Sex, to me, is not just merely an act. In fact, it's not even an act to which you can apply love or connection or addiction, etc etc. Sex can be sex without the act entirely- to me, as I made sure to say.
In my Topics of Sexuality course, we've managed to establish that sexuality (as well as what feels good/bad and what is right/wrong, etc) is entirely defined by your culture and its own political, social, economic, etc values because you, as an individual- and even the notion of individuality!- have been produced from the discourses which have been, also, produced. Let me see if I can break this down: all you are, from your ideas on the world to your tastes in absolutely everything to what you manage to see and not see in this world, has been shaped/made by the world around you- the power dynamics you see/don't see in male and female interactions; the simple notion of male and female existing as male and female; the concept of individuality; what you deem to be respect; what you deem to be worthwhile and not- it's all be produced by your circumstantial context of personal existence.
So with that taken care of, I'd like to reach past all of that and discuss the concept of sex as a specific style of pleasure instead. Especially given that the act cannot merely be an act due to all of those special circumstantial contexts that have formed us, sex seems to be universal as a state of pleasure- and there're many ways, beyond those told to you by "society," by which to increase it. And that is the point of pleasure, yes? To increase it.
Here is a very convoluted by thorough website that explains what is known as Tantra: http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Philosophy-Tantra-Tantric-Sex.htm
Tantra, as you may know, goes a bit father than to say sex is just this animalistic physical thing that one can do and may/may not sorta kinda maybe apply it to spirituality, or emotion, or whatever- it says that "sex," the act, is merely a small portion of all possible pleasure and that one can tap into that pleasure through a whole bunch of stuff. My point? As much as I love systems thinking, and really do believe that everything affects everything else, I think there're more worlds than this one and so systems thinking cannot be the only way to go.
I'll do my best in the next few blogs to explain where this all came from.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
My OTHER Midterm-
I'm also in a human biological variation course. Technically, it's an anthropology course- but it's definitely more on the biological/genetic/evolutionary side of things.
I spent a long time memorizing the systems that play into making a human on the genetic level.
Did you know, there're over 3 billion base pairs of DNA in the human body? From there, there're over 25,000 protein coding genes- which is only as small small fraction of the total number of genes in the human body as the majority of the human genome is made of regulatory genes- those that turn the other ones on and off.
And if any of the genes is broken, don't get me started. It can only take one mistake on one small part of one chromosome- called a locus, loci when plural- to become a truly faulty human being. And that's just a simply little mutation.There's also redundancy, adaptation, acclimatization, and then the more specific stuff like: single nucleotide polymoprhisms. If anything goes wrong, whether due to genetic or environmental fault- you're facing mass confusion within the human genome.
All of this, it's quantifiable. We can recreate DNA. We can sex AND "race" a skeleton based on simple patterns in the skeleton. We can forecast population wide mutations with simply math. And, this is the great part, we haven't even really begun to understand any of it. Over 50% of the human genome? We have no idea what it does. But, we're slowly getting there. We'll probably be able to "fix" humans before our lives are over- maybe we'll be able to live forever and really get a sense of systems.
I spent a long time memorizing the systems that play into making a human on the genetic level.
Did you know, there're over 3 billion base pairs of DNA in the human body? From there, there're over 25,000 protein coding genes- which is only as small small fraction of the total number of genes in the human body as the majority of the human genome is made of regulatory genes- those that turn the other ones on and off.
And if any of the genes is broken, don't get me started. It can only take one mistake on one small part of one chromosome- called a locus, loci when plural- to become a truly faulty human being. And that's just a simply little mutation.There's also redundancy, adaptation, acclimatization, and then the more specific stuff like: single nucleotide polymoprhisms. If anything goes wrong, whether due to genetic or environmental fault- you're facing mass confusion within the human genome.
All of this, it's quantifiable. We can recreate DNA. We can sex AND "race" a skeleton based on simple patterns in the skeleton. We can forecast population wide mutations with simply math. And, this is the great part, we haven't even really begun to understand any of it. Over 50% of the human genome? We have no idea what it does. But, we're slowly getting there. We'll probably be able to "fix" humans before our lives are over- maybe we'll be able to live forever and really get a sense of systems.
Well, here's to educational failure-
Try as I might, I just couldn't find the information needed to prove the points made in my last post. I even went so far to email my human sexuality teacher for help on my quest, and the help he gave me led me nowhere.
C'est la vie, I suppose. Instead, I offer you a more complete summary of what I half-ranted on earlier.
Welcome to Renee's Grand Summary of the History of Sexuality (mainly through the eyes of Michele Foucault and Ann Stoler):
In the 17th century, the upper middle class- the bourgeoise- were in just the right position to fund the building of ships, and the hiring of men, to sail off into the world and see what they could find. They knew there were savages. They knew there were resources. They knew that there was little variation in resources on the mainland of Europe- and thus, the plan was to find those savages with their bountiful resources and to exploit the people and take their land and bring it home. Which went well, until they realized that the white male workers were breeding with the natives.
When this realization set in, they knew they couldn't simply go in, take the goods, and get out. Human beings are a bit more complicated than that, and a bit more empathetic.
