Hot Slutz!

There’s a nightly process your mind performs to dispose of mental excess.  It’s kind of a psychological elimination of sorts, I think.  It’s commonly referred to as “dreaming”, and everybody does it (and those who say they don’t are either lying or forgetful). 

I think dreaming works as a trash-removal mechanism, condensing your daily thoughts into non-sensical images and playing them one last time before firing them from your psyche.

Last night, I had an incredibly strange dream in which I was aggressively fooling around with another woman – only I was a short, brown-haired man.  She was tiny and meek, with a kind of kitten-ish cuteness about her.  She didn’t know what she was doing, and relied entirely on me to lead and initiate.

I don’t think this dream was about gender confusion or control issues, but rather about a book I saw at Chapters earlier that evening when I was shopping for a birthday present for my mother (the most non-sexual thing one can do).  This is a bit of a roundabout segue, but hear me out. 

For one of my classes last year, I wrote a slapdash feature on porn.  It was rushed, and therefore not the magnum opus of my academic career – but it did get me thinking, reading and researching.

A lot of the literature I found on porn worked to condemn or sternly criticize it. It’s a topic that cannot be objectively addressed, mostly because it deals with sex (and we know how objective people are about that).  More specifically, it deals with selling sex as a forbidden but commonly desired commodity (which it is).  Porn consists of “dirty” pictures, stories, videos, etc.  It’s designed to arouse – and somehow this is problematic for a vast number of social groups.

No one cares that food is designed to satiate hunger, but people do care that porn is, more often than not, designed to quench (temporarily, of course) sexual thirst.  Though sex is dealt with constantly in the mainstream media, it’s still a paradoxially taboo topic. 

How much is too much?  Are girl’s clothes too scandalous? Are strip clubs bad for marriages? Is sex on TV causing teen pregnancies? Is raunchy pop-culture fostering misogyny in men and low self-esteem in women?

Everyone has a socio-political opinion about porn.  Some feminists say it encourages rape, battery and chauvinism.  Some pro-family groups say it’s responsible for adultery, sexual dysfunction and broken marriages. Some church groups say it taints the mortal soul. Pro-porn advocates fall back on First Amendment rhetoric – it’s merely titillating art, and should be protected under anti-censorship laws. 

The book I found at Chapters, though short, dares to say that porn is exactly what you make of it.  It looks at the hysteria surrounding the genre, and examines what attitudes and ideas contribute to making porn what it is today. 

I’ve always thought of a porn as a manifestation of societal attitudes about sex.  If it contains misogyny, it’s not because it has a vested interest in woman-hating.  It contains misogyny because there’s a prevalent social attitude about women who have and enjoy non-traditional and/or indiscriminate sex.  If porn depicts sex as dirty, it’s because it exists in a world that sees it as such. 

There’s a lot of porn out there, and it caters to every kink and fetish you can imagine.  However, it’s designed to titillate people into masturbating – its purpose is purely sexual and self-serving.  It’s a leg up for one’s existing fantasies.  It fleshes out arousing ideas, albeit in an exaggerated fashion. 

It takes common cultural fascinations (large breasts, large penises, submissive partners, dominant partners, ridiculous lingerie, etc), exploits the “forbidden fruit” appeal of each, and immortalizes them on film or in print.  People then respond – often enthusiastically.

Still, sexual material isn’t something people are entirely comfortable with – even though many consume it.  So people talk about it being addictive, detrimental and dangerous.  Perhaps, in the hands of the wrong creator and consumer, it can be.  It can be violent, distasteful and obscene.  It can also be playful, funny and amusing.  Some people have inherently harmful attitudes about sex (including misogynistic ones), therefore some porn will reflect those beliefs.

Porn cannot be “fixed.” Strictly regulating or outright banning it won’t end violence against women, infidelity, divorce, or sexual dysfunction.  That said, porn that displays actual non-consensual (or otherwise coerced) abuse should be monitored (if such a thing is indeed possible).  But negative attitudes about sex and sexuality pre-date the rise of Internet pornography, and they’ll continue to exist should every XXX site cease to exist tomorrow (perish the thought!). 

Last night, I thought about porn.  I thought about porn and feminism, and porn and religion, and porn and relationships, and porn and fantasy.  Despite my critical approach to the subject, I still had a fucked-up dream about being a man dominating a coyly submissive young thing.  At the end of the day, you just can’t rationalize desire or one’s conception of it.  You can only hope that you and others will express it in an ethical, dignified manner.

Perhaps if attitudes about sex were more ethical and fair (not irresponsibly hedonistic), porn would reflect that. 

 Until then, well, enjoy your facial you dirty whore .

