The following is a review I wrote for PopMatters for X-23 #6. Enjoy!
Class, Clones, and Killer Robots in Marvel Comics’ ‘X-23 #6’
November 8, 2018 · 5:02 pm
Movember Memories: Recounting The Time I Let My Beard Grow For Three Months
Greetings, and a very happy Movember to everyone. What is Movember, you ask? It’s not a holiday, a new social movement, or some exciting business opportunity that requires your credit card number. It’s actually an engaging, month-long event that helps raise awareness for objectively good causes.
Specifically, those causes involve serious issues affecting men, such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and suicide. In the same way Breast Cancer Awareness Month brings attention to a serious health issue that affects women, Movember does something similar for men. However, participating involves more than just talking about these issues.
Men who participate in this effort show their support by growing mustaches. For an entire month, they channel their inner Ron Swanson to show support for those affected by this issue. It may not seem like much, but it has had a positive impact. In 2012, the Movember Foundation raised $95 million dollars. Also, like Ron Swanson, it demonstrates the power of the mustache.
If you haven’t already, please consider donating to the Movember Foundation. Whether you’re liberal, conservative, feminist, libertarian, socialist, communist, or even an anarchist, it’s a great cause that helps a lot of people. I know gender politics is very heated these days, but providing support to those who need it should not be controversial.
In the spirit of Movember, I’d like to share a personal story that I think is fitting for this cause. It has to do with me and my relationship to facial hair. It’s something nearly every man has to deal with as they grow up. Everyone goes about it their own way. Some have to figure out the hard way that there’s a right and wrong way to manage it.
That’s exactly what I had to go through one fateful fall during my first semester of college. It was an exciting time. The nightmare that was high school was over. My acne problem had finally passed. I had been accepted into my top choice school. I finally had a chance to live on my own and get a taste of real independence. These were exciting times, indeed.
I celebrated that independence in many ways, but one of the first was that I stopped shaving entirely. For me, that was a big deal because I liked letting my facial hair grow. At first, it was just a good way for me to cover my acne. After a while, I just liked the way it made me look. Like my father and uncles, facial hair made me look distinctly masculine. It also gave me some badly-needed confidence.
While living at home, my mother often made me shave or trim my beard. Usually, she wouldn’t let me go more than two weeks without some kind of trim. I understand why she did it, but I still wanted to develop my own manly look. In college, I got that chance and I took it.
For three straight months, I did not shave. I didn’t use any blades, clippers, or trimmers. I just let my beard grow. Compared to all the other crazy things I could’ve done during my first semester in college, it was pretty tame. For me, though, it was a genuine thrill because I got to decide for myself how I wanted to look.
As a result, I learned a lot of important lessons about facial hair. For one, it can get dandruff. That actually became an issue at one point. It wasn’t enough to make me shave it, but after about two months, I had to actually put shampoo in my beard to keep the dandruff from getting too bad.
The next thing I notices is that when food gets caught in it, you tend not to notice until hours later. When a good chunk of your diet consists of noodles and cafeteria food, that is somewhat of an issue. One time, I got a box of buffalo wings for a football game. It got so messy that there were sauce stains in my beard for the rest of the day. Considering how much I love that smell, I didn’t see that as a bad thing.
Then, the weather got cold and I learned something else about having a thick beard. It will freeze up in a cold rain. A week before Thanksgiving, some freezing rain hit the area and I actually felt miniature icicles form in my beard. It was a weird feeling, but I didn’t see it as a detriment.
Shortly after that, though, I finally caved and trimmed it. I didn’t shave all of it off. I just trimmed it. My reason for doing so had less to do with the effects of the hair and more to do with the overall look it gave me. In addition to not shaving my beard, I didn’t cut my hair either. In doing so, I learned that unkempt hair over my entire face just wasn’t a good look for me.
I won’t say I looked bad. I’ll just say that I looked a bit too much like a first-year college student who enjoyed not being told when to shave. At one point, I looked like a crazed mountain man who lived in a cabin without running water. You can get away with that look in college. In the professional world, however, it’s a bit tougher.
After trimming it for Thanksgiving, I finally got into the habit of trimming it regularly. For a while, I just trimmed it with clippers every two weeks. Eventually, I got around to actually shaving parts of it. At one point, I did shave all of it off, but that did not look good on me. By the time I graduated college, I found a look that I embraced.
