Giving Head

Yeah, I'm really gonna title a post like that. Isn't it about time I dedicate a post to talking about it?

So, I recently finished reading Lisa Jean Moore's Sperm Counts: Overcome by Man's Most Precious Fluid. For those who haven't seen its cover flashed over every bookish rag in the land, it's a feminist scholarly work that explores the sociological semiotics of semen (Jesus. That might be my new favorite alliteration). And quite frankly, I think it's a lame-ass book. But I'll get to why I think that in a minute.

Yesterday, I found Camille Paglia's review of several gender-studies books-- ones that, in particular, finally get around to talking about the male side of the gender-studies coin. And really, it's true. Scholarly works that specifically privilege the male experience are few and far between these days. Also true, it's nice that there's plenty of room in the discourse for non-white, non-male, non-hetero perspectives now, but you know what? Hetero men didn't exactly stop being interesting-- at least, not altogether. So, the other two books that Paglia discusses sound like fun reads to a big ol' gender-issues nerd like me, but for once, I'm going to withhold opinions about stuff I haven't read.

I will say, however, that while Paglia's review of Sperm Counts isn't altogether favorable, I think she's still far too kind. For one thing, Paglia praised Moore for her accessible, engaging tone throughout most of the book, and criticizes her for her for slipping into the ever-suspect language of the academy every now and again. About that, I would say that, when Moore speaks Academic-ese, she's pedantic, repetitive and patronizing to her readers, in that she feels like she has to define every last goddamn term. Even ones that have entered the common parlance. It's dreadful. But, in my opinion, when she's chipper, "humorous," and accessible, well, she doesn't, ultimately, have much to say beyond parroting the well-trodden party line of middle-aged feminists across the land. Basically, Moore's more of a researcher than she is a writer. Paglia's definition of lively does not seem to sync up with my own, let's say.

Paglia also points out that Moore relies on a particular brand of paleo-feminism that claims it's a man's world after all, and that women are still mere victims of the paradigm of objectification. Yawn, yawn, yawn! How many time have I said this? I'm sick to death of being told that the world is out to get me because I don't have a dick (and, in this case, because my body doesn't make semen). OK, OK, OK--I know I've ranted about that point ad nauseum already. I don't need to do it again.

But there's something else a little funny in the subtext of the book that just rubs me the wrong way. Moore announces pretty early on that she's a lesbian who has been on the board of some big sperm bank for umpteen years and that both of her daughters were conceived via donor sperm with the help of a turkey baster. So, that's her stake in the (oh, forgive me-- I'm not usually a rhymey kinda girl, but this one's irresistible) jizz-biz. But that's the extent of it. Although she spends a chapter discussing money shots and all cum-related niche-market porn, and another discussing sex workers and their precautions against a potentially bio-toxic substance, she never really gets around to discussing the complicated and layered relationship hetero, non-prostitute, non-pornstar women have with semen.

Much in the way it would behoove your average straight guy to get over any squeamishness he may feel towards menstrual blood pretty early on in his sexual narrative, it seems to me that it's also in the best interest of a woman with any investment at all in heterosexual behavior to relinquish her grossed-out-edness at semen. Because, after all, no one wants to feel that his or her lover finds him or her icky. And yet, straight girl/sperm relations remain complex, even for the most sexually blasé among us. Were a glob of the stuff to, say, land in a girl's hair, would she feel more triumphant that she'd been the cause and catalyst of such an event, or would she feel more degraded because it's hard not to find the excesses of someone else's body on your person without feeling little sullied? Some combination of the two? A more vicarious experience of pleasure? Or something else entirely? Though I'm finding it rather un-nameable, the mixture of attitudes that one who does not create semen might have about having a man come on her, in her, or inside her mouth can only ever be fairly multifarious. And this is the real emotional resonance of the female feeling regarding sperm that I think Moore misses.

