Sex, Fantasy, and Fifty Shades

Lately I’ve seen a lot of hype about the film rendition of Fifty Shades of Grey across the internet. Mostly it’s been a lot of protesting about how the story promotes sexual abuse and dominance. Personally I’m not really interested in the books or the movie, so my critique of the story would be limited at best. But I’m not here to write a critique – there are plenty already out there. I’m here to tell you some of my thoughts based on what I’ve observed about this latest uproar.

My concern lies in the conversations I read about how it’s a shame that young people today are indulging in stories like these and will not have a firm understanding of what true love or a satisfying sex life looks like. Before I continue, let me say that in no way do I condone sexual abuse, and I certainly hope that this post doesn’t come across that way. What I am saying is that we shouldn’t wait for stories like Fifty Shades to go viral before we start talking about how sex should be.

Upon looking up the author, I found a quote of hers that said that this story was essentially her sexual fantasies, which, in my opinion, puts a different perspective on how I view the story. While a woman may not publicly admit it, I think there exists in many women’s minds fantasies that are not intended to be played out in real life, be they sex with a stranger, being forcefully tied down, etc. Thoughts and emotions that allow the person to feel as though they’re not completely in control (while in reality they still are) help to increase the tension of the moment, making it more exciting and therefore easier to climax. When you put those fantasies on a screen, however, they turn into something seen as dominating and abusive, because it’s not meant to make sense in real life (hence why it’s a fantasy).

For those of you who don’t want your children to see this movie because you want to explain to them how beautiful true love and healthy sex is, that’s great. The problem is, not everyone wants to have that conversation, especially, I find, those of the more conservative mindsets. If you can’t even say the word sex without giggling or blushing, you’re probably not the first person I’m going to go to for advice in the matter. That’s why the majority of my sex ed came from Wikipedia, Urban Dictionary, and Game of Thrones. Google didn’t blush. It didn’t pause in an awkward silence thinking, “oh crap, I have to have this conversation with her.” It simply gave me the answers I was looking for and then some. And yes, some people did offer to talk about any questions I had. But I was so ignorant of my own body that I didn’t even know what questions to ask.

Maybe you giggle or smile because you have a great sex life. Maybe you’re remembering the night you had with your partner last week. But I can’t tell what you’re thinking. All I read is a change in your demeanor, which then makes me uncomfortable and feel that maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up.

For those of you who wonder why anyone would want to sit through a movie like that in a dark theatre surrounded by people, maybe it’s because it feels like a safe place. Maybe there are a lot of confused or frustrated young people trying to understand their bodies and biological functions, but can’t find the answers they need because their elders are too embarrassed to talk about it. Or if they aren’t, the conversation is weighted with fear that somebody is going to fuck somebody into abomination. And so in a way it almost makes sense to me to want to escape to the theatre where I don’t have to be embarrassed for wondering about my body and maybe less-than-traditional ways of having sex.

Questions to Ask on a Date?

While I don’t know much about dating, I do enjoy looking at articles with fun date ideas – because sometimes the activities mentioned seem like good ideas whether you have a date or not!

We know that a first date can be awkward. What do you talk about? I especially don’t care for small talk, so the conversation would probably become uncomfortable for me quite quickly. In my thought process, I don’t really care how many facts about you I can recite, because knowing about you isn’t the same as knowing you. That’s partly what distinguishes our relationships to our friends versus our celebrity crushes. Learn as much as you want about Jennifer Lawrence, but unless you take her out for pizza and spend time with her, chances are you won’t really know her that well.

That being said, I came up with the following list of questions that will guarantee success on any first date you go on.

Actually I have no idea if these are any good; these are just questions I’ve thought about in my spare time when my brain has nothing better to do.

If you were granted three wishes, what would you wish for?

If you had a completely empty day ahead of you, how would you spend it?

Were you to pick any job besides the one you have, what would you want to do?

Do you like sweet, salty, or spicy foods?

What is one of your favorite places to go in town?

If you could pick any era to live in, past, present, or future, what would you pick?

What is something you don’t want to live without?

What is something you’re thankful for today?

What, if anything, do you want to change about the world?

Who do you want to be in the future?

When is your favorite time of day?

Where do you go to relax?

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie pop? (answer: the world will never know)

What’s the strangest question you’ve been asked on a first date?

*Disclaimer: Katherine Hill is not liable for any rejections or failures that result from using this list of questions, so please do not sue her. Side affects may include queasy stomach, palm sweating, frequent trips to the bathroom, and uncomfortable silences.

