Elephant Parts

[talktooloose]

I hang out on a rather intelligent comic book bulletin board where a topic began about "furry" sex and its depiction on one of those CSI shows. The tone of the discussion was kind of white bread liberal, by which I mean sort of reactionary tinged with a bland "live and let live", self-congratulatory tone.

Here is my reaction including quotes from two guys earlier in the thread. I don't consider it all that deep, but it seems to be deeper than mainstream attitudes about sex. Not hard that.

I'm not exactly sure why, but half of my posts on the board are gay rights diatribes. When did I volunteer for that post?

Okay - there is an underlying problem I see with this discussion. We keep coming back to some kind of reassertion of "normative" sex. Thankfully we seem to be fairly liberal in our view of what is normal but the assumption is still there that the real deal would never involve being turned on by a piece of clothing or something kinkier.

"If a guy is such a turnon, why would anyone want to see him wearing [a jockstrap], as opposed to wearing nothing?"

and

"At the end of the day, if I'm looking at a picture of a naked woman, I'm probably not going to be looking at her feet..."

Sex has never been just about gonads. Allure is a complex series of signifiers of masculinity, femininity, power, submission and the signifiers are different for every person. I once saw an elephant with an erection at a zoo. It was a preposterous organ, at once horrifying and hilarious. After seeing this absurd parody of our own sexual equipment, I began looking at humans differently. If sex is just an alignment of bumps then it doesn't hold much appeal. And I don't think the whole thing is a just a matter of "I like your bumps, do you like mine?"

I was asking a het friend what he thought about a Diana Krall poster where she's in a slit black cocktail dress in black stillettos. I really wanted to know if he could be attracted to such a cliche image of feminity. He answered that, yes, the classic combination of cool style, sexual availability, strength and softness all pushed buttons in him.

And if you think about it, wouldn't more people be turned on by that than by some kind of anatomical photograph of a woman standing straight in harsh light, arms at her side like a default image in Poser? (ttl note: this is a reference to a 3D program used by many artists) Of course, one might be turned on by that if it evoked the image of a woman as a passive lab subject, frozen in position while you observed her...

THERE ARE NO NEUTRAL IMAGES! As comic book afficianados, we should know that.

Sex plays a large number of functions in our lives: procreation, recreation, bonding, reassurance, social glue, establishing of social roles and, sadly negative functions such as the diminishment of another (as in rape). Having the chance to explore desire consensually can be incredibly healing and instructive and, therefore, I try to hold off on judgement of sexual behaviour that holds no appeal for me.

That being said, if you do like to dress up as a daisy and have sex in a giant flower pot, you better have a sense of humour about it if you decide to march in support of your community.

Comments

Hear hear!

[redrunner.livejournal.com]

Hear hear hear hear!

[rcornelius.livejournal.com]

As a member of the International Brotherhood of People Who Sex In Flower Pots While Dressed Up As A Daisy, I take offense....

...okey, who the hell I am kidding....this was hilarious and right on the mark! :-)