THE ARCANE ARCHIVE
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From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nagasiva)
Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.magick.tantra,alt.sex.wizards
Subject: Dark Sexuality
Date: 20 Nov 1995 14:19:05 -0800
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[reposted from Thelema93-L]

ky951023 [kays dao; return of the Abyss]

|Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 14:45:27 -0400 (EDT)
|From: Marianne Sarkis 

|	I just returned from watching a film called "Dream World II" 

Fascinating.  I just returned from watching 'American Me', which is about
barrios and gang life in East Los Angeles.  Quite a different headspace,
so keep that in mind. ;>  Very few women, but strong roles.


|...an analysis of the portrait of women in music videos, mainly MTV and VH1. 
|The film discussed female sexuality (in the male psyche?) from different 
|perspectives: from innocent school girls that suddenly become extremely 
|sexual to dominatrix, and from victims of some sort of violent acts, to 
|overpowering nyphomaniacs. 

The only way to discuss 'female sexuality' is among lesbians.


|The narrator asked at the beginning of the film the question "Who is 
|[defining] these roles, and thus who is being silenced by this portrayal?" 

There is a presumption here that someone *is* defining the roles.  I'm
not so sure it is that conscious a process.  Media certainly reflects
our sexuality, both of men and women.   People respond to sexually-
oriented advertizements and inspire more.  Kids are captured by tv and
enter into a synergistic relationship with tv values.  'Sexuality' is
now a concept which surpasses 'sex education' and condoms.

*Is* there someone being silenced by the film?  Or do people express
what they wish in ways which are not always heard?  We use our bodies,
our movements, in manners which tell a great deal.


|Also, "who gets to tell the story about sexuality? Whose stories are not 
|getting told?" 

I think that those who do not have a voice in the media are usually those
who are not heard generally: women, children, minorities, animals.  Any
what isn't 'normal', and I don't mean to imply that this is the White
Man's Fault.  The God of Discordians is a Big Black Woman.  This is
quite intentional.


|	These videos, of which 90% were directed by men, women were shown 
|as ready for sex anywhere and with anyone at any time (Whores?), and 
|essentially sex crazed and driven who can't control themselves, ...

Such films titillate while they entertain, shock and amuse.  Is it very
important that the videos were directed by men?  Is it surprising?  Media
is a tool in the hands of men.  Men still control most of the resources
and buying power (though this is slowly changing at least in my culture).
Men are still seen as 'the leaders', 'the rulers', 'the authorities'.
Why wouldn't it be best to place men in the position of editor/director?
That way the target audience will get what it wants.

Media like MTV and VH1 (of which I have seen less and I haven't even seen
MTV in years) have become tools of the corporate establishment.  I saw
that when I was watching it years ago.  Look how the innovations which
permeated MTV have been copied by most major advertizers.  When it was
young (like the Internet is now; it is less controllable) it was filled
with promise.  Then people who were involved with it followed the usual
pattern of everyday living and conservative men gradually stepped in and
its future was dissolved.  


|...The narrator also brought up the issue that this was a fantasy world 
|of how men want to see women, and since the line between reality and 
|imagination is often blurred, women and men try to compete with these 
|images.

Men do the watching.  They are the ones who typically purchase Playboy,
Penthouse, and the various pay-per-view hotsex channels.  The X-rated 
media is almost wholly devoted to exposure of women's bodies to the 
public.  Again, this isn't surprising in the kind of latter-day 
puritanism which reigns in the US at least.   Throttling men over their 
inability to understand and pleasure themselves, we squeeze them between
the hard hands of family and media.  Then we let them exert what power
they *can* -- to work; to buy.


|	The question that I kept asking myself while watching this film 
|was how different was it from what "dark sexuality" is? Who is defining 
|this "darkness"? and what does it mean?

I haven't heard this phrase before, but it sounds familiar.  'Dark
sexuality' speaks to me of the forbidden, the untamed, the taboo.
It may be seen in many horror films, where the 'Evil Scientist'
types usually engage in fetishism (cf 'From Beyond').  Often people
think it involves sadomasochism, role-playing and other sometimes
quite dangerous exploits.  This is, for the sex world, what is in
the psychoactive world a type of 'daring', of 'testing' or 'trial'
in which we temper or challenge mettle, bringing us to maturation.

The dissolution of rural communities into urban centers has left the
men in search of means to designate their coming of age.  Women have
always had menstruation.  The things which are restricted from children
are what define the 'man' now in popular culture.  Ability to intoxicate
oneself, do illegal things without getting caught, procure sexuality,
be insensitive, even cruel to others, these are what is left.  These 
are the natural results of a loss of community rite.

