"Why does the conversation always have to turn to sex?" -- But isn't sex the one thing no one actually talks about precisely because it's all around us? Old women on The View talk about masturbation like it's the most "natural" thing in the world; there's only one reason we care that someone has a hot body; we make distinctions between friends and lovers; we watch porn. But still we close our doors, we laugh at Freud ... and we still watch porn. Isn't it entirely possible that the more we think we are "open" about sex--by posting pictures on the Internet and sexting people from Manhunt--the less we experience actual sex and not sex mediated by fantasies of victory and recognition?
"Teens are being encouraged to masturbate since they have a right to an orgasm a day." -- This is perhaps the most common illusion about sex--i.e., to think we are not "prudish" or "conservative" when we can accept sex as "perfectly natural". What do we really mean by "natural"? The experience of the human orgasm is not the same as that of other animals, for example--we cannot exhaust a description of an orgasm physiologically. Is it really possible to say that sex is "natural" because it is about things that happen in/to the body? Doesn't it make a difference that it is a specifically human body? We would not say that someone who eats his partner after sex or someone who has sex with ten partners a night is being "perfectly natural". The human body is always more than simply a body: what is "natural" for a human body is always already involved in the cultural.
If we are really going to be "open" about sex, we cannot hide behind the illusion that sex is "simply natural". The real question is how our sexuality is directed and formed. The ideology of "natural sexuality", which reduces sex to the body, leads us to think that sexual intercourse primarily involves the organs and does not let us see that real sex--real inter-course--involves more than just mouths and hands: it involves the entire space we occupy, the words that pass between us, the distance that separates us when we are not together, the look in my eyes, the memory of you ... There is no such thing as "foreplay" in real sex, since what passes as "foreplay" is not simply a prelude to "the real thing". Sex is not "natural" at all--it is a unique and rare experience of a certain type of relation to another person. This is why real sex cannot be displayed in porn and we should take porn for what it is, i.e., a display of fantasy; and also why most of what passes for sex is, at most, something more like mutual masturbation.
05 June 2010
Antimonies (13 July 2009)
A day of simple pleasures:
*A walk down 16th Street
*A flight of white wine varietals
*A glimpse at the stars
*Philip Glass on House
A night of contradictions:
*Sexting
*Eavesdropping on stupid conversations
*Blogging
*Singing along with Northern Way
*A walk down 16th Street
*A flight of white wine varietals
*A glimpse at the stars
*Philip Glass on House
A night of contradictions:
*Sexting
*Eavesdropping on stupid conversations
*Blogging
*Singing along with Northern Way
Identity (again) (8 July 2009)
Do we really have a choice to be only, simply, merely who we say we are? "I'm just me." -- But the "me" that I say I am is always in the position of being not the I who speaks. I have to look in the mirror, step outside of myself, take the position of an other with respect to myself--not just to live this body and this life but to observe and define it: "Je est un autre" (Rimbaud).
1. Persona. I overheard one of the meatheads at the gym say something about how unjust it is for us to give all this attention to the death of Michael Jackson when there are all these soldiers dying in Iraq--where are their concerts and commercialized television specials? Purely aside from the difference in circumstances, what matters is not simply the death of a body, wherein "all deaths are equal", including the death of a beloved pet. The question has nothing to do with the intrinsic value of the deceased but exactly the opposite. All the news coverage and memorials have nothing to do with the value of the flesh and bone laid to rest but everything to do with the extrinsic value of the person, the public figure, the character, the parriah, the myth, the wound that we called Michael Jackson--a life that was more than anything he did or said but exceeded by what we made of it.
2. "The Trouble With Normal." We heard today that Massachusetts is suing the federal government over the constitutionality of DOMA (which, unfortunately, we should remember was passed during the Clinton administration). On the one hand, because the institution of marriage is defined heteronormatively, the case can be made that equality can structurally never be achieved insofar as "equal rights" merely perpetuates the system of norms that define queer identity as subordinate or derivative (we are still "playing by their rules" and any victory that is won is a victory permitted by those rules). Yet at the same time what matters in this specific instance is not the love between two people nor even the identity of the lovers as queer. As a legal matter of "essential rights and protections", at stake in this conflict is the very existence of queer couples as legal entities (i.e., a question of legal and not queer identity).
1. Persona. I overheard one of the meatheads at the gym say something about how unjust it is for us to give all this attention to the death of Michael Jackson when there are all these soldiers dying in Iraq--where are their concerts and commercialized television specials? Purely aside from the difference in circumstances, what matters is not simply the death of a body, wherein "all deaths are equal", including the death of a beloved pet. The question has nothing to do with the intrinsic value of the deceased but exactly the opposite. All the news coverage and memorials have nothing to do with the value of the flesh and bone laid to rest but everything to do with the extrinsic value of the person, the public figure, the character, the parriah, the myth, the wound that we called Michael Jackson--a life that was more than anything he did or said but exceeded by what we made of it.
2. "The Trouble With Normal." We heard today that Massachusetts is suing the federal government over the constitutionality of DOMA (which, unfortunately, we should remember was passed during the Clinton administration). On the one hand, because the institution of marriage is defined heteronormatively, the case can be made that equality can structurally never be achieved insofar as "equal rights" merely perpetuates the system of norms that define queer identity as subordinate or derivative (we are still "playing by their rules" and any victory that is won is a victory permitted by those rules). Yet at the same time what matters in this specific instance is not the love between two people nor even the identity of the lovers as queer. As a legal matter of "essential rights and protections", at stake in this conflict is the very existence of queer couples as legal entities (i.e., a question of legal and not queer identity).
