ext_11697 ([identity profile] wombat1138.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] branchandroot 2007-05-02 12:02 am (UTC)

The virtue of passive sexual reluctance is rather a universal thing; there's the whole Victorian "lie back and think of England" and surrounding Madonna/whore dichotomy in the European Christian tradition (I once saw a fabulous exhibit of medieval art that was centered on that topic and entitled "Eva/Ave"), and farther back, the classical Greek pattern of older lovestruck erastes and adolescent unaroused eromenos.

It's almost as if semen were a tangible form of bad mana that's intensely pleasurable and virtuous to get rid of, but sullies its recipients whatever their identity. (Blah blah bukkake blah squish.) Or at least at the moment I don't recall any cultural taboos about men (not) enjoying the active sexual role, with the dubious exception of the movie adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale (can't recall whether that element was also present in the book); there are short periods of ritual uncleanliness after the release of semen, but not nearly as long as the same religions' time-outs for menstruation.

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