Currently, I maintain a healthy patch of facial hair that I try to keep trim. I haven’t let my beard grow that much in a long time. For Movember, though, I occasionally let my mustache get extra thick. I think it looks good on me and it helps me convey the kind of masculinity I want.
I don’t know if I’ll ever let my beard grow that thick again. Maybe at some point down the line, I’ll give it another shot. It may look better on me now than it did in college. If I do, I’ll be sure to share the results.
In the meantime, I encourage everyone to participate or contribute to Movember. Again, please take some time to donate to the Movember Foundation. There are serious male issues worth confronting. You don’t have to grow a thick beard like I did. You just have to let your manly mustache do the talking.
Filed under gender issues, Jack Fisher's Insights, men's issues, sex in society
Daily Sexy Musings: Fighting Stress (The Sexy Way)
Ever have one of those days where every minute feels like another 60 seconds of compounding stress? Maybe a better question would be how many of those days have you had in the past month? I’ve certainly had those days. Going all the way back to high school, I’ve had more than a few instances where I’ve cursed the clock for going too damn slow.
As rough as these days can be, they’re also the times in which we need a little extra loving. I remember one particular day in college where I was so stressed out that I wanted to punch the nearest brick wall. Then, my girlfriend at the time called me and talked dirty to me, as only she could. I felt better almost instantly.
There are, of course, many ways to relieve stress. This dose of my Daily Sexy Musings celebrates the sexier methods. There are plenty of those two, but their effectiveness is beyond dispute. It even goes beyond stress relief. When you can make someone happy after such a shitty day, you know you’ve got something special. Enjoy!
I drag myself through the door. Every step feels like a march through quicksand. I enter a home that only welcomes me with silence, numb to the day I just endured. I want to collapse where I stand. I wish I could punch this day in the jaw and spit in its face. That’s how much I hate it.
Then, you appear before me. In a sea of chaos and frustration, you pierce the veil and shatter the darkness. Your face, your gaze, and your presence stop my anguish dead in its tracks. I open my mouth to speak. Only an angry string of incoherent cursing comes out. It doesn’t dissuade you in the slightest.
You don’t say a word.
I fall silent.
Finally, this long, arduous day ceases.
I remain silent, fuming as though the air is stabbing me from every angle. You brave the storm, approaching me without fear or reservation. I grit my teeth and fight the turmoil within, forcing back the onslaught of misery that has bombarded me throughout the day. Your presence gives me strength, but it only goes so far.
You see my angry poise.
You sense my distress on every level.
You reach out into the sorrow and find me in its grasp.
The battle within is failing. This day has me on the brink of defeat. Then, you take me into your arms. You hold me, kiss me, and entwine your spirit with mine. Almost instantly, the tide turns. I fall back from the brink.
As you hold me, a new strength enters me. Every tense fiber relaxes. A lifeline comes my way and I seize it. Once again, you are my anchor. You guide me through strife, easing my anguish and replacing it with peace.
We don’t stop with simple touch. On the spot, you remove my clothes. With them, you strip me of the burdens I’ve born. Naked and exposed, I stand before you someone wounded by so many forces. However, I need only your love and your sex to heal.
Filed under Daily Sexy Musings
Why I’m Not Overly Excited About Voting
I’m bracing myself right now because I’m about to express a sentiment that’s going to put me at odds with a lot of people here in America. It’s a sentiment that runs contrary to some pretty loud rhetoric that has been brewing over the past two years. Some of it has even come from close family members. Knowing I’ll probably upset them too, I’ll just come out and say it.
I’m not that excited about voting.
I’ll give my fellow American’s a moment to stop fuming. For everyone else, I think a larger explanation is warranted. Bear with me because these are sensitive times for freedom, democracy, and everything in between.
Today, my country will conduct its mid-term election. It occurs every four years, right in between Presidential elections. These elections are a critical part of the foundation on which the United States government is built. These are the elections in which a sizable chunk of governors, senators, and representatives are elected.
While mid-term elections rarely generate the same voter turnout of Presidential elections, this year is different. The impact of the 2016 Presidential Election has galvanized the passions of both sides of the political spectrum. Conservatives seek to maintain their hold on power. Liberals seek to re-establish power after some of the worst setbacks in recent memory. To them, the stakes are very high.
I’m not entirely convinced of that. In fact, I feel like those stakes are so inflated that it makes me feel even less excited about voting. I see people in the media, on message boards, and within political circles calling this election the most important mid-term in history. That makes me suspect they have a narrow concept of history.
