Towards a More Sex-Positive...Left

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Sat Oct 19 11:30:09 PDT 2002


Gordon:
> >As for discussing sexuality, my experience on mailing lists
> >and newsgroups has been that, except for those explicitly
> >devoted to the subject, as with the doctors there is a bit
> >too much giggling for a serious conversation.

Kelley:
> If I can't giggle at and during sex/uality, then I don't wanna be part of
> your revolution!

Aha! Now I understand -- they were trying to do it and write about it at the same time. That might lead to a good bit of giggling, and a large number of typos, as well.


> K, who always laughs heartily after a good multi-O

A hearty laugh is something else, quite different from giggling.

Curiously, there are languages with no word for orgasm, even though they may have a large vocabulary of words denoting sexual behavior. Even English has to metaphorize or adopt from classical Greek (where the word had another meaning).

In our culture, however, the production of large and numerous orgasms is held not only to be a Good Thing, but of extreme importance. Where many orgasms cannot be produced in a single session, as with many males, it is often thought that the session ought to be carefully arranged so that the male orgasm occurs near the end of the session, as if it were the climax of a dramatic performance (and, indeed, we use just that word as one of our metaphors). The male is supposed to hold it back and then let it go at the right moment, as if he were throwing the long pass that wins the game. If, by chance, he does something else, the event may well be considered a failure even if everyone has a good time and feels good afterwards. On the other hand properly-formed sexual performances are often publicly vaunted (usually in description; public exhibition is still generally considered taboo).

In this cultural difference we may be observing the effects of industrialism and capitalism on sexual behavior. If so, one might want to consider the repressive aspects.

-- Gordon



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