nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Good to know...although still would rather poke my eye out with a stick.
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Good to know...although still would rather poke my eye out with a stick.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Yeah, it's funny to hear men moan about monogamy (and specifically marriage), and try to blame it on women, as if it's something only women want so men grudgingly give in. In my anthro course we just studied a unit on matrilineal/matriarchal versus patrilineal/patriarchal societies, and it's actually far more common for monogamy to be common practice in a culture where men run social institutions, have authority in private life, and where only one male diety is worshiped, than it is in matriarchal cultures, where there are almost universally permissive attitudes toward extra- and pre-marital sex, and where polygamy/polyamorous behaviors are common practice. Also, incidence of rape is higher in patriarchal cultures than it is in matriarchal ones, double standards for sexual behavior are rampant, sex negativity rules and non-reproductive sex is seen as a "sin", prostitution is criminalized, etc.
Basically, monogamy is a form of social control of female sexual behavior, not male behavior, in patriarchal societies. But somehow, we manage to pretend like it's vice versa.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Being "sex critical" would be sort of like being "critical" of covalent bonds between elements with fewer than 8 valence electrons.
What would be the point?
Sex is going to happen, you can either deal with the reality that most organisms reproduce sexually and therefore engage in sexual behaviors, or you can be "critical" of sexual behavior from a moralistic standpoint for...what reason?
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Not to mention the fact that whenever people get "sex critical", the ones on the losing end legally, economically, socially, and otherwise are without fail 1) teh gays, 2) the wimmin, 3) the ethnic minorities.
forgot to say earlier: no need to apologize at all, i wasn't being sarky with the "thanks luka". it's clearly an acute observation and i know there is some truth to it... been a loner for so long i can certainly be self absorbed and alienated from the world... and as much as i do have a very extroverted side, but in the long run no, i'm not very good with people. more of a cave dweller really.
my new project is... pay more attention to how others feel, rather than what i think.
I don't find that sex is something that "just happens" in quite the way that the formation of covalent bonds between elements "just happens". There's an impressively complex stack of cultural mediation involved. Plenty of entry-points for critical intervention, I should have thought.
To get away from uncritical moralism, which is what the "sex positive" posture really is: one uncritical moralism opposed to another (that's America for you, I guess). What it can't bear the thought of is anyone judging their own and other people's experiences, desires, expectations and compulsions, in the light of any larger or more demanding conception of human freedom than "whatever turns you on".
The opening move of critique is to critique the "moralistic standpoint", to survey its conditions and try to comprehend the obstacles it might pose to understanding. You can't do that if you have an unexamined prior commitment to "be positive".
Now we observe that "sex" is not after all as neutral and inevitable as the formation of covalent bonds; now it is political, freighted with questions of power and social justice. But how can it be that these questions are instantly resolved, in favour of the most deserving, simply by coming over all tolerant and affirming about everyone's lifestyle choices? I feel like we're in a Disney production here: a grey planet run by frowning bearded gentlemen, with their ladies in dismal sackcloth, is introduced by an exotic hip-wiggler from outer space to the joys of consumerism and synchronized dance routines, and oh! the rainbow colours!
Besides, don't the gays and women and local representatives of the global majority have a right to be critical too?
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Oh fuck, did I think that out loud?
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Out of curiosity, how familiar are you with organic chemistry, sexology, genetics, evolutionary biology, anthropology and the intersection of these fields? Because, as just about anyone who studies sexual mechanisms within them will tell you, sex is something that "just happens" in exactly the same way anything else does, including covalent bonds: there are natural laws at the most basic level that make it all happen, extremely complex interactions between chemicals/chemical attractors being just one extremely important factor. Trying to will certain types of sexuality away will not work: you might as well ask the sky to fall. Any special pleading about "cultural mediation" is just bog standard cultural theeree humanities waffling. You can say anything you want about it, but until you have some evidence, it's just talk. (Btw, a Northwestern professor demonstrated that there's actually a negative correlation between porn consumption and rate of rape: counties with the highest per capita consumptions of porn and subscriptions to porn sites actually had the lowest rates of rape in the U.S.)
