Category Archives: sexuality

I Have Still Another Girlfriend!

Bruce Jenner, Trans-Gender Identity, & Culture-Wars

Bruce Jenner, the former Olympic gold medalist and former husband of Kris Kardashian formally announced last week that he is a woman, explaining, “It is who I am.” Our culture provides great liberty with declaring and acting on the choice to “be who I am,” a choice that is not available in most places and never has been. And this is certainly the case when it comes to gender identity. (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/arts/television/bruce-jenner-transgender-diane-sawyer.html?emc=edit_th_20150426&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=71726985&_r=0)

Culture has one primary intent—to perpetuate itself and the “certainties” that constitute its bedrock. These certainties provide a culture’s children a template through which to view the world and this template tends to always legitimate the values of the particular culture into which one is born. And one of the simple little “certainties” that one quickly learns is gender identity and this originates when the child learns that his/her “plumbing” distinguishes himself/herself from roughly half of the population. Once that distinction is ascertained, the child then begins to learn what it means to be a “boy” or a “girl” in that culture and then has the task of following the mandate to “get with the program.” Yes, early on there are some children who have “contrary” impulses with respect to gender identification but the cultural mandate historically is overwhelming so that they dutifully obey the “law of the father” and subscribe to “proper” gender identity, repressing any impulses that might be “contrary.”

But Mr./Ms Jenner illustrates a huge cultural shift in my country and in the West. Certainties of the past are now often less certain, even those of gender identity. We are learning that the distinction between “male” and “female” is more nebulous than we were taught as children. And this is a frightening experience to those who cannot handle ambiguity and nuance and are accustomed to seeing things in black-and-white terms. And for many of those in my culture they have an immediate contrivance to rely upon—“It’s of the Devil!” It reminds me of the label ancient cartographers applied to regions of the map which had not been explored—“There be the dragons.”

The unknown is frightening. When faced with the unknown it is human tendency to retreat to what is already “known” and to “hunker down” with that little view of the world which one of my readers recently described as a “querencia.” With this “hunkering down” mentality, one clings even more desperately to what one has always believed and often will merely affirm it with more vehemence. This vehement affirmation often even leads to action, even violent action. Change cannot be tolerated to a hyper conservative mind.

Ultimately we must deal with human finitude and this gender aspect of our current “culture wars” provides us another opportunity. We are finite, fragile little critters running around on this little ball of granite, our frantic activities amounting to nothing more than the Shakespearean “tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.” But if we have the courage, and a healthy dollop of meta-cognition as Shakespeare was blessed with, we will be able to counter the nihilistic despair with the affirmation that, “There is a Divinity that doeth shape our ends, rough hew them how we may.” In other words, there is always Hope. But hope is not mindless clinging to the dogma we were brainwashed with as children but to truth that has withstood our heart-felt, Spirit-led, mindfulness-inspired self-scrutiny.

Ellen Bass Poem Re Sexuality

2 Replies

Ellen Bass is the author of “The Courage to Heal” which can best be described as the Bible for therapists who are treating female victims of sexual abuse. I recently discovered that she is also an accomplished poet and that her poetry reflects her sensitivity to boundaries that is so very relevant in providing therapy, especially to clients who have been traumatized. Her poem, “The Morning After” is a beautiful poem about sexual desire and how that after its fury is spent, there are different responses. In this poem, one partner wants to further sate her still burning desire and the other is obsessed with the mundane affairs of “the morning after.”

THE MORNING AFTER
by Ellen Bass

You stand at the counter, pouring boiling water
over the French roast, oily perfume rising in smoke.
And when I enter, you don t look up.
You’re hurrying to pack your lunch, snapping
the lids on little plastic boxes while you call your mother
to tell her you’ll take her to the doctor.
1 can’t see a trace of the little slice of heaven
we slipped into last night—a silk kimono
floating satin ponds and copper koi, stars tailing
to the water. Didn’t we shoulder
our way through the cleft in the rock of the everyday
and tear up the grass in the pasture of pleasure?
If the soul isn’t a separate vessel
we carry from form to form
but more like Aristotle’s breath of life—
the work of the body that keeps it whole—
then last night, darling, our souls were busy.
But this morning it’s like you’re wearing a bad wig,
disguised so I won’t recognize you
or maybe so you won’t know yourself
as that animal burned down
to pure desire. I don’t know
how you do it. 1 want to throw myself
onto the kitchen tile and bare my throat.
1 want to slick back my hair
and tap-dance up the wall. 1 want to do it all
all over again—dive back into that brawl,
that raw and radiant free-for-all.
But you are scribbling a shopping list
because the kids are coming for the weekend
and you’re going to make your special crab-cakes
that have ruined me for all other crab-cakes
forever.

