one thing to say "yeah, we weren't ready so it was hard for *us,*" but the real question is what's the impact on the *new human being.* Hope that makes sense. Thanks, Nightfall. --fl]
Submitted by 2511 (not verified) on Tue, 2008-11-18 12:00.
This study actually *is* available online. I'm not sure why Hugo assumed it wasn't. Just Google the title and the full-text pdf pops up for free.
I saw this study back when it first came out. It's groundbreaking because it investigates the substantial gap between knowledge and access to birth control, on the one hand, and actual use of it, on the other. I'm not saying that problems with knowledge and access are trivial, only that they fall far short of explaining people's flaky use of contraception. This study is a great start on explaining why too many people don't use it consistently.
So, even though Radical Vixen's story cleverly upends some of our usual assumptions, I think it'd be off base to reduce this study to a curiosity - or a kink. The study's implications are much bigger than that.
[Hi Sungold! Teach me not to give this the "full Figleaf treatment" (I'm trying to cut back on all the miles-of-text foghorning I've fallen into lately.) But I could or should have been more clear that the researchers weren't describing outright impregnation fetishists -- although there are such. Instead I was just sort of goggling at the difference a couple of generations have made in attitudes towards sex as not primarily reproductive. And you're right, it really is a groundbreaking study. I met a social worker at a dinner party the other night and we wound up talking about the implications of the standard and highly insufficient "too dumb / too lazy / too poor" approach to unplanned, unwanted pregnancy in vulnerable demographics. Thanks for the nudge, I really should have followed the punchline with some substance. --fl]