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Faking it words by artemisia posted July 19, 2005 - 1:41am
As some of you know or have gleaned from previous posts of mine, i was the victim of a lot of sexual abuse as child. some of these men set about to mentor me in the ways of being the ideal fuck. This was, for some of them, part of what got them off, the notion of training and molding a young girl to be the kind of fuck every man would want. there were three major lessons to be learned: 1) be willing to do what ever any guy wants you to do the first lesson is pretty self explanatory. the second two will eventually bring me to the questions i want to ask of our members. being eager: the point of this step was to make male sexuality my own sexuality. it wasn't enough to just do what guys wanted. it was supposed to be what i wanted, what i liked, what i needed. their sexuality was supposed to be internalized into my own hip, sexually-empowered, likes-to-fuck identity. advertising: advertising was about the way i dressed, the way i carried myself, the way i spoke. i was supposed to dress provocatively, to smile when i caught guys leering at me, to laugh when men made disgusting sex jokes, to make subtle and not so subtle sexual innuendos. and over the years i got pretty good at it learning these steps. so much so that by the time i was 18 or so, i couldn't even hear my own voice anymore when it came to sex. it took a long time before could find my own sexual truth. and when i did, i found that i am a lesbian. Being raped, abused, and exploited all those many years didnt make me a lesbian. But it may have affected my primal reactions to male sexuality. had i not been abused, i might simply have been indifferent to male sexuality. but i'm not indifferent. i am repulsed. when touched by man hands i feel like something is being taken from me. i find male genitalia gross and revolting. i swear the ugliest thing on this planet is the male scrotum: wrinkled, sweaty, ugly things that make my skin crawl just to look at. i cant stand the way male sex looks, smells, or tastes. it's just revolting! EWWWWWWWWW! on the other hand, i find women's bodies to be beautiful in every way. i enjoy everything about a woman's touch, her smell, the way she feels... so here's the thing i'm trying to get at with all this. intellectually, i can accept the possibilty of empowered hetero female sexuality. but in my gut i just don't get it. do hetero women actually find the male scrotum attractive? do they like the way ejaculate tastes? do they fall asleep at night fantasizing about the size of dicks and which way a particular one might bend? do they enjoy having men ejaculate on their face or on their breasts? and i ask these questions for a reason. i see many teenage girls and young women behaving much the same way as i did at their age. and these days its supposedly ok because we are post-feminist and its an expression of empowered female sexuality. but i can't help but wonder how many of these teenage girls and young women are faking it. how many of them are "hooking up" as the kids say these days, because they think that's what empowered female sexuality is supposed to look like. i hesitate to bring up the almost radioactive name of Andrea Dworkin, who sadly passed away recently, but one of the questions she posed was whether it was even possible to know what empowered heterosexual female sexuality would look like until our patriarchal culture stopped defining it for us. so that's my question. what does empowered heterosexual female sexuality look like to you? do you experience it in your own life? what's it like?  I think I need to ponder this before making a more thoughtful response. But I wanted to say thank you for sharing this. (1)
 This is a hard set of questions to answer, both what you posed, Artemisia and the questions added by Nonpartisian.... it's 6:30 in the morning, I'm hardly what you might call fully awake, so the glimmer of a thought that's lurking is still forming.... but I'll try to eject it anyways, as I might not get a chance later in the day. To a lot of questions - attraction to the male scrotum, the taste of ejaculate.... I'd have to say, "Yes, some do." I think that it IS possible to be sexually empowered and heterosexual. My fantasies started much earlier than I regularly admit to anyone - I must have been 7 or 8, fantasizing about a fabulous intelligent man who left a treasure hunt of sorts for me to find, only to knock my socks off with great sex when I finally found him. I was the hunter, not the prey, in my early fantasies. I "outgrew" the games I used to build around those fantasies shortly before my first fight with depression. Consequentially, I never learned as a teen or young adult, how to fantasize or what interested me about sex. I was 20 when I lost my virginity, to a man I'd been dating for 6 months (and I was naive enough not to realize that we'd really been dating instead of just hanging out every now and then). I still hadn't learned