Nipple Rings
4 January, 2005
So, we're all sweating and puffing away on our gravity boards as the teacher circulates, counting down our sets for the Strength Class, when he blurts out: "I'm wondering if I should get my nipples pierced." Those of us with extra breath to spare, let loose with a guffaw or two and he goes on to talk about how he used to have them pierced but was playing softball one day and ran into the chain link fence and when he pulled away... well, we all got the message and winced in commisery as we laughed again. "Too much information," I quipped, upside down doing bicep curls and wondering, what a conflicted world we live in. Complete strangers get together in partial dis-robed states to push our bodies to the limits, grunting and contracting, like orgasmic beasts as we ponder another's self-adornment of usually private areas. This in a nation that is fascinated by the human body and sex in all its permutations, yet has outlawed certain acts of coition and continues to shame those of us who might be tempted to copulate outside the box.
Having thought about Kwame's discussion of homosexuality and how he was glad that we no longer look at gay sex but gay couples as the "issue" I got to thinking about what's so threatening about gay sex. You might not want to think about certain body parts conjugating away with like parts, but after you get over that (or don't or even get turned on by the thoughts) you have to wonder what's the problem. I happen to think that gay sex is purely an evolutionary threat to pro-creation and as such is unbearable to a partriarchal society that needs to ensure its lineage. Gay sex, women's lib and the pill do more to unseat a male's power over the female than other forces of nature because once women don't need men (can't wait to read my christmas present, Maureen Dowd's "Are Men Necessary") to take care of them, they're free to have sex and babies on their own. Maybe sperm will become obsolete (ironic if most of the scientists working on cloning are men) after all.
And men can become those pretty play things, adorned in piercings and six-pack abs and manicured nails, teh Metro-sexual, that women will partner with for no more than the pure fun of a colorful mate. We could all then trade nipple rings and coupons for nail salons while earning our own ways in the world, inter-dependent, rejoicing in how different body parts are just that, different. Won't matter where you put them (albeit safely, please), as long as its consensual and celebratory, revelatory, exploratory, without category. And maybe we'll stop wearing make up to the gravity class and just work it for the pleasure of using these bodies that, in the end, should be adorned, worshipped, respected, pierced or not.
So, we're all sweating and puffing away on our gravity boards as the teacher circulates, counting down our sets for the Strength Class, when he blurts out: "I'm wondering if I should get my nipples pierced." Those of us with extra breath to spare, let loose with a guffaw or two and he goes on to talk about how he used to have them pierced but was playing softball one day and ran into the chain link fence and when he pulled away... well, we all got the message and winced in commisery as we laughed again. "Too much information," I quipped, upside down doing bicep curls and wondering, what a conflicted world we live in. Complete strangers get together in partial dis-robed states to push our bodies to the limits, grunting and contracting, like orgasmic beasts as we ponder another's self-adornment of usually private areas. This in a nation that is fascinated by the human body and sex in all its permutations, yet has outlawed certain acts of coition and continues to shame those of us who might be tempted to copulate outside the box.
Having thought about Kwame's discussion of homosexuality and how he was glad that we no longer look at gay sex but gay couples as the "issue" I got to thinking about what's so threatening about gay sex. You might not want to think about certain body parts conjugating away with like parts, but after you get over that (or don't or even get turned on by the thoughts) you have to wonder what's the problem. I happen to think that gay sex is purely an evolutionary threat to pro-creation and as such is unbearable to a partriarchal society that needs to ensure its lineage. Gay sex, women's lib and the pill do more to unseat a male's power over the female than other forces of nature because once women don't need men (can't wait to read my christmas present, Maureen Dowd's "Are Men Necessary") to take care of them, they're free to have sex and babies on their own. Maybe sperm will become obsolete (ironic if most of the scientists working on cloning are men) after all.
And men can become those pretty play things, adorned in piercings and six-pack abs and manicured nails, teh Metro-sexual, that women will partner with for no more than the pure fun of a colorful mate. We could all then trade nipple rings and coupons for nail salons while earning our own ways in the world, inter-dependent, rejoicing in how different body parts are just that, different. Won't matter where you put them (albeit safely, please), as long as its consensual and celebratory, revelatory, exploratory, without category. And maybe we'll stop wearing make up to the gravity class and just work it for the pleasure of using these bodies that, in the end, should be adorned, worshipped, respected, pierced or not.
posted by Barbery at 1:20 PM
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