What is "Adult Content"? Hell, I don't even know anymore.

Please avert your eyes.

The first time I went into a gym locker room when I was a kid, I was completely wigged out that grown-ups were walking around naked. Not because adults were naked--I had seen plenty of that--but because it seemed so arbitrary. Naked in locker room = a-ok. Naked in KMart = alert the police. How could rules be so iron-clad in one place, then completely disregarded in another?

It was a dual morality that seemed a bit pointless. Why were we pretending to be shocked by nudity, when it was obvious from the locker room experience that we could all handle it just fine? Yes, I get that the gender-segregation made it "different," but I think that's crap. If some chick was walking around naked in the Winn-Dixie, we would need to giggle and/or pretend to be scandalized.

I think the same phenomenon is happening right now with sex--this sort of weird combo of pretending, denial, and reacting like we think we're supposed to react.

We are all here via fucking--someone did IT with someone else. Our ancestors made love, they had tepid sex because the ovulation thermometer said it was time, they co-mingled souls and saw God, they slam-fucked on a dirty old couch in the dorm. Everyone* came from someone coming. To ignore that and pretend that sex is still some sort of unspeakable thing that adults cannot even discuss without everyone needing to giggle and/or be scandalized is ridiculous. Ridiculous! And yet it's STILL happening all the time. I don't mind the giggling part, sex is funny, but the scandalized bit, I am just so...done with that.

To wit: Trisha Borowicz has made a smart, funny, amazing film about female pleasure called Science, Sex and the Ladies. It's educational and cheeky. She's been shopping it around to festivals but reports they flat out won't run it because it's "too explicit." "Even festivals that are known for taking risks," she reported via email, though I've added in my head that she was also shaking her head in disbelief.

The film is sort of "explicit," in that it shows stuff like photographs of an aroused clitoris vs. unaroused clitoris, but it's not porn. It's about biology and the history of how society views women's sexual pleasure and how women can best have an orgasm. It's for learnin'. And besides, even if it was porn, these are film festivals, for fuck's sake. When the hell did film festivals get all uptight?

I honestly don't know what's acceptable anymore. Every night on TV there are shows about grisly sexual/violent crimes, but this month Facebook made me take down a photo of a vaguely naked woman. Everyone's mom has read Fifty Shades of Grey, and there were articles in major publications about it, but Google has docked me for my supposed "pornographic content." My friggin' Sunday paper supplement has coupons for vibrators and lubes, but my blog provider (Google, again) has threatened to take down all Blogger blogs with ads for "adult products." Seriously? The dorky newspaper coupon section is more progressive than these supposedly modern, forward-thinking tech companies?

Do we really not get the difference between supposedly offensive content and regular adults just trying to figure out how to have proper sex? Why do we have such a nonsensical patchwork of rules that apply here, but not there? For this body part but not that one?

So, yes, this was supposed to be about Science, Sex and the Ladies, but kind of digressed into ranting. Fear not, next post I will tell you how you can see the movie, for free. People, especially women, need to know how their bodies work. Why is that even controversial? It's madness!

Anyway, tomorrow we talk about the movie and female pleasure.

Til then.
xoxo
jill

*Test-tube babies: even you came from some jizz.