to fantasize. Did not learn until I left him for someone else. The man I left him for, now my ex, was intrigued by bondage games. My fantasies, when I started encouraging them, ran from wanting to be the one to tie him down to enjoying being lightly restrained. These are the fantasies that I keep now. A man's scrotum itself isn't so attractive to me now; that depends a lot on the man and how he smells - they say that scent is key in women's attraction. The taste of ejaculate changes depending on the man and what he eats, so again, that's highly dependent both on the man and the woman involved. I've dated men whose taste I liked enough to blow them and I've dated men who make me gag. I think there's a very thin line between investigating our own sexuality and being empowered to do so, and accepting what patriarchial culture tells us it should be. But I do think that it's possible to be empowered, and that the definition of being empowered sexually and heterosexual may be in understanding the needs and desires of your body, not what's going to turn on a partner. Sometimes they may overlap, and that's pretty normal. The same concept applies to Nonpartiesian's experience: I suspect that it is possible to accept that you have a particular fantasy that appeals to you while simultaneously accepting that it's not a fantasy that you will ever act out. One of my bondage fantasties- where I am a dominatrix in girly-girl silk instead of leather- is something that I accept that way. I know that it's not a fantasy that I will ever act out, for various reasons, but that's ok. I have it written down, and if I ever need it, I know where to look. I don't know how much this helps any, but I have a theory about rape fantasies. I know that enjoying being restrained puts me awfully close to rape fantasies, and that makes me uncomfortable. I don't want rape to be desensitized, don't think it's a good idea. Not about to raid someone else's bedroom to tell them to stop, but I don't think it's a good idea for any of us to desensitize the reality of rape. On the other hand, one of my other fantasies is the dark stranger in a quiet pub, not a particularly safe fantasy. I guess I'll stop rambling and just say that I think it is possible to reconcile two different impulses. It may take some help from a friend or counselor, but I think it's possible. (0)
And I don't have an answer to your question. The older I get the less stomach I have for the posturing and it is EVERYWHERE. Especially in marraige. A French Canadian cousin of mine once said that marraige was only for men and having tried it, breifly, I concur. Even when you are with a feminist male the "ownership" issues swirl around you. And yet, I dream of men. Breif Carnal Contact with no talking. (1)
There is some new research out that shows that during orgasm certain parts of women's brains shut down. Go here
I think this is connected to the restraint fantasy issue...but I'm not sure how. (2)
Here is a thought I had on the way to work. In a Reproductive sense it is necessary for men to ejaculate. Perhaps all these strange societal manifestations of Male dominance are outgrowths from some submissive hardwiring. What do you think? (1)
I believe there certainly is such a thing as fully empowered heterosexual women's sexuality; I have several close friends in their forties who are perfect examples of it. My, those gals do enjoy thier sex..wholeheartedly, and yes, they certainly DO seem to enjoy all "parts" of it, too! On the other hand, I know there are also MANY heterosexual women, (I thought I was one of them once!), who do NOT enjoy sex all that much at all, and I think there are many many reasons for this, some of which you so well described, Artemisia. I salute you in your trip back from abuse to liberation of your true sexuality. NonPartisan, I think it took lots of guts for you to share what you did here. My sense is you are sincere in wanting feedback, although I don't know you at all, and I'd be surprised if you had any conscious intent to exert male privilege or power by doing so in this blog. What I'd dearly love to see is a diary written by you or other males secure enough to be honest in discussing these issues openly in a gender mixed forum. I've long dreamed of a time when itelligent, couragsous men and women would be able to sit down together and discuss these issues honestly and openly together..not just separately. ( also known that while there are many venues open to women to discuss issues of sexuality, there are very very few for men, unforuntately. ONward! scribe (1)
What it looks like is mututal enjoyment. It means that my husband and I, with 33 years of marriage behind us, are experts about each other's bodies and we know how to take care of each other. More importantly, we want to take care of each other. It doesn't mean that the sex is always perfect or wild or imaginative but it does mean that we are always thinking of each other's needs as much as our own. And I think we're able to do this because -- and this may strike you as weird -- the core of our relationship is not that we are husband and wife or even lovers but best friends. (0)