A Respectable Young Lady

I got the “lady” thing down. When I was a girl, I learned all sorts of “lady” skills that would prepare me to be a decent woman and successful housewife. I make applesauce. I spin yarn. I can knit and crochet. I paint, sing, and play the harp. I can make quilts and clothes, and serve afternoon tea.

The problem is, activities such as those are no longer as popular as they used to be. Spin yarn? Many people don’t even understand what a drop spindle is, or they have never seen a harp up close.

Felicity Merriman and Elsie Dinsmore were my childhood friends, but I have learned that girls like them remain alive only on the words of a page. While girls my age learned about makeup and name brand clothing, I was out riding horses. While so-and-so was dating her first boyfriend, I was wondering if it was morally okay to wax my eyebrows (would it be vain?). By the time I reached young adulthood, I thought I was well on my way to becoming an accomplished gentlewoman (I use the term loosely). You can imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that a proper gentlewoman is not esteemed in the same way she would have been a century ago.

These days it appears that society values a woman who is career driven more than housewife driven. Many women today are being awarded for accomplishments that, a century or two ago, only men would have attempted. Maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe it means we’ve allowed women to go above and beyond the original expectations of their gender. I think, however, that there is something to be said about a woman who can manage her home well, career or no career. There is a certain beauty that is lost when the art of housekeeping is thrown to the wayside in pursuit of what used to be left to the men.

That’s not to say that pursuing a career is a bad thing. I myself am studying to get a bachelor’s degree, after which I would like to manage a flock of goats (maybe), grow an herb garden, and possibly build my own house. Yes, with my own hands.

Do you remember the term “calling” before it was used in reference to the telephone? In the Victorian era, ladies would pay visits to, or call on, each other. In higher society, women would keep track of who called on them and to whom they owed calls. Paying a call could be compared to paying bills, they were so important. Today? “We should hang out sometime.”

Sometimes I wonder what the hell men are looking for if not a housewife. I may be late in saying this (by about 100 years), but it seems that the woman is having to find a new identity, since it is no longer defined by the skills she acquires for running a home. In a way, this is freeing, because it gives her more independence to choose her own path. In another way, however, it leaves people like me a bit confused about what to do when I’ve spent a significant chunk of my life training to be useful to a man.

Please do not take this as a self-pity rant (although that’s exactly what it is, so forgive me). This is not to say that I cannot survive without a man taking care of me, because I have complete confidence that I can. I think more importantly, I am trying to find my place in 2014 when I feel like I should have been born in 1880.

Frustrations With the Modern Woman

There was a time when men took off their hats in the presence of a woman, opened the door for her, and threw their coats over puddles so she wouldn’t have to walk through the mud. Too often today I hear women talk about such acts of chivalry and conclude that there aren’t any good men left in the world, or if there are, they are very hard to find. With the ever-changing times, something has happened that has made men less caring and more disrespectful of women. I’ll tell you what happened.

Women’s rights.

Now before all the feminists get angry at me (although maybe they already are), let me say this: I am very thankful to be living in an era in which I have the right to vote, the opportunity to pursue a higher education, and the option to create my own career if I so choose. Benefits such as these were not (easily) accessible to women before the women’s rights movement. It is adjustments such as these that have changed not only how people view women, but have also changed women themselves.

Before the women’s rights movement, it was commonly accepted that a woman’s place was in the home, and a man’s place was out working. Whether you agree with that structure or not, it was a system in which people knew what to expect, because they knew their place in society. I believe that it was because people knew their place that allowed them to respect each other more, because each knew where he belonged.

However, the women’s rights movement has challenged that structure, and has left us with many changes in society. A woman may choose to stay at home, or she may choose to go out and work. In my opinion, she should be able to do either. My frustration is that we are women living in 2013 expecting to find men of 1913. And that is just not possible.

The women’s rights movement did not just affect women; it affected men as well. Now that the original structure has been broken down, I think it leaves people confused with how to interact with each other. Each gender does not have as definite a role as they once did, and that can lead to many misunderstandings.

I believe that every person deserves respect. But sometimes I think women have been so eager to gain respect that they’ve forgotten how to give respect, and we have allowed men to forget how to respect themselves. (I’m not saying that men’s negative traits today are all women’s fault; there are plenty of things I could say about men, but for the sake of this essay I will leave that for a different post)

What I am saying is that I think too many women bash men unnecessarily, and that needs to stop. Yes, some men are capable of being complete jerks, but some women are just as capable of the same thing. And if you’re a woman who doesn’t like a man opening the door for you in the rare occasion he does, there is such a thing as politely telling him you would prefer to open the door yourself instead of getting angry because you think he thinks you’re weak. Chances are he was just trying to be respectful and maybe even show you that he thinks you’re valuable.