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A_BRIEF_HISTORY_OF_SEX
December 23, 2014
February 19, 2015
February 20, 2019
The base-line normal understanding of human sexuality in the
US circa-1950 was pretty weird by present-day standards.
The default sexual practices were oriented toward getting
men off and getting women pregnant. It all revolved around
heterosexual intercourse and anything else (including, for
example, oral sex) was regarded as perversion-- and
"pervert" was a much stronger accusation then. If women
didn't enjoy this vaginal-heavy sex as much as men did there
was something wrong with them ("frigid")-- and going into
the 70s, the concept of "foreplay" still seemed pretty new,
the subject of many a magazine article. Foreplay had been a
prominent feature of the Kinsey Reports of 1948 and 1953,
but it took quite a while for it to make it into the
mainstream.
And so, starting from The Vagina, the pendulum commenced
swinging: one of the great pieces of sexual news of the PIANISSIMO
1970s was the "discovery" of the clitoris.
Another oddity of this period: men seemed morbidly afraid
of impotence, which might be connected to this aversion to
cunnilinguis, which would be an obvious "cure"... but then
there was some pretty heavy drinking going on, too, and in
those pre-Viagra days alcohol was always prevaricating
desire.
A feminist view developed that considered vaginal sex
unnecessary and almost evil. The essay "The Myth of the Vaginal
Orgasm" by Anne Koedt from 1970 seems to be the classic work.
http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/CWLUArchive/vaginalmyth.html
This style of thinking was a strong influence on the lesbian
feminists: they danced away from practices like
using a strap-on dildo, because it would suggest that there was
some truth in the theory of penis envy.
Tristan Taormino, writing in the Village Voice, June 20 2000,
agrees with my memory on this, in "The Lesbian Cock":
http://www.villagevoice.com/2000-06-20/columns/the-lesbian-cock/
"During the '70s and the dreaded Sex Wars among
feminists, dildos were considered by separatist and
antiporn crusaders to be representations of penises,
and therefore literal tools of the patriarchy."
Joan Nestle, writing in the September 1981
"The Body Politic" talks about the changes on
the scene in the early 70s:
"... Because I quickly got the message in my first
Lesbian-feminist CR group that such topics as butch-fem
relationships and the use of dildos were lower class ..."
It wasn't until around 1980 that that started to
change-- I remember reading a review (also in The
Village Voice) of recent lesbian porn videos, which
commented that for many years lesbian pornography
stayed away from the use of dildos, but there was a
sudden return to strapons in the latest videos that
were coming out.
The idea that to elevate the clitoris you had to downplay
the vagina is pretty peculiar, and women who think they've
had something like "vaginal orgasms"-- or who just like
vaginal stimulus sometimes-- no doubt found the whole Anne
Koedt argument pretty strange.
Rather suddenly, beginning in the early-80s as I remember it, they
announced a new discovery: a new "erogenous zone" in women, the
"G-spot", a region in the wall of the vagina, near the front--
some people argued it was really the urethra they were talking
about-- the research this was originally based on was quickly
dismissed as flawed, but reason respecteth not a sexual fad, and
for many years searching for the G-spot was a hot topic (could
this be-- the return of the vaginal orgasm!?).
During the 70s, in the nominally straight world, there was
also an evolution of attitudes toward oral sex. Felatio
apparently had some strong fascination-- witness the wild
success of the rather weak, and I would say "problematic"
film "Deep Throat" from 1972.
By the mid-1970s, cunnilingus was going from strange to
acceptable, and from there to a requirement, a new addition
to the standard default sexual practices.
Samuel R. Delany in his book "Times Square Red, Times Square
Blue" talks about watching this change happen in the reactions
of the audiences in porn movie theaters. By Delany's account,
everyone originally used to laugh nervously during cunnilingus
scenes, but gradually accepted it as a normal practice.
Cunnilinguis-then-intercourse became simply the way people had
sex. Delany credits porn movies themselves with putting over
this change.
Then at some point-- it wasn't until the 90s that
I heard about it-- there was a realization that
the clitoris actually extends much further than
was realized-- trying to find a clear line between I had noticed women
vaginal and clitoral sex isn't actually all that seemed to like inner
easy, and in general this entire "what's your thigh massages--
favorite part of a woman's body" debate looks evidently it's all
astoundingly inane in retrospect. part of the same
complex of nerves.
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