No sex for me

THE FEMALE EUNUCH & THE CONCEPT OF VIRGINITY

“Women have somehow been separated from their libido, from their faculty of desire, from their sexuality. They’ve become suspicious about it. Like beasts, for example, who are castrated in farming in order to serve their master’s ulterior motives – to be fattened or made docile – women have been cut off from their capacity for action. It’s a process that sacrifices vigor for delicacy, and one that’s got to be changed.” Germaine Greer- “The Female Eunuch,” (1970)

The poster is right. By not having been laid in 17 years she has indeed become a virgin again. Of course, previous to that while she was sexually active, she was not a virgin. But the physical presence of the hymen – something she will never get back – is not the distinguishing factor of the concept of virginity. Rather, the distinguishing factor is the cultural role virginity plays in society and, by extension, the personal role virginity plays in the mind of the contemporary female.

“Virginity,” let us speak plainly, is a patriarchcal concept for the very simple reason that such virginity has value in the patriarchy, the society dominated by the male (and what society isn’t?). The delicate, docile virginal bride is “given away” by her father, the male, to another male, the husband for whom she must promise to love, honour and obey. Yes, she must obey.

But even before marriage virginity has its own value, a sort of note of credit for future payment in return for services to be rendered. Think of the virginal Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by the bearded, ugly and, worst of all, the horny members of Boko Haram? We know what’s going to happen, don’t we. In fact it already has begun to happen, providing us all with delicious fantasies of forced virginal intercourse. Would their plight be even remotely as touching if they had previously lost their hymens? You must be joking.

But Germaine is hunting bigger game, not in Nigeria but here at home. The female eunuch in contemporary, Western society is alive and well. She has become suspicious, as Germaine points out, of her own body. She views her body from the detached perspective of a second party, someone other than herself. She has become estranged from her libido, from her own sexuality which she views anthropologically, much as one might view the sexuality of a primate in the jungle or perhaps some remote prehistoric female forerunner. In so doing, she has lost the capacity for autonomous action, for independent thought. She has become trivialized.

“The ignorance and isolation of most women,” Germaine points out, “means that they are incapable of making conversation: most of their communication with their spouses is a continuation of the power struggle. The result is that when wives come along to dinner parties they pervert civilized conversation about real issues into personal quarrels. The number of hostesses who wish they did not have to invite wives is legion.” Hmm… the perversion of civilized conversation about real issues into personal quarrels. Does the name of any particular social site come to mind? But we must press on.

Germaine offers a solution for the contemporary female eunuch. What the alienated modern women must do is “accept their own bodies, taste their own menstrual blood, and give up celibacy and monogamy.” In the same way, what the poster must do is to stop fretting about her retrieved virginity, engage in multiple and serial acts of orgasmic intercourse, and get that goblet down out of the china cabinet.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

You must not be disturbed by that lonely breeze blowing. At the earliest opportunity you must seek out an empty bench in the park, sit down and eat your sandwiches. Chew slowly. Try to avoid an open mouth and those glazed, unseeing eyes so typical of the park-bench sandwich-eater.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!