Q-1. Sadomasochistic sexting.

The dynamics of sadomasochism involves submission that may involve humiliation and pain. Between the participants, one has to take on the role of subjugation and helplessness while the other party gets to enact authoritative, assertive and powerful behaviour. Saying ‘no’ in the discourse does not actually mean ‘stop’, contrary to the expected linguistic semantics. In a sadomasochistic role-play scenario, saying ‘no’ is part of the role of the masochist to display weakness and an indication to the sadist that he (the masochist) is subdued. ‘No’ indicates a form of power at play and that is part of the charm of sadomasochism. In that sense then, a healthy, consensual sadomasochistic relationship should involve a ‘safe word’ that would stand out and be instantly recognisable to signpost to one party’s resistance to a certain act. It should signify a clear, distinct message: ‘stop’ to all the participants involved.

More importantly, in the context of the question, sexting is a form of sexual foreplay. These emojis then would indicate some form of perhaps expectations of both Julie and Mike. With reference to the prose above on what sadomasochism is, I would think that the chain and key emojis indicate essential tools required in performing the sexual act. On the other hand, emjos like the microphone and the pickle are phallic symbols or symbols of insertions or even the microphone as a vibrator. 

Microphone? Or vibrator?

 

Dissecting the other emojis, the hand gestures as well as the facial expressions both play the role of teasing and indicate certain actions that would happen in the sexual act such as:

via GIPHY

The crying emoji would be indicative of helplessness expressed in a sadomasochistic sexual act. Personally, I would interpret the shit emoji as anal sex and the toilet bowl as a potential location for the act to be carried out. The water droplets act as a metaphor for a result of the sexual act and to me is the least likely to be a safe word. The pill could stand for some form of drug that may or may not be used for sexual pleasure, or perhaps birth control. In my opinion then, the exclamation mark is most likely to be their safe word. While exclamation marks are used to signpost danger, this emoji is in white instead of the usual red colour. I would think that it proposes the idea of ‘purity’ or innocence in some form. And since nothing about sadomasochism is particularly innocent, the exclamation point would be their safe word.

 

Reference

Cameron, D., & Kulick, D. (2003). Language and sexuality. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sg/books/about/Language_and_Sexuality.html?id=RmKekTGLbZ0C&redir_esc=y

 

Q-3. Sex-positive. 

To be sex-positive would be to be accepting of others’ sexuality and sexual choices. It is to be progressive and open to realms within heteronormative sexual relations, such as being tolerant to people’s choice of polyamory, multiple sex partners etc. What it is not is name-calling and moral shaming of people who do not have the same practices as you do. 

via GIPHY

Sex-positivity is great. As ‘sex-positive’ feminism, it empowers women to support one another. Instead of name-calling, you are more accepting. But in today’s contemporary identity politics, where people of particular races, identity, gender for example, come together to defend their group’s interests and rights, sex-positivity can become a problem. Most talk about sex-positivity involves a heteronormative sexual relationship, usually a man and a woman. In sex-positivity, the woman or man can have many sexual partners and is acceptable as long as it is safe sex. The problem here is that while identity groups (such as LGBTQ) are fighting for their rights, sex-positivity invalidates them in that heterosexual women have more ‘sexual’ rights than them, and what about asexual women or men? 

Furthermore, identity politics also include the fact that many are trying to come out of the identities assigned to them. While sex-positivity seems to come across as acceptance within their community, it does not in any way help them be recognised as their own identity. All it does is acceptance of their sexual behaviour, not an acceptance of their identity. Identity here is different from sexuality, wherein sex-positive here looks mostly at the act of having sex itself, not identity. 

Sex-positivity, while might be an advantage for hetereosexual relationships, poses problems in contemporary identity politics as mentioned above. More importantly, I feel that the idea of sex-positivity could impede the efforts and movements of the identity groups in a way that people might argue that since homosexual or queer sexual acts are more accepted, there is no need to specifically accept their ‘identities’. There is no need for rights or liberation because we (LGBTQ and heterosexuals) can all enjoy freedom in sexual performance since you know, we are sex-positive. This could possibly halt advances in LGBTQ rights and identity. Is sex-positivity all that positive then? 

