A recent newspaper article in Melbourne, Australia detailed a truly horrifying story about new draconian laws to be introduced in Brunei all to do with sex! Amputations of limbs, whippings and stoning for the supposed crimes of adultery, homosexuality, pregnancy outside marriage etc The same newspaper had another story about teenage girls and their sexual attitudes and behaviours; dressing in such a way as to enhance their chances of ‘getting’ boys who according to them, want just sex. But what do the girls really want? I couldn’t quite work that out; it seemed to be about having a boy in tow and the boys wanted just one thing, though they didn’t want girls who’ve bedded their mates. In my mid 60s now, I can only recall that more than 34 years ago, in London, a leading TV company albeit independent, made a documentary series called Sex In Our Times (1978) which showed young women masturbating in front of a mirror. The series was banned by the Independent Broadcasting Authority and never shown in Britain or elsewhere. What’s changed and is sex still a dirty word around the world? Moreover, in many countries, homosexuality is still regarded as a crime and a mental illness! And other blogs I’ve written about attitudes towards me over my life have often been about my sexual behaviour as well. It’s indeed sickening that sex is still shrouded in so much controversy, conformity and conventional conservatism where female sexual behaviour is castigated and condemned all too often as shocking and sordid; albeit sluttish. Moreover, the sex crimes perpetrated against both females and males including rape and paedophilia alongside a burgeoning sex slave trade around the world only indicates our world is sick over sex, at least as far as I’m concerned. And issues such as abortion and adultery are still contentious for many, at the bottom of which is sex. Many religions cast a nefarious shadow over sex, too; purporting to be in the interest of a secure and safe albeit better life for us all. But I can only ponder how much better, if at all, when an innate human drive AND need is enveloped by so much hostility, hate and humiliation.
Sex seems to be more and more a human need so distorted and degraded in our world by sickening behaviour that decries enjoyment and ecstasy. People instead swallow drugs and too much drink for a pleasure they could all too easily achieve with sex in a caring relationship, even a one night stand if the people involved understand what it’s all about.
I was recently talking to three young females aged 24, 21 and 21; the first is a sex worker who’s never enjoyed sex with a client; the second a university student who has had only one sexual experience to lose her virginity while the other, also a university student, is still a virgin. It made for an interesting conversation but I didn’t explore with them the whys and wherefores of their attitudes and behaviour. We plan to meet up again. Yet, I’m somewhat reticent about asking them too much too soon; they’re intelligent, bright and confident young woman in so many ways, and is it any of my business? I am interested in their values about sex; the two university students did tell me that most of the young men they meet are only interested in good looking females who they want to have sex with. Yet, both young women are attractive in my perspective though without make-up or sexy apparel. Is their perception reality? And is sex per se really the raison d’etre for relationships involving sex? Is it that black and white and are young men and males still calling the shots when it comes to who they want to go to bed with? Is it that sick, still? Moreover, a 50-year-old something female, married with two daughters, told me last year that sex with her husband was ‘boring’. Why, I pondered to myself and in another dimension, that is sick to me, too. Sick because it should be good, maybe not always great, but after 20 years of marriage, what’s going on in their relationship? But I didn’t say anything to her. Sex has always been one of the most interesting issues in my life that I’ve loved to talk about as well as indulge in, but how has that been viewed? As for the young sex worker, she only told me of her job after many meetings with her and she added she doesn’t tell most people she meets. There’s still a nasty attitude (sick, too, I contend) about prostitution, when women who choose this are mostly regarded as cheap and whorish for selling their bodies for sex (or disturbed and mentally problematic) when most men, and other women, too, aren’t at all interested in their minds? And what is the connection between our bodies and minds? Our thoughts and our feelings?