The bourgeoise had to stop it.
But, how does one stop another from sexualizing a people? Well, you have to make the groups different. You have to pervert the culture and isolate your people from the "savages."
At this point, it's interesting to note that the bourgeoise were the ones to ultimately control the institutions that control your perceptions of the world. It's also interesting to note my very conscious mixing of tenses.The upper middle class have, and presumably always will, control the church systems/education systems/judicial systems/etc. from which they can breed a people that follow their rules.
In the 17th century, they needed to sexually separate Europe from the rest of the world. And so sex, as well as pretty much all else in Europe, became a bit more about "truth" and a bit less about pleasure. All of the sexual acts that had never before been considered personally and sexually definitive-meaning they had simply been for pleasure before- were now acts that made you who you are. From this period, we get the extraordinarily taboo natures of beastiality, pedofilial, and ultimately homosexuality (hello marriage laws). Those things just weren't productive to society like heterosexual, conjugal, boring sex. And that was how the bourgeoise got the workers. They changed society as a whole, and so mixing with the natives made you less of a European and you were ostracized. And if you dared do anything "worse" than mixing with the natives, you'd be ostracized, studied, treated and maybe even punished.
In Foucault's A History of Sexuality, he gives an example of a traveler that arrived at a village and saw a culture in which the children of the village would play a game called "churn the milk (or something)"- a game where the children essentially gave hand jobs to the men of the area. And so, one day, this new guy decided to try it. Low and behold, he got caught- which led to him getting sent from doctor to psychiatrist to asylum to jail. And the "game" had been taking place for decades! What happened? He got caught at a time where all acts needed to be understood, analyzed, and quantified.
So- as you may had already asked yourself- how do you do this? You have to start it young. You have to raise children into a world of it until these values become so engrained in society that they're just magically produced on their own. Key word here: produced. To Foucault, our sexualities are not repressed- they're given to us. Nothing is solely "human nature."
I think I'll end it here, this is a lot of information- but I can guarantee this isn't where it ends.
C'est la vie, I suppose. Instead, I offer you a more complete summary of what I half-ranted on earlier.
Welcome to Renee's Grand Summary of the History of Sexuality (mainly through the eyes of Michele Foucault and Ann Stoler):
In the 17th century, the upper middle class- the bourgeoise- were in just the right position to fund the building of ships, and the hiring of men, to sail off into the world and see what they could find. They knew there were savages. They knew there were resources. They knew that there was little variation in resources on the mainland of Europe- and thus, the plan was to find those savages with their bountiful resources and to exploit the people and take their land and bring it home. Which went well, until they realized that the white male workers were breeding with the natives.
When this realization set in, they knew they couldn't simply go in, take the goods, and get out. Human beings are a bit more complicated than that, and a bit more empathetic.
The bourgeoise had to stop it.
But, how does one stop another from sexualizing a people? Well, you have to make the groups different. You have to pervert the culture and isolate your people from the "savages."
At this point, it's interesting to note that the bourgeoise were the ones to ultimately control the institutions that control your perceptions of the world. It's also interesting to note my very conscious mixing of tenses.The upper middle class have, and presumably always will, control the church systems/education systems/judicial systems/etc. from which they can breed a people that follow their rules.
In the 17th century, they needed to sexually separate Europe from the rest of the world. And so sex, as well as pretty much all else in Europe, became a bit more about "truth" and a bit less about pleasure. All of the sexual acts that had never before been considered personally and sexually definitive-meaning they had simply been for pleasure before- were now acts that made you who you are. From this period, we get the extraordinarily taboo natures of beastiality, pedofilial, and ultimately homosexuality (hello marriage laws). Those things just weren't productive to society like heterosexual, conjugal, boring sex. And that was how the bourgeoise got the workers. They changed society as a whole, and so mixing with the natives made you less of a European and you were ostracized. And if you dared do anything "worse" than mixing with the natives, you'd be ostracized, studied, treated and maybe even punished.
In Foucault's A History of Sexuality, he gives an example of a traveler that arrived at a village and saw a culture in which the children of the village would play a game called "churn the milk (or something)"- a game where the children essentially gave hand jobs to the men of the area. And so, one day, this new guy decided to try it. Low and behold, he got caught- which led to him getting sent from doctor to psychiatrist to asylum to jail. And the "game" had been taking place for decades! What happened? He got caught at a time where all acts needed to be understood, analyzed, and quantified.
So- as you may had already asked yourself- how do you do this? You have to start it young. You have to raise children into a world of it until these values become so engrained in society that they're just magically produced on their own. Key word here: produced. To Foucault, our sexualities are not repressed- they're given to us. Nothing is solely "human nature."
I think I'll end it here, this is a lot of information- but I can guarantee this isn't where it ends.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
I know, I know-
I took a small hiatus. I really did need it. And now I'm back, and more ready than ever to blog your brains out with many examples of systems within the ever growing world of sexuality.