Upon request, Nonpartisan's comment has been deleted. Subordinate comments also were deleted as a result of the linking heirarchy in the software. I apologize if someone's comment was lost as a result. (1)
I had hoped Nonpartisan's comments would open a substantive dialog. It is too bad this conversation did not take place. It seems we can never cross this gulf - the politics of biological attraction. It is what has stalled the Women's Movement for almost forty years. (1)
..and I hope there will be another opportunity to come when there can be such a discussion here. I can also easily understand how/why Nonpartinsans post was upsetting to some, in the context of this particular diary. For those of us who have been sexually abused, trust gets damaged beyond belief. I know it took many many years before I could stop mistrusting ALL males, instinctively, or stop automatically seeing ALL of them as potential predators or at least as people who were potentially of some danger to me or to other women. That's just what bveing sexually abused does to women, (and to men who are abused sexually) Add to this the fact that there are STILL plenty of unsafe men in this world, (yes and women too, but not nearly as many), and it's no wonder its next to impossible for there to be any ease of communication betwen men and women, on these issues. Artemesia, are you doing ok? Others? ONward! scribe (1)
thank you for asking scribe. i'm doing ok. i too think its a shame that nonpartisan's post will not be made into a blog entry that could lead to an important dialog about male sexuality. i really didn't object to his content. only to his choice of posting it as a comment to my diary. even then, i didn't request that it be deleted (though i confess i feel relieved that it has been). at most i planned to delete my own blog entry, replacing it with a single word "deleted" and leaving all of the subsequent comments in place. anyway, thank you for asking how i'm doing. (1)
I actually think it is our financial wealth that has brought the women's movement to a halt...that and Christianity. (1)
In my experience, there were a number of women, especially in the 1970's, who were voluntarily poor. I do not see Christianity as central to feminist thinking. Quite the contrary. (1)
And I think that our high degree of comfort as a country has made us rather lethargic. I don't see Christianity central to feminist thinking AT ALL. I meant it as an outside obstical. As an aside. Does anyone other than me wonder why this guy is on the feminist blog roll? (1)
emphasis added by atheist. (1)
if this is his story, how he self-identifies (with a little humor perhaps) in his spiritual/religious journey, I don't think he deserves critism or to be kicked off. (1)
I guess the question is. Can you be a feminist and a no-choicer? Can you be a feminist and a devout Christian? (1)
I'd be delighted to discuss these positions further; if you visit my blog and click on some of the posts under "Popular Posts" (most of which have to do with feminism) you'll get a sense of where I'm coming from. I'm trying to do the difficult work of reconciling my faith and my politics; trying to honor the God I serve and to do the important work of pro-feminist activism. Those aren't mutually exclusive activities, though at times, I trap myself in my own contradictions. I am grateful that someone at Our Word blogrolled me, and I'd like to stay blogrolled. But I also know that this space is not mine, nor should it be -- and I want to be as respectful of that as possible. This is, by the way, a very powerful post. As a man who struggles to reconcile his compassion and his libido, it's a fine reminder of the devastating consequences of what happens when we don't do a good job of that. Cheers to all Hugo (0)
It's hard to discuss internal conflicts ... though I am anything but conflicted on this issue. Welcome! (1)
the question is if we want dialog with people who have different views from ourselves. i'm game. frankly, i also have doubts about whether anti-choice folk are "true" feminists, but perhaps it's not my place to tell someone who identifies as a feminist that they aren't due to their position on abortion, EC, stem cells, etc. or religion. maybe the distinction should be drawn between different kinds of feminists: liberal vs. conservative? radical vs. traditional? pro vs. no? i figure the more people on our team the better. that said, there's no denying that one of the --if not THEE-- biggest feminist issues is reproductive rights for women. (1)
the delete was done with my approval, because I wanted to respect Artemisia's right not to have her thread hijacked. Schweitzer for President! Sign the petition! (0)
I made it clear in my original post that I was not comfortable posting it as a diary. Schweitzer for President! Sign the petition! (0)
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