Anthropology

» MarkDunnagan - How damned odd,

In response to How damned odd, posted by droevig_betreur:

I've been following the conversation- great stuff! Droevig_betreur, you wrote earlier about the non-consenting other, and later about voyeurism- what about a non-consenting other in voyeurism? Is subjecting another against their will to a sexualized gaze, is that a form of violation do you think?

I also noticed your comments about men being more sexually driven- I don't think that's universally true. Muslims for example, often feel that women have more sex drive than men and the practice of purdah (the seclusion of women) is meant to protect women against their own desire. Then there's the Dani people in Irian Jaya, who don't have any sex for 4 to 6 years after a child is born to them. They might not see sexual urge as natural in either men or women.

I can't wait to read the rest of the series.

-- posted by MarkDunnagan

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» thewriteroom - Retrieved conversation

Here are the threads of the previous discussions, which were deleted as the result of a technical error. My apologies for the inconvenience.

Droevig_Betreur wrote:

Getting naked with your lover is fine as long as long as all lovers consent. What happens if one of the lover's has a spouse who doesn't consent("...Radha and Krishna. Interestingly, Radha is portrayed as the mistress, not the wife, of Krishna.")? Is a spouse a lover to be considered? What part does betrayal play and is it going to be explored in the series?

Gerda responded:

The adulterous is quite commonly identified as thrilling and romantic- many plays, movies and novels, classic as well as modern can attest to the appeal of secrecy. While this goes for both the East and the West, the tension between the conjugal and the adulterous is particularly sharp in the East. In Indian communities, mythology and law, the consequences of adultery are harsh. Furthermore, the gods who look after marriage and fertility are neatly separated from those who look after erotic love!

The way I will explore secrecy in desire in this series is by looking at the Gitagovinda and how transcending the profanity of everyday life was given a particular meaning, which is quite different from our contemporary Western understanding- although you might be interested to learn that the European Court of Love (located in Champagne, of all places) ruled in 1174 that:

"Love cannot exercise its powers on married people", because "lovers grant everything, mutually and gratuitously, without being constrained by any motive of necessity. Marries people, on the contrary, are compelled as a duty to submit to one another's wishes" (as cited in Capellanus, A. (1941). The Art of Courtly Love, translated by J. J. Parry. NY: Columbia University Press)

My suggestion to get naked with your lover (spouse, boyfriend, or otherwise) was meant tongue-in-cheek. Our Western frame of reference is strongly influenced by a Platonic and Christian focus on death and transcendence. Furthermore, we are all too familiar with sexuality as predatory and narcissistic. My joke was intended to hint at what we might learn from the Gitagovinda: that love is a matter of being and not of having, and that way of being is sensuous, here and now, natural and spiritual all at the same time.

Droevig_Betreur wrote:

I can’t wait to read the rest of your series. You’ve taken on a monumental task. Polygamous relationships are wonderful, but what effect do they have on others when the relationships are secret. Krishna, may have simply been courting his next wife, and it’s believable that his affair wasn’t secret because it was written into history.

The Greeks viewed unbridled sex as a destructive force. I believe that they thought that if pursuit of sex can cause a person to sell out his/her family unit then she/he would most likely sell out the state. I'm sure that Eastern cultures had similar fears. You are correct in stating that the consequences for adultery are more severe (cruel, slow, painful and public death) in the Eastern societies where familial inheritance was a big deal. Some First Nations peoples had a ’60 love-the one-your-with approach and the community took care of the children and paternity wasn’t such a big deal—perhaps because of the communal nature of the society.

Marriage may be a creation of the state or a byproduct of the maintenance of the state. However, before monogamy polygamy was common. Generally speaking, exceptions are rare, men could have as many women as they could afford as long as the relationship was blessed. Today, most of the developed world subscribes go monogamy, but polygamy is said to be a more natural state for primates.

Through the thousand years of Chinese History, the particular nature of Chinese men is distilled down to a saying in traditional Chinese folklore wisdom: "wife is not as good as concubine, concubine is not as good as prostitute, prostitute is not as good as secret affair..." (Wikipedia) There we go back to the secret affair. I agree with the Chinese, secret is best. Illicit sex and variety of partners has always been a turn on for many, many of our species.

