This Actually Has Nothing to Do with Anyone's Penis

About a year ago, I wrote about how women aren’t taken seriously, particularly when it comes to sex and sexuality. In that same post, I mentioned that I have often faced the question, “How do women have sex?” Okay, chill—I’m not going to give you an explicit description.

I was talking to some friends recently about sex because, you know, that’s what people do sometimes. So, something was said that was all too familiar sounding to me. I won’t get into specifics, as it would unnecessarily spotlight my friend, when my intention is just to use what she said as a springboard to discuss women’s sexuality. Suffice it to say that she implied that women who are attracted to women are limited in their sexual expression. Sex without the involvement of a penis seems like such a difficult concept for many people to grasp. And I think the deeper problem here is a lack of understanding of the anatomy.

We live in a phallocentric world, so it’s not at all surprising that everyone knows what a penis is, where to locate it, and what it can do. And you’re not likely to confuse the testicles with the penis. But consider this: How many times have you heard someone refer to the vagina when they were actually talking about the vulva? And how much mystery surrounds the clitoris in terms of its location, appearance, and function? And, yes, women themselves conflate their body parts all the time. Of course, you can always skirt around this issue by using the versatile ‘P’ word (meow).

Even when it comes to masturbation, I know some women who prefer store-bought implements to the tools they were born with. Someone told me once there isn’t enough time, so the vibrator is the most useful tool. Hmm… I’ll get back to that in a second. First, let’s talk about the aforementioned devices and their non-battery-operated cousins. I was in a shop the other night that sells some of these. I wasn’t even prepared for it, as this place is not a bona fide sex shop; I was browsing and suddenly it was as if I’d stumbled upon some phallus worship shrine. Even the small ones designed specifically for clitoral stimulation resembled little penises. Come on! Why do the people designing these things want to reinforce the idea that a woman’s pleasure should be associated with the penis? This is precisely the problem, if you ask me.

This brings me back to the comment about time. But the process of taking your little friend out of wherever you store it, starting it up, reacquainting yourself with it, responding accordingly… Really, this is fast? I haven’t tested this hypothesis (however, if someone has done the research and wants to share their results with me, I’m happy to listen). Perhaps I should have asked her to clarify which type she was referring to—for internal or external use—because one would likely be more effective than the other; however, given the automatic association between sexual pleasure and vaginal penetration, we may differ in which one we think would be more effective.

Something else happened this week that made me reflect on how women’s sexuality is viewed. I watched the dreadful, now infamous Bhupendra Chaubey interview with Sunny Leone. Much of a fuss has been made about her work in porn. In fact, if not for that, she might not be such a common name in India. In fact, I doubt I would have heard of her (despite her Canadian origins) if it wasn’t for all those articles in my Facebook feed about the so-called porn queen. Till date, I haven’t heard anyone discuss her work in Indian cinema—Chaubey gave it only a brief mention including the insinuation that Leone is bringing down the tone of Bollywood. Right, because the industry was dominated by brilliant thespians before they let Sunny Leone join the club (you can’t see it, but I’m rolling my eyes right now). Chaubey’s offensive, irritating questions were clearly meant to imply that she should be ashamed of herself. He went so far as try to blame her singlehandedly for the high porn consumption rate in India! One person is really that powerful, eh? I’m really over the hypocrisy of someone from the country with the second highest population in the world pretending sex is some Western concept polluting the local culture. There is too much to dissect in that interview, and if I go there, I will end up writing a long essay. The point is that this interview highlighted the strange fascination coupled with fear and loathing of women who are unashamedly sexual.

A confident, assertive woman should be a turn-on; or maybe what she arouses instead is insecurity. If women demand that their partner(s) be more attentive and less self-centred, is that so threatening? Women are supposed to look sexy, but be chaste, and just lie down when told it’s time to be penetrated? More than dehumanizing, that’s just gross. Women are not mere receptacles for someone else’s junk and spunk. It was a job; she did her job; she has nothing to be ashamed of; get over it.

Women are powerful. I understand this. All the insecure products of patriarchy throughout the world also understand this. Think of how empowering it would be to reclaim your body by being better educated about it and then disseminating that knowledge. When in doubt, use the Internet. That’s a tool worth exploiting.

We're here, and we're not like you!

Recently, I had an epiphany. I was invited to a dinner party, where the majority of the attendees were to be queer people. My circle of friends has always comprised mostly people who identify as heterosexual, so such occasions are rare and very welcome. But well into the night, I realized that this wasn’t a simple get-together among friends; it was actually an educative exercise. We had a job to do—to enlighten a homophobic person at the table by showing him that we’re just like him. And here I thought my appeal was my dazzling conversation!

Normativity is a notion that I reject. It assumes that there is some basic standard against which everything should be measured, like the white, heterosexual, middle class and higher, able-bodied, cisgender male. It also implies that if you can’t tick all of those boxes, you must prove your worth as a viable human being to those representing the norm. So, without any ill intent, our host had asked us to do just that—i.e. prove ourselves—in the hope that it would help the homophobe see the light. How very ironic.

The epiphany happened after this bizarre episode, when I realized that this isn’t something I wish to do. As much as I like to challenge others and be challenged by them, I have no desire to be a tool in someone’s project to change another person. Indeed, no one should have to be part of something like this. So many people expend so much energy trying to fit in, fighting the bullies, the bigots, and the clueless, it gets exhausting. 

So, no, I’m not like that homophobe. And that’s perfectly okay. I don’t want or need his acceptance. If he thinks I’m an abomination, and that precludes him from ever trying to understand anything about me beyond my gender and whatever he perceives about my sexual orientation, that’s not my problem.

There is a reason why the adjective fabulous is often associated with queerness—it’s because queer people are a beautiful, mixed bunch of people who’ve had a multitude of experiences, and in the process of dealing with whatever we’ve encountered, we’ve honed our skill set, which might include humour, intelligence, artistic and other creative talent(s), and any combination of these. We are worth knowing precisely because of who we are, not in spite of who we are. The same can be said of so many people in this world, who have had different experiences, come from different backgrounds, speak different languages, understand different things or look at the same things differently.

How dreary it must be to only ever interact with people whom you perceive to be like you in every way. That sounds like a punishment to me, not a “normal” way of life.