The Primacy of Pleasure
I confess. I am a happy well-adjusted heterosexual man, a cishet man if you will, but I also have also developed a strong weakness and attraction to women that like to wear and use strap-on devices. And praise be freedom; I also live in a country where I am free to explore that revelation or epiphany without fear, without anxiety, without shame, without question. Well…it brought up all kinds of questions of course. That’s what this essay is about. But none of these questions, or their perceived answers, have ever confused my own identity, or my resolve to enjoy the idea or the image of a woman with a penis.
But let’s begin with the freedom part, to enjoy whatever sexual preference you may have regardless of whatever anyone says. Way back In 1967, in Canada, in defending an omnibus bill in our Parliament, which included the decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada, one of our wiser Canadian Prime Ministers, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, answered a challenge to this provision by saying; “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation”. Yep. Canada. This statement was in reference to gay rights but ultimately it provided a legal groundwork and precedent for the de-criminalization of other behaviors, in private, by all gender identities. Unless you were causing physical harm to someone that could be prosecuted under the criminal code, what you did in your bedroom between consenting adults was you own business.
Fig1. Woman with Strap-On
Fig. 2 Woman with Strap-On by TSR (The Smutty Rogue)
It can get complicated from there of course. The state is the law but can the liberty it provides protect you from forces that attempt to invade your bedroom or even your headspace when the questions are in the hands of morality groups, social groups or religious communities? This includes ideas like community standards, and religious rights. It also includes the high-anxiety politics that aim to defend or speak on behalf of victimized sexual identities beyond gay rights.
Community standards, a catch-all phrase to disguise imposed restrictions, and this is where I might get into trouble includes the tribal politics of social groups that pose as protectors of collective group rights. Tell yourself nobody elected them and regain your freedom to think what you want and behave like you want. They all, in some way, contribute to create anxieties regarding your behavior. Can pleasure exist without rules? Can we truly liberate ourselves to enjoy our sexual preferences?
Yet I can’t think of or find wiser words anywhere. No one should have anything to say about what you consider pleasure so long as you don’t cause harm and it’s between consenting adults. This applies to what you think, what turns you on, the art you make. Additionally, those same freedoms extend to much of pornography as much as art whether the state or any other group likes it or not. The rest is politics and politics like the state should stay out of your play room. I think or hope we might have consensus on that.
So having considered all that, I dampened the noise, and opened the door wide open on my new source of sexual pleasure and went looking for all its permutations, dealing with all the politics as I went along, defending myself like George against the dragon, with nothing but my right to my pleasure as I saw it.
Fig.3 Dominatrix with Strap-On
Fig.4 Model with Strap-on
A Quick Overview of Historical Hermaphroditism
Fig 5. Hermaphrodite, Stuttgart Museum
Imagining a woman with the equipment of a man is nothing new. Let’s start with the notion of classical hermaphroditism. It’s as old as history itself . In ancient Greek mythology, Hermaphrodus was the child of Aphrodite and Hermes, hence where we get the more modern name Hermaphrodite. Hermaphrodus was a beautiful boy with whom a water nymph prayed to be united. In answer to her prayer, another god merged their two forms into one and transformed him into a being of two sexes, both male and female. This concept of double sex is also attributed to Dionysus and Priapus, with the union in one being containing the two principles of fertility and conception.
In the 18th century, especially in botanical or zoological use, the term evolved to describe mostly plants or animals in which the co-existence of male and female organs was not an aberration but a natural state, as in the case of some flowering plants and certain varieties of molluscs and worms. When applied to human beings, the word implied an unnatural malformation. It was also commonly used to describe effeminate men or women with masculine traits. 19th-century medical men were fascinated by individuals whose bodies displayed the characteristics of both sexes. It was a scientific century of course and Darwinian discourse on biology integrated human biology as well.
But the idea of Hermaphrodite survived the scientific looking class and remained a subject of sexual fascination.
Sleeping Hermaphroditus or Sleeping Hermaphrodite of around 1620, sometimes referred to as "The Borghese Hermaphrodite" is good example of ancient Roman marble sculpture depicting Hermaphrodite. It rests on a marble mattress added by Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the Baroque sculptor who also gave us the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa. The form is derived from ancient portrayals of Venus and other female nudes
The sculpture was discovered in Rome in 1618 and became part of the Borghese Family Collection. It was sold to France at the end of the 18th century and is currently on display at The Louvre museum, in Paris.
Fig, 6 Marble Hermaphrodites, Louvre Museum
Fig. 7 Strap-On Sex
The above is just a fraction of a much longer publication. Become a Premium member now and check out the extended edition including more about hermaphroditism in a complicated modern culture, the theory of “Penis Envy”, the anxiety-riddled idea of trans-women and trans-men, the pretty trans-woman, more women with penises (like the Japanese futunari), strap-on femdom: a pegging pleasure, politics versus pleasure, and MUCH more...!!
Click HERE for an extensive publication about George Grosz's aroused threesomes, reclining lesbians, and playful hermaphrodites
Let us know your thoughts about this topic in the comment box below...!!