Now, I don’t deny the sincerity of those who say stuff like this. I get that they’re genuinely concerned about the direction of the country they love. They have this ideal vision for how they want America to be and getting like-minded people to vote is part of realizing that vision. Whether it’s reigning in the President, outlawing abortion, or legalizing weed, they have a fantasy that they want to make reality.
As someone who writes a lot about the sexy kind of fantasies, I can appreciate that to some extent. When I was younger, I even entertained similar visions. As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve become less enchanted by my country’s democratic processes. The reasons for that have less to do with the content of those visions and more to do with the unique quirks of American elections.
The first complications surrounding American democracy, and one that sets it apart from other democratic countries, is that we don’t elect the President by a popular vote. We use something called the Electoral College. Simply put, our votes don’t go towards who we want to be President. They go towards electing the people who go onto elect the President.
If that sounds confusing, then you’re starting to see why I’m skeptical about voting. The logic behind the Electoral College made sense 200 years ago when trying to ensure that heavily populated states didn’t gain too much power over all the others. A lot has changed in 200 years and I’m not just talking about the prevalence of powdered wigs.
Since I became eligible to vote, I’ve seen two of the past three Presidents get elected without winning the popular vote. That means the candidate that got the most votes did not win the election. Call me cynical, but that does not sound very democratic.
To be fair, the Electoral College applies only to the President. Other representatives like governors, senators, and mayors are elected by way of popular vote. While that is more democratic, on paper, the logistics still aren’t ideal. That’s due to additional factors like gerrymandering, a practice that dilutes democracy to the point of watered down light beer.
Simply put, it ensures that your vote only partially matters because you didn’t necessarily pick the candidate. The candidate picked you by making sure you lived in their voting district. It’s a big reason why incumbents have such high re-election rates. It doesn’t matter how voting trends change. All that matters is aligning districts with a certain type of voters.
It’s not quite on the same level as the phony elections conducted by dictators, but it sends a painfully clear message. No matter how passionate you are at voting, there’s a good chance that it has little bearing on the outcome. That doesn’t mean your vote is thrown away. It still counts. It just doesn’t matter and I’m not the only one who has reached this conclusion.
Most of the time, you live in an area where the overwhelming majority of people align themselves with a particular part of the political spectrum. Districts located in rural areas almost always vote conservative. Districts located in cities almost always vote liberal. That divide has only widened over the years, especially since I began voting.
Some of that goes beyond direct influences like gerrymandering and voter suppression tactics. None of those tactics would even work if not for the predictable psychology of the average voter. In a perfect world, every voter goes to the polls as an objective, impartial citizens who weighs the worth of every candidate. However, we live in an imperfect world full of many imperfect people.
According to analysis of past elections, most people adopt the voting patterns of their parents. It’s not a minor factor, either. By a substantial margin, your vote was mostly determined when you were still a kid. That’s not a flaw in the system as much as it is a flaw in perspective.
If you grow up in a conservative environment, then you’ll vote in accord with conservative candidates. The same applies if you live in a liberal environment. The area I live is pretty liberal, for the most part. I’ve seen the polls for my candidates. The outcome is pretty much a given, no matter how I vote.
On top of all that, and it’s more than enough to temper my enthusiasm for democratic processes, voting in America is extremely inconvenient. It’s not a national holiday. It’s on a Tuesday in the middle of the week and often involves standing in long lines at poorly-staffed polling places. Sure, you can cast an absentee vote, but that process has its own set of complications.
Taken together, I find it frustrating, as a voter. The older I get, the more resigned I’ve become. Each passing year, I see more and more flaws in the system. I see reprehensible human beings and shameless hypocrites win elections, time and again. I also see the list of candidates and groan at my lack of options.
Despite all this, I’m still told that voting is important. Voting is what separates us from tyranny. Ignoring the historical fact that some tyrants come to power through democracy, I’m supposed to believe that my vote will help further the ideals my country espouses. As much as I love my country, I just have a hard time believing that.
Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m pretty cynical about voting and the current democratic processes in place for the United States. I’m not completely resigned, though. I still intend to vote, but I’m under no illusions. I know it won’t change much in the grand scheme of things. Like renewing my driver’s license, it’s part of my civic duty.
Regardless of who wins and who gets voted out, I can already sense where this narrative will go from here. I have a feeling that as soon as this day passes, the 2020 Election will be subsequently billed as the most important election in history. Just like before, the act of voting will be framed as taking part in a battle against a fascist army led by Darth Vader and Joseph Stalin.
