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 Could we suffer from too much sexual candor? I'd have to say that abstractly, no; realistically, yes. I tend to agree with Nancy Friday that sharing sexual fantasies can be counter-productive, although that seems to me to be true only between men and women. Men are easily threatened, the poor creatures (it's a lesson I've resisted learning, to my detriment) and what you may find seductive they may feel overwhelmed or threatened by. On the other hand, I've never found a sexually candid conversation between myself and other women to be other than, at the least, entertaining, and, at best, revelatory. Still, I'm always amazed at how secretive women are about their sexual lives -- partly to protect themselves from themselves. I think the lack of sexual candor is imprisoning; it keeps us thinking that the grass is always greener elsewhere. Women are big assessors of each other -- feminism hasn't cured that, nor will post-post-feminism -- and it helps if that assessment is leavened by some good-humored grasp on other women's sexual reality rather than the projected images we have of other women's sexual reality. On the thorny issue of sexual candor and children, I'm not entirely sure how I feel. I'm vastly more open, God knows, with my eight-year-old daughter than my Orthodox German mother was with me, but I think children can also feel burdened by too much sexual complexity or sexual information. I remember reading an article eons of years ago about Dorien Leigh, the sister of Suzy Parker, the model, who was also a model. Her son had committed suicide in his early twenties, and she stated that she thought he couldn't handle the knowledge that he was illegitimate. "Children are conservative," she said. The remark has stayed with me, and I see how true it is: children want to be like other children, the most normative of other children, the ones who live with their mommy and daddy and two siblings in a house with a white picket fence. They don't want to feel strange or different. Thus I'm not sure I agree with the liberally enlightened view that young children can deal with every sort of human/erotic arrangement. Can they? My daughter is fascinated by the concept of gayness, sort of, but I think it also makes her uneasy. She knows that at least two of my male friends are gay, because she's met them as a couple. Lesbianism has not yet made itself entirely clear to her, and I have no wish to impose it upon her. (Although recently when she was watching a tape of the forthcoming film, Mrs. Dalloway, with me and saw a scene featuring kissing between two young women, she asked in horror if they were gay. It occurred to me that it was easier for her to accept men as gay than women, because the latter might imply something about me -- or even her.) Now, is there anything to be said for boundaries, or more traditional notions of privacy? Obviously, if civilization (although I suppose someone like Ellen Willis would differ with me on what constitutes "civilization") is to continue, the answer is yes. I hate watching other people smooching or groping each other ostentatiously in front of me on the subway; it doesn't make me think fondly of young or old or even middle-aged love. So I'm all for keeping sex behind closed doors, in that sense. (Which was one of Sallie Tisdale's useful "rules," wasn't it: "Don't have sex in public unless everyone can leave if they want.") I don't, however, agree with Betty Dodson -- whose defiant spirit makes me feel like an old maid by comparison, and everyone I know thinks I'm perverse! -- that "traditional privacy is a bullshit notion," especially now that electronic surveillance has invaded our worlds. You can't invade people's heads, which is really where privacy begins, and if you want to keep your passion for baby monkeys a secret -- provided you're not holding a high office or have somehow incurred the enmity of Kenneth Starr -- chances are likely no one will find out about it except you and the baby monkeys. |
Question 1 Susie Bright Betty Dodson Nancy Friday Daphne Merkin Sallie Tisdale Question 2 Susie Bright Betty Dodson Nancy Friday Daphne Merkin Sallie Tisdale Question 3 Susie Bright Betty Dodson Nancy Friday Daphne Merkin Sallie Tisdale Question 4 Susie Bright Betty Dodson Nancy Friday Daphne Merkin Sallie Tisdale Question 5 Susie Bright Betty Dodson Nancy Friday Daphne Merkin Sallie Tisdale Question 6 Susie Bright Betty Dodson Nancy Friday Daphne Merkin Sallie Tisdale |
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