I recently had an art piece pulled for “pornography” on an internet art site. Evidently someone went past the “Very Mature With — ” warning and then got offended and reported it.  Which shows a yearning for borderline titillation, but an inability to guage personal levels of tolerance (“Know Thyself”?).  Somebody needs to sort out their own needs.

Now the site forbids adult sex; I can understand this, if they are dealing with irrational populations that are afraid of sexual penetration, and have made even its most joyful depictions a crime.

But why should consenting adults be afraid of sexual penetration?  With any part of their anatomy?  As a female, I can verify it can be a lot of fun.  If a male hasn’t had it or doesn’t want it, why bother looking at the art?  What is this obsession with Where The Penis goes?

The possible answer is rape.

It’s obvious that females who have been raped would be upset by depictions of penetration.  I can’t see traumatized adults with access to mature-control art pages willingly going onto those pages to look at such images, unless it were an attempt to dull their reactions to it, in an attempt to take control of the images themselves.

But what about males?  Why would so many males be so upset by the idea of penetration?  What do they have to do with it?  Why would they even be looking at the images?

I think it’s more than just the curiosity that makes us open doors we know will give us the willies.

People talk to me.  Strangers discover they can tell me things without being judged.  Before I have a chance to stop them, many males are whispering nervously, reciting tales of rape by (mostly) male relatives.

They tell me, “My (father, uncle, brother, cousin) raped me night after night.  Was he gay?  Am I gay now?”

I’ve listened to and comforted drunken bikers, military officers and  sports heroes – the tough guys, the nobody-can-touch-me-or-else guys.  They’re defensive until they’ve got a few drinks in them, and then if they think you’re willing not to sneer, out comes the frightened child.  My God, even their faces change, losing anger or coldness.  They’re suddenly just scared kids.

How MUCH child rape is going on in our societies?   Girls are seen as available targets (“If she bleeds she’s old enough”– quite common in religious populations) and boys are taken because nobody can stop the abusers.  In some populations, a boy is even seen as a stop-gap target; better to have sex with a boy than get a girl pregnant — or destroy her value as a salable virgin.

Our gay populations are scapegoated for rape, when a gay person can spot and will stop child rape any time he or she gets the chance.  The rapists like the confusion; it makes the children more available to them.  The behavior gets passed on, too, as the raped kids try to exorcise themselves of what was done to them.

So – if you’ve ever found yourself going to a controlled art page and being terrified by images of sexual penetration, ask yourself why you are having this abnormal reaction.  What do you remember?  Or if you don’t remember — what have you repressed?

Why do you feel compelled to go to those images, and then take them out of the art stream, where those of us who are normal and undamaged cannot enjoy them?  We’re not the people who raped you.  It’s obvious that to us sex is fun and joyful and often silly (if it’s multiple bodies, we’re more wrapped up with trying to make the orifice-logistics work!).

Please – get some help.  Before your own compulsions drive you to doing something about it in reality, rather than on paper.  Especially if there are any young, helpless victims near you.  Break the chain.