But you wish to talk about women.


|...the definition of dark sexuality (for women) is still blurry, but 
|it is one that is not defined by men. In other words, women will take 
|on that definition as their own way of defining themselves sexually. 
|But, still, what does this mean? 

Independence is, for today's women, what it once was (and indeed still
is) for many men.  Yet it is as much an illusion to those who can be
sensitive to family and biosphere as the fantasy of being Raja, served
by hundreds of slaves, never having to support oneself, etc.  Once
women could dream of being housewives (at least my mother did, until
my parents divorced), but now that security is faded, replaced by a
harsh competition, born out of the anguish of men's careers, who still
cling to their corporate power with good reason.


|Dark sexuality is often associated with vampirism (taking something from 
|someone against their will, of sometimes just the act of taking is 
|enough), destructiveness, and violence. 

Is this the reason that girls are dressing as Vampyres in the Satanist
clans?  An exteriorization of what runs most women in today's world
who wish to exert their independence: taking.  Note that the vampire
can feed without killing.  This is the cruelty of the Darkness.  A nice
film which goes into this slightly is 'The Hunger' (the book capitalizes
on the Harsh Mistress' cruelty best, however).


|Somehow this does not seem to be 
|all that different from the way in which men interact with women on a 
|daily basis in this culture (and other cultures as well). 

Typically men don't come from the same place as women wrt the same things.  
I think men are taught that women have a sort of key to sexuality; it is
part and parcel of the cultural mythos in which I have grown up: woman
is the more natural, the more intuitive, emotional, etc., etc., and we
men buy that shit.  Well, now it has entered into our membranes and
we're running the program. 

In the business world men have the power and women must take it to get
to a position of parity.  I think that many men see sexuality the same
way, and I'm not sure what this says about the women who become their
victims.


|Issues of rape, domestic violence, and killings are a part of most of 
|women's existence and threatening their lives every day.

Most children's lives too, and these children grow into adult women *and*
men, though right now we only hear about the physical abuse of women and
girls.  There is much to be said about psychological and emotional abuse
also, and these things are much more subtle, more difficult to detect,
to justify, to have encounter groups about, to get outraged about, etc.


|	So what have we done? Have we merely taken on men's behaviors and 
|made it a part of our psyche and subconscious, and attached the term 
|"dark" to it? 

I doubt it.  I think that there is a kind of thing which we associate with
'dark sexuality', and I think it involves manipulating the circumstances
of intimacy such that the result is ego dissolution and what some have
begun to call 'tantrism'.  Not just for the man or for the woman, but for
both or either, as the occasion calls.  This involves a baring of the
innermost self, a vomiting forth of one's unexamined skeletons within the
arms of the Beloved (this being why such escapades are dangerous, for the
vulnerability which must accompany true communion).  

Inasmuch as we have been trained, subtlely, to see woman as the center of
sexuality (and media has largely promoted this image), so women will have
power in that area, engaging and withholding.  To be sure the image is
illusory.  Power is only truly held by those who are given it by the group.
Yet it is important to isolate and identify the factors which make up our
sexuality first before we can get to what an attachment like 'dark' may
mean.
 

|...Are we merely taking on the victim's role and reinterpreting 
|it in our own minds, and acting out on it because if we didn't, then 
|we'll be the victims? Is this the only way we can relate to each other 
|sexually and otherwise? 

On the first I think that is sometimes the goal, yes.  On the second I
am unsure who you may mean by 'we'.  If you are asking how women can
relate to one another sexually, I'd suggest that this has been studied
somewhat, and is quite fascinating -- the gender roles, the fallacies
about what heterosexuality, what 'male sex' includes.  It is too easy
to stigmatize one sex and make it responsible for the whole.  We're
dealing with cultural conditioning.

If you mean by 'we' all people, then it may be true that the first step
is taking on the role of victim, reinterpreting it, making ourselves the
victor, and acting out the consequences.  It is said that that is how
physical abuse perpetuates.  I'm unsure.  

It seems to me that the first order of business is in becoming quite
sensitive to what may be *included* within sexuality.


|	Another question that came up was why are some men attracted to 
|it in the first place? I don't have an answer to that one yet, but I 
|think it may be a submission to their fantasies, still. A woman/sexuality 
|defined by them. 

