“You got me doin’ all this stupid shit/You fuck me up like this/Secretly I’m into it though”

OK…

OK…

OK.

So it’s 2018, and I still think that in many ways we really need to demystify sex. I know, I know, my views on sex are probably about as valid as a chinchilla’s take on the fallout from the Arab Spring. Sure, you’ll be slightly impressed that the chinchilla (me) has at least heard of it, but you’re unlikely to think that his views on the matter carry much weight and are worth much consideration, and all things considered you’d really prefer it if the chinchilla (me) instead concentrated on learning not to shit on the carpet. Regardless, I honestly don’t think I’m going to be hurting anyone by expressing these views, and my opinions are backed with absolutely no conviction of bravery at all, so I’ll just delete this post if it ever looks like I’m likely to be included in Jon Ronson’s next book. And anyway, in terms of people thinking less of me, I don’t think there’s a lower level for me to collapse into.

The precise area of sex that we as a society struggle to sufficiently expose is that of sexual fantasies. Fantasies are, according to the Oxford English Dictionary,

shit that ain’t real. Shit that ain’t real that could very well never be real. Impossible and improbable shit. Unicorns, centipede demons, trickle-down economics… stuff that  we know isn’t real, stuff we’re not even sure we want to be real, but we just like the idea and enjoy imagining their existence. Darth Vader isn’t real. I mean, I’m pretty sure some sort of fossil record would have shown that by now. But isn’t it fun imagining he was real, at least for 90 minutes*?

(*Well, 376 minutes technically. Plus another 418 minutes if you felt up to imagining the prequels were real, though I wouldn’t recommend that. Oh, and there’s probably a few minutes of imagining in ‘Rogue One’, but that’d probably contradict a bit of the imagining you’ve already done in Episode 4)

Then… there are sexual fantasies. Sexual fantasies are unruly desires that we humans mostly (mostly) do very well at keeping inside the bedroom and between consenting adults. They are often politically incorrect, because they don’t need to be politically correct: they are private flights of fancy, infantile misrecognitions of what Kaja Silverman calls “lost objects and mistaken subjects“. Ideally, you’ll meet a partner who’ll understand your weird little peccadilloes, recognises how little bearing on reality they have, and loves you enough to practice them with you, smiling lovingly as they pretend to be a dead Princess Diana while you fondle her earlobes while dressed as a member of the French paparazzi. Maybe explaining the difference between fantasy and reality is too difficult, and no matter how much you love them you don’t know if they’d be able to grasp the idea of ‘false consciousness’ that many sexual fantasies require. So you hire prostitutes to act out your curious fantasy of being spanked by Nazi prison guards. That fantasy doesn’t prove Mosley is a Nazi any more than it proves he’s a Jewish child in a concentration camp. I mean, he’s not a very pleasant man, but not because of how he likes to get his rocks off.

I have known women in the past whose sexual fantasy was to be sexually abused, and even raped.

Now, now, now, now, now, now, this is actually the perfect example of a sexual fantasy, because it couldn’t possibly happen in real life. What these women are really fantasising about is having the power in that kind of situation, something that would be impossible in the real world. I really enjoy playing video games where I viciously shoot and kill every person I happen to catch a glimpse of, I enjoy hijaking a car and then reversing over the car’s owner after I’ve thrown them out of the driver’s seat. However, the only reason I enjoy this is because I know it’s not real. To act like this in real life is absolutely unthinkable, and would almost definitely cause lasting debilitating damage. To be honest the more realistic it feels the more fun it is. Ideally I’d want it to seem absolutely inseparable from real life. But I would always know it’s not real.

Some* women fantasise about being raped. Literally no woman ever in the history of everything has ever wanted to be raped. If a woman asks her loving husband to ‘rape’ her then that isn’t rape. It’s two consenting adults having sex. They should be allowed to do whatever the fuck they want

(*Some! Some! Some! Fucking SOME!)

Of course, we can’t talk about this on a wider scale. In theory, we could just be completely open about our fantasies and people would understand how they differentiate from reality. Just like, in theory, we shouldn’t need female only mosh pits. But, as I have previously mentioned, men are gross. It’s a fantasy that unwittingly feeds into the horrid assumption amongst too many courts that a rape victim somehow ‘wanted it’, and may be the most politically incorrect fantasies that will get you ostracised by any feminist who hears of it. But that’s OK. It’s your fantasy, you don’t need to tell anyone.

Then you get the men who have rape fantasies- which, given the certain amount of women I’ve known with the fantasy I imagine must at least be a certain amount*- which is a much different deal due to the power balance and the danger of repressing such…

(*Almost certainly a much larger certain amount, given that we, y’know, live within a male dominated rape culture)

40 Minutes

Oh, shit, the album! Yeah, Charli XCX is as good as always, but I’ve spoken about her at length before so instead thought I’d talk about… rape… fantasies…

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Jesus…

5 In The Morning

Growing up in Cambridge, how often do you think Charli XCX was ‘up late night balling’? I worry about her Wednesdays because The Fez Club is closed

Charli XCX: Porsche vs Prince: Little Red Corvette

Really, Charlotte? Have a word with yourself…

Previous Entries

2015 (No.34)

2017 (No.18)