The meaning of orgasms.
First, let me tell you about the extenuating circumstances.
Men are idiots. They are attracted to (men or) women whom they don't know and have no acces to. Men are aroused by pictures of women they know to be dead. Men in general behave in very silly and embarassing ways when it comes to sex and sexual attraction. I am sure I am no exception.
My wife is out of the country for three weeks (and I am a single parent during this time) and it must have been by the end of the second week that I read a feature article in the "Culture" section in NRC Handelsblad on Beautiful Agony, a project by Australian artists Lauren Olney and Richard Lawrence. It consists of a huge internet archive of movies of (some) young men and (mostly) women masturbating. You only get to see their faces. The author of the article (a woman) was fascinated -- and so was I.
You don't see anything, just the facial expressions of these people as they have an orgasm. The archive looks like a yearbook of a university, with a range of bright and beautiful young faces. Of course, being a man, the thought that these people were getting off was quite arousing. Like I said: men are idiots. At the same time, there is a distinct aesthetic quality to the whole thing. The slight reddening of the face, the open mouth to facilitate the heavier breathing and the slight signs of partial loss of control are fascinating in a completely non-sexual manner. Having so many of these expression together works to alienate the viewer from the individual identity of each face. The individuals contributing their orgasm are identified only by number. Some have added videos in which they divulge some of the sexual particulars. The site is now mainly exploited as a mild erotica site, but according to Olney and Lawrence its original motivation was purely artistic. The project apparently has been making the rounds on internet for more than a year now (why am I always the last to hear of these things...).
However, what really struck me was the following. Namely the question why these women (who, if the evolutionary psychologists are correct, are not idiots like men when it comes to sex) send in these videos. Why would you go through the trouble of setting up a digital camera, lie down, on what is without exception a nice drape or duvet, masturbate and send in the tape. The author of the NRC piece speculates about a good orgasm as a good deed to mankind, but doesn't get very far.
After reading her piece and looking (longer than is good for me) to the site, I started thinking about several articles and reports I have seen on how teenagers and twenty somethings approach (if that is the word) sex. To many people of my generation and older, sex is closely linked to falling in love or at least, infatuation. However, it seems that this is less and less true nowadays. It seems more and more true that kids have 'sex dates', just like you can have a date to go to the movies or eat an ice cream. Sex is less and less about intimacy and love and more and more about, well about getting off. I read a report on children and internet in which the author describes how she sat with her 15 year old niece while she chatted on internet. At some point she dared a boy that she barely knew to turn on his webcam and show his penis, which he obligingly did. After prolonged giggling the niece told the reporter that she had met with this boy to have sex once. She did not love the boy, nor was she infatuated or so, it just was a laugh to her. Like other people can go and have a drink with relative strangers, so she could go and have occasional sex with a stranger. I don't want to condemn this sort of behavior here or make moralistic pronouncements on it, but it does help with the question about the women sending in their orgasms. In an environment like that, there will be less inhibitions to send in one's tape to an internet site, just as the boy had no inhibitions to switch on his webcam and show his penis.
OK, but what is the positive motivation? The contributors are not inhibited, but what is in it for them? It is not simply exhibitionism, that much is clear from all the comments. Perhaps that many of these women think it something hip to do: it is cool to cum on the internet, just like it is 'cool' to have a tattoo or sport a designer brand of some sort. The fact that it is 'hip' to these women shows that attitudes towards sex and intimacy are really changing. However, that cannot be right either, because the contributors are anonymous. If it is 'coolness' they are after, they should be able to identify themselves as 'cool' in this regard which is impossible if all contributions are anonymous.
Perhaps the best explanation is that the men and women on this site are simply expressing something about their sexuality (much in the Brennan and Lomasky talk about expressive behavior). Like one expresses one's support for one's soccer team or issues a protest vote. Nobody can trace that to the one expressing, so there are no benefits in it in traditional sense, still people do express all kinds of things. And the contributors of Beautiful Agony express something ... well something to do with masturbation and orgasm. However, for the life of me, I cannot think what... I guess that makes me a typical man when it comes to sex: an idiot!