 

 

 

Sex or sexual intercourse to be specific, is an essential part of our lifestyles be it simply for pleasure or for the continuation of mankind. What is highly intertwined with sex is the language used to express sexual attraction and desire which are natural processes of any sexual intercourse. For the longest time however, the aspects of sex were considered a taboo as a topic of discussion (Allan and Burridge, 2009). As a result, the language of sexual pleasuring and copulation had to be censored, but because the idea of explicitly talking about sex in the public domain seemed like such a ‘dangerous yet thrilling’ one, it being a taboo has kept language users constantly motivated to find ways to preserve yet violate it. Language users thus have to engage linguistic tools such as metaphors, euphemisms, dysphemisms and other figurative languages to enable them to talk about sex inexplicitly.

To understand how metaphors work in the realm of sex, we first have to understand the fundamental concepts of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). Metaphors being ‘cross-domain mappings in the conceptual system’ (Lakoff, 1994) requires the linking of a domain (that has similar attributes to sex) to sex itself, so it can be mapped in a way that makes sense to its language users. What better way than to use food to construct these sex metaphors? As suggested by Elspeth Probyn (2000), ‘there is doubleness of food and sex’: both utilise our five senses; both arouse and appeal to our pleasure points with the release of the neurotransmitter, Dopamine, which causes desire and craving for repeated cycles of these two exercises; and biologically, both ensure survival — food for the individual and sex for the continuation of mankind. The process of eating food and the process of sexual intercourse itself is so similar that the basic metaphor Sex is Eating was formed. Linguistic metaphors can be branched out to be euphemistic or dysphemistic where the former would result in verbal mitigation whilst the latter is intended to offend. To consider how the two metaphors work, let’s look at some common language in popular culture music that combines both food and sex. Written below is part of the lyrics to a song sung by Ludacris and Trick Daddy.

Gimme some of your butter pecan, put it right here on the tip of my tongue

Butter pecan here is an example of how a metaphor can be euphemistic. It is an alternative to a body part of a female, which provides a socially acceptable way of dealing with the taboo of sex, or sexual foreplay in this case, in a public domain. It does not offend, it tones down the explicit mention of sexual genitalia while still maintaining the desired sexual overtures. Other metaphors like hotdogs for penises and oysters for vaginas are also alternatives that are considered less crude in the discourse of sex in public domains.

Remember, sex is not all just about physical sexual intercourse. A bulk of sex plays on how individuals express their desire and sexual attractions that all lead up to sex itself. Food-for-sex metaphors are thus a means for expressing lust and flirtation without supposedly being too obscene with one’s language. Metaphors do not thus only function as a solution to break free of taboos in public domains, but is an important aspect in sexual private domains. To understand how metaphors and sexual metonymy works, we have to acknowledge that a necessary and important facet of CMT (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) is the interlocutors involved in the sexual exchange. This is because such representation of abstract concepts is a cognitive process that is subject to the individual roles of speaker and recipient. Essentially, the recipient could interpret the metaphor in ways which the speaker might or might not have meant to send across. The process of unravelling meanings of the utterance is important because it largely depends on the beliefs, social and cultural perspectives of the participants involved and their community (Fernández, 2008). In other words, social, cultural, racial norms – just to name a few – in societies influence the understanding and thus construction of food-for-sex metaphors, which ultimately influences the domains of sex listed earlier.

Within sexual intercourse, there exists an order of sexual roles. The use of linguistic metaphors and sexual metonymy of sex and food seem to construe some form of gender order within sex. If anything, speech practices that incorporate high frequencies of exchanges between food and sex not only further reinforces gender order, specifically males being more dominant than females, but also normalises it. It also suggests that in a heteronormative sexual intercourse, males do the ‘chasing’ or in this case, the sexual eating. Consider the following metaphors, meat house and meat market which stands for brothel and (female) beauty pageants. The use of the word meat to represent women demonstrates several ideas in a typical heterosexual sexual dynamic: (1) women represented as animals, (2) women as meals and resources for men (Liechty, 2005) and (3) men doing the sexual ‘eating’ while women are to be ‘eaten’. It is no wonder people say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

Sexual desire, otherwise known as sexual appetite shows a linguistic connection between food and sex. The metaphor ‘feast their eyes on’ is an example of the attitude of food eaters towards food, and thus sex participants towards sex. As mentioned earlier, women are represented as animals and meals, therefore sexual appetite can be understood as the desire for women. The connection and concurrence between sexual appetite and a hunger for food is seen most clearly from the myriad of Women as Dessert metaphors such as tasty pie, peachy tart or shortcake. The problem with these metaphors as Hines (1999) suggests is that these form of expressions of sexual desire reduces women to the status of objects. What is even more astounding is how aspects of language like adjectives can extend the degree of the women-as-food sex metaphors further projects women as objects of lust. A woman is not just an object but a sweet or peachy object; a women is not just a dessert, but come in pieces or slices as in ‘piece of pie’. The latter can be interpreted as a dysphemism: women as pieces suggest that like pies that have been cut into pieces, they can be distributed and shared. It is inherently derogatory because it can be interpreted as women being easy or promiscuous. In fact, the term tart which used to stand for an attractive woman, has had its meaning eroded over the years to now represent a prostitute (Hines, 1999).

