Titillation

Some they may go for cocaine
I'm sure that if, I took even one sniff
it would bore me terrifically too
but I get a kick out of you
--I Get a Kick Out of You, Cole Porter

Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!
--Trix cereal jingle

Whatever you fear, whatever you hide,
whatever you carry deep inside
There's something more than this
--Something More Than This,
Project October
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A West Coast friend had this article from the Canadian press in my Inbox this a.m.; they care about these things in Oregon. While this post is a slight deviation from our mission at Ranger, if pressed I could find a linkage. And not to worry, we will be back to the hardcore military stuff later.

Bob Fulford wrote in this weekend's National Post that Hugh Hefner's Playboy empire has served to mutilate male-female relations, arresting male development to the juvenile level of the forbidden gaze at the homogeneously perfect female form. Perhaps the attainment of that form will become his quest; perhaps, because he cannot attain or maintain it, he will become resentful and angry, and foist that resentment off on the actual mates he is able to bed.

In any event, sex is the raison d'etre, which one could say is a sound biological approach. However, if we fancy we humans are capable of attaining a higher plane, bunny ears won't take you there.

Fulford mentions Dutch historian Dylan van Rijsbergen who argues for an anti-Hefner, Slow Sex movement — "focusing on sex as 'elusive, exciting, intense, playful, authentic, dynamic and sublime.' It would stretch sexuality 'beyond the single moment of the orgasm.'" Van Rijsbergen argues widespread pornography degenerates into erotic boredom.

One needn't go either-or on the matter of pornography. I'm a defender of Free Speech. Efforts to liberate body image are a good thing, though these models are highly airbrushed, and their perfection can serve to stunt a girl's self-image. The Naomi Kleins and Andrea Dworkins have already written extensively on the objectification of women.

Surely such objectification predates Playboy. But the men of Generation Playboy have been "liberated" to see the female body as a playground, but a playground for their entertainment, with pleasing the woman as a tack-on feature to buoy their own ego agenda and sense of proficiency. There is little more painful than standing on either side of the gulf separating the sexes and hoping that proper genital manipulation will release a torrent of passion. At best, what will be achieved is a momentary physical release.

Author Nick Hornby captures this tragedy a deux nicely in his How to Be Good when he talks about the estranged couple's bedtime antics as "button pushing" sessions. Not psychological buttons, but anatomical buttons, like playing a game of pinball.

Not to knock the physiological benefit of getting off, but truly great sex isn't to be had through button pushing. There is a psychic gap between getting off and transcendent union, the latter which usually goes lacking. For the people in the former group, sex is masturbation with company. The psyche in hiding is fragmented, split as it is from inhabiting the body at such moments.

One of the commenters to the piece, "TCtheTiger" expresses it thusly:

"There is fun, a lot of it, in sex. But that fun becomes truly erotic and transcendental ONLY when sex is used as an expression of love towards the spouse, a total gift of oneself, without any reservation, yes, ZERO reservation. This kind of reservation is sorely lacking in casual sex.

"I never depreciate the carnal nature - just [want] an atomic bomb to harness [its] energy.

"When the carnal, the heart, the mind, and the spirit converge, you're close to heaven, that's real erotic. The carnal alone is just not cutting it...."

What do you think?