Men are idiots. They are attracted to (men or) women whom they don't know and have no acces to. Men are aroused by pictures of women they know to be dead. Men in general behave in very silly and embarassing ways when it comes to sex and sexual attraction. I am sure I am no exception.
My wife is out of the country for three weeks (and I am a single parent during this time) and it must have been by the end of the second week that I read a feature article in the "Culture" section in NRC Handelsblad on Beautiful Agony, a project by Australian artists Lauren Olney and Richard Lawrence. It consists of a huge internet archive of movies of (some) young men and (mostly) women masturbating. You only get to see their faces. The author of the article (a woman) was fascinated -- and so was I.
You don't see anything, just the facial expressions of these people as they have an orgasm. The archive looks like a yearbook of a university, with a range of bright and beautiful young faces. Of course, being a man, the thought that these people were getting off was quite arousing. Like I said: men are idiots. At the same time, there is a distinct aesthetic quality to the whole thing. The slight reddening of the face, the open mouth to facilitate the heavier breathing and the slight signs of partial loss of control are fascinating in a completely non-sexual manner. Having so many of these expression together works to alienate the viewer from the individual identity of each face. The individuals contributing their orgasm are identified only by number. Some have added videos in which they divulge some of the sexual particulars. The site is now mainly exploited as a mild erotica site, but according to Olney and Lawrence its original motivation was purely artistic. The project apparently has been making the rounds on internet for more than a year now (why am I always the last to hear of these things...).
However, what really struck me was the following. Namely the question why these women (who, if the evolutionary psychologists are correct, are not idiots like men when it comes to sex) send in these videos. Why would you go through the trouble of setting up a digital camera, lie down, on what is without exception a nice drape or duvet, masturbate and send in the tape. The author of the NRC piece speculates about a good orgasm as a good deed to mankind, but doesn't get very far.
After reading her piece and looking (longer than is good for me) to the site, I started thinking about several articles and reports I have seen on how teenagers and twenty somethings approach (if that is the word) sex. To many people of my generation and older, sex is closely linked to falling in love or at least, infatuation. However, it seems that this is less and less true nowadays. It seems more and more true that kids have 'sex dates', just like you can have a date to go to the movies or eat an ice cream. Sex is less and less about intimacy and love and more and more about, well about getting off. I read a report on children and internet in which the author describes how she sat with her 15 year old niece while she chatted on internet. At some point she dared a boy that she barely knew to turn on his webcam and show his penis, which he obligingly did. After prolonged giggling the niece told the reporter that she had met with this boy to have sex once. She did not love the boy, nor was she infatuated or so, it just was a laugh to her. Like other people can go and have a drink with relative strangers, so she could go and have occasional sex with a stranger. I don't want to condemn this sort of behavior here or make moralistic pronouncements on it, but it does help with the question about the women sending in their orgasms. In an environment like that, there will be less inhibitions to send in one's tape to an internet site, just as the boy had no inhibitions to switch on his webcam and show his penis.
OK, but what is the positive motivation? The contributors are not inhibited, but what is in it for them? It is not simply exhibitionism, that much is clear from all the comments. Perhaps that many of these women think it something hip to do: it is cool to cum on the internet, just like it is 'cool' to have a tattoo or sport a designer brand of some sort. The fact that it is 'hip' to these women shows that attitudes towards sex and intimacy are really changing. However, that cannot be right either, because the contributors are anonymous. If it is 'coolness' they are after, they should be able to identify themselves as 'cool' in this regard which is impossible if all contributions are anonymous.
Perhaps the best explanation is that the men and women on this site are simply expressing something about their sexuality (much in the Brennan and Lomasky talk about expressive behavior). Like one expresses one's support for one's soccer team or issues a protest vote. Nobody can trace that to the one expressing, so there are no benefits in it in traditional sense, still people do express all kinds of things. And the contributors of Beautiful Agony express something ... well something to do with masturbation and orgasm. However, for the life of me, I cannot think what... I guess that makes me a typical man when it comes to sex: an idiot!
posted by Bruno at Sunday, November 06, 2005
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