Krishna and others relate the transcending nature of great sex to relationships with sex outside of marriage. Does familiarity really breed contempt? Are these guys just trying to justify an extramarital fling? Is transcendence a byproduct of the “thrill” of illicit sex?

Like I’ve said, you’ve taken on a monumental task. As an aside, most of the sex outside of marriage stuff is from an Eastern Male’s perspective. What’s the feminist perspective? What happens when the illicit plaything gets knocked up?

I know it looks like I'm talking to myself, but I don't intend it that way. Further to asking about the feminist view, I did a quick leaf through the Kama Sutra. While it is pretty explicit, it does seem to be from a totally male perspective:

[quote]A VIRTUOUS woman, who has affection for her husband, should act in conformity with his wishes as if he were a divine being, and with his consent should take upon herself the whole care of his family. She should keep the whole house well cleaned, and arrange flowers of various kinds in different parts of it, and make the floor smooth and polished so as to give the whole a neat and becoming appearance. She should surround the house with a garden, and place ready in it all the materials required for the morning, noon and evening sacrifices. Moreover she should herself revere the sanctuary of the Household Gods, for, says Gonardiya, `nothing so much attracts the heart of a householder to his wife as a careful observance of the things mentioned above'. (Kama Sutra Part V, Chapter 1)

The following are the ordinary qualities of all women:
To be possessed of intelligence, good disposition, and good manners; to be straightforward in behaviour, and to be grateful; to consider well the future before doing anything; to possess activity, to be of consistent behaviour, and to have a knowledge of the proper times and places for doing things; to speak always without meanness, loud laughter, malignity, anger, avarice, dullness, or stupidity; to have a knowledge of the Kama Sutra, and to be skilled in all the arts connected with it.

The faults of women are to be known by the absence of any of the above mentioned good qualities. (Kama Sutra Part VI, Chapter 1)

By having intercourse with men courtesans obtain sexual pleasure, as well as their own maintenance. Now when a courtesan takes up with a man from love, the action is natural; but when she resorts to him for the purpose of getting money, her action is artificial or forced. Even in the latter case, however, she should conduct herself as if her love were indeed natural, because men repose their confidence on those women who apparently love them. In making known her love to the man, she should show an entire freedom from avarice, and for the sake of her future credit she should abstain from acquiring money from him by unlawful means. (Kama Sutra Part VI, Chapter 1)[/quote]

Anais Nin was a superb psychoanalyst and the mother of many of my fantasies. Her words below, lead me to wonder whether women and men seek illicit sex for diametric reasons. Is one looking for sex and validation and the other looking for love and validation? Is it about self worth?

“Man can never know the kind of loneliness a woman knows. Man lies in a woman's womb only to gather strength, he nourishes himself from this fusion, and then he rises and goes into the world, into his work, into battle, into art. He is not lonely. He is busy. The memory of the swim in amniotic fluid gives him energy, completion. The woman may be busy too, but she feels empty. Sensuality for her is not only a wave of pleasure in which she has bathed, and a charge of electric joy at contact with another. When man lies in her womb, she is fulfilled; each act of love is a taking of man within her, an act of birth and rebirth, of child-bearing and man-bearing. Man lies in her womb and is reborn each time anew with a desire to act, to BE. But for woman, the climax is not in the birth, but in the moment the man rests inside of her.” (Anais Nin)

Anais Nin ( I can’t bring myself to refer to refer to her simply as Anais) wrote about the psychic. A man might write as eloquently, but his ability to do so might be affected by the time since his last physical ejaculation. Ramping up, he thinks of love and passion and is up (figuratively) for writing a tome on love and what it means to womanhood. Upon climax, he’d be more likely to write a paragraph on building plywood cabinets.

Anais Nin recounted instances where she had sex out of curiosity, pity and love. Those episodes (trysts?) helped build her experiences so that she could write with authority. She recognized the full range of acts related to eroticism. She seems to send the message that women have a spiritual longing. Maybe that’s what the men of the Kama Sutra realized and tried to use that knowledge as a path to illicit sex.

The preceding is merely my wonderings—I’m not trying to pass myself off as an authority.

