Sex as Love vs. Sex as Power

The expression “fuck you” as an expression of anger is completely counter-intuitive, if you think about it, as is the expression “Suck my dick.”

It makes no sense that an act that is viewed as one that consummates a lifelong, loving commitment, like marriage, nor an act perhaps not carrying the same, traditional, matrimonial significance, but clearly designed to induce pleasure, not pain, would somehow simultaneously also be two of society's most vicious forms of verbal attack.

An act of love is here used as an expression of contempt.

The counter-intuitive nature of these expressions is only made possible by the fact that, for some twisted reason, sex is sometimes used as an expression of power, rather than love.

The power dynamic understood to exist between prison inmates is a perfect example of this. You hear similar reports coming out of war-torn nations, like Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Sudan, Myanmar and Congo, but, as the sexual harassment scandals are showing, are lurking just beneath the surface, if you scratch it, in 'first world' culture too.

Growing up in the neighborhood I did, I saw girls ‘slut-shamed.’ I also heard guys bragging the day after about having ‘run train’ on a girl while her parents were not home.

You can hear it in American rapper Big Sean's verse in the song 'Clique' with Jay-Z, Kanye West and himself, where Big Sean says:

"She tryna give me that poo-tang (vagina),

I might let my crew bang, My crew deeper (more populous) than Wu-Tang."

https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tf2cjfdduid6qru6ood5u4f7seq?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics&u=0#

Even women sing along with the verse when the song comes on.

In fact, when Hillary Clinton invited Jay-Z and Beyonce to perform for her rally in Ohio only four days before the 2016 election, Big Sean was one of the people Clinton personally thanked for performing within about 30 seconds of taking the microphone to make her final pitch.

(If you don’t already know her, I would recommend looking into a novelist called Roxanne Gay, who openly talks about being gang-raped in her childhood by boys who turned the story around the next day, at school, to all of the other kids, to make it sound like she invited the attack.)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/06/roxane-gay-to-edit-anthology-not-that-bad

Sex used as a weapon – a demonstration of power rather than an expression of love.

By the end of this piece, I am hoping you are going to see why I think this is relevant, not only to the litany of sexual harassment claims bubbling forth in entertainment and politics, but how something other than ‘hate’ or ‘homophobia’ might be present in the ongoing same-sex marriage debate* in Australia and the US.

(*At the time of this writing, a bill, yet to be explained to the public by the media, containing yet to be articulated ‘amendments’, has passed the Australian Senate but hasn’t yet been presented to Australian parliament, where opposition to the bill seeks to include amendments citing versions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ ‘freedom of religion’ protections. Meanwhile, in America, a national law legalizing marriage has been passed the Supreme court, but, a debate still continues in the same Supreme Court as to what services a business owner can or cannot be sued for failing to perform on religious grounds.)

Now, the classic question that even science can never seem to answer, for an infinite number of subjects, is whether that phenomena are caused by genetics or environment. Is it learned behaviour or was the creature or person ‘born that way’?

[To provide a crude, vastly over-simplified example, creationists will say that a bat was created with sonar ‘vision’ while ‘environmentalists’ might say that something akin to a rat evolved, growing wings to chase food and developing what the blind call ‘clicking’ or ‘echolocation’ to navigate at night.]

There are a host of words that can be persuasively used to legitimise the occurrence of any phenomena, as a form of reassurance or de-escalation, like ‘natural’, ‘innate’, instinctive, ‘normal’ or ‘commonplace’, and, no doubt, those words are used to describe both things that deserve such treatment and things that don’t.

It depends on who is talking.

A married philanderer, for example, might say that cheating on his spouse is ‘commonplace’ as a rationalisation for perpetually breaking his vows.

You know. "Nothing to see here."

Now, I want to take a moment to talk about identity, before I come to the point.

Now, not everyone arrives at the same self-identity for the same reason. For example, in the United States, there are many people who identify as ‘black.’

When you dig beneath the surface, you’ll find an INCREDIBLY wide variety of people who fall under this vaguely defined umbrella.

You’ll find:

• Recently arrived, 1st or 2nd generation Jamaicans, Haitians, Dominicans, Liberians, Trinidadians, Cubans, South Africans, Senegalese, Papua New Guineans, etc.

• People who are a blend of any combination of these.

• People who are just one of these, but have a European parent, and, because of the US history with the One Drop Rule (a wider social perception that anyone who has even a ‘drop’ of ‘black blood’ in them is therefore ‘black’)

• People who have two ‘white’ parents but, perhaps a black grandparent with a facial feature that persisted an extra generation causing people to view that person as ‘black’, again due to the One Drop Rule.

Ultimately, that person relents to a social convention. They emotionally sign onto an existing ‘treaty’, if you will, that says that all such people will be called ‘black.’

