davidthompson

Now Wash Your Hands

It’s with an almost nascent nostalgia that I recall the coining of the Gen Z “sexual recession”: a patronising concern that our youngest generation would be rendered psychosexually stunted, unable or unwilling to fornicate due to over-exposure to smartphones, social media and porn.

Yes, it’s the Guardian, where almost nascent nostalgia is a thing that exists.

Ciara Gaffney, a resident of Los Angeles and a “brand strategist,” is very excited – all but rendered incoherent – by a “cybersexual revolution” that, during the pandemic, is apparently occurring.

Flinging the Gregorian calendar into irrelevance, humanity will be bisected into pre-Covid-19 and post-Covid-19, and although many will ruminate on how we have changed, one thing is indisputable: the rose-coloured epoch before the coronavirus bitterly shamed the sending of nudes.

There’s more of that, a lot, in fact. You’d better used to it.

They were perceived as gauche, even pathetic. In the lockdown era, however, thirst traps and nudes are not only making a glorious, unrepentant comeback, but are now a form of emboldened agency in Gen Z’s blossoming sexual liberation.

For affirmation, Ms Gaffney links to Buzzfeed, where we’re told of an unattached lady named Alicia who sent nude photos to a female friend because she “wanted some validation.” Said friend was expected to “say nice things” and, as Alicia puts it, “hype me up.” Neurotic neediness, it turns out, is the new empowerment. What’s more, the coronavirus lockdown is “galvanising” this new “sexual revolution,” in which seemingly unhappy people share photos of their genitals, often far and wide, in the hope of being validated. It’s all terribly exciting, and radical, and brings our narrator to a state of agitation:

I Was Reminded Of Rice Krispies

In Snow, the artist creates an abstraction of a dreamlike physical and sensual act. We hear and see sugary snow falling and popping on female genitals.

Behold ye. We’re also assured that the artist in question, Ms Aasa Ersmark, will explode our tiny heathen minds with her “intriguing duality” and references to pornography, thereby bringing us within sniffing distance of “female desire, lust, pleasure and climax.”

For those now engorged with artistic appetite, an earlier effort, titled Volcano, can be found here.

A Rustling In The Bushes

Four years ago, when art professor Elizabeth Stephens filmed the documentary Ecosexual Love Story, in which she and her partner licked trees, 

I could just stop there, really.

the term “ecosexuality” was still somewhat unknown.

If, by some chance, the term is unfamiliar, 

Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens… authors of The Explorer’s Guide to Planet Orgasm… describe being ecosexual as this: “You don’t look at the Earth as your mother, you look at it as your lover.”

And so, inevitably,

We shamelessly hug trees, massage the earth with our feet, and talk erotically to plants.

Interest in this form of auto-erotic activism - a sort of frottage al fresco - has apparently been spreading:

The concept was recently featured in Teen Vogue, for example, which told its young readers about a concept called grassilingus, which was accompanied by a description of a musician laying face-down in grass and licking it. “Whether it’s masturbating with water pressure, using eco-friendly lubricant, or literally having sex with a tree — a person of any sexual proclivity who finds eroticism in nature, or believes that making environmentalism sexy will slow the planet’s destruction, can be ecosexual,” the magazine explained.

Readers are invited to ponder the question of consent, and whether the ladies are in fact advocating tree molestation.  

Those whose appetite has been whetted will be thrilled to hear that the trailer for the aforementioned documentary can be viewed here. For the delicate among us, I should point out that said trailer does feature scenes of suggestive rock rubbing, references to coal mining as “a protracted form of genocide,” and free-swinging breasts being daubed with mud. A second, more recent film, on the delights of “ecosexual” weddings, complete with displays of hardcore Gaia-loving, can be savoured here. 

Insufficiently Swiped

Meanwhile, in the chronically fretful, joy-sapping world of Everyday Feminism, where absolutely everything is politicised, and where politicised invariably means oppressive, Caleb Luna ponders the gay hook-up app Grindr, and why he – sorry, they - attracts so little interest: 

As a fat person, I have rarely received any messages on Grindr, and people frequently don’t respond to my messages.

Conceivably, some users may be familiar with Mr Luna’s written output and its wearying effect. I’m guessing that declaring oneself a they, and a writer for Everyday Feminism, isn’t widely regarded as a potent aphrodisiac.

The only times I’ve been approached on Grindr have been by people who come to the app knowing they’re attracted to my body type. This gives me reason to believe that the same is true for other Grindr users. Most Grindr users have a predetermined body type they are attracted to – a thin one.

In much the same way that pornography featuring fat ‘non-binary’ models remains a niche interest. A shocking revelation. Less shocking, however, is that the option of weight loss isn’t explored, at all. Instead, it seems, we should all “interrogate” and “expand” our desires via immersion in intersectional dogma:

You can start by diversifying the range of bodies you allow into your pool of sexual possibilities.

Thus empowered, we will overcome our “phobias,” which is to say our preferences, and consequently start lusting after “alternative bodies.” Specifically, bodies like Mr Luna’s. However, in the meantime, things are looking grim:  

So, while Grindr is discussed as a place where anyone who might be considered a man can find men to have sex with, who are (mostly) looking to have sex with men, this isn’t how my experience has played out.

It’s a sad tale, yes, and about to get sadder.

And while there is certainly nothing stopping me from staying on Grindr, when I get no conversation or dates, it ultimately only takes up space on my phone.

You’ll find tissues at the bar.

That space is better used for pictures of people who actually do love and want me,

Wait for it.

Fingering Profundity

Because I know you hunger for a feminist poetry slam, here’s Anna Binkovitz sharing her inner being: 

“When the tree of me falls in orgasm, it does not matter if there is no one else there to hear it, I make a goddamn sound.”