This is a confession of sorts but also a cry for help. I think about myself in reference to kink and sex and realize that I associate submission and service with being feminine. I associate beauty, weakness, and delicacy with being feminine. And I also realize that I am so terrified of being seen as anything other than feminine that I put up some strange defenses against this.

Case study A: Ariel

Ariel is my gorgeous girlfriend. She is beautiful and petite and has long flowing hair. She moves gracefully on high heels. She also has a powerful job in a male-dominated industry and changes car batteries and asserts herself aggressively in conversations. She looks high femme but has always thought of herself as butch. Still, when I touch her I sometimes feel huge, ham-fisted, rough, and all-together ugly. I know she longs for me and I fail her because I don’t know how to be. On the one hand, strapping on a pretty dildo and fucking her for hours sounds like pure bliss but I know that getting to that point will be full of second-guessing myself and my desires and my actions.

Am I being entirely heterosexist in my view of this sexual relationship? Abso-fucking-lutely! Because she is feminine, I feel masculine. (We won’t even get into the terrible fact that I associate masculinity [on myself!] with ugliness) I don’t want to feel this way. It isn’t enlightened, it isn’t sex positive. I wouldn’t teach it to my students. But it infects my reality and I don’t know how to deprogram it.

Case study B: Michael

[Note: This section has been edited for nuance. The lack it previously exhibited, though, is likely symptomatic of my issues with binary thinking.]

Michael is a petite man. We are the same height and I outweigh him significantly. When we first met I didn’t think the relationship would work because of this. I thought I would feel huge and be self-conscious and afraid. So I submitted myself to him. He felt like he was capable of being in charge and I let him be. Even if I couldn’t be delicate and small by comparison physically, I knew I could shrink myself mentally. It works out well that he has discovered enjoyment of beating me until I cry, pulling my hair, grabbing my throat. (Again we won’t get into how fucked up it is that my way of feeling feminine involves simulated victimization) Even when I am initiating sex with him, it feels like an act of service and devotion. He often gives me feedback on how to touch and where and when. I siddle up to him and slither a limb around his body. I kiss gently. The touches are a seduction and they are a worship and only in my most wanton and least self-conscious moments do I allow myself to be aggressive and take up space.

Taking up space

I haven’t really defined what this means to me just yet. You may have guessed some of it by now, though. I think of it in terms of physical space – my body is larger and I attempt to diminish that regularly. I also think of it terms of political space – my voice should be smaller, my needs should be less important, my desires should be locked away.

This might seem ridiculous to some of you that have met me or read this blog. Of course I take up space in terms of talking about sex. Here I am now with this presence on the internet. Blabbing, opining, discussing in detail, issuing edicts and judgments and ideas. But some of that strength leaves me when I’m making love to some of the people I adore most in the world.

I know that every relationship goes through growing pains and these are no exception, but this issue feels bigger and scarier and more about me being fucked in the head than any I have run into before. So, dear reader, tell me what you think. How do I get my theory to line up with my practice? How do I deschool myself of gender? How do I embrace femininity in a way that doesn’t make me need to masculinize others? How have you done it or how do you wish you could?

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April – Where I attended Sex 2.0 and had a fire lit under me. I started a Twitter account, got involved with FetLife, and relaunched my podcast. I finally realized that I was part of a community and felt like I belonged.

June – I spent a lot of time thinking about sex work in both text and audio forms. I also got sort of pissy and ridiculous about blogging and met Artemis Hunter for the first time.

July – I had my first freelance work published in The Naughty American and dug up some old camwhore shots. I also experienced a bit of heartbreak, but it turned out a great piece of writing if I do say so myself. I also got tied up by Artemis and finally hooked up with Carmine who had previously only been known as “cross-dressing law student“. Finally, I began publishing the Musings on Masculinity series.

September – I was named #5 on the list of the Top 100 Sex Bloggers of 2008 among started a bajillion other projects. We also went to Dark Odyssey Summer Camp which was a watershed event for me despite the fact that I haven’t talked about it too much. I also presented at the Fetish Fair Flea Market and got to meet Catalina and Marky for the first time.

