I’ve been thinking a lot about how sexuality gets promoted and about “the pleasure industry” lately and after a few conversations with people, I knew I needed to write about the difference between fun and fluff.
Some of my colleagues and I have some big concerns about the ubiquitous information about sexuality that makes it difficult to tell the solid, sound, good information from that which is not. Most people don’t have a trained eye to be able to see it and be that critical about the sex information they take in. They just accept what they read as fact.
Sexuality is so multi-dimensional. When I see it portrayed in a way that makes it look fluffy and superficial, it bugs me. A lot of focus on having “womanly arts” or “feminine arts” -really, what does that mean? If you have a broader understanding of gender, what exactly does a “womanly art” look like? I think there are skills that people of any gender can learn, and some that, based on our gender expression, may fit better or come easier. But to buy into a set of arts based on your sex or gender simplifies who we are and what we care about. And it really erases queerness and the multiplicity of expression that is evident in our many-gendered culture.
I see a lot of fluff. Just be happy! Have pleasure! Flirt! Give a good blow job and build that confidence, girl! As if every woman can just turn off all her conditioning and shake to the side her limiting beliefs and just have fun! For some people that is really hard. Some of us were taught NOT to play, that playing was bad, so we actually have to learn how to play again as adults. We learn by doing, by putting ourselves in uncomfortable spaces where we will have opportunities to grow and stretch beyond where we have previously been. That’s not fluff…it’s fun and it’s important.
What I know is that it takes some work. It takes some focus and some heart. It takes loving yourself, I mean really loving you, not pretending to because you are supposed to. And that takes time. It takes support and it requires much of us. I take sexuality seriously. I take my work seriously.
AND I know we need to have fun along the way. We need to enjoy the journey home to ourselves. We need to laugh with our sisters, brothers and lovers and at ourselves. And yes, in the best-case scenarios, sex is super fun! Dynamic! It’s full of laughter and joy and also tears and intensity. It’s the way we open widest! Sexual energy is the most powerful energy that exists in the world. But you have to make all of that multi-dimensionality real.
You can’t fake it. I think a lot of people are faking it. Pretending to be having more fun than they are, better orgasms or sex than they are, and they aren’t really in it. And in the online sex world, there is a whole lot of faking going on. And that faking is teaching us to fake it. And that’s the fluff.
We can have fun without making it a bunch of fluff that dumbs down sexuality. I love the complexity of sexuality. That’s what keeps me learning new things all the time. It keeps me loving myself, and my sexual journey because it is always evolving. The fluffy world would tell us that if we just keep having fun and more pleasure, then we’ve arrived.
Yet, we never arrive…we journey: through the laughter and the tears, through the heartache and compassion, through the betrayal and the liberation, through the discovery and the comfort of what we know to be true. We keep asking the questions. We keep nourishing the fire. That fire might drop to a pile of embers now and again, and if so, we know we can laugh so hard on her, we’ll watch her flare with our breath. Ooooohhh! Now that’s fun!
This week find that balance between taking things seriously and enjoying your life and the people around you. Have some fun in all the glorious complexity of who you are as a sexual being. Don’t get caught up in the fluff. And please, don’t fake it. Life’s too short for that. I’ll be cheering for you on the playing field.
