the golden rule is the biggest cock-blocker in history! i don't mean that it's not a good idea to consider how your behavior effects others or how it would feel if you were in the other person's place. it's just that jesus' new rule--"do unto others"--just doesn't work the same way in the bedroom. what i want to do unto others is not what i want done unto me. and that is perfectly okay. it doesn't mean that i have something wrong with me psychologically or ethically. it simply means that the choices i make at the smorgasbord of erotic opportunity are not the same choices others make. people are different--thank god. speaking of smorgasbords, some people are so "weird" that they eat big macs! others eat live octopus (now that is disgusting!). my point: if there's something you'd like to do unto another, there's very likely a partner out there for you. the golden rule assumes that everyone is just like little ole' me--and they aren't. it's not just a simple matter of right and wrong.
it took me years to get over the golden rule and its pernicious sexual-fun-destroying proclivity. from the time i was twelve, i wanted to be mounting the hottest boys in my class, and i didn't really want them after my ass. (reciprocity has never really been my thing!) the thought of fucking another guy was unthinkable, though, and not simply because i was in the closet. it was unthinkable because i couldn't imagine anyone actually wanting to get fucked. it took me years of sexual experience to really come to understand that there really are guys who just want to be penetrated. some love it! and there are even those who want to be taken and dominated, tied up, pissed on (and in), face-fucked and flogged, etc. and make that a big ETC. and there's an erotic logic to most if not all of this.
most of us, however, have internalized the logic of the gold rule, even if we weren't raised in a christian family. it is the death-knell for erotic fun, however. what one needs to consider--whether in the bedroom or fucking your way into the mile-high club--is not what you would want to have done to you, but what the other very real person tied up in front of you or kneeling in front of your raging hard-on or cruising you in chuch would actually like to have done unto him. he's frequently very willing to tell you. and then...mount and penetrate (or whatever you like to do) without guilt, horny reader!
The Golden Rule is a moral rule, not a sexual rule. I do think there is a moral code with respect to being a good sex partner. Obviously we should all pay attention to our partners' needs. Honest disclosure of STD status is something that should always be done and should be reciprocal. But as the needs of different partners all differ, you're absolutely right. Reciprocity of specific actions is not necessarily appropriate.
ReplyDeleteCare in the act should be reciprocal. Now this requires a little canniness on the part of the interpreter. What counts as being caring for an S&M bottom may not look like abuse in the realm of the vanilla. Yet friends who are spanking bottoms with romantic relationships of this sort tell me that their tops are actually extremely caring.
But I agree. We don't all need to be "versatile." I do feel that we should all approach sex with passion and enthusiasm, though. If you're not into a given partner, don't hook up with him.