The “Packaging” of Women and Sex

7 Replies

Loving words, and loving to play with them, I’ve always been taken by the turn-of-phrase, “I often turn my objects into women” as opposed to the lamentation of “turning women into objects.” But my focus today is on the objectification of women, an offense of which I am guilty as charged…I admit. For, I was raised in a culture where women were a mere commodity and this is still the case today, though there is much greater awareness of the problem. Fortunately, though still “cursed” with the “male gaze” that objectifies women, I have another dimension in my heart where I can see that women have value other than in gratifying my sexual urges.

Sex, like the rest of life, will never be “done” perfectly. Our sexuality always has a flavor that is determined by the time and place of our birth and upraising and it often takes decades to slough-off the unnecessary and unwholesome dimensions of “sex.” We must always remember that a primary function of sex is “making babies” and to carry out this primary need of the species, the human imagination is left to its own devices, including some that are immature and even “nasty” or brutal.

Sex, like everything else, comes to us as a packaged product. (Yes, even religion and spirituality does!) It takes a while to determine what parts of the package we wish to keep and maintain. And, we must remember, most people on this earth will never have the luxury of distinguishing between the “packaging” of any cultural contrivance and the “thing-in-itself.” I’m fortunate to be living in a culture, in an era where distinctions can be made…if one dares.

I’m in love with Maureen Down, a columnist for the New York Times. Merely look at her picture and you will see why! But it is more than her physical beauty that I enjoy. She is acid-tongued, brilliant, erudite, and adept at cutting to the core on issues in our culture. In today’s NYT, she addresses the aforementioned “packaging” of women through the ages.

Here is the link to Dowd’s column: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/opinion/sunday/dowd-the-tortured-mechanics-of-eroticism.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

And I close with my favorite line from Woody Allen, “Of course sex is dirty…if you do it right!”

Julia Kristeva, Semiotics, and Violence Against Women

5 Replies

I recently referred to one of my favorite writers, Julia Kristeva, and her work in the field of linguistics and semiotics. And I’m glad I did so as one of by blog-o-sphere friends find her intriguing and has done some research on her which she shared with me and has stimulated a renewed curiosity of Kristeva on my part. Semiotics is the field of studying the intricacies of language but not a superficial study as in an ordinary language class. Semiotics, particularly as approached by Kristeva, delves into the heart of the linguistic process, down into the “guts” of the verbal process and uses her background in linguistics, philosophy, religion, and psychology to explore this murky, frightening, even terrifying dimension of the human heart as it was constellating. For the heart is comprised of images, feelings, conflicted drives, and emotions which most of us spend our lives oblivious to, even though this dimension of the heart drives our lives even without our awareness of it. This is the unconsciousness, a domain of “feeling” and these “feelings” control us more than reason and even determine how we use our reason. This is the reason that advertising always aims first at our feelings and this certainly true about political advertising..

Kristeva also focuses much of her work on women and the ravages that patriarchy has done on this “fairer sex”, and continues to do so today even though in our culture the tyranny of patriarchy has been diminished in the past hundred years…somewhat! I’m going to share with you my friend “V’s” recent thoughts on this dimension of Kristevan thought. I warn you, don’t read this if you are not open to having patriarchy subjected to a keen analytical mind. And, men, don’t be frightened! The views of Kristeva and her ilk…and of Ms. “V”…merit our consideration and do not have to threaten our masculinity. These views actually can help us participate in a cultural redefinition of “manhood” which our culture and our world so sorely needs.