Not everyone arrives at the same conclusion for the same reason. Rachael Dolezal is a perfect example.

So it is, in my view, with the word ‘gay.’

Nothing that I am about to describe is intended as an exhaustive explanation for the existence of homosexuality. Different people arrive at the same destination for different reasons, that only that person can know.

Not everyone who choose the moniker arrived at that decision in precisely the same way. Everyone has their own story about when they realised that the word fit.

Now, it is crucial at this point to agree, before proceeding, that:

• As is the case with ‘blacks’, there seems to be a phenomenon where people who are not black themselves take it upon themselves to speak up ‘for’ blacks, sometimes with the best of intentions, but, with inaccurate understandings that blacks would LOVE to correct, but, could only do so at the risk of what would be perceived as friendly fire.
  I find the same kinds of people explaining a sexuality that they themselves do not claim to possess. It's third-hand testimony.
  The question “Why would they do it if they didn’t genuinely feel this way?” comes up often.
  No one is suggesting that the actual desire is fake.
  There are any number of behaviours that are treated with social disdain, both legal and illegal, harmless and dangerous, where participants are treated with the same scorn and disdain, but persist in the activity, happily enjoying it, despite social attitudess, and could offer the exact same explanation.

I mean, given how viciously people are fat-shamed, why would a person eat for any other reason than that they are genuinely hungry? Right?

• Only that gay person ever knows the real, deep down reason as to why they choose to identify as ‘gay’, and, perhaps more importantly, unless you are that gay person. Only that person knows why they signed onto that naming-convention or treaty. YOU DON’T. So, it would be entirely inappropriate for self-righteous telling others what they don’t understand unless you are talking about your own decisions and feelings. Otherwise, no matter how well-intentioned you may be, you are testifying to information you could not truly know yourself. You are an outsider looking in, just like me, and you can only draw conclusions from observations, as do I. You are no more qualified to assess the situation than I am.

It is not up to you to vouch for events you neither experienced or witnessed yourself; and, finally, we must also agree that:

• No matter what the reason is that said person chose for signing onto this naming-convention, it shouldn’t make them subject to violence, name-calling, mistreatment, short-changing of his or her job prospects, misrepresentation of their full capabilities, curtailing of their economic opportunities, nor any other forms of hate.

Now, all of that said, in the same neighborhood where I saw slut-shaming and heard boys bragging in class about having 'run train on' a girl, I saw more than one instance of an older brother, left unsupervised with a younger brother while the parent(s) was away working, and that younger sibling later in life identifying as ‘gay.’ Now, did that homosexuality just naturally occur, or, did two unsupervised children have a sibling rivalry that actually dissolved into incestuous sexual abuse?

With the absence of an adjudicating parent, I personally felt, from observing the dynamics between them in other aspects of life, as if I saw a sort of sexual Stockholm Syndrome set in with these victims.

For those unfamiliar with it, Stockholm Syndrome is when a person held captive begins to identify with and sympathise with their captor. It’s an involuntary response that basically says, “If you cannot beat them, join them.”

It's a psychological routine that the military also uses, and, by that I don't mean sexual abuse (although that's a discussion clearly worth having another time) but breaking someone down psychologically, in general, so as to be able to program a new identity into the person.

If a 20 year-old can't resist that pressure, how would a 4 year-old fare?

https://counsellingresource.com/therapy/self-help/stockholm/

I also perceived this kind of thing to be what potentially was happening when a scrawny private, previously known as Bradley Manning, decides, just before going to prison where sexual abuse is understood to a rife power struggle, to change identities and become a woman.

Now, if, in fact, that is what I was witnessing, and through this sort of Stockholm Syndrome, this person has had a psychological ‘break’ and begun, particularly if it was at a young age, forming a personal identity to rationalise this abuse, am I helping or hurting that person by re-enforcing or supporting that acquired identity?

There is a concept in psychology called "imprinting."

It's when, during a particular period in the development of a person or animal, substitute stimulus can be introduced and have the same effect as what would normally occur in nature.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sideways-view/201504/the-psychology-imprinting

So, a dog may become convinced that a little boy is the alpha male in his brood and share rituals that would normally be shared among fellow dogs. The stimulus is particularly potent when applied at what science calls a 'critical period' - the age at which certain types of bonds are typically formed.

A more human example might be thumb-sucking.

The sucking impulse is a natural feature of humans from birth. Where the purpose of the action is breastfeeding, the reality is that anything put in the mouth of that infant will be treated as though it was a breast, including a thumb. Later in life, these things turn into dental issues.

Now, twenty years later, when that person is still doing it, is it really anyone else's business? No.

• Does it mean that the person deserves to have graffiti written all over their house? No.

• Does it mean that the person deserves any lesser job prospects than anyone else? No!