That narrative, in my opinion, will do more to undermine voting than help it in the long run. At the end of the day, elections come and go. Leaders change, politics evolve, and demographics shift the cultural landscape. Not every election will go down in history as the most important. The act of voting in those elections won’t matter that much in the long run. It’s still worth doing, but it’s also worth maintaining perspective along the way.
Filed under Current Events, human nature, media issues, outrage culture, psychology
Daily Sexy Musings: Date Night
When it comes to the concept of date night, people tend to have mixed feelings. I know people who roll their eyes at the idea of a couple scheduling, especially if they’re already together or have been married. To them, the purpose of dating is to find out if someone is romantically compatible. I can totally understand this sentiment.
That said, I don’t agree with it. I believe dating has a much broader purpose. I also believe that it’s something couples shouldn’t stop doing, no matter how mature their relationship may be. From what I’ve observed and read over the years, I’ve noticed that good couples never stop dating one another. They never assume the work is done on a relationship and I think that’s a beautiful thing.
The following Daily Sexy Musing is a celebration of that beauty. Regardless of your relationship status, date night can a catalyst for a strong relationship rather than a chore. There’s a right way to do it, a wrong way, and a sexy way. I think I’ve made clear before which one I prefer. Enjoy!
The night is young, but our love is timeless. Once again, we intend to prove that. True love, does not stop and dedication does not cease. I put in the work. You return the favor. Tonight, however, I intend to work overtime.
We clear our schedule.
We purge all distractions.
We take time to make time for another.
We put on our best clothes. I seek from you the admiration I first saw when our eyes met. In you, see a beautiful memory made flesh. The past and the present converge, memories of old passions connecting with new ones. Time may change our bodies, but it only strengthens our hearts.
Before we even leave, we embrace. Like our first date, excitement and anticipation fill the air. In each other, we first found intrigue. In time, we find affirmation. I feel you and I know who you are. From my touch, I let you know who I am. From a simple connection, a complex feeling emerged and evolved.
It didn’t end with our first date.
It didn’t end with our first kiss.
It didn’t end with our first act of lovemaking.
It didn’t end with our hundredth act of lovemaking.
Like the waves of the ocean or the winds in the air, the feeling is ongoing. It shifts and it changes along the way, new conditions bringing new challenges. Together, we navigate and overcome them. Through every triumph, but especially within the failures, our love grows stronger.
On date night, there’s no obstacle to overcome. There are no uncertainties, anxieties, or tensions to resolve. It’s just us, going out into the world to celebrate this feeling we’ve forged. It begins with us dressed in our finest attire. It ends with us shedding that attire, crawling into bed together, and expressing our in its most basic form.
There’s no strict plan to follow. There’s no requirements with which to comply. The only necessity is you and me, us together for one night. We focus only on each other. Every ounce of effort, intent, and passion is channeled for a brief sliver of time within the chaos that is our collective lives.
There’s no stopping us. Together, we leave hand-in-hand and embrace our special time together. Tonight is our night and no one else’s. The world can step aside because there’s no stopping our love.
Filed under Daily Sexy Musings
Jack Fisher’s Sexy Sunday Thoughts: Back Massage Edition
Is it possible to request a back massage without it being construed as sexual? Having experienced, witnessed, and even contributed in all kinds lurid innuendo, I won’t say it’s impossible. I’ll just note that it’s extremely improbable, given our collective immaturity when it comes to sexual matters.
That’s a shame too because there are times when we genuinely need a back massage for entirely non-sexual reasons. One of the first jobs I ever had was at a fast food restaurant. At that job, I spent a good deal of time bending over to clean dirt, mud, and even baby vomit on one fateful night. That was murder on my back, as well as my dignity.
I endured long stretches of back problems that only got better after I quit that job. When I was dating my ex-girlfriend, she had her share of soreness too, due to unrelated health issues. Sometimes, giving each other a soothing, non-sexual back massage was genuinely welcome. I would even go so far as to call it incredibly romantic.
There’s always room for the sexier side of massages. However, there’s also a place for the less seamy kind of back massages. They can be sexy without getting too sexual. They can even be gestures of genuine romance. This week’s edition of my Sexy Sunday Thoughts is dedicated to both. I even encourage every couple out there to try both at some point today. Enjoy!
“Thinking before you act can have very mixed results when you’re really horny.”
