As it turns out, not everyone is happy with the image of Jesus getting a blowjob, as I suggested in my most recent post. Sharp-witted blogger Bacchus at Erosblog posted my rant, and if you take a look at the comments, it has sparked the ire of several Christians who feel I have gone too far. Thomas Roche thinks I should be punished.
Interesting, that, considering the dozens of emails I’ve gotten from people who openly identify as Christian, Republican, and even conservative versions of both, who see the points beneath my caustic wit and sacred-cow-poking, and tell me they enjoy what I’m doing. And considering that in the most recent customer survey we did at Good Vibes, the majority of our customers identified as Christian and Republican. I’m not surprised — while I don’t vote or pray like they do, I surely enjoy sex like anyone else. That’s the point. My intention was not to place judgement or shame folks with Christian beliefs. No, my intention was to make fun of the hypocrisy evident in people who post religiously fueled, sexually judgmental opinions about books that provide a guide to a single sex act. That’s sex act, period — a sex act that happens between straights, lesbians, gay men, anyone who wants to learn about fellatio. It’s not "The Ultimate Guide to Fellatio for Only Christian Women."
To think that everyone in the world should be having a particular, proscribed relationship to their sexuality is not only narrow-minded, but also dangerous, and especially from the perspective of a writer. To write about fellatio from the point of view that lesbians and gay men, and sexual fantasies between consenting adult couples of all orientations don’t exist, does a terrible disservice to everyone — and omits information that in some cases, can be physically harmful. And if you expect to criticize human sexuality on the behalf of all the people in your religion, you better expect to get you, and all those people you claim to represent, criticized right back.
They wanted to learn about fellatio to make themselves "more pleasing to their husbands." What about themselves? This is evidently not a question to be asked, though I was initially excited that conservative Christian women, typically (and unfairly) perceived as being sexually disinterested, might explore new ground. The women on Amazon bought a book about fellatio — a book that covers every variation on fellatio in our postmodern world, and claims this in the sales copy. And they found this all-inclusive book to be very upsetting, because it *is* all-inclusive. As one reviewer on Amazon put it, "This book had no photos but it does take unexpected turns that does violate the consciousness of women who have christian character…There are subjects that I just prefer not to know about when I search on enriching our love life! I don’t want to know about lesbian’s with strap ons or descriptions of homosexual men. I don’t want to hear about group sex or surprise sexual encounters with roadside stranger’s." (spelling and grammar intact) How, I beg the question, can you *not* make fun of people who want to learn about fellatio, but not about sex?
Is the book so controversial? Maybe for people who choose not to accept any worldview about sex outside their own. The book is explicit, certainly, so if they were expecting a book that ignored everything but their narrow worldviews on sexual expression, they surely were going to get their petticoats ruffled. The book doesn’t tell you to get kneepads and head down to the nearest gas station restroom (but if someone does after reading the book, email me, okay?). A recent Amazon reviewer summed it up nicely, "Extremely good on the techniques themselves, and (what I liked best) always puts the emphasis on the love, connection and understanding between partners during sex. This is not your average ‘manual’."
As I write this, I’m reflecting on my bus ride to the Good Vibes store yesterday. In front of me sat a big African-American dreadlocked butch dyke, next to a formally dressed Rabbi, and a senior woman on his other side. Across from them sat a big Af-Amer tranny hooker and her boyfriend/agent (?), a lost senior male tourist, and some Asian women who looked like SOMA sweatshop workers (we have a lot of sweatshops south of Market). The tranny and the old woman knew each other and chatted amiably across the aisle, while the Rabbi showed the dyke humorous things on his Palm Pilot. The tranny helped the lost tourist get directions from the bus driver (SF MUNI drivers are notorious assholes), and we drove by SF’s City Hall, which in case you haven’t kept up on the news, is surrounded by a line of same-sex couples waiting to get married, a constant line that goes around the city block back to the beginning. Lots of people on the bus smiled when we drove by, and some commented humorously about the anti-marriage protesters. ("Bullhorns, signs and balloons? Good. They’re on *our* turf now.") Also as I write this, I’m thinking about the yearly "Hunky Jesus" contest that happens in the very gay Castro neighborhood, where raffles and proceeds go to charities, and two years ago, my gal-pal’s hunky husband won — he’s straight, a Special Forces Marine who just got back (thank the gods) from Iraq. And I’m thinking about the local phenom, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who have raised more money for charity than The GAP through events like their monthly church social Bingo game, "Ba Da Bingo!" I could go on. You see, I have to make fun of hypocrisy. I’m on the front lines. This is not your average manual, and this is not your average time to be alive in America.
Or, you can see how my ever-unshaved pal and fellow porn writer Thomas Roche spends his money.
