Everybody’s talking at me (about sex)

So.

The world appears to have it in for me today. I’m finding it hard to write, yet a thousand interesting things are being thrust in my direction.

You see, even my metaphors are sexing it up. That may be part of my novel mindset, which is currently still slightly sex obsessed, but for a reason. Basically, my language in anything I’m writing is becoming more and more like the at best beleaguered mind of my protagonist, which is interesting, but leading to some confusion.

Stream of consciousness and cogent narratives don’t go hand in hand. Which is fine for the novel, but not for big rambling discussions about pornography, sex, inequality, subjugation and commodification.

And I’m under a stream of contradictions here.

Let’s summarise some positions.

I’m opposed to pornography, on the grounds that it commodifies and objectifies sex, sexuality and bodies. Now, it does that pretty much no matter what. You view an image to titillate, and you are viewing an object. The object has no feelings so you associate that arousal with objects, with bodies that have no dimension beyond sexual availability, and are merely commodities to be bought and sold for your pleasure.

All of that transfers onto your interactions with real people.

Porn distorts the way you see real people, real sexuality, and real bodies.

I don’t think there’s arguing with that and I talk from experience as a former porn user still struggling with the effects. I still find myself leering and leching and objectifying women, no matter how hard I try not to, it feels instinctive, but I believe it is learned. I’m getting better, and I know that I still treat women as people, all people as people. That is important to me, because it means I have successes. I am improving, as they say. It’s getting better all the time.

Sometimes it may be subtle shifts, but it is effectively a conditioning process, and one that is reinforced by the arousal and the mental process involved. I also think after the initial experience it becomes detached from the actual content (apart from a constant need for new and often more extreme material) as it becomes about the simple act of finding ‘that stuff’ that makes it happens. The reaction becomes more and more about the process of objectification, of finding stimulating objects and being aroused enough to climax. It doesn’t matter what you look at, as long is it’s porn.

And it still runs into the way you see the world. The structural nature of objectification, commodification and abuse is enacted through the very action of looking at porn. Enacted, reinforced and reified.

I’ve never been this Foucauldian before, but then, I think I always have been.

On the other hand, I abhor censorship, political control of the public sphere and any interference with people’s ability to do what they want to do.

Which is particularly annoying. Because obviously, it means that I can’t suggest a solution beyond utopian, idealistic hopes of removing the need to pornography by stopping the fetishisation of sex. By allowing and encouraging people to openly talk about sex, sexuality, their bodies, their desires and the fact that not everything fits into a rigid pigeonhole. If people are allowed to healthily express and communicate ideas about this, then the need will be reduced, and the attitude to what does exist will be healthier, and perhaps stop this reinforcement of degrading power structures.

Seriously, is this all not just obvious? I mean, I guess it isn’t, but I don’t understand the attitudes.

Consumerism, satisfaction of personal needs, and the commodification of desire all lead to selfish attitudes towards desire. Ie entitlement. It’s so insidious and unaviodable that we need to challenge it head on.

And I have no idea how to do that. How ’bout you?

Next up on my contradictory wagon of sexual woes is an article on the guardian games blog.

Now, having not seen the videos, I can’t offer an opinion on the actual material, but I expect Monsieur Stuart is correct that it’s going to be lacking in any real titillative effect. But then there are lots of people who do this stuff in videogames where it isn’t hard coded (emergent sex is a great phrase), so I’m sure that some will enjoy this lots.

But the squeamishness of the ratings board is phenomenal. Sex is a part of life, videogames are a part of that, and I think, have the potential to be real art. Hell, they already are created narrative expressions, and I think that makes them art. That means that they can have sex in context and I don’t see the problem. Stuarts point that the age restriction is more likely to be applied to something with sex in when the gruesome violence of something else is considered fine is one of those weird dichotomies.

Lurid violence is apparently much more suitable material for exposure to kids than a couple of people (or in this case aliens) doing something entirely natural (if a little alien).

Now, I still have issues with the idea that alien sex is likely to be anything like human sex. But then, it just fits in with the traditional SF fallacy that all alien races will look like humans precisely so that Commander William T Riker can have sex with them. So I guess that’s fine. (In a way, I’m not going to go into the fact that I just implied that certain entities could be designed precisely so that certain other entities could have sex with them, as that would be square one, and it was a joke…of sorts.)

But it remains an unhealthy attitude to have. Like computer games are inherently capable of being terrible, corrupting minds and what not.

Now perhaps they do (and perhaps I should have split this into two posts, I really could’ve done with that gag earlier), but only because of the same thing that makes them incredible. The immersive nature of gaming. You exist in a universe that can be real. You are stuck in a world, an imagined world that you can affect. This makes for incredible potential that we are only just discovering. Once we get out of the idea that they are games, and start experimenting with new ways of making games we’re going to start seeing something incredible.

Stories being told well, engaging and challenging stories that will amaze you.

And once you’ve got stories, and rounded characters, then I expect to see more sex, and hopefully that stuff will have the context to be both stimulating and interesting (I don’t necessarily mean arousing).

Because this is the other thing. Sex can exist within other narrative forms and, despite the nudity and potential excitement, escape some of the previously mentioned dangers of porn. It is because it becomes real. The people being stared at are now characters, not just objects. With depth comes humanity, even if it is borrowed.

Still, the pornographic function can be enacted, but it is more of an audience choice. It is a way of consuming that isn’t the intended function, it is not the raison d’etre (we’re back at emergent sex it seems). This may well always happen, and is a matter of human choice. But yeah, I think there’s space for this in all narratives, and definitely computer games, which are an incredible narrative medium.

And people need to loosen up about sex and portrayals of sex in order for people’s attitudes to become ‘healthier’ and the world to become better (and hopefully less patriarchal).

Am I still making any sense at all? Was I ever?

Someone ask questions, or I’m never getting to the bottom of this.

And I should be adding to word count, but I’m not, I’m here.

Damn.

Any questions?

Or even answers? In fact, that’d be better.

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