Usually, men do not talk to each other about their sex lives in any depth. We steer away from discussing the emotions and complexities of sex and relationships. Men are often out of touch with their feelings and their emotional needs; instead, we tend to focus on work, money, and status. These days, a lot of men are beginning to agree with the feminist idea that men have the balance wrong, and we need to look more at emotions, and relationship, and not leave that all up to women. How do we feel when we have sex? Why do millions of men read porn mags in the privacy of their own bedroom, and wank away in the never-never world of the fantasy woman? Why do men go to women for massage and 'relief', or for a blow-job, or a fuck? Why do so many men fear sexual intimacy? Is there a healthy way of being sexually powerful? These are some of the questions that the articles in this issue address.
Have you ever seen a picture of an erect penis in an erotic context? Did it turn you on? An erect penis is an object of desire for both men and women It sexualises men's bodies. In our society, women have tended to have the role of sex objects, and men the role of ogling at them. Being an object of desire carries with it vulnerability: it means you expose yourself; you open yourself to comparison with other, possibly 'more sexy', men; it means others might judge how sexy you are. Having a penis in itself makes a man vulnerable in ways that having a vagina doesn't. Its hard for men to hide the fact they're sexually aroused. A woman can get extremely turned on, and no-one around might know. But you only need look down at the tent in the groin to know what a man's thinking. Erections can rear up unexpectedly, in situations where they might seem inappropriate. We might wonder whether the sheer fact of having an erection means that we want sex - do you always know whether you're really feeling horny, or whether you're prick's just got a little over-excited?
Erect penises are often seen as symbols of patriarchal power. In this view of the prick, it stands firm and upright, ready for action, pumped up, throbbing, ready to thrust. If this is all the phallus symbolises in men's psyches, why don't we plaster them all over the shop in a society which is supposed to worship the patriarch? Perhaps it's because the other side of the erection is its sensitivity and vulnerability: the penis is the most sensitive part of a man's body; stroking it can send him into paroxysms of delight. But if you kick him there, he will writhe in agony. Getting horny can be a delight, a celebration of one's existence and of life. But it can also feel out of control; it can turn into an obsession; it's one of the best-know facts about men that they think about sex every 6 minutes. This is perhaps why so many men are into porn: it gives them a feeling of some control over a vital part of their life which may seem otherwise to control them.
Mark Simpson, in his excellent book, Male Impersonators, puts forward the view that hiding the phallus has been an essential part of maintaining patriarchal power, '...for as long as it is hidden it cannot be challenged.'
And there is surely a link between the suppression of the image of an erect penis in the media and the culture of homophobia in our society. Homophobia is a fear of men who have sexual relationships with each other. And it's fear of intimacy between men in general. It reflects men's fear of their own sexuality. We have animal instincts which we have pushed away into the shadows of the cultural psyche. Organised religion has played a big part in this process. Men have sublimated their carnal desires, their lust. But what we try to deny in ourselves only gets bigger. So men's image of women has become more and more sexualised, and men's relationship to sex has become more and more one of insecurity cloaked in aggression, as men have struggled to suppress their own sexual feelings, which they see as sordid, dirty, bad, wrong.
It's time hard-ons got a decent, inoffensive, non-judgmental airing, and all the feelings men have about hard-ons, and sex, and love, and relationships. If we talk about these things, maybe we can begin to dissolve the taboos we have around sex: the fears, secrecy, aggression and violence, which stem from bottling things up inside.
What would a society be like where male and female sexuality were positively affirmed? What would it be like if the erect phallus was an accepted, appreciated face of masculinity, instead of being more strongly associated with so many negative feelings and behaviour, such as guilt, violence, rape, dominance, machismo, and oppression of women?
In order to bring about positive change, the first step is to discuss openly and freely the way things are now: how men really feel about sex, and relationships, without judgement. In recent years, debates around sex - and pornography, in particular - have become little more than pantomime farces. In one corner, the Campaign Against Pornography and Censorship, and John Stoltenberg, arguing that the pornography industry does everything from murdering women to torturing, humiliating and viciously exploiting them; in the other corner, the porn barons and Feminists Against Censorship, claiming that pornography liberates both viewer and viewed in an orgy of unashamed lust. The anti-porn lobby say that the pro-porn feminists are puppets in the pay of the pornographers, misguided traitors who wouldn't know their Dworkin from their Dorking. The Feminists Against Censorship say the anti-porn lobby are uptight, anti-sex moralists who might be a bit more open-minded if they had a good shag now and again.
In this issue of Achilles Heel, we have tried to steer away from moral and political judgements, return to an honest exploration of sex, as experienced. Our focus is not on the rights and wrongs of male sexuality, but on the feelings and psychological dynamics that underlie our experiences. We hope that you will be stimulated by this journey through the murky ambiguities of male sexuality. As the saying goes - better out than in!
Copyright © Achilles Heel Collective
