[sudo-discuss] Erotica and women's bodies

[Matthew Harbowy]

Part of me doesn't want to step into this, but I feel this thread is not
about openness and learning, but being heard. It's been said elsewhere that
anyone who thinks that masturbation is inferior to sex hasn't been doing it
right. While I agree with the educational intent behind that message, I
think that there's a negativity both in the phrasing of that statement as
well as comments on this list (on all sides!) that is not compatible with
our shared goal of building community. I'm going to talk frankly, and if
you are not cool with that please skip below.

No one needs art, or comedy, or horror, or tragedy: but many people would
rather have these things in their lives rather than life itself. We need to
decide, in this community, between "your kink is OK" vs "your kink is OK
(way the fuck over there)". There's lots of people who can see both the
exploitation of women (and children) in porn and pR0n as a real problem,
and there are people who work in porn who are subverting and challenging
that. At one point I used to be pretty positive about e.g. Kink.com, and
recently I've had real problems both in the focus of their output and in
their behind-the-scenes treatment of actors. If you are a learning growing
person, you need to be able to change your views, or at least be open to
the fact that you don't have all the facts.

Louis CK has an onstage bit where he talks about how he learned to
masturbate as a kid, and when he learned how his best friend masturbated.
He was using just two fingers, and when he realized he could use his whole
hand, get more surface area and grip, he was astounded how much better that
was. He also was weirded out a bit how his friend masturbated, grinding on
the floor.

The point is, is that masturbation is just a word, a word that doesn't
really say anything. Both men and women (can) do it, and unless (or maybe
especially) if you are TG, there's not going to be a lot in common there.
So instead of tearing our community apart over subjects like this, lets all
agree that any form of labor, be it dangerous or unhealthy conditions, or
exploitative wages, can result in  abused people- be it in porn or in
sweatshops or slavery. We all, I hope, want to end exploitation and slavery
in this world, and we all will have different approaches to that. If so,
lets remember to value the good intent of others, and take the temperature
level down. The levels of anger on this list are really shutting me down
from participating, and while that may be cool WRT me and my (wealthy white
male) opinions, I'm not cool if that is shutting down people less brave and
less privileged than myself.

It's a shame that some sexually themed events seem to attract some poorly
socialized people who, to Sonja's point, might be able to have more
opportunities at sex if they could overcome their interpersonal issues: and
we ALL could be better at the interpersonal thing. We need both good
teachers, and well intentioned students. Going into things, I never know
what sort of (or how in orientation, as teacher or student, in
the) classroom I'm going to be facing. But I, for one, want to learn how to
be a better person, to learn how to better enjoy my own body and bring
enjoyment to others, and most importantly to share my toys, because shared
toys are more fun.

In short: fix this. Come to consensus. Cause you guys are harshing my
mellow.

Matt (H, hbergeronx)


> On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 12:29 PM, Sonja Trauss <sonja.trauss at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
> Other women should pipe up here, but the only people who have ever tried
> to tell me that "masturbation is a type of sex" have been men. No,
> masturbation is not sex. In the same way that vitamin pills are not food.
> Masturbation is a thing too thoroughly inferior to sex to be classed with
> it. I guess, from a male pleasure point of view, they are equivalent, if
> you cum from sex or you cum from jerking off, you cum, who cares, but they
> are not equivalent from your gf's pov. I would 1000% prefer my partner to
> cum from fucking me than from jerking off. I get nothing out of him jerking
> off, if he fucks me I will almost surely cum.
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://sudoroom.org/pipermail/sudo-discuss/attachments/20130505/3c0e5bd3/attachment.html>