"Sex positive" is not a posture, it's an anthropological term used to describe cultures that do not describe sexual behaviors outside of monogamous heterosexuality as "sinful". I don't believe in "sin", so of course I'd like to see these sorts of designations, and the related cultural imperative toward heterosexual marriage and monogamy, go out the window. The only 'committment' I have is to refusing to impose some sort of phallogocentric bullshit slash Ceiling Cat decree on anybody... and as a sideline, I think dismantling patriarchy is pretty important, too. By the anthropological definition of term, if I succeed in these goals, my culture will become "sex positive." Would be wonderful, but again, not holding my breath...
Did I say anything about being "tolerant"? No, I did not. There are many things we shouldn't tolerate as a society (including rape, child molestation, sexual assault, sexual harrassment, etc), and this is already up for negotiation, discussion, and legislation. There's plenty to critique in our culture, but there's little to critique about the impulse to have sex per se. The critical element of feminism has always been based on a criticism of patriarchy and of the ways sexuality exists as a function of patriarchy, not of sexuality as such. It's proven that outside of patriarchical cultures, the tendency is toward increased sexual freedom and less sexual hypocrisy/slavery/injustice. This is not a difficult concept, and it's really not up for debate. It's clear where we should move, then, if you dislike rape and the oppression of women and sexual minorities: away from 'sex-negative' patriarchy and toward 'sex-positive' matriarchy.
Basically, moral approaches to anything, but especially to sex, put the cart before the horse. The goal should not be to "critique" sexuality itself as if that will somehow change human behavior. Sex is a psychologically (not an ethically) motivated behavior. If you want to change the behaviors that have negative consequences, you have a lot of work ahead of you; first you'll have to figure out what this means, what these are, and how to do this, but then, most importantly, you'll have to change psyches. If you want to change psyches, you'll have to make largescale economic and political changes that have nothing to do with asking people to criticize their own sexual impulses or drives.
"Sex positive" is not a posture, it's an anthropological term used to describe cultures that do not describe sexual behaviors outside of monogamous heterosexuality as "sinful". I don't believe in "sin", so of course I'd like to see these sorts of designations, and the related cultural imperative toward heterosexual marriage and monogamy, go out the window. The only 'committment' I have is to refusing to impose some sort of phallogocentric bullshit slash Ceiling Cat decree on anybody... and as a sideline, I think dismantling patriarchy is pretty important, too. By the anthropological definition of term, if I succeed in these goals, my culture will become "sex positive." Would be wonderful, but again, not holding my breath...
Did I say anything about being "tolerant"? No, I did not. There are many things we shouldn't tolerate as a society (including rape, child molestation, sexual assault, sexual harrassment, etc), and this is already up for negotiation, discussion, and legislation. There's plenty to critique in our culture, but there's little to critique about the impulse to have sex per se. The critical element of feminism has always been based on a criticism of patriarchy and of the ways sexuality exists as a function of patriarchy, not of sexuality as such. It's proven that outside of patriarchical cultures, the tendency is toward increased sexual freedom and less sexual hypocrisy/slavery/injustice. This is not a difficult concept, and it's really not up for debate. It's clear where we should move, then, if you dislike rape and the oppression of women and sexual minorities: away from 'sex-negative' patriarchy and toward 'sex-positive' matriarchy.
Basically, moral approaches to anything, but especially to sex, put the cart before the horse. The goal should not be to "critique" sexuality itself as if that will somehow change human behavior. Sex is a psychologically (not an ethically) motivated behavior. If you want to change the behaviors that have negative consequences, you have a lot of work ahead of you; first you'll have to figure out what this means, what these are, and how to do this, but then, most importantly, you'll have to change psyches. If you want to change psyches, you'll have to make largescale economic and political changes that have nothing to do with asking people to criticize their own sexual impulses or drives.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
It's not that being critical isn't good in a very general sort of way in life, it's that there's this tendency for people who are into philawsophy to think that all that matters are abstract ethical systems and the elegant ways some white dude in his country house smoking a pipe arranges concepts in his head. Once the white dude has figured it all out-- voila! He just has to drop his mentalisms onto paper so the rest of us can follow them to the letter and change the world.
