Full Exposure: Opening Up to Sexual Creativity and Erotic Expression (13 page)

(I don’t mean to give the impression that every sex party is nirvana. I can’t even claim that I’ve had the best sex of my life at an orgy; I’ve been to some real duds, where groups of stickin-the-muds stood around empty beds discussing their corns and their tax exemp-tions.)

I’ve had some of my best “consciousness” experiences at play parties, because I was so aware of how shocking it was—the classic “delightfully shocking”—to have friendship and sexuality and col-laboration outside the rules of paired and possessive living. I like any group that calls for a reassessment of my assumptions.

It’s hard for me to restrain my boosterism about sexual experimentation, whether it’s having sex with more than one person or writing an erotic fantasy down, or making love to yourself outside. Really, the actions are subordinate to the idea that sex can be different from what you’ve been raised to believe. It can be self-knowledge—inspir-ing, communicative, metaphysical—instead of

just the old in-and-out, the pink-and-blue uniforms, dutiful or dirty. It annoys me to be labeled an acolyte or a minister of sexual excess. Sexual creativity is not a religion; it neither gives you a seat next to serenity nor drives you away. Unbridled eroticism will not solve your problems, not because sex isn’t healing, but because there are no magic bullets. Sex is more like the magic question—the question you want to spend a lifetime answering. I never feel like shaking a finger: “It would be good for you if you did this…. You would be a better person if only…” That kind of instruction makes me cringe.

Plenty of know-nothings out there have colorful sex lives, if one is simply counting orgasms, locations, or outfits.

But the notion that sexual power is intelligence, that sexual respect should be a part of any decent philosophy, that erotic tolerance is a sign of civilization rather than decadence—that is the higher ground. There’s a reason that the community spirit of sexual liberation has always been communalistic and communistic. It’s one thing to maintain an isolated conceit about your own little kink, but when groups of like-minded “deviants” come together to talk, they find that their philosophical discussions lead them to ethical issues about consent, integrity, fairness. Sexual freedom movements have never been led by bigots or hawks or isolationists.

Why, then, are there groups of gay Republicans and libertine fiscal conservatives? Because, honestly, those people’s identities have been formed in discussing sexual civil rights rather than sexual liberation. If they talked more about their sexuality, they might have a harder time placing their first priority on the economic bottom line. Like spirituality, sexual transformation raises issues of empathy, compassion,

and humility, and these undermine the notion that survival demands a me-first credo.

Believing in the beneficial power of sexual imagination is not bowing down to a new god, giving up your feeble protests to Satan and his contemporary cousin, nihilism. It’s not a credentials race or a contest. I once asked God to save me and the Devil to leave me alone; of course their responses were rather spotty. That taught me more about the futility of begging than about the evidence of spirit. But I never thought sex was a deity, so I searched only for knowledge—looking and touching and thinking it over. That search requires neither faith nor favors, and I’ve never come away empty.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
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LOSING IT ALL

Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.

Mark Twain

O
ne evening a couple of years ago, I was sitting in a small-town police station three thousand miles from home, waiting in limbo after they cleared the college auditorium where I was supposed to speak. There had been a bomb threat—directed at me. This was a small girls’ school in western Massachusetts, where the campus looked like a turn-of-the-century set of dollhouses. With the stars out on a quiet night, and snowflakes falling, I felt like I was inside a little snow globe. Why would anyone want to blow up this delicate toy? One moment I was ready to climb up onto the stage; the next, I was escorted back down by two firefighters who told me we had to evacuate. “Why, where’s the fire?” I asked, and they looked surprised, as if I was oblivious to the smoke curling out from under my shoes. “It’s you!” one said, leading me to an

equally bewildered police sergeant, who explained that someone had phoned the university and said that a bomb would go off if I were allowed to speak.

My speech was worth a death threat? My sexual point of view was that dangerous? I didn’t feel like a leader; I felt sick, sorry for myself. I thought, “If I never see my daughter again, will it have been worth it just so that I got one last chance to tell some snooty coeds where their clitoris is?” The more I thought about my family, the more I cried. I didn’t care if the whole town remained frigid, ignorant, and divided. Let them eat their dogma soup and choke on it without my assistance. I couldn’t believe I was risking my neck where pagans fear to tread, in witch-burning country. I felt like a fool, not a revolutionary.