“Those who give great oral sex will always have more friends than enemies.”
“When you think about it, an awkward boner is the only reflex that’s actually useful.”
“Women who is physically flexible tend find lovers who are just as flexible in a non-physical way.”
“Make-up sex is the romantic equivalent of tech support for an old computer.”
“In essence, prostitution is paying a premium to skip the small talk before sex.”
“Stories about broken hearts will never be as memorable as those about bruised genitals.”
I hope that helped make everyone’s back feel better, among other things. Massages will always have a sexy connotation and for good reason. Intimate touching usually leads to intimate loving. It’s just physics. When we’re genuinely sore, though, it goes beyond intimacy. It’s downright therapeutic. Whenever you can mix therapy and sex appeal, you know you’ve got something special.
Filed under Sexy Sunday Thoughts
Prison Or Brain Hacking? A Choice That May Shape Our Future
How does a civilized society deal with its least civilized individuals? This is a question that every society has had to answer, going back to the hunter/gatherer era. We live in an imperfect world full of imperfect individuals. Some are more imperfect than others, so much so that it’s not always possible to reform them into functional members of society.
Most people who commit crimes are not monsters, nor are they sadists who get their joy by torturing the innocent. A vast majority are just people who find themselves in bad situations where they make wrong decisions, exercise poor judgment, or lack impulse control. For these people, fines and brief imprisonment are usually sufficient.
For those who become career criminals, neither respecting the law nor seeking to abide by it, the current system is woefully inadequate. It’s part of the reason why criminal justice reform has become a hot topic. We’re finally learning that throwing people into prisons where they’re dehumanized, degraded, and tortured doesn’t help them become productive members of society. Go figure.
There’s plenty of room for improvement. Some countries have demonstrated that there are more effective, more humane ways to treat criminals. However, even those systems have their limits. As long as human beings remain an imperfect species, we’ll still have to deal with these deviant, violent, and inherently dangerous individuals.
For the moment, our options for dealing with these people are few. It primarily involves incarceration or intense therapy, often coupled with drug therapy. While this can be helpful to some, there are severe limitations. Some individuals don’t even want treatment and even those who are caught don’t always respond.
With that in mind, allow me to present a not-quite-hypothetical scenario. What if, instead of prison or therapy, we gave offending criminals an option to undergo an invasive treatment that affects the primary source of their deviant behavior in the brain? Jail is still an option for those who aren’t keen on messing with their brain wiring, but for certain people, an alternative is an alternative.
What I just described is one of those concepts in which the science is there, but the technology and the courts haven’t caught up to it. I know whenever I talk about emerging technology, be it sex robots or artificial wombs, I venture pretty far into speculation territory. Some of these advances rely on science and tools that don’t yet exist. This isn’t one of those cases.
In July 2018, the Journal of Neuroscience published a study revealing that targeted stimulation of the prefrontal cortex reduced aggressive tendencies in test subjects. Before you start getting fever dreams of mad scientists strapping people to gurneys and sticking wires in their ears, you can rest easy. This isn’t the kind of electroshock treatment that find their way into one too many horror movies.
These treatments have ground-breaking implications. They prove that it’s possible to temper or mitigate certain behaviors in people. The study doesn’t specify the limits of the effects or if it can be applied to something other than aggressive behaviors. It’s still a proof of concept and one that could compound the impact of other emerging technologies.
We already have tools like CRISPR that allow us to tweak our genes. We also have companies like Neuralink that are actively working on implants that could fix, augment, or expand our brain capacity. While men like Elon Musk and Ray Kurzweil often discuss these advances within the context of keeping humanity on pace with artificial intelligence, there will likely be some interim uses for these technologies.
Tempering violent behavior in people with significant cognitive impairments is just one possible use, but one that has the potential to change how we think about crime and punishment. Think back to those people I mentioned earlier who just inherently violent. They can’t manage their emotions or control their anger. They don’t think before they act and some don’t even feel guilty about what they do.
Like it or not, these people exist. I’ve known people in my life who have terrible impulse control and fly into a rage over the smallest things. Some of those people have had issues with the law and I often see in them a sense of never-ending frustration. Many don’t like that they have these issues. A few have tried to get help, but it doesn’t always work.
I suspect that if some of those people were given a chance to treat their tendencies with targeted shock therapy or a brain implant, they would jump at the chance. Deviant tendencies aside, they seek some level of function in their lives. If tweaking their brain is the difference between prison and freedom, then they’ll take that risk.
