Warning! Not for my Cousins to read!

New Sex on Tuesday Columnist. I never actually read them, especially when they spend a column talking about bias and theory instead of nasty, dirty sexxxxxxxxx talk. I understand Ms. Desmarais' desire to be pushing the boundaries; part of the broad sexually-enlightened coalition that is pushing back the shroud of 'abstinence until death' frightfulness that she seems to feel covers most of America.

Space confines me to brutal oversimplification, but here's the gist. Mainstream society frequently tells us that sexual organs and most forms of sexual expression are dirty, bad and not appropriate topics of polite conversation. This message manifests itself in many ways, from Pat Robertson claiming that homosexuality will unleash the wrath of god in the form of terrorist bombs and natural disasters, to the use of words such as "cock" or "cunt" as insults, or complaining about being deeply "fucked" by your final. This quietly shared belief keeps effective sex-education out of our schools, pushes folk with "untraditional" sexual tastes into fringe groups and makes people ashamed of enjoying the occasional rim-job.

But this is Berkeley. Heck, this is Northern California. Pat Robertson has made few inroads here. Just about every sex act, especially in the Co-ops, is enjoyed all the time and with numerous people. Use of the word 'fuck' isn't used to denigrate the sex act in general, but vague signifier that you'd like to violently assault something or someone, loosely tied to the unpleasantness of the violent sex that 'fucking' implies. Rimjobs are considered dirty because of the association of butt feces with unpleasantness. And the fringe groups are fringe not because people are having sex but want to keep it 'simple.' Berkeley students don't seem to have it easy meeting the opposite sex and having a relationship with them, much less being comfortable enough to suggest a menage-a-trois. Maybe your average Engineer would want to get a Hot Carl. It's unlikely he'll be in a position to ask.

The fact of the matter is that Berkeley is already as sexually liberated as it can be-- intellectually. What's holding us back is biological or emotional. I don't know that a sex column about intellectual and linguistic inhibition can do much about this. Email This Post!