kaigou: this is what I do, darling (Default)
[personal profile] kaigou
I'm more than a little frustrated with what I see as some pretty ass-backwards, bogged-down, body-obsessed bullshit about virginity. Look at how we talk about it, like it's a tangible thing: I want to lose my virginity or I'm going to give so-and-so my virginity. It's embedded in the language but it makes you sound like you missed the clue-bus, because virginity is not something you can wrap up in a box and give someone. Nor is it a favorite hat that you wear until you come to some arbitrary decision that you've grown out of it and it's time to graduate to a new hat. Puhleese.

Granted, part of what stymies a conversation like this is the awareness that you must actually have had sex to comprehend what I mean. Otherwise your input, bluntly, is about as valuable/valid as me trying to hold forth on the values of natural childbirth. Having never been through labor, nor having ever attempted to pass a bowling ball, nor having ever taken my lower lip and pulled it up over my head, I can't speak with any knowledge on natural childbirth other than to quote people who have, and to state my one-step-removed opinion about those other people's experiences. Clearly if the only people I know to quote are people who found natural childbirth utterly excruciating, then this will color my one-step-removed opinion.

But back to virginity. See, this ties into sex throughout our lives, especially for women. When you add up all the cultural crap we get -- from school, classmates, parents, relatives, babysitters, movies, television, Disney, books -- it's amazing we can even function, sometimes. I want to lose my virginity -- what exactly is such a phrase saying? It's as though, hidden in our language, we're saying that our state of vulnerability and uncertainty and essentially ignorance is somehow a blessed thing, that once gone, oh, woe, we can't get it back.

And I don't say it's innocence, because first, all too often we experience some kind of heartbreak long before we "lose" our virginity, and if that don't take away innocence, not much else will. And I do think that if you look back with some kind of rose-colored glasses at the early adolescent years (oi), then yes, it's innocence, but I wouldn't go back there if you paid me damn good money. We were ignorant of life, and ignorant of our ignorance, and frankly, I'd rather be on this side than that side.

This is one of the biggest issues I've ever had with the notion that 'original sin' and 'being cast from Eden' is a bad thing. To be perfectly blunt, while I intellectually get the notion that being thrown out of some paradise is a horrible punishment, I'd much rather have the knowledge of good and evil, and I think the whole thing was a jade's trick, but I won't go into that theological bullshit at this point. Maybe some other time.

But that "the body is a sacred vessel" should have its limits. Putting some kind of sacred fence around our sexuality turns it, and its state of ignorance, and everything else between our hips, into some kind of no-man's-land (or at least until one marries, and then it suddenly becomes one-man's-land, and when the fuck does it start becoming my land, anyway?)

See, sex is not a sacred act. It can't be, or we're begging so many horrendous questions. Drinking wine at communion is a sacred act. Having a glass of Merlot while I chat in the sacristy during a church party...not a sacred act. Yes, it's a glass of wine while in a church, but it's not a sacred act. Drinking red wine (or port, if you're Anglican) is not, in and of itself, sacred, even if done in a church.

Sex is not, in and of itself, sacred, and the minute such a label gets slapped on it, one must ask: what about rape? Is date rape somehow still sacred, even though it was against the woman's (or man's) consent? What about child molestation? Still sex. That sacred, too?

[The current attempt to block any use or even PR of a vaccine that could potentially save thousands of lives, on the grounds that such a vaccine might actually, horrors, convince more young women to run out and have sex -- this logic boggles my mind. People are willing to let young women die because they're convinced that anything that makes sex safer will somehow make it more likely. Look, it's going to happen. And the longer we wrap up these notions of love and giving-away-intangibles and sacredness and whatnot, the easier it is to retain this ignorance that sex is somehow not just an exchange, but one that having given it, can't come back, and that using our own bodies is somehow demeaning... I'd think dying of a disease that could've been easily prevented with a simple vaccination would be demeaning, but whatever.]