She describes smells-- chiefly unpleasant ones ("bleach, household cleaner, or swimming pool water"). For the record, I deem all these inaccurate descriptors, as they all seem to be lacking the notable animal-scent that I think most often predominates. Also, I find it slightly ironic that these are chemical scents, rather than mammalian ones, when Moore spends so much of the book attempting to demystify, normalize (and also de-anthropomorphize) assorted conceptualizations of semen. How does equating the stuff with all the things under the kitchen sink on which a parent might stick a Mr. Yuck sticker demystify or normalize any damn thing? And then she recalls her partner saying, "This stuff smells gross, " upon their first turkey baster moment. I'm not saying it's the loveliest fragrance around, but c'mon, my lesbian sisters! It's not that bad!

Later, in discussing cum shots in porn, she says, "Women appear to be insatiable and competitive about their desire for ingesting the semen as they rush to get to the ejaculating penis, the full shot glass, or the residual ejaculate on a sheet. What does it mean to see women completely overcome with their desire to drink semen? To smear it all over their bodies? What does this say about male desire and masculinity?" And while it's often true that, in the fantasy-world of Porn Land, female desire for men is, ahem, overblown (it's a show, people! Porn's not supposed to look like real life!), she answers her own rhetorical questions by getting bogged down in a bunch of stuff about how the celebrations of semen in porn are pointedly ignoring the bio-toxic aspect (in the age of HIV) thereof, and are therefore titillating. But this is missing the point. She does manage to concede that "it is perhaps more accurate to theorize that men, both as spectators and actors, want women to want their semen" while she is discusses porn actresses' apparent pleasure at all this swallowing-and-smearing business, but what DOES it say about male desire and masculinity? And more relevant yet, what does it say about female desire?

She never does get around to admitting that, outside of porn films, female desire for men can be very real. And sometimes that means not minding if you get a little on you. And sometimes it even means appreciating the vicarious thrill of feeling it hit the back of your throat (my, I AM feeling brave and confessional tonight, aren't I?). So, I suppose that what I think is missing from this book is this: if one doesn't have an investment in willing, causing, and/or enjoying male pleasure, a feminist exploration of the physical evidence of that pleasure feels quite impoverished. Quite frankly, it's the least sexy book about a very sexy topic that a person could dream up. I can't help but feel like that's because, to Moore, semen really is nothing beyond an X or a Y chromosome, nothing beyond a fluid composed of "prostoglandin, fructose, and fatty acids"-- and that, somehow, a lingering neo-puritanical gross-out factor clings to it. Now, I don't mean to imply that I feel the stuff should be treated as though it were a veritable god-ish nector, worthy of idolatry, but we cannot go around behaving as though it's a)by definition, some sort of HIV-ridden venom, b) something about which we should only have a clinical interest, or c) something ooky on which only someone flagrant and shameless as a pornstar could get off.

When am I gonna find a feminist who not only doesn't make the assumption that "we live in a male-dominated world where most men have more power than most women, and where having a penis and producing sperm is valued" (she really does deliver this tried-and-true paleo-feminist aphorism-- I'm not contesting that it's, on some level, weight-bearing, but it just smacks of self-fulfilling prophecy in such a way that its very admission in such a text pisses me off!), but also at least tries to understand what women stand to gain by forming political, sexual, interpersonal alliances with men? And what we stand to gain by sucking one off every now and again? Surely, there's something in it for us. Right?

The upside of a crappy task

Selecting passages on which to base reading comprehension questions for a standardized test is a truly demoralizing job. You have to pick the blandest, most innocuous stuff that is least likely to offend the broadest range of people. The reasoning-- which is reasonable--is that young students might not be equipped to interpret texts in the most generous light possible without the benefit of guidance from a more experienced reader-- namely, a teacher. I could really go on and on and on about the other hang-ups I have about this portion of my job, but, really, I'm trying very hard not to badmouth my job on this blog any more. That's a bad idea for karmic reasons.

