I posed a question to a man I know. I asked him, “What would you think if you had the opportunity to be with two women at the same time?” His reply was, “YAAAYYYY!!!” Then I asked, “OK, what if you had the opportunity to be with a woman and a man at the same time?” And his reply was, “Ehhhh, I might feel a little uncomfortable.” I think this cultural phenomemon is still, to this day, weird.
When I asked him why he might feel a little uncomfortable, he mentioned that it’s because he’s straight and that he just wouldn’t feel right being intimate with another man. And I think (I’m assuming here, so sue me) that the only possible visual in his mind is to have that one chick in between him and the other guy – where one is fucking her from behind, and the other is getting sucked off – and then she turns around every now and then to switch how she’s getting poked.
Apparently, that’s the only way that SHE could enjoy it? Granted…..that IS fun on some level, but please – that’s not the only scenario that I could conjur up in my sick head. So, I posited the idea to him and maybe the one woman in the threesome might want to see him and the other man kiss, to stroke each other, to embrace and caress each other. He reacted as if this was NOWHERE in the realm of a heterosexual male identity. So, the conversation ended there – after I told him that I think he suffers from the delusion that women are still on an extremely subtle and foundational level considered objects that are to be used for his pleasure.
He scoffed. I asked him how likely would it be for him to wish those two women in his first “ideal” fantasy to kiss and fondle each other while he’s jerking off to the visual. He smiled.
Yeah, he didn’t get it. But you can’t fault him too much, you know. This kind of objectification is so deeply embedded in our culture that many of us are still surprised when WE find ourselves doing it out of sheer habit. Even I have found it….when I visualize watching two men – straight men – touching each other for the first time in front of me and seeing a new discovery in eroticism in themselves and each other….and I feel like I’ve been caught with my hand in the proverbial “Thou-Shalt-Not” cookie jar.
And I ain’t talking about the cookie jar from the Christian Fundamentalist Kitchen. I’m talking about the cookie jar from the so-called Sexually Progressive Kitchen. Despite all our how-to books and Tantra seminars and sex therapists and talk shows and porn mags, we still have this notion that men-on-men action is quarantined only for the gays and the bis. It’s why women can admit that they’re “bi-curious” but when was the last time you ever heard a dude admit that?
And it’s not only their buddies that I suspect they’re afraid of……..how many WOMEN say that they wish they could watch their husbands or their boyfriends make out with another man in front of them?
All right……….besides ME………how many women do you know who have freely said that to their friends and their SO’s? This isn’t a male thing. It’s a cultural thing. Women are still reluctant and aren’t expected to claim the bed as territory for our fantasies that push boundaries. Pop culture and frat parties are still inundated with the lesbian fantasy of two buxom blonde women fondling and licking each other while teasing the shit out of some lucky guy at the edge of the bed.
Lest you think, and lest my male friend thinks, I don’t have beef with him in particular. I just have beef with his POV. And like I’d said, it isn’t just him that holds it like a bad habit, I do it too. The only way, in my not-so-humble-opinion, is to go cold turkey into quitting this mindset. It’s the most shocking, but the quickest and least painful overall to challenging the objectification of women in the bedroom. And hey, what’s wrong with a little Zen in the form of a strap-on?
On that note…. I have in mind to liberate some men I know. I’d like to invite some young hot stud over to see if he and Dear Husband might hit it off. *does a high-five with a fellow girlfriend*
Well I’m not a Hot Stud, but I’d come over ^_^
Maybe mentioning a time when homoeroticism wasn’t a taboo would help. Homophobic tendencies weren’t really mainstream until it was introduced into Christianity around the Middle Ages. Back in the days of ancient Greece, there was a culturally accepted relationship that was built between an older man, the erastus, and his younger protege. This relationship exists mainly for education purposes, but there is also a physical attraction there.
There were men-women relationships, women-women, but men-men were actually the most respectable kind of relationships you could get. Men had the highest potential for perfection. There was kissing, there was penis stroking, the word “love” was used meaningfully. The only thing that was NOT accepted in this kind of relationship was penetration.
Men were not meant to be penetrated, they were penetrators. To be penetrated is to be emasculated. That’s a concept that is predominantly accepted across all cultures. If you want to know more about the workings of this type of relationship, I highly recommend reading Plato’s Symposium.
Reading that, I find it a little bit easier to imagine same sex experimentation. Granted, I’m still a far cry off from even considering kissing a man, but the seeds of that particular way of thinking have been sown now.
Azakel….you’re so cute. ;-D
Spoonman – welcome to Sacred Whore! I fully agree with the cultural conditioning of how men were not to be “penetrated” either orally or anally, but it’s also noteworthy to say that in classical Rome (I’m actually thinking of what I’ve discovered from Pompeii) – cunnilingus was considered taboo because a woman’s vagina was seen as “penetrating” the mouth. And that went against what one would think of as oral “purity” so to speak. LOL
I will go ahead and check out Symposium at your suggestion, though. Thanks!!
I imagine the mirror scenario: a girl won’t do anything homoerotic with another girl, but she would ask if two guys would get hot together. Would I think this girl hypocritical, being a male myself? No – so long as she doesn’t hold other men to any expectation. If she’s only inquiring, not holding men to any standard, then there’s no double standard involved, right? Same with the male friend mentioned above who won’t get into man-on-man but would like to see woman-on-woman. As long as he doesn’t expect something of girls that he wouldn’t want expected of him, I don’t see what the problem is. (Well, except that you could wish he was as sexually open as he desires others to be.)
I can see how this is a societal slippery slope, though. Men at large aren’t into homoerotic action, and women are always asked to get onto each other, so there emerges a cultural expectation that women are supposed to do it but men don’t have to. Kind of leads into the more general philosophical question, do individuals have an obligation to change the collective status quo if it’s unfair, even if it goes against there own sexual feelings?
My man and I have discussed this. He’s willing to admit it doesn’t excite him to think of a guy + us, but a girl + us, or interestingly a girl+guy+us is interesting in his book.
As for me, I’m all for watching/helping two gents enjoy theirselves: sex is sexy, after all.
Plz read Adrienne Rich’s now (in)famous essay, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” at:
http://www.terry.uga.edu/~dawndba/4500compulsoryhet.htm
When I had read the above, I had reasons in believing that Lesbian-ism (for lack of better term, am adding the “ism”, for i cant bracket it under homosexuality), is not the female counterpart of gay-ism. Maybe the archiac desire for all beings is toward a woman, man desiring a woman, woman desiring a woman. Anything otherwise is out of social conditioning. But this sounds ludicrous to the point of being nut crazy, though I’ll agree that I was somewhat moved when I first read it! Lemme know what u think…
What I propose here is that in a PATRIARCHAL setup, maybe: For the fulfillment of masculine desire (towards a woman), they want women to reciprocate masculine desire, that is for a women to desire men in turn. But for the affirmation of the masculine desire (towards a woman), men can still leave room for a woman to desire another woman.
So, I (as a patriarchal man) desire a woman, and I’d b kool if other men and women desire women coz that’ll only affirm my desire, telling/granting me the right to desire whosoever I desire. But I’d equally want women to desire me for fulfilling my desire.
What do u say?
:anuj.