..But I have a confession to make. I haven’t had a single wank so far this month. Between work and study and feeling vaguely down and then getting my period (which at the moment comes with the fun side effect of feeling waaaay too lethargic and/or pained to rub one out), I haven’t felt the desire to celebrate this month in the most obvious way one who enjoys the act of masturbation would celebrate it.. but I have reflected on the reasons we masturbate:
Obviously, feeling horny is a big one. Sometimes you’ll have an itch that needs scratching and no one around to aid in scratching it, so you gotta just scratch it yourself. Sometimes someone at a club or party gets us so intensely revved up that we need to take care of business, promptly.
I know people who swear by masturbation as relief from the pain of headache and menstrual cramping; indeed, the science is backing this up with recent studies demonstrating a fair whack of women finding moderate to complete relief from migraines post-orgasm. Orgasm can help relax the uterine muscles and reduce menstrual cramping and the rush of endorphins and release of dopamine that orgasm produces can relieve tension and improve one’s mood. If you are anything like me, it can also provide relief from insomnia and stress, and really, when you are lying in bed unable to sleep, what else are you going to do?
Orgasms Make People Feel Good (image taken from But I’m a Cheerleader)
Aside from the potential health benefits of masturbation, it is hands-down (pun totally intended) the best way to get to know yourself sexually. When you really let go and go to town on yourself, you can learn where and how you want to be touched; where and how you definitely don’t want to be touched; what feels good at what stage of the proceedings (ie. some people might not want their breasts or clitoris played with until they are sufficiently aroused) and you can learn to control your orgasm and ejaculation. Sometimes it is a performance for another person and sometimes it is an activity we share with another person. For those of us who are hooking up with someone and finding that we reach our end goal a little faster than we like, a pre-date wank can take the pressure off and help prolong your “staying power” (this goes for cunt-owners as well; contrary to popular belief it isn’t just those with cocks who experience this issue).
Viola in Wanting You (BrightDesire.com)
As always, I wish our sexual education curriculum was pleasure-inclusive and promoted masturbation as a healthy response to sexual urges. You aren’t going to get an STI from wanking and it definitely won’t get you pregnant, and if you can’t get in there and find your g-spot, how the hell are you gonna direct someone else to it?
Whatever your reasons for masturbating, I hope you feel positive about doing it, because there is too much shame and stigma around self-loving, and that is one of the reasons why we have International Masturbation Month after all these years.. In a sex-negative world, promoting the idea that touching yourself can be a positive and empowering experience is still somewhat taboo. We make male masturbation the butt of jokes in pop culture and we all too often just turn a blind eye to female masturbation. Next post, we’ll chat about *how* we masturbate, and I’ll list my top ten masturbation toys for you (and I’ll be even be giving one of them away, ooer!!). In the meantime, feel free to share some of your reasons for wanking in the comments section below, or hit me up on Twitter or Facebook!
Happy International Masturbation Month to all you wankers (and non-wankers!) out there!
Alrighty, it is time to talk about the not-so-new-now new toy from Fun Factory (renowned German makers of brightly coloured toys that are good for fucking with, even if some of them look like the sort of early learning toy you might give to a small child), the Stronic Eins.
For many years now, insertable vaginal toys have tended to vibrate and/or rotate. Occasionally there might be some ‘pearls’ in the shaft of the toy for extra texture fun, but that has been it. Fun Factory have come alone and blown this shit out of the water with this new toy, which is not a vibrator, but a pulsator. Yeah, you heard. A pulsator. Because it pulses. Another way to phrase this would be to say that it thrusts.
If you are into penetration, then you are probably a little beside yourself with this concept, if you don’t already own one of these bad boys. And you should be a little beside yourself, because the Stronic Eins is good. Real good. However, it doesn’t function in the same way as a fucking machine (or human), so don’t expect this toy to be able to go as hard as a real-life partner would, slamming into you with all that good weight and force. No, this is just a little pulsator, and it isn’t going to feel like you are actually fucking, so let’s go into this experience with realistic expectations, shall we?
