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Everyone loves a taboo
December 07, 2005
Perhaps one of the most oft returned to topics of last Thursday’s panel at MoSex was the subject of taboo – and with it permission, consent and communication. United States culture is a goddamned ripe cesspool (I’ll mixture metaphors however I want, thanks very much) for the creation of taboos. It’s a lucrative cycle: society creates taboo, therapists, pornographers and various other folks in the sex trades make cash money,* people try to work through their shit or get off on their taboos.
I like the idea of sexuality as an arena for working shit out – although, coming from the perspective of a sex worker, I can also say that sometimes its painfully obvious and just flat out heartbreaking to see someone who isn’t dealing with their taboos and fetishes in a healthy way. But can you create a set of guidelines for good and bad uses of taboo? Maybe not, but the rock n roll is in the examples, perhaps nuanced best by a black man who came up to talk to me after the panel ended: “I’ll be your mandingo, your field nigger – as long as its clear that it’s a fantasy separate from who I am as a person. If a white couple can’t look me in the eye and tell me about their fantasy, I know they are objectifying me in a bad way. If we can do our scene and then drink a glass of wine and talk about movies, its good objectification.”
I love that I have conversations like this with strangers as a matter of course. That aside, he’s absolutely right on – and furthermore, this is a damn fine example of a taboo scenario. Sure, it may make many people squirm in their seats (he said the N word!) – but that’s the fucking point of taboo.
The tricky part is not so much in the formulation of the fantasy (the funny thing about taboos is that precisely because we aren’t supposed to, they get talked and thought about constantly) but the execution of the business, starting with making the decision to move from in-the-head to in-the-bed. This is a challenging thing and includes those things I mentioned in that first paragraph - permission, consent and communication. But that’s another story for another time.
*I amused myself by making this intentionally grammatically murky, so you aren’t quite sure if I’m saying that therapists are included in my conception of “folks in the sex trade.” Dude, I crack myself up.
Posted by Dacia at December 7, 2005 12:31 AM
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Comments
Hey Dacia,
I only have a problem when people fetishize taboo-breaking itself the way, to use a neutral example, the old victorian pornographers would have their protagonists cry out “oh, aah, the excess!” when they came at the tail end of some rediculously contrived daisy chain. If nothing else it eventually stops being fun and becomes work. (“Uh, the 150-man gangbang videos aren’t selling so hot anymore? Maybe we can shoot another with 500 men.” Whee. Not.)
On the other hand I’m always into the notion of pushing taboos to see if they’ll break, or at least bend a little. Often the other side isn’t the end of the world.
Take care,
figleaf
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