by Linda Jaivin
But back to basics: what do we mean by ‘making love’ anyway? In your classic romantic novel, the hero is incessantly ‘making love’ to his heroine, but he usually doesn't even get to touch her until they're married. In Biblical times, ‘to know’ could also mean ‘to love’. It's not much more straightforward today. Are sessions of lovemaking measured by the male orgasm? The female? What if there are three people involved—does that count as one and a half? What if no one comes, but everyone has a good time? Can oral sex alone be considered ‘making love’, or must there be penetration? Do gays and straights have to use different systems of computation? And what about people who like being lashed to the bedposts and tickled with a basting brush all night long?
Finally, how much is enough? When I was recently, er, occupied for most of a weekend, my friend Dino, sick of not being able to get hold of me, left the following message on my answering machine: ‘Linda! Can't you give it a break? Everything gets boring after a while. Besides, I'm worried that you're going to hurt yourself.’ And I don't think we'd even come close to twenty-one.
Love Sex, Love Love
I was asked to be on a panel at a Brisbane Writers' Festival that was called ‘Women Love Sex’. I got quite a shock. Women love sex?! Can't be true, I said to myself.
I know that, personally, when I have to have sex, I just lie back and think of England, which in turn makes me think of, oh, those spunky boys in Oasis and Mick Jagger's lips and Fergie's toe-sucking and Prince Charles wanting to be Camilla's tampon and, I dunno, corgis with their tongues out and dollops and dollops of fresh cream and Buckingham Palace guards in their cute red uniforms and Cabinet ministers with pantyhose on their heads and Fanny Hill and Lady Chatterley's Lover and the size of Billy Bragg's nose…
Sorry. Where was I? Oh yes, the title of the panel. Women. Love. Sex. A holy trinity. The ultimate triangle. The most natural ménage à trois in the world. Or is it? Why is there still, in the nineties, enough of a frisson about the whole enterprise that the very words ‘Women Love Sex’ are still titillating enough to draw a crowd? I mean, the place was packed.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I know why I was there. I was there because I've got a reputation. Just because I've written a novel, Eat Me, in which a woman manages to insert into herself nearly everything she finds in a supermarket fruit and veg section, including the store detective's face, and another likes being tied and teased by her lesbian lover, and another dials up an escort agency to order a black American sailor boy, and another has a fantasy involving twenty-four samurai and an awful lot of raw fish, people assume I'm one of those women who love sex.
I'd like to set the record straight. I am one of those women who love sex. This is something that women are still not supposed to admit in polite society, but I don't see much of that at literary festivals, or, for that matter, in my normal life either.
One thing that puzzles those of us in impolite society is how sex ever came to be mixed up with issues of morality and virtue. Whatever happened to Me Tarzan, You Jane? Looking back at some of the lustier poems from China's ancient Book of Odes, a number of which take a woman's voice, and the erotic verses of Greece and Rome, it would seem that there was a time when the admission that women love sex would merely prompt a shrug. ‘Of course they do, mate,’ you can hear the pre-Confucian Chinese gentleman saying. ‘What d'ya reckon?’
But a funny thing happened on the way to the Australian Women's Forum. Someone ate a lemon, pursed their lips and declared a new world order.
The American stage actress Cornelia Otis Skinner put it succinctly when she said, ‘Women's virtue is man's greatest invention.’ Thinking about that line, it occurred to me that woman's lack of virtue is another of man's greatest inventions—the guy who first came up with the story of Adam and Eve has a lot to answer for. The original sin, in my view, was the invention of original sin itself.
The two concepts, the alleged virtue of women and their lack thereof are intimately related. Ever since Eve copped the rap for getting her and Addie thrown out of Paradise, women have been forced to protest,‘I'm not Eve! I'm not Eve! I'm a good girl.’ The ladies doth protest too much, methinks. Give me Mae West any day. She's no lady, and I much prefer her attitude: ‘A hard man is good to find.’ ‘I was Snow White…but I drifted.’
