Showing posts with label political ponderings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label political ponderings. Show all posts

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

Less than two weeks to go before my sex date is standing in my hallway and... well, we'll see where it goes from there. I'm excited and nervous and feeling a little bit of performace anxiety. It's been a good long while since I've had sex. And regardless of my long dry spell, I'm always nervous before the first time with a new woman. I must say, I never encountered these issues back in the day when I was sleeeping with men. It might in part have to do with the fact that I was younger then, but I believe it has a great deal to do with gender roles and sexuality. With men it wasn't all that difficult to be good in bed. I was confident, aggressive, and wild and I rarely, if ever, felt that I was lacking. With women, it's a whole different bussiness. All women are so very different in what they like, what they don't like, what pleases and what doesn't. I realize that men are different as well, but I suppose I've found that with men it's more in the details the preferences differ while with women there can be very specific and basic dos and don'ts. Why that's the case?
*DISCLAIMER: I will now go into a rant about sexuality, gender, and socializing. Be warned!*
Well, I'm of that queer school of thinking where I believe gender differences are socially constructed, and while I won't bore you to tears with a tirade on the role of sexuality in the hierarchy of societal structure, I do believe that men and women are taught to have very separate takes on sexuality.
The heterosexual paradigm rules that men and women are supposed to be complimentary, that's part of it. And I realize that's where many of my thoughts stem from. With men there's an assumtion that they always want sex and that all sex is good for them, while women will agree to put out every once in a while in exchange for love and safety. Complete bullshit, of course, and most of us know that, rationally speaking. But it's one of those socially embedded norms that lurks beneath the surface and can influence even the most enlightened feminist. I sure as hell know I've been a victim of it! Like I was saying: Back in the day when I was still sleeping with men I could spot a guy, decide I wanted to sleep with him, and proceed to make it happen. With women I shyly stand around waiting for the girl I have my eye on to make her move, not wanting to come off as aggressive or make her uncomfortable. I've discussed this with many of my bisexual friends, whom also confess to having a complete double standard when it comes to picking up men and picking up women. Has our femininst awareness that's made us so good at claiming what we want when it comes to men backfired in the sapphic cruising department? Or have the many years we've spent as victims (in various, individual ways) as women in a male dominated world taken it's toll so that we are terrified in same-sex settings of taking on the male "villain" role? Loosly formed thoughts, but it's been on my mind, what can I say...
*Rant over*
Okay, back to what I started writing about: My sex date. Basically I'm excited, but scared. I'm thrilled we both know what's going to happen and that we'll hopefully avoid the akward "who'll make the first move" dance. I've heard through the grapevine that the woman in question, let's call her Miss Sex, is very excited about coming to visit and has been talking up a storm about it (yes, we are already connected on the chart... thus gossip ensues). I'm feeling the pressure, especially what with her being quite experienced and all my sexual experience with women being confined to girl-on-girl virgins. I've always said I really wanted to have sex with an experienced woman though, and here I am, getting what I've asked for. Sweet!

Monday, July 9, 2007

For some reason I'm not able to put a title up for this blog entry. Oh well, let's see if that stops me! (I should mention that yesterday it did actually stop me. I kept trying to fix it but when I wasn't able to I just got pissed off and didn't feel like blogging at all...)
I spent the weekend with a friend who was visiting from overseas, and we went to a wedding, a big celebration of heterosexual loving. I had a wonderful time and the whole party was beautiful and fabulous. But there's still that naggin annoying feeling that "this is something I am not entitled to, according to a whole lot of people".
In Sweden I still can't get married. I can register a partnership, which has been the case for nearly 10 years now. That essentially means I can have the big ceremony, my wife and I would have all the same rights as a heterosexual couple... but marriage, the big M-A-R-R-I-A-G-E: That's still reserved for the union between one man and one woman.
And it's not really something I think about on a regular basis. For one, I'm not in a relationship so I'm nowhere near thinking about actually tying the knot with someone. Furthermore I was never one of those women who dreamt about a big white wedding ever since I was a little girl. Nope, never really was one of those girls. And to this day, while I do think that weddings are beautiful and am actually really moved by the ceremony and the big party of love that typically follows, I'm pretty sure that I don't want to get married. I'd love to have a big party and all of that, but the paper work and the title of wife and wife really holds no particular value for me. I suppose you could say I love weddings but am not a fan of marriage.
Still, when I'm at a wedding I get pissed in the midst of all the happiness, because even if I don't want it for myself I want to have the option. Right now, I don't even have the choice of rejecting the institution of marriage because "it" rejected me first. And we all know how it sucks to be rejected.

So I'm raising my glass to gay marriage: "May we all have the right to define our institutions as we see fit. May no one be denied the right to choose how we wish our unions to be recognized. May we all have the choice to say 'I don't need no stinkin marriage' and not be pre-empitively excluded from that holy circle that we may or may not want to be a part of."