Other than reinforcing gender roles and hierarchy in sexual intercourse, in the most fundamental aspect of sex — attraction, metaphors and metonymies function as language tools to indicate sexual preference (euphemism) or to discriminate (dysphemism). Like how an individual has preferences for the type of food he or she enjoys, one is free to have preferences in their sexual intercourse. Let’s look at the food-for-sex metaphor pudding. A pudding is often described as a dessert that is springy and soft, and therefore acts as a metaphor for a fat lady. 

Pudding GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

 

On the other hand, pie or tart would portray a different visual element of tautness and attractiveness, thus describe a slimmer and more attractive lady. Food-for-sex metaphors like these can be either euphemistic or dysphemistic. The former would be as a means for one to be more polite when indicating sexual preference, while the latter would simply be to discriminate. Going back to the conceptual metaphor theory, this form of discrimination could indicate some form of ethnic, racial, cultural or societal stereotype. Food-for-sex metaphors in this aspect are not bound to only male usage, but also used by females as reinforced in Western culture from (metaphorical) images insinuating the fellatio of sausages and asparagus to comparison of breasts with fruits (as seen from the images below).

Breasts as Fruits

 

Most research have only touched on the dynamics of language, food and sex in relation to a typical heterosexual relationship. What about the relationship of language, food and sex in homosexual sexual intercourse? Similar to same-gender sex, food-for-sex metaphors are used in homosexual sex discourse to break free of the taboo of sex, but more importantly also function to rewrite the traditional heteronormative sex experience (Lawrence, 2014). Having discussed how meat as a conceptual metaphor is used to reiterate masculinity and sexual roles in hetereosexual sex, lesbian sexual discourse in particular shys away from the concept of meat-eating and instead turns to the use of fruits and vegetables (Lindenmeyer, 2006). However when necessary, the meat metaphors in the context of lesbian sex intercourse does indicate a hierarchy within which the more masculine female portrays a more dominant role. Studies also show that in homosexual sex discourse, metaphors are freely played on to also indicate preference, such as oreo for interracial male-male sex and fresh meat to illustrate male virgins.

This essay briefly touched on the most fundamental relationship between language, food and sexual relations (intercourse, desire, sexual attraction) whereby the use of metaphors have been met with controversy. While heterosexual food-for-sex metaphors function as appropriate language in public domains, it clearly has wound up in sexual objectification and discrimination of participants involved in sexual exchanges. Homosexual food-for-sex metaphors, some of which can be seen here, are even lesser researched despite the amount of gay literature supposedly released. Censorship of homosexual language of sexual pleasure and copulation shows that this taboo still perhaps requires more linguistic tools and efforts to create more socially acceptable discourse.

 

References

Allan, K., & Burridge, K. (2006). Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=b2rCLYHjDMgC&printsec=frontcover#v=snippet&q=sex taboo&f=false

Fernández, E. C. (2008). Sex-Related Euphemism and Dysphemism: An Analysis in Terms of Conceptual Metaphor. Source: Atlantis, 30(2), 95–110. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezlibproxy1.ntu.edu.sg/stable/pdf/41055329.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Add9f818ce08993c2ebe591f3b7a79b6e

Hines, C. (1999). Rebaking the Pie. In Reinventing Identities: The Gendered Self in Discourse (pp. 145–162). New York: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/ehost/detail?sid=16e4e2c3-956d-4ee3-990e-7569dcc138cc@sessionmgr103&vid=0&format=EB&rid=1#AN=144010&db=nlebk

Lakoff, G. (1993). The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and Thought (2nd ed., pp. 202–251). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139173865

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Retrieved from http://linc.nus.edu.sg/record=b1305034

Lawrence, J. K. (2014). Queer Tastes: An Exploration of Food and Sexuality in Southern Lesbian Literature. University of Arkansas. Retrieved from http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd

Liechty, M. (2005). Carnal Economies: The Commodification of Food and Sex in Kathmandu. CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 20(1), 1–38. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezlibproxy1.ntu.edu.sg/stable/pdf/3651575.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A5fdbc1b63dfca58d4eaef2713dade3fb

Lindenmeyer, A. (2006). “Lesbian Appetites”: Food, Sexuality and Community in Feminist Autobiography. Sexualities, 9(4), 469–485. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460706068045

Probyn, E. (2000). Carnal Appetites. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203361160

“You may not be physically stronger, but you can show strength with your words.”

