Reply #99: In a perfect world, (here in the west)

[Cerridwen]

sex would not have a stigma attached to it.

Were that the case, then yes, by all means let's discuss what causes sexual excitement in an individual. Let's discover the different forms of excitement and categorize those which are sexual and those which are induced by violence. The commonalities between and the differences of. What does sex look like when it's not commodified, stigmatized and brutalized?

In my previous post, I started to post about the notion that "fear is excitement without the breath." Two distinct emotions with similar physiological responses. Few, I think, confuse one with the other. Yet we frequently confuse emotions induced by a brutal act with emotions induced by sex.

In a perfect world, perhaps we could discover the different forms of "sexual" excitement. In the meantime...sex is taboo unless selling something or for procreation, except for "studly" men and never for women and lets not even talk about same sex or racially "mixed." I'm not sure I, or anyone actually, can define "healthy" sex or "healthy" sexual arousal.

Until the time we have valid information we gets to work with whats we got. And what we got is a society in which women who are raped are frequently stigmatized, demonized and vilified. And what about men who are raped? We haven't even begun to deal with that; perhaps because that might start to show that rape is a violent crime, used by men (most rapists are male) as a means to humiliate, control, punish, destroy, dishonor and/or demoralize a person or persons. Think of the use of rape to dishonor families and demoralize the enemy during wartime.

I wish I had an answer. I wish we lived in a "perfect" world. I wish sex and sexuality were honored or sacred or healthy or good.

I wish.

edit: forgot spellcheck