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| Sensuality is a subjective thing and as a descriptive term, I
don’t use it often. I think it means different things for me than
it does for most people. Sexuality is not always about intercourse,
about having a partner, or about activities involving the genitals.
Sexuality is something that exists on many levelscerebral, physical,
emotionaland is as much about cutting open a bright orange and
eating its sweetness as it is about having intercourse. Why are the two concepts separated? We can see an answer if we look at sex as it’s represented in the mainstream culture. There, sex is divorced from the senses. Much of this arises from the Judeo-Christian tradition (especially in its modern and conservative interpretations) of separating the mind, body and spirit. A whole moral school developed out of this separation, with rules on when you can have sex and when you can’t, who you can have sex with, and how you’re supposed to be spiritual versus sexual. This separation has been very successful, especially in the U.S, despite the fact that many of these notions and practices are no longer reasonable for a modern culture. Sexuality and sexual pleasure in the U.S. is too often conditioned towards the "dirty" and the "taboo." With this conditioning, sexual pleasure comes when the taboos are exposed, broken or exercised. It is a strange little cycle: we learn to feel bad breaking "rules" in order to feel good. This becomes obvious when you look at the Internet. The most widely trafficked sex sites are "barely teen" sites, bestiality sites, the nonconsensual-this and nonconsensual-that sites. For sex to work, a lot of people need to feel naughty or wrong. I worked in education for a long time before publishing Scarlet Letters: A Journal of Femmerotica full time. Most of the kids I taught were between 3 and 6 years old. I can’t tell you how many times during naptime you’d see kids start masturbating. Why not? They’re cuddled up in blankets, it’s nice and warm, and they’re feeling good and safe. Some of the teachers would catch sight of this or that kid with his or her hand down their pants and say very sternly, "Stop that!" No explanation, no nothing, just this moment of shame. The first time I heard this, I pulled aside the teacher in question and said, "Well, congratulations. You just provided the first time this kid was sexually ashamed." Just saying a shaming "No!" is not how you deal with this, and it made my heart heavy to see it. There are much better ways, like teaching that there are appropriate and inappropriate times for everything. Some teachers would get upset if they saw a bunch of kids in the bathroom together. Kids would be checking each other out, as children do, and some of the teachers would have a really hard time with it. I don’t see the problem. There is no line for kids between their "sensuality" and their "sexuality." They just are the way they are, and how beautiful and precious that is. Heather Corinna is the editor and founder of the award-winning women’s erotica journal, Scarlet Letters, and the teen sex information clearinghouse, Scarleteen. She lives in Saint Paul, MN with many furry creatures amidst an awful lot of leopard print. |
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