November -  . . . soon I found more detailed words and images to express my thoughts. I captured the unique sadomasochistic relationship that Michael and I have developed as well as the experienced of being fucked by Ariel for the first time. And the sexy gave way to the mundanely profound as we found ourselves forming a type of family, broken hollondaise and all.

December – Ariel starts lending a hand with reviews and I think that the format suits this site. Jay and I also visited New York and saw tons of the friends that we met through the year. I also spent a sedate Birthday and Hanukkah at home with my new chosen family.

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What dress size do you wear? (18-22)
How many people have you had sex with? (11)
What was your Bachelor’s degree in? (Philosophy)

None of these things meet my definition of “too personal”. Take a look around this place, I’m not really sure what does. That isn’t to say that I’ll answer every question or have never felt that a request was invasive, I have. I just don’t have a clear line in place for when “too personal” kicks in.

What about you? What makes something too personal? Where is your line?

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Just because someone adopts the label of “queer,” for instance, or “slave” it does not mean that anyone else who inhabits these labels looks at all like this person. This queer slave could be male, female, transgendered, transsexual, masculine, feminine, genderqueer, etc. and may be a service slave, a sexual slave, a brat, part-time, 24/7, a pro slave, live-in, or some combination thereof. This person could have various fetishes such as humiliation, force, objectification, boots, heels, non-sexual service, rope bondage, metal bondage, pain, or anything else. This person in other aspects of life could be a CEO, an artist, an auto mechanic, a teacher, a writer, a sys admin, a starship captain, or anything else.

The labels we assign ourselves are the most accurate, personal, hard-fought, and precious. But they are also those that can be co-opted by outsiders and twisted against us in painful ways. I avoid complex labels for these reasons. But at the same time, I find myself with them. Student, teacher, slut, sex worker, woman, femme, bisexual, kinky, fetishist, pervert, whore. Those are all words I’ve used to describe myself in the past and even in the present. But they also, as Scarlet Lotus points out, don’t fully define me.

This isn’t a post where I’m going to say, “Oh! I am so much more than my sex, don’t reduce me!” That is too simple. And sometimes it seems that my days are consumed by sex, thinking about it, writing about it, doing it. Ironically, I am not sure I have much more sex than most other people. Sometimes it seems like a non-stop flow and sometimes it feels quite conventional. I wonder sometimes if people read this website, and see how I label myself and expect me always to be fucking. Clearly I update Twitter too often for that to be true. . .

So, I want you to step up and label yourself for me. Tell me what (not who) you are and then tell me what that means or doesn’t mean. Of course we all move beyond our labels but tell me how you embrace yours.

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I was so happy to see this article from Violet Blue that has an in depth discussion of the clients that keep sex workers, well, working.

Another excellent resource on this topic is the great Letters from Johns blog that is run by the amazing Susannah Breslin. The blog is a brilliant concept exercised with simplicity and grace. I just wish there were more letters. They range from clueless to compassionate and everything in-between.

Honestly, I gave up on writing this entry a few minutes into it and recorded a podcast instead. Please download it – it is my thoughts on sex work and clients and the interactions between them. It is based on limited experience. I am sure I said some things that will offend people. I didn’t mean to but I want to start a discourse on sex work that includes the voices of clients as clients.

My email address is lumpesse AT gmail DOT com and the number to call with your ideas is 206-339-5939 (To be 100% clear, this is not my phone sex line – it is just a voicemail box, it won’t cost you anything beyond long distance and your time and I won’t answer the phone).

I really want to collect audio so you can leave it as a voicemail or email it to me. Or upload it on your own blog or talk about it on your own podcast. I do plan to make another show (or more! many?) out of the comments that I get so if you don’t want your comment included, please state that very clearly in your message to me. Please pass on the word about this to anyone you can think of that might be interested.

