I had an early lunch with my Russian buddy, Val, yesterday before heading down to San Diego, and we had an interesting conversation about Amazon's banning of my books. Normally I don't relate my chatting with friends on this blog, but this one...this one helped me see something I hadn't really consciously considered, before.
A little background -- Val's VERY straight. When we first met, he was bedding 3-4 different women a week, and I could see why: dark, sensuous good-looks; sexy accent; total focus on the girl when he's with her (I actually watched him pick a cute one up in a cantina on 3rd Street, once; did that make me his wing man?). He's now approaching 40, divorced once and "born again" (but I don't hold that against him; it gives him stability), and he's aiming to be a rock star instead of an actor. He's also wildly misinformed.
Most of his misinformation about politics and conspiracies comes from manipulative scum like Tom Liekas (sp?), Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck with a healthy sprinkling of various right-wing freaks. This part makes me uneasy because their ranting is usually aimed at liberals like myself, but when I point that out, he assures me they don't mean me; they just mean the people who are misusing the system. Doesn't make sense...and yet, it does. The old "I can't be racist because some of my best friends are black" line of bullshit to mitigate the hatred they spread.
But that's not what snuck into me. It's while we were talking about "How To Rape A Straight Guy" being banned thanks to that "reporter" for Fox in Seattle. I mentioned it seemed more like she thought it was a book about women raping men, because she hadn't done any research into it, and he said a woman cannot rape a man. Which is nonsense. It's rare but it can and has happened. And I'm not talking statutory rape, where an older woman has sex with an adolescent boy, but an adult male like Val being forced to have sex with an adult female. He says flat out, it's not possible, and I could not show him that it was.
That made me realize, most straight men have no idea how their body works. They think in order for them to have an erection, their mind needs to be telling their dick they want one, and that's not true. It's more difficult to get one if they're freaked out or disconnected, but it can still happen...because an erection is a physical response, not an emotional or mental one, and can be brought about even in the face of pure terror. I read articles about fighter pilots in WW2 thinking they were going to die in a dogfight and finding themselves with raging hard-ons during the battle; a couple even mentioning that once they'd seen they'd won, they'd ejaculated and they never felt that high, again.
I sort of reference this in "Bobby Carapisi", where both Eric and Bobby are screwed up, emotionally, after their assaults because they both "got off" on it, which in their minds meant they liked it. But I don't think I brought it out, well enough, that this is somewhat normal (even considering the circumstances). And it would be even more likely if the assailant was a woman going after a heterosexual man, because there's already a physical interest in getting laid, there.
Hmm...does that make sense?
I guess I'm rambling on about this because this chat with Val finally showed me most men think they control their dicks, but they don't. Nor do their dicks really have complete control them (as many Dworkin devotees seem to believe). It's the one part of the body that has a head of its own (pun intended), and I think I could have made it clearer that it can't be programmed like the rest of the body can. If it's gay, you can force it to lie to itself for a while, but eventually it'll rebel...and suddenly you're a right-wing GOP homophobe caught in an airport bathroom with a semi-cute blond cop, because nothing else will make that head happy.
Hmm...I think I just convinced myself a dick DOES have more control over its man than I think. So how can I use that for one of my stories?
A little background -- Val's VERY straight. When we first met, he was bedding 3-4 different women a week, and I could see why: dark, sensuous good-looks; sexy accent; total focus on the girl when he's with her (I actually watched him pick a cute one up in a cantina on 3rd Street, once; did that make me his wing man?). He's now approaching 40, divorced once and "born again" (but I don't hold that against him; it gives him stability), and he's aiming to be a rock star instead of an actor. He's also wildly misinformed.
Most of his misinformation about politics and conspiracies comes from manipulative scum like Tom Liekas (sp?), Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck with a healthy sprinkling of various right-wing freaks. This part makes me uneasy because their ranting is usually aimed at liberals like myself, but when I point that out, he assures me they don't mean me; they just mean the people who are misusing the system. Doesn't make sense...and yet, it does. The old "I can't be racist because some of my best friends are black" line of bullshit to mitigate the hatred they spread.
But that's not what snuck into me. It's while we were talking about "How To Rape A Straight Guy" being banned thanks to that "reporter" for Fox in Seattle. I mentioned it seemed more like she thought it was a book about women raping men, because she hadn't done any research into it, and he said a woman cannot rape a man. Which is nonsense. It's rare but it can and has happened. And I'm not talking statutory rape, where an older woman has sex with an adolescent boy, but an adult male like Val being forced to have sex with an adult female. He says flat out, it's not possible, and I could not show him that it was.
That made me realize, most straight men have no idea how their body works. They think in order for them to have an erection, their mind needs to be telling their dick they want one, and that's not true. It's more difficult to get one if they're freaked out or disconnected, but it can still happen...because an erection is a physical response, not an emotional or mental one, and can be brought about even in the face of pure terror. I read articles about fighter pilots in WW2 thinking they were going to die in a dogfight and finding themselves with raging hard-ons during the battle; a couple even mentioning that once they'd seen they'd won, they'd ejaculated and they never felt that high, again.
I sort of reference this in "Bobby Carapisi", where both Eric and Bobby are screwed up, emotionally, after their assaults because they both "got off" on it, which in their minds meant they liked it. But I don't think I brought it out, well enough, that this is somewhat normal (even considering the circumstances). And it would be even more likely if the assailant was a woman going after a heterosexual man, because there's already a physical interest in getting laid, there.
Hmm...does that make sense?
I guess I'm rambling on about this because this chat with Val finally showed me most men think they control their dicks, but they don't. Nor do their dicks really have complete control them (as many Dworkin devotees seem to believe). It's the one part of the body that has a head of its own (pun intended), and I think I could have made it clearer that it can't be programmed like the rest of the body can. If it's gay, you can force it to lie to itself for a while, but eventually it'll rebel...and suddenly you're a right-wing GOP homophobe caught in an airport bathroom with a semi-cute blond cop, because nothing else will make that head happy.
Hmm...I think I just convinced myself a dick DOES have more control over its man than I think. So how can I use that for one of my stories?
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