Khaos Theory

In our technocratic and scientific world view the human body is rarely viewed holistically, but understood as an object made up of transferable bits and pieces. Body components can be exchanged or replaced like spare parts: blood transfusions, organ transplants, prosthetic devices, artificial bones and joints, false teeth, plastic surgery, breast and penile implants. We can all be disassembled and reassembled like the cyborgs from our favorite sci-fi flicks.

The pragmatic goals of some scientific advancements are clear: the alleviation of pain and suffering, the ability to make all bodies fully “functional”, and the prolongation of life. But there are times when this pragmatism gives way to another goal; in our drive for a pain-free and healthful existence we are also seeking a means to perfect the human body.

Some of the most radical physiological transformations that are now possible involve sexuality and reproductive processes: genetic engineering, sex selection, artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, test tube babies and sex changes demonstrate that nothing, absolutely nothing, is immutable.

A recent study by Brazilian Elsimar M. Coutinho adds to this mind-boggling list of what we can now do to alter the human reproductive system. In a controversial book published by Oxford University Press, Coutinho suggests that menstruation is an unhealthy and unnecessary process that causes women countless health and emotional problems. Is Menstruation Obsolete?, the title of Coutinho’s new work, suggests that the most medically advanced “treatment” for menstruation would be its total cessation in all women of reproductive age.

Coutinho’s study has been hailed a scientific success by a variety of intellectual broadsheets and magazines (see The Guardian, Canada’s Globe and Mail and The New Yorker, for a good sample) who have reported his research as a breakthrough for the improvement of women’s lives. But even those that agree – and this is a controversial assessment in itself – that menstruation constitutes women’s “curse” and not her “blessing”, should not cheer too soon. What Coutinho suggests is not the eradication of what, for some, is a monthly nuisance, but a much more radical transformation of female physicality.

Coutinho has the qualifications to make his study heard widely in scientific circles. He is the pioneer of Depo-Provera, the popular injectible contraceptive method that is typically taken 4 times annually. He is a Professor of Gynecology, Obstetrics and Human Reproduction in Brazil and has published scholarly articles in the field for more than 30 years.

While Coutinho denounces blood-letting as a modern medical treatment. Coutinho claims the contrary (as Segal’s preface states): “from a medical point of view, menstruation has no beneficial effects for anyone, and for many women it is harmful to their health”.

According to Coutinho’s definition, menstruation is simply the sign of a failed process: “When menstruation occurs, it means that the [reproductive] system failed and, for the sake of reproductive efficiency, would have to be repeated the next month, the month after that, and so on, until a successfully nested fertilized egg starts to develop”. This is not far from the standard definition of menstruation provided in health education classes: menstruation takes place when pregnancy does not.

Coutinho’s definition of menstruation is important since it underpins his major claim in this new work – that regular menstruation is not “natural”. According to Coutinho, a monthly menses would have been unusual for early women who were regularly pregnant or breast-feeding (and therefore without periods), “young women were either pregnant or lactating almost continuously”. It is only the modern woman, he argues, who experiences menstruation as a regular, monthly occurrence. While repeated menstruation made biological sense for Stone Age humans whose survival was by no means assured, Coutinho hypothesizes, regular menstruation is no longer necessary in the modern world where human survival is not contingent upon prolific childbirth.

Coutinho concludes with a syllogistic logic: since menstruation exists for the purpose of prolific childbearing, and repeated childbirth is no longer necessary, then menstruation is now “obsolete”. Without the promise of 10 or 12 children to bear, menstruation, according to Coutinho, is a waste of a woman’s resources. It takes away her energy, lowers her iron levels and induces an array of minor health troubles – headaches, nausea, cramps, moodiness – and major health symptoms for those with chronic menstrual ailments, such as endometriosis. Regular menstruation, Coutinho concludes, is an outmoded function of our evolutionary ancestors and should now be suppressed in all reproductive aged women.

In the end it may not be so surprising to find that the means through which Coutinho suggests that menstrual suppression can be achieved is via regular Depo-Provera injections, the birth control method that he, himself, pioneered.

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Adapted from article originally written by Kathleen O’Grady, the co-author of Sweet Secrets: Stories of Menstruation (Second Story Press, 1997).

 

(translated and adapted by text originally written by Arnaldo Jabor)

Once upon a time our sweet ladies of easy virtue were called by violent names: whore, hooker, prostitute, trollop, slattern, baggage, bawd, hussy, slut, tramp, wanton, floozy, moll, camp follower, tart, strumpet, in a collection of brutal names that demonstrated the hatred from the good families to the sins outside the family life. The old prostitute was the symmetrical opposite of the decent wives. Today, our ladies of the night are called “escorts”.

