Aesthetically pleasing sex

[lydy]

So, I've been thinking about the Hobby Lobby decision. As happens, women are talking about how important contraception is, and how it affects so much more than whether or not they can have consequence-free sex. The incredibly stupid design of the female reproductive system is vastly more integrated into our daily lives than the male reproductive system is for theirs. It's a genuine inequity in the system, and it is hurtful and infuriating that people tend to try to pretend otherwise. However, I keep on wanting to defend girls having lots and lots of happy, consequence-free sex. While the other is true, there's a tendency to accept that the lots of sex aspect is somehow bad, and I really must disagree.

Which led me to contemplate Viagra. The anti-contraception people are notably silent on the topic, and if queried, might well argue that it's completely different because reasons, and also because it doesn't prevent pregnancy. But let's take a closer look. Who all needs Viagra? While there are exceptions, for the most part it is men over the age of 50 who want to get it up and get it on. And with whom do they want to get it on? Again, while there are exceptions, most people fuck people in their age cohort, so these guys are, in fact, mostly fucking women past menopause. That is to say, by and large, Viagra promotes non-procreative sex. Which, honestly, seems like a fine idea to me.

Another strand. Again, the people who really hate contraception, and who often lie about it, are very frequently people who also really hate gay sex. While they have a general distaste for all gay sex, their special wrath appears to be reserved for male gay sex. The justifications for this distaste tend to center on the non-procreative nature of the act, but if you look at the rhetoric, it seems pretty clear that there is also a very large "ick factor" involved. They think that gay sex is icky, most especially hot man-on-man action.

One more strand. There are many cultures where being gay is defined as being penetrated by a man while not being a woman. So, the pitcher is still considered heterosexual, but the catcher is defined as homosexual. The one is normal, the other abnormal. (In this taxonomy, is it possible for a woman to be gay?)

Which leads me to wonder if, in fact, one of the very real pieces of this weird cultural fight that we are having is that many people think that girl sex is just icky.

Comments

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Well, if she pegs the other person(s) she'd at the least be the top.

I'm hoping

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

The Hobby Lobby causes more women to vote and not vote Republican.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Sex where YOU ARE THE GIRL? Yes, I think lots of people do think that is icky, and the language reflects it.

It's hard to counter, because it does seem to be reflexive. No amount of quoting Tiresias seems to help.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I wonder if that perception plays into the consent issue, at all. If sex-while-female is that gross, of course no one would consent to it, so they must be tricked/drugged/forced into it. And if one is in the habit of tricking/drugging/forcing one's partner, one probably never gets to experience enthusiastic consent. In which case, the perception would be reinforcing, with the girls having serious remorse in the morning being another form of reinforcement.

Huh. I wonder if, this is true, it is the least bit useful as an insight.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I think it also goes with the perception that sex is something women own and men want -- that sex-as-a-girl, as a receptacle, is icky and passive and nobody could respect themselves who had agreed to it.

This is all really screwed up.

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

I really think an underappreciated asymmetry between the sexes is the simple physical fragility of male sexuality. A trivial physical accident can terminate a male's sexuality at any time. A vivid personal example was a hospital visit to a great guy I'd known in high school. One summer day, a basketball took a bad bounce and hit him in the groin; he was hospitalized for removal of a blood clot from his scrotum.
Considering the terrible mysteries to men of menstruation ("I am woman. I can bleed for days and still not die."), childbirth, and relatively unlimited sexual potential (Tiresias was drawn into an argument between Hera and her husband Zeus, on the theme of who has more pleasure in sex: the man, as Hera claimed; or, as Zeus claimed, the woman, as Tiresias had experienced both. Tiresias replied, "Of ten parts a man enjoys one only."), I think a lot of misogyny is rooted in fear. But I haven't done the reference work to see how far that idea has already been followed.