And yes yes, his reported behavior was beyond jerky, violent and pretty fucking creepy. It's some serious %#@#, if the accusations are indeed true. And I tend to believe multiple accusers instead of the dude going, "Whaa...? Liars!"
And yet. There is a vast difference between how the regular, sensible brain and erotic brain perceive the world. I have a huge thing for James Deen. (As does he. Huge thing, that is. Sorry.) As I read, I became somewhat enchanted by one of the complaints in which he came up behind Ashley Fires and pressed his erect cock into her bum.
“I was getting out of the shower of the communal bathroom at Kink, I reach for my towel to dry off, and [Deen] comes up from behind me and pushes himself and his erection into my butt,” said Fires in Daily Beast. “He pushes me against the sink and starts grabbing on me and I was like, ‘No, no, no James, no,’ and he released me from his grasp.”
****
This morning, instead of donating to NOW or supporting my fellow women on social media, I somehow ended up watching James Deen porn .*
And it was insanely hot.
The man is so fucking intense, present and seemingly so into it that he's practically growling. I absolutely love the way that man porn fucks.
So. I tell you this because I have no filter, but also because it reminds me of what Esther Perel writes about eroticism in Mating In Captivity. (If you're feeling settled there and read-y, here's a long but super interesting piece she wrote on erotic intelligence.) "Sexual desire is politically incorrect, often thriving on power plays, role reversals, unfair advantages, imperious demands, seductive manipulations and subtle cruelties," she notes.
The erotic lives--and thrives--in places of darkness and the forbidden. Whether we like it or not.
Adult actress Sydney Leathers said she was told of Deen, "He has boundary issues, basically...he tries to break women." And instead of thinking "What a fuckhead!"--as one should totally totally do, I get that--God help me, I was intrigued. To break a woman....it's just so heavy and dark. What would it take to break a woman? To break me?
I realized that if James Deen showed up at my backside pressing his hard-on into my bum, well, my friend, I would fuck the shit out of him. Still. Maybe even more so now.
Not sure what that might mean for you (or me) today, but I'm putting it there in your brain if you'd like to fidget with it.
xoxo
jill
*New link. Had accidentally put up a weird clean version. Which. What's the point?
19 comments:
I've enjoyed your blog for a couple years and never left a comment, but feel compelled. We're all entitled to our opinions, and I understand that it's often the dark, forbidden things we're most attracted to. The allegations against James Deen are pretty awful (atrocious?), and I'm dumbfounded and slightly horrified that you would have, in the situation these women were in, "fucked the shit out of him. Still. Maybe even more so now."
I wish you well but can no longer in good conscience subscribe to and read a blog that looks upon James Deen the way you have described.
Hey Anonymous--So sorry to see you go! I think what compels me to write this blog is to explore all these kinds of areas and look into whatever the hell lurks there. Sexuality is weird and fucked up and fascinating. I'm sad that just taking a mental path to this particular (theoretical) place was enough drive you away. Thanks for reading though--and your honesty. xo
jill
Jill:
You were brave to write this post. I think there is a darkness to sexuality, that many of us don't want to admit to. It's reflected in our culture in many ways (for example the popularity of "50 Shades" and "Twilight" series).
When darkness is explored (especially with a lover who can be trusted), we can heal those deep primal wounds. [Walking through the darkness in order to find our inner light.] In order to heal, we have to take risks. Thank you for sharing your honest thoughts; it may bring thought-provoking discussions and healing transformations for others.
Leora, thank you so much for your smart thoughts, esp. the bit about traveling through the darkness, with purpose. With this post, it did feel like I was mucking about in dangerous space, and obviously it was too much for some. Which bums me out. Seems important that we can look at this stuff with an open mind and heart and see what the hell comes up. Even if it is not what you'd (by you, I mean ME) would hope to find.
The big difference is consensual vs. non-consensual. If it's agreed to, it's cool to practice all kinds of power plays to reach that dark, exciting. raw and more primal place. Love your blog, Jill. One of the best.
I have struggled with my reaction to James Deen.
On the one hand - I am appalled and sickened by the allegations, and see every reason to believe the multiple accusers simply because they gain nothing by coming forward except the derision that most rape victims receive (compounded ten, a hundred, maybe even a million fold because they're sex workers). I, who adored seeing Stoya and JD together and could get turned on just seeing an image of them standing next to one another, fully clothed, hate thinking about them together and can't imagine how she must have felt when it happened and feel even now.
On the other hand, in the days since, when I've seen an image or gif on Tumblr of JD fucking, I'm still turned on. When I see his image, I still think he looks boyishly handsome.
It's a strange dichotomy to find myself in. I guess I'm saying I can understand your own reaction, even if I don't (exactly) share it.
Thanks for writing this. I know nothing of James Deen. If I have time later, I might go back and click the links in your article.
It takes bravery to write about our "dark sides". We all have them. Thanks for your bravery.
My wife has told me there were times when I raped her. There were times when she was crying after our lovemaking, I thought she was happy and emotionally overwhelmed. (She usually tells me these things when we are arguing.) There were other times in my life when I was told "no", but it did not stop me. When I see newscasts, of fellows in courtroom charged with rape, I wonder how close I came to that fellow being me.
I'm not defending guys like Bill Cosby. He went into those situations with pills in his pockets. That is called "premeditated". My point is that the "heat of the moment" is a rare place of self discovery and euphoria for a person with the emotional maturity and self awareness to handle it.
I wonder if some smart trial lawyer has ever consider asking Ester Perel to be an "expert witness" and explain to a jury that sex is seldom politically correct? It seems that civilized society is at odds with our most primitive of acts. We need anthropologists conferring with psychoanalysts to understand the place of human sexual relations in an age of cloning and organic genetic modifications.
