Sexual Perspective, or, How Can You Eat That?

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's a piece I'm unusually proud of; I like all the work I do for the Blowfish Blog, but this one has been turning over in my head for a long time, and I'm very glad to finally have finished it. It's on how hard it can be to understand that other people genuinely enjoy sexual things than we ourselves don't -- and why it's so important for us to try. It's called Sexual Perspective, or, How Can You Eat That?, and here's the teaser:

I think it's always hard to really, truly grasp that other people's tastes are different from your own. Especially when it comes to strong, emotional, visceral experiences. Myself, I am utterly baffled by the fact that anyone on this earth would voluntarily eat broccoli. The stuff tastes like concentrated essence of vileness to me, and the thought of people voluntarily putting it in their mouths makes me recoil.

Food, music, sex: all of these are powerful, visceral, intensely personal, even overwhelming experiences. And it's very hard to step back from them and have perspective on how other people might feel about them. Our own feelings about them can be so intense, so all-encompassing, that it makes perspective difficult, even counter-intuitive.

But when it comes to food and music, we have years of experience to teach us perspective. People talk about their musical and culinary tastes loudly, proudly, in great detail and at great length. You often can't get people to shut up about it. We're exposed to a wide variety of musical and culinary tastes almost every day of our lives.

To find out why we don't learn perspective with sexual tastes the way we do with tastes in food and music -- and why learning sexual perspective is so important -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Comments

[the chaplain]

Very good piece.

[Jon Berger]

My dad had a fascinatingly nuanced variation of this attitude with regard to classical music: basically, "I enjoy it because I have the education, intelligence and temperament to appreciate it, but other people who claim to enjoy it are, in reality, so ignorant that they couldn't possibly be telling the truth; they're just pretending to enjoy it in order to try to impress people like me, but we're so smart that we know better."

I'm sure there must be examples of this kind of thinking in the world of sex and sexual orientation, too.

[Sebatinsky]

As a feminist, an Atheist, and a blogger I respect, I'd like to hear what you think of this:
http://feministstotherescue.blogspot.com/2008/03/womens-only-gym-on-harvard-campus.html

[Cleo Dubois]

Right on Greta!

Thanks! And I do love broccoli and kinky sex and topping (and bottoming sometimes). For sure I love sex play more than broccoli for its many nuances and flavors.

[Temporarily Anonymous]

Hmm, good thoughts. I'm a regular reader and I've posted a few times, but I'm making this one anonymous for the sake of my partner's privacy.

The best example I could possibly think of happened just recently, and is possibly the best thing that's ever happened to me.

My partner of several years, with whom I've shared a home and bed, recently told me that he had a fetish. A fetish he's had for his whole life, an about which he had shared a few details, but had otherwise tried to keep secret from even me. Every time he indulged in it, even though I sometimes knew and would encourage him the best I could, he still felt horribly guilty. He would mentally beat himself up, and I didn't even know he felt bad about it. He'd lie about things sometimes, even to me, and even though he knew for certain I'd never judge him... and of course that always made him feel worse.

And the reason he suddenly came clean with me, told me everything and was able to be proud of himself? He found some videos on You-Tube of other people with the same, rare fetish. Once he knew it was something classifiable, something other people enjoyed, he realized he wasn't a monster, and was able to tell me everything.

Now I have the great pleasure of exploring it with him, learning things about both of us along the way. It's the best thing that's ever happened to either of us!

You know I'd go into more detail, but I think he'd get mad. ^^; Ah well. Courage to everyone who has ever looked inside themselves and realized they weren't exactly the same as the folks around them. Some of them are different inside too, and just too scared to show it even to themselves.