Erotic Role and Sexual Rigidity
Last night someone asked me about some of my profiles on a couple of the online hookup sites. This person was confused because sometimes I list myself as a versatile top, at other times versatile, and still other times as a versatile bottom. My dominant and submissive tendencies vary too even though I tend to maintain my primary ongoing bonds with sub-leaning men. My list of sexual interests is rather lengthy and it also varies somewhat. Along with those designations I usually alter the profile text to suit my mood. Evidently he found all of this quite confusing. But why?
Yes, my kink/leather reputation for many years was founded upon my top/dominant/master persona and that status is still quite intact. None of that has gone anywhere. But in recent years I have explored the full range of my sexuality as I try to do with all of life. For some odd reason we’re allowed to vary our preferences in clothing, books, entertainment, food, life philosophy, friends, spiritual pursuits, and just about everything else, yet some people find varying our erotic choices perplexing.
I know that for some their sexual and kinky identities are just that, identities. Perhaps I fall into that camp, but I’m starting to realize that identity need not be so rigid, and that the relatively new-found freedom I’ve embraced to adapt my sexuality to meet my various moods is incredibly liberating and fulfilling. I suggest that it is equally liberating and fulfilling for others who have the guts to do it.
I’m going to go out on a limb and state that I strongly believe that the vast majority of kinksters and erotically adventurous people to some degree experience all of the various moods I’ve already listed. However, they live out those moods having to navigate a kinky scene that doesn’t always easily accept that one can sometimes just as easily have a mood for a certain type of sex as they can for pizza or Chinese takeout. Why oh why do we paint ourselves into a corner when there is just no need to?
I’ve repeated it often, but I will again. No two of us are alike and neither are our sexualities. Enjoy the full range of what you want to enjoy on the smorgasbord of sexual options. It’s your right and don’t let anyone tell you differently. To quote an oft referenced Rosalind Russell quote from Auntie Mame, “Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death.”
3 Comments on “Erotic Role and Sexual Rigidity”
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Janet Hardy
October 30, 2011 at 6:42 pmPart of the problem, I think, is the not-rare submissive who refuses to play with switchable doms. Their loss, of course, but still.
maymay
October 30, 2011 at 7:16 pmIronically, especially considering Janet’s comment, above, this post reminds me of my frustration with the one and only episode of The Female Voice that I listened to when Sarah Black spouted some pretty patently offensive and ridiculous gender-essentialist bullshit. I would have listened to more of the podcast because I thought Janet’s take on the notions of fluidity was really refreshing, especially considering that it came from a historical perspective, but I could barely get through listening to that episode without getting upset at the sheer amount of unchallenged ignorance in it that I chose to unsubscribe.
By the by, I’m currently reading “Queer Theory: An Introduction” by Annamarie Jagose and right near the very beginning there’s this lovely passage that I think is relevant:
Of course, Annamarie was discussing the term in the context of gendered sexual orientation, but I think this applies equally well to, for instance, BDSM role orientation. Terms like “dominant” and “submissive” can be equally asinine when viewed from the traditional-contemporary perspective of most (usually heterosexual) BDSM’ers.
So you are 100% correct, Race, when you say that many people “live…having to navigate a kinky scene that doesn’t always easily accept that one can sometimes just as easily have a mood for a certain type of sex as they can for pizza or Chinese takeout.” One such example of this entrenched bigotry can be seen in the form of domism, as Thomas Millar unpacked beautifully earlier this year.
Cloud
November 3, 2011 at 12:46 am“identity need not be so rigid, and that the relatively new-found freedom I’ve embraced to adapt my sexuality to meet my various moods is incredibly liberating and fulfilling. I suggest that it is equally liberating and fulfilling for others who have the guts to do it.
I’m going to go out on a limb and state that I strongly believe that the vast majority of kinksters and erotically adventurous people to some degree experience all of the various moods I’ve already listed. However, they live out those moods having to navigate a kinky scene that doesn’t always easily accept that one can sometimes just as easily have a mood for a certain type of sex as they can for pizza or Chinese takeout. Why oh why do we paint ourselves into a corner when there is just no need to?”
We are more complex, more complicated, than we are comfortable being. We mistake simplicity with clarity. One can be clear, and complex; and we are more than we can ever define in labels or corners. But labels, corners, boxes, are comfy and easy.
We are alive, and therefore changing. Often we mistake our growth for a linear progression, when in fact, a life has a holistic integrity which defies any static POV.