England's become a much nicer place since then. Even the food.
Despite the temptation (to which I succumbed) to dissolve in little boy
giggles, so to speak, at such a naughty topic, it deserves some
seriousness. In the first rush of let's call it sexual liberation a lot of
young women were confronted by freedoms they had no idea how to deal with,
and there were certainly plenty of predators ready to take advantage. Most
humans given the opportunity are sexually predatory for at least part of
their lives. It should be noted that the predators were both women and men.
There were a few years in which it was de rigueur for women with not the
slightest inherent interest to experiment witrh lesbianism, and it wasn't
men who did that bit of propagandizing. There were, in NY and I think
elsewhere, speculum parties, in which women would get naked and sit in a
circle, inspecting and commenting on their own and each other's genitals,
using thegerontological device to get in deeper. Hard to imagine now. The
idea, quite rightly, was that in our society many women had been taught not
to look or to consider their genitals distasteful. But there was a fair
amount of advantage taking.
Behind this, however, was a lasting good. At least among educated urban
women the old don't-look don't-mention policy is gone forever, and women
tend to behave openly and without embarrassment as they used to in secret,
if one is to believe Kinsey. And the onus has been lifted from lesbianism
in large parts of the society, and from male gayness, as well,
post-Stonewall. In my class and place not being out is almost quaint.
A good legacy, and also a demonstartion of the flexibility of the power
structure: what briefly looked like a threat has been thoroughly assimilated.
Mark
At 07:37 PM 11/15/2005, you wrote:
>Mark Weiss wrote:
>
>>Like a recently-lapsed seventh day adventist with whom I was madly in
>>love, who, having given up the external guidelines, didn't understand
>>that there was a difference between choosing a lover and choosing the
>>whole basketball team.
>
>Wasn't that the script for a Kevin Costner movie, except for the Seventh
>Day Adventist? ( I have deleted the lewd joke that formerly occupied this
>space)
>
>>To which I'd add that blaming adolescent boys (and men) for behaving like
>>adolescent boys rather missed the point. It really wasn't our fault that
>>women for a while didn't say no very often. An argument that didn't gain
>>much general force until reality in the form of a death threat slapped us
>>all in the face.
>
>I'd always thought this was a media invention. There was nothing much like
>that happening where I was in the 60s and 70s. Maybe it was my bad vibes.
>Why'd I have to be me?
>
>>And of course a lot of us, all genders, were very stoned.
>
>In England, as I remember, this usually meant people lying around giggling
>but no group sex, not much sex at all.
>
>--
>M.J.Walker - no blog - no webpage - no idea
>
>Nous ne faisons que nous entregloser. - Montaigne
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