And, for the record:
Things I fantasized about without any input from men, porn, or other sources of sexual ideas (save for the concept of dildos, which came up in sex ed - from female teachers, always):
-lesbian sex with a dildo/strapon
-spanking
-double penentration, both by (a) one woman with two toys and (b) two men
-threesomes
-moresomes
-roleplaying
-fire and ice used in sexual ways
-bondage
-any of the above in varying combinations
Hetsex, including hetsex in the two most common positions (man on top, woman on top) and oral sex/manual (digital?) sex [fingering, etc.] aren't on the list because they came up in sex ed. So did masturbation.
And those were all private fantasies that I didn't discuss with anyone until at least a year after having them.
So... was I just a really inventive young teen, or did I somehow osmose ideas about these "horribly degrading things" from the world around me? And from where? I was a pretty sheltered kid. Hung out with guys, but I was the first one to awaken to sexual feelings, as far as I know. Certainly I was the one to initiate discussions about sex and sexuality, periods, STDs, etc. Which we had, often. Usually at my prompting. And it was never weird, after the initial shyness. I didn't watch or seek out porn or erotic images. (Stories, but those came after all the above-mentioned fantasies.)
So, where did they come from? I'd like to think that I went "oh, there are THESE parts on people... and THESE are the toys that are out there. I know that I like the feelings when I touch myself HERE and HERE... if I put THOSE parts by/in THESE spots, I'll feel pleasure. And I'm feeling pleasure just thinking about it." Not that explicitly, but you know what I mean.
I mean, was I just some mini-revolutionary who just had no ideas about the "societal pressures" being put on me to not talk about/think about these things? Or a mini-patriarchy-fucker who just had no ideas about the "societal pressures" being put on me TO talk about/think about these things?
I dunno.
Antiprincess posed an intriguing question...
I guess that’s the real meat of the discussion – does being wildly sexually adventurous, pushing sexual boundaries in many different directions, being as they say “polymorphously perverse”, transgress - or uphold - or transcend power?The full post is
here.
Here's my answer:
You know, I always find the porn arguments interesting, because in my partnership, I have always been the one watching the porn. The BF? He dislikes it (with varying degrees of intensity, depending on the quality of the porn). We both tend to find what we see (since I don't go out looking for it actively) pretty run-of-the-mill.
So I always find the perspective that he would force me to do things because of porn very... weird. First of all, while the positions sometimes look cool, we both agree that there's just no way it would be physically possible for us; secondly, the ones that are, we had tried long before I started watching porn.
From that perspective, I think that breaking out of the idea that sex is run-of-the-mill is important.
I've never watched pornography with DP, or read erotica containing it, but I was - quite independently - fantasizing about it no more than a year after I started masturbating. Not by men, but by a woman with toys. Men came into it later.
I think that maybe there is something to the idea that people are and can be influenced by ideas-not-their-own, and that some people will absorb certain cultural messages with those ideas. ("Hot sluts beg for cum on their face!" turns into "Men will like me if I let them cum on my face," etc.)
BUT, I think the solution to that is to teach self-esteem and sexual education early in life, both to boys and girls. If we teach girls how to distinguish the things they want from the things they think they should want, that goes far further than destroying the porn industry ever would. Same goes for boys. If we teach frank discussion, without all the silly giggly embarrassed-ness that tends to surround sex, I think the problem would shrink dramatically.
So I think that pushing sexual boundaries is awesome, in general. I think there are people that can't do it, out of fear or out of shame, and relieving them of that fear and shame should be our goal.
And I don't think it exactly meshes onto the idea of "power" that is usually meant in these conversations. A mentor has "power" over her protegée, but only in that experience is generally seen as a more powerful position than naivete. But she isn't wielding her power against the protegée; she's... donating it, sharing it.
And if the protegée takes that power and uses it to push and test her boundaries until she finds her comfort zone, then, well, success is achieved, and both the mentor and her protegée should, ideally, be joyful about it.
And I think that we're all both roles to everyone, or should be. That's why sharing experiences is important. To learn about others as students, and teach others about ourselves as mentors.
To me, anyway.
