"The women of Bikini Kill let guitarist Billy Karren be in their feminist punk band, but only if he's willing to just "do some shit." Being a feminist dude is like that. We may ask you to "do some shit" for the band, but you don't get to be Kathleen Hannah."--@heatherurehere


Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Positive Male Sexuality

Jill has a great post over at Feministeskewering an article that purports to explain some problems that (straight, cisgendered) American ladies have regarding sex. She first gives a bit of an overview of some of the reasons why women might have some sexual problems (warning: some of this stuff is very, very funny, so please don't drink liquids while reading this on a computer or over your tablet):
Well, let’s see: Dudes who couldn’t find a clitoris with GPS and GoogleMaps? Women who are taught to be self-conscious about their bodies and especially their lady-bits? Dudes who assume that if they put it in they’ve done their part? Women who don’t feel the same sort of entitlement towards sexual enjoyment as men? Men who see sex as something that they “get” rather than as a dynamic and highly variable set of acts between two people? Women who are raised believing that being too sexual is slutty, but that sex is something that they have to do for men, and that sex is centered on male pleasure? The construction of sex as between men and women, and something men do to women, and purely penetrative, and beginning when the dude enters and ending when he ejaculates? The many wonderful but sometimes frustrating complications of the human brain and body?


And, of course, many of these things are related to why sex is problematic for (straight, cisgendered) men as well.

All of which is to say that men need moremoremore inroads for positive male sexuality. Sure, we need to be able to find the clitoris (if we're straight, and we date cisgendered women). Very important. (Is this really still a problem, in general, by the way? That's just ridiculous. I mean, sure, individually, sometimes they can be a little bit tough to pin down, but really you're not trying to pin them down anyway, right? Aaaaanyway.) But we also need different frameworks around sex and male sexuality (some of which Jill alludes to). Not only do we need the basics of here-is-the-clit-don't-be-afraid-of-it and everybody-gets-to-get-off-if-they-want-to, but we need to know that, in general, sexuality can be complex as heck, and that this can be part of the fun of it.

I mean, we need to know not only that orgasms for everybody is a good rule of thumb--we also need to know that sometimes it's fun to not have an orgasm, and to just see your partner getting off (over and over is sometimes nice). Sometimes it's fun to trade off orgasms--you, then me, then you, then me. Sometimes it's fun to play within traditional gender roles, but sometimes it's fun to fuck with them. And to, y'know, fuck with them.

So, I'll throw it out there to all y'all: Where should men go to learn about, recognize and create positive male sexuality? C'mon, help me out here.

1 comment:

Jeff said...

That's a good question, Jeff, because it's hard to find it.

I suppose I started by reading a lot of feminist blogs. In reading feminist critiques of masculinity, I started to get my own image of what I thought I wanted my own masculinity to be like.