All my life I’ve seen people who lost what they held dear because they made the “mistake” of going public—going public, that is, with something about their sexuality that made people consider them unfit: unfit for office, unfit for duty, unfit for family. It’s a peculiar word,
unfit.
You are not fitting in, you have busted all the buttons and ripped out the seams. You must be removed from all the others who are fitting in. It’s as if you have no island to go to except one with similarly unfit lepers. Even if you wear your scarlet letter for all to see, it’s not punishment enough to people who are embarrassed and threatened by you; they simply do not want to see you again. You have fallen, and everyone hopes that you are so far beneath them now that the subject will never come up again.

What can I say? I know what beads I rub to inspire myself, I know what the brave public relations line is. I know that I’m supposed to tell you about the rewards of honesty and the heroism of sticking your neck out—that this is what makes leaders instead of sheep. But when leaders are left feeling bitter or,

worse yet, rubbed out altogether, is it worth it? Maybe the sheep are counting their blessings.

Coming out, only to be attacked, is not always intentional. There are so many unlikely and unwilling martyrs who hide from exposure, who want their secrets protected—the opposite of the willing virgin sacrifice. I don’t think most people plan to march and die on the cross—they are simply themselves, and that’s enough to get them into trouble.

I read a newspaper story about the funeral of young Matthew Shepard, who was murdered in Wyoming by a couple of other young men who found his sexuality a sufficient incitement to beat him to death. At the funeral, yet another young man arrived to picket the burial scene, holding a sign that said, “Go back in your damn closet!” What an ignorant message! Practically everyone does hide in the rear already; most of us choose to stay where we feel comfortable and wanted. Who wants to be criticized and stoned for their most intimate nature? Certainly not the young man who died. He was free to be himself only when he was among like-minded comrades. A lot of my own willingness to be confrontational comes from the experience of suffering humiliation and discrimination when I wasn’t even trying to be noticed, when I was doing my best to fit in. I feel a lot more powerful when I’m the one who initiates the exposure.

It’s being caught by surprise that leaves me feeling defenseless.

Why would anyone want to blow me up over a message about sex? I’ve had guns held to my face and my stomach by maniacs who were outraged about trade union activities; I’ve been stalked by people who, in the name of “Protecting Our Heritage,” called me “nigger lover” and left dead rats with their business cards in my bed and at my door. I was frightened terribly by that

hatefulness, but in a strange way, I felt prepared for it. I had learned enough of the history of America’s racism and labor-management relations to know that both are violent national traditions. But
sex!
There isn’t even a word for the act of hating people because they believe in sexual expression. I’d love to use
sexism,
but it’s already taken. Why would anyone want to bomb a rally because they resented sexuality? At the police station I felt lonely and wordless, as if I didn’t even have an adequate cause.

I told the police captain, “I’m no Martin Luther King, Jr.” This fellow was so clean-cut. His hair was shiny black with brilliantine; he had hair on his knuckles and bright-colored pins on his breast pocket. He gave me a look that told me that a comparison with Dr. King had never crossed his mind. I was sitting down, hugging some student’s ski jacket over my semi-see-through dress, my tight and festive performing outfit that now was only making me sweat. This officer was unfamiliar with anything having to do with my contro-versy, and it was embarrassing to answer his questions about the possible identity of this mad bomber.

“Did it sound like a young woman?” I asked, and his eyes brightened.

Aha! “Do you know her then?” he asked. All this would make a lot more sense if it was a family or lovers’ quarrel.

“No, but I’m guessing she’s a student or alumna from here, probably from the women’s studies department.” How could I tell this guy what this was all about? I don’t think he’d ever attended an elite school like this or lived in a dollhouse. Nobody who goes to these schools becomes a cop. I saw that he wore a wedding band. “I write and talk a lot about women’s sexuality. I think that’s what

this person is upset about. Some women think that if we are

more open about sex, then men will take advantage of us. They think I’m the female Pied Piper of Pornography.”

