Authors: Dossie Easton,Catherine A. Liszt
B003B0W1QC EBOK (3 page)
Gender
. Gender tends to be a lot more flexible in the kink communities, and just because the person you’re talking to looks male to you doesn’t mean that s/he feels male or that s/he’ll look male tomorrow. Kinkyfolk are often more comfortable than others with breaching conventional gender boundaries - you may see a gay man partnered with a bisexual woman, or a heterosexual man enthusiastically spanking a man in drag, or a pair of lesbians looking and acting like gay men as they rev their big motorcycles.
. Gender tends to be a lot more flexible in the kink communities, and just because the person you’re talking to looks male to you doesn’t mean that s/he feels male or that s/he’ll look male tomorrow. Kinkyfolk are often more comfortable than others with breaching conventional gender boundaries - you may see a gay man partnered with a bisexual woman, or a heterosexual man enthusiastically spanking a man in drag, or a pair of lesbians looking and acting like gay men as they rev their big motorcycles.
Many kinkyfolk have a great interest in exploring the meaning of gender and discovering what lies beyond conventional feelings about gender - so much so that in some kink communities, notably on the Internet, the genderless pronouns “sie” (for “she or he”) and “hir” (for “his or her”) are in frequent use.
We’re not quite ready for those pronouns yet, and you’re probably not either. We’re also uncomfortable with the use of “they” as a synonym for “he or she.” Instead, what we’ve done throughout this book is to refer to your kinky person as “she” in one section and “he” in the next, in pursuit of inclusivity. Please feel free to translate to the gender of your choice.
How to talk about sex?
Most of us were brought up in a world where the only “nice” words to use about sex were the ones in a biology or psychology textbook, or nursery euphemisms like “down there.”
Most of us were brought up in a world where the only “nice” words to use about sex were the ones in a biology or psychology textbook, or nursery euphemisms like “down there.”
Kinky people have found that this linguistic shyness can represent a major barrier to getting our needs met - how can we ask for what we want when we don’t have the words to describe it?
As a result, we have learned to use language that you may find overly blunt or perhaps even obscene. It isn’t that we’re trying to shock or upset you when we talk like this, it’s just that it’s the only kind of language that works for us among ourselves, and sometimes we forget to stop using it when we’re talking to you. (If you see words that you don’t understand, the Glossary in back might be able to help.)
On a related note, we also have developed language (as well as clothing and other symbols) that express our fantasies, the roles we enjoy playing together and the things we’d like to do. We sometimes forget how that language sounds to outsiders. Catherine recently told a reporter that she liked to be “mean and cruel,” then felt a little embarrassed when he called her back for clarification and she had to explain that what she liked was to
pretend
to be mean and cruel for her own and her partner’s mutual pleasure.
pretend
to be mean and cruel for her own and her partner’s mutual pleasure.
If you find yourself repeatedly having trouble with the language in this book, or with the language you encounter in conversation with your kinky friend or relative, here’s a good exercise. Sit down all by yourself, sometime when you know you won’t be interrupted, with a big piece of paper. On it, write down everything you’ve ever thought of or heard about or imagined that people could do sexually. These don’t have to be the words you usually use, or the sexual behaviors you yourself enjoy - use all the “dirty” words you’ve ever encountered, and write down everything you can think of. If you’re not sure whether or not it belongs on the list, write it down anyway. Nobody but you will ever see this list - you can shred it or burn it when you’re done.
Then read the words aloud to yourself. Start quietly if you feel shy, then try to build up to your normal speaking voice. How does that feel? Do you become a bit more comfortable with practice? We hope so.
As we say, we’ve done our best in this book to speak to you in language with which most people will be reasonably comfortable. But if we use words that make you turn white and want to cover your eyes, we apologize in advance. And we hope you’ll take a deep breath, and go on reading.
4
On Kink
What does it mean to be kinky?
Perhaps we first need to ask: what does it mean to be normal? Many people believe that there is some single form of sexual expression that is “normal,” and that all other forms of sex are immoral, inferior, pathological, destructive to one’s health or relationships, or ultimately unfulfilling.