• Should that person be allowed to have their birth certificate changed to say that their mother is their thumb, because that thumb, and not a human woman, provided the pacifier/dummy that was needed from childbirth?

I’ve seen a similar thing play out through fathers mistreating their daughters, making it painfully clear to that daughter that he would prefer to have had a son, through unspoken behavior.

Perhaps that father even later DID have a son, and then completely dropped the girl like a bad habit, leaving that girl feeling that the only way to be an acceptable person on an incredibly deep, love-needing level, would be to become virtually male.

Perhaps that father simply gave his sons what the daughter saw as greater privileges.

Consider that, even where sexual orientation is not the issue, people are capable of dissolving into deep enough forms of self-hatred to have incessant plastic surgery, infinitely trying to ‘improve’ who they are in the eyes of others.

Is encouraging that person to continue this perpetual, never-ending transformation, to continue to succumb to that self-hate, constitute help or hurt?

Completely aside from these issues, I also accept that there are some people who are simply born with unusual body chemistry and/or anatomy, which makes life difficult in a society that wants to put everyone in one box or the other, often with characteristics attached that are not innate to either sex.

Now, even in situations where there is no hormone or anatomical balance at play, where a person has simply arrived at a place, for whatever reason, that they are attracted to the same sex:

A. Would it be my place to take that person into the way back machine, to revisit the abuse that may have been at the root of their sexual identity?

Is that a conversation that they owe it to me to have with me? I think no.

I still know some of these people, 30-40 years later, who 'ran trains' and fought unsupervised with their brothers. They're normal people. Their Facebook profiles don't look any different to anyone else's. So, at what point is it my call to sit two brothers down and make the victim accuse the aggressor? If the two of them chalk it up to something 'natural' who am I do dispute that?

I might not believe them, but, I'm not going to say anything, and I'm certainly not joining on anybody's float in a parade about it.

B. Sexual-orientation aside, I know that some of my earliest memories are from when I was 3 or 4 years old, before I attended school. I remember the first time I saw a cooked lobster.

I remember a tragic accident that nearly killed my younger brother. There is a lot that could have gone on with me at that age, or younger, that I would perceive as nothing but ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ and happily accuse anyone who considered my behaviour of being suspect as over-reacting or not minding their own business, and, they’d be right.

But, depending on what the habit is, should they reinforce it? Celebrate it? Promote it? Try it?

Would you say the same about nose-picking, nail-biting, a lisp? All things that people are unfairly ridiculed for, given that they don't hurt anyone else. Wouldn't I be inclined to describe ANY habit that I acquired before I could remember doing so as 'natural' or 'normal'?

C. If you were a parent under whose roof kids ‘ran train’ on each other, or one these sibling rivalries turned sexual, what incentive would you have to dispute or challenge the nice, neat, 21-st century, socially-acceptable, simply tag of ‘gay’ as opposed to uncovering and reliving decades-old hurt and the guilt of perceived parental shortcomings?

Isn’t it much easier to let the naïve onlookers use the whole scenario as a form of social vanity, patting themselves on the back for being understanding, sensitive, modern, hip, progressive, good people for accepting the outcome of these undetected childhood events as being ‘natural’?

Isn’t it the perfect ‘out’ for what would otherwise be a very uncomfortable conversation for all involved?

Doesn’t the proliferation of, and indiscriminate use of the pejorative ‘homophobe’ serve to silence anyone who might otherwise mention these potentially uncomfortable truths rather than ‘stick to the script’?

There is no question that there is an element of Australia’s “No” vote that is based on hate. There is no question that there is part of America’s religious community that is actually not religious, but use religion as a false pretence to outlaw anything they don’t like for any number of unspecified underlying reasons.

I didn’t write this to say that conservatives are good people.

I’m writing this to say that, to wantonly and indiscriminately throw out terms like ‘bigot’ and ‘homophobe’ to anyone who doesn’t toe the line and play along at home is a dangerous, fascist mindset that is inappropriate no matter the cause.

Some people genuinely wonder if they are simply failing to be 'cool', 'hip' or 'progressive' or if they are being swept along with an effective mass attempt to suborn something far more sinister, simply for fear of being castigated by a society that would rather you didn't ask these tough questions.

The reticence to cooperate with today’s social agenda may or may not be coming from a place of hate, and could even be well-intended concern, a desire to be present and not swept along, making oneself available for anyone who IS the product of the theories I’ve articulated above, and wants to face it, and not for any reason to do with any so-called afterlife, either.

Just to bring some understanding and empathy to this life, if needed, I'm hoping that someone who reads this, even if we never meet, simply knows that not everyone is blinded by the rhetoric. We aren't all just either programmed, 'Stepford' neighbors prepared to sacrifice you to the borg or, to the other extreme, vicious homophobes secretly planning violence or hate against you.