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NORMAL_PERVERSION
November 19-26, 2005
Sexual practices have a way of
changing their classification
over time. Different things go
in-and-out of style; people's
attitudes toward practices
shift; and the acts symbolise
different things than before.
There's a peculiar amnesia that
kicks in after-the-fact: people
seem to like to believe that There's a convenient
what's normal now has always forgetfulness, even
been normal. about obvious changes.
Possibly this is Like the change
a side effect of in attitudes toward
the need to pre-marital sex and
believe that divorce that came in with
sexual behavior the "Sexual Revolution"
is animalistic. of the sixties,
We like the The conservative take is that
idea that it's everything about the sixties
biologically was a disaster.
determined. ANIMAL
If your position is that
social experiments are
always misguided, you don't
like to be reminded that
the status quo is a social
experiment of yesteryear.
Particularly
For example, around the time when folks
that I was a teenager (the like Reagan
1970s) I think "oral sex" was In Delany's "1984", he and Limbaugh
doing a transition from a describes something he have been
nasty perversion to a "normal noticed in his divorced.
sexual practice". (extensive) experience
of hanging around in And most of
Which doesn't mean porn movie theaters -- your core
that there was in the early 80s, constituency
necessarily a big cunnilingus went from is busy
change in people's being something that collecting
behavior... though produced embarrassed trophy wives.
there *might* have laughter to the
been. standard warm-up.
In the dance of Delany credits porn
attitude and action movies themselves with
it can be hard to creating this change
say who made the in the definition of
first move. the normal.
And it could be that
increasingly easy
access to pornography
is producing further
But there are also changes.
the perversions
that don't click Much to the
over to "normal", consternation
despite an upswing of some...
in popularity.
PORNFRIED
Bondage practices became
very widespread by the
close of the 80s; something
that everyone did or at
least tried, or at least ATTRACTION-REPULSION
was thinking about trying.
A trendy perversion.
It's entirely possible
to have a practice
practiced by nearly
everyone and for it to
still be classified as a And isn't it interesting
"perversion", which no that there's now a standard
one admits to in public. set of fetishes that
go under the heading
of "Fetish"?
I wonder about the
future of anal sex. Fetish fashion.
Fashion?
The anus has gone
from untouchable to This year's fetish.
negotiable in the The latest fetish.
space of a few
decades, with one There's another
of the later way of looking at
developments being It's obligatory "fetish fashion"
the discovery of to reference the though: maybe it
heterosexual male "Bend Over isn't *really*
penetration... Boyfriend" fashion. The
series of videos parameters of it
put out by Good stay fixed for
Vibrations. far longer than
they do with the
And a few years straight fashion
later a sex world.
columnist
decreed this The latex jumpsuit
should be bought years
A sketch of three futures: called "pegging". ago doesn't
suddenly develop
(1) anal sex becomes an A question: is the wrong lapels.
"of course" item. Refusal being "pegged" a
to engage in it in any *degrading* Adding something new
form becomes grounds for experience? In to the world of
counseling -- much as an the porn-world fetish fashion is a
aversion to cunnilingus it's most often strange business of
would now be regarded as part of casting about for a
fairly weird. dominated-male new feature that
scenarios, hits the embedded
(2) anal sex becomes a though this was complexes in just
standard perversion. never the "Good the right way...
Something nearly Vibrations"
everyone does, but not attitude.
before the third date. (But then,
that's
(3) anal sex retreats working
slightly and resists "within
incorporation into the genre",
mainstream, and becomes isn't it?)
an acknowledged symbol Much as, say, a
of strangeness. black leather
jacket remains a
fixed symbol of
the outsider...
LEATHER_JACKET
HOLY_COATS_OF_BLACK
A decade hence, will
strap-ons adorn the post
of every marriage bed?
Will anal sex
still matter?
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