Kings have always struck deals with the “church” to exercise power. Kings supported the church and the church agreed to sell the deal that the king, pharaoh or whatever ruled by divine decree.

Eastern mythology sells the notion that illicit sex is the path to or akin to spiritual perfection. When you read the male notions of the perfect woman as spelt out in the Kama Sutra you might see a similarity to the bitch/ho vision of women promoted by the hip-hop music genre.

Might the Eastern philosophy of the spiritual nature of illicit or extramarital sex simply be a con perpetrated on women by horny men who simply want to get their rocks off? What about ancient Hindu art promoting bestiality, lesbianism and homosexuality? Did Indian women really like to be penetrated by a goat or ox, or was it simply a mythical male fantasy? What about Kama Sutric art advising women with older husbands to engage in lesbian group activities in his presence?

Could the whole myth thing simply be men trying to persuade women that there is a good reason to have illicit sex? Look at the reality where men need little, if any, reason to engage in sex, but women, generally speaking, need (if not a good reason) some sort of reassurance that it’s okay.

“C’mon sweetheart, god wants you to do me, and besides -- it is a cool way to get to heaven. It’s true ‘cause it’s written right here in a book authored by my buddy who knows what women really need.”

Why should the reader believe that Erotic Myths are written with more than the male sex drive in mind? I’ve added a link to some Indian art, sans bestiality. Write-room, in your opinion does the art depict male fantasy or female fantasy?

http://www.artas.com/kama/warn.html

Gerda responded:

Thanks for your new comments. As always, I agree with much of what you are saying.

First, I'd like to reiterate my earlier comment that sex is not always tantamount to love and virtue! Yet, and as illustrated by the story of Radha and Krisha, (non-procreative) sex and love might not, as our Western Platonic and Christian framework of thought would have it, necessarily be opposites either.

I find your musings about the motivations of male poets very interesting and you might be onto something! I guess we’ll never really know. We do know that the sexual identities of men and women are shifting, both in the West as well as in the East where both men and women are questioning assumptions about love and sex. Perhaps we have arrived at a point where the experience and perception of sexuality might be just as diverse within the different genders as between them. But despite that, I’m sure that many people would agree with you that women experience sexuality quite differently than men. Especially the idea you seem to express that women are generally not as promiscuous or sexually driven as men seems to me to be a very commonly agreed upon understanding, perhaps we might even call it a "gender stereotype." This and other gender stereotypes might be (partly) rooted in biology and genetics but others might simply be rooted in cultural myths.

As far as the Kama Sutra art you sent goes, I agree with you that much of (classic and popular) sexual images are created by and for men. In my view, the Kama Sutra images, like all erotic images, reflect a range between beauty and ugliness, good and evil, perhaps even between pleasure and pain. What appeals to a person might just be a matter of individual taste. That being said, our rational desire for beauty can contradict our desire for more vulgar forms of eroticism. Erotic images, as well as stories such as that of Rahda and Krishna reveal desires that in real life are sometimes contradictory.

Droevig_Betreur wrote:

I would partially agree inasmuch as the “outrageous [and/]or scandalous” may sexually arouse because they are forbidden and unfamiliar. Humans have immortalized the ever-present desire for forbidden fruits. The viewing the forbidden or “naughty” has a charismatic effect.

Voyeur is pejorative in many societies. I’ve never heard of a mother proudly introducing her son to friends as, “this is my son Jimmy—he’s a voyeur, don’t y’know. But is reading Anais Nin not voyeurism? Is not viewing erotic art and pornography voyeurism? One might walk a mile to watch a couple make love on the beach once—maybe twice. Once the act and actors become familiar, the view probably won’t be worth the mile-long trek. Place a different couple or add a third person and the walk becomes worth it again.

Is there any one of us who doesn’t fall somewhere on a voyeuristic scale from 1 to 10? I’d like to know if voyeurism exists in naked communities in developing countries? What would people who generally walk around naked find erotic? I digress.

If all women were naked as a matter of being, the sight of a triangular patch might have little, if any arousal effect on others. Familiarity can breed disinterest—don’t you think? Viewing that which you cannot have can be erotic. What’s your chance of getting in the sack with Brad Pit? Why is he so desirable to so many women? The answer might lie in the fact that he’s unattainable. Why do men lust after Angelina Jolie; same answer.

