UNICORN MAGIC (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
zfreelance) wrote2010-07-28 07:24 pm
zfreelance) wrote2010-07-28 07:24 pm
Entry tags:
jump up and down in your blue suede shoes
Cut for length.
Ladies. Let's talk about things that make us squirm. Think for a minute. What is it that makes your stomach twist a little? What makes your cheeks go red? What makes your knee jerk and your mouth say, "No!" without you even telling it to?
Now, keep in mind that this could be anything. Some people would be horrified at the thought of wearing, say, a skirt. Or pants. Some would panic a bit if faced with even the most innocent and mundane body modification. Some women react this way to the thought of going a month without shaving their legs. And some people are still deathly afraid of homosexuals.
There is a whole lot that our culture introduces to us as taboo. Tattoos. Short skirts. Pre-marital sex. Post-marital sex with anyone but your husband. Being too fat. Being too skinny. Wearing too little. Wearing too much.
It feels like we're walking a tight-rope of acceptability, doesn't it?
And then there comes a time when you decide to brush off expectation and formulate your own values. You will drink and have sex and wear a short skirt if you damn well please.
But there is still that lingering little box full of things you don't want to talk about, isn't there? Subjects that you've always considered so inappropriate, you will happily go through life never speaking of them. Take a look in that box. I dare you.
Now, my box is a little fuller that most people's, I think, simply because I've spent a long time trying to close away one of the biggest issues of them all.
Yep. I'm talkin' about sex.
And all too often, it seems, people get hung up on sex. It's a horrible thing. Except that it's not. Everyone is ready to talk about the dire consequences, but no one is willing to talk about it as a good thing. And it is certainly not appropriate to talk about how much of it there is!
My issue is sex. Its motivations, its constraints, and its forbidden omnipotence.
It's sordid. It's unclean. It's something we shouldn't talk about. And it is endlessly imaginative, capable of reinventing itself with every generation. There is so much variety to be had with sex, I can't really ignore it, anymore.
So I'm performing an experiment. I'm going to figure out what is it about sex that has such power over me. I'm going to investigate what makes me so squirmy and embarrassed. I understand sex at a cerebral level, but I want to figure out why it's so paralyzing to even type the word.
I want to understand sex. I don't want to just run out there and 'get some'. I want to comprehend. I want to get to know Sex, the Great and Powerful.
This means that I'm going to have to get a little dirty. I'm going to have to face down the raunchy, the depraved, and the obscene and analyze why it makes me feel the way I do. I'm going to have to teach myself to look past the act, itself, and find the motivations, the reasoning, and the enjoyment that can be found with sex in its many forms. It's going to be difficult, I think. But I think it will be worth it.
Why? Well, why not? It's something that scares me. It's something I don't understand. It's something I'm going to run into, over and over again. So I'm either going to have to come to terms with it, or bury my head in the sand. And I refuse to be the kind of hypocrite who will demand respect for my differences, while refusing to acknowledge the differences in others.
My goal in all of this is to come to the realization that sex isn't the enemy. I want to be able to say things like 'sex' and 'masturbation' and 'penis' and 'vagina' and not cringe. I want to reach a level of comfort with sex that I will never achieve by just ignoring it and hoping that it goes away. I want to be the person who can talk about sex, not as a gag to scandalize my friends, but as a civil conversation.
I also want to be an example to others, bad or otherwise, to show that the straight-laced persona non grata attitude is not the best (or only) way to be.
So, my non-existent readers, I dare you to do the same. Kick the legs out from under your fears. Figure out what all the screaming is about. And maybe, just maybe, come to realize that it wasn't such a big deal, after all.
Ladies. Let's talk about things that make us squirm. Think for a minute. What is it that makes your stomach twist a little? What makes your cheeks go red? What makes your knee jerk and your mouth say, "No!" without you even telling it to?
Now, keep in mind that this could be anything. Some people would be horrified at the thought of wearing, say, a skirt. Or pants. Some would panic a bit if faced with even the most innocent and mundane body modification. Some women react this way to the thought of going a month without shaving their legs. And some people are still deathly afraid of homosexuals.
There is a whole lot that our culture introduces to us as taboo. Tattoos. Short skirts. Pre-marital sex. Post-marital sex with anyone but your husband. Being too fat. Being too skinny. Wearing too little. Wearing too much.
It feels like we're walking a tight-rope of acceptability, doesn't it?
And then there comes a time when you decide to brush off expectation and formulate your own values. You will drink and have sex and wear a short skirt if you damn well please.
But there is still that lingering little box full of things you don't want to talk about, isn't there? Subjects that you've always considered so inappropriate, you will happily go through life never speaking of them. Take a look in that box. I dare you.
Now, my box is a little fuller that most people's, I think, simply because I've spent a long time trying to close away one of the biggest issues of them all.
Yep. I'm talkin' about sex.
And all too often, it seems, people get hung up on sex. It's a horrible thing. Except that it's not. Everyone is ready to talk about the dire consequences, but no one is willing to talk about it as a good thing. And it is certainly not appropriate to talk about how much of it there is!
My issue is sex. Its motivations, its constraints, and its forbidden omnipotence.
It's sordid. It's unclean. It's something we shouldn't talk about. And it is endlessly imaginative, capable of reinventing itself with every generation. There is so much variety to be had with sex, I can't really ignore it, anymore.
So I'm performing an experiment. I'm going to figure out what is it about sex that has such power over me. I'm going to investigate what makes me so squirmy and embarrassed. I understand sex at a cerebral level, but I want to figure out why it's so paralyzing to even type the word.
I want to understand sex. I don't want to just run out there and 'get some'. I want to comprehend. I want to get to know Sex, the Great and Powerful.
This means that I'm going to have to get a little dirty. I'm going to have to face down the raunchy, the depraved, and the obscene and analyze why it makes me feel the way I do. I'm going to have to teach myself to look past the act, itself, and find the motivations, the reasoning, and the enjoyment that can be found with sex in its many forms. It's going to be difficult, I think. But I think it will be worth it.
Why? Well, why not? It's something that scares me. It's something I don't understand. It's something I'm going to run into, over and over again. So I'm either going to have to come to terms with it, or bury my head in the sand. And I refuse to be the kind of hypocrite who will demand respect for my differences, while refusing to acknowledge the differences in others.
My goal in all of this is to come to the realization that sex isn't the enemy. I want to be able to say things like 'sex' and 'masturbation' and 'penis' and 'vagina' and not cringe. I want to reach a level of comfort with sex that I will never achieve by just ignoring it and hoping that it goes away. I want to be the person who can talk about sex, not as a gag to scandalize my friends, but as a civil conversation.
I also want to be an example to others, bad or otherwise, to show that the straight-laced persona non grata attitude is not the best (or only) way to be.
So, my non-existent readers, I dare you to do the same. Kick the legs out from under your fears. Figure out what all the screaming is about. And maybe, just maybe, come to realize that it wasn't such a big deal, after all.