This is just silly, and "obsessional", the hallmark of religious thinking, where thoughts make the person (you are what you think--thinking about doing it is just as bad as doing it). In the real world of natural laws that are much bigger than individuals, beliefs don't matter that much, especially not moral ones. In fact, the same anthropologists confirm that what people say they believe about sex and what they actually do are usually very different. (What they perceive that others do sexually is usually way off, too...)
Woyzeck said it best. "A penniless man has no use for morals in this world."
This is just silly, and "obsessional", the hallmark of religious thinking, where thoughts make the person (you are what you think--thinking about doing it is just as bad as doing it). In the real world of natural laws that are much bigger than individuals, beliefs don't matter that much, especially not moral ones. In fact, the same anthropologists confirm that what people say they believe about sex and what they actually do are usually very different. (What they perceive that others do sexually is usually way off, too...)
Woyzeck said it best. "A penniless man has no use for morals in this world."
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Anyway... let's hear em, where are the mindblowing criticisms of sex that we should be living by?
There is no "impulse to have sex per se". It is impossible to isolate any such thing from "our culture", or any other culture. Our sexual drives are always already involved in culture-making, in the production of totem and taboo, cultural expressions of excitement and revulsion. There is never not a place for renegotiation of these forms - they are where we live, sexually, and control of them (such as is exercised by the word-and-image manufactories of our societies) is control of us, at the level of our most basic needs.
I really don't think, when people talk about being "sex positive", they're talking about being in favour of the existence of sex as a biological fact. (I mean, wouldn't that be a bit redundant anyway?). They mean, more particularly, sexual optimism as opposed to sexual pessimism, the latter being a notable feature of some but not all religious traditions (although this is never the whole story, and I do get a bit tired of some people's simplifications in this area). This optimism entails looking benevolently on the variety of things human beings do for kicks, regarding them as in all cases expressions of human goodness (rather than, in all cases, expressions of human evilness). It suspends judgement; evaluation is inimical to it. Which means, effectively, intellectual surrender, and the banishment of ideas.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Yes there is an impulse to have sex per se. There is a drive to have sex in multi-cellular organisms. Sexual reproduction is 'blueprinted' into organic life forms (in two out of three domains) genetically. This drive is very "base-level" and it can attach itself (cathect) to almost any object.
What is culture? Couldn't it be an abstract set of conditions that is itself "mediated" by a number of other factors (biological, social, chemical, physical). You're making the "special pleading" fallacy here, where Kultur is basically like a God in your argument--it goes around doing all sorts of things (very conveniently) that happen to be things we can't explain yet, and is allowed to be a category unto itself that magically doesn't get subjected to the same 'mediating' forces that everything else does in the schema. Culture isn't magic, it's not even clear what you mean by it. Examples would be nice, or data, or something.
When people talk about being "sex positive"- and I've been listening to these debates within feminism and been part of communities that talk this way for a while now - they are talking about turning over the heterosexist phallic bias of our culture in favor of a view of human sexuality that, informed by the sciences rather than bronze age moralism, is more inclusive of a range of behaviors and does not pathologize everything but PV intercourse within marriage.
And if we're going to talk about 'judgment'- I give about as much of a damn about what two consenting adults are doing with each other for pleasure as I do about what they had for dinner, i.e. not a bit of one, unless biohazardous waste is getting released into the ecosphere in the process. How could I possibly? For one, it's none of my business, and I really don't have a surveillance cam in every bedroom in the lower 48. I'd much rather save my time and energy for spreading good information about reliable contraception and STD/STI prevention. Or on fixing much bigger problems, like the kind that result from rape and abuse and economic inequity.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism (to a lesser extent), and even Buddhism.
Not so much the pagan ones, tho.
Edit: I'd recommend some psychology texts if you really think people have sex "for kicks" primarily.
