That about sums it up.

No, no. It’s true. It’s better that you know now.

And it’s why this article that I stumbled across was so disturbing to me. Disturbing in the way that it is pornography apologist while claiming to be scientific. Here are some  juicy excerpts.

Sex drives men from puberty through old age. It is their “raison d’etre”, their purpose in life; to reproduce. Everything else is, well, fluff. It diminishes with age but never disappears. Sex is a primitive – primordial – urge.

Obviously, I’m not a man but somehow I still feel personally insulted on their behalf. According to this author, they’re just bundles of hormones, like sex organs that just happen to have legs and arms and some form of verbal skills. But don’t be offended boys, this is science, right? Whatever is true of animals that are lower on the supposed evolutionary ladder is absolutely true also of humans. Forget that humans have developed sounds and meanings for abstract concepts with language or that they’ve created huts that turned into buildings, villages that turn into cities and all the inevitable social changes that have gone along with those advances. When it comes right down to it, boys? You’re just a sex machine.

If you want a demonstration of how primitive men’s sex drives are add some beer to the mix. Watch as his social barriers diminish and his sex drive take over. Men will have sex with just about any female after a few drinks; hence the term ‘beer goggles’. Some men need alcohol to have sex as they need help in reducing inhibitions or they find their mate unattractive. Too much liquor however and all bets are off.

Funny, I thought you just said that the sex drive itself was the all powerful motivation to reproduce to the exclusion of all other modes and methods of behavior. Didn’t mention anything about finding a mate attractive, or even being selective in any way. Just reproduce, fellas! With whatever! Your body demands it!!! Good thing that alcohol was invented to assist men with this basic and unavoidable, constant need to have sex. I mean, can you imagine what would have happen to the species if it weren’t for alcohol fueling this biological given? (Not to mention that rape apologist are so fond of pointing out that women who consume alcohol are filled with an all consuming passion to have sex with anyone who does it to them. Apparently, alcohol radically changes a woman’s natural sexual function instead of fueling it, as pointed out with the statement: When it comes to sex, men are by nature predators; women are selectors. Huh, women are just so weird.)

Many men have a need for additional stimulation. This is accomplished in various levels depending on a combination of factors including character, sex drive, sex life, stress, hormones – any number of things. Porn adds a visual stimulant that helps taper or increase the sex drive. Porn adds pleasure during masturbation also filling in for an absent female. Porn is material fantasy; a replacement for, or supplement to mental fantasy. Women get confused about this. Men aren’t having sex with the models in the pornography, the stimulant is watching others having sex.

So porn is inevitable. I see. Because the male sex drive is so astronomically high, they can barely make it to the grocery store without coitus? Right. But wait, porn is a stimulant to either taper or increase the sex drive? I could have sworn you mentioned earlier that the sex drive was a constant, and that the reason that men use porn in the first place is because they simply cannot alter its levels? Regardless, ladies, y’all just need to chill out. You don’t have to feel threatened by the fact that your fathers, sons, brothers, friends, and mates are all apparently wanking off constantly to other people having sex because the poor little dears can’t biologically avoid it. Porn is just a way of men being stimulated by watching people have sex because of their natural desire to reproduce. I get it. That’s why porn is entirely consisted of one man and one woman having reproductive sex. Oh, wait, not it’s not.

Personally, I hate these kind of ridiculous statements that claim socialized behaviors are biologically driven and unalterable. I an even more incensed when they aren’t internally consistent. Some people (for example, me) might claim that it’s impossible for this kind of rherotic to be internally consistent. Because it isn’t true.

On a final note, though I personally detest and despise porn in all it’s forms? I can’t avoid realizing that women use porn as well, and ones I know in particular. Why is that, O wise Ezine? Biologically speaking, I mean.

P.S. In a side note, I can’t tell you how happy I was this morning when I got an email from Will about a similar subject. Thanks :)

No, no, it’s true. I mean it. And though some people may argue that it’s impossible to be a Christian and a feminist, let me tell you, I’ve found a way to manage it. The secret is that you must take one of them a la carte, which is what I’ve done with the latter. I suppose I would have to say I fit in best with the motives of a first wave feminist, even though that movement seems to have died out sometime around the time the Suffragettes ripped the vote out the clutches of the patriarchy with their bare teeth (a feat that, when I think of it, still instantly jellies my knees). But forget first waves and second waves and any other allusions to the sea.