Stronic Eins (in pink)
The Stronic Eins comes in your choice of pink or dark violet, is about 24cm in length and 4.5-3.5cm in width, depending on which section you measure. It is completely waterproof and rechargeable with the Fun Factory Click ‘N’ Charge magnetic charger. The charger is sold separately, but works with all the rechargeable toys that Fun Factory puts out. So instead of needing to own multiple chargers, you just need the one. I know a lot of people whine about having to buy the charger separately, but really, just shut up. They are cheap; you only need one; just buy it already and then join me in feeling smug about doing your part for the environment by not getting a useless extra charger every time you buy another Fun Factory toy that will inevitably just sit in a drawer until you move house and lose it or throw it out or whatever.
You’ll get about three hours of pulsing before it needs to be charged again, but charging doesn’t take too long; roughly as long as it would take to charge up a smart phone. If you need to take the Stronic Eins with you when travelling, Fun Factory have taken a leaf from the Lelo tree of goodness and added in a lock function. This means you don’t risk your luggage trying to jerk its way down the check in line at the airport, and no embarrassing bomb squad encounters for you. Unlike Lelo’s clever locking function (hold down two buttons for a count of three to lock/unlock), Fun Factory just makes the on/off button more difficult to accidentally knock on; it needs to be depressed for a second before it will work. I’ve played around with mine, trying to accidentally turn it on, and haven’t yet managed to, but it still isn’t going to be as super-secure as Lelo toys are. Having said that, if this is a massive concern for you, just charge the toy down before you pack it in the suitcase. A toy with no charge can not accidentally be turned on, after all.
The medical-grade silicone is that lovely matte texture that Fun Factory are known for, but seems to want to make love to dust and cat fur more than my other Fun Factory toys. You’ll want to store it in a lint-free storage bag or box so that it doesn’t need de-linting before use. You’ll also want to be liberal with the water-based lubricant, because the matte texture can create a bit of drag and friction when in use.
Speaking of use, let’s get to the good stuff: how this toy performs. Inside the toy is a clever little motor that allows the toy to thrust forward and back, like this:
Stronic Eins pulsating
There are about 10 different pulsation patterns, some of which are pretty hot date and some of which feel like you are getting it on with a seizure victim, but there is enough variety that you will no doubt find something that works for you.
If the Stronic Eins is held on to tightly, it will not pulsate as hard as it can, so what you’ll need to learn how to do is hold it lightly, or just let your pelvic floor do the work for you and go hands free. You may also find that certain positions allow this toy to perform the way it wants to better than others. I’ve found it easier to use whilst lying down than standing or sitting. Standing up (the way you might use a vibrator in the shower) is particularly awkward and with the loose grip I was a little too concerned about dropping the damn thing on the tiles; at $200+ a pop, you don’t want to go dropping it.
Once you’ve found a comfortable position you can really get some good g-spot stimulation with this toy. The slight curve at the head means it is already heading in the right direction, and the repeat thrusts into the g-spot, combined if you like with another form of clitoral stimulation, can make for some very satisfying wanking. Yeah, it has a little nub for clit stimulation, but I’m the kind of girl who wants pressure, and I can’t manoeuvre this toy (or most others) in a way that gives me dual stimulation to my liking. Of course, your mileage with the clit nub may vary.
If you are having a partner use this toy on you, make sure you get them to keep a light grip, otherwise they may as well be using a vibrator or dildo on you. And really, were I with a partner, I would probably sooner hand them a vibrator or dildo to fuck me with than this toy. The Stronic Eins is best reserved for solo use when you don’t have someone else to do the thrusting for you and you want to concentrate on how awesome things are feeling and not the annoyance that is having to get a hand cramp from self-thrusting action. And what better way to celebrate Masturbation Month than with a hands-free wank?
