24. That Is Insulting and Unacceptable

Hello and welcome, I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. A podcast meant for sharing thoughts, stories, enjoying idiomatic phrases and words in general. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, share it, but more importantly, continue the conversation. I want to give a special thanks to Chuy Darío, my very talented sound partner. If you hear a difference in the recording, it is because of him. Thank you Chuy. Today, That Is Insulting and Unacceptable.   Where have all the cowboys gone? I’m asking for a friend. Actually, for Paula Cole. She was preoccupied with this matter in 1997. This song super sparks my imagination. Because I like cowboys, I like the bravado associated to them, a probable requirement when duking it out with the elements. I was listening to a conference on the concept of pleasure and how the Don Juan character is a female fantasy that implies there is wholeness of being and seduction. A whole man, meaning, nothing is lacking,  yet this character is the great seducer. The thing is, seduction occurs when there is need and desire. He or she who is whole, if wholeness existed, would not feel the need to seduce. That sounds like a catch 22.   I’ve had countless conversations about the end of seduction, in both senses of the word: as objective and termination. There is a position that women coming into their own, being economically productive, creative in their own right, leaves no space for seduction. Even the position that women have no real sexual need for men is put on the table, and taken off the menu. I mean heterosexual women. That is not necessarily a bad thing. I hear men vociferate: —that is why men, [with the ever so repeated phrase] not me of course, I  mean other men, prefer more traditional women because they need men.    Let’s think about that for a moment, shall we? No person is an island. That has been established, we are social beings, no matter what animal you identify with. We need each other. The point, I think, and please, do correct me if I am wrong. The point is that in creating spaces for equal development, socially, economically, artistically, as we change the footing we all stand on, the reality posed by those changes, begs us to redefine such beloved concepts as seduction. Being asked and sometimes told to check your preconceptions at the door can be harsh. That is growth and evolution. Considering different realities and ways of doing things cannot be bad, on its face. Especially if it is in favor of any human being working towards who they want to be.  I’ve reflected on the idea of the need to possess. The fundamental notion that we are not objects to each other, open to be possessed and colonized can be daunting, as the milieu or environment we have been socialized in would have us believe the endgame is being someone’s husband or wife. Signing a contract stipulating this and power over the other’s sexuality, address, and finances. Continue reading