Slightly Rant, Slightly Question of Social Structure

[A. Sterling]

Why, dear lord, why must everything in literature be about sex! Yes, I need to rant about this because almost everything I've had to read for my creative writing class this semester (and it's a lot) has been about sex or lust in some way or another; but it's also I legitimate question because I don't understand. I mean just today we had to read this really crazy one about a babysitter and my prof said that the thing that compels the reader to keep reading is the sex interest alone. Needless to say, I really wanted to put it down. 

 

But this also adds complications for my own writing and her judgment of my writing because we are clearly motivated by different things and she wants me to make my writing interesting to her. And it has to make sense to her. But clearly we make sense of very different things and to change my writing to make sense to her would likely change it so that I don't like it myself or understand it. So she now thinks that it's because my writing is lacking so she can make me understand but she can't make me understand what I really don't, which are these deep-seated human motivations that we don't share. 

[Serra]

99% of society is ingrained on sex,...Commercials, writing, anything- It sucks and I hate it to0- but I've just learned to accept it for what it is.. however her telling you to "change your writing" is a bit over the top...You write what you want...Theres nothing wrong with not conforming to everyone elses need for sexual gratification in everything.

If you arent comfortable doing it..

DONT DO IT.

[Loofah B. Shampoo]

That's frustrating, and is definitely why I like doing my own writing, outside of class, but still manage to do poorly in a literature class.

 

I think your best bet is being super mocking and ironic, in a way she can perceive as serious. Like, put it in there, so she gets the point. Just trying to think off the top of my head.

 

A married man falls for the female lead, and his wife casts a curse on her that every time she feels lust, she feels horrible pain or something. But she's asexual and she just goes unaffected through life, and then she's killed for "cheating" the magic or something/is slowed down by people who don't understand not being a horny monster all the time.

 

I wish stories didn't have to be about sex or lust, but maybe your teacher will get the idea if you wave it in her face.

[Serra]

Just now, Loofah B. Shampoo said:

That's frustrating, and is definitely why I like doing my own writing, outside of class, but still manage to do poorly.

 

I think your best bet is being super mocking and ironic, in a way she can perceive as serious. Like, put it in there, so she gets the point. Just trying to think off the topic of my head.

 

A married man falls for the female lead, and his wife casts a curse on her that every time she feels lust, she feels horrible pain or something. But she's asexual and she just goes unaffected through life, and then she's killed for "cheating" the magic or something.

 

I wish stories didn't have to be about sex or lust, but maybe your teacher will get the idea if you wave it in her face.

I LOVE this idea... XD

[A. Sterling]

3 minutes ago, Loofah B. Shampoo said:

A married man falls for the female lead, and his wife casts a curse on her that every time she feels lust, she feels horrible pain or something. But she's asexual and she just goes unaffected through life, and then she's killed for "cheating" the magic or something/is slowed down by people who don't understand not being a horny monster all the time.

 

I wish stories didn't have to be about sex or lust, but maybe your teacher will get the idea if you wave it in her face.

I like this idea, but I feel almost certain that she and the workshop (my classmates) would say that the motivation and "reality" of this scenario doesn't work, and my prof. has banned us from saying anything like "but that's how I am" or "that's what really happened". The rule is that they, the readers, have to be convinced. In my current case I have a cannibalistic society  (maybe cannibalistic at least because it is actually unclear whether the "people" they are eating are "actual" people, the people in the story don't think so) and one of my prof's main critiques is that I didn't describe the genitals of the male though I talk about the female's breasts. I mean come on. 

 

The other critique is more reasonable, though, it's "how did this society get to this point", but I can't convince myself that it's necessary to the plot to know this, I think it might be more valuable to have the reader wonder about it, and I can't really see anyone in the story knowing the answer to this either. 

[Paula @ BH]

Taking the fight to her:

 

Yes, it is anomie and it comes from an utter failure to comprehend - as if there's music that they all can hear, and to which evidently they really want to dance - but you just don't hear it.  It is very unfortunate that you are having you nose pushed in it because it's your tutor's obsession and you cannot simply 'walk away',

 

Here's some counter-stuff from Philip Larkin:

“I think - though of course I am all for free love, advanced schools, & so on - someone might do a little research on some of the inherent qualities of sex - its cruelty, its bullyingness, for instance.  It seems to me that bending someone else to your will is the very stuff of sex, by force or neglect if you are male, by spitefulness or nagging or

scenes if you are female.  And what's more, both sides would sooner have it that way than not at all.  I wouldn't.  And I suspect that means not that I can enjoy sex in my own quiet way but that I can't enjoy it at all.  It's like rugby football: either you like kicking & being kicked, or your soul cringes away from the whole affair.  There's no way of quietly enjoying rugby football.  That is the kind of thing our panel of experts might have suggested.  If we straightened out all the kinks caused by ignorance & superstition, would the resultant article be a shining paragon?  And further, should we expect it to be, considering the enormous & dirty job it has to do - CARRYING ON THE RACE - any more than we can expect a front line soldier to be decorous & genteel?”

