Being Amber Rhea

Russ wrote this comment:

First: “There’s something deeply disturbing about their obsession…”

Now: “Yes, another one in the series. What can I say, I must be some kind of masochist. This’ll be my next book review.”

Hmmmm……

I answered:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Eat my contradictory ass.

And then:

Actually I’m going to write a post that’s a lengthier and at least mostly-serious answer to Russ’s thinly veiled attempt to “get” me.

So here is the lengthier reply I promised.

First, let’s get one thing straight. I make no bones about it: I am obsessed with sex.¹ Aside from actually doing it, I like thinking about it, reading about it, and talking about it, in an academic sense and otherwise. I enjoy thinking about the place of sex in society, where sexuality fits in the context of identity as a whole, how prevailing societal attitudes about sex leave their mark in other, seemingly unrelated areas, and so on and so forth. In short, I am a sex nerd.

As such, I have given considerable thought to all these issues, and I have clear opinions about them. I think there’s a lot that’s fucked-up, for lack of a more highbrow word. I fervently wish for people/society to get over their/its fucked-up attitudes about sex.

I obviously have my opinions about how things should change for the better. So when I read, hear, or see something that is pretty much the polar opposite of my well-thought-out, thoroughly researched, and over-analyzed ideas of How To Make the World a Better Place, I want to understand what the hell could make people think that way. When I read things like, “A wife’s body isn’t her own, and she’s the only legitimate vessel of sexual satisfaction for her husband on earth” or “we lead mediocre lives where women take control of their own bodies and husbands are ‘forced’ to masturbate,” it makes me punch myself in the face and yell, “What the fuck?!“² Not content simply to say, “Fuck these people, they’re seriously screwed up and I don’t have time for them,” I am morbidly fascinated with what can cause so many people to have such warped views of sexuality.

They say that if you want to successfully defeat your enemy, you must understand them. You might think the word “enemy” is too strong here; but when we’re talking about people who want to pass laws to severely restrict what I can and can’t do with my own body, or who want to use my tax dollars to fund “faith-based” initiatives and feed my children abstinence-only education bullshit filled with sexist propoganda such as “[w]omen gauge their happiness and judge their success by their relationships; men’s happiness and success hinge on their accomplishments” and downright wrong biological information such as “[t]wenty-four chromosomes from the mother and 24 from the father join to create [a fetus]” - well, then I consider them my enemies.³

I want to understand where, why, and how they get their ideas. I want to get inside their heads - well, as much as possible, before it just becomes creepy. If I can do that, at some level I actually harbor the delusion that I can talk some sense into them.

Yeah, I know, I should probably get over that.

¹ I don’t mean obsessed the way Garrett defined it, and which is probably the more correct definition. But cut me some slack, my thesaurus was not being helpful.

³ Quotes from the abstinence-only education textbook Why kNOw.