It's true that in my every day life, acquaintances who stumble upon my blog gain a whole lotta insight into my strange perspectives. At a recent family wedding, a cousin to whom I'd sent my URL admitted to me that, as he read my post about Anne Sexton's poem, "The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator," he kept thinking that he shouldn't be reading the sorta stuff I write-- that somehow, he was invading my private world or something. Secretly, I was a little thrilled to have excited such a sentiment. If I wasn't looking for intimacy through language, I don't quite know what I'd be doing with myself, even if that means exposing parts of myself that are not readily available to all who know me in real life. After all, I am not so presumptuous to assume that my public persona is anything other than basically, mundanely normal.
That said, I certainly do have my obsessions. In a deeply personal sense, I'm working very hard to carve out a life for myself in which I question social norms that do not seem to serve me well-- and then to go one step further, and question my own assumptions that, likewise, are not doing do my life any favors. To that end, I think and write and obsess a lot about how to be a sexual person and an self-possessed woman at the same time. And I mean, a lot. You might have noticed
So, then, it's really heartening when I find a cluster of articles that show that there are other brains out there in the world who've tapped into the same rivulet of thought that I've found. Here's a quick list of cool stuff the internet-cat dragged in:
1. This one that explores whether or not jealousy and feelings of sexual propriety are as ingrained as we've all grown accustomed to thinking they are.
2. This one that wonders, in the context of contemporary life, whether the very concept of monogamy serves us all that well in the first place.
3. This one in which the hyper-moralizing of American politicians acquires an air of hypocrisy, as, well, politicians, even Republican ones, are subject to the whims of their own physicalities-- as are the rest of us.
4. This one that points out how sheltering kids from all things sexual is detrimental to their education, their self-esteem, their reproductive health, their very senses of identity...
5. And THEN! Now, I know your excitement must be reaching a fevered pitch with all this fascinating text abounding, but someone wrote a book about how American culture is frighteningly invested in restricting sexual choice and denying relevant information about the very fecundity, variety and plurality of sexuality to assorted subsets of mentally solvent folks. And here's a review of that book.
On this note, I'll now mention that, last Friday, I went to a gathering of giggling women, during which I doubtlessly spouted off about how the last thing I want from a relationship is a situation in which I and some other poor sap feel it necessary to regulate each others' bodily functions. And, while most of my audience was at least politely sympathetic, one girl said something along the lines of, "Well, that's OK for YOU, freaky, weird girl that you are...but NORMAL people WANT to own each other (italics are my additions)." So, honest to god, it's such a damn relief to find reasonably articulate people writing articles and books that don't succumb to the ever-suspect conventional "wisdom" that espouses the paucity of sexual choices available to us. Especially if you throw them into contrast with the likes of Wendy Shalit and her paleolithic girls-n-modesty diatribes.
Thank heavens for scholar/freaks. I would feel so alone, were it not for them!
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