The reason I am interested in so called “feminism” (though some of you may think that I misuse the term to characterize myself by it (and depending on who says it, I might even take it as a compliment )), is because I think that there issues that face women that, if not brought to the forefront and altered, will be issues for a long time to come. I believe in bringing those issues to light. I believe in a dialogue. I believe in equal pay for equal work, being aware of issues that face disenfranchised people, taking steps to assist victims of rape, incest, and domestic violence, ending the slave trade known as sex work, and changing the current socialization process that is injurious to both men and women.

As any feminist worth her weight will notice, those are only a cordoned off portion of the agenda laid out by most feminist groups. But there you have it. These colors don’t run but they’re more of the pastel pink variety.

What all this roundabout expositing has really been getting at is that I just happened to be reading such a blog earlier today and in it I found a tidbit I felt I should not ignore.

First, I should say that the Curvature has very often held my interest to varying degree, crippling my work ethic on many occassions and providing me with an imaginary outraged feminist sidekick I never had. Of course, we don’t always see eye to eye, especially when it comes to issues that don’t include those I’ve mentioned above. But usually, when it gets down to a good old fashioned social commentary, I enjoy the righteous rancor.

But in this entry about a scientific study that claims that men see women as objects, literally, the blogger at the Curvature chalks up these articles (also found here and here) to the mere repitition of “sexist [men] are sexist” and an attempt at a mass manipulation that men are the way they are and can’t be changed-it’s science! But when I read these articles, what stuck out to me was that the woman who actually conducted the survey, Susan Fiske, is stating that men see women as objects because women are consistently shown to be objects.

Of course, there is a problem with one half of the population seeing the other half as not fully human. Of course, it’s a terribly undermining feeling when a woman considers the ramifications of truly being a sexual object. But what is at the heart of the problem is what allows this perception to exist in the first place.

I would venture to attribute this to the mainstreaming that pornography is currently enjoying. I would venture to attribute this to the supposed liberation that women are supposed to feel when they pose sexually or nude in a magazine, the image of which is then consumed by millions of people. I would venture attribute this to the scores of women who work in strip clubs and topless bars and the men who pay for the service. None of these women are “fully human” to the people who consume them. These women have no personhood. None of these women have ideas, or substance, or agency, or goals. They are objects. They’re live dolls, to be dressed or undressed, to be put into certain positions and photographed, to be used and then discarded when one bores of them.

And this brings me to perhaps the most important point of all: Who’s going to change it?

Who will say enough is enough? Who will hold themselves to a higher standard? Who will hold themselves to a higher worth? Women, what does a man have to do to be able to lay claim to your body and your sexuality? Plunk down three ninety five on a newstand counter? Men, what does it take to satiate you sexually? Watching a strange man doing sex to someone he just met?  Why are these things seen as valid costs to place on oneself?

So, again I ask: Who’s going to change it?

(Begins at 4:36. Tried to find one that only had the second segment but couldn’t.)

And though this particular selection isn’t entirely G-rated, I really enjoy the sentiment.  I like this description of love. It’s what I think of it myself.

Like a friend of mine said, “I’m a real sexual deviant: I’m a virgin.”

JOLT.

It’s a pretty surreal experience. Firstly, because I’m sitting here in my underpants. (I apologize for the imagery.) And secondly, because he’s a jackass who I haven’t been interested in coming across in years and who, in effect, ruined most of my romantic relationships and might even be said to have gotten me into this mess in the first place.

He still looks approximately the same, sort of a cross between a Greek philosopher and a Great Ape. He’s married these days, isn’t that wonderful? I’m sorry. I’m being bitter. It is wonderful. It’s just so strange, and jarring, and off putting too somehow. It doesn’t seem fair. I suppose these kinds of things never do.

But this is a special case. And one I’m afraid that I’m too afraid to reveal much of here. It’s funny. I tell women all the time that they should never be ashamed of what has happened to them, only take responsibility for their choices. Did I have a choice at that time? I don’t know. . . I . . . I don’t think I knew enough then to know even that a choice was presenting itself.

I don’t guess I’m really that bitter afterall though. I mean, this is the plan, right? This is what’s happened. So what’s the use in thinking to myself that I should have that and he this? He should have what he has and be what he is. Because he has it, he is it. Maybe he’s changed. Maybe he hasn’t. Who am I to say what anyone else deserves?