Personally, I reject the notion that sex—having it, offering it, enjoying it—has any more to do with virtue or sin than any other human activity. To my mind, sexual morality is no different from morality generally. It's wrong, for instance, to hurt another person—unless, of course, they've leapt onto a rack, slipped on some manacles and are begging for a touch of the lash. Similarly, you don't take what's not given to you, and never ever involve children, small animals, terrorist organisations or extremely sharp objects. Other than those sort of basic rules, as far as I'm concerned, you can stick your tongue (or anything else) pretty much anywhere you want.
Even if the great mainstream, or silent majority or whoever it is the self-appointed guardians of family values claim to speak for, holds otherwise, there have always been people who've questioned the shotgun marriage of sex to morality. Voltaire wrote in his Notebooks that ‘it is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.’
The social difficulty attached to women taking a similar stance—and by social difficulties I include such quaint traditional customs as burning at the stake in Western countries and being stoned to death in Islamic ones as well as just having to endure a degree of opprobrium—has led to the awkward situation in which women traditionally have had to bear the burden of romantic love. It is, quite frankly, the only way that we've been able to get sex without being labelled a slut.
I'm not putting down romantic love. I love love as much as the next girl, especially when I'm getting heaps. But the fact of the matter is, some women love sex more than they love love, some love love more than they love sex, some love them both at once, some keep 'em separated, some love one on Monday and the other on Tuesday, and then there are women who would rather stay at home any day and read a book instead—which is the sort of woman we writers love best, of course.
As a writer wanting to write about women and love and sex, there are a number of traditions to which one can look for inspiration, or, conversely, to borrow a Chinese phrase, a ‘negative teaching example’. On one end of the literary spectrum is the classic romance. Love ostensibly drives the car of romance, which I imagine to be one of those Joan Collinsy stretch limos or possibly just a comfortable family station wagon to accommodate all the usual baggage of happily ever after. I say ‘ostensibly’, because while Love may be in the driver's seat, the car of romance will always be equipped like one of those driver-training vehicles with a second steering wheel and brakes, equipped with override. Bourgeois Morality is always sitting there keeping a stern eye on the speed and direction. The ride is bound to be a bit bumpy. There will be unexpected detours. The odd pedestrian may get bumped off along the way. But Morality will ensure that in the end, Love pulls up safely at the family home.
Then there's erotica. In erotic writing, Sex is always at the wheel. The vehicle's a Harley or Lamborghini or mad old Valiant or convertible Triumph—something fast and dangerous, or quirky and wild, the sort of wheels where Sex can feel the wind in her hair. If Bourgeois Morality manages to climb on board, Sex may press the ejector-seat button. She may pretend to listen to his instructions while doing the opposite, or she might just tie him up, gag him and torment him for the rest of the ride. She doesn't mind the company of Love, and usually welcomes it when it's there, but she's not too fussed when Love's not around, either. Sex rarely knows or cares about her final destination, she's an absolute terror in traffic and the idea of a head-on collision and twelve-car pile-up doesn't worry her at all—in fact she rather gets off on the idea. Sex is a bad girl. And as far as erotica is concerned, bad can be very good indeed.
When I say Sex is bad, I don't mean bad sex. I mean bad sex.
Naughty sex. Not evil sex, though I acknowledge that there is a fine line that runs between those. I am fascinated by such stories as ‘The Hungarian Adventurer’ by Anais Nin, in which acts that would be absolutely reprehensible in real life, not to mention fully criminal, are almost unbearably erotic on the page. In Nin's tale, a Hungarian nobleman meets a family with two little girls, ten and twelve. They all stay in the same hotel. The girls jump playfully on his bed one morning and he gets them to play a little game in which they tumble over the bed chasing and rubbing against what they think is his finger under the blanket. It is a joyful if unspeakable little romp, disturbing and exciting all at once. It is not, despite its subject matter, at all a brutal tale, which is another reason I like it.
Personally, I am repelled by erotica that relies for its kicks on depictions of cruelty and violence. I realise it's terribly unfashionable to say so, but I don't find the Marquis de Sade or George Bataille to be the slightest bit erotic.
