2.3.6 |
EROTIC: ACTIVITY-BASED AND RELATIONAL |
After having reviewed a number of manifestations of
sex- or gender-related exclusivism, we should
now x some forms of sexualism which can be subsumed under erotic
exclusivism (X.583).
At least three types of erotic
exism can, then, be distinguished:
activity-based, relational and orientational
sexualism.
Activity-based sexualism (X.2333) is exism re one or more
kinds of sexual activities in which a human or anthropically
conceived being is sexually aroused or satisfied. Relational
sexualism (X.2334) is exism re the (number and/or type of)
sexual relation(s) or contact(s) of such a being (while the
'type' is not a question of sex, gender or sexuality in itself). And
orientational sexualism (X.2335) is exism re its sexual orientation.
These are all manifestations of
compositional erotic exclusivism (X.583.1)
which are compositional themselves. The
sentimental aggrandizemental expression of
unitary erotic exism
(X.583.0) is obsession or
sentimental preoccupation with the
erotic, that is, with sexuality in general.
Its evaluative opposite (sentimental
abnegational) is uneasiness, inhibition
or ignorance with respect to sexuality in general.
Activity-based sexualism is either autoerotic or socioerotic.
Autoerotic exclusivism (X.4666) is a
unitary exism of which the object is
autoerotic masturbation, that is, sexual stimulation of oneself by oneself.
Especially children have been the victim of the autoerotic exclusionism of
parents and priests; no child has ever been the victim of autoerotic
masturbation itself.
Supernaturalist seers have eagerly exploited the credulity of children by
telling them that they would become blind and get all sorts of other
diseases by doing 'it'.
(That is, if they were not smart enough to stop before their glasses
were getting too thick.)
In exceedingly exclusivistic milieus some children even killed, or
attempted to kill, themselves, because they had the godless urge to
masturbate at least as frequently on their own as their parents would
'make god' together.
(That is, if their parents were smart enough to put their God is
Love doctrine into
practise.)
Moreover, as a sexual activity autoerotic masturbation has never been
looked down upon in isolation.
The kinds of socioerotic activities, in addition to autoerotic
masturbation, which have played, or still play, a role in the sexualist
theater are too numerous to be named when we consider both the
aggrandizemental and the abnegational,
both the
active and the sentimental components
of erotic sexualism.
But at least two of them should be mentioned here because of the
special religious, sociobiological, political and juridical
interest they have enjoyed, or still enjoy. They are vaginal and
anal copulation. (A phrase like sexual intercourse is too
vague to indicate what the sexualists in question, and we, are
talking about or thinking of.) There have been, or still are,
countries or states in which the former kind of sexual activity
was, or is, the only sexual activity between human beings
sanctioned by law; there also have been, or still are, countries
or states in which the latter kind of sexual activity was, or
is, the only one criminalized between human beings in general, or between
male human beings in particular (regardless of whether those involved
consent or have a steady relationship or not).
Altho in
these two examples the country's or state's meddling is aggrandizemental
with regard to vaginal copulation and abnegational with regard to anal
copulation, the
lingual operations of both forms of
erotic exclusivism seem to be abnegational.
Thus both fuck(ing) (denoting vaginal copulation or copulation
in general) and bugger(y) (denoting anal copulation) are also
used in the traditional variant of this language as vulgar or coarse
terms to express annoyance or disapproval.
The pathology of the usage of the word buggery is quite
peculiar. In this word anal-copulation-centered exism is historically
allied, firstly, to racialism or ethnical exclusionism
(since the word bugger derives from the name of a certain
people or nation looked on as inferior); secondly, to religious
exclusionism (as the word was once used to refer to heretics, thus
suggesting that all of them and only they would engage in anal
intercourse); and thirdly, to antihomosexualism (by way of the
illusion that all those engaging in anal intercourse would be
homosexual, or that all male homosexuals would engage in anal
intercourse). This historical process of lingual operations
illustrates but too well how seemingly 'completely different'
types of discrimination or exclusivism, such as sexualism and
ethnical and ideological exclusionism always have lent, or still
do lend, each other support.