Download Bedroom Radio 16.5: An Open Call to Clients of Sex Workers

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You’re a girl

and you’d better not forget

that when you step over the threshold of your house

men will look askance at you.

When you keep walking down the lane

men will follow you and whistle.

When you cross the lane and step onto the main road

men will revile you and call you a loose woman.

If you’ve got no character

you’ll turn back,

and if not

you’ll keep on going,

as you’re going now.

I read this poem with my students today and asked them to think about the phrase “loose woman”. They brainstormed synonyms on the board – promiscuous, slut. I asked them if it was a positive or negative phrase – negative, definitely. I asked them to read the poem again and imagine that “loose woman” was neutral and without any particularly loaded connotation.

They looked at me blankly.

I read it aloud another time.

“How did that feel? How is it different?”

More blank stares.

“What if a woman called herself ‘loose’? Does the phrase lose any power then?”

They would think that she was a slut and wonder about her character.

“What if all women looked at this phrase as neutral, then what?”

The promising one raises her hand and volunteers that the poem is irrelevant without that phrase being negative. That it defines the experience of the poem and the message.

I ask her what it would say about one’s character to not just ignore the insult but to refuse to see it as one? “What happens,” I ask, “to the second stanza when being a loose woman is neutral?”

But it isn’t neutral and my moment of instruction failed.

Why? Because I am a coward. The woman I reference, who doesn’t pass judgment on this term, who embraces it or at least tolerates it is only an abstraction to them. I deftly avoided the opportunity to out myself, and for that reason my question must have seemed nonsensical and without grounding.

Now, all I feel is a sense of mild shame. Here I have judged this room full of 18-year-olds as being prudish and judgemental when I, too, conform to this standard. Indeed, I am not the mythical loose woman. It is not neutral. But I’ve called myself out and I will keep walking so perhaps I’ve at least maintained my character.

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1. A lady friend in your life has had sex with someone you know. She accepted cash money for having sex with the guy! She wouldn’t ordinarily have had sex with this guy, but she has nothing to say about whether or not she enjoyed it. Would you respect her more, less, or neither for this turn of events?



2. You find out your girlfriend has in the past performed a kinky and arousing sex act with someone else. When you ask her to do it with you, she refuses. How do you feel about that?



...



6. You see a healthy pre-teen girl wearing a suggestive outfit. Do you consider her sexually? Do you have a moral judgment on her or her outfit?



7. You see the same suggestive outfit on an old woman, a fat woman, and a handicapped woman. Do you consider the outfit inappropriate in any of these circumstances? Would you feel uncomfortable seeing any of the three? Would you feel hostile about any of the three?
...

There are more questions to ponder deeply when you go read the rest of the post. I’m mostly interested in what others have to say at this point. I’ve stopped being offended by the word “whore” and know that it can have a straighforward interpretation. But it can also be incredibly loaded, both types of meanings are alluded to in these questions. The focus on body type, age, and ableness is especially striking to me. I’ll be following the discussion over there carefully, maybe I’ll weigh in with more input when I’ve had more time to think about it.

What do you think of the label or what goes with it? What generates that label in your mind?

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***

For many open-minded Westerners, the fear of racial mixing was dismissed long ago. Still, it remains a spectre on race relations and the associated taboos constitute a frightening series of questions and problems. Liberal beliefs in equality and color-blindness often fall by the wayside at the moment that the question of erotic desire and racial mixing is introduced into the equation. In this way, deeply seated anxieties about racial contamination and power remain an element of sexuality around the world, making work on colonial sexuality continually vital. Frantz Fanon dedicates a significant portion of Black Skin, White Masks to describing interracial sexual relationships between the colonizer and the colonized. His chapters on the woman of color and the white man and the man of color and the white woman present two sides of the same coin; sexual power dynamics that fluctuate based upon sex, race, and political position.

