Sperm Count: Fertishistic Objectification

photo of jockstrap by Jacklee

Fetishistic objectification is a term used by some psychoanalysts to refer to receiving stimulation from a part of the anatomy or the lingerie that is used to cover it. So for instance when you talk about a man’s package or a woman’s rack you're indulging in a form of fetishistic objectification. It’s a little like an erotic form of synecdoche, the figure of speech which refers to taking the part for the whole. For instance, fifty head for cattle, the White House for the presidency, the law for the police are all examples of synecdoche. Synecdoche, New York was also the name of a Charlie Kaufman movie which starred the late Philip Seymour Hoffman and which employs another kind of fetishizing that occurs when you attempt to make art out of life or vice versa. But this erotic form of synecdoche also occurs in the sex act itself. We refer to getting laid rather than making love and then there are the varying kinds of foreplay, fellatio, cunnilingus, analingus which all seem to thingify sex. When you talk about getting or giving a blow job, about fucking or getting fucked you are attempting to create an illusion that sexuality is devoid of emotion. It’s just another act like say brushing one’s teeth or masticating a piece of meat. The fact is that butt fucking someone is an activity that is laden with emotion. Without the emotion, the act would be so denuded of significance as to be lacking in stimulation. The same is true about sucking a penis. It's a statement. It’s fun and exciting to suck or be sucked for that matter, but under normal circumstances most people don’t want a large object inserted into their mouths, unless that object has meaning for them.

Sperm Count: The Origin of Consciousness in the Advent of Oral Sex

 

Julian Jaynes wrote a famous tome The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Essentially Jaynes was trying to shorten the time line and show that human consciousness is a relatively new phenomenon having first started to be evidenced only three or four thousand years ago. Jaynes might have benefited from using a simple litmus test which would have helped him to pinpoint the exact point in the evolutionary ladder where consciousness started to appear by examining the advent of fellatio. Giving or getting a blowjob is an act that has both physical and cultural significance, in that it has to do with tool using rather than tool making and reflects that stage in development where the ancestors of man began to demonstrate prehensile abilities. You can’t really give a blowjob, for instance, until you are able to hold a penis in your hand, which may explain the evolutionary significance of homo erectus. Experienced metrosexuals realize, of course, that a latter day hunter gatherer not only has to be able to stand up on his or her two feet, but most have good posture when he or she is out to hunt and gather in bars or parties. While cunnilingus can be accomplished without the prehensile ability, it similarly reflects a cultural transformation in which the palette is increased by the use of the palate. If you have ever gone to the ape house in a zoo you'll notice that  outside the lustily bonobo, there aren't too many primates male or female who show the ability or interest in going down on that part of the body that has the name of a baby cat. Jaynes should have capitalized on his success with The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by writing a sequel entitled The Origin of Consciousness in the Advent of Oral Sex.