Turning people who might have been unrepentant psychopaths into productive, non-violent members of society is an objective good. The technology to do just that is not that far off and more study could help us refine the process, so much so that prison might be less necessary in certain cases. Given how expensive it is to imprison people, it’s an alternative worth pursuing.
Along with that undeniable good, however, there are plenty of potential dangers. Anyone who has ever seen one too many psychological thrillers or just read “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” can easily imagine how this kind of technology could be abused.
Tempering someone’s violent behaviors is all well and good, but why would it stop there? The brain is capable of all sorts of behaviors, deviant and otherwise. Say a society determines that other non-violent behaviors, be it sexual promiscuity or binge-watching Netflix for too many hours, are not socially desirable. What’s to stop them from imposing this on their citizens?
Some countries probably already fantasize about technologies that enable them to directly pacify their citizens, rendering them weak, passive, and easily manipulated. In his famous novel, “1984,” George Orwell called these people proles. However, in the book, the deviants had to be tortured and re-educated. If Big Brother had access to this technology, it would be a simple medical procedure.
That has plenty of terrifying possibilities for abuse. What if someone uses brain stimulation to prevent people from having homosexual urges? What if someone uses it to treat those who identify as transgender? There’s no evidence that the techniques in the study would work on that, but there’s no evidence to say it’s impossible.
Its use will definitely be controversial. That much, I’m certain of. It’s not advanced enough to become a legitimate treatment for anything. At the moment, direct brain stimulation is utilized for a specified set of conditions and it’s often a last resort. Using it on healthy people who just want to cull their violent urges is uncharted territory.
Whether it enters the picture for criminal justice reform is anyone’s guess, but if the process works, someone who has dealt with one too many repeat offenders will try to use it. From there, the precedent will be set. It’s hard to say what form it’ll take, but it’ll take society into uncharted territory with respect to controlling our minds.
Perhaps, at first, the process would be voluntary and only be presented in conjunction with jail or some other treatment. It’s also possible that the courts will determine a strict set of criteria for when the state could force this treatment onto someone. There are probably a few repressive governments who would try to use this on an industrial scale. I won’t say they’re names, but most people know who they are.
Like any emerging technology, there are risks and rewards worth considering. We stand to benefit greatly by having a society with as few violent individuals as possible. We also stand to lose a great deal if we allow misguided authority figures to determine how we use this technology.
I’m not qualified to determine whether or not someone should have their brain hacked. I don’t know that anyone is. However, I also don’t deny that the human brain, as magnificent as it is, has plenty of flaws. We should go about fixing those flaws, especially in people who are disproportionately impacted by them. We just have to be very careful about how we manage it.
Filed under futurism, human nature, psychology, sex in society, Sexy Future, Thought Experiment
Daily Sexy Musings: Sensual Scents
Some claim smell is the sense most tied to memory. I can believe that to some extent. That said, if I go into a strip club and see a woman with breasts as natural as the Empire State Building, I’m going to remember that more than how she smells. However, I don’t deny the power of scent or the sex appeal it carries.
Certain people give off distinct scents and when you’re in love with that person, you tend to recognize it better than most. Then, there’s the distinct scents you conjure after intimate moments that may or may not include acts of ravenous love-making. Such activities work up a sweat. Sweat creates smells. It’s just science, albeit of the sexiest variety.
The following Daily Sexy Musing is a testament to the inherent sensuality of certain scents and the romantic connotations that often come with it. You may not always remember the sights and sounds of a powerful experience, but chances are, you’ll remember those scents for all the right reasons. Enjoy!
You enter the room. I don’t turn around and I don’t say a word. I already know it’s you. You don’t need to do anything to identify yourself. I can already sense you. Your very presence fills the air with something so distinct. Whether surrounded stale air or awash in brisk winds, I can find your beautifully unique scent.
It’s like a flower that only blooms in your presence, but I’m the only one you allow in your garden. I cherish that privilege. I thank every star in the sky that I get to sense it, the unique taste in the air that you offer to those around you. Most only ever get a sample. You give me the full course of your love.
I breathe deep and feel your warmth.
I take a whiff and enter your domain.
I savor the ethereal musk and follow it into your grasp.
Your scent is the catalyst. Words, gestures, and the elaborate acts that follow are the byproduct. Together, we create extra-potent intimacy. From a simple kiss to an act of extensive love-making, we spark the fires of our greatest passions and immerse ourselves in the warmth.
