Okay, Penni, now I have your email, and have responded. I hope you got it. AOL is horrible in many respects, but is excellent for stock research in a wider and different sense than SI, and it is nice to have a back-up way to communicate with friends. I'm amazed at how many people have two ISP's. I guess in a way it is the ultimate status symbol for the totally wired, but is also very useful when money is no object.
Okay, back to S&M!! I don't know what I think about S&M bars, having never been to one. This is not really my scene!! I do get a little defensive about attacks on San Francisco, which I actually think is one of the healthiest places to live anywhere, because we are so much into really looking into things, examining our feelings, tolerating diversity, and getting lots of therapy. All the things we do here, or tolerate here, are done all over the world, but there is less hypocrisy and reression here. I'm not sure hiding something creates a superior moral climate.
I would note that most of the people who gawk at the S&M people at the Trocadero on Wednesday nights are not locals at all, but are from more conservative parts of America, and foreign countries. I'm basically pretty heterosexual and normal, though open to new ideas. Most of the gay people here come from places like you live, where they are not accepted at all, and live closeted lives until they finally escape. There are tons of horror stories here about the volunteers who help the AIDS victims calling their conservative parents in other parts of America, and begging them to come and see their dying children, and the parents saying no. Basically, I think open, tolerant societies are positive. People who are gay, for example, did not decide to be that way, and cannot change their orientation. Sexual identity is formed by a complex constellation of prenatal hormonal factors, early childhood experiences, and other things we don't understand yet. I do think the common story of young teenagers committing suicide when they realize they are gay, because there is no compassionate sex education or openly gay role models they can reach out to in most of America, is a huge tragedy. There is a tremendous amount of ignorance in this area. Homosexuality is not contagious!!! I see most of America as very ignorant and fear-based in most of its sexual attitudes, and this really damages people.
I also believe that the recent evidence that divorce harms children even more than most people realized, as well as the epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases and a generally more conservative moral climate than we had during the last 30 years, has made Americans in marginal marriages do everything they can to make them work. If watching S&M participants turns a couple on, but their sexual energy goes back into the marriage instead of out to other partners, is that harmful? Is that, and the other things couples resort to like watching or reading pornography, or even bringing a third party into a sexual experience, less moral than adultery? I certainly don't think so, and wouldn't really want to judge harshly people who are struggling to stay together for what feels like eternitiy sometimes.
Monogamy has been debated a lot at SI, and many of us agree it is a difficult and perhaps not instinctual condition, if you are looking at life-long partnerships. The few of you who do this easily, never losing the excitement and always having stunning, sacred and pure sex, are the envy of the rest of us who struggle!!!
This being San Francisco, there are even volunteers at the Trocadero, making sure the S&M experimentation stays safe and sane. If people have exhibitionist tendencies, and want voyeurs to look at them, it seems to be consensual, so I don't have a problem with that, either. It is an all-adult environment--you have to be 21 to get in. So I don't see how children are really being harmed. I think it has always been difficult to rear decent, moral children, because I think the world has always been amoral if you look closely. Many of us want things for our children, like virginity until marriage, that were certainly a struggle for most of us!!! I think we have a vulnerability about watching our children mature in general that makes us very protective, and I believe that is positive, but I'm not sure how closely that is related to adult experimentation, which has always gone on in all cultures, and I think we need to concentrate on talking to our children about values, and being good examples, rather than trying to constrict and restrict the entire universe of adult sexuality.
I also don't believe S&M is related to physical violence in marriages. Men, and sometimes women, are physically violent as the result of feeling powerless in stressful situations, and having been taught by example in early childhood that striking out and hurting is a way to solve problems and handle conflicts. That is why I am adamantly against ever spanking a child. I don't think my husband would suddenly start beating me over a dent in the car or a badly cooked meal if I asked him to pinch my nipples really hard or tie me up when we were having sex!!! The underlying dynamics and motivations are entirely different.
People who are masochistic seem to be so as the result of being hurt or spanked or humiliated in early childhood, and somehow eroticizing these experiences. Most of the sadomasochism practiced by middle-class American couples who are experimenting seems to be just playing at the edges of this--handcuffs, scarves, domination-and-submission role playing. There is a point when most people are sexually aroused, at the edge of pleasure and pain, where things that might be painful at other times are quite exciting. I don't think many people are actually being hurt!!! If you crave being degraded, or degrading someone, you need expert psychological help.
Okay, bring on the gummi bears!!!! Although even they have lost their innocence, being used by a cigarette company as a substance which is addictive in the same way tobacco is!!! (I don't think so!!!) |
