Is the media stealing my sex life?

[DeirdreOfTheSorrows]

I've name-changed, because this is about sex and feelings and personal stuff and I'm probably pretty identifiable in my normal guise. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, either - but it's been on my mind for a while and I wonder whether anyone might be able to shed some light on it for me. I wonder whether I ought to have posted it in Feminism, too! But let's see how we go.

For a good few years now I've been feeling that my increasing awareness of of porn culture, and media stories about violence, sexual violence and cruelty of all sorts, are impinging on my ability to feel comfortable and secure in my own sexuality. I've never experienced violence myself, and porn hasn't been an issue in any of my relationships, so it's not a flashback type of situation - simply that my associations with sex are increasingly becoming mixed up with nasty and upsetting stories and ideas rather than my own (probably rather tame) experience.

Just as background, I wouldn't ever have thought of myself as a competitive sadder - I think I've got a pretty realistic idea about the way in which certain stories gain currency and play out in the media, and I think I can distinguish between empathy for a tragic or terrible situation and getting caught up in an emotional binge.

But for some reason I'm really struggling to maintain a sense of my own sexual self in the face of story after story of sexual violence or exploitation or coercion. It's as if I can't find the kind of easy lustiness I had when I was younger any more, and my brain can't switch off from stories about other people's dreadful experiences, or my political feelings about pornification, or MN threads in which people have shared how sex was used as a weapon against them, even though I'm in a relationship where sex should be perfectly safe and equal and unproblematic.

I really don't know what to do about this. One can't just stop knowing these things, and withdrawing from engaging with them would seem to be a dreadful cop-out. But how do I find a way to regain some innocence and spontaneity about my own sex life, rather than letting it be overshadowed by things which should be a political, rather than an emotional, part of my life?

No, me either!

I agree lost but at least it challenges the idea that looks are everything that is so prevalent in most media.

Atouchofinsanity, I don't think it helps. It isn't saying "if you'd rather play the clarinet than get your hair highlighted, please yourself". It's saying, "Guess what, ladies, playing the clarinet is sexy too, so even if you're a dog you're still a potential sex toy, hurray."

Actually I think being beautiful (on your own terms) is potentially more dignified than being sexy. I feel like there was a time when some women ("gels") were beautiful and expected to marry well, and others weren't, and sighed, and learnt to teach or nurse and be jolly decent people. That was hardly a great status quo and feminists rightly tried to break out of these repressive straight jackets. But I am not sure that the current status quo where everyone is potentially "good enough" to be considered a fuck puppet (or rubbish enough), and everything that goes along with that, all the duties to do the self maintenance to make sure that any access to your vagina is nice and clear with no momentarily distracting pubes for instance, - I mean really is it any better?

sorry this has all been done, this was a much more interesting thread at the beginning and now I am just doing common or garden moans, but, well, I was reading this excellent book about fashion 1940 - 1970 which really reminded me of my very elegant grandma and there was a joy in those clothes and an ease and grace in wearing them, it really felt like a time when women were literally busting out of corsets and playing golf and tennis and going to meetings and jumping on and off buses, and I could really relate to my grandmother's love of style reading this book, it felt so happy and such a fun thing to be well dressed, compared to now where I never lift a fashion magazine because it will depress me and look sad and torturous and hatey. And, to get back to what this thread was once about, I feel that in a parallel way to my lost joy in sex, I have a lost joy in fashion and style. I think there is nothing wrong with dressing up and being gorgeous, nothing at all, but there is a compulsion now towards a certain sort of generic cheezy revealing grooming which has no dignity and no fun either. I am crying now remembering how I used to feel when I was a teenager and I used to save up for a new dress and put it on and feel like a million dollars, it was such fun to dress up and be a cool, grown up, stylish, self determined person. now it's a chore to find things that I can stand to wear

Bump, just because this piece in Mariella Frostrup's column reminded me of the thread.

Am feeling very head-in-the-sand about it all, but she's right, stronger voices need to be heard.

Glad you bumped :) This is an interesting thread; I hadn't seen it before. I plan to catch up on it.