The sexuality that I try to depict in my work is lusty and positive. It's also a bit quirky and usually funny as well. It doesn't work for everyone. An English reviewer said of Eat Me, ‘Jaivin's main problem is that successful porn is inherently nasty.’ So, I have trouble getting in touch with my dark side. I can't do nasty. Playful, yes. Kinky, occasionally. Naughty, often. Nasty, no. Now maybe if I'd been brought up in England…
Cute
A well-known woman journalist once cornered me at a party to say she thought my writing would be much improved if I would only ‘just stop trying to be cute’. That was devastating. I didn't think I was trying to be cute. I thought I was cute. Reassuringly, the two boys I was with each took one of my arms, saying,‘Don't stop being cute, Linda. We think you're cute and we like cute.’
Soon after that incident, I spotted a teaser on the front page of the Australian saying that Kate Legge had written a column on ‘Being cute’. I was thrilled to the quick. I eagerly searched it out, hoping for pointers. Boy, was I disappointed! Ms Legge was not into being cute at all. Not only that, but she seriously advised the rest of us against it as well, in matters of appearance anyway.
Her argument was not in fact against cuteness per se but rather the way women (and especially teenage girls) have bought wholesale into the image of beauty pushed by the fashion and cosmetics industries. I'm with her there. I'd certainly be the last person to defend anorexia. And the very thought of bulimia makes me want to throw up. On the other hand, I don't see anything wrong with buying into the beauty thing in a discriminating, self-aware, retail sort of way.
Besides, in the nineties you can be a feminist and wax your legs, can't you? I mean, I am and I sometimes do. I think most of my women friends, intelligent, independent and able as they are, still find the idea of a luscious new frock or sharp new haircut or excellent shade of lipstick positively—dare I use the word— empowering. Dressing up, making up, pumping up and (if not carried to fanatical extremes) slimming down with the goal of feeling good about your appearance can, in fact, do just that: make you feel good about your appearance and kickstart your self-esteem. What's wrong with that?
I can almost hear the brickbats whizzing by my ears. At this point, I'd better point out that I'm not by any means urging women to follow blindly, in the shape of their bodies, or the clothes with which they cover them, the Look du Jour, whatever it is, especially if it's based on stick insects like Kate Moss. And like large noses, thin lips or breasts that are smaller or larger than average, fat is beautiful if you believe it is.
But I've got nothing against the fashion and cosmetics industries, except when they test their products on warm and furry little animals. Tools of manipulation? Only if we let them manipulate us. I'd rather manipulate them. Wear what you want, when you want, in whatever combinations you want. Take what they offer but don't do as they say. Consumer culture can be fun!
Whatever your shape or size, there's a tremendous amount of joy that may be had in inventing a look for yourself. One twenty-two-year-old friend of mine makes clothes out of velvet and lace and looks like she's stepped straight from Victorian England. Another scours shops for such prizes as satin dressing-gowns which she then wears to parties. Personally, there are few things that cheer me up as quickly as a new pair of plastic earrings or a lime-green hair extension.
The pleasure principle cuts across gender lines. Many of my male friends like dressing up as much as my women friends. One or two wear eyeliner, quite a few have decorated their bodies with tattoos and piercings, a number cherish fabulous T-shirt collections. Call me shallow, but I like a man who spends a bit of time in front of the mirror. I nearly swooned when one fellow showed up for a date wearing black navy boots, dark grey jeans, a necklace of red beads and bare arms under a smashingly tailored pinstripe suit jacket and vest.
Of course, you can't talk to even the most exquisite set of beads all evening. If he had just been a bimboy I wouldn't have made the date in the first place. I hope it's obvious that I don't advocate striving for babedom as the be-all and end-all of human existence. Intelligence, capability, creativity, wit and kindness are more important than appearance any day, every day. I don't give a fig leaf whether my friends are into clothing, or what sort of clothing they're into. It's just that there's no automatic contradiction between style and substance. And it's OK for a feminist (female or male) to want to have a good hair day.