No matter the time or place, we find ways to feel one another. Words, touch, and acts of love carry us forward. It takes energy and work. The rigors of our love require dedication. I exert myself willingly and you return the favor every step of the way. It’s so exhausting, yet so worthwhile.
From one act, we spark desire.
From another, we evoke passion.
From more, we celebrate our love.
For every action, we must exert. We embrace, we kiss, and we make love. It can leave us sweaty and drained, but content and satisfied. I make every effort count. You match me, act for act. Your scent gets stronger and my heart beats faster. Love inspires passion and passion intensifies love.
In the end, the very thing that started it all lingers most prominently in the air around us. That distinct scent you exude, like the ghostly spirit of our love, hangs over our naked bodies as we lay together. I can close my eyes and silence my thoughts, but I still smell your scent. I can still feel your presence.
Filed under Daily Sexy Musings
The following is a review I wrote for PopMatters for X-men Black: Emma Frost #1. Enjoy!
November 1, 2018 · 4:56 pm
Controlling Women’s Bodies Versus Policing Men’s Thoughts
Discussing gender issues, whether it’s from a feminist perspective or a male perspective, is fraught with problems. I’m not just referring to the hashtags, virtue signaling, systemic deficiencies, or historic injustices, either. Talk to anyone on any part of the political spectrum for more than five minutes and you’ll realize something very quickly.
Addressing gender issues isn’t just difficult. It’s frustrating.
By that, I don’t mean that it’s impossible to have a productive conversation. There are just certain aspects of that conversation that are intractable. We’ll never be able to agree because we’ll never be on the same page.
Women will point out the historic abuses and injustices perpetrated by men.
Men will point out the inherent advantages and privileges that women are afforded.
Women will bemoan instances of harassment, toxic masculinity, and patriarchal oppression.
Men will cite instances of egregious double standards, male disposability, and cultural marginalization.
Those in the transgender community will point out how both sides are guilty of denigrating their community.
From the most radical of feminists to the most egregious misogynist, there seems to be no common ground. It fuels a great deal of the perpetual outrage culture surrounding gender. Whatever your ideology, it feels like there’s no underlying thread through which we can get to the heart of the conflict.
While I don’t claim to be an expert in feminism, men’s issues, or gender, I’ve written enough about these topics to gain some insight. In doing so, I wish to do something other than complain about the state of gender politics. Instead, I’d like to offer an idea that I believe puts many gender-driven conflicts into a more cohesive context.
The primary catalyst for gender conflicts boils down to controlling women’s bodies versus policing men’s thoughts.
I know it’s a generalization, one that seems too simple to cover so many complicated issues. However, the connections are there. If you take a step back, it’s possible to see how many current and past issues involving gender came down to this simple dynamic.
To understand its implications, take a moment to think about the different ways we judge men and women. Consider how we do it now, how we’ve done it in the past, and the ways we justify it. When you look at the big picture, there are some clear patterns.
Take, for example, the extent to which modesty and chastity is emphasized for women. In both modern Islamic cultures and ancient agrarian cultures, a virtuous woman was one who didn’t show off her body, didn’t have promiscuous sex, and didn’t thrust herself into major issues. At the same time, modesty in men is never mentioned.
Why is this? I know some feminists will cite the nefarious patriarchy as the source of all female marginalization. That makes for a great melodrama, but it does not reflect reality. I know I’ll upset a few feminists here when I say this, but I think it needs to be said.
The obsession over the female body has nothing to do with patriarchy and everything to do with the fact that women bear children. That’s the one intractable difference between men and women that no ideology can deny. One gender has to carry the future of the species inside their bodies for nine months and the other doesn’t.
Any woman who has endured a pregnancy can attest that this process is strenuous, to say the least. Unfortunately, it’s necessary for the continuation of our species and, by default, the growth of society. From a purely pragmatic perspective, it makes sense to micromanage female bodies.
We need female bodies to be healthy and safe in order to bear children. The fact that, for much of recorded history, men needed to be certain those children were theirs for the inheritance of property only increased that need. Women who were promiscuous, injured, or in any way damaged didn’t just result in their own suffering. It could cause the entire tribe to suffer.
It certainly doesn’t help that we had a limited understanding of human biology and disease until recently. It also doesn’t help that these values of protecting female bodies became enshrined in religion and culture, some of which are still practiced today. This emphasis on controlling the female body is the foundation on which many taboos, traditions, and tropes are built.
