Erotica - it can make you feel good
Pornography involves people who use others simply for sexual
gratification. It is related to violence in that it treats people as
mere objects.
Erotica involves people who are liberated sexually and who want to
give and receive pleasure equally and engage in healthy sexual
enjoyment and share their joy with others.
The distinction can be easily blurred but this is not a
justification for forbidding everything that is sexy. The same
problem occurs in everything to do with life. For example, a
friendship involves treating yourself and your friend as equally
valuable. But in certain difficult situations you may find yourself
needing some space.
It is thought that pornography is all about taking pleasure while
love and erotica is about giving pleasure. Lust is thought to be
concerned about physical gratification and not about love. To have
sex with somebody you don't love is lust and it is said to be
dehumanising.
Looking sexy is a part of erotica. If erotica is bad then so is
looking sexy. No two persons have the same tastes in relation to
what they find sexually alluring. Some women think men in sportswear
are sexy. Other women prefer men dressed more casually but
tastefully. Some men are turned on by women’s naked arms. A woman
can be well-covered up but can turn a man on by a rip in jeans just
above the knee. Men who want to lay down rules about how they think
women should dress to be modest have a deep suspicion about women.
Their hang-ups speak more about themselves and speak of their desire
to degrade women. Women who want to lay down rules concerning female
modesty have an undue suspicion towards men and may be jealous
towards other women.
If looking sexy is evil then so is looking pretty. Many men find a
woman sexier if she goes for pretty rather than sexy.
Is a woman who dresses sexily encouraging males to think only in
terms of sex?
A woman or man who appears in a newspaper scantily clad is not being
an object or doing wrong. A woman can be dressed from head to toe in
robes and a man can still be aroused by her and his imagination can
be stimulated.
If a woman appears scantily clad in a magazine she is not giving out
the message that it is only looking sexy that matters. She is
saying, “I am confident and sexy and pretty, why don’t you get to
know me?” She is drawing attention and attracting people to get to
know her. The woman who makes herself as unattractive as possible is
not saying to people, “I want you to like me. I want you to like how
I look. I want you to like and be drawn to the person I am
underneath it all.”
Do men mentally undress women who dress sexily?
Not necessarily. Many people think total nudity is not as sexy as
wearing something that looks good.
Does encouraging men and women to look sexy tell them they are
valuable only as long as they look good?
If we value men and women we want them to look good for their own
benefit. Encouraging them to look sexy helps them to look better for
longer. It encourages them to cope better with life. Nobody can look
look sexy without having nice qualities. A man or woman who looks
good but who has an unfriendly expression is not sexy.
Do women who look sexy encourage married men to be dissatisfied with
their less than sexy wives?
But a girl who is not sexy looking but slim could do that. Are we to
forbid men to even talk to women who may look better than their
wives? A man does not become dissatisfied with his wife when he sees
a beautiful girl. Seeing the beautiful girl only reveals and brings
out the dissatisfaction that already existed.
If a man raped a woman and he says he found her sexily dressed and
lost control, the woman didn’t cause the rape or ask for it. The
man’s response to her reveals him, it was already in his nature to
rape her. Do not infer that women ask to be raped if they look sexy
or sexually available.
When lovers look at erotica, some people say they are betraying one
another. They are said to be looking for sexual stimulation outside
of each other. But does it matter as long as they use the arousal to
bring themselves closer together? Every couple has to look for
support for their relationship outside the relationship. A wife may
be talking to a counsellor instead of her husband but she hopes that
she will get stronger and be able to talk to him. She might need to
think about being in bed with men not just her husband to feel
aroused and ready for sex. If that is wrong then going to the
counsellor must be more wrong for in some ways it is more intimate
than sex!
Accept and enjoy your sexuality and your joy in life will be better.
Enjoy your body and its beauty and you will be able to respect the
sexiness of others far better.