It Appears that the Devil is Talking out of Your Ass Again

I understand that it’s unwise – unacceptable, even – to make giant blanket statements about complicated social issues.  In life, there are few absolutes.  In the end, it’s all about context, theory and rhetoric.  If you can argue a point well enough, you’ll get supporters in your corner.  Someone else will get other supporters in theirs.  Then you can argue forever, which will make your life more interesting (if not exhausting).

 However, there are some arguments that cannot (and should not) ever hold H20.

 Such as the argument that God – yes, God – wants you spank the ever-living shit out of your wayward, irrational, child-like wife. 

Behold:

www.christiandomesticdiscipline.com

A site dedicated to affirming that it’s perfectly all right – desirable even – to institute an authoritative, dogmatic hierarchy in your household and allot one person (the old male person) the right to physically assault those who, like, give him dirty looks and refuse to smile when he farts at the dinner table. 

This “lifestyle” is for two types of people.

1) Kinky people

2) Abusive people

There’s no in between, make no mistake of that.  If you long to slap the naked ass of a grown woman for hours at a time, you’re either a run-of-the-mill S&M enthusiast or an asshole. 

If you’re a woman who loves the feel of a hard hand against your ass for hours on end, you’re a run-of-the-mill S&M enthusiast or a passive victim of domestic violence. 

If a woman feels that bad moods are manifestations of demonic possessions (or ungodliness) and decides that she needs the beasts expelled through a little over-the-knee “tough love”, she’s a kinky girl into submission.

Spanking is a common sexual practise (I wouldn’t even call it much of a fetish anymore).  People, generally fearful of finding themselves in humiliating and demoralizing situations (like corporal punishment), sometimes cope with their discomfort by eroticizing it.  If you like what’s being done to you, you haven’t relinquished your autonomy.  You’ve requested seemingly inhumane treatment, and therefore it’s titillating rather than mortifying.  Women are not the only people who do this, men do it too (that’s why there’s such a thing as a dominatrix). 

For most (I hope) of these spank-happy couples, their means of keeping the peace is probably more about obtaining sexual thrills – and there’s nothing wrong with that in and of itself.  What’s wrong is the pitiful, misogynistic posturing.

“God wants female subjugation, and the only way to achieve it is by instituting blatantly (but not admittedly) erotic punishments for derelict wives/girlfriends.”

I haven’t read the bible from cover to cover, but I doubt God, Moses, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John or Jesus every said any such thing. 

Religion is notoriously good that shaming its followers for having sexual desires, especially desires that stray off the rigid and narrow path of “normal.”  Though S&M (lighter aspects, of course) has become more and more popular, it’s still a fringe movement, practised in different ways by different people.  It’s not something everyone – particularly those closely associated with Christian denominations – would readily admit to dabbling in.  So how does a devout follower of a pure deity come to terms with his or her taste for painful foreplay? 

By cloaking their fetish in theological rhetoric.  They justify their kink by claiming it’s not inherently sexual, but innately spiritual.  Spanking is the best way a man and a woman can maintain the “natural” power imbalance in their marriage.  However, those intent on dominating their spouse would probably choose physical and emotional coercion over a relatively well-known sex act.  

Another argument could be that, in a case where one or both partners is not getting hard/wet at the prospect of a thorough “punishment”, the dominant partner is instituting a troublesome power imbalance sustained by genuinely painful “corrective procedures” that provide the abuser with a false sense of comfort.  If the punitive measures are approved by Christian domestic discipline enthusiasts, then they can’t be manifestations of one partner’s very real desire to threaten, frighten, and abuse the other.  So for people afraid to risk the legal/moral/philosophical/spiritual repercussions of routinely assaulting their spouse, they have some wiggle room with “consensual” anti-egalitarian power dynamics. 

Either way, there’s no pure motive for needing or wanting a defined and continuous sub/Dom relationship within a 21st century marriage.  You’re either kinky (which is cool), or you feel entitled to abusing your partner/feel you deserve abuse (not so cool, I don’t think). 

Perhaps this “lifestyle” has provided a safe haven for good Christian girls to act out desires they’ve had since adolescence without fear of social reprisal. I’ll bet a lot of them like to accidentally spray their husband with the garden hose when he’s on his way to work, and immediately blame Satan and claim they can feel him coiling up inside their pulsating nether regions when all they wanted to do was tend to their beautiful, feminine rose garden under the warm morning sunshine.  I’m sure they enjoy the warm morning sunshine beating against their bedroom windows while they promise to be “good girls” while rubbing against their godly man’s thigh. 

Their godly man no doubt likes his wife’s naked ass, or he just likes giving someone bruises.   

I hate to make a blanket statement, but there probably isn’t much in between. 

In case you think I might be mistaken, and that a desire to be closer to God is what compels couples to commit to spanking-filled marriage, check out this website:

http://lovingdd.blogspot.com

Once you sift through the user comments about the benefits of “forced” nudity, genital slaps and nipple pinches, you’ll see where I’m coming from.