Funny post from Jane of Unauthorized bootlog about the similarities between penises and clitorises and men’s reaction to the news.
Recently of an evening when [Jane’s partner] and I were talking, we somehow got on the topic of clits versus penises. I ventured the opinion that they were fundamentally the same thing – that is, they started out the same in the fetus and then developed differently depending on the gender of the baby. He wasn’t too sure he liked this idea. Seems logical to me though! Certainly they share some similarities, like:
getting bigger when aroused
placement on the body
general shape
extremely sensitive tip...
It may have happened that some point later while playing, I might have referenced “my little penis”. This thought could have possibly caused [him] to immediately stop what he was doing and say “That’s so not sexy!” at which point we perhaps both dissolved into giggles. And I might have been sternly admonished that mine, it’s a clit.
I’m not sure I follow the “little penis” reservation some guys have. I mean, men and women have nearly the same butts, nearly the same lips, nearly the same hands, nearly the same breasts and nipples, nearly the same… all kinds of things.
Clue that you’re straight #17: If you’re always worrying that this act or that interest or contact with some other body part might somehow make you “gay” get over it. You’re straight. A little obsessive, yeah. Boring? Sure. But straight.
“Nearly” is clearly not the same as “exactly.” And oh what lovely differences those nearly’s make! Somehow I’ll manage. :-)
Submitted by 637 (not verified) on Tue, 2006-02-28 17:51.
Somehow, eh Fig? :D
Here's a little tidbit of information (and I got it from a 3rd year med student, so take it for what it's worth...) The clit is supposed to have as many nerve endings as the penis does. So let's take a nice round # (for demo purposes)... 100 nerve endings in a penis (yes, I know there's more)... Shrink that down to the size of a clit. 100 nerve endings. You think YOU'RE sensitive??? ;)
[I've heard that too. Except of course *I* see it as "imagine expanding that up to the size of a penis and you know why we like more friction." :-) Thanks, DN. --fl]
Submitted by 637 (not verified) on Wed, 2006-03-01 06:23.
Oh, yes, the "nearly's" do make things interesting!! And I do so love all of my strategically placed nerve endings!!
My question is this: since men seem, and I stress seem, to be more homophobic than females, at least in my experience, why do they think it's okay to see two women together, but not two men? On the surface, anyway?
I'm one of those people who can admire the art without hanging it on my wall. I made mention that a woman I had seen was really beautiful, and the hubby asked the question, Would you like to go to bed with her? To shut him up, as we'd been feuding over my gay brother, I said sure, if I weren't married, why not? Needless to say, he exploded the myth surrounding the question I asked at the head of this comment. It sure didn't shut him up. I got a good laugh out of it after we settled down!! The moral to this story is, some questions, when asked, really shouldn't be answered!!
[You can probably point to hundreds of possible reasons why men don't feel as threatened by women's homosexuality but at heart I think it's because they're so worried about being identified as gay themselves (and, I think, they have such a limited understanding of what it means to be gay in the first place) that they shy away from even the slightest hints of behavior they might indentify as potentially gay. Thus they're afraid to look into, let alone carry, their wive's purses. They're uncomfortable looking at naked men. And, to the detriment of their health, they avoid prostate, rectal, and colon exams. My point in the post was that I think only genuinely straight men have those phobias, and therefore if a man is worried about it he really shouldn't worry about it! The best thing that ever happened to me was realizing I was straight. Paradoxically I haven't worried about it since. Thanks Rhia. --fl]
Submitted by 637 (not verified) on Thu, 2006-03-02 18:34.
As you mentioned, both men and women have lips, butts and so on, but a "man" has a penis and a woman clit & folds. Yet the labels & attraction happens before either of the lower parts of seen. In some ways they symbolize each sex.
To expand for a moment on your response to Rhia, why don't men feel equally comfortable in dresses as women feel in pants? And what then is said about social standing of masculine traits in our culture?
In some ways I think it is far more acceptable to mainstream culture to have two women sexually attracted to each other...but who knows maybe times are changing or maybe it is just our movies ;)
[I can think of all kinds of reasons, from the esoteric (old Church discomfort with interpenetration of any kind that's tolerated between heterosexuals only because you gotta have children, and then *only* to have children) to gender-role discomfort (in which women are alleged to be already comfortable with being seduced while men allegedly aren't) to neoclassical gender studies (women, as representations of "the other" have less clearly definied roles anyway.) For the record I can recognize but don't agree with those. I prefer the pragmatic idea that straight guys just have a harder time accepting that they're straight so they get wiggy about anything that makes them feel ambiguous. One woman doesn't challenge their heterosexuality so two women don't either. Oddly the homophobic women I've met have tended to get wiggier about male homosexuality than lesbianism so I don't think my theory covers everything. But I think it covers enough. If straight men just accepted they were straight they wouldn't make such a big fuss about it. Thanks, Kitty. --fl]