In both situations the woman in question is the site of colonization – in the case of the woman of color, she is rendered as a symbol of the colonization of her nation. Fanon also expresses some clear resentment towards women of color as he describes their desire to always pursue the lightest men possible, to deny their nationality via their chosen sexual partners. Clearly, though, they are often the chosen. The conquest of these women by white men is an additional manifestation of the conquest of their nation. However, in the example of Mayotte, Fanon demonstrates a woman of Martinique that is bent on class ascension via racial means, “every woman in the Antilles, whether in a casual flirtation or in a serious affair, is determined to select the least black of the men.” (47) Fanon predicts that this racial self-loathing is re-projected onto the the youths of the next generation, either through the family structure or through the classroom or other social institutions. The message that will be passed on is of presumed inadequacy, one is only as “white as one is rich, as one is beautiful, as one is intelligent.” (51-52) These desired characteristics are ingrained as markers of whiteness. However, while attaining whiteness means attaining these characteristics, it is not clear that the converse is true. The colored person of the Antilles, in Fanon’s description, simply does not have true access to wealth, beauty, and intelligence because even having these qualities in abundance does not make them more white.

Fanon opens his chapter on the man of color and the white woman with the following confession:

Out of the blackest part of my soul, across the zebra striping of my mind, surges this desire to be suddenly white.

I wish to be acknowledged not as black but as white.

Now – and this is a form of recognition that Hegel had not envisaged – who but a white woman can do this for me? By loving me she proves that I am worthy of white love. I am loved like a white man.

I am a white man.

Her love takes me into the noble road that leads to total realization. . .

I marry white culture, white beauty, white whiteness.

When my restless hands caress those white breasts, they grasp white civilization and dignity and make them mine. (63)

Fanon’s rhetoric in this poetic moment emphasizes the interaction between desire and identification. He desires a white woman because he desires to be a white man and if not a white man, then just like a white man. The white woman’s body, her breasts are the symbol of dignities that are refused Fanon as a black man. This mythical white woman is deeply objectified, a mere marker for her race and civilization. A less than human symbol and battleground for resistance. Jonathan Dollimore, in a chapter on bisexuality, writes, “Do we ever simply desire the person we love, or is our desire not also partly an identification with him or her? Simply put, the ‘I want you’ of desire is complicated by the ‘I want to be you’ of identification.” (27) While Dollimore refers to gender difference, the argument is clearly manifested in Fanon’s desire for racial difference and identification. Fanon describes these urges as coming from the “darkest part” of his soul but from the “zebra stripping” of his mind. The desire to be white comes from the part of him that is fully and darkly black, the soul and only “across” the part of him that is already conspicuously colonized by whiteness, his mind. In this way, Fanon seems to imply that the desire for whiteness or more generally the desire for identification and assimilation is intrinsic to him, separate from his experience with colonization. More importantly, this experience of identification may be just as commonly experienced by a white person as it is by him.

Can Fanon’s troubling portrayal of racial mixing be used to describe the impetus behind contemporary examples of miscegenation? Certainly, a change in setting effects the validity of this claim. Furthermore, Fanon does not regularly acknowledge the actual human relationships and emotions that are in play as the result of a given marriage. His psycholanalysis is societal instead of individuated and therefore makes sweeping generalizations about the motivations of all interracial relationships. It discounts any instances of true cross-racial compatibility or couplings that are motivated by non-political factors (love or passion spring to mind although neither are fully outside of politics.) For this reason, his work is inadequate to explain actual interracial relationships. At the very least it must be acknowledged that his condemnation or critical approach to them is over-arching.

However, there is something very useful about Fanon’s theories as they can be received by a contemporary, multi-racial American audience. It is clear that they can go a long way to explain the production and broad appeal of interracial pornography. The epidermalization of desire is reflected in contemporary interracial pornography. We need to look at not just how but also why interracial pornography portrays its characters in this way.

As an opening caveat, it should be clear that I approach this question by considering these erotic materials as texts. While much ink has been shed by anti-pornography feminists, I do not wish to enter the fray on the question of censorship. Therefore, I have refrained from making normative claims about the existence of such work or its legitimacy in the community. While it is easy to see why many find it distasteful, my purpose is to interrogate the psychology behind its creation and message, not the psychological effects of its existence or consumption.