He sized up my explanation. “You’re like Dr. Ruth or Gloria Steinem or something,” he said. I felt like replying, “No, actually, it’s their little protégés that are wishing me dead.” But why pout and be sectarian? He was putting it together—one symbol of sexual communication and another icon of women’s liberation. Uppity times two.

Freedom for sex and for women—twin ideas that all my life I’ve thought were worth fighting for. I’ve always found it righteously easy to agitate for something bigger than our daily bread, something that was worth making a sacrifice for—a connection and transformation bigger than any property, any money, any status. I guess a more conventional patriot would’ve promoted “public service” or “sacrificing for one’s country.” I’m not so thrilled with the status quo of my country, so my speeches are a little short on apple pie. But I share the sentiments of any activist who feels that the big picture is what is not only compelling, but necessary. I don’t preach the erotic gospel because I’m looking for a hot date.

Then along came my daughter. Families can really kick the shit out of your revolutionary promises. Part of me has resented it, re-belled against it, disinherited it; and yet when I started my own new link, my own child, I felt a protectiveness and cautiousness that I couldn’t have dreamed of before. In my dreams I’ve never refused a risk. Now I have a waking life where I put the brakes on all the time. I used to look at the strangers’ faces in a crowd and see the future; now I see the same thing when I look into my daughter’s eyes, and I find myself tethered to that vision, her belief in me.

What I realized is that I don’t take the risks I do because I’m so noble about my cause, or because my banner of social justice

and freedom of expression carries me bodily from issue to issue. No, it’s less about revolution in my lifetime and more about revolution in a minute. I get excited and angry and outraged about things—and I just have to say my piece. It’s not about saving the world as much as it is about saving my mind. I could shut up, cross my legs, and count my pennies, but I’d be insane before the week was out. I’m not changing the world every minute, but I am protecting my intelligence. I’m not refuting my education. It’s just that I’m not getting a lobotomy. I have to use my creativity and outspoken-ness because it’s my way of coping and living and mothering, and of fighting with every daily contradiction. My family is part of this, not separate.

I waited in the police station reading
Boys’ Life
for about another hour. Then the same officer came back to me with an offer. “We haven’t found anything ourselves in the auditorium, but without a bomb squad search, we can’t guarantee your safety in there. The college has offered you the chapel, if you want to speak there instead, or else we should cancel and send everyone home now.”

A chapel? He pointed out the station’s front window, and I could see it, glowing gold and pink from inside, the prettiest charm in the snow globe. There was a big group waiting outside the station, and I wanted to be with them.

“If it isn’t a hoax,” he said, “they still would have a hell of a time changing their plans now on the spur of the moment.”

I wonder if that was true, or if he just wanted to see me speak himself, from a sermon mount no less. “Let’s do it,” I said. “I’ve al-ways wanted to talk about sex from an altar.”

My bomber didn’t make a second appearance or a phone call. I was on fire at the pulpit, I was hugged in the pews, and I called home the moment it was over to tell my family, “I love you, I love you, this is so insane….”

Why did that young woman who called hate me so much and hide from me? I guessed that she was probably in her late teens, that I was old enough to be her mother. I flashed on one of those tabloid TV programs where a group of indignant young women came on to complain that their moms were all acting like middleaged sluts. Is this all about feminine envy and competition, after all?.

Women have such a tortured way of showing their displeasure with one another—and it starts so young. My daughter came home from school in tears one day because she got mad at another girl, and her teachers told her that it was wrong to be mad and threatened to expose her anger to me. The type of behavior that they are disciplining in her, as well as in the other girls, shows me that there is, in fact, no way whatsoever that a girl under their watch is allowed to be angry. She can’t speak it, she can’t write it down in her journal, she can’t defend herself. Her “crimes” on these rare occasions are so mild, in terms of their effect, that it’s ludicrous. The boys who are her peers would never be punished for such actions. The girls are coached to sit on it, to apologize when they’re not really sorry at all. Instead, the girls, in response, cry and cry and cry; they keep saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I feel such bile in my stomach because I know those are tears of anger, the apologies of the oppressed. If they can’t express their anger directly, they will soon learn the more “feminine” methods of behind-the-scenes manipulation.