Dialogues Issues - Making sex pleasurable 

Jezebel posted the most adorably bizarre video of a penis doing its best Teletubbie impersonation (NSFW). I immediately reposted onto my Facebook because, you know, sharing is caring. And I care enough to subject my friends to my strange sense of humor.

[youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7vg8AYVCMQ]

While I get that not everyone finds a penis playing peek-a-boo with its own foreskin as funny as I do I did not anticipate the response left by a male friend:

Surgically altering babies should be outlawed. That is an adult decision. Otherwise it’s mutilation. Period.

The issue of circumcision is always one I avoid. I do not have a penis and will not have children so I get to steer clear of this hot-button sexual values issue. But, as I repeatedly read his comment, I realized what was bothering me about it: I prefer a foreskin-free penis.

Typing that sentence makes me wince. Who am I to have a preference for cut cock? Is it shallow? Destructive to men? I try to rationalize my desire via the freedom of personal choice.

Then I realize that this choice is not as personal as I would like to believe. I live in a culture that regularly circumcises boy babies. Nearly every penis I have seen up close has been sans-foreskin. The penis in its given state looks as alien to me as the unmodified female form looks to so many guys raised in a Maxim world.

So why do I so love the sight of a circumcised penis? William Street from the movie Chameleon Street said it best:

I’m a victim brother. I’m a victim of 400 years of conditioning. The man has programmed my conditioning. Even my conditioning has been conditioned!

Several male lovers/boyfriends have made bitter remarks about their circumcision. There is no going back, no way to know what it would be like if that little peice of skin had been left alone. They must feel helpless, a taboo emotion for men.

Everyone experiences, at some point, a sense of anxiety about their genitals. Females can willfully ignore what sits between their legs while transgender and intersex individuals often silently sit with horrific anxieties about feeling outside of the body definitions. Men are constantly in contact with their own junk and exist in a culture of open cock dialogue. Whether big, small, crooked, cut or foreskin adorned, most men experience some level of what I call weenxiety.

A student once asked me, “Sometimes I see pictures of girls, uh, genitals and some of them weird me out. What if- what if a girl I like thinks that about mine?” This is a perfect example of weenxiety. Does it look right? Is it normal? Is my manstick manly enough?

This isn’t limited to guys lacking pornstar level dicks. My most well-endowed ex was obsessed with proving himself through sex. He had to be the best, his dick had to be the biggest most perfect thing ever. He clung to his big dick like a rescue raft in the stormy social ocean.

To a certain extent, I think guys measure themselves sexually with their weens. During a discussion with teens about object oriented sexual attraction and one young man said, “But girls are different! There’s only one thing they want from us.”

“What?,” I asked.  He simply pointed to his crotch.

Recently one of my friends suggested that I watch an episode of Glee, a new series about a high school teacher who attempts to bring some meaning into his life and the life of his students by restoring the status of the glee club. Although at times I got scared that Glee was just High School Musical but in series form, this show got my approval due to the discussions it contained surrounding sex, especially teenage sex. And because of the singing and dancing. Obviously.

In the second episode, the female lead, Rachel, goes to a celibacy club meeting in an effort to spend more time with her boy crush, even though his abstinent cheerleader girlfriend is head of the club. They start doing an exercise meant to help them practice leaving space for Jesus in between themselves using a balloon to demonstrate the appropriate distance to stand apart. Irritated, Rachel vocalizes her objection to the club in a thoughtful diatribe. She explains how studies show that celibacy does not work in high schools and explains how bottling up emotions and hormonal urges has negative effects and causes teenagers to act out in unhealthy ways. I was stunned, especially since I feel like I’m always reminded of how talking about sexuality, especially teen sexuality, can negatively  affect of your reputation. However, Glee mentions this topic is many different ways, including demonstrating different reasons why teens have sex, talking about sexual urges that teens are feeling, sexual concerns of teens, and sexual orientation. Since I am a sexuality nerd, I got really excited that these topics were being discussed on television. Plus they were accompanied by renditions of Journey and Beyonce songs. Fantastic.

During her rant, Rachel also suggests that the way to handle teen sexuality is to be prepared. However, there’s the question of what being prepared means. The Right’s definition would include something like, “preparing children for a life rich in Christ and grounded in morals” whereas the Left’s would be more focused on providing children with information to make informed decisions regarding their sexuality. As long as these definitions are different, the battle of sexual education will continue. And given the history of things, it’s going to be a long battle.

Allowing teens to be prepared also means granting teens agency, which is something that would never happen. It’s just funny because it makes me reflect on my teenage years when I would have friends with ridiculous rules regarding sexuality, like no dating boys until graduation and no going over to a boy’s house unless the parents were going to be there. And there was always a phone call to make sure that the parents were indeed there. All of my friends who had dating rules enforced upon them were girls. These rules are just so crazy for me to comprehend but demonstrate the stifling of teenage sexuality and the idea the female sexuality is something to be protected and not discussed.

Rachel also covers the topic of the missing discourse of female desire. She states that, “girls want sex just as much as guys do.” I was a little stunned when I heard these words shouted on a primetime show whose target audience extends to teens because of the lack of discourse on female desire in sexual education today. Much of sex education focuses on the anatomical aspects of women. Desire is never mentioned. Women are expected to be silent about sexual desires. The clitoris and all its pleasure holding capabilities are rarely discussed, and masturbation is not covered by most sex education programs. The fact that girls want sex just as much as guys do is a fact that has been kept silent for many years. However, once the secret’s out, maybe we can start moving towards a more comprehensive sexual education system. By having this line written into the script, Glee has gotten my attention.

So if you’re not doing anything later and you like singing, dancing, and comical story lines surrounding teen sexuality, check out Glee. It’ll be good for at least one season before they start having to use far fetched story lines to keep it interesting.