Btw, I’ve been reading about Julia Kristeva this morning. Thanks for turning me on to her. I had never read any of her works. Also been watching some of her video interviews today. I’m now watching the video lecture “The Need to Believe and Desire to Know” on YouTube. What really intrigued me was what I found on her Wikipedia page. I quote:
“It has also been suggested (e.g., Creed, 1993) that the degradation of women and women’s bodies in popular culture (and particularly, for example, in slasher films) emerges because of the threat to identity that the mother’s body poses: it is a reminder of time spent in the undifferentiated state of the semiotic, where one has no concept of self or identity. After abjecting the mother, subjects retain an unconscious fascination with the semiotic, desiring to reunite with the mother, while at the same time fearing the loss of identity that accompanies it. Slasher films thus provide a way for audience members to safely reenact the process of abjection by vicariously expelling and destroying the mother figure.”

I also see a similar symbolism in the crucifixion of Christ. Jesus had feminine qualities which is why most females can relate to him. Even images depict him with a feminine quality. During his time, it was a ‘shame’ for men to have long hair. Women had to cover their heads (hair). A mother image was created in Jesus using mother type symbolism, such as bosom, milk, birth, etc. James W. Prescott, Ph.D. said:

“The dualistic philosophy and theistic theology of gender morality, has had and continues to have devastating consequences for woman and her children. As death of the body is necessary in some religions for salvation, re. the Crucifixion, so too is the death of woman (and her body) necessary for the death of sin and wickedness.”

I’ve searched high and low to find the origins of the love/hate relationship with the mother/women, especially among males, and I found it interesting that nature has created a ‘natural’ repulsiveness towards the mother among her male children as they grow older. This occurs in order to keep sons from mating with their mothers.

I have a dear friend from Wales, and a couple of years ago, he shared a video with me. I’ve tried to locate it but have not been successful to date and he’s forgotten the name of the video. It shows this man searching via spiritual and religious avenues to find that ultimate connection he is driven to experience. It shows him taking part in all the religions and spiritual disciplines and yet still continues to search Towards the end, you see stairs, but don’t know what’s at the top until the end. The man starts up the stairs, and the closer he comes to the top the younger he gets. Then you see this gray cord, and he turns into an infant. The cord is an umbilical cord. At the top of the stairs was his mother. Subconsciously, he was longing for that connection he once felt with his mother when he felt security, when he felt intimacy, nurture and love. When he felt one with his mother.

Back to the Wiki page, it states: “Upon entering the Mirror Stage, the child learns to distinguish between self and other, and enters the realm of shared cultural meaning, known as the symbolic. In Desire in Language (1980), Kristeva describes the symbolic as the space in which the development of language allows the child to become a “speaking subject,” and to develop a sense of identity separate from the mother. This process of separation is known as abjection, whereby the child must reject and move away from the mother in order to enter into the world of language, culture, meaning, and the social. This realm of language is called the symbolic and is contrasted with the semiotic in that it is associated with the masculine, the law, and structure.

According to Schippers (2011), where Kristeva departs from Lacan is in her belief that even after entering the symbolic, the subject continues to oscillate between the semiotic and the symbolic. Therefore, rather than arriving at a fixed identity, the subject is permanently ‘in process’. ”

“Kristeva is also known for her adoption of Plato’s idea of the chora, meaning “a nourishing maternal space” (Schippers, 2011). Kristeva’s idea of the chora has been interpreted in several ways: as a reference to the uterus, as a metaphor for the relationship between the mother and child, and as the temporal period preceding the Mirror Stage. In her essay “Motherhood According to Giovanni” from Desire in Language (1980), Kristeva refers to the chora as a “non-expressive totality formed by drives and their stases in a motility that is full of movement as it is regulated.” She goes on to suggest that it is the mother’s body that mediates between the chora and the symbolic realm: the mother has access to culture and meaning, yet also forms a totalizing bond with the child.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Kristeva

Check this new study out. Scientists find the cells of children in the mothers brains, showing the connection between mother and child is deeper than they once thought. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=scientists-discover-childrens-cells-living-in-mothers-brain