I think part of what makes me most annoyed about the way some people talk about sex -- and curiously, it's both in people who've never had it, and some people who've had a fair amount -- is that it comes across like this act between two people means you've cut out a piece of yourself and handed it over. And it seems most often to be women talking like this; when was the last time you heard a guy blathering on worriedly about giving his virginity away and whether he'd be respected in the morning? (Who was it on my flist who commented that most teenage guys would be more than happy to ditch their virginity to the highest bidder and get on with the fun of adulthood? Whomever it was had a witty turn of phrase I can't recall now, damn it.) And I certainly can name on one hand the number of men I've ever heard say anything remotely like a fear/anxiety about having exchanged something intangible with another person just on the basis of having had sex.

I'm not saying -- don't get me wrong -- that nameless, faceless sex is a door/eye-opener for anyone. That's about as far from sacred as one can get, right up there with non-consensual sex. Not to mention damn risky behavior, in this age of AIDS and various other diseases. But I do think the obsession with seeing sex itself as the sacred thing -- yes, the actual act of someone putting his dick in your cunt, damn it -- just strikes me as mistaking the goddamned cake for the entire frickin' birthday party. A cake does NOT make a birthday, people. A wedding does NOT make a marriage. Sex does NOT make a connection. It's just sex.

Perhaps it's easier to be flippant about this (on some level) because I've had sex. And perhaps it's because I've had friends who were virgins when they married, and while they were overjoyed to be having sex, there's still, I've noted with some sadness, a bit of fear. I mean, when someone's only had sex nine times, it's probably going to make them damned uncomfortable when anyone around them gets into woman-talk-mode and comments with some bliss that her new lover had her zoned out after twenty-seven orgasms in the space of a half-hour.

It doesn't do much good to point out that being able to do that is a skill, a physical skill, that requires effort and practice. Lots of practice. (Woe, the practice, so many hours, let us all bemoan the hours of Teh Gud Sexx it took to be able to have so many orgasms in one hour that we end up unable to even lift the cigarette to our lips, but must have our lover lift it for us. Woe is us.) But that fear is in there, because the last thing you want, when you're convinced that Sex Is Sacred, is to find out that your sacredness just ain't quite as much toe-curling fun as the next person's.

I'm not saying either that everyone should run out and have sex with every person they meet, even if it's not faceless. But I think it's the perceptions our society tries to inculturate in its women: that sex isn't really ours, and we're just hosting it for a little while until we give away or somehow, like an absent-minded professor, "lose" it. And then it's some man's, and that every man we "give" ourselves to now has a piece of us, as if he can hold it hostage. If this were so, then it'd be absolutely true that the more people you have sex with, the more you're reducing yourself, making yourself into a little heap of nothing because you gave all the good stuff away.

Fortunately, this is bullshit. I for one disagree strongly that my sexuality -- and what resides between my legs -- is the extent of "my good stuff." You can take that lie and shove it, because what's between my legs is mine. I might let you see it if you please me, but when I'm done letting you see it, I can take it back and you don't get to see it again if I say so. It's not something sacred that we shared that means you now have claim on me. I didn't give you any of my good stuff, nor of my better stuff -- at most, I let you take it out and play with it a little while -- and I mean that figuratively and literally.

But you don't have it, you don't get to keep it, it was never yours, and it never will be, and it's always mine. Presenting sex as somehow inherently sacred, as limited, and as the 'good stuff' a woman has to offer in a relationship, turns it all into some kind of commodity where you only get so many shots and then you're a Horrid Slut. And you're even more a Horrid Slut if you deign to say, look, I had sex with him but that doesn't mean I consented to having sex with him again, it doesn't mean he owns a piece of my soul, and furthermore, it doesn't mean he's somehow sharing something sacred with me -- and you're a Horrid Slut even faster if you're honest and say that it didn't help that the guy sucked in bed.

Something that really made an impact on me, in an oh-that's-sad way, was Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Yo. Anyone remember the point where Ferris is talking about his friend Cameron, near the end of the movie? He says something along the lines that Cameron's waiting for the perfect girl, saving it all for one person, and some girl is going to come along and bone him and he's going to think This Is It and she's going to take him for all he's worth.

It was a nice twist, because you know what? 99% of the time, that Cameron is a girl, and I went to high school with that girl, and college, and I've worked with her, and they're all nice girls, but they've been taught that you get to "give" your virginity once, and it's something speshul that's Your Big Contribution, and that you should save it all up, and not explore nor consider nor educate yourself, because eventually it'll be some man's. And all those girls needed was the right man to come along and take them for all they're worth.