I realised as a twentysomething that talking to many men about sex seemed to turn them on to want sex with me when that wasn’t my interest at all. Furthermore, when I simply wanted to be friends with men too many of them took it as me wanting to bed them. Recently, I told an African man of 38 who is unmarried about some of my sexual behaviour; namely, that I was at a party, had consumed alcohol even though I knew exactly what I was doing and took off my clothes and lay on the floor and allowed an ex-boyfriend to fuck me with a bottle and his cock as well in front of the partygoers. The reality is I have no idea who, if anyone, was watching me or even cared; I was quite oblivious to the others because I was just enjoying myself and lost in the sheer physical pleasure. I then went and fucked another guy in a bedroom. Suffice to say the African man was ‘a bit shocked’- and we’d also had many disagreements about prostitution too as I’d argued many times that if society isn’t going to pay me a decent wage for selling my mind I would have been far better off financially if I’d sold my body. He couldn’t even acknowledge the bottom line of my argument. I take my hat off to the young sex worker in many ways; she is well dressed and glamorous and I do sometimes lament the fact that as much as I once contemplated being an escort in my early 30s, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Why? Because I thought of all the slobbering and smelly men I’d have to fuck and just decided I couldn’t do it. However, I did tell my African friend that I’d do it now for a million bucks; even half a million. He was scathing in his contempt. I saw a documentary a couple of years ago about Tiger Woods and the ‘parties’ he used to have and there was a young femme fatale paid a million dollars to attend to fuck all the rich men. Lucky her, I mused to myself, she was probably laughing all the way to the bank. But how many people in our world would feel this is sickening, too? On one level, it seemed to epitomise how the rich and famous CAN afford to live; even the Aussie cricket spin king Shane Warne was temporarily pilloried for sending copious text (sext) messages years ago; now he’s once again a much respected commentator and cricket guru who’s also slimmed down and appears as a changed man. A hero once more? How many females can attest to that when their names have been besmirched by their sexual antics? And he’s not the only one, of course!
Another article in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago was writing about marital infidelity; seems our biology, both male and female, might just be attuned to non-monogamy; nothing new in that as I’ve read about it years ago too but how much is social conditioning in our so-called efforts to stay sexually faithful to one partner? And what price infidelity? In Brunei, it could be torture and many other countries around the world. It’s not the adultery or infidelity that’s sick, but the underlying social attitudes towards it. And should it matter at all as what’s love got to do with it? Are sex and love mutually exclusive or do we, even subconsciously, believe they’re inextricably linked? So that sex per se is still a dirty word for teenagers and adults of both genders? I don’t know about anyone else but me when these might be the issues for us all, but as a society, we all too often project our opinions, values and attitudes about sex AND love onto others believing we know best, even for other people? I know that the shrinks (both male AND female) do it all the time. I oft laugh at the shrinks’ Diagnostic Systems Manual (DSM- a book full of mental disorders et al) being changed to the Deadly Sex Manual as so many of them believe that sexual dysfunction (as they perceive it, of course) is the root cause of so much mental illness, particularly in women. Moreover, a Royal Commission was held in Australia in the late 80s about psychiatric abuse, focusing only on sexual abuse of their female patients. No other abuse that I read of was mentioned. And dare to try and talk about sex with a shrink, male and female, and they either cannot or are unwilling to as my experience recalls. So many people seem so naive about sex so that it’s denigrated into a sphere of the sick; habits, attitudes and opinions as females demonstrate towards females, all too often. Men do it too, sleep around and we’re whores and sluts etc I’m not sure how many men do it to other men, though. But they sure as hell do it to women! Sex seems to be debased all too often; we all supposedly look for love as if that’s the be all and end all of being human. I know I have lived without love from another person for the last 40 years of my life and only now have found a male friend, albeit gay, that I do feel loves me as a friend who I love, too. It certainly has enriched my life and yet, I haven’t had any good sex for more than 20 years. And that was without intercourse, too. Just a lot of everything else.
Where does that put love and sex on my agenda? I don’t actually care about that anymore, other than, I play with myself a lot and a vibrator and long at times for a cock inside me; but I do know that I want a man who at least is on my sexual wavelength and you can set aside love. Too often the men I’ve engaged in sex with have been inadequate and left me wanting. The love I enjoy with my gay friend sustains and nourishes me in a way I haven’t had for far too long. I have pondered whether it is indeed because he’s gay; that I can talk to him so openly, honestly and freely that it’s been a truly wonderful aspect of the past eight months of my life. I’ll never know whether it is because he’s gay though I don’t think about it anymore. He’s just a great human being!
I still hope to talk to the three young women again and find out more about not just their attitudes but what shaped them? Sex is still sadly too much of a taboo subject for far too many people and it is so often sickened by perpetrators who indulge in horrifying behaviour. Australian showbiz personality Rolf Harris was just found guilty in a London court of many sexual assault crimes not to mention the worldwide focus on sexual abuse by thousands in the clergy etc Maybe we should as human beings take a leaf out of the book of the bonobo chimp who lives with a high level of sexual behaviour with sex functioning in conflict appeasement, affection, social status and stress reduction. These chimps also have lower levels of aggression compared to common chimps and other apes. The bonobo, along with other chimps, is the closest extant relative to humans and maybe if we all adopted their behavioural attitudes to sex it may just be a less sick and violent world! Maybe I’m descended directly from them!