When saying that relational exclusivism concerns both the number and
the type of sexual relations or contacts, type does not refer
to the sexual activities of the partners involved (or lack thereof),
nor to the sex or gender of the partners involved.
It does not refer either to what someone may or may not have promised
'er partner with a male or
masculine body, with a female or feminine body or with a mixture of
the two.
Promises are important, and breaking a vow can be very serious indeed,
but it is, then, not the
principle of relevance which is
at stake, but rather the
principle of truth (besides
happiness-catenary
considerations).
When talking of "the type of sexual relation", it is in this
context that things like the duration or durability of a relation
are factors, and, for but too many exclusivists, also the question
of whether one of the partners involved receives money for sexual
services rendered.
In the latter case the (often sterile) members of the exclusionist
colony watching the comings (and goings) will be ready to speak of
"prostitution" and to denounce the (often sexually overdeveloped)
workers as "whores".
When people have to sell their bodies because they must in order to
survive, or against their will, this certainly is a debasement, but
this applies to everyone who has to sell 'er body (or parts of it)
or 'er physical capacities in some way.
Most of all it applies to people whose ideals are debased by
their interest in money and the protection of those who have most of it.
What some of the sexual totalitarians who would like to forbid all
prostitution too conveniently forget, is that those who ask money
for sexual acts, may receive less of it altogether than those who are
'happily married' to a rich person, but would never have loved and married
'im, or stayed with 'im, if
'e had not been wealthy.
It may now be argued that it is not only the money but the number of
different contacts a prostitute is involved in that counts.
If this argument is valid, it will not apply to prostitutes with one
or a limited number of (perhaps very rich) clients, and it will equally
apply to the clients themselves and to others with two or a limited
number of relations or contacts — a line of reasoning which
may even be appealing to out-and-out 'moral' theoreticians.
The unitary manifestation of relational sexualism of which
the object is the number of sexual relations or contacts a human
or anthropically conceived being has, has had or is allowed to
have, is quantitative relational sexualism (X.4669).
Dimensional manifestations of it are, for
example: (a) exism re a person who has no sexual contacts or re the
quality of not having any sexual contacts (whether with prostitutes
or nonprostitutes); and (b) exism re a person with more than one
sexual relation or the quality of having more than one sexual
relation at the same time or in the same period.
(An obsession with 'scoring as many lays as possible', regardless of the
other person's or people's consent, or something quantitative of that
kind, is, strictly speaking, not a manifestation of exclusivism, but of
extremism, altho extremism
and exclusivism are, of course, frequently found hand in glove with each
other.)
To determine whether an attitude towards the number of sexual
relations or contacts (with prostitutes or nonprostitutes) is
exclusivistic or not, it is not sufficient to establish that
there is a difference in attitude towards having no sexual
contact, only one relation, or more relations or contacts. Thus,
in a region and time of an epidemic outbreak of a disease, or
when there is a relatively great risk of contracting a disease
which cannot (yet) be cured, there may be good reasons —even if
there are or were no other reasons— to prefer only one or no
sexual relation to several or many relations or contacts, or the
one type of sexual activity to the other. If the risk involved
is significantly greater than, for example, the risk of being
mutilated or killed in a car accident, then the distinction made
may be relevant to a legitimate goal (one's physical health).
It is especially when combined with
sex-based sexualism and
quantitative marital exclusivism
that quantitative relational sexualism becomes interesting.
In certain sexist societies and subcultures it was, or still is,
'normal' that men have (had) any number of sexual contacts (again,
with prostitutes or nonprostitutes), whereas girls or women are
supposed to abstain from sex, and to remain virgins, until meeting the
one boy or man they are to spend their whole lives with (and who
will take care that they will not have sexual contacts with any
other human or male human being). Once more this double standard
of morals towards boys and men on the one hand, and girls and women
on the other, demonstrates but too clearly the extremely intimate
connections between the different members of the school of sexual
irrelevantism.
A formalization of this double standard in the institution of
marriage will be discussed in the next division.