What Erica Jong called a "zipless fuck", other ladies will call "rape". Maybe this is the best argument for no sex on a first date. Everybody, get to know what makes another person tick before you get naked. Okay?
It makes me glad I never actually saw any of his porn, because I suspect I'd feel the same way you do, Jill - horrified and yet still attracted. Like one of those weird Freudian sex-and-death urges. Thanks for writing this!
This was just a very strange post and you totally missed the point. These women did not consent. They had no interest in his advances (unlike you in the fantasy) and he did it anyway. There is a tremendous difference between fantasy (pretend) rape (playtime), and actual rape. This was the latter.
I really don't get why consent is such a mystery to some people.
Hey all, i so love all your thoughts on this--seems very worthy to explore things that we don't want to talk about. And Carlos, I get what you are saying. My point was not about what Deen did and issues of consent and rape, it was that it is possible to be attracted to things/people you don't want to be attracted to--even people who done bad or even horrible things, like a mass murderer or a weird dictator or something--and what you do with that.
I for one am not happy that I once harbored a thing for bill clinton advisor dick morris, who, well, he is not a good man.
p.s. i hid this post down here not because i'm ashamed of it--though i do feel pretty naked about having written it for your perusal--but because a bunch of Cosmo readers are heading over here today and I don't want them to land in the middle of...this.
Yes, one's darker side about sexuality can come out in all sorts of ways--there's loads of men who wear diapers and hire prostitutes, or people who do or get BDSM, and so on. Not my cup of tea. There's loads of men who marry or who have sex with women who are grossly overweight, or vice versa, or go with someone of another race, or a trans-person, or...
Jill was just exploring that aspect of herself, of being attracted to someone who has the characeristics of Deen. And she was certainly courageous to write this. Jill, I'm sure you're not alone in your fantasies. I'm glad you shared this.
As for Esther Perel, she uses the words "sexual desire." That, I think, is at the heart of what Jill's writing about.
For myself, my sexual desire is always about what I call making love. It's a mutual give-and take. Even one-night stands. There's something about melting into that shared space with someone. When I make love with my wife, she becomes present--her eyes stop blinking so much and a softness overcomes her. I feel reassured, and there's a tremendous space of mutual giving.
Not so with Deen raping Stoya, of course.
About the only thing I'd have done, Jill, wuld have been even more explanatory about the exploration you made in the post than you were. There's such a mix of emotions about rape and sexual desire, that my immediate take on what you wrote was that you'd have sex with Deen no matter when and how he approached you and no matter what frame of mind you're in. I know you did write "and yet," but maybe warning those readers who might be outraged that you were about to go into a dark area.
And that whole breaking thing. You know, my wife was raped when she was 14. That was her de-virginization experience. I think that was one of the major defining moments of her life, and she got broken and it took 10 years for her to repair herself, and 40 years later she still can be narcissistic and without empathy. But then, she might not be as loving, supportive and totally devoted to me as she is. And she's repaired heserlf enough to where we now have a very god and fun relationship after 10 years of knowing each other.
And 30 years ago I did a therapeutic process and learned that our dark sides are very creative parts of us.
So, thanks Jill.
Yogi, thank you for your take. so deep and rich and thoughtful!
Wow Jill, this post and some of the comments, just wow. (I'm sorry, comparing rape to having sex with someone from another race or a trans person? Admitting to raping your wife?)
Let me start of with saying that I have read your blog for a long time and nearly always enjoyed myself, even though I have never commented before. I think I get the intention with which you wrote this post, and I agree that we all get these sexual urges that we are ashamed of because our rational minds do not agree.
HOWEVER. I find this to be very insensitive. You are basically taking these women's narratives of a very traumatic event and turning them into a sexual fantasy in your post. To me (even though I hope/know that you didn't intend it to come across that way) that reads as if you don't care what happened to these women, because James Deen is wow, so hot. It also plays into anti-women MRA bullshit narratives that women only consider it rape when the man is not 'hot' and that rape is not such a serious thing.
I guess I just hoped you would've treaded more carefully, this is such a sensitive topic and there is such a difference between rape fantasies (which many women enjoy) and real-life rape (which none of the victims enjoy).
Dame Noire,
hey, yes, my point was that the erotic brain thinks things that the rational brain is horrified with and what we are supposed to do with that. but, thanks for your kindly and well-thought out response even when you're pissed off. i really do love that everyone, even the person who was so offended they'll never will read again, was thoughtful and respectful in their response.
Jill, I'm so keen to back you up against some of these comments I'm even posting as myself.
I thought you made it clear that you were in NO WAY justifying, condoning or proposing that there is anything vaguely positive or okay about rape. What you did was to bravely share some of your darker side and bring to light some of this shit that is so fucking important to be written.
It's not your fault the world is so fucked-up that you would even have to explain that you believe that rape is not okay.
Fantasies of rape and oppression are really fucking common, and yet very rarely discussed. (I guess we can see part of why here!)
Thank you again for writing some of the stuff I so desperately needed to read.
Thank you dear Anne. Love that we found each other across the globe. Viva Internet!
I understand what you say about taking a mental path to explore your erotic imagination. This approach has gotten me in deep caca with my last two wives, who decided to up and read my private journals. No matter how much I tried to explain that there is more than just a fine line between stuff I write and what I do, they would not buy it. I ended up leaving both because they could not deal with where my mind goes.
BTW, I have a rule that no one puts anything up my butt no how (except that guy with the colonoscopy gizmo... and I think I may have had enough of that, too) but watching Deen... well, maybe I'd be his bitch for a night. :O
Anonymous, thanks for you comments. ps don't tell anyone about the deen thing. tends not to go over well.
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