Of course it is never fully possible to bracket this question and I hope to dismantle one particular underpinning of the anti-pornography argument. Most of the arguments to censor pornography rest on Catherine MacKinnon’s position that pornography is a form of harmful hate speech, the speech is an action in itself and has harmful effects. The effects described usually are in the form of unrealistic attitudes towards women and sexuality. However, I will argue that the adult industry does not create these myths as an invidious attempt to corrupt the psychic and sexual health of the pornography consumer. Rather, the pornography industry (perhaps more than any other group of businesses I can imagine) creates their product based upon demand. Being affiliated with “the oldest profession” means that pornography makes a business of selling sex, one of the most basic of human drives. While a gadget manufacturer is also in the business of manufacturing desire for their product (humans are not born with a drive to own a mandolin slicer) the adult industry caters to a market that is always already there. Their productions do not exist in a social vacuum, rather they are based upon the desires and fantasies of their audience. This is not to say that pornographers cannot be exploitative. But it is to say that their marketing techniques and product development are almost necessarily some of the least invasive of any type of business that exists. This is not because of particular benevolence but because of the nature of the product, they sell something that is built into humans to want and desire. They also sell the manifestations of often unspoken fantasies.

Another important caveat is regarding the appropriateness of comparing contemporary racism in the United States with the post-colonial condition of racism. Certainly the diaspora of Africans has unique impact based upon their geographical location. My argument is that these representations in pornography constitute a colonizing mindset that has never fully diminished in the American psyche. This helps one to get away from the argument that particular pornography producers are racist and hateful (although some certainly might be) and allows for the more fruitful line of thinking that the demand for this sort of material makes a very real statement about the society that produces it. The presence of this fantasy of colonization and subordination blur erotic lines to make a political statement.

It is appropriate to begin with a description of the state of contemporary interracial pornography. What happens in these films? How are they marketed? And what are the racial tropes circulating within them? One popular weblogger and adult industry insider, Sam Sugar, described interracial pornography in the following way:

I am a black man

Your name: People will want to name you something that get’s across that you have a big, black cock. The porn industry knows that black guys with small dicks do not exist. They know you have a cock like a cruise missile covered in radar absorbing paint. [...]

Your movies: You will be offered roles in movies with the words black, gang, ballin’, ass, jungle, and chocolate in the title. When you are asked to perform with white women they will be referred to using the words little, tiny, innocent, stretched and meat. E.g. “Big Black Beef Stretches Little Pink Meat”. I’m sad to say that’s a real movie.

Your press: Every mention of your name will be followed by the imagined length of your cock in inches. People will refer to the ’soul’ you put into your performances and the ‘rhythm’ of your love tenderizing.


I’m a black woman

Your name: Anything you like – bonus points for making it extra ghetto. Shaniqwa Debonair is an excellent choice.

Your movies: It’s all about being a chocolate sister. People will be unable to look at you without wanting to put your ‘phat ghetto booty’ in a video with some guys from The Digital Underground. The people doing this will be white. Regardless of the size of your butt it will be referred to as ‘two fine hams’. Expect to get spanked a lot.

Your press: The world needs to know that you have a lot of junk in the trunk. Your ass will get more coverage than your medical degree. If you ever get upset about anything you will be called an uppity high maintenance bitch.

While meant to elicit a laugh, his analysis is a grippingly honest description of the racialized discourse of sex and pornography. He makes few apologies for these realities and instead describes them plainly. These descriptions are difficult to stomach at times and seem as if they must be exaggerations. They are not, and while graphic, the honesty of these complaints is compelling. It is probably not shocking to know that Sugar’s descriptions of the treatment of black men and women is sandwiched among other groups of people that are fetishized in pornography including Latinos, Asians, and physically different people. Especially useful is description of how these films are marketed. The titles that are chosen and the words and descriptions that appear on box covers are the essence of the pornography producer’s pitch to their client. They are meant to appeal to their audience instantly and stand out amongst a plethora of other options. Why do these titles have such a broad appeal? The easy answer is that only racists buy such materials but the broad demand and the mainstream nature of them seems to undermine that option.

