Congressman Major Owens has written a sort of mini-opera about male sexuality called "The Viagara Monologues," and the predictable lock-stop reactionaries are offended.
Here's a harsh truth: those of us who were both male and came of age in the late '70s and the '80s, at least if we came from middle class backgrounds, were routinely made to feel like garbage for our sexual urges by those people who are criticizing Owens, and by the countless authority figures, especially teachers, cultural commentators, writers, and news reporters who took everything they said as gospel. We were made to feel like oppressors, like we should apologize for who and what we were, and made to feel like if we even noticed male-female differences in behavior we were oppressive brutes.
So all I can say is, when I found out who was offended by Owens' work, all I could think was, "Good! Anyone who offends those self-righteous and abusive prigs is fine by me."
Congressman Owens: more power to you, brother.
(Story via Sydney Smith.)
This very clearly shows the double standard prevailant in our society. The fems already got their Vagina Monologues, but now some guy does something for guys and it's this huge controversy. Whatever.
How did Ariel Durant put it? Something about Catholics having a Latin jollility about sex...
I've never, ever understood prudery - either from my co-religionists or from the harridans of feminist PC. Its one thing to realise that human beings, to be truely civilised, must put a check on sexuality, quite another to view sex as some sort of radioactive subject.
Of course, whats really set off the nags over at NOW is that the word "vagina" in the title of "The Vagina Monologues" was supposed to just be a poke in the eye at Jerry Fallwell...its no fair, you see, that someone else, not at all desiring to actually offend anyone, has taken the title a bit away from its original purpose.
I can't say that I've ever like Mr. Owens' politics, but it does seem a pretty good effort...for a Congresscritter.
Mark, I'm sure this isn't exactly what you intended, but the image of a vagina being used to poke...let alone used to poke Jerry Falwell...has made my day.
As far as the radioactivity of sex as subject matter goes, I wonder whether most of it (as a cultural phenomenon) is really prudery the way we usually think of it. Americans do definitely have a tendency to think of sexuality as something that comes along and contaminates teenagers while they're going about being adorably innocent. But the problem seems less sex itself than a general dislike for anything messy and confusing. We like nice, easy-going, neat, and fixable.
This blog oppresses wymyn. But, anyway...
"Viagra Monologues" -- I like that name. More power to Mr. Owens! I'm against NOW, they're anti-male and anti-sex. I say sex is good. Female sexuality is good. Male sexuality is good. We should all be proud of our sexuality.
I like the idea of a "Viagra Monologue"! However, it is a wee bit (heh) redundant. After all, there already is a "Penis Song" by Monty Python, which pretty much says it all: http://www.lyricsdepot.com/monty-python/penis-song.html
Back in the '80s a group called King's Missile did a song called Detachable Penis. It was about a guy who loses his penis and then finds it being sold by a street vendor for $17.
They played it on KROQ here in So. Cal. I don't know if it ever became popular in other parts.
A while back, Owens claimed that 200 millions Africans died coming to the U.S. as slaves. In fact, he said, sharks still circled ships in expectation of food. He later reduced the death count to 20 million.
I don't know about the shark circling business--it's almost certainly incorrect--but the 20 million figure might well be correct, if you count everyone killed in the centuries-long slave trade. Not all of them would have wound up in the U.S. of course. But the middle passage was certainly horrifically brutal.
Sean,
Hadn't thought of it like that - but I'll chalk it up as a clever bit of writing on my part anyways....
The radioactive part of sexual discussions in my view comes 'round when anyone actually gets into a discussion of what sex is actually for, why it happens, and what to do about it. A bizarre little society we have in which we can watch sex flicks all we want, can't make a sex joke at work, are supposed to be open about our sexuality while keeping our nose out of everyone's sexual business....
Speaking of sharks and this subject, here's an old joke my grandfather (known by us as Cato the Mighty) used to tell:
A man falls into some water and finds himself surrounded by sharks. "Help! Help! Help!"
Then: (in high-pitched voice) "Too late! Too late! Too late!"
On a more serious note, I say it's a sick world where you can talk about breast _cancer_ all you want, and you will be thought to be enlightened and compassionate -- but if you dare to talk about the _beauty_ of a woman's breasts, that is thought to be degrading and exploiting.
If you're so offended by a generation of men being made to feel like trash because of their sexual urges, why are you so gentle with the "reasonable concerns" of people who tried (and failed) to make *me* feel like trash because of *my* sexual urges? [Context: I'm gay.] Personally, I don't think anyone should be made to feel bad for any sexual urges whatsoever -- only for non-consensual sexual *behavior* that victimizes people. That would include rape, sex with minors, and sex with animals. I mean, when we come down to it, do you think that the natural male urge to have it off with as many partners as possible a *good* thing, worthy of celebration? Or are you just scoring anti-feminist points by pointing out their intellectual inconsistency with your own?
Yeah, radical feminists are idiots. So was Wilt Chamberlain.
I believe that sexual _desire_, as such, longing, passion, both in man and in woman, and either for a man or for a woman, should be celebrated, glorified, exalted, in every way possible. The sexual _embrace_ should be reserved for a bond of serious, faithful love.