All in all, I am in love with my Stronic Eins and have forced it into the hands of most visitors to my house, exclaiming ‘FEEL THIS! LOOK AT THIS! IT’S A REVELATION GOD DAMN IT!’. At $200+ a pop, it is definitely an investment piece, so make sure you hold on to your receipt and buy it from a trustworthy retailer with a good returns policy, just in case. Then start saving for the Stronic Zwei and Stronic Drei!
Please note: this is not a sponsored review and I have not been compensated in any way to provide my honest opinion. If however you would like to send me your product in exchange for my honest review, please contact me at harlotoverdrive@gmail.com
Welcome to e[lust]- The only place where the smartest and hottest sex bloggers are featured under one roof every month. Whether you’re looking for sex journalism, erotic writing, relationship advice or kinky discussions it’ll be here at e[lust]. Want to be included in e[lust] #46? Start with the newly updated rules, come back May 1st to submit something and subscribe to the RSS feed for updates!
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Right now, the 2013 Melbourne International Comedy Festival is happening. I’m usually pretty bad at seeing all the shows I want to see at the festival, but tonight I successfully dragged my butt along to Tuxedo Cat where Lisa-Skye was performing Songs My Parents Taught Me to a small but sold out room.
I’m super pleased I managed to get out and see this show because Lisa-Skye is utterly charming to watch. Witty, engaging and animated, she tells the stories of Bunny and Mad Dog in 1970s Melbourne, and muses on drugs, sex and counterculture as it was back then, and how it is today (hint: not all that different, really).
Oh, and there are slides and dancing, a metronome used to assist in imparting wisdom, the Ambien Walrus.. and glitter. Lots of fucking glitter.
If in Melbourne, you should make the time to see Songs My Parents Taught Me before the season ends. You’ll definitely get something out of it; laughs, a trip down memory lane or perhaps a desire to be fingerbanged in the loos after the show. Probably it will be all of those things.
CONTENT WARNING: sexual assault, rape, victim blaming (some links include images and screen caps)
Whenever there is a report on rape perpetrated by someone unknown to the victim (the least common type of rape), the hysteria and fear mongering ramps up a notch in the media (both mainstream and social), and we can usually expect a quote from a member of the police force that tells women how to prevent becoming a victim of a similar crime. Whilst some of the advice may be sound (yes, walking with a group can prevent you from being the woman with the sheer bad luck that night), a lot of it is not. The now infamous comment from the Toronto-based police officer that prompted a global movement in SlutWalk comes to mind. Telling women not to ‘dress like sluts to avoid being victimised’ is not sound advice, and however well-intentioned it may have been, it perpetuates rape myths (that what you are wearing matters to a rapist) and shames women who wear mini skirts (or stilettos or red lipstick or whatever the made up slut uniform in your mind looks like). It also runs the risk of making women too scared to report rape or sexual assault because they didn’t follow these ‘rules’ to prevent being raped or assaulted.
Over the past few months, I had the displeasure of seeing several people in my social media networks sharing a chain-letteresque list of ‘rape prevention tips’, purportedly from a martial arts instructor who had chatted with a bunch of rapists, or some nonsense. When women have pointed out that these tips rely on misguided information that is at best pointless, and at worst may in fact place you in greater danger, they are routinely shouted down. They are told that even if that is the case, something is better than nothing; that there is good advice in there to heed; that women need to know what to do when they are confronted by a rapist! Look, there is usually a scrap or two of reasonable advice in these sorts of lists, and generally being aware of your surroundings is a good thing, but it doesn’t discount the really bizarre advice about not wearing your hair in a ponytail (gives rapists something to hold on to, apparently) and always fighting them off loudly and aggressively (rapists all get bored after a couple of minutes of this, apparently).
This sort of advice is shit. At some point, that it is well-intentioned stops mattering, because it is still shitty advice being shared around and taken by many as gospel. When we take this advice as gospel, it is only a very small step to pointing the finger at women who don’t follow it; telling them they are asking for it and chastising them with rhetorical questions like ‘what did you expect’ if they have the misfortune of being raped or sexually assaulted. It shames women and polices their behaviour, dress and sexuality in a way that men don’t tend to experience. Because men don’t experience it, it makes it particularly galling to hear this shitty advice coming from men, because with few exceptions, what we actually get is paternalistic concern for the women folk and contempt for those who don’t follow the rules.