But, really, the best part of it is that I've been pouring through my own bookshelves in search of stuff that's not about sex, racial identity, moral ambiguity, queerness, blood, guts, dicks, the eating of pork (literal, not metaphorical--I'm a little obsessed with writers who talk about Southern food) or social class issues. Yeah, there ain't a whole hell of a lot in my own personal library that doesn't touch on one, many, or all of these topics. However, I have been reminding myself about how much I still love some of the books I read years ago. So, here's an impromptu nostalgic list composed of readerly jaunts from yesteryear:

1. The Complete Poems of Hart Crane, by Hart Crane
2. What the Living Do and The Good Thief, by Marie Howe
3. An American Childhood and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard
4. For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, by Nathan Englander
5. The Complete Poems, 1927-1979, by Elizabeth Bishop
6. M.A.C.N.O.L.I.A., by A. Van Jordan
7.Complete Poems, by Marianne Moore
8. The Orchid Thief, by Susan Orlean
9. The Lone Ranger and Tonto: Fistfight in Heaven, by Sherman Alexie
10. China Men, by Maxine Hong Kingston
11. Ariel, by Sylvia Plath (the new original-order one is better than Ted Hughes' version)
12. Fever: Stories, by John Edgar Wideman

Now, mind you, virtually nothing from any of these will ever appear on a test. But, damn, they're good books.



And by the way, this happens to be my 100th post this year! Cheers!

Makes me shudder (in a good way)

My new favorite Hart Crane poem (I've been reading a lotta Ohioan writers lately... wonder why...):

National Winter Garden

Outspoken buttocks in pink beads
Invite the necessary cloudy clinch
Of bandy eyes.... No extra muffling here:
The world's one flagrant, sweating cinch.

And while legs waken salads in the brain
You pick your blonde out neatly through the smoke.
Always you wait for someone else though, always--
(Then rush the nearest exit through the smoke).

Always and last, before the final ring
When all the fireworks blare, begins
A tom-tom scrimmage with a somewhere violin,
Some cheapest echo of them all--begins.

And shall we call her whiter than snow?
Sprayed first with ruby, then with emerald sheen--
Least tearful and least glad (who knows her smile?)
A caught slide shows her sandstone grey between.

Her eyes exist in swivellings of her teats,
Pearls whip her hips, a drench of whirling strands.
Her silly snake rings begin to mount, surmount
Each other--turquoise fakes on tinselled hands.

We wait that writhing pool, her pearls collapsed,
--All but her belly buried in the floor;
And the lewd trounce of final muted beat!
We flee her spasm through a fleshless door....

Yet, to the empty trapeze of your flesh,
O Magdalene, each comes back to die alone.
Then you, the burlesque of our lust--and faith,
Lug us back lifeward--bone by infant bone.


God. How is poetry not, like, the biggest turn-on ever?

September is the NEW cruelest month

I work and then Mom visits. I work and then someone gets married. I work and then someone else gets married. And then I work some more.

Oh, my blog! I miss you so!

Blogging and having a social calendar and having a job are beginning to feel imcompatible. This makes me sad. I think I'd rather sacrifice the latter two for the former, if only I didn't like my friends and family and need money.

Hence, September will prove sparse.

Dear Future Beau: Please read me Ondaatje when we are old

I'm really bored by romantic movies, for the most part. Thus far, the most pronounced exception to that rule is Secretary. Some will doubtlessly question why I classify Secretary under the heading "Romantic Movie," but I guess, to me, I think it's the MOST romantic movie. It's about two really weird people who, between the two of them, happen to have a matching set of emotional suitcases. Regardless of their various and sundry kinky sex games, that's really pretty sweet. Because I don't have much of a cinematic sweet tooth, (at all, at all, at all!) I find that that film tests the limits of my gag reflex without pushing me over the line. To me, this is the mark of good romantic movie.

