I admit the thought of blogging has flitted across my mind on more than one occasion. You may well learn that I like my opinions and observations to be heard (see: loud voice, bad habit of interrupting) so a blog fits these needs (well more-so wants) quite nicely. Still, I never thought the day would come. But here we stand, or sit eating chocolate eggs in my case.
I both love and hate the freedom we have been given on what we should blog about because I both love and hate having to think about what I'm going to write about. This class clearly leaves much to us, which is a rarity I feel. So I choose to delve more into the ideas of sexuality, and taboos in general, we discussed in class in the context of "Shivers" as well as some ideas brought about by JL Austin in "How To Do Things With Words." Hardly creative as these were the two pieces of media we have been told to view this first week but so sue me. Hopefully my words and opinions will show a little more originality.
I have been trying to get through Austin's lecture compilation with some difficulty, even though he states "What I would like to say here is neither difficult nor contentious" I thought it was very difficult to understand for some reason, although most definitely not contentious for after making sense of it I had no quarrel to what Austin was saying. I love the idea that speech in itself is a form of action and that a sentence "is used in making a statement" versus the idea that "a sentence ever is a statement."This idea brought up the concept of taboos in my mind and why they are taboos. Our society has gone through many phases of taboos, from women showing their knees (the audacity!) to homosexuality to just simple sexuality now. We got through the knee flashing and even to a large degree the idea of homosexuality, if you compare it to say the 1950's. I know that everyone I have met here either is not straight, has bi/gay friends, or is ok with the idea. I am obviously aware that many are not, but even those who are less ok with it are more tolerant than years past. My hypothesis has been that this is due to more exposure. More articles, speeches, etc. brought about the action of making it a more familiar concept and therefore normalized to some degree.
Sexuality, sensuality and pleasure itself are scarier and more risque to us than movies where a character's head is blown away. There is so much shame involved with these ideas, and since we do not talk about it, there is no action. Speaking more on it leads to disintegrating the tabboos surronding sexuality. In movies we feel perfectly comfortable with characters talking about boning, boinging, doing someone and scenes where the characters are making out then it fades to black, clearly to show they had sex. Even under the cover fooling around, where the action is obvious, we feel ok with and may get mere PG-13 or possibly R rating. But how weird would you feel with a woman masturbating, simply pleasuring herself? Or watching people orgasm? Or any other evidence that humans are sexual creatures who like to feel pleasure?
I return to Austin's first lecture, where he speaks of how at first "came the view.... that a statement ought to be verifiable, and this led to the view that many 'statements' are only what may be called pseudo-statements." So in some people's eyes I cannot make a statement that is not verifiable? Am I not allowed to voice what I believe to be true, even if others do not? Maybe others do not share my view that sexuality needs to be a more open topic. No, not maybe, DEFINITELY. I give you my whole dorm freshman year (substance free and stereotypically enough overtly religious) or my grandparents, who actually had looks of horrific shock upon learning I watched Brokeback Mountain. And no, I did not say sex I said sexuality. We see sex well enough and have come to an age where a sex scene doesn't send us away twittering and giggling. I mean true sexuality, sensuality, and the idea of pleasure.
So what would come from eradicating the taboos around sex and sexuality? Well I don't think we would be as embarrassed to talk about them for one, even typing some of these things I wonder how people will feel or see me. Better communication on these topics would lead to better sex between partners due to more communication and less embarrassment, better sexual education that covers all the ground not just "if you have sex you will get pregnant and die...now take some rubbers" ala "Mean Girls." There would be confused teenagers less afraid to ask questions of real resources, not just Cosmopolitan (which actually gives the advice to use a Peachy-O as a cock ring, just throwing that out there....) or their friends who think pulling out is a method of birth control. And imagine how much less shame we would feel! Asking questions wouldn't be shameful, pleasuring one's self wouldn't be shameful, heck maybe even having the "talk" with our parental units would be less shameful.
So basically I think we need to take ideas from both "Shivers" and Austin. Remember how weirded out you felt by "Shivers" and take a moment to think why (ignoring the more gruesome parasite scenes). Then think about how Austin believe that speech is action. Talking more about sex and our own sexuality as human beings is the only way to make it less taboo and more open.
Sexuality is a quality we all share, it is one of the few universal qualities in this entire messed up world and I think we need to feel much more free about that. As the nurse said in "Shivers;" "Everything is sexual...everything is erotic..."
Fin.