Let's take a fairly classic example of sex ratios within America-
At given point in history, there has always been more x than y until there's more y than x. In this case, I'm speaking of men and women but the meanings behind x and y aren't nearly as important as realizing that both x and y have their own guidelines for being x and y. And when there are more than one over the other of either (men or women; stay with me) the overall guidelines for that group, or society, or even country, shift as well.
From the depths of human nature, men and women have their "needs." Men need to use as many women as possible to, as they say, spread their seed. Meanwhile, women need to latch onto a stable, etc etc etc, man from which she can raise her children and be taken care of and so on and so forth. Anyways, it's not so grand -from the male's perspective- to have the women of the area having sexual relations with the other men. Men, biologically speaking, want to pass on their own genes. But on the other hand -from the women's perspective- the mixing of immune systems is all the better for a women and her children.
At least this is how it was explained to me in my very first human sexuality course.
The point, dear readers, is that when these simple biological urges -these urges, if you will- find their way into modern society, you find that male dominated cultures have much less sexual "openness" than those in which the women are the more dominant.
Lemme rephrase, if there're more men than women in any given whatever, that whatever is going to be more conservative (i.e. the conservativism after the second world war ended and the men "re-upped" in America). If there're more women than men in any given whatever, that whatever is going to be a lot more liberal (i.e. the sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies).
And now the real point: these levels of "openness" shift! Back and forth this pendulum of sex ratios swings leaving us constantly in the wakes of sexual repression and sexual salvation.
Now, I really could go on and on about this- and I think I will, actually- but I need to shoot an email to my human sexuality professor first.
Stay tuned.
Let's take a fairly classic example of sex ratios within America-
At given point in history, there has always been more x than y until there's more y than x. In this case, I'm speaking of men and women but the meanings behind x and y aren't nearly as important as realizing that both x and y have their own guidelines for being x and y. And when there are more than one over the other of either (men or women; stay with me) the overall guidelines for that group, or society, or even country, shift as well.
From the depths of human nature, men and women have their "needs." Men need to use as many women as possible to, as they say, spread their seed. Meanwhile, women need to latch onto a stable, etc etc etc, man from which she can raise her children and be taken care of and so on and so forth. Anyways, it's not so grand -from the male's perspective- to have the women of the area having sexual relations with the other men. Men, biologically speaking, want to pass on their own genes. But on the other hand -from the women's perspective- the mixing of immune systems is all the better for a women and her children.
At least this is how it was explained to me in my very first human sexuality course.
The point, dear readers, is that when these simple biological urges -these urges, if you will- find their way into modern society, you find that male dominated cultures have much less sexual "openness" than those in which the women are the more dominant.
Lemme rephrase, if there're more men than women in any given whatever, that whatever is going to be more conservative (i.e. the conservativism after the second world war ended and the men "re-upped" in America). If there're more women than men in any given whatever, that whatever is going to be a lot more liberal (i.e. the sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies).
And now the real point: these levels of "openness" shift! Back and forth this pendulum of sex ratios swings leaving us constantly in the wakes of sexual repression and sexual salvation.
Now, I really could go on and on about this- and I think I will, actually- but I need to shoot an email to my human sexuality professor first.
Stay tuned.
Friday, January 7, 2011
questions on this week's reading-
Regarding the first chapter in Thinking in Systems by Donella H. Meadows, I found myself with 5 questions. These questions may need further explanation, and I do include the page numbers which inspired these thoughts, but I wasn't asked for explanations on the questions-
1. Why do our brains apply the biological/psychological/"natural" systems to our grand institutional ones? (14)
2. Do all her points count? Could she maybe be pushing the analogy too far? (16/17)
3. Do stocks always need time? If a person/group/whatever changes their relationship/perspective to the other elements within a system, isn't the system then just inherently different? (23)
4. Does happiness choose which? (30)
5. Can one opt to choose differently? (31)
1. Why do our brains apply the biological/psychological/"natural" systems to our grand institutional ones? (14)
2. Do all her points count? Could she maybe be pushing the analogy too far? (16/17)
3. Do stocks always need time? If a person/group/whatever changes their relationship/perspective to the other elements within a system, isn't the system then just inherently different? (23)
4. Does happiness choose which? (30)
5. Can one opt to choose differently? (31)
Regression and Transgression within Sexuality-
I'm currently reading A History of Sexuality: Volume 1 by Michele Foucault. In it, he explains the process in which the Victorian-Age has shaped our view of sexuality as a whole. He comes at the subject with a filter he names The Regression Hypothesis and breaks down the system as follows:
The Victorian-era regression of sexuality pushed the topic into the realm of taboo which thus propeled the industries of prostitution and porn into almost mainstream society- causing sexuality to become a bigger deal and the Victorian regression to up its ante in return.
In this system, the two sides (regression and transgression) have been fighting endlessly and thus maintaining a sort of stability. And thus ends my first example of a real world system-
The Victorian-era regression of sexuality pushed the topic into the realm of taboo which thus propeled the industries of prostitution and porn into almost mainstream society- causing sexuality to become a bigger deal and the Victorian regression to up its ante in return.
In this system, the two sides (regression and transgression) have been fighting endlessly and thus maintaining a sort of stability. And thus ends my first example of a real world system-
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