Perhaps we first need to ask: what does it mean to be normal? Many people believe that there is some single form of sexual expression that is “normal,” and that all other forms of sex are immoral, inferior, pathological, destructive to one’s health or relationships, or ultimately unfulfilling.
According to the “normal” assumption, successful sex means potentially reproductive intercourse between a man and a woman, preferably married, who plan to have children and stay together in a monogamous relationship for the rest of their lives. Some believe that even within these stringent boundaries, sex is only okay if the man is on top and if both partners reach orgasm at the same time without other sources of stimulation like fingers or vibrators. (Sex therapists call this requirement “Look Ma, no hands!”) Such a limited approach to sex actually satisfies only a very small percentage of people - so by that standard, “normal” sex is actually a statistical abnormality.
According to the statistics that Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues collected in the forties, the average couple has sex two or three times a week, with varying amounts of foreplay culminating in intercourse that lasts for an average of one point seven five minutes.
1
That’s one hundred and five seconds. If this is “normal,” most people we’ve talked to are striving to be “abnormal.”
1
That’s one hundred and five seconds. If this is “normal,” most people we’ve talked to are striving to be “abnormal.”
Here in California, all forms of sex except the reproductive were illegal until the “consenting adults” act was passed in 1976. In many other states, “sodomy” laws still outlaw sexual variation. When Dossie was first a sex educator, she used to have to advise people that commonplace pleasurable activities like oral sex were illegal, despite that fact that many people find such pleasures to be a vital, often necessary, part of their sex lives.
Imagine a world in which something as simple as pleasuring your partner with your mouth could lead to a jail term! Thinking about the prejudices that may have made
your
sex life illegal can give you a sense of what it feels like to be told you should give up whatever it is that makes your sex exciting, intimate and fulfilling.
your
sex life illegal can give you a sense of what it feels like to be told you should give up whatever it is that makes your sex exciting, intimate and fulfilling.
We believe that each individual has a right to reach out for whatever kinds of consensual sex and love are fulfilling to him - because people are different, and are turned on by different things, and because sexual satisfaction is truly an important part of how we love each other and how we feel good about ourselves. We believe that the freedom to explore our sexual natures is an intrinsic part of our right to the pursuit of happiness.
Are kinky people a small minority?
It is probably true that people who act on their desires for unusual pleasures and who incorporate kink openly in their relationships are a minority, even though, as we said above, everybody is probably “abnormal” to some extent or other. But in our fantasies, as expressed in art, novels, fairy tales, and much of our culture from high art to Hollywood, there is a whole lot of kink.
It is probably true that people who act on their desires for unusual pleasures and who incorporate kink openly in their relationships are a minority, even though, as we said above, everybody is probably “abnormal” to some extent or other. But in our fantasies, as expressed in art, novels, fairy tales, and much of our culture from high art to Hollywood, there is a whole lot of kink.
One of the sexiest things we read in high school was Yeats’s poem
Leda and the Swan
, a perverse tale of rape and bestiality based on a story that has fascinated artists for millennia. Most of us can readily see the eroticism of a Venus in Furs, or Count Dracula, or the Wild Ones on motorcycles (wearing
really
hot leather) that were the sex symbols of the uptight fifties. A lot of the images that raise our adrenaline and turn us on in contemporary movies and television are explorations of the eroticism of power, of pain, of medical or uniform or leather fetishes, of prisoners and fugitives, helplessness and wicked power, victims and villains.
Leda and the Swan
, a perverse tale of rape and bestiality based on a story that has fascinated artists for millennia. Most of us can readily see the eroticism of a Venus in Furs, or Count Dracula, or the Wild Ones on motorcycles (wearing
really
hot leather) that were the sex symbols of the uptight fifties. A lot of the images that raise our adrenaline and turn us on in contemporary movies and television are explorations of the eroticism of power, of pain, of medical or uniform or leather fetishes, of prisoners and fugitives, helplessness and wicked power, victims and villains.
We often wonder how many people would join sexual “minorities” if it weren’t so terribly against the rules to be a pervert.