Gender, Politics, and Sexuality

2 Replies

One of my dear cyber friends that I’ve met through blogging is a woman whose blog is NeuroResearchProject.com. I will refer to her here as “V.” She works in the field of neuroscience and is obviously a prolific reader and blessed with a “curious mind” and I would add, “heart.” One of the many interests we share is the subject of gender and politics, certainly including the realm of “sexuality.” She and I are in accordance with the notion that power is a basic dimension of this intrinsically human realm. And, I might add, I think that power is a basic human issue and is relevant to every dimension of the human experience. If we draw the breath of life, we exercise power in some fashion, even if perhaps it is merely with our “powerlessness.” But that is a dangerous note to make as it easily “blames” the powerless for their lot and does not immediately address the tyranny of those who exercise “real” power in the “real” world. Here I share with you the observations of “V” re this subject and invite you to check out her excellent blog. Her observations refer to a couple of things I had noted to her in earlier correspondence. I also close with a very fascinating poem by a Palestinian woman about the exercise of power in the sexual act.

You said: “we sure did not like what had preceded our reign.”
That’s an interesting statement. In his Psychology Today article, “Why Men Oppress Women”, Steve Taylor said the oppression of women stems largely from men’s desire for power and control, which we talked about in earlier conversations—the power issue. Power and dominance increases dopamine and can hijack the brains reward center. I think men tend to have a disadvantage because of testosterone and one of its by-products called 3-androstanediol which increases dopamine. In his book “How Power Changes the Brain”, Dr. Ian Robertson states that too much power, thus too much dopamine can lead to gross errors of judgment, egocentricity, and lack of empathy for others.

Back to Taylor’s article, he states that the same need which, throughout history, has driven men to try to conquer and subjugate other groups or nations, and to oppress other classes or groups in their own society, drives them to dominate and oppress women. Since men (not all men) feel the need to gain as much power and control as they can, they steal away power and control from women. Taylor’s comment compliments what Dr. Robert Sapolsky observed during the years he spent with the Savanna baboons in their natural habitat. When lower ranking males were bullied by higher ranking males, they usurped authority by dominating the females in the troop, sometimes abusing them. He found that this social/cultural dynamic was not fixed; that it was learned behavior and could change dramatically (far less aggression and oppression). http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/peace_among_primates

You said: “Misogyny was underway but we were compelled by biology to desire them.”
Taylor goes on to say that even the former isn’t enough to explain the full terrible saga of man’s inhumanity to woman. That many cultures have had a strong antagonism towards women, viewing them as impure and innately sinful creatures who have been sent by the devil to lead men astray and has featured strongly in all three Abrahamic religions. As the Jewish Testament of Reuben states:

“Women are evil, my children…they use wiles and try to ensnare [man] by their charms…They lay plots in their hearts against men: by the way they adorn themselves they first lead their minds astray, and by a look they instil the poison, and then in the act itself they take them captive…So shun fornication, my children and command your wives and daughters not to adorn their heads and faces.”

Taylor says this is linked to the view—encouraged by religions—that instincts and sensual desires are base and sinful. Men associated themselves with the “purity” of the mind, and women with the “corruption” of the body. Since biological processes like sex, menstruation, breast-feeding and even pregnancy were disgusting to men, women themselves disgusted them too.

He further states that in connection with this, men have resented the sexual power that women have over them too. Feeling that sex was sinful, they were bound to feel animosity to the women who produced their sexual desires. In addition, women’s sexual power must have affronted their need for control. This meant that they couldn’t have the complete domination over women—and over their own bodies—that they craved. They might be able to force women to cover their bodies and faces and make them live like slaves, but any woman was capable of arousing powerful and uncontrollable sexual impulses inside them at any moment. He concludes by saying the last 6000 years of man’s inhumanity to woman can partly be seen as a revenge for this.

Source: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/out-the-darkness/201208/why-men-oppress-women

And now the poem that I promised:

This evening
a man will go out
to look for
prey
to satisfy the secrets of his desires.

This evening
a woman will go out
to look for
a man who will make her
mistress of his bed.
This evening
predator and prey will meet
and mix
and perhaps
perhaps
they will exchange roles.

By Maram al-Massri

literary lew

prose/poetry/philosophy/religion