[lit-ideas] Re: Not Imagining Sex, or The Whipple Spot
- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:15:00 -0230
This past summer term, in my Philosophy course for pre-service
Primary/Elementary students (undergrad teacher candidates), one of the groups
did a presentation examining issues surrounding the teaching of sexual
education in the public schools of a pluralist democracy. During the
post-presentation discussion period, "Tom" proclaimed that the religious right
was directly responsible for his somewhat less than awesome adolescent sexual
life. He lamented the fact that he didn't really find out how to do it, and
what to do when you're doing it, until the age of 24. He attributed his
ignorance directly to negligence on the part of the schools in not fulfilling
their responsibity to inform students of the pleasures of sexual experience.
Julie, from across the room, asked: "What's 'it'?"
To which Tom replied: "Wha'?".
Julie: "What's 'it'? You're talking about 'doing IT', and I don't know what you
mean."
The look on Tom's face was a study in sheer bafflement. He looked for support to
the other guys to his left, but managed to secure not even an encouraging look.
(Saturday night dates were hanging in the balance, of course.) Clearly we had a
case of duelling langugae-games here. Tom was going through the Twilight Zone,
big-time. He thought he had taken the bus on the street across his house to his
usual destination. Little did he know that he was now deposited on a completely
unknown street, and maybe a planet different from his own.
Which brings me to the question of the necessary and sufficient conditions of
"it." What is "sex" anyway? How do we know when we're engaged in "it"? Is that
an important question? Why didn't Julie know what Tom was saying? I'll divulge
further details of the post-presentation discussion only after some weigh-ins
on this metaphysical conundrum.
Still in vacation mode, and looking at a 23 degree, sun-splashed day on the
Avalon,
Walter O.
Quoting David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> I have a book to recommend, "Bonk." "Bonking" is English slang for
> having sex. I found said vol. in our library, on the new non-fiction
> shelf. I wondered what the book might be about. Subtitle, "The
> Curious Coupling of Science and Sex." It's a history of scientific
> investigations of sex, written by one Mary Roach, "bestselling author
> of 'Stiff,'" which is about death and corpses.
>
> This woman is funny. She notes that the Center for Sexual Therapy in
> Haifa is located at the Rambam Medical Center. She writes that the G-
> spot was named by Beverly Whipple, who contemplated calling it the
> "Whipple Spot." And she has this to say about Marie Bonaparte's
> husband, Prince George of Greece, "Marie was unaware of her prince's
> proclivities when they married. Her suspicions were roused by the
> drawings of Greek athletes that George hung on his dressing room
> walls and, later, by his decision to serve as the gymnastics examiner
> at the Panhellenic Games."
>
> Not only is she funny, she is sensitive and sensible. "There are
> times when the only way to gain entree into the world of laboratory
> sex is to be the queasy one yourself: to volunteer. These passages
> make up a tiny sliver of the book, but writing them was a challenge.
> All the more so for having dragged my husband into it. My solution
> was to apply the stepdaughter test. I imagined Lily and Phoebe
> reading these passages, and I tried to write in a way that wouldn't
> mortify them. Though I've surely failed that test, I remain hopeful
> that the rest of you won't have reason to cringe."
>
> One example: Marie Bonaparte had a theory that the distance between
> the urethra and the clitoris varies and that there is a relationship
> between the size of this gap and the forms and ease of female
> orgasm. A contemporary study asks participants to make this exact
> measurement, which is difficult for one person to do. "If you try
> this yourself, I recommend doing so when no one is home. Otherwise,
> you will run the risk of someone walking in on you and having to
> witness a scene that includes a mirror, the husband's Stanley
> Powerlock tape measure, and the half-undressed self, squatting. No
> one should have to see that. It's bad enough you just had to read
> it. Also, put the tape measure away when you're done. My husband
> saw it on the bedside table and said, 'What were you measuring?'"
>
> And the tentative conclusion that has resulted from all this
> measuring? "The stereotypical ideal female--Barbie tall with Barbie
> big breasts--is the one least likely to respond to a manly hammering."
>
> Find somewhere quiet, read the book. You may be amused.
>
> BTW. a guy who died in a small town out on the coast, our obits
> column says, was named W.A.Ter Har. He is described as a "Seaside
> businessman." Seaside can be a pretty wet place. His daughters-in-
> law are D'Lorah Ter Har and Paivi Ter Har. His sons, their husbands,
> are plain Peter and Jeff. He was in the Marines, and went by "Bud."
>
> Carry on.
>
> David Ritchie,
> not dead yet, in
> Portland, Oregon
>
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