My Life with Vaginas (and Kinsey)
I confess.
I was one of those extremely curious pubescent boys who spent hours looking up terms like "sexual intercourse" and "masturbation" in every available encyclopaedia set in the school library. I pored over the diagrams under "vagina", wondering if they really looked that enlarged and grotesque in real life (they aren't) and if they were really that close to the anus (they are). From these healthy, family-sanctioned tomes of knowledge, I learnt that some women can climax by merely rubbing their thighs together (Encyclopedia Americana, if I recall correctly). And that their privates discharge fluid and their breasts enlarge at some point in the sexual response cycle. Oh, the revelations of those days.
That was in the pre-internet age. I wonder how much faster I'd have grown up had I been born five years later. I might have educated myself through surprisingly tasteful sites like All About My Vagina and Vagina Verite (please don't ask why I even know about these sites).
Two years ago, I watched a production of The Vagina Monologues with my girlfriend. That night, I think she learned more about vaginas than I did. I also came across a really funny song on the internet called "The Vagina Song", which I hope to sing while pissed drunk at some house party in the future.
But I digress. This was really meant to be a post on Kinsey, which I watched earlier today, also with my girlfriend. I only meant to have a one-liner intro about vaginas to kick things off, but looks like I have more to say about vaginas than I thought I did.
I was one of those extremely curious pubescent boys who spent hours looking up terms like "sexual intercourse" and "masturbation" in every available encyclopaedia set in the school library. I pored over the diagrams under "vagina", wondering if they really looked that enlarged and grotesque in real life (they aren't) and if they were really that close to the anus (they are). From these healthy, family-sanctioned tomes of knowledge, I learnt that some women can climax by merely rubbing their thighs together (Encyclopedia Americana, if I recall correctly). And that their privates discharge fluid and their breasts enlarge at some point in the sexual response cycle. Oh, the revelations of those days.
That was in the pre-internet age. I wonder how much faster I'd have grown up had I been born five years later. I might have educated myself through surprisingly tasteful sites like All About My Vagina and Vagina Verite (please don't ask why I even know about these sites).
Two years ago, I watched a production of The Vagina Monologues with my girlfriend. That night, I think she learned more about vaginas than I did. I also came across a really funny song on the internet called "The Vagina Song", which I hope to sing while pissed drunk at some house party in the future.
But I digress. This was really meant to be a post on Kinsey, which I watched earlier today, also with my girlfriend. I only meant to have a one-liner intro about vaginas to kick things off, but looks like I have more to say about vaginas than I thought I did.
***SPOILER ALERT***
Kinsey, IMHO, is a well-paced, sensitive portrayal of the world's first great sex researcher. It is neither overly sympathetic nor overly moralistic--just when it seems it's going one way, it shifts gears. Great acting all round, especially from Laura Linney who pulls off aging 30-odd years in the movie convincingly.
I liked how the shock factor of sex education the 1940s was recreated for a 21st century audience by Kinsey flashing a close-up of a penis beginning to penetrate a vagina. That's shocking even by today's cinema standards. I also liked that, for all the salaciousness of the subject matter, the actual sex act was never bluntly shown.
Most of all, I enjoyed the moral ambiguity of the film. Over the last year or two, because of various people I've met, I've come to realise that there's a lot more sex going down out there than many of us would like to believe. And I've also realised, now that I'm reasonably settled in adult social circles, that many respectable adult men are serious wankers. It shows in the things they say when they let their guard down. I don't think the (a)moral landscape of society, as painted in Kinsey, is that far from the truth.
I liked how the shock factor of sex education the 1940s was recreated for a 21st century audience by Kinsey flashing a close-up of a penis beginning to penetrate a vagina. That's shocking even by today's cinema standards. I also liked that, for all the salaciousness of the subject matter, the actual sex act was never bluntly shown.
Most of all, I enjoyed the moral ambiguity of the film. Over the last year or two, because of various people I've met, I've come to realise that there's a lot more sex going down out there than many of us would like to believe. And I've also realised, now that I'm reasonably settled in adult social circles, that many respectable adult men are serious wankers. It shows in the things they say when they let their guard down. I don't think the (a)moral landscape of society, as painted in Kinsey, is that far from the truth.
posted by The Empty Signifier @ 2/06/2005 07:06:00 pm
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