The sight of bare breasts might arouse no more than the sight of a big toe (why, in our societies, do feet arouse some?). The hidden and the forbidden may have a part in creating sexual desire. Touching on the Kama Sutra art, few people are fit enough to pull off the contortions and few males will ever see the day when five or six women strip naked and pleasure him in every imaginable way just ‘cause he’s a real nice guy.

Can I babble or what?

-- posted by thewriteroom

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» droevig_betreur - Sexualized Gaze

In response to How damned odd, posted by MarkDunnagan:

Ah, the sexualized gaze, some refer to it as the "leer". UBC's professor Dutton's infamous conviction by the BC Human Rights Tribunal of creating a "Sexualized Environment" really brought the term into popular use. Oddly, UBC's Equity Office shies away from the use of their famous word. They make no comment on sexualized gazes, but prohibit "leering."

http://www.equity.ubc.ca/discrimination/...

If you give a person who must get naked and must choose to be viewed the choice between having someone leer at their nakedness or having someone cast a sexualized gaze upon their nakedness, I'll bet you two to one, that they would choose the gaze over the leer any day.

And now back to your wonderful question. How would one know the will of the other? Must we ask, "I would like to cast a sexualized gaze upon your body; do you mind--will you consent?" Have you ever seen a woman wearing a low-cut, form-fitting top with the words, "you wish" emblazoned across the front? Would you call that bait? I’m old grey and wrinkled, was that bait set for me, or was it set to tease old men, geeks and sexual incompetents? Would I be charged with leering if I cast an oblique sexualized stare at the bait? You’ll note that UBC does not allow leering even if the objects are two very large, eye-popping melons with “you wish” pasted across them.

Ahh, yikes! I just poured a cold cup of water down my pants. I’m again able to be serious.

The simple answer in most Western cultures is “sexual gazing” is verboten if the gaze is unwanted. Determining whether it is unwanted requires some cranial gazing. If you can’t see inside the object’s head and see the neural activity and translations, I’d say don’t gaze—look away—cover your eyes—loudly hum a rousing Sousa march and whatever you do, don’t think of majorettes though while doing so.

It’s really pretty complex. I long for someone to think that I’m sexually attractive. I’ve always liked appreciative looks from potential sex partners (did I give a sexualized gaze and thus prompt on in return or was it my formerly taught butt in tight jeans the culprit?). Am I different than anyone but an asexual? Does any of us not wish for appreciative sexualized gazes that tell us that we are desirable? The sad part is that gazes that used to get me laid can now get me imprisoned. 8-)

If you really think about it, erotic myths are being driven underground. They may become the new pornography. We cannot share the art or display it publicly (I know of more than a few employers who would make employees remove Kama Sutra depictions from their cubicle walls (screen savers too). There are societal guidelines that shift to and fro over time, but they still exist to help us behave in accordance with societal norms. We are in a stormy sea when it comes to the sexualized gaze. You have no idea whether you’re going to get what’s behind door of your choice or the one that holds a steel bunk and a tin pail.

In closing, as light as I made this blather, I’m not talking about the obviously filthy, perverted, hand-wringing stare of some drooling pervert. Wait a minute, can someone hand me a mirror….

-- posted by droevig_betreur

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» thewriteroom - Sexualized Gaze

In response to Sexualized Gaze posted by droevig_betreur:

Donning a shirt with “You Wish” across the chest might open the door to both the intrusive, sexualized gaze (in your words "the leer") as well as the pleasant and welcome, desiring male or female gaze (in your words "the appreciative sexualized gazes that tell us that we are desirable").

I am interested in your comments on the gaze in light of your bio, in which you explicitly use the metaphor of the camera. Feminists used this metaphor of the camera when they came up with the notion of the “male gaze.” Feminists would have it that this gaze makes the other the object of desire and colonizes the other as such. They might ask you, Droevig: To what extend is the identity of the woman with, as you put it “large, eye-popping melons with 'you wish' pasted across them” constituted by the sexualized gaze of men?

