ORGASMS ARE SHORT, unfortunately. Clearly the allure of sex does not reside in its climax alone; sex is a manifold experience constantly nourished by socialized eroticism. As natural and instinctive as sex is, it’s also a highly developed form of human interaction and intimacy, forever in need of reinvention. Much of the sexual experience takes place in our imagination.
From Giocondo Belli in the Los Angeles Review of Books and isn’t this a great opening paragraph for a book review? I’ll give you one guess which incredibly popular book Belli is reviewing there. I haven’t read the book so I can’t lead any kind of discussion on it. And here at Bitch Magazine is a thought-provoking discussion about the feminist integrity of sexually objectifying Joe Manganiello. I had a big long discussion on twitter about this one with a bunch of other feminists, but in a nutshell, that shit is complicated.
(Thanks to Emily Manuel for the link to the book review).
The opener is great but that book review is awful. Can this guy really not imagine a world in which consensual sex between partners, even if it involves toys he’s “never heard of” and practices he finds appalling, is essentially abusive? Has this guy never read Clarisse Thorn’s blog, or Pervocracy?? It’s like asking someone who has only heard of ice cream but never tasted it to review a book with a really complicated and inaccurate depiction of ice cream. Anyway, I know you can’t speak to the book but this review is pretty ridic, IMO. He seems to have a really strange idea that consent should mean “consenting only to the things I think are morally appropriate” and anything else must ipso facto be abusive and therefore reprehensible. It just doesn’t sit well with me.
Ooooh, Alcide. Objectification done…I really enjoyed the Bitch article. I have read so much about Joe Manganiello lately and it strikes me that he has had a similar career trajectory to Jon Hamm – really struggling to work for years and being somewhat limited by their very manly looks (eg being unable to play high school students which many actors do into their 30s).
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