queerbychoice (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
queerbychoice) wrote2003-01-23 12:52 pm
queerbychoice) wrote2003-01-23 12:52 pm
Gayle's Theory on Encouraging Safe Sex
The big reason that the whole effort to make people protect themselves from STDs has not had greater success is that both the condom use advocates and the abstinence-only advocates are leaving the basic cultural fetish for the exchange of sexual body fluids unaltered. Sure, people know in the smart part of their heads that it's unwise to do such things, but the less smart part of their heads still usually considers the idea of at least eventually exchanging body fluids with somebody to be appealing. This does not need to be the case. You want to really stop the spread of STDs? Okay then: just start broadcasting commercials that ridicule all exchange of body fluids as being some utterly disgusting sexual fetish with all the appeal of, say, eating your lover's snot.
In no time at all, unsafe sex would become something people could barely manage to stomach the idea of doing just once a lifetime for the sole purpose of reproduction. In-vitro fertilization clinics would experience a sudden surge in business.
In no time at all, unsafe sex would become something people could barely manage to stomach the idea of doing just once a lifetime for the sole purpose of reproduction. In-vitro fertilization clinics would experience a sudden surge in business.
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What did the snot fetishists ever do to you to deserve such ridicule?! Huh?!
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I'd go further on to say that the body-fluid exchange fetish is based upon a very specific male-supremacist penetration paradigm wherein only "penetrative sex" is considered to be "real" or the "penultimate" of what sex is -- a paradigm which drives the gay community to emphasize anal coitus or dildos out of the mistaken faith in this backwards, phallocentric, nonsense male-supremacist religion.
For this reason, I only grudgingly accept rather than outright like the condom movement and industry. It saves lives and I can't argue with that -- but the paradigm it backs is fundamentally backward and in the long term it's a bandaid solution to an artery wound. I have the same view, more or less, on the "REAL men don't rape" slogans.
So for what it's worth, I support your sentiment -- although I'm not sure I'd like it either if people's sexual fluids were fetishized as disgusting or shameful. Just not something that it's, you know, the *brightest* idea in the world to mix around in certain ways for reasons that should be obvious. Also perhaps because I'm seen as repulsive in that regard, so I guess I'm biased.
But I personally have never liked the idea of intercourse and I still don't. It scares me for many reasons.
~sapphiretrance
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~sapphiretrance
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I believe that the language, but moreso the male-supremacist cultural context (which invades the language), surrounding "penetrative sex" constructs it in this phallocentric way -- so I don't think intercourse is innately "penetrative" or male supremacist as an idea unmodified and indeed "envelopment" or "devourment" are both alternate paradigms that could have been.
While acknowledging this, within the realm of what is, the male supremacist penetration paradigm is predominant -- and while we can choose to reconstruct it as something else, it does not follow that society will cooperate with us. A big question of substance then, I suppose, is: can such a paradigm be subverted while still retaining the fundamental character of intercourse under patriarchy -- as an act central to sex.... For myself, I don't believe it can be rehabilitated in such a way. Not simply because the social constructs surrounding it are "so tough" but really because I think the very act itself was developed *to* be symbolic of male supremacist power -- the question I ask myself is: Well OK, it's central to sex -- *why* is it central to sex? Who made it that way and why did they do it?
If, as I believe, one accepts that patriarchal society centralized intercourse because it carried the mark of male "penetration" ideology and was thus sexual propaganda far too good to pass up, it leads to the question of whether it should be centralized at all under any circumstances -- even an alternate paradigm. If it was "envelopment" instead -- why centralize it then? I can think of a few reasons, but all of them involve the propping up of degenerate systems of dominance hierarchy rather than a mutualist society. ;)
If the reason behind the centralization -- male supremacism -- dies out, then it would seem to me that the reason for centralizing "intercourse" would disappear also. I think that not only the construction of intercourse as penetrative, but the very construction of it as *important* (this being effective propaganda), has always been a male supremacist plot. If intercourse is important, and intercourse is defined as penetration by a phallic object -- then the phallus becomes indispensable, and so do its carriers. But even if it were reversed: if we had a female-supremacist society that said intercourse is defined as devourment by a vaginal object -- the vagina is indispensable and thus its carriers -- this to me does not exactly vindicate intercourse. ;)
The third option, that intercourse is neither penetrative nor enveloping -- or se puede decir, it's *both* but neither is particularly noteworthy or of much import beyond the circumstantial -- creates, I think, a mutual intercourse -- but without a big tyrannical system to prop up with propaganda, what's the use of dancing around intercourse anymore then? It's free and equal then, but ceases to be any more exciting than any other sexual expression that people enjoy.
So even though I think intercourse itself -- I mean, as an idea -- could be completely egalitarian, when people focus on rehabilitating it as if this should be our logical quest -- especially men and/or heterosexuals who claim to do it in the name of feminism -- I get very suspicious because I wonder why this task is still so important when under a truly egalitarian society, while intercourse would surely be free and mutual, it wouldn't be -- as Gayle quite rightly put it -- fetishized, no?
~sapphiretrance
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How about the "some people really like how it feels" possibility? I personally have a g-spot, which is best accessed through penetration by phallic-shaped objects. I also have this strange fetish for pressure on the front of my body, which means that sex is much better for me when my partner is pressed against me. This position is difficult to achieve during oral or manual sex.
Besides, while patriarchal society imbues a sense of dominance/submission into sexual relationships and focuses on male genitalia more than on female genitalia, this is not the actual reason for the fetishization of "penetrative" sex in the heterosexual context. There's also the Western/Christian tendency to abhor pleasure, which caused society to generally look down on all sex that was not reproductive in purpose. Since penetrative sex has always been and remains the best way to cause pregnancy, it is privileged over other forms of sex, which Western society has historically seen as perverse and overly self-indulgent. Therefore penetrative sex was seen as the only valid option in heterosexual relationships. Moreover, the concept of "homosexuality" has shown tendencies to mimic heterosexual relationships- we saw this in the strict "butch/femme" code that existed before Stonewall, the push for gay couples' rights to marry, and integrationist movements in the queer community. It's possible that the focus on penetrative sex even in homosexual relations is merely a part of this drive to mimic heterosexual norms, such as penetrative sex, marriage, child-raising, etc.
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but that's just me.
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He is circumcised. I just don't like the feel of latex. Or polyeurethane. Maybe I would like the lambskin ones, but they don't work well, anyway. Actually, we used c0ndoms exclusively for months, and I liked it fine. But once the testing was done and I got on the pill, we switched to without and... let's just say I didn't know what I was missing.
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But I reiterate, not everyone feels so strongly. It's also a matter of personal preference.
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Though isn't there at least some problem with weird smells? I mean, there's something to be said for not having to shower after s3x all the time.
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(By the way, I have to write all s3x words in code or my work computer won't let me post them, but I can read other people's posts just fine, strangely enough. So please don't feel you have to keep up the dorky W4R3Z on my account.)
As for the smells, well, it's a matter of preference I suppose. I used to be so freaked out by the human body that I would only jack off in the shower, where I could mainatin constant cleanliness. But I have found that it's an acquired taste, so to speak.
Of course, c0ndoms do eliminate the need to evacuate the post-coital goo (if I may be so blunt), which is an annoyance, I confess. Of course, with c0ndoms you have to find a eco-friendly way to dispose of the little gooballons, which is its own annoyance.
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