Interestingly, critics of the Hitchcock movie ‘Rear Window’ suggest that the camera is a sort of substitute phallus and means to establish masculinity (see http://cinetext.philo.at/magazine/wylie/...

-- posted by thewriteroom

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» droevig_betreur - Sexualized Gaze

In response to Sexualized Gaze posted by thewriteroom:

What would the "Rear Window" critics say if they knew that I possess a 400mm Sigma lense? Depending on the job, size does matter.  (sorry, that was photographers' bait; I couldn't resist).

I use the camera and lens metaphorically and literally. I owned a considerable array of camera equipment until my office was broken into last year. I’m now switching to digital SLR and it takes some getting used to. Now I can avoid traipsing to the darkroom to buy time as I can do a lot right on my computer. (It’s your fault, you started talking about cameras)

In my opinion, colonization isn't the purview of any gender. A Colonized place is sometimes called a protectorate. Protectorates or colonies are objects jealously safeguarded by the protector. Jealousy is universal in the bond of relationships or desired relationships. Women cast sexualized gazes at other women and men and men cast sexualized gazes at women and other men. Psychologists say that the initial sexualized gaze is the product of lust and that lust is related to our innate drive to procreate. However, that does not explain two women or two men casting sexualized gazes at each other. Have you ever secretly gazed at a man wishing to meet him only to have a women approach him, start to chat him up and bond with him. Was there a hint of jealousy—“Drat! She grabbed him before I could move. Damn the timing; damn her!” I think people can be jealous of another’s relationship because they have a desire to be in the same relationship.

Why is it that some feminists are almost reproachful in their view of a man casting a sexualized gaze at a women who is a complete stranger? They don’t seem to harbour the same disdain when a woman casts a sexualized gaze at a man who is a complete stranger. Beer commercials are really pushing the concept of women ogling men. Corn chip commercials usually have women dismissing men with less than appreciative gazes. Is the message, “a guy looks a lot better to a woman after she’s had a beer or two, and a guy with corn chip paste in his teeth isn’t worth talking to?” (note to self: beer good, corn chips not so good.)

-- posted by droevig_betreur

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» droevig_betreur - Sexualized Gaze

In response to Sexualized Gaze posted by droevig_betreur:

"Orlando"! I'm facinated by the movie (I've not read the book)I'm fascinated by Tilda Swinton. While I was derisive of those in love with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, I hereby open myself to ridicule by publicly declaring that hangin' with Tilda is one hell of an erotic fantasy for me. (hand me another glass of cold water....)

I went to see the Witch and the Wardrobe and there was Tilda playing the witch. What a surprise, she usually doesn't do mainstream stuff. After the show, I proudly blurted out in a croweded elevator that "I've seen the witch naked!" Yes, I got the horrified looks and then a slap on the shoulder.

That being said, "Orlando" has some great perspectives and dialogue if you want to see an move interspersed with male and female gaze.

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/1...

-- posted by droevig_betreur

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» droevig_betreur - Does Indian myth support a third-gender Gaze?

In response to Sexualized Gaze posted by droevig_betreur:

Sorry to do the cut and paste thing, but the whole narrative is interesting and I don't know enough to write without feeling like I'm plagerizing every thought and word. The following is an excerpt from a paper by kelsey gaynier (kgaynier@haverford.edu):

Similar to the onnagata actors of Japan, the Hijras of India are also what Western academia would define as "transsexual men" who play a crucial role to Asian culture. To Indians, however, the Hijras represent not a homosexual or transvestite male, but that of an entirely seperate "third" gender because they are niether entirely female nor male, but contain crucial elements of both (Meyer, p. 89). When a young man wished to join the Hijra community, he must participate in an initaiation ritual performed by his annointed guru where he is formally castrated and recieved a female name (Nanda 1986, p.36). However, it is essenatial that he formally "give up" all sexual activity in respect for the Hijra's mother god Bahuchara Mata. After this initiation process is complete, the new Hijra (chela) joins his guru's home where he and his new "sisters" reside (Nanda 1986, p.36). Seven of these "houses" form the main Hijra community in Bombay where seperate gurus are a mother figure (Nanda 1986, p.37).

