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?