And here comes Away From Her, another sort of romantic movie altogether. All those movie critic people have been talking up Sarah Polley's directorial debut for a while. And Away From Her is, pretty much, all it's cracked up to be. It's a lovely artistic collaboration between three women, and the breath of each is readily apparent throughout. It's Polley's own adaptation of Alice Munro's lyrical short story, "The Bear Came Over the Mountain." Munro's muscular, palpable presence haunts the film in its poetic and incisive dialogue, as does Polley's general persona. For me, because I've been watching Polley's acting for years--from The Sweet Hereafter through Go and all the way on up through The Secret Life of Words-- Polley's wide-eyed vulnerability and dutifully contained passions pervade this film. And the soul of the director finds its avatar in the body of Julie Christie, the third point of the creative triangle.

Beautiful women often prove an unforeseen challenge for directors-- the strength of their visage alone often overtakes the story or tone or impetus behind the film. And it's undeniable that watching a woman as lovely as Julie Christie weather the aging process could be distracting. But she is so understated and thoughtful in her performance that there was no reason to ugly her up in the least. And though we can't keep our eyes off her face, I don't think a less perfect face could have carried such a role. Her character is rapidly progressing along the Alzheimer's trajectory. To praise Christie and Polley for not robbing this character, Fiona, of her dignity (they don't) would be cheap praise, indeed. There is something far more wrenching going on within Fiona's progressive vacancy. And while I feel at a loss in terms of being able to name that something, I can't help but marvel at the Christie's layered performance. And it goes above and beyond the usual beautiful-woman-destroyed thing, like we in films like Monster's Ball or, say, Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons.

And she's not even the real main character. Fiona's husband Grant, as played by Gordon Pinsett, is stoically heartbroken throughout. The film opens with a ritualistic evening meal, followed by even more ritual--his reading a very recognizable excerpt from The Cinnamon Peeler aloud. Even if I didn't think Michael Ondaatje was about the only writer around who could tickle my sentimental bone (yeah, it's buried really fucking deep-- but I guess I have to admit that I, too, am equipped with just such a bone), it would be hard to not get all mushy over a couple of old people who are still in love after 40 some years. We learn that they've slogged through assorted nonmonogamous interludes and other events that might stress out a marriage--including the Alzheimer's itself. There is, however, no doubt that these two belong together. And so, after Fiona goes to live in a facility, we follow Grant's attempts at daily living and it is clear that, really, his perspective is the driving one. He version of their history is, after all, the more reliable of the two.

I've relayed a handful of theories about the nature of life on this planet over the course of this blog--and I have one about climate and human temperaments that I've yet to tell. Are you surprised I have yet another crackpot theory about something random? So, basically, I've noted a strange correlation between art forms that come from cold places vs. those that come from warm places. If you compare German painters to Italian painters, it's like comparing a turnip to a nectarine. The work of the former tends bloodless and rooty--fascinating in its hardness, its colorlessness, while the other is fleshy and fat-- tangible and lusty. Consider Lucas Cranach the Elder as compared to Raphael. Compare Kirchner to Boccioni. Similarly, think of the New York art scene in comparison to what shows in galleries in San Francisco or Los Angeles. I tend to think New York poets have a different sensibility than California poets, too. And so, I look at a film like Away From Her, and it could be nothing if not Canadian-- Munro and Polley both claiming Canada as their points of origin. These folks are contained. They are not explosive in their grief. They emote in the same way their landscape does--conservatively.

And perhaps this is why I think this is a love story that I can like. I like a Canadian love story, just like I like an Mississippian sex drama (a la Black Snake Moan). In any case, I do hope Sarah Polley's quiet, measured directorial career has some legs. She's fun to watch.

I dub thee...

The official name of my new car is now (fanfare, please!) "Cupcake." This is the best name for my car for an assortment of reasons,all of which will remain inside jokes.

The winner is clearly the most brilliant of my friends: none other than Ms. C. R. And the next time I see her, I will doubtlessly grant her a hug.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, C. I can't imagine a more fitting name. For about a millions reasons.

What's wrong with you people?

An appropriate name has not yet surfaced for my vehicle. And I thought my friends were all so creative...

C'mon, people, surely someone can top "The Shimmering Flicker Motor Car Experience featuring Patricia Blaze."

