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.
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