At face value, it is simple to dismiss these representations as repugnant, however there is a deeper ambivalence to this genre. Some argue that by depicting interracial sex, a traditionally taboo subject in American culture, that this pornography can lead to breaking the taboos that exist and allow for greater acceptance of interracial relationships.(Williams, 274) The counterpoint, of course, exists that the extreme caricatures are more damaging than they can ever be fruitful. Because the focus of these films is on the interracial aspect, the performers are distilled to cultural and sexual stereotypes and are not individuated outside of that. Pornography is rarely interracial in an incidental way. The question of race is constantly brought to the fore in the titles of pieces as well as the dialogue that occurs between characters.

The market for these films is varied. Some are meant to appeal to white men while others
are intended to have a broader appeal. This begs the question, if the audience of interracial pornography is, itself, interracial what is the message of it? Clearly, the message is different for each individual viewer just as their motivations for watching may be individual. The BDSM fetish community has a motto: Safe, Sane, Consensual. Practitioners of bondage, domination, and sadism maintain that as long as an activity between two adults meets that three-pronged test, it is acceptable. While not all people within the community may find it arousing and some may even find it repugnant, if it passes this test BDSM practitioners will not practice judgment. “Safe, Sane, and Consensual” is used to eroticize and create safe spaces for acceptance of many fringe forms of sexual play and the role playing of extreme situations such as rape, bestiality, and incest. If these acts are accepted by a sexual community can educated people make the same allowances for what we find distasteful in interracial pornography? One thing that BDSM play and pornography clearly have in common is the element of performance and the desire to segment desires in such a way that they have multiple interpretations. If pornography is nothing else, it is rhetorical, and its reception is entirely dependent upon the desires of the viewing audience.

Interracial pornography requires a performance of race by the actors involved. The dialog in these films is always self-aware and referential to the racial difference between the actors. The contrast between their bodies is emphasized continually. A black actress is playing a different role in an interracial film than she might be in a film that emphasizes the size of her breasts or a particular sexual act. She is always a black actress but her blackness becomes the commodity that is traded. While it may be hard to believe, it is plausible that the actress in question derives just as much sexual satisfaction from racialized sexual play as the white male that may be watching her performance. Likewise, a submissive in a BDSM context is just as sexually invested in their own humiliation as the person that does the humiliating. It is easy to revert to the argument that such sexual desires stem from some manifestation of self-loathing or insecurity but that explanation is dangerously paternalistic. Acceptance of such lifestyle choices does not necessarily imply advocacy of them or agreement with them. However, exiting personal preferences for a moment in order to fathom difference is a crucial step in the obliteration of oppressive taboos, including those against racial mixing.

Just as Fanon interprets negrophobia as a form of white sexual anxiety, the politically
fearful dismissal of interracial pornography stems from deeply held taboos about race. The performance of stereotypes, while distasteful can have a positive effect,

Stereotypes are important objects of study not because we can better learn to eliminate them from our thinking, but because they cannot be eliminated. Stereotypes persist, and perhaps even thrive on, the protestations against them; the louder the protest, the more they thrive. [...] To forbid all utterance or depiction of the stereotype of the originally phobic image of the large black penis is to grant it a timelessness and immortality that it does not really possess. (Williams, 284)

So, it is because of the fetishistic nature of the stereotypes, as they are already uttered, that the compulsion to repeat their utterance can actually have a positive effect. This is not a blanket suggestion to toss around slurs and half-truths but instead a way to implore people to see them for what they are – archaic but deeply held beliefs to be questions. The sooner a move is made away from holding them as sacred, the sooner we can mock and demystify these stereotypes, the more likely it is that interracial sexual relationships will lose their stigma. However, I want to be perfectly clear that these arguments are merely a way to accept and interpret interracial pornography in a useful way – to find a space where these celebrations of difference can be transmuted into an understanding of the powerful erotic desires that ground contemporary race relations. Are the stereotypes exploited in interracial pornography liberatory in and of themselves? Are the actors involved always intentionally problematizing race or experiencing sexual satisfaction from their performances of racial stereotypes? Of course not, the producer’s only intrinsic intention is to make money on their product, making it neutral at best. Many actors are exploited or at least not particularly invested in the racial tone of the product they are producing. But recognizing the adult choices that go into the production of such material and accepting fantasies without judgments can contribute greatly in stripping the stigma from interracial sexuality.