Sooner or later, I'm going to have to declare a winner. I can't keep this contest open indefinitely, you know. Just think of my sad, nameless car, sitting on a slight diagonal, due to my poor parking, all forlorn, out there in the parking lot... It's sad, right?

Let's name this beast already!

Enjoying blog-fodder with the mother-person

My mom's in town this weekend. Amid much diet-straying and clothing-shopping-related budget destruction, I've managed to slip her enough Valium and rope her to the sofa long enough for us to watch two different movies. If you're not impressed, you haven't met my uber-enthusiastic mom. Trust me, what I've accomplished there is quite a feat.

So, the first film we watched was the documentary Jesus Camp. I don't have much commentary about this movie because I feel like it speaks for itself. Yes, I find it both terrifying and saddening that so many perfectly normal kids are being indoctrinated in a cultish brand of Christianity that manages to talk itself out of the most basic logicalities of our physical world. A couple of these kids seem pretty sharp and I wonder what will become of them-- I predict that either they'll experience some sort of adolescent/early adulthood satori and shrink back in horror at the utter myopia their parents foisted upon them, or they'll sink itchily into some variety of denial, so as to prolong the purity of their delusions about the nature of the god, the world, and god in the world, all the while berated themselves for niggling doubts about the tenacity of their faiths.

And the kids who aren't as swift? They are being so ill-equipped with the tools necessary for functioning productively that I'm afraid the world will eat them alive. One little nervous, spastic girl is coached to continually approach strangers she perceives as "sinners." The first is a pretty blond young woman, wearing tight clothes and plenty of make-up. This woman is polite and takes the encounter in stride, but the bizarre audacity of the child is remarkable. It's clear that she's picked up on the sexual signals the woman is emitting and that's why "God is telling" her that this woman is a prime target for proselytizing. And over the closing credits, we see this same little girl approach a circle of black men in a park. She asks them where they think they're going when they die and they say, of course, "Heaven?!" She asks, "Are you sure?" as though she doesn't believe them. As she walks away from them, you hear her say, "I think they were Muslims." But, to me, these folks looked far more likely to have fit squarely within the sprawling demographic of African American churchgoers. The set of assumptions about appearance and race that kids like this have been taught to make will doubtlessly render them incapable of managing encounters with people who do not fulfill their expectations as they mature.

This evangelical subculture seems so tragically hell-bent on suiting up their kids with a dangerous chainmail of denial, blind spots and aggression such that they may not be able to survive outside of their insular families and church groups. There are a lot more horrors to be found in this documentary, but the above summarizes the aspects I found most troubling. Prepare to be angered or saddened by your viewing-- I fell into the latter emotion, but I imagine there is just cause to feel the former as well.

And the second film I made my mom watch was this year's Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, The Lives of Others. There's no way in hell I could write a commentary on this film that is anywhere NEAR as insightful as Jeff Sharlet's. In the viewing, it's quite clear why this film was ripe for pluckage by the Academy-- it's got all the hallmarks of Oscar-worthy-ness. But Sharlet has quite effectively parsed out all the ways in which the film falls short of a trumpeting-angels type of revelation. Having read his write-up several months ago, I was keeping an eye on Mom's reactions throughout the film. Literally, appearances by the bad guy drew boos. And she seemed to fall right into the filmmaker's hands as she warmed to the sympathetic Stasi agent. Truly, this thing has the subtlety and nuanced character development of a silent-movie spaghetti western. The realist style of the film makes it difficult to NOT be leashed and have our sympathies manipulated and led--we, too, are plenty nervous about such things as technology-age surveillance and totalitarian-government-generated censorship, as we slog through the brackish waters of contemporary American culture. But, in the end, the high contrast between heroes vs. villains in this film prevents it from being the shimmering revelatory godsend of German filmmaking that the Academy voters would have us believe. But like I said, Sharlet says it a whole lot better than I do.

And now is the time wherein Mom and I go shopping. Again.