A long time ago our streetwalkers would hide away, ashamed and marginalized. Now, with high-tech permissiveness, being a call girl is a profession, more so than the occupation of trophy wife. Now we are no longer talking about miserable girls, but proud sporting ladies living on the edges of the upper class, on the excitement of TV shows and magazines.

The modern courtesan is no longer on the fringe; she is at the center of the system like the lawyers, bankers, or dentists. The media and the Internet display their success. Formerly the working girl resented the sacred matrimony which excluded her. The old harlot was a physiological necessity, an extension of the families to compensate for the sadness of marriage. Today they don’t need to get married. There is no “pretty woman”; they don’t want to be rescued by romantic chumps.

The modern ladies of pleasure brush aside a “normal life”, preferring the cold adventure of money. Many of them are well married and help their husbands with the finances. I have met a school teacher in the suburbs that used to travel to big cities during school vacations to work in famous houses of ill fame.

The contemporary lady of the night is not ashamed of her work and does not suffer from guilt; perhaps just nausea… of you. They look at you as equals, or better yet, with a fine sense of superiority. They are active, on the move, taking action, and taking away from men their biggest pleasure which was the sense of moral superiority in temporary recess – an inhabitant of the clean world visiting the dirty world. Today you are the dirty one.

The old John used to believe in rescuing the fallen unhappy girls. The old brothels used to have a certain sadness in the air like an impossible love. There was also a repugnant kindness in those bygone wore-mongers: “Why are you doing this?” would ask the hypocritical client, before the act. “Oh, my father threw me out of the house, my boyfriend ruined me…” would moan the working girl. “But why don’t you leave this?” Whispered the vicious man, superior and malign, taking his pants off. Perhaps that is why they used to fall in love for their pimps, who used to spank them with sincere and joyful slaps.

Today you don’t comfort harlots, sluts, and fancy women. The romantic woman, now we know, is a man’s invention. Just like the sad, lost girl is as well. A friend told me that “there are no unhappy hookers”. Today they advertise as companions, escorts, promoters, and other euphemisms. They are athletic, aerodynamic, healthy. We used to live in a constant succession of gonorrhea’s. Today, they are the ones who fear your diseases. The condom excludes you, ridiculed with you penis wrapped in plastic like a little dog in a sweater. With the condom you are the venereal threat; she is the health. You used to visit a brothel looking for illusion. The man would go there to feel like he is in an harem. He wanted to be the center of the action. Today, he is the subject. There is a cold air in the modern brothels: clean, fast, and efficient like a fast food restaurant. There is something of a nurse or psychiatrist in the modern courtesan. The is something of a MacDonald’s in the modern brothel.

There are no mysteries left about our bodies: Every position, muscle, fluid, everything was explored. There is nothing else new to find. After the intercourse there is great sadness. As our life became so similar to the brothels, what we need are thematic brothels!

There are some thematic brothels on the Internet. On those you can be subjected in dungeons, hump in paradise among saints, have an orgasm in Mars. But that is not enough. We need brothels of dreams and love. That’s it! Men (and women, why not?) really need pure sentiments. Even if they have to pay for them. You get into a thematic brothel like in an interactive video game. There you will find sad women that you must comfort, motherly women that will comfort you, bad women that will disdain you with delicious cruelty and will forgive you later.

There you will find cries and tears, jealousy fits. In those brothels we can have the feeling of moral suffering (no BDSM, leather and latex), death pacts, endless sorrow, romantic breakups, total happiness, Tristans, Isoldas, flirts, serenades, stolen kisses. We can have real virgins blushing and defending their honor, we can have intrigues, innocence. Brothels of abstinence where everything is permitted, except sex. Orgasms (if ever) would be ethereal, like clouds, like holograms. Those would be platonic brothels. So we don’t have any ingenuity, temperance, love, ethics and moral? It all goes to the brothels. We could even have ethical brothels, where embarrassed intellectuals would purge themselves of malice and opportunism’s. There would be prohibitions, rules, ideologies, enforced by austere ladies, punishing us, wearing white gowns or dressed like “reason”, with black garters underneath, of course…

There can be depressive brothels, solitude brothels, cathouses of goodness, compassion whorehouses, houses of fine sentiments. There is an intolerable level of comfort in our market society. We need anguish, repentance, and restraint. The brothels of the future will be more like spas, like spiritual retreats. Great idea! I think I will open one of those ethical brothels and, naturally, will make a lot of money!

I am a polyamorist.

People who identify as polyamorous typically reject the view that sexual and relational exclusivity are necessary for long-term loving relationships. Those who are open to, or emotionally suited for, a polyamorous lifestyle may be single or in monogamous relationships, but are more typically involved in multiple long term relationships.

