WORD

[highlyeccentric]

I couldn't write about sex at all until after my mother died. Growing up in the 1970s, the official parental line was that nice girls didn't, you know, do it, let alone write about it - although it was a different story for my brothers. Double standards were the order of the day.

Which meant, in effect, that I was barred from writing fiction. In order to create fully rounded human beings, and describe their relationships with each other, I would have to tackle the subject of sex - along with intimacy, misguided love, death, resentment, friendship, the passion of women for their babies, the problems of marriage and finding the right person, and all the rest of the complicated, messy stuff that humans do. When a parent dies, there is grief, of course, but there is also liberation. You must grow up, and one of the grown-up things I wanted to do was write novels.

Josa Young talks about writing about sex

I like THIS BIT:

One major aspect of sexuality that is much ignored in the modern novel is not doing it. And virginity is another theme of One Apple Tasted - where you hang on to it for so long that it becomes hideously significant and hard to shed. In a time when we are meant to have sex all day, every day, drawing on tips from magazines and newspapers to "spice things up in the bedroom", virginity, chastity and celibacy seem thoroughly controversial life choices. But they are part of people's sexual experience, and just as valid as the more exotic perversions that get a regular airing in the tabloids.

Comments

Hey this is off topic

[bindmetoyou.livejournal.com]

But I really like that picture. Kaylee is my favorite Character from firefly ^_^

[anachronisma.livejournal.com]

The last quote, I find especially true, especially this line: virginity, chastity and celibacy seem thoroughly controversial life choices.

This is so true, and I feel like if we were truly "liberated" to experience sex on our own terms, choosing not to experience sex would be as legitimate a choice as choosing it.

[tea-fiend.livejournal.com]

Don't really know what to say in response to this, except that it really would make my life easier if celibacy were seen as equally legitimate. And said magazines and newspapers with their handy tips for spicing up one's life don't half make those of us who are celibate by choice feel abnormal.

[ahsavka.livejournal.com]

I liked the article better than just seeing the snip -- warning bells go off whenever someone well-meaningly suggests that, o, if only we could go back to the days when virginity and celibacy had the respect they deserve. We've had a few thousand years of that, I think it's okay if we're excited that girls can finally have sex on their own terms (not that we are all so lucky, this is still a reason to kill your sister elsecountry).

Maybe I just don't read enough rubbish magazines, or live in a conservative place, but I still see virginity (for girls; boys can do whatever) as being a big deal, as "free" as we supposedly are. Maybe it's a rural/religious US thing, but saving oneself for marriage is still the default spoken ideal, out here.

... but the article as a whole seems to be saying that we're losing the important didn't-have-sex moments of intimacy in media, and trying to cut out emotion's role/effect in these things, which strikes me as both true and unfortunate (and so means I'm in agreement w/ article).

(awfully rambly, sorry; not feeling so good.)

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's a rural/religious US thing, but saving oneself for marriage is still the default spoken ideal, out here.

Went to a conservative Christian school, so I know exactly what you're talking about, which is one of the reasons I get excited when someone who's *not* a religious ideologue speaks up in favour of celibacy as a valid option. I don't think we can say we can "have sex on our own terms" if it's not considered acceptable/normal/valid/whatever to opt for terms of celibacy, temporarily or permanently.

[ahsavka.livejournal.com]

if it's not considered acceptable/normal/valid/whatever to opt for terms of celibacy, temporarily or permanently

This is the crux of it: I think I must just be lucky, I've never seen this amongst even the most hurrah-sex people I've met. Not saying it isn't there, I'm sure it is -- I've just been lucky in my company, I think.

Also, I don't read 'rubbish girl magazines' at all, even for kicks, so I think that helps. None of the media I consume attempts to offer me sex tips, thank goodness.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

I've never felt myself to be subject to great discrimination for it or anything - but then, I'm pretty robust in my self-esteem, it takes a fair bit to knock me out of my choices. But you get a lot of incredulous questions, barrages of them all at once, some of them pretty invasive and most of them patronising.

Thing is, until I was twenty, I had *no real interest in sex*. I couldn't really see the appeal. So I was a slow bloomer. So what? It shouldn't be the case that the only place where you're not going to get knocked about with questions all the time is in church. I want a society where you *can* be a slow bloomer. Where, fine, if you don't think sex is worth your time, you can do something else; and if suddenly it IS worth your time, you won't lose friends, support networks, whatever, when you decide to engage in it.