Rewilding the Tamed Sex Life

May 28, 2015

Ever had a dark, yet unspoken, sense of something really important missing from your personal sex life? You're not alone: witness the enormous popularity of sex toys, pornography, erotica, sexy lingerie, and oh yes, "Fifty Shades of Grey." It's not that we don't love our partners, but the lubes, new positions, and battery-powered toys (fun thought they might be!) are simply a distraction for a limited period of time from a level of boredom with a soupon of fear, maybe even terror. Is this really all there is? Is this all you wanted? Is this enough to keep the interest of the other? Instead of entering the mysterious forest of enchantment, our bedrooms and our sex lives often seem more like a low-rent theme park. George Monbiot's "Feral," a movingly written continuation of his thoughts on rewilding the so-called "tamed" (more accurately, "broken") landscape around us focuses not just on the environment, but also the damage we have done in neglecting our own need for a wilder experience in our lives. In Chapter 4, "Elopement," Monbiot brings up the disturbing truth that, when given a choice, colonialists and other pioneers of civilized, industrialized cultures seem to invariably choose the native...

May 26, 2015

The Nevada State Legislature is stampeding toward family values...of a sort. In a packed hearing to review "parental notification for abortion" legislation, Republican Ira Hansen (at left with one of his more enlightened quotes) said, The No. 1 positive thing that comes out of these laws in other states is there has been a substantial decrease in the number of abortions, Hansen said. Has there been a consequent rise in the amount of domestic-violence situations and things like that? There is absolutely no evidence to support that in all of the 38 states that have these laws on the books. So, rather than this legislation being pro-family or pro-child (as in the child who is pregnant), the legislation is a covert attempt to prevent abortions. That this is a good is based on the notion that life begins at conception. That this is a falsehood is demonstrated by the lack of legislation (or picketing demonstrators) preventing fertility clinics from fertilizing eggs, storing them, and eventually quietly taking them from the freezer to the trash. We're talking hundreds of thousands of humans sitting in freezers, people! Oh, the inhumanity! SF exists to help the world learn to talk about human sexuality--in...

May 25, 2015

Outside of the politically correct, fans of Game of Thrones (GOT) may have missed a recent controversy. A very brief rape scene in a recent Game of Thrones (HBO) episode of season 5 has offended a lot of people. Many seem to be offended that the rape scene is NOT in the books upon which the series is based. Others seem to dislike that there was a depiction of rape at all. Still others were offended by...something they have a hard time talking about. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) tweeted. "Gratuitous rape scene disgusting and unacceptable." Hmmm. Just what does that mean actually? "Gratuitous" is an odd word here; it means "uncalled for" or "unwarranted." One wonders, just how many rapes are called for? How many forms of literary or cinematic art "warrant" a rape? And "disgusting?" One imagines an argument with someone responding, "No, I liked that rape. She was raped tastefully!" Who, besides (presumably) rapists, is not disgusted by rape? Ditto for "unacceptable." But for those of us who watch the relentlessly cruel world depicted in GOT, there have been innumerable thousands killed with medieval weapons, torture scenes galore, beheadings of fathers in front of...

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