One useful way to see how S/M and other kinkiness fit into the whole spectrum of people and sex is to compare our sexual preferences with the way we choose how we eat. Some people want to eat familiar food - what Mom used to cook feels most satisfying. Others seek out exotic foods from distant parts of the world. Still others choose fast food, and like to get their needs met without a lot of fuss. Others want health food, as natural as possible, to celebrate in their diet a oneness with nature. Gourmets invest a lot of attention into what they eat, collect specialized kitchen equipment, go to fancy restaurants, seek out obscure and rare ingredients, spend a lot of time perfecting a particular taste. Truth is, all of these forms of nourishment are just fine, and there is no reason to think that a
Tarte aux Demoiselles Tatin
is any more or less satisfying than Mom’s apple pie.
Tarte aux Demoiselles Tatin
is any more or less satisfying than Mom’s apple pie.
Yet we often make judgments about other people’s preferences: gourmets may find traditionalists too conservative, traditionalists might think that gourmets are decadent and waste too much time and money on eating. Natural food fanciers are often disdained as “health nuts.” But in food, as in sex, there is really no reason not to honor each other’s choices, and celebrate the joy we all take in our sex lives (and our nourishment) without labeling anybody less than okay. All our pleasures are brilliant.
Is kink sick? Can it be healthy?
In the nineteenth century, psychologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing wrote
Psychopathia Sexualis,
a sort of encyclopedia of sexual deviation in which he coined the words sadism and masochism, and attempted to describe sexual variation as he observed it in a Victorian mental asylum. Of course, all the people he observed were mentally ill, so he assumed that the sexual behaviors he observed in this population were either a symptom or a cause of their mental illness. He never asked any functional people about their sex lives.
In the nineteenth century, psychologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing wrote
Psychopathia Sexualis,
a sort of encyclopedia of sexual deviation in which he coined the words sadism and masochism, and attempted to describe sexual variation as he observed it in a Victorian mental asylum. Of course, all the people he observed were mentally ill, so he assumed that the sexual behaviors he observed in this population were either a symptom or a cause of their mental illness. He never asked any functional people about their sex lives.
It is to Krafft-Ebing that we owe the idea that masturbating can make you crazy, since he observed that 98% of the inmates masturbated ; he never thought to inquire about the private pleasures of psychologists.
Freud went on to link mental health to sexual development, theorizing that mental problems derive from arrested sexual development. Since he believed that truly healthy people would grow up to enjoy missionary position sex in marriage and nothing else, he assumed that variations in sexual practice that he observed were caused by arrested development, and thus, again, were symptoms of psychological disturbance.
These are circular arguments, based on the belief that when we see something we don’t understand, there must be something wrong in the works somewhere.
For many centuries before the Victorian psychologists, we ostracized sexual explorers as demons and witches. In the nineteenth century we began to justify these superstitions as medical science. The authors of this book see all attempts to link psychological pathology with nondestructive sexual practices as modern fairy tales, mythologies that doom us all to worry that something is wrong with our sexual delights.
The best way to tell if someone is mentally ill or psychologically disturbed is to look at her functioning. Does this person have a way to make a living? Does she maintain a home, a family, relationships, friends? A healthy, functioning person is most likely just that, regardless of how wild and unfamiliar her sexual practices may be.
Sex addiction
? Some people believe that what they consider an inordinate interest in sex is a symptom of addiction. Of course, how much interest in sex is “too much” is a question no one can really answer - again, we propose the functional definition, that too much interest in sex is when your sexual practice or fantasies are making your life unmanageable. In other words, no matter how outlandish a person’s sex life may seem to the outside observer, if it is not broken, there’s no need to fix it.
? Some people believe that what they consider an inordinate interest in sex is a symptom of addiction. Of course, how much interest in sex is “too much” is a question no one can really answer - again, we propose the functional definition, that too much interest in sex is when your sexual practice or fantasies are making your life unmanageable. In other words, no matter how outlandish a person’s sex life may seem to the outside observer, if it is not broken, there’s no need to fix it.
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