I say, let's get in touch with our inner fashion victim and let her (or him) out of the closet once and for all. My friend Huang, a high-powered businesswoman, agrees. ‘I like being a fashion victim,’ she says, spreading her arms and turning around to show me her new linen frock. She says she feels like Jackie O in it, by which I think she means fabulously stylish, not dead. Pass the lippy.
Vrrrooom Vrrrooom
Naomi Wolf once surveyed the op-ed pages of newspapers, discovered there were far more men than women writing for them, and asked, ‘Are opinions male?’
You bet they are, Naomi. Opinions are the red Ferraris and 22-gauge shotguns of the intellectual world: you rev 'em up, race 'em around and fire 'em off. The more they stick out, the more you win.
An opinion isn't a touchy, feely, caring, sharing, SNAG-y sort of thing. It doesn't seek consensus or harmony. It would rather go tumbling outdoors with a snarl on its face, and its fists raised, ready to take on all comers. Real opinions don't eat quiche, they throw it in your face.
The op-ed page, which is one of the places where opinions live, is obviously no place for girls—of either gender. And let's face it, given the way we're socialised, more women than men are bound to grow up to be girls.
Naomi Wolf admits even she finds it hard to express strong, critical opinions in public. But surely there are plenty of feisty chicks out there with opinions that are as big and strong and pulsating as any man's. Writers such as Camille Paglia, Julie Burchill and Emma Tom show that opinionated women can be twice as flamboyant and fun to read as your average male pundit—and we generally look better in the little photographs they like to print at the top of the column. So why are there so few of us out there?
Here's one theory: the mainstream media is a boys' club. I spoke to a senior journalist (who did not wish to be named) who described how, as a cadet, she was subjected to crude sexual innuendo and harassment by her senior male colleagues. She says her female peers generally got fewer shots at hot jobs such as foreign postings than the men and almost always ended up with smaller offices and lower pay than blokes with comparable experience.
Given the myriad ways in which the self-esteem of women journalists may be undermined, she says, ‘there's a lot of catchup football—to use the kind of male sporting term that's really common in editorial conferences—to be played before women can develop the confidence to promote themselves as great opinion givers.’
Ironically, it seems that interlopers such as myself, freelancers with no organic connection to any media institutions, may find it easier than insiders like her to get access to the prestige pages of newspapers
and magazines. The boys' club appears happier admitting women as guests than as members.
It's bad. But is it a conspiracy? Frankly, I doubt if men are either that clever or that organised.
Gender boundaries in mainstream journalism are becoming more blurry all the time, of course, and thank God for that. Personally, I'd hate to have to write about traditionally female areas of interest like childcare. My only opinion on that subject is that children should probably get some. I wouldn't know one end of a nappy from the other. (Do nappies have ‘ends’?) On the other hand, I'd be happy to take on any man on the subject of Chinese politics. Wanna drag?
I reckon we've come a long way from the days when Jane Austen wryly observed:‘A woman, especially if she has the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.’
If the mainstream media still don't feel comfortable with us flashing our knowledge all over the place, women have a long tradition of creating alternative media—from such journals as eighteenth-century London's the Female Tatler, with its spicy social commentary, to cyberspatial forums like Geekgirl. There's also what Wolf labels ‘the journalistic harem of women's magazines’. Personally, I'm a fan of photocopied zines like Spammy, in which sixteen-year-old Sunny gives us her sometimes hilarious, always captivating take on teen angst, and the sadly defunct Jellybean Ranch in which a couple of Bondi women chronicled everything from how they accidentally shredded a rental video of The Player to the state of the loos at Sydney rock and rave venues.
But the flourishing of alternative women's media doesn't really answer the question of how women can make themselves heard in the mainstream press. Quotas don't seem to me to be an intelligent solution. The argument against quotas was beautifully summed up by a black physician in the United States. He said that because some blacks with sub-standard qualifications were being admitted to medical schools to meet quotas, patients, on seeing he was black, would then demand a ‘real doctor’. The best you can say about quotas is that they mean well: the worst is that they serve to reinforce all the usual prejudices.