"Because Hijras are physically unable to reproduce children, they are not considered men by Hindu standards because this ability is essential to the religion's conept of masculinity (Nanda 1986, p.37). However, although the Hijras adopt feminine mannerisms, dress, and vocabulary, they are not thought of as female because thier course speech and crass actions contradict the Hindu ideal of restrained femininity (Nanda, p.37). Thus, it is logical that Indian culture accepts Hijras as a "third sex" because they are a combination of both masculine and feminine qualities. These people are not coined "transsexuals" or "transvestites" as Western terminology would define them; instead, the term "Hijras" is translated into a "eunich" or "hermaphrodite" (Nanda 1992, p.135) because sexual activity or preference is absent from thier traditional culture.

"Similar to Buddhism and Confucianism in Japan, Hinuism and Islam are what Bulllough calls "sex positive" religions because both allow for the tolerance of a wider range of sexual expression than exists within Western culture with its restrictive Judeo-Christian influence (Bullough, p. 172). Hijras are vital to Islamic and Hindu ritual because they are believed to contain the power of tapas; a power reulting from ascetic practice and sexual abstinence that is an essential feature in creation processes (Nanda1986, p.39). Like the onnagata actors of Japan, Hijras are respected performers and are often asked to dance at weddings and birth ceremonies because thier presence encourages male fertility (Nanda 1986, p.40). This idea of a powerful "third gender" is deeply rooted in Indian religious narrative:

"In one version of the Hindu creation myth, Siva carries out an extreme, but legitimate fowm of tapasya, that of self-castration. Because the act of creation he was about to undertake had already been accomplished by Brahma, Siva breaks off his linga (phallus), saying, "there is no use for this linga..." and throws it into the earth. His act results in the fertility cult of linga-worship, which expresses the paradoxal theme of creative asceticism" (O'Flaherty, p.278)

Indian cultre in general along with Hindu philosophy help to coordinate a society that not only tolerates, but readily embraces a third gender category. Indian mythology contains numberous examples of androgynes, impersonators of the opposite sex, and also examples of both dieties and humans with sex changes (O'Flaherty, p.89). Sivabhaktis (worshippers of Siva) give Hijras special respect because one of the forms that is Siva is Ardhanarisvara "the lord who is half woman" (Nanda 1986, p. 50). Also in the worship of Krishna, male worshipers may identify with Radha by imagining themselves as female and dressing in feminine attire; and thus, many Hijras identify themselves as Krishna's wives in rituals performed in south India (Nanda 1986, p. 50). Hence, it is through India's sexually tolerent mythology and religion that the complex Hijra gender is able to maneuver itself from social rejection.

Because the Hijras worship the Bahuchara Mata, a god who forbids sexual activity, and thier religious powers are only legitimate if they remain celebate, the Hijras are banned from all sexual accounters (Nanda 1986, p39); however, many Hijras still engage in homosexual activity including prostitution and marriages. These "imposter" Hijras are banned from living in one of the formal houses and are often ostracized from the Hijra community in general. Yet, there remains conflicting data on whether or not these restrictions are completely enforced. Serena Nanda, an anthropologist on the Hijra community, claims that this conflict between sexual activity is really a conflict between the older and younger Hijras (Nanda 1986, p. 37-49). Since the older Hijras have lost thier sex drive, they tend to blame the younger ones who retain an active libido simply because they are jealous. Therefore, while rules againt sexual activity are severely voice, they are rarely ever enforced. Regardless, Hijras are never considered homosexual or transsexual simply because, unlike Wesern cultures, in India sexual object choice alone does not define gender. While in parts of northern India the term for effeminate males who play the passive role in homosexual relations is zenanas (woman); by becoming a Hijra, one removes himself from this category (Lynton, p.75). Likewise, there are recognized homosexual subcultres that exist in India; however, these are never confused with Hijras because they have no religious affiliation with Hinduism (Anderson, p.25).