Polyamory implies a relationship defined by negotiation between its members, rather than by cultural norms. Polyamory is culturally rooted in such concepts as choice and individuality, rather than in religious traditions.

Egalitarian polyamory is more closely associated with values, subcultures and ideologies that favor individual freedoms and equality in sexual matters. Many polyamorists have cultural ties to Naturism, BDSM, Modern Tantra and other special interest groups. For example, egalitarian polyamory and BDSM often face similar challenges (e.g. negotiating the ground rules for unconventional relationships, or the question of coming out to family and friends).

As many people feel very insecure about living outside the confines of mainstream behavior and norms, it is quite a challenge for them to engage in polyamory for a significant length of time. Also, the weight of some cultural values like romantic love and exclusivity in intimate relationships is deeply ingrained in the psyche of many, by religious indoctrination, family education and tradition.

Polyamorous relationships, in practice, are highly varied and individualized. Ideally they are built upon values of trust, loyalty, negotiation, and compersion^*, as well as rejection of jealousy, possessiveness, and restrictive cultural standards. Such relationships are often more fluid than the traditional “dating and marriage” model of long-term relationships, and the participants in a polyamorous relationship may not have preconceptions as to duration.

For that reason it can be a lot less stressful and less dramatic when someone leaves the relationship.

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* Compersion is a term used by practitioners of polyamory to describe the experience of taking pleasure that one’s partner is with another person. The feeling may or may not be sexual. Quite often it’s not.

Individuals who submit control of a large percentage of their day-to-day life to a dominant partner, or who submit within a formal set of rules and rituals are sometimes referred to using the term slave, which is distinctly different from the historical use of the term, and the practice of this type of consensual sexual slavery is different from the historical practice of slavery.

As with most other sexual practices and concepts, the notion of submission is usually misconstrued or misunderstood. Most people associate submission with weakness or lack of self-esteem, while in reality I very rarely found a submissive woman with either of those problems. Quite the opposite: To be great submissive a woman usually needs to be successful, happy, secure, and have a trusting relationship with her dominant partner.

In general I don’t like to have relationships with women that are submissive outside of the sexual context. I have a very strong preference for women that are strong, independent, successful and happy. I was raised by strong, creative, intelligent women and learned to admire and respect them from the beginning.

What if a woman is definitely not interested in my lifestyle?

This is so much about filtering! Naturally there are many women out there that I admire, that I find sexy, smart, talented, wonderful and desirable and our lives will never share the same path.

The secret is understand and accept that you can’t have everyone. Wanting to attract or seduce everyone is immature. Suffering for not being able to attract of seduce someone in particular is in general a reaction that comes from believing in scarcity, believing there are not enough great prospects out there. The result is one-itis.

Now, what do I do with a sexy, smart, talented, wonderful and desirable woman that I will not have an intimate relationship with? I value and keep our friendship.

If she is already mature and liberated, happily exploring her sensuality, she will appreciate having a partner that is equally open-minded and sophisticated. If she is not quite there yet I can be the person that she can feel comfortable with and trust deeply enough to experiment and not feel judged or inadequate.

I learned and saw by experience that when a woman sees that you care about her and that you are sincere, when she trusts that you will not judge her or hurt her, if she believes she can trust your guidance, she will turn into a sexual being beyond your wildest dreams. All that stuff you saw in the porn movies and though you would never find a partner to do those crazy things with… she will do all that and much more.

Women love sex, certainly more than men love sex. A liberated woman with an appetite to satisfy her needs and desires becomes a monster you can’t feed if you don’t put plenty of attention to it.

Polyamory is the desire, practice, or acceptance of having more than one loving, intimate relationship at a time with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved, and is sometimes described as consensual, ethical, or responsible non-monogamy.

The defining characteristic of polyamory is belief in the possibility of, and value of, multiple romantic loving relationships carried out with the knowledge and consent of all partners concerned. What distinguishes polyamory from traditional forms of non-monogamy (i.e. cheating) is an ideology that openness, goodwill, intense communication, and ethical behavior should prevail among all the parties involved. Some consider polyamory to be, at its root, the generalization of romantic couple-love beyond two people into something larger.

The expression “open relationship” denotes a relationship in which participants may have sexual connections with others. When a married couple makes such an agreement, it may be termed an “open marriage”. Some forms of polyamorous relationship are not open (e.g. polyfidelity). And some open relationships may be open only sexually, while exclusive emotionally. However, there is broad overlap between open relationships and polyamory.

It is possible for a person with polyamorous relationships to also engage in casual sex, traditional swinging, and other open relationships. Sometimes polyamorous people have been known to engage in infidelities or secret affairs, although this is no better accepted in polyamorous communities than in monogamous ones.

I loved that phrase from Al Pacino’s character Walter Burke, in the movie The