Yet, so often it is men in positions of power who get quoted in the media, telling women how to prevent being raped or assaulted. Just recently, Superintendent Mark Walton of the NSW Police Force was quoted in a slightly hysterical tabloid piece from The Daily Telegraph, talking about how he is kept up at night, thinking about how vulnerable drunk women are to sexual assault. He also claims that drunk women are more likely to be preyed on; he states that this is a fact. The Superintendent might want to recheck these so-called ‘facts’, though, after Jane Gilmore did a great job uncovering the truth of the matter over at The King’s Tribune last week. Turns out, these facts are bunk and you are statistically just as likely to be sexually assaulted whilst sober as you are whilst drunk.
Telling women they can prevent rape and assault by refraining from getting drunk is basically telling women that if they get drunk and don’t prevent rape or assault happening to them, it was their own fault for not staying sober. Perhaps that isn’t how you mean it to come across, but that is often how it does. So just to reiterate, when you are drunk and female, being raped is never your fault. It is the fault of the person who raped you. Take, for example, the recent case of Jane Doe, the sixteen year old victim at the centre of the Steubenville rape trial, who at the time of the assault was drunk to the point of passing out. When two popular footballers then dragged her from party to party, raping and degrading her, that was not her fault. It was the fault of those two footballers who felt entitled to her person, who no doubt believed that the absence of a ‘no’ was akin to a ‘yes’, and probably didn’t care whether she would have wanted to take part in any of those activities anyway.
We fail to teach young people about consent and fail to teach young men that women are their equals and need to be treated as humans, not objects. We make problematic exceptions for bad behaviour from boys and men involved in sports, and then we expect that women will carry this on their shoulders and adjust their behaviour because ‘that’s just the world we live in’. Then, unless they are the picture of chastity and virtue, we tear them down when they get assaulted. Facebook and Twitter have provided the platform for some bone-chilling victim-blaming from people young and old, who hold Jane Doe complicit in her assault because she was a drunk sixteen year old. One of the saddest things is, this wasn’t the first time and it probably won’t be the last.
When Jill Meagher was raped and murdered during that short walk home along Sydney Road last year (a path I travelled, almost identically,on many occasions whilst living in Brunswick), I lost track of the number of times that people chastised her for walking home alone. “She should have had a male friend escort her home,” they said. “She should have gotten a cab,” they said. But where is the concern for the male who might be faced with a random attack himself (because after all, men are vulnerable to random street violence too) and where is the acknowledgement that being in a taxi does not guarantee your safety (because it may just be the driver who assaults you)?
Taken from ‘Advocating risk management is not “victim blaming”. Which part of this is risky, I wonder?
Sarrah Le Marquand, a day after Gilmore’s piece was published, added an article titled ‘Advocating Risk Management is not “victim blaming”‘ to the conversation. She argues that a distinction needs to be made between risk management and victim blaming. On the face of it, that makes total sense; I’m all for risk management and arming people with the ability to make an educated decision for themselves, no matter what we are talking about. Problem is, Le Marquand quotes the superintendent and points to his comment as expert insight into women and sexual assault. She warns against denying women factual information that might be of help. She then fails to offer any statistics with which women might arm themselves. She also fails to investigate the comment from the superintendent to see what the actual risk is so that women can be armed with the proper statistical facts. Basically, she pays a lot of lip service to this idea that risk management is important but fails to provide the factual information she believes women are entitled to. It seems like this is often the case; vague statements about not getting drunk, not being alone at night, not going home with a strange man without anything to back it up. Let me know what the actual risk is so I can make this educated decision.