Not that this is much of an issue, anyway, because I've found the majority of women who honestly think like that...aren't worth much. They could be. But they don't let themselves be. They're too busy locking away their sexuality in some little gift-wrapped box, because oh-my-god, what if you go shopping in Georgetown and you set down your packages and pick them up again but find you lost your virginity? You just look the other way, and it trots off on its own!

I say, good riddance. Did you really want to live in ignorance all your life? Why do we raise our children to continue this indoctrination, that as women our sex is only good for limited use. It's there, in our language. "When it comes time you've decided to lose your virginity..." Why not, "when you decide to grow up and explore your body to its fullest" or "when you decide to become a full adult"...?

We look at our state of ignorance, as women, and this is seen as desirable; the women who have left that behind -- and moreso, those without regret of such -- are Horrid Sluts. Or, perhaps, just slightly jaded. Or they're women who have found That One Person with whom they'll have sex, as though their sexuality is something turned off and on, and it's turned on now they're with someone and the rest of the time it's off-limits, don't touch, that's my sexuality and my One Person keeps it safe.

Uh, yeah. "Giving away" your sexuality to one person is a huge tie-down to that one person (if you leave, does he get to keep your sexuality along with your virginity and the new sofa?); it's a pretty nice job for that one person, if he can get it. But I don't see the average man traipsing about with long faces parroting the idea that because they had sex now they're tied to that one woman for the rest of their lives, because they don't have anything to offer anyone else. It's been given away! Nope. They're far more likely to bitch about how boring it is to fuck their wives. To be blunt.

Want to know why? Because if you're convinced that your sexuality exists only to be given away, it's probably a good chance that you're not going to put a lot of effort into asserting what you want, because it's not yours to control now. Oh, people do explore, yes, and my friends who married as virgins are quite randy, catching up for lost time. But those friends, with few exceptions, also took a bit to come to grips with the notion that sometimes it's okay to say, "look, I want to get off. Get me off, damn it." Or that if you're fucking your spouse and you're not getting off, that you can do it yourself. While he's there! In the room!

It's not his body, it's yours, and if you want something, you don't have to ask permission -- but if your sexuality is something you've given away, shared in some kind of a twisted this-is-sacred belief, then you don't make demands, you don't take back, you certainly don't take over the reins and do it yourself. You wouldn't take back an offering to a god, would you? Well, I think the attitude is sometimes the same when it comes to seeing Sex As Sacred Commodity. Bought and sold on the altar of our frickin' culture.

It's the same old thing. Guys can love 'em and leave 'em; a woman does that, and she's a Horrid Slut. I'm not saying that a person -- of either gender -- should love & leave, nor am I saying that true equality comes when a woman can do it just as much as a man. That's not necessarily equality, so much as lip service because a woman can, sometimes, get up and leave. Not always, but sometimes. True equality comes when women get up and leave and the rest of us just shrug and go, "well, girls will be girls," just like we've said for centuries, "boys will be boys." Or maybe better, "adults will be adults."

That is, equality isn't just in what we do; it's also in whether the rest of society condemns us. When neither gender is condemned, then we'll have sexual equality.

And sometimes having a sexuality means you let someone take out your pretty things, play with them a little while, and then you take them back, you put them back between your legs, and you say, this was a mistake and I'm moving along now. You don't own me or got any kind of a hold on me, because what we had is a shared experience, and nothing more, nothing less. Not sacred except as we make it so, and it's certainly not only my sexuality that got shared, but both of us, and you kept yours and I've got mine, don't call me, I won't call you.

Date: 19 Apr 2010 07:39 pm (UTC)
beautiful_dreams_25: yellow flower (Default)
From: [personal profile] beautiful_dreams_25
Wordage! :D Now, if only the society will start seeing that it's messed up to think that what's between my legs belongs to someone else and not me, even if it was taken by force...=_=

But, I really have to praise ya for this! *__* It's so right to say that sexuality belongs to ourselves. Having grown up in an environment where I was told that my body will belong to someone else, I now feel relieved that such isn't true. ^^;

whois

kaigou: this is what I do, darling (Default)
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to remember

"When you make the finding yourself— even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light— you'll never forget it." —Carl Sagan

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