There is truly no problem with such submission (if one would call it that),
but the problem as I see it is that all parts of society don't have the
power to place their fantasies in the same context, thus spoiling the
image (much like how most media preserves the presumption that monogamy
is the Goal and keeping one's Spouse involves sexual exclusivity.  This
may work for some, but as a standard it tends to generate very many
problems which would be avoidable otherwise (and avoid many which may
be created with nonexclusivism, which in turn would require us to mature).

Eventually there will be no living women necessary.  Technology will
enable men to generate entire interactions with cyberwomen and whatever
else turns them on.  Simultaneously this will become possible for women
and children also.  Once the technology arrives then living in one's
fantasies will be less prone to being monopolized and sold.

However, this doesn't say anything about what the *results* of this
kind of thinking, this kind of sexuality (the kind which requires
air-brushes and rape and dominance merely to reach a point of
connection, intimacy).  It may be that it is the best solution at
the time, but later it will not be enough.  Better to have sexualized
fantasies acted out on public media than to force many more women to
perform the acts live for wealthy and powerful men who can't be pleased
all at once by the toob.  At least this way she may get something back 
for her efforts.  If she is wily she may be able to hold onto it.
(Cf Streisand, Madonna others).


|That's why I'm on enraged by the Great Whore Babalon when I am told 
|that she is an [ideal] in Thelema, one to strive for.  Some thelemite 
|women, as defined by their "group" will use Babalon as an archetype, 
|and have someone pour the last drop of their blood in their Chalice.....
|*ahem* I think not. 

It is a heterosexual, conceptual mythoscheme.  I can see why you get
upset.  What I wonder is where did Babalon and those like her COME
from?  Were She and her sisters the deluded fantasies of frustrated
men?  Is that still keying into the brainstem of 'Thelemite' males
and females?  If so, then She may have liberative power, but not as
usually understood.
 

|...I have the choice of reframing that analogy or that archetype of 
|the "Sacred Prostitute", 

Where is the male Sacred Prostitute?  Why aren't there more obvious
bordellos which service WOMEN?  There is something very strange about
the entire subject, and I am not currently up to assessing it.


|I also find it as male-serving, and man-defined. 

I'm not sure this is entirely the case, but it could be.  First off,
'prostitute' has culturally been designated female, but this is not
always the case and in previous times may have been less so, I know
some writers on the subject favor this thesis.  History is a very
difficult subject.


|...What is dark sexuality if it is not male-defined? 

I can at present only say how I would approach learning the answer to
this were I to spend the time and energy necessary.  I would first
set about defining for myself (and I've been doing this for years)
what should be included in 'sexuality'.  Then I would discover what
the prefixing 'dark' usually pertains to in media and, beyond this,
in the popular, and my own personal, psyche.

After these I would begin to eliminate all that didn't suffice to 
be described by both terms.  At this point I'd be left with 'dark
sexuality' which conformed to my *own* nature.


|Is there such a thing as a male's "dark sexuality", and how is 
|that manifested?

I'm not sure I understand how you are using 'male's' and 'female's',
since I doubt you are talking about homosexuality as much as
fantasies.  And fantasies are usually promoted by men, for men.
That is what I have learned so far anyway.  Perhaps it is a function
of imaginative use of certain areas of the brain that men seem to
have been the impetus behind the media fantasy displays.  Perhaps
it is merely a function of who has their hands on the controls of
the media, who cares enough about it to control it, through action
or restriction.

At the same time we are looking at 'dark sexuality' we are also looking
at its opposite.  I'm not sure what the opposite might be.  'Light
celibacy' such as is practiced in mystical sexts (pun)?  That would
imply that darkness should be associated with promiscuity, adventuring
into the Unknown, baring oneself to another in intimacy, and sharing
a deeply personal and transformative experience.

Instead of penalizing ourselves into abstinence and fighting our
sexual natures, we indulge these, opening up to a world of glorious
sensuality and intimacy.  Too often sex is associated with orgasm.
Most people don't even know what orgasm is, presuming it to be a
physical response.  It is much much more than this, and it can come
to encompass all of sexuality, all of daily life in fact.

Tell us of dark sexuality.  Tell us why it is so horrible to behold,
why it is considered 'dark', what makes it 'sexuality', and who is
to own it.  Let the shade be pulled upon this hideous monster we
think is our Lord of Light.  Let the Dark Lady come unto us and
show to us things we never wanted to know, would have preferred to
left undiscovered -- about ourselves.

tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com
nagasiva