Works Referenced


Dollimore, Jonathan. Sex, Literature, and Censorship. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001.


Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Trans. Lam Markmann. New York: Grove Press, 1967.


Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality Volume 1. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.

MacKinnon, Catharine A. Only Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.

Penley, Constance. “Crackers and Whackers: The White Trashing of Porn.” Porn Studies. Ed. Linda Williams. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2004.
Sugar, Sam. “Porn and Prejudice.” Sugarbank. 23 June 2005. 14 Nov. 2005 .

Williams, Linda. “Skin Flicks on the Racial Border: Pornography, Exploitation, and Interracial Lust.” Porn Studies. Ed. Linda Williams. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2004.

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Recently, Debra LaFave’s case was dropped by the prosecutor even though she admits her guilt. The article is full of maudlin bullshit about her faith in God and this being a bump on her Christian path. The most interesting thing about that link is that on the right side of the page is a CNN poll asking this question:

“Did Debra Lafave benefit from a double standard on sex crimes?”

90 percent of people say yes. This isn’t a political issue. This isn’t about feminism or mysogyny. This is about our standards of sexual misconduct and expectations of men and boys to be always already sexualized.

I grappled this week with a difficult to stomach passage in Foucault’s History of Sexuality, those who are familiar with it will remember the “curdled milk” story, I’ll post the paragraph for the benefit of the others:

One day in 1867, a farm hand from the village of Lapcourt, who was somewhat simpleminded, employed here then there, depending on teh season, living hand to mouth from a little charity or in exchange for the worst sort of labor, sleeping in barns and stables, was turned into authorities. At the border of the field, he had obtained a few caresses from a little girl, just as he had done before and seen done by the village urchins around him; for at the very edge of the wood, or in the ditch by the road leading to Saint-Nicholas, they would play the familiar game called “curdled milk.” So he was pointed out by the girl’s parents to the mayor of the village, reported by the mayor to the gendarmes, led by the gendarmes to the judge, who indicted him and turned him over first to a doctor, then to two other experts who not only wrote their report but also had it published. What is the significant thing about this story? The pettiness of it all; the fact that this everyday occurence in the life of village sexuality, these inconsequential bucolic pleasures, could become, from a certain time, the object not only of a collective intoleracne but of a judicial action, a medical intervention, a careful clinical examination, and an entire theoretical elaboration. The thing to note is that they went so far as to measure the brainspan, study the facial bone structure, and inspect for possible signs of degenerescence the anatomy of this personage who up to that moment had been an integral part of village life; that they made him talk; that they questioned him concerning his thoughts, inclinations, habits, sensations, and opinions. And then, acquitting him of any crime, they decided finally to make him into a pure object of medicine and knowledge – an object to be shut away till the end of his life in the hospital at Mareville, but also to be made known to the world of learning through a detailed analysis. One can be fairly certain that during this time period the Lapcourt schoolmaster was instructing the little villagers to mind their language and not talk about all these things aloud. But this was undoubtedly one of the conditions of enabling the institutions of knowledge and power to overlay this everyday bit of theater with their solemn discourse. So it was that our society – and it was doubtless the first in history to take such measures – assembled around these timeless gestures, these barely furtive pleasures between simple-minded adults and alert children, a whole machinery for speechifying, analyzing, and investigating.