Like Japan, India contains a much more open perspective on homosexual activity than the Chrisitan dominated West. Simliar to Buddhism and Confucianism, Hinduism and Islam do not strictly forbid homosexual behavior; the religions simply emphasize the importance of procreation and male offspring. However, while Japan legalized homosexual activity and actively displays homoerotic material, India remains less blantant on the issue. Similar to the "dont ask dont tell" approach to homosexuals in the U.S. military under president Clinton, Indian officials rarely get involved in homoerotic liasons unless it is blatantly publicised. Although sodomy is technically illegal, the government rarely punishes offenders:

''The rules of penal procedure are extremely strict. Only oral testimony by eye witnesses is admitted. Four trustworthy men must testify that they have seen "the key entering the hole" or the culprit must confess four times. Since there is severe punishment for unproven accusation, the punishment is rarely carried out" (Murray, p. 15).

As earlier noted, Indian society does not affiliate one's sexuality or gender based on his sexual activity. In the case of homosexual behavior amoung men, a person's "shame" is based upon whether or not he takes the subservient position in the act. In other words, sexulaity is not distinguished between "homosexual" and "heterosexual" but between taking pleasure and submitting to someone or taking pleasure and dominating someone. Hence, similar to the samuri in ancient Japanese culture (Mcgregor, p.215), it was very common for Sultans to keep young "pretty" boys on hand to perform sodomic acts for not only sexual pleasure, but also as an affirmation of thier power (Murray, p.17). Unlike Western society who labels any person who has sex with someone of the same biological sex a homosexual, Asian cultures only label those who enjoy being in the submissive position truly "gay."

-- posted by droevig_betreur

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» droevig_betreur - Strip off the t-shirt and...

In response to Sexualized Gaze posted by thewriteroom:

A woman named Lucy Kerman wrote the following at:
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/forum/viewf...

"I didn’t in the end get my ears pierced. I thought about it for a few days, and I suspect that, if I had found myself on Telegraph again, I would have bought those studs and carried them around as a possible spur to action. As it turned out, I didn’t see them again. But the possibility – the choice – got me thinking about my assumptions about me. For me, being human is fundamentally about being an animal – albeit one with special attributes – and femaleness has always been about living deeply and unabashedly in that animal-ness, that physicality. As I think about it, I realize it has also always been about being, at base, unadorned. That’s, still, my choice. It is when a woman takes off all of her adornments that she is most female."

Art related to Indian myth shows women elaborately adorned even during the most acrobatic of carnal relations. For that matter everyone is adorned--even the animals are adorned. Western erotica has progressed to the point where any hint of pubic hair has been removed.

I'm intrigued by Kerman's belief that removal of adornments is the real way to accentuate femaleness (I assume she means this related to the gaze and much more). I wonder what she thinks when one goes a step further and shaves one's genitals? Why would one shave one’s genitals? Is that to enhance the male gaze, or female gaze or some other gendered gaze—if there is one?

If one studies Indian Myth and its erotic art, genitals seem to be always neatly trimmed. Is trimming a step away from achieving the recognition that feminism seeks?

Gerda, you have stepped onto a slippery slope that will leave you little option but to pull together a syllabus on “Eastern Myth Sex and Desire” and pitch it as a contract gig at one of your local universities or colleges. This topic is much too big for this site, but thank you for bringing it here.

-- posted by droevig_betreur

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» droevig_betreur - Time to move on but before I do...

In response to Strip off the t-shirt and... posted by droevig_betreur:

Western notions about womanhood and self actualization and Eastern notions seem to collide. After my last post I came across the following web page that explains Indian adornments:

http://www.exoticindiaart.com/article/je...

There is so much to learn and so much to discuss.

I'm like a dog barking in the yard when its masters have left the neighbourhood. I'll stop barking, jump the fence and move on.

Thanks for tolerating my questions for a while. They were sincere. I assume that the original removal of the thread was caused by "troll fear". If you think that I am a troll, you're entitled to your views, but you'd be wrong.

-- posted by droevig_betreur

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» jurupari - Retrieved conversation

I believe we must consider some points:
1. Who is involved in that sexual play?
2. What social place the sexual play is taking place?
3. How the people involved in that sexual play seen one to another by their social rules?
The values non-conscious, not inconscious, which is built the specific social place it is responsible if sexual play will be right or not. Then, the question is
the sexual play which is beeing playing is attending or not the desire of specific social segment

-- posted by jurupari

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