 

Philip Larkin’s “Letters to Monica”, extracted from a letter of 1 November 1951

, edited by Anthony Thwaite

, published 2010 by Faber and Faber Limited in association with the Bodleian Library

 

Reasons For Attendance

The trumpet's voice, loud and authoritative,

Draws me a moment to the lighted glass

To watch the dancers - all under twenty-five -

Solemnly on the beat of happiness.

- Or so I fancy, sensing the smoke and sweat,

The wonderful feel of girls.  Why be out here?

But then, why be in there?  Sex, yes, but what

Is sex?  Surely to think the lion's share

Of happiness is found by couples - sheer

Inaccuracy, as far as I'm concerned.

What calls me is that lifted, rough-tongued bell

(Art, if you like) whose individual sound

Insists I too am individual.

It speaks;  I hear;  others may hear as well,

But not for me, nor I for them;  and so

With happiness.  Therefore I stay outside,

Believing this, and they maul to and fro,

Believing that; and both are satisfied,

If no one has misjudged himself. Or lied.

 

Philip Larkin  1922–1985

And there's always Gaius Petronius, as translated by Ben Jonson:

 

Doing, a filthy pleasure is, and short;

And done, we straight repent us of the sport:

Let us not then rush blindly on unto it,

Like lustful beasts, that only know to do it:

For lust will languish, and that heat decay.

But thus, thus, keeping endless holiday,

Let us together closely lie and kiss,

There is no labour, nor no shame in this;

This hath pleased, doth please, and long will please; never

Can this decay, but is beginning ever.

 

And can't there really be interst in interpersonal interactions that don't involve trading one particular physiological need per Maslow's 'Hierachy of Human Needs'? :-

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

 

You might address the difference between 2 people's expectations of fulfilment of different mixtures of needs in the same interaction. 

 

There's plenty of sexological survey evidence that trad het 'sexual interactions' disappoint many heterosexual women much of the time - they want love, self-esteem, belonging, he wants lust satiisfied, but how he does it (p-i-v)  just doesn't work very well, etc .... angst, distress, conflict, failure of comprehension, missing of opportnites for s/t higher/better,  separation .....  the literary school of 'Patrarchal Realism', if you like    🙂 

 

Yes, I do sympathise.  But here's ammunition, I think ... no need to ''suck it up' when you can 'take the fight to her' instead.

 

 

Paula

 

 

 

 

[Loofah B. Shampoo]

2 minutes ago, A. Sterling said:

I like this idea, but I feel almost certain that she and the workshop (my classmates) would say that the motivation and "reality" of this scenario doesn't work, and my prof. has banned us from saying anything like "but that's how I am" or "that's what really happened". The rule is that they, the readers, have to be convinced. In my current case I have a cannibalistic society  (maybe cannibalistic at least because it is actually unclear whether the "people" they are eating are "actual" people, the people in the story don't think so) and one of my prof's main critiques is that I didn't describe the genitals of the male though I talk about the female's breasts. I mean come on. 

 

The other critique is more reasonable, though, it's "how did this society get to this point", but I can't convince myself that it's necessary to the plot to know this, I think it might be more valuable to have the reader wonder about it, and I can't really see anyone in the story knowing the answer to this either. 

Frankly, the "not describing the genitals" as a complaint is gross. Breasts aren't even genitals; that'd be like describing male muscles (ie. something sexualized that doesn't have to do with sex) Do people actually want that? 

 

The only way I can see getting around that whole 'it's not based in reality' is being like "neither is every possible motivation being a character is horny, you nasties."

[Paula @ BH]

P.S. I'd say Philip Larkin was, in effect, an aromantic heterosexual, if you want a label .. and an impeccable literay example 🙂  Paula

[A. Sterling]

8 minutes ago, Paula @ BH said:

And can't there really be interst in interpersonal interactions that don't involve trading one particular physiological need per Maslow's 'Hierachy of Human Needs'? :-

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

I love all those that you quotes. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a totally new thread, I think. It has always frustrated me and is fully excepted in the Psych. world so it is a very vexing thing, especially as a Psych/English Major.

[Paula @ BH]

Shooting to kill:

 

Put 2 rainbow triangles side by side, on a level, with some distance between - Person 1 & Person 2 -

 

and, in between, 2 bothway arrows, one labelled any-to any, the other any-to many ... 

 

and then realise thaat Maslow came later to say that Self-Actualization could only be achieverd through Self-Transcendence (serving another's need for  the sake of doing so)  and add two crossing, over-arching arrows from Self-Actualisation 1 to Self-Actualization 2. 

 

and  that's 100% consistent with Viktor Frankl in  early sections of Part 2 of 'Man's Search For Meaning' .... cast-iron credibily, then ..

 

Now we have a true basis for the critique of how sexually-obsessed sellfisness reduces the oppotunity for 'making love' in EVERY sense to 'having sex' .... 