Edit 2: Sex-positive oriented feminists and LGBT activists are the single largest lobby for legal and political and social equality for women and sexual minorities under the law that exists in this country at present. They are, in fact, thee group most critical of the phallogocentric establishment, and the loudest voice of opposition to patriarchy, in the U.S. today. They are on the frontlines of every gay marriage battle and each fight for the rights of sex workers, single mothers, abortion rights, etc. Unsurprisingly, they are also the group most hated and feared by the [predominantly Christian] Right. How exactly do figure they're "inimical" to critical thought and evaluation?
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The leap from "sexual reproduction" as fact-of-nature to a "drive that can attach itself to almost any object" crosses a vast chasm of metaphor. I don't accept that "libido" exists in any literal sense. I think it's of very limited usefulness in explaining patterns of social organisation and the real abstractions that govern them.
Advertising. Zoning laws. Romance novels. Prostitution. Porn. Arguments about prostitution and porn. The choreography of striptease. "Dating". Beauty products. White weddings. Sex manuals. "The bedroom". Rock Hudson. Dan Savage. That walk Marilyn Monroe does in "Some Like It Hot". Jokes about prison rape. Battles for control of the connotations of the word "slut". Viagra. Dave Mustaine complaining about how women don't flash their tits at him at Megadeth concerts any more. Sasha Gray, pretending to pretend. Defenders of burlesque insisting that they're not part of "the sex industry". AmIHotOrNot.com.
Why would such a view be "positive"? I understand "non-pathologising", or "non-kneejerk-negative". Sure, move on from bronze-age moralism. I'm not convinced that "the sciences" have in any meaningful sense informed the Californian hedonism that seems in most cases to be the default substitute though.
Once you've framed the question as one of what "consenting adults do with each other for pleasure", you've ruled the entire domain I'm interested in - larger-scale patterns of incitement, prohibition, perversion and exploitation - out of consideration. "Sex" is now just what people spontaneously do around each other for fun, with the value of "fun" arising from some intrinsic "drive" they possess ab initio. So I agree, you cannot possibly form any meaningful judgements about sex on this basis. That's the hallmark of an efficient ideological framing: it makes everything that it frames seem incontestable and natural. There's nothing to be critical about, no reason to go getting ideas of any kind - and anyone who does is a sinister control freak, who wants to make you share your toothbrush and put surveillance cameras in your bedroom...
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
No it doesn't. It's a scientific fact that you can observe in nearly every species in the animal kingdom.
More bog standard culture theereee. Oh noes, there are pictures of the wimmins on billboards!! The wimmins are having sex on the moving picshurrress!!! Oh noes! Women can't have sex for pleasure, only teh mens do that! Teh mens just take advantage of teh womens, who are weak and frail and asexual, and teh womens just sob and cry about how they really just want to be marriaged or in a relationship before they get laid.
A culture without these attitudes would be sex positive because it wouldn't be predicated on stupid heterosexist bullshit cliches about what women are essentially, what they should want, what men should want. That's not how sexuality works. You're not going to change someone's sexuality by criticising it from afar. It takes a lifetime to build someone's sexuality and you're not going to change it in a couple of paragraphs in New Left Review.
If you reeeallly care about sex workers, or women who work in strip clubs, or whatever, why don't you spend some time and money learning about what motivates the people who work there and their patrons? I assure you that if you want to end this kind of practice, you should not be criticising them from some armchair, but very actively campaigning to end child abuse--which is the ACTUAL cause of sex addiction. This is something the sex-positive feminist movement spends its time on, instead of wasting it get all hot and bothered about what other people do in their spare time.
I never, not once in this thread, used the word "fun", I said PLEASURE, which often has nothing to do with fun, and can mean a whole bunch of vastly different things to different people.
Talking to you about this is like talking to a 15-year-old who has decided that anyone who doesn't put some kind of monastic or legalistic restrictions on their own sexuality is a "hedonist", and that there are only two modes of sexual being--"hedonism" or "asceticism". It's just a massive oversimplification of a whole huge wide range of psychologically motivated behaviors that you just don't seem to understand very well, outside of your preconceived notions of what "proper" sex would be--I'm guessing missionary position after some kind of committment ceremony between differently gendered individuals?
