Let's write about desire
I was just discussing the importance of talking about female desire with pallanwen earlier today. Because of the usual reasons of female desire being suppressed, shamed, not having a language yet what with certain terms being either corny or missing altogether, female desire being laden with baggage whether it's straight or gay or introverted or directed towards abstract aliens, that sort of thing. And I realised I'd never posted this one wank report I wrote (shall add a link here later once I've posted it and edited it) I typed up on my phone about a month ago as an exercise to break those taboos of even talking about the damn thing (and having been mainlining Anaïs writing so frankly about her own desire also fuelled this outburst). I may talk about pervy stuff all the time, lust after my favourite actors, write tons of horny tags on Tumblr and churn out novels' worth of erotic fanfic, but it's never easy. It's always something where you really have to climb over a big mental hump and you're always exposing yourself to moralising, ridicule or abuse from nearly everyone out there. So whenever you see me perving wildly, there is also this very conscious sex-positive feminist and fuck-society punk urge to say it loudly if I say it, to be obnoxious about it if needs be exactly because it's something I shouldn't be saying and because of all the vulnerability involved. I guess I'd be a lot mellower about my perving if there wasn't that aforementioned hump to get over and if my repeated experience wasn't that of "someone's going to moralise at me/sneer at me/be a chauvinist pig/generally be an arse over this" whenever I even dare mention the fact I have a vagina and a libido.
But anyway. I've said that before, but I'd also like to challenge any vag-owners with desire reading this to write about that desire on their own blogs, just so that it could become even a little more normal in people's eyes; so that the world would get used to female desire as a concept a bit more. Because these things need to be talked about, and because that whole dilemma of "what do you call this female phenomenon or this part of the female body" is never going to go away until people use at least some terms and we all get used to certain terms being used. I mean, think of memes? A certain phrase can become a widely adopted term in just a few days' time, and most people on the internet will know what that term or phrase means, but we still don't have a good term for the moisture a vagina produces during arousal, for Venus's sake! (No, I'm not happy to use the term 'pussy juice' because juice is watery and that stuff's the consistency of egg white!) Frightening thought, eh?
So if you feel like it, I'd love to see more of you ladies writing about what gets you going, in the broadest possible terms of desire and the erotic. It doesn't have to be explicit or body-related at all, considering how much of female desire operates on the psychological, mental plane anyway. What do you find fanciable in your favourite actor, musician? Whose writing makes you float on happy waves of desire and why? Which scent makes you drift into happy daydreams? Which sort of touch or gesture symbolises so much to you you get teary-eyed? What sort of characterisation resonates with you on a deep level so that you yearn to see a character united with another? That sort of thing. I would like to say it'd be even awesomer and even more feminist if it wasn't, for once, desire that was transposed onto other characters (your fictional favourites or a Mary Sue) because that's problematic in a sense if you're meant to be writing of yourself (isn't it sad and pathological how often we aren't writing about ourselves but some other people--and very specifically two guys fucking? It's hugely depressing if you think of it that way, if that's the only form of sexual expression you have, like it is for a lot of geek girls). But since it's another hugely typical thing about female desire exactly because society's attitudes and the wonkinesses of female bodies kind of force female desire to be transposed anyway, I'm not going to ask people to not just write about their favourite characters rather than themselves, because again these things are difficult as hell. And it'd be dicky to say You're Doing It Wrong about anyone's desire, like there was one right and proper and politically correct and feminist way of doing it. I'm not in that camp, fear not. Even writing about your favourite m/m slash pairing is still better than lying back and thinking of England.
But if you do take up the challenge, it's worth pointing out (especially to some of you who are new to LJ) that you should post it on your own blog, in your own time, on your own terms, with your own graphics and stuff, and not in the comments here. That way, they won't get obscured and the object of the exercise is to talk about it publicly, so talking about them in only one person's comments would be missing the point. So if you do talk about it, put it on your own LJ or whatever space you feel writing it in, should you feel like it--if you feel safe enough to do so, of course, because it's not the easiest or safest thing to talk about for the aforementioned reasons. And give me a link if/when you're done, because I'd love to read it:)
But, anyway. Whew. This became long. I was originally meant to post that wank report here, but I shall do it in a separate post. Should you want to do this desire challenge and/or spread the word, feel free to link back to this post.
But anyway. I've said that before, but I'd also like to challenge any vag-owners with desire reading this to write about that desire on their own blogs, just so that it could become even a little more normal in people's eyes; so that the world would get used to female desire as a concept a bit more. Because these things need to be talked about, and because that whole dilemma of "what do you call this female phenomenon or this part of the female body" is never going to go away until people use at least some terms and we all get used to certain terms being used. I mean, think of memes? A certain phrase can become a widely adopted term in just a few days' time, and most people on the internet will know what that term or phrase means, but we still don't have a good term for the moisture a vagina produces during arousal, for Venus's sake! (No, I'm not happy to use the term 'pussy juice' because juice is watery and that stuff's the consistency of egg white!) Frightening thought, eh?
So if you feel like it, I'd love to see more of you ladies writing about what gets you going, in the broadest possible terms of desire and the erotic. It doesn't have to be explicit or body-related at all, considering how much of female desire operates on the psychological, mental plane anyway. What do you find fanciable in your favourite actor, musician? Whose writing makes you float on happy waves of desire and why? Which scent makes you drift into happy daydreams? Which sort of touch or gesture symbolises so much to you you get teary-eyed? What sort of characterisation resonates with you on a deep level so that you yearn to see a character united with another? That sort of thing. I would like to say it'd be even awesomer and even more feminist if it wasn't, for once, desire that was transposed onto other characters (your fictional favourites or a Mary Sue) because that's problematic in a sense if you're meant to be writing of yourself (isn't it sad and pathological how often we aren't writing about ourselves but some other people--and very specifically two guys fucking? It's hugely depressing if you think of it that way, if that's the only form of sexual expression you have, like it is for a lot of geek girls). But since it's another hugely typical thing about female desire exactly because society's attitudes and the wonkinesses of female bodies kind of force female desire to be transposed anyway, I'm not going to ask people to not just write about their favourite characters rather than themselves, because again these things are difficult as hell. And it'd be dicky to say You're Doing It Wrong about anyone's desire, like there was one right and proper and politically correct and feminist way of doing it. I'm not in that camp, fear not. Even writing about your favourite m/m slash pairing is still better than lying back and thinking of England.
But if you do take up the challenge, it's worth pointing out (especially to some of you who are new to LJ) that you should post it on your own blog, in your own time, on your own terms, with your own graphics and stuff, and not in the comments here. That way, they won't get obscured and the object of the exercise is to talk about it publicly, so talking about them in only one person's comments would be missing the point. So if you do talk about it, put it on your own LJ or whatever space you feel writing it in, should you feel like it--if you feel safe enough to do so, of course, because it's not the easiest or safest thing to talk about for the aforementioned reasons. And give me a link if/when you're done, because I'd love to read it:)
But, anyway. Whew. This became long. I was originally meant to post that wank report here, but I shall do it in a separate post. Should you want to do this desire challenge and/or spread the word, feel free to link back to this post.