Monday, June 13, 2011

Shoot The Slut

Okay, this is actually a link to share.  Here it is:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2011/06/12/21st-century-backlash-about

The crux of the article (since I know it's tough to read linked articles) is that a police officer in NYC stopped a Dutch woman for wearing a short skirt while riding a bicycle under the pretense that her amazing womanly flesh would be distracting and cause car accidents and the like.  (Short in the picture in that article looks like upper mid thigh.)  He let her go with only remonstration upon hearing that she's not from NYC.  Like... you can ticket for wearing a short skirt anyway?

The article does a good job of outlining the usual reasons this is ridiculous and insulting.  Here's an additional thought.  Why is a woman's body so dangerously distracting that it would cause people (read: men sexually interested in women) so much distraction?

I think there's something to be said for biology.  After all, hormones are powerful chemicals.  But I don't think there's anything in androgen and testosterone that makes someone turn their eyes off the road.  Distracting?  Okay sure.  In fact, I would find someone wearing a burka distracting  because it's not something I see every day here.  However, I don't think that potential distraction alone (especially for something you probably see 50 times a day in NYC) can account for such a danger.

I would suggest that sex (or desire of) as an accepted excuse for doing something wrong or incorrectly has more to do with how we think about sex.  How many people (men, women and all the other genders possible) get as much sex as they want?  Not many, I'd say.  And yes, I include women in that based on people I know, although I notice that women hold that desire differently than most men.

What keeps people from having the sex they want?  The way we think about sex is very limiting.  Starting with ideas around sex being bad in circumstances before marriage, or for pleasure, or for money; and going all the way to ideas that if one is straight then sex with someone of similar biology is impossible to enjoy and that natural sexual urges are "abnormal" or "sick".  In other words, much of our thinking about sex is that it's bad.

I realize that this is a very edgy thing to talk about, but what about adults who are turned on by children?  Okay, very clear here: having sex with, having revealing pictures of, or making those pictures of children is against the law.  But, behaving within the limits of the law, someone could still have their fantasies and enjoy those.  The creepitude factor comes into this scenario largely when we see evidence of someone using someone else (a child in this case) for their own purposes and with disregard to the other person's needs and welfare.  The extra creepitude around kids is the fact that they have much less power and much less ability to say what they want and have that respected than an adult has.  Therefore it would be super difficult to ever have a situation where no coercion or power difference was present with a child.

Whatever your turn on is, if you and any partners you have can say that your expression of it feels good and only good/other positive feelings, it's probably okay.  (Again, kids don't legally have a voice in saying sex with them is okay, so that doesn't count.)

Ideas that there are right and wrong ways to have sex often center around actual activities.  Like, "it's wrong to hit someone for sexual/sensual pleasure".  My response to that is "maybe".  It's wrong if the other person didn't consent.  It's wrong if it feels bad to anyone involved.  But if it feels good and the other person has literally said "yes, this is something I want" (and he is not under the influence, and and not feeling coerced, and is in his right mind)... then have at it!  So, I say that "right and wrong" ways to have sex should center around intent and consent rather than the activity involved. 

Ideas that some of what we may want are "bad" keep us from having sex.  Not being able to think outside our "box" about sex also does.  Thinking about sex with all that charged emotion -it's bad in so many cases, I can only have sex in this one way, no one ever wants to have sex with me, my body has to be kept covered- calls up an obsession and a dichotomy when media feeds us sexual images nonstop.  We have these messages that sex and our bodies are bad, but that we should be having sex all the time and we should be sexy.

What would happen if we were able to relax about it all?  What would happen if ideal images of sex and sexiness weren't fed to us by media or other people?  What would happen if sex was something we experienced as part of ourselves and together, openly but without forcefully putting our experiences in the way of others?  What would happen if sex was an expression, a communication, a pleasure, rather than a conquest, a battle, a never ending search?  What would happen if the police officer could say to a woman wearing a short skirt that he feels turned on by the way she looks without an expectation around her reaction and without trying to get anything from her, even attention?  What would happen if the woman felt appreciated by the respect in his voice and not like she was being objectified or asked to take care of any of his needs?

No comments:

Post a Comment