I still don't see any cogent criticisms of sex here. I see a bunch of innuendos about how women shouldn't be exercising their sexuality in public because sexual representations (AS THEY'VE ALWAYS BEEN) are problematic in a culture--as if women aren't entitled to enjoy themselves sexually because patriarchy is in place, and men have already ruined it for them. Since you have no real criticisms I can see, and no positive program for action, it is clear that what you're saying isn't about concern, and it IS about control. The same old phallic song and dance.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
What is the point of talking to people like this? They really believe the Culture Fairy does everything.
It's like talking to a fundie, only possibly even more pointless.
It's like talking to a fundie, only possibly even more pointless.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
You know, the irony of your position, and specifically your offhand dismissals of "hedonistic Californians", is that it's the sex negative conservatives with their "abstinence only education" global initiative/agenda that did more damage to this country and the world at large--caused more teen pregnancy, unnecessary abortions, syphilis outbreaks, AIDS infections--and were ultimately responsible for suborning more hedonistic, selfish sexual behavior than any other political group in U.S. history.
And you're telling me it's the Californians (and others) who campaigned for a sane, scientfically accurate approach to sex education that took REALITY into account who are the bad guys?
Please.
And you're telling me it's the Californians (and others) who campaigned for a sane, scientfically accurate approach to sex education that took REALITY into account who are the bad guys?
Please.
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You only think you're arguing with a fundie, because in fact that's the only argument you know how to have. You assume - and require - an antagonist who thinks that missionary-position sex between married couples is God's Law and everything else is filthy and unclean. The fact that I'm not that antagonist, and that that's not my position, has once again escaped your notice.
I find that sex, in my own life and in the (reasonably varied) lives of others I know, is something about which I have fairly mixed feelings. Elements of it are comic, elements are tragic. There is a certain amount of bitterness and grief in there. Has being a sexual being been good for me? Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. I don't believe that having rules about when it's "OK" to have sex will really help to separate the good from the bad. I don't believe that there's a right way to do it that will make everything wonderful. So I'm really very uninterested in trying to define and enforce rules about what kinds of sex people should be having. (Obviously we must treat as criminal violations of others' freedom to decide whether they want to be having it or not).
Where sex is sold, it's sold as something simplified, de-complicated: something about which one will have only good feelings (all the pleasure, none of the complications!). The God-botherers' image of sexual fulfilment as divinely-approved intimacy with a loving spouse is false because it is just such a simplification, a tidying-up of a complex area of life (of course in their own fashion they acknowledge the complexity as well, but as something that has to be prayed about in the hope that it will go away). But rival images of sexual fulfilment (whether Hugh Hefner's or Candace Bushnell's) are equally false, and they all have their own equivalent to the religions' imaginary Daddy In The Sky who smiles on the bliss of those who obey His commands. Part of what I mean, therefore, by being "sex critical" is dismantling the images that hold us captive.
I find that sex, in my own life and in the (reasonably varied) lives of others I know, is something about which I have fairly mixed feelings. Elements of it are comic, elements are tragic. There is a certain amount of bitterness and grief in there. Has being a sexual being been good for me? Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. I don't believe that having rules about when it's "OK" to have sex will really help to separate the good from the bad. I don't believe that there's a right way to do it that will make everything wonderful. So I'm really very uninterested in trying to define and enforce rules about what kinds of sex people should be having. (Obviously we must treat as criminal violations of others' freedom to decide whether they want to be having it or not).
Where sex is sold, it's sold as something simplified, de-complicated: something about which one will have only good feelings (all the pleasure, none of the complications!). The God-botherers' image of sexual fulfilment as divinely-approved intimacy with a loving spouse is false because it is just such a simplification, a tidying-up of a complex area of life (of course in their own fashion they acknowledge the complexity as well, but as something that has to be prayed about in the hope that it will go away). But rival images of sexual fulfilment (whether Hugh Hefner's or Candace Bushnell's) are equally false, and they all have their own equivalent to the religions' imaginary Daddy In The Sky who smiles on the bliss of those who obey His commands. Part of what I mean, therefore, by being "sex critical" is dismantling the images that hold us captive.