 

and, say, only the top 20% fof the population or Altruism and Empathy can do Self-Transcendence -

 

and 0.2 x 0.2 = 0.04 - 4% - 1 in 25 of relationships are rooted in True Frindhip -

 

and Asexuals can do that even when illness cuts out 'having sex, ' so their love can survive ... and you've got them bang to rights ..  🙂

[Paula @ BH]

Illnesses? :

 

Benign Enlargement of the Prostate - and the hormones used to stop it

Prostate Cancer - and hormones treatment or radiotherapy

Self-loathing arising from:

Cancer

Ulcerative Colitis

Crohn's Disease

Parkinson's Disease

 

- lots of opportunties for 'no more sex' later in long-term het 1:1 relationhips.  That's when you see whether theirs was 'making love' or 'having sex' all those years.  And whehere it was true friendship or just habit after early years of 'fancying one another'.  And whether it was "in sickness and in health" and "for better, for worse" or just "in health, and for better" ...

 

I can send you 2 URLs for real-life examples of how s/o who cannot do, or doesn't want (she's Asexual) P-I-V can be an ideal long-term 1:1 partner for someone sexual. 

 

Please ask me via AVEN PM if you are interested - one is from the BBC, the other is a 4* customer review on Amazon UK  🙂

 

Paula

 

[Loofah B. Shampoo]

@A. Sterling

 

Alright, so it finally hit me; make the focus of the story on families, always, so you can say it IS about love, and call it gross if people want romance. "He's her brother!" etc.

[Paula @ BH]

That's a good take, in my opinion.  You'll be taking the moral high ground about the true meaning of love being in the same space as the maeaning of true friendhsip, all the more annoying because it jolly well is 🙂 and far too many het couples just can't see that for penis.  And it's very realistic, too, nd there's so very much evidence of how fragile are very many het relationships (and ditto many G & L are, for that matter).

 

And there's comparing how a couple does/doesn't cope with a change that stops them 'having sex' - and maybe that's the point (in a story) when him or her being 'A' finally is revealed as a strength and an asset after all  🙂  

 

Or a story when one of them discovers they're F2M or M2F afer having chidren together, and it's lovely because their partner who is 'A' (and hasn't been much liked for it  'cos of guilt on tthe receving partner's shoulders for 'taking but not giving', as s/he has seen it), is able to cope very well and continue a very strong love, since no more p-i-v- counts for zero (and perhaps there's been a real life very similar case in a thread on AVEN at some time?).

 

So I'll post you those URLs about 'so-called mismatched sexualities make no difference at all' right here:

 

1.   A 4* Amazon Uk curtomer book review:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Invisible-Orientation-Introduction-Asexuality-Generation/product-reviews/1634502434/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_hist_4?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=four_star&reviewerType=all_reviews#reviews-filter-bar

 

- and I have anonymous notes from the asexual woman about how it was her partner didn't feel guilty for receiving but not giving at the physiological level of 'making love';

 

2.  Mik Scarlet's wife is in the audience:  they met and married YEARS after the injurry of which he speaks, and it's obvious she loves him to bits, and him her:

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/features/disability-39353731/39353731  (video clip - you may need a UK IP address - use a  vPN if so)

https://www.bbc.com/news/disability-39351352  (transcript)

 

Who says you 'need to use a penis' to 'make love' to a het woman long-term?

 

3.  And here's some more very heavyweight literary counter-ammunition, from yet another famous, impeccably serious, het male:

 

Extracts from: ‘On Old Age’: 

12. The third charge against old age is that it LACKS SENSUAL PLEASURES. What a
splendid service does old age render, if it takes from us the greatest blot of youth!
Listen, my dear young friends, to a speech of Archytas of Tarentum, among the greatest
and most illustrious of men, which was put into my hands when as a young man I was at
Tarentum with Quintus Maximus. “No more deadly curse than sensual pleasure has been
inflicted on mankind by nature, to gratify which our wanton appetites are roused beyond
all prudence or restraint. It is a fruitful source of treasons, revolutions, secret
communications with the enemy. In fact, there is no crime, no evil deed, to which the
appetite for sensual pleasures does not impel us. Fornications and adulteries, and every
abomination of that kind, are brought about by the enticements of pleasure and by them
alone. Intellect is the best gift of nature or God: to this divine gift and endowment there
is nothing so inimical as pleasure. For when appetite is our master, there is no place for
self-control; nor where pleasure reigns supreme can virtue hold its ground. To see this
more vividly, imagine a man excited to the highest conceivable pitch of sensual pleasure.
It can be doubtful to no one that such a person, so long as he is under the influence of
such excitation of the senses, will be unable to use to any purpose either intellect, reason,
or thought. Therefore nothing can be so execrable and so fatal as pleasure; since, when
more than ordinarily violent and lasting, it darkens all the light of the soul.”
What is the point of all this? It is to show you that, if we were unable to scorn pleasure by
the aid of reason and philosophy, we ought to have been very grateful to old age for
depriving us of all inclination for that which it was wrong to do. For pleasure hinders
thought, is a foe to reason, and, so to speak, blinds the eyes of the mind.
Why then do I spend so many words on the subject of pleasure?

Why, because, far from being a charge against old age,

that it does not much feel the want of any pleasures, it is its highest praise.”

 

‘Cato Maior de Senectute’, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC).

 

Take her out, but only literally 🙂 , won't you?    With a literary assassin's smile and a 'straight' face, of course!

 

Paula