But I wish sometimes that I’d never met him. I say it was because of him, and I don’t mean to imply that I was without agency or wasn’t making up my mind and choosing what I chose. But if it hadn’t been for him, if I’d never known him . . . wouldn’t I have been the blushing bride that Simon wanted? Wouldn’t I have had my children and raised them? Wouldn’t I . . .

Or would I? Is there any way to tell what might have happened if what happened was something else? All I know is that . . . trauma . . . trauma makes its mark on a body. Trauma changes a body’s course. Trauma makes a body forget that it’s more than a body, that it has more to offer. It makes a body think that a body is all it is.

Who do I blame?

I used to not blame anyone. I used to not admit it, even to myself. I wrote about it, briefly, when it first happened, and then I forgot. I forgot. I kept having these strange feelings, and these bizarre compulsions, and I forgot. I didn’t understand, because I forgot. I forgot and I kept forgetting and all the time I knew something was off. I found what I wrote. I’d forgotten how hurt I was. I found what happened, and suddenly things started to make sense.

Who do I blame?

Maybe we all blame ourselves at first. Maybe that’s the way to make sense of it when we don’t want to recognize what it was. Chalk it up to a mistake. My bad. Maybe I blamed myself for not being more savvy. For not “getting it”. For not understanding what was happening.

Maybe I blame him. For not recognizing who I was and that I was more than the summation of my parts. For not thinking about anything but what he’d been taught to think about. Maybe I think he doesn’t even remember that it was me he did this to. Maybe I think he didn’t even remember it happening just a moment later.

And maybe I blame the rape culture. Maybe I blame a culture who shows the world that a woman is a collection of pleasure ports and always available, that this is how she really likes it, that coersion takes the place of connection, that it’s easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission. Maybe I blame a culture that portrays man as subject and woman as object, woman defined by that which acts upon her, woman made into some thing that can be taken and then left. People make light of women’s bodies being used for profit, especially if it’s someone else’s profit. Other’s don’t get what the big deal is about watching women strip in “gentlemen’s” clubs or being sexed on film by strangers and all the while they are exposed again, and again, and again, and again, to this constant idea that where a woman is, there sex is also. Woman equals sex. And a woman who doesn’t does not compute.

A woman who doesn’t is treated like she does.

A little about me: I’m twenty eight years old and gave up my virginity when I was twenty. For no good reason, mind you. Of course, there are . . . pretty much no good reasons if you’re having sex outside of marriage. It doesn’t matter if you’re engaged to be married, or if you think you really really love someone, or what else. Sex is meant for your spouse, and that’s it. End of story, case closed. Check the Bible if you don’t believe me.

I feel I can speak on this with some authority, or at least more than enough experiential knowledge. Over the course of the past eight years, I’ve had several “lovers”, which is really just a clever, sweet sounding euphemism for sexual partners. I won’t go into the “why” right now, but let me try and explain the “then what”.

First I became sexually active. Then I became confused as to what sex was. I wasn’t thinking in God’s terms and so all I had to go off of was what the world said about sex. And that kind of sex, the pornification of it, is a terrible thing.

Sex made by man is in man’s likeness. It caters to the need to dominate and take power. Sex becomes a thing done to one person by another. Sex becomes impersonal and extreme. Sex becomes an appetite instead of a connection, and in that context, sex can then include degradation, perversion, and cruelty.

Sex becomes unimportant. It sounds like an oxymoron, because it seems to completely consume our culture. To be sexy is to be good enough. But sex itself is an activity of no major consequence. So two people slept together-it’s only sex, right? There are now distinctions like “friends with benefits” and “booty calls” and “sex buddies”. Sex is twisted from something private and sacred into something public and nonchalant.

Sex becomes a method of self gratification.As a young man once said to me (disturbingly enough), “Sex is like masturbation, only someone else does it for you”. People have sex outside of marriage because their partners want to, as a recreational activity, as entertainment. Sex is a way to make yourself feel good and it doesn’t matter who it’s with. In that mindset, the person having sex is doing so in a vacuum of self interest.

But God’s version of sex is something entirely different. And it wasn’t until I chose to be celibate and began learning more about the nature of God through prayer and reading his word that I began to realize that sex is above all supposed to be a spiritual connection taking place in a physical form. It is meant to be private and sacred. As goopy as it sounds, it is the closest we can get to being outside of ourselves and within another self, in physical terms. It’s the complete antithesis of selfishness. It isn’t  about give and take, it’s about give and give. And that kind of connection can’t take place truly with someone to whom one is not willing to offer their life, in actuality and in marriage.