Moments (5 July 2009)
(to C)
"...we can dilate ourselves indefinitely by a more and more vigorous effort ... [and] transcend ourselves. ... We go toward a duration which stretches, tightens, and becomes more and more intensified: at the limit would be eternity. ... An eternity of life." (Bergson) Eternities that explode in certain moments: you sing a note and hear it reverberate in a perfect acoustical space; the feel of the rain on your face turned upward to the sky; the caress of a warm breath on your neck; the tremor in the instant his fingertips leave your skin -- moments where we let ourselves go and are taken out of ourselves (ec-stasy, ek-stasis) -- moments without purpose or ulterior motive. We cannot live "for" such moments, hoarding them jealously in the cavern of memory waiting to be re-lived, compulsively, again and again as if they could ever happen again, just as we remember them (like still thinking we are still varsity athletes when we're thirty). For to live like this would be to try to define ourselves by these moments, as if our lives have a meaning in these little eternities. But if, to experience eternity, we have to become infinite and be taken beyond ourselves, then what matters is simply to allow these experiences to happen -- to learn how to be open; to learn how to wait; and to master not knowing. Then we can be grateful not for what we have or what we pursue but for what we are given and for those whose paths we are lucky enough to share--even if only for a few steps.
"...we can dilate ourselves indefinitely by a more and more vigorous effort ... [and] transcend ourselves. ... We go toward a duration which stretches, tightens, and becomes more and more intensified: at the limit would be eternity. ... An eternity of life." (Bergson) Eternities that explode in certain moments: you sing a note and hear it reverberate in a perfect acoustical space; the feel of the rain on your face turned upward to the sky; the caress of a warm breath on your neck; the tremor in the instant his fingertips leave your skin -- moments where we let ourselves go and are taken out of ourselves (ec-stasy, ek-stasis) -- moments without purpose or ulterior motive. We cannot live "for" such moments, hoarding them jealously in the cavern of memory waiting to be re-lived, compulsively, again and again as if they could ever happen again, just as we remember them (like still thinking we are still varsity athletes when we're thirty). For to live like this would be to try to define ourselves by these moments, as if our lives have a meaning in these little eternities. But if, to experience eternity, we have to become infinite and be taken beyond ourselves, then what matters is simply to allow these experiences to happen -- to learn how to be open; to learn how to wait; and to master not knowing. Then we can be grateful not for what we have or what we pursue but for what we are given and for those whose paths we are lucky enough to share--even if only for a few steps.
Unattainable (4 July 2009)
(to N)
The question is not simply "who am I?" or "who is he?" If we really knew the answer to either of those questions, we wouldn't need to feel so betrayed by our sense of fairness that there things really are "meant to be". Who am I? who is he? Who are we in relation to who the other is? -- To who he is, to who he can be, and to who he will be. -- The beautiful one, the free one, the lost one, the silent one.
Like all gay men, maybe we can take our wisdom from Disney movies. Jasmine tells Aladdin that she is "not a prize to be won". In other words, she is not an object. Who can we possibly be to each other? This is exactly what we cannot know without already knowing. Instead, what remains are moments and all we can do is repeat. Repeat, and wait to see his smile.
The question is not simply "who am I?" or "who is he?" If we really knew the answer to either of those questions, we wouldn't need to feel so betrayed by our sense of fairness that there things really are "meant to be". Who am I? who is he? Who are we in relation to who the other is? -- To who he is, to who he can be, and to who he will be. -- The beautiful one, the free one, the lost one, the silent one.
Like all gay men, maybe we can take our wisdom from Disney movies. Jasmine tells Aladdin that she is "not a prize to be won". In other words, she is not an object. Who can we possibly be to each other? This is exactly what we cannot know without already knowing. Instead, what remains are moments and all we can do is repeat. Repeat, and wait to see his smile.
Secret (1 July 2009)
"What are you hiding?"--If something were truly hidden, would we even know that it was hidden? To know something is hidden is to know something about it. Or, to hide something, must we know that we are hiding it? Are we always so jealous of what we hide that we need to display it for all to see or, perhaps, only for those who know us better than we know ourselves. -- "Only something precious, or something terrible, is worth hiding. Isn't this why passion is always already suffering? The ones who love, who trust, are the only ones who suffer precisely because they love and trust."--But we do not choose to love. We can, perhaps, choose whom we trust but we cannot chose that we trust. And that is why we can press on: because hope is not who we are but who we might be. But the price we pay for hope is one that is not always easy to bear.
Identity (25 June 2009)
So I used to be one of those people who didn't get the point of Pride since I thought that if I'm queer the other days of the year why am I especially queer during Pride? I realized, though, that I made the same mistake that I thought was being made at Pride, i.e., in thinking that there is something called an 'identity' that I 'am' apart from the ones who love me, hate me, categorize me, or blame me. Am 'I' really who 'I' am apart from the child who was beaten by his father (hypothetically!)? Can we be 'queer' apart from the ones who deny us marriage rights, who typify us on TV, or even--without realizing it--make it uncomfortable to kiss our dates in the restaurant? There will no longer be a need for Pride when the conditions are such that one's own existence is not a political statement.
Chasing the wind (23 June 2009)
(to K)
Perhaps sometimes it's not so bad to be self-destructive. Isn't that what we need to do in any relationship, i.e., explode the 'self' to make room for another? Maybe that's why it can be so frightening--to follow him blindly, without regard for the probable, hoping only for the possible. The possible? So little and only this: perhaps, up ahead, weighing the burden of separation, I can be glad simply for his touch and for his smile ...
Perhaps sometimes it's not so bad to be self-destructive. Isn't that what we need to do in any relationship, i.e., explode the 'self' to make room for another? Maybe that's why it can be so frightening--to follow him blindly, without regard for the probable, hoping only for the possible. The possible? So little and only this: perhaps, up ahead, weighing the burden of separation, I can be glad simply for his touch and for his smile ...
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