Image by XKCD.

Y’know how those “Million and One Sex Positions” manuals (all inevitably hetero) you see all over the place? The ones with either highly-stylized stick figures (some with translucent overlays) or else even more highly-stylized photographs of recruiting-poster-perfect people with model-blank expressions and static-figure positions? You know how they give you the impression this is All Serious Business because they’re just so stick-up-the-butt… well… All Serious Business?

Jayme Waxman of Sex Matters sets us straight in a nifty, off-the-cuff video post.

After overdosing on a slew of sex positions, here’s a random thought about why you would even try some of the most ridiculous of positions…

Sex Positions: It’s all about the smile from Jamye Waxman on Vimeo.

She said it here.

It’s startling sometimes just how entrenched the whole “for purposes of reproduction only” theory of sex is. Even when there’s no intention… or (since not all sex involves interlocking between fertile heterosexuals) no possibility of reproduction.

And I think, in the west at least, and it looks like a couple of the other major world cultures, it’s got a lot to do with philosophical or religious wariness of pleasure in the corporeal world. With the result that when it is discussed publicly it’s discussed soberly, non-salaciously, with an eye towards reproduction… or prevention thereof… for purposes of health… or prevention of disease… or more egalitarian allocation of “marital bliss.” And, most ‘specially, for purposes of education. Without which UR Duin it Wrong!

With the further result that the idea that some positions when someone says “are they serious” the correct answer might be “actually… no.” :-)