I know that at first reading, this seems like a contradiction. Here I am concerned about the exploitation of children and I am quoting an author that comes off as irresponsibly cavalier on the issue. The point here, though, is not whether Foucault rhetorically trivializes child abuse (he does) and whether or not that is a cheap shot (it is in many ways). The purpose of this passage for me is to question our deepest assumptions about sex in society. The assumption that Foucault questions is about the sexuality of children and how we pathologize deviants like the village dimwit. Reading this passage isn’t easy, it makes you angry, and then that anger makes you realize just how much you’re steeped in the ideologies of sexuality that our society proscribes.

The particular one that is upsetting me lately is that men cannot be victimized and if they are it is certainly not by other women. Do you think for a moment that these cases are an anomoly? Certainly, they must be symptoms of a much larger problem. I don’t want to use hysterical language or point to an epidemic that probably doesn’t exist but I also don’t see the point of burying our heads in the sand. Women can be child molestors and sexual agressors and violent criminals just like any other human being. We are so used to thinking of women as victims that that is difficult to remember and regard that fact at its full weight.

This oversight is, in my opinion, the single biggest mistake of modern feminism. My feminism is about challenging gender roles and recognizing patriarchy as an ideology that every human operates within and is affected by. Feminisms have done a terrible job of incorporating men because of this shortcoming and everyone is still playing the same gender roles whether they want to or not.

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The popular stereotype (pornographic at least) would tell you that librarians are repressed nymphomaniacs desperately trying to maintain decorum. Its a nice thought. . .

I’ve been wanting to write about sex in libraries for ages and something happened this week that drove it to the forefront. Little do you know but this week witnessed an annual cultural moment that concerns many librarians. The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.

I’ve never thought much of the Swimsuit Edition one way or another. There are certainly more revealing photographs in various popular magazines all the time. Granted, I live in the South where the grocery store puts modesty guards over Allure, Cosmopolitan, and even Shape magazines as well. I was surprised this week to notice about 15 other library students most of whom currently work in libraries grappling with the question of the Swimsuit Edition.

The first shocker is that it is a question at all. The original poster asked about it with disdain and some assumption that certainly librarians needed to lock away these shocking, disgusting images of . . . the female body! The responses varied but most gave a level-headed reply that it was handled like any other issue of Sports Illustrated (put on the browsing shelves and almost immediately stolen.) Other librarians pointed out that young adults are savvy and know exactly where to find the sex books in libraries already and that hiding these things away just makes something natural an issue to snicker over.

The thing that bothers me about this exchange isn’t the conclusions that the future librarians came to. No one advocated banning the Swimsuit Edition or was even particularly offended by it (except perhaps the person who originally asked the question.) But librarians are particularly susceptible to societal pressures and many have convinced themselves that the risk of someone seeing something pornographic at a library is absolutely terrifying. I’ve seen dozens of intelligent conversations on offering digital information to patrons devolve into “how do we stop them from looking at porn?!” hysteria.

Of course there are several practical reasons why openly viewing pornography in a library should be prevented. And unfortunately, common sense and social etiquette of patrons does not necessarily pick up the slack. However, I’m not sure that I’m convinced that sex is the most pressing issue facing libraries today and I wonder if it is a waste of resources worry about it so extensively.

This issue touches on the development of library collections (what books and periodicals appear in the library), the training of reference staff (which questions are appropriate to answer), and access to electronic resources (requirements to use an internet terminal and whether or not that internet access is filtered.)

So, I propose an experiment! I intend to visit the public library in my medium-sized Southern city and attempt access at several websites. I suspect that the filtering software will stop me from viewing many informative sites and blogs that are not pornographic but are about sex or pornography. Conversely, I suspect that it will allow me access to sites that perhaps should be filtered but are smaller. How do I know this? A preliminary experience with the filtering software allows my site (maybe it shouldn’t, I post filthy stories and pictures – it is almost certainly pornographic) but does not allow access to Sugarbank (that site has always intentionally been non-pornographic and is a source of business information.)

I have a list of sites that I want to test this theory with but I’d like more suggestions. Post links as a comment and I’ll include them in the “study”.

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