In 2006, when the brilliant Tina Fey was anchoring Weekend Update, she described a high school in Ohio where 64 of the 500 girls enrolled were pregnant in 2004-2005, and in 2006 nine girls showed up pregnant on the first day of school. She suggested that the school teach Fey’s new advice book ‘Your Mouth Can’t Get Pregnant.’ I thought it was funny and clever and just that balance of edgy and common sense that she does so well, sort of sneaking something past the censors in broad daylight.
But there was this unsettling little undercurrent, something about it felt wrong, like a ticking doomsday inkling. So that sat for a while but in the past couple of years, the ticking turned into little alarm bells. It took me a while to focus on just why this gnawed at me, and in a nutshell, it is advising women to accept a subservient and distinctly unfeminist stance on not just sexuality, but a guide to what is the socially appropriate and culturally expected way for a girl to be. The blow job is the new currency, and once this new barter system took hold in the 90s, it is now firmly entrenched.
To backtrack a little for you children out there, and I say that in deep love and respect for the voice of Billy Porter, fellatio has made huge headway (1). It is the sexual hallmark of the 21st century, and it just exploded like gangbusters. It is openly hailed in various media, and is as mainstream as hamburgers.
Even in the free-wheeling and sex-saturated 60s, blow jobs were not so common among people under 20. When it did occur, it was usually in a cunnilingus and fellatio situation, or, mutual simultaneous oral sex. Even in group sex, there was always an even give and take. It was all about loving and pleasuring each other, the love you take is equal to the love you make, that was the liberation (2). Women were enlightened to naturally expect their own satisfaction, and really, giving a blow job just doesn’t quite fulfill that.
But then came the worldwide web, and suddenly, everyone could look at any kind of sex, mostly in the form of pornography, anywhere, anytime, without anyone ever knowing about it, and it was free! Well not really, but we’ll be getting to that, and I think you already knew.
There were so many images of women being moved to heights of ecstasy simply by putting their lips on a member, and then convulsed with pleasure when said member touched the back of their throats! What, me gag? (3)
This new delivery system of sex education did a lot to destroy the advances of the Love Generation, and it has accomplished it so quickly and effectively that no one has been able to get a louder voice. It is one of the great disappointments of feminists. Women, particularly young women, teenagers, have been simply reduced to an oral sex delivery system, and yes Tina, they can’t get pregnant, so what’s my problem anyway?
You know the problem. The scales of mutual satisfaction have been mangled. OK, there are exceptions but a blow job is often not a mutually loving interaction, and frequently it is not really consensual if she could be honest. It is what she does because now that’s what he doesn’t just expect it, but demands it. To top this off with a cherry, he doesn’t even need a condom! And she can remain a virgin, Hail Mary!
America has become pornified. It is our new normal, where Presidents pay off porn stars, our biggest self-manufactured celebrities routinely make and post their own sex tapes and the ubiquitous penis graffiti even got its own Netflix series (4). Menswear gets baggier while women dress themselves in shrinkwrap clear vinyl. Popular music routinely celebrates subservient anal sex. And at this moment, the country is talking about just what Michael Jackson did to those little boys, and how he introduced them to porn to normalize it. Pornography, on the whole, is a soul-sucking black abyss, removing affection and respect and normalizing self-gratifying, depersonalizing, commodified sex.
But in this new bleak landscape, there are still some beacons of hope for excellent sexual behavior. The protagonist in Gary Shteyngart’s latest novel, Lake Success, only just wants to go down on the women he meets and likes, nothing else, nothing expected in return, it is just him showing these women that he digs them. He just wants to taste them, gently. He understands the transformative power of women, and is literally on his knees, grateful to them.
The brilliant mind of this author also forecasts the aforementioned fashion trend of transparent clothing in his novel Super Sad True Love Story in the form of ‘onionskin jeans.’ When the cultural landscape appears especially desolate, pick up some Gary Shteyngart (5). His male protagonists really do love women and have a healthy fear of us as well. His books all contain hilariously funny scenes – I haven’t completely lost my sense of humor. So, if you’ve heard a great blow job joke…
I’ll be writing more about the pornification of America and what it is doing to our society, the economy, and the impact on children and seniors. Let’s talk this one out.
Video footnotes!
(1) POSE on FX If you somehow haven’t seen this, it is a gem of historical-cultural education.
(2) The Beatles Abbey Road album, Golden Slumbers/Carry that Weight/The End – Karma!
(3) MAD Magazine mascot Alfred E. Neuman’s slogan was ‘what, me worry?’ Mostly popular in the 60s, the magazine exhorted its target audience of adolescents (mostly boys) to question authority and celebrate dissent. Time for a comeback!
(4) American Vandal on Netflix, the series asks ‘who drew the graffiti?’ Bingeworthy.
(5) Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story (selected best book of the year by more than 40 magazines and journals), Absurdistan (one of ten best books of the year, NY Times and Time magazine), The Russian Debutante’s Handbook (winner of the National Jewish Book Award) and his latest, Lake Success. If you’re fantasizing about having him come to your Book Club, check out Super Sad True Book Club…