by Marty Coleman | Jul 16, 2010 | Betty Rollins, Having Sex - 2010 |
Day #5 of Having Sex Week at The Napkin Dad Daily
Wait a second, isn’t this a sexist comment? Maybe, if you think being a ‘sex object’ is wrong under any circumstances. I define ‘sex object’ as being the object of sexual desire.
It is true in the great myth of Venus. She is stripped of a well rounded set of human traits, reduced to represent one thing, sex. The most famous of her images, the sculpture ‘Venus de Milo’ is without arms, unable to do anything but stand there, frozen as an object. Of course, that isn’t how the sculpture was created, but it’s current state makes it a great example of what I am talking about.
In the media, that idea of sex object is stripped down to its most basic elements. There is an objectification on top of objectification until you get to where there is nothing but an unknown object and a single minded desire for that object. That type of ‘sex object’ is pretty empty and eventually unfulfilling for both the object and the objectifier.
But in the complete human experience, a real life lived by a real human (male or female), being the object of sexual desire isn’t off the table. It is available to the well rounded person who wants that. The problem comes when that becomes the primary means of feeling value or getting attention and affection.
So, by all means, be a sex object if you want. It can be fun and playful. But watch out for that taking over and being ALL you are focused on being.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Betty Rollins, 1936-not dead yet, American author and reporter.
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by Marty Coleman | Jul 15, 2010 | Having Sex - 2010, Mae West |
Napkin Dad cards available at Zazzle. Birthday, condolence, going away and more.
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Day #4 of Having Sex Week at The Napkin Dad Daily
Here is the issue about emotion in sex and love. Men often have too little of it (emotion that is) and women often have too much of it.
For you women, actually it isn’t just that men have less of it than you do. It’s also that they don’t know they have it in the first place. They feel just a hint of something, but they don’t investigate it. It is left unformed and uninvestigated. Men are often not even aware it WAS a feeling they had, and if they did realize it, they aren’t sure what that feeling represented. They don’t name it and categorize it.
For you men, actually it isn’t that women just have more of it than you do. It’s also that they investigate deeper into the emotions they do have. To them they are a mobius strip of never ending investigations. And not just their emotions, but yours as well. They figure you are exploring yours as deeply as they are their own and so they want to know what it is you are feeling. They are working at defining what it is they felt and where it sits in relation to her other emotions and yours. When you aren’t able to say what it is your feel, it’s easy for them to think you either are hiding something or don’t feel anything.
That is why sex is often such a emotionally bonding experience for both men and women. It isn’t primarily about words. It’s about motion and sensory experience and the emotions are created through those things. Sex is good that way.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Mae West, 1893-1980, American playwright and actress. Read her bio, she was an amazing woman well ahead of her time. Incredibly creative and ambitious. I didn’t realize she wrote many of the plays and movies she starred in.
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by Marty Coleman | Jul 14, 2010 | Having Sex - 2010, Mignon McLaughlin |
Day #3 of Having Sex Week at The Napkin Dad Daily
I don’t actually think this is true, but it brings up a good point, namely that we often teach our sons and daughters differently about sex. Even if we are ‘liberated’ in talking about it we still unconsciously address the two sexes differently.
For example, talking to a teenage boy going out to a party you might tell him ‘make sure you keep it zipped, don’t do something stupid, don’t be so horny that you can’t control yourself’. Talking to a teenage girl you might say ‘watch out tonight, don’t leave your drink out of your site, don’t let the guy be with you alone, don’t drive off in the middle of nowhere with him.’
The assumption underlying those warnings is that the man will be the horny one wanting the sex and the girl will be the one deciding to give it or not, like a clerk at a store, disengaged. But the truth is you have to talk to your daughter with the understanding that she is a sexual creature as well. She could be the aggressor, she could be the one ‘wanting it’ and forcing the issue with the guy.
I agree it’s not quite as likely, but that doesn’t mean you don’t recognize that, no matter what her libido level, she still needs to know that she will feel things too. It isn’t just about her responding to a guy, it’s about her figuring out her own feelings and desires as well. It does no good service to a daughter or son to assume they fit into a cookie cutter sexual mold. Explain to them the range of feelings they may come across, not just some pandering platitude that isn’t based in their reality.
If you want to be effective in helping your son or daughter understand what is happening to them in the sexual world, you have to address them as real people, not cliches of sexuality.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Mignon McLaughlin, 1913-1983, American journalist and author. Writer and editor for various magazines including Vogue, Redbook, Cosmopolitan and Glamour.
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by Marty Coleman | Jul 13, 2010 | Having Sex - 2010, Mary McCarthy |
Day #2 of Having Sex Week at The Napkin Dad Daily
People will often state there is a difference between sex and love. But they don’t often recognize when they ask one be the other. When you are ‘in love’ it’s easy to have the sex so intertwined with the love that you don’t know the difference. But when the ‘in love’ phase settles down and you have to decide to love someone on a daily basis it might be tempting to use the easiest thing available, sex, to be the ‘proof’ of love. You basically ask sex to be love and expect your partner to accept it as such.
But the truth is sex can’t be love. It can, at best, be an expression of love the same way clothing can be an expression of you, but it can’t be you. This is important to help your children understand if you are a parent. It is so easy for teenagers to think the expression of something is the same as the real thing. That is why you hear the cliche line of the teenage boy ‘If you ‘LOVED’ me, you would do this with me.’ They are trying to persuade the girl that they are one and the same.
Sex is a physical act, love is an emotional act. They overlap and they are intertwined, but they are not the same and understanding it ourselves and helping our children understand it helps avoid much heartache.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“You mustn’t force sex to do the work of love or love to do the work of sex.” – Mary McCarthy, 1912-1989, American author. Wrote ‘The Group’ which was on the NYT best seller list for 2 years (1963-65)
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by Marty Coleman | Jul 12, 2010 | Aldous Huxley, Having Sex - 2010 |
It’s the start of Sex Week at The Napkin Dad Daily!
Not equally interesting but actually more interesting, now that is a dedicated intellectual!
Sex always intrigues me because people are so driven by it, and have some variation of it on their mind so often yet are usually reluctant to discuss it openly.
That is especially a problem when dealing with teenage sons and daughters. Not talking about sex is really not a very good option. I always feel parents are abrogating their duty if they do that. But talking about sex intelligently and appropriately isn’t all that easy.
The best advice I can give in that circumstance (and many others) is to make sure you are on their side. Don’t be their enemy. To do that you have to talk about what is in their best interest. Not your interest, not your knowledge, not your reputation, not your circumstances. But what is in their best interest. To do that you need to ask questions, you need to walk through ideas with them about the issue.
You can’t do that if they think you will be judging them or lecturing them or against them and their ideas. They have to know you will stay calm and be willing to listen to what they are really thinking and feeling. THEN you move into offering your reflections on what they said, your ideas of where it might lead, and your cautions on things to think about they may not have considered.
More tomorrow!
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“An intellectual is a person who’s found one thing more interesting than sex.” – Aldous Huxley, 1894-1963, English writer. Author of ‘Brave New World’.
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