In the article written by Nicole Kelner, she talked about her rape experience and the importance of saying no. We have learnt in class the importance of consensual sex and the discursive construction of consent. We learnt that in opposite-sex assaults, in particular male-on-female rapes, it is insufficient to reject sexual advances or assaults with only body language, but one must explicitly say ‘no’.

Kelner made an interesting point in her article: not only does saying no matter, the words you use to say ‘no’ matters even more. Instead of only saying ‘no’ (which did not stop her assailant) or ‘I do not want to have sex’, she thought she should have explicitly said that he was raping her. And if he had continued, she should have said with more affirmation that she will report him to the police for rapeWhy is saying ‘no’ not enough to stop a rape from occurring? The word ‘no’ itself poses a conundrum. It is (in some men’s heads) translated to: saying no is a facade, internally she is screaming yes. She is just acting coy, ‘playing hard to get’, or arguably trying to come across as innocent and not wanting to seem like a nymphomaniac. ‘No’ to many still means ‘yes’ and thus consent. The problem with rape and consent discourse is that it rarely ever is the assailant who has to ask for permission – the assailant is given the power to discern from the victim’s words, facial and body language whether it is consent or not. Even if the assailant assumed wrongly, the blame is in most cases still put upon the victim for using the wrong choices of words or for giving mixed signals.

Out of curiosity, I searched intensely on how most victims said no to sexual advances, both verbally and non-verbally and unsurprisingly, female victims use more non-verbal cues. In particular, I was interested in same-sex assaults. What happens during same-sex assaults? Why is rejection not enough to stop same-sex rapes from occurring too?

Some argue that it is because men are expected to have an insatiable sex appetite, and therefore always welcome sex. But is that the case for male-on-male rape? Male victims still say no and fight back physically, yet they are often mistaken by their assailants that they are enjoying it because of their erections (Fuchs, 2004). Uncontrollable bodily reactions speak more to the attacker than actual rejection, does it really work if sex education teaches you to say no anyway?

Female-on-female rape cases are even more puzzling. Women do not react physically (in terms of orgasms) like men do. Yet 44% of lesbians and 61% of bisexual women have been raped, compared to 35% of heterosexual women. The fact remains that saying no does not work. The fact remains that saying yes to mean consent and saying no to mean rape is all but an ideology. Like the author said, saying ‘no’ is just insufficient.

Sex education teaches us to say no. Parents remind us to say no. People on the net tell others to just say no firmly. But rapists, in heterosexual and homosexual assaults, simply do not relate ‘no’ to rape. When constant ‘no’s do not work, exactly what words spoken can stop a rape from happening?

What is the point of saying no when it does not work? There has been few studies about opposite-sex assaults and the discursive construction of consent, much less on same-sex sexual assaults. What should one say to protect themselves from rape? Since there is grammar and syntax for one to learn what sexual arousal looks and sounds like (Beres et al., 2004)… perhaps, as ridiculous as it sounds, one day there will be grammar and syntax other than saying ‘no’ to protect one from rape.

 

 

References

Beres, M. A., Herold, E., & Maitland, S. B. (2004). Sexual Consent Behaviors in Same-Sex Relationships. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 33(5), 475–486. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:ASEB.0000037428.41757.10

Fuchs, S. F. (2004). Male Sexual Assault: Issues of Arousal and Consent. Cleveland State Law Review, 51(1), 93–122. https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.2007.54.1.23.

A relationship between two males, one that is intimate and and emotionally intense. It is one that has no boundaries like sharing secrets and doing everything together. It is pretty much like the friendship between two girl besties except you know, bromance involves two males. It is tight-knit, bitchy and gossipy to a certain extent, but comfortable and loving.

https://az616578.vo.msecnd.net/files/2016/08/19/636071722810220719149965069_16-signs-that-youre-in-a-bromance.jpg