People Need To Hear About It
Greta Christina has a good essay up on the Blowfish Blog on sexual perspective and the reasons we aren’t very accepting as a culture of other people’s sexual tastes:
So unless you’re pathologically stubborn, you eventually learn perspective. You figure out that, as much as you may personally dislike broccoli or blue cheese, Wagner or Western Swing, people who eat it/ listen to it are not mentally deranged. (Or the reverse: that as much as you may personally enjoy these delights, people who don’t like them are not pathologically cut off from the one true source of pleasure and meaning.) People still do sometimes make personal judgments about others based on their tastes in food and music; but those judgments don’t usually result in people being sent to the county jail or the loony bin.
But when it comes to sex, most of us don’t get that kind of training. People don’t come back to work on Mondays and chat about how they tried spanking over the weekend, they way they’ll chat about how they tried a new Moroccan restaurant or went to see a German funk band their brother told them about. They don’t go to parties and share a funny story about the new buttplug they just bought, the way they’ll tell a funny story about trying to make a salmon souffle for their in-laws or the weird harpist who opened for Radiohead. (Well, they sometimes do at my parties . . . but you know what I mean.) Most of us haven’t been regaled with myriad and varied stories about exactly what kinds of sex other people like, and why exactly they like it.
It’s better now than it once was, by a long shot. The amount of sexual information that’s easily available today far surpasses anything I had when I was young. But most of us still don’t get exposed to a widely varied range of sexual tastes . . . not the way we get exposed to a barrage of different tastes in music and food, simply as part of everyday life.
And I think that casual barrage is exactly what we need to break through the intensely personal, intensely visceral nature of our sensual experience and give us perspective on it. It’s what we need to teach us that other people really and truly feel differently about sex than we do.
I have to agree with this as a matter of personal anecdote. Although I considered myself a fairly free-thinking and tolerant guy when I started this sex blog more than five years ago, some of the distancing remarks in my old archived posts (like this one, where I was obviously anxious to express my distaste for bukkake) make me wince in embarrassment now, so clear is it to me that I was uncomfortable with the sexual diversity I was reporting on. But the constant barrage of sexual information that I’ve processed in the course of writing this blog has given me much of the perspective Greta is writing about. The most unusual sexual practices now typically strike me as no more problematic than a taste for live grubs or pickled beets — I’d strongly prefer not to have any, thanks, but I’m not disturbed or surprised (ok, still a little surprised, sometimes) that somebody else finds enjoyment there.
Shorter URL for sharing: http://www.erosblog.com/?p=2201
I wish sex and personal sexual anecdotes were as acceptable a conversation topic as the weather or the latest political scandal.
Creative people (such as myself) have tried to shift the conversation towards sexual preferences/practices in general and away from the “OMG what a pervert” discussions. In my world, it’s one way to begin personal sexual disclosure conversations with people.
The pitfalls are trying to have a conversation with someone who I don’t want to fuck, but am interested in their attitudes about sex in general and in specific practices.
Well said, the both of you. I just don’t understand why sex is still so damn taboo in the here and the now. It just seems ridiculous to me. I understand religious beliefs and that, but leaving out religion there is still such a “OMG Its SEX!!!!” mentality the moment it is mentioned.
I still think, though I agree with both of you, that there is a big difference between tolerance, and acceptance. Being inundated with culture, whether it be through music, language, or sexuality is too oft-times leads to tolerance and not true acceptance. We tolerate that music we cannot stand. We tolerate the foreigner that refuses to learn the local languange, we tolerate what “those” people do in the privacy of their own bedroom, but more times than not, we do not accept it. I am not saying “try your peas before you say you don’t like them” but accept people for who they are and what their tastes are whether it be anything, from music, to literature, to movies, to sexuality, to faith, to *anything*.
Johnsonjb, I think the bukkake post is a good example of the distinction you were making. I thought of myself as tolerant then, but I wasn’t even remotely accepting. I was tolerant of the idea that somebody out there might do “that stuff” but still quite negative about it.
I guess I’d argue that repeated exposure to an idea, in a supportive cultural context, builds acceptance as well as tolerance, if perhaps more slowly.
Ah, but I still don’t get why people like broccoli!
Kidding, I actually love broccoli. Brussels sprouts is another matter.
Totally agree with this post. Although I would probably say that I was accepting before I become a reader of ErosBlog, I am now educated about a wider variety of sexual practices, and pretty much accepting of them all (the obvious caveat being the consenting adult human thing). Whatever juices your goose, quite frankly. I’m not blase – if a friend told me they were into figging, for example, I wouldn’t just say “okay – nice weather we’re having”. I’d probably be gaggingly curious to talk to an actual practitioner. But I certainly wouldn’t be “ewww”. Unless it was my brother, in which case it’s just too much information.
My curiosity by the way is not just about sexual practices. I’ve been known to quite closely question people who are willing to talk to me about their religion, about their childhood traumas, about whatever. I’m just curious, is all.
Don’t know where I’m going with this, it’s late and I’ve got a head cold.
Summarise – yes, totally agree. Keep educating us Bacchus (and Aphrodite!), you’re doing your part to spread sexual acceptance.
Interesting article. I wonder if it’s important to distinguish between conversations you have with co-workers in the workplace vs friends/family/acquaintances outside of the workplace?
Sexual harassment in the workplace is taken very seriously by human resources. The whole purpose was to protect people from unwanted harassment so they can earn a living and not have to quit because their boss/co-workers were intolerable.
However I do agree that we need to start having sexy conversations, perhaps we can start having those conversations outside of the workplace where people’s livelihood isn’t at stake (or the perception of). I’m not sure if I really want to have sexy conversations with my co-workers…that’s what the internet is for…
Seriously, which company is not going to fire a man for talking to a female co-worker about how much they love felching? Not to mention, people need to talk less about their personal lives, not more.
“the way they’ll tell a funny story about trying to make a salmon souffle for their in-laws”
I’ve heard that story. It was boring.
In small, intimate groups of friends, people do talk about sex. Anything else and they’re “creating a hostile environment” (men, anyway).