Further, I know that I am more likely to be raped by someone I know than someone I don’t.. so surely I am safest in the company of strangers, whilst outside of my home, right? Seriously, why don’t we hear the media or police representatives telling women to reconsider marriage because some husbands are known to rape their wives? Why don’t we hear them warning women off attending university or college, given how prevalent rape is in those institutions? Why don’t we hear men being told to walk in groups and get cabs to avoid being a victim of violent assault? And where is the acknowledgement that women already live in fear of sexual assault in the public sphere and take actions to be safe? Why do we keep spreading fear about the danger of stranger-rape instead of having real talk about the probability of acquaintance-rape?
I can only assume that the rape prevention tips that women hear over and over again are less about stopping women from being raped or sexually assaulted, and more about controlling women’s freedoms and preventing them from having the same liberties in the public sphere that men have long enjoyed. It furthers the madonna/whore dichotomy that encourages girls to be good and chaste, because only the bad girls get raped. It sees well-intentioned people parroting this advice over and over until it seems reasonable and sensible and not sexist or nonsensical.
Even when we have proof that teaching men not to rape is working, we keep telling women to take responsibility and not put themselves into a position where they might be raped or sexually assaulted. It’s fucking ludicrous, and the instant-popularity of my mate Hilary’s#safetytipsforladies hashtag on Twitter is testament to this. Speaking of, the hashtag is still going crazy with sad, funny and darkly satirical suggestions for how ladies can be safer from rape and assault. Some of them punch you in the gut and some of them have been beautifully absurd, but I think most demonstrate that women don’t really need y’all to keep telling us how to stop being victimised, we know all about well-lit streets and keys splayed in our fingers, we got the memo in primary school. Let’s shift the focus on to the ones doing the raping instead, shall we?
So, it is International Women’s Day and I feel it would be remiss of me to not make note of that here. The thing is, we are in the middle of a record-breaking heatwave in Melbourne and whilst I have a pretty spectacular fan, I also have been very very hot and not sleeping well for quite some time now. Basically, I have limited brain capacity for anything more than complaining loudly to anyone who gets within earshot of me about how hot it is. So I will be making note of IWD, but letting other women (who presumably have access to better air conditioning and insulation than I do, or who perhaps just aren’t the whining, heatstroking princess that I am) do the important bits..
The official International Women’s Day website is your go-to for listings of events and activities taking place all over the world.
You can check out Shakira Hussein’s piece on Crikey, where she gets us thinking about feminism post-Gillard.
Clem Ford takes the media to task on the lack of voice given to women. Also, uses the phrase ‘virtual cock forest’ and I love her all the more for it.
The Feminist Porn Awards announces the nominees for 2013. I weep that I can not be there, vow to get there for 2014, and feel super pleased for some of my favourite pornographers who have been nominated (including a nice whack of Australian content: Gala Vanting @ Sensate Films, Zahra Stardust and Ms Naughty.
There are about a billion more articles and things happening that could be mentioned here, but I need to go and lie down and suck on ice cubes and think about the amazing women who have come before me, as well as those who will come after me, and their bravery and determination to make this world a safer and more equitable place for women.
..and I’m gonna listen to feminist icon and total babe Joan Jett while I do it!
Here is the story of my first slut shaming experience. I was six years old.
I tend to be drawn, romantically and socially, to people who are older than I am, and I guess my early schooling days were no exception. I was in my first year of primary school, having been moved from grade one in an interstate school and placed into a preparatory class in country Victoria. I began ‘dating’ a boy (as much as you can date at the tender age of six). We’ll call this boy ‘Mark’ because in all honesty, I don’t remember his real name. Anyway, Mark was in the second grade, two grades above me, and he and I were dating.
It was your typical primary school romance; excited and tentative, we mimicked the courting rituals of those older than us in that delightfully innocent way that children do. We chased each other across the playground equipment. He pushed me on the swing set. For one glorious week, we spent every recess and lunchtime holding hands and shyly kissing each other in the corners of the school yard. At home time, we would meet by the bike shed to say goodbye to each other before being collected by our family members and taken home. Pretty damn cute, huh?
It didn’t last much longer than that before some of the other boys in the second grade began to tease him for having a girlfriend who was only in preparatory class. Apparently, they teased him quite mercilessly, but instead of teaching these second grade boys a lesson about bullying, their teacher Mrs Rose instead chose to discipline me. Whilst class was in session, she knocked on the door, told my teacher she needed to speak to me and then stood me in the hallway, leaving the classroom door open so that everyone inside was able to witness the conversation. Mrs Rose told me I was causing trouble and that Mark was getting teased as a result of my actions. She told me I was acting irresponsibly and demanded to know why I was making everyone’s lives so difficult; didn’t I know better than that? Needless to say, I cried.
I bawled my little six-year-old eyes out, and failed to understand why I was solely responsible for the bullying tactics of these boys who were older than I. I’d had playground boyfriends before and it was never a problem, so what had changed? Why hadn’t Mrs Rose told the boys not to bully their friend? After all, it was they who had done the wrong thing, right?
Wrong. What I learned from that experience was that boys would not be blamed for their shitty behaviour when a little harlot like me could be blamed instead. Boys will be boys and as a result, it was responsibility of girls to act in a way that was proper and restrained. That was a blow to my innocence, and I felt a sense of guilt and shame that was far greater than a six-year-old girl should be made to feel. Gone was the feeling of excitement and exchange of shy kisses; Mark wouldn’t even talk to me after that, although he would shoot me apologetic glances across the playground.
Such was the impact of Mrs Rose’s deranged ideas about children and discipline that I didn’t have another playground boyfriend until I went to a school in a different town, some years later. And it wasn’t until many, many years had passed that I processed that incident and saw it for what it was: Just the first in a long line of adults who thought it was in my best interest to be shamed into chastity. It really didn’t work, and it just made my formative years all the more confusing to navigate.
Slut shaming is something that affects all girls and women, even those who we think are too young to be sexual. We need to think about the messages we send to boys and girls when we condemn the girl for being sexual but we don’t condemn the boy for the same behaviour. Further, we need to think about why we are so quick to condemn harmless behaviour (like kisses and hand-holding) in children; what is it we fear and why is it so? A little girl shyly kissing a boy during recess is not to blame if that boy is teased by his peers, and teaching her otherwise only serves to reinforce damaging ideas about girls and their sexuality.
So I was reading articles on The Daily Life, as I do most days, and came across this opinion piece republished from SMH, and after some initial gnashing of teeth over yet another misunderstanding and misrepresentation of women and porn, I decided to respond to Jen Vuk. For brevity, I have not included all of Vuk’s words, but feel free to give her piece a read in full over at the Daily Life. The article in question starts by setting the mood rather nicely, using phrases like ‘brooding’ and ‘launching menacingly’ to describe Deen’s performance in the forthcoming Bret Easton Ellis film, The Canyons (I know, I know: A male lead in an Easton Ellis film being menacing or broody, that sure is unusual, amirite?), but we’ll skip right past that and get in to the meat of the piece:
“If you haven’t heard of Deen, chances are you aren’t a female in your 20s (or, more worryingly, in your teens, but more on that later) who counts online porn as a pastime.”
Or perhaps you veer away from mainstream pornography or kink pornography (the two areas Deen’s work is largely concentrated in). It isn’t as though Deen’s films are only watched or noticed by young women or girls; his rise to porny stardom has been well documented in both adult and mainstream media and he’s been an award-winning performer for some years now. So uh, Jen? I think this is what they call ‘old news’.
“This blue-eyed, curly-haired ”Jewish boy-next-door” (real name Bryan Sevilla) has amassed a formidable body of work (more than 3000 blue films and counting) in which not only his enthusiasm, but God-given charms are on full frontal display. Deen is one of the few male porn stars to boast a genuine female following. He’s certainly a marketer’s dream comes true, but his recasting as romantic hero in the least romantic of formats is not only problematic; it’s pure fantasy.”
Whilst true that James Deen is a marketing dream (and one that is being taken full advantage of with the line of branded products available on his website, including but not limited to a reworking of Deen as a cartoon panda wielding a Hitachi Magic Wand and asking if you would like to be his prom date. Yeah, I’m confused and smitten with it as well), I have to question why the author struggles to see how Deen might be cast as ‘romantic hero’ in an industry where few male performers are known by name, and even fewer are noted for their attractiveness to women; male performers have long needed to be functional (able to get and maintain an erection under less than natural circumstances), but not necessarily attractive. So when along comes James Deen, a younger guy with boy-next-door charm and a cheeky grin, and we see him making eye contact, passionately kissing his co-stars and enjoying getting them off, no wonder he is a bit of a hero with the ladies, and really, what is romance if not hugely subjective and individual? What’s that old saying, ‘screw the roses, send me the thorns’? I’ll take the Gomez/Morticia romance over the candied hearts and predictable red roses any day, thanks.
Oh, hi eyes.
“Deen’s foray into porn reads as a cautionary tale… His ascendancy in adult entertainment reads like a page ripped out of a Hollywood script. Despite being told his ”skinny, boyish looks were not fit for porn”, Deen threw himself into his work and before long ”excelled to be the top performer in the industry”…”
So… homeless kid beats the odds and achieves his career goals, not only succeeding at entering the industry he wanted, but working his arse off, excelling at his job and rising to the top. And somehow this is a cautionary tale? Surely this is the kind of story that we, were he a doctor or a scientist or footballer, would want our children to know. We’d want them to know these stories so they see that dreams are achievable, even when life has thrown you more than your fair share of hard times, and that your hard work and dedication can pay off in the end. So really, at this point it seems obvious that Vuk has a moral issue with the type of work that Deen does, and I would hazard a guess that the cautionary tale she refers to is in fact one of Christian morals and negative attitudes towards non-procreative sex, sex outside of marriage or just, you know, general sinfulness. It seems redundant to say it but I’d like to remind Vuk that these attitudes are not shared by everyone in our secular society, and there is no law that says we need to place the same type of value on the sexual relationships we have.
“Really? When I Googled Deen it wasn’t his romantic side that popped up, but something called the ”Lemon-stealing Whore” skit. How to explain it? Let’s just say that for close to 30 minutes (although I barely lasted five) Deen’s character deals with the ”thief” in a manner that’s neither illuminating nor edifying.”
I do so love a media review penned by someone who didn’t bother to watch the media in question. Vuk says she watched five minutes of this hilarious, hammy scene from Burning Angel after Googling Deen, and despite knowing that he has performed in over 3000 films, feels that was enough to establish as fact the lack of romance in Deen and his body of work. I may only be a lowly undergraduate, but even I know that is a pathetic sample size to use and that conclusions drawn from 5 minutes of what must be thousands of hours of screen time are probably not all that valid.
“With a spate of hard-core films favouring anal sex and a blog that makes more than a passing reference to S&M and women being ”bound and publicly f—ed and humiliated”, it’s probably safe to say that the degradation of women – hammed up or otherwise – doesn’t end there.”
Uh, no. Being an established and well-regarded kink performer or scene participant is not degrading to women. Liking rough sex is not degrading to women. Being a part of the BDSM scene is not degrading to women. Liking how anal sex feels is not degrading to women.
I know that nothing exists in a vacuum and truly believe there is validity to be found in critiquing the problematic elements of pornography as well as BDSM culture; what I think is invalid is the idea that a man with a predilection for these activities is inherently degrading women as a result. I don’t buy that, and I think it is simplistic and moralistic to shame people for liking sex that does not fit into a ‘making love’ framework, or that on the surface would seem to replicate the problematic gender dynamics that exist in the ‘real world’ (for lack of a better term).
As Jessa pointed out in season one of HBO’s Girls, there is no right way to fuck like a lady and there are no inherently degrading sex acts (“what if I want to feel like I have udders” she asks Shoshanna, who read that doggy style sex means he doesn’t respect you, “this woman doesn’t care about what I want.”) and when women suggest there is, it only serves to demonise the women who enjoy these acts.
“Keep this in mind when reading the advice Deen has for his youthful ”loyalists”, some as young as 15: ”I would like to think that I’m, you know, opening up their sexual experience. They’ll be able to take their boyfriends and say, ‘Hey, I saw this in a porno, I want to try this’.”
Oh no, girls as young as fifteen are making dreamy eyes at a porn star? Lock up your daughters, people. I grew up in the 1990s, and knew plenty of boys who had posters of Jenna Jameson on their walls. Yet, I don’t recall this sort of moral outrage over teenage boys with centrefolds and porn-star crushes; boys will be boys, amirite? This just smacks of another way in which we as a society have a tendency to become slightly hysterical about the sexuality of girls and young women. If a fifteen year old girl sees one of Deen’s films, she’ll probably note the attention that Deen pays to his female costars. The way he makes eye contact with them and checks in with them and appears genuinely interested in their pleasure.
More to the point, what kind of backwards logic dictates that teenage girls being vocal with their chosen sexual partners about the sexual activities they want to explore is a Bad Thing[TM]? We should be encouraging girls to communicate their wants and desires with their partners, because we should be encouraging girls to feel positive about pleasure and confident about communicating what they do and don’t like the idea of. The status quo sees girls pleasure ignored or dismissed in favour of performative sex for their male partners, and we discourage girls from being confident about their sexuality for fear of being labelled a slut.
Plenty of us knew we were kinky as teenagers, and muddled our way through that, and it isn’t unreasonable that a fifteen year old might see Deen and a female co-star performing an activity that turns them on and that they want to try out. This isn’t a damaging thing, especially not if they are receiving quality sexual health education to go along with it (which they may not be, but lets not point the finger at pornography, because pornographers should not be tasked with the role of educating our youth about sex, that isn’t their job).
“The critical issue here isn’t morality, it’s mental health. As The Guardian reported back in 2011, ”women who become regular users can suffer depression and low self-esteem because it can be hard to reconcile their enjoyment of porn with their intellectual dislike of seeing women used as sex objects”.
Perhaps if we stopped trying to feed women the Dines-esque rhetoric about how a woman can not really enjoy or consent to rough or kinky sex, and no sane women who would want to be stuffed in every orifice and fucked five ways ’til Sunday; then heavily promoted ethically-produced pornography in the same way we promote ethically-sourced coffee, perhaps then women would have less troubles with depression and low self-esteem.
Upside Down Deen!
I find this particularly disingenuous given that the Guardian article in question was addressing the issue that women feel isolated and embarrassed by their reliance or overuse of pornography, because it is widely believed to be something that could only affect men: this is not the fault of pornography, and the answer does not lie in the denial of pornography as a valid sexual activity or aid. Further, the same article goes on to say “But as porn becomes more pervasive, Hodson observes that women are now also using it as a quick way to have sex without emotional investment, just as men traditionally have.”
I don’t know about you, but given that only 17% of female pornography users self-reported a pornography addiction (which is obviously a problematic method to obtain a reliable statistic anyway), and plenty of women are watching porn and having a quick wank without any dramas, I don’t know that the mental health of young women watching James Deen have consensual sex is really a critical issue. As always, my queendom for a comprehensive, mandatory, ongoing and age appropriate sex education curriculum that includes detailed information about both consent and sexual media, so that any fears young women have about being turned on by what they see can be processed and alleviated.
“With about one in three visitors to adult entertainment websites female, it’s time to dismantle the rhetoric around Deen being a ”sex-positive feminist”. As Deen himself says, he’s just a ”worker bee”. Yes, but one with a serious sting in the tail.”
If being really into consensually pleasing women and loving confident, self-assured sexual women and trusting women to be honest with him about their desires is akin to having a sting in one’s tail, then bring it the hell on.
Seeing as it is Valentines Day and a mere two days before I get to see My Bloody Valentine live for the first time ever, it seemed appropriate to share one of my all time favourite MBV tracks here. There is something about the discordant meeting the ethereal that inspires a certain kind of narcotic, lustful haze. It could, of course, just be all that narcotic sex that has been soundtracked by them over the years..