On that same foundation is the other side of that dynamic that involves policing the thoughts of men. By that, I don’t just mean men acting immature at the sight of a naked woman or cringing at discussions concerning female biology. I’m talking about a mentality that builds assumptions and expectations about an entire gender based on unknowable thoughts.
Think back to what Judeo-Christian morals say about men who look at a women with lust. It’s such an important issue that Jesus himself says outright that just thinking sexy thoughts about a woman is a major transgression. He didn’t say anything about homosexuality, but he made it clear that contemplating lust is as bad as acting on it.
Many religious traditions and cultures place a similar emphasis on the subject. It’s why traditions in Islam and ancient China advocate separating men from women. If they’re in close proximity, they may look at one another. If they look at one another, then they may think lustful thoughts.
This isn’t just cultures being sexually uptight or overly patriarchal. This emphasis on scorning men’s thoughts makes logistical sense when you look at the intent. From perspective of a functional society, it has to emphasize thought over actions because just judging a man for his actions is insufficient when you extrapolate the consequences.
Say a man sexually assaults a woman. The community rightfully convicts him and punishes him as harshly as possible. No matter how harsh or cruel, though, it doesn’t undo the harm he inflicted on the woman. She is still traumatized. She might even be permanently injured. As I noted before, when a female body suffers, it puts the future of the community in danger.
As a result, we have no choice but to attack the thoughts of the man that preceded his assault. The only way to prevent damage to the female body is to prevent those violent thoughts from occurring in the first place. Unfortunately, we can’t read thoughts. We don’t know what a man is or isn’t thinking when he commits an egregious crime. As a result, we’re left with expectations and assumptions.
That’s where we get flawed concepts like toxic masculinity, the male gaze, and mansplaining. That’s also why there’s a greater emphasis on assuming the guilt of men and believing the claims of women. Attacking their thoughts is the only sure-fire way to prevent them from turning into actions that would harm women and their bodies.
Please note that I emphasized the harm to the female bodies with respect to men’s actions. That’s not an accident. The assumptions are the same today as they were in ancient times when protecting the reproductive function of women wasn’t just a cultural tradition. It was a matter of survival. Any effort that could reduce the chances of a female body being harmed had merit. From there, natural selection does the rest.
With this dynamic in mind, look at some of the relevant cultural issues going on today. Even if the connections aren’t direct, the influencing factors are there. Nearly every one of them come back to controlling women’s bodies and policing men’s thoughts.
At the heart of the abortion debate is controlling women’s bodies.
At the heart of the debate over depictions of women in media is policing men’s thoughts.
At the heart of the anti-harassment movement, the anti-pornography movement, and the opposition to prostitution is the control of female bodies and the policing of men’s thoughts.
It’s rarely stated outright. However, that is what many issues comes back to. Often times, the people involved won’t use words like “control” or “policing.” They’ll claim they’re protecting women’s bodies and enlightening men’s thoughts. That may be the intention, but there are only so many ways anyone can go about pursuing such recourse.
To protect anything, you have to be able to control it to some degree. We can’t protect people, pets, or possessions without some kind of containment. The same goes for reforming someone’s attitudes. It’s necessary to police undesired thoughts to promote the thoughts you want.
In both cases, the outcome is the same. It’s both impossible and untenable to completely control women’s bodies. That requires a level of subjugation that even the most brazen misogynist cannot stomach or maintain. It’s just as impractical to police men’s thoughts. We can never know for sure what someone else is thinking. We’re left to assume and that’s usually the first step towards expecting the worst.
Despite the efforts of government, culture, tradition, and organized religion, nobody has come close to controlling women’s bodies and policing men’s thoughts to any sustainable extent. Men will still think sexy thoughts, a small part of which will precede a serious crime. Women will still put themselves at risk to be free, have fun, and enjoy their bodies on their own terms.
Even if 99 percent of what men think results in no crimes and 99 percent of what women did with their bodies resulted in no negative effects, we’ll still obsess over that one percent of the time when something goes horribly wrong. That obsession will continue to fuel the most radical parts of feminism and the most vocal parts of men’s rights activists.
For now, there’s no way to bridge the gap. That may change as a result of major social and technological trends, but this is the current situation. Again, I don’t claim this idea of controlling women’s bodies and policing men’s thoughts is the definitive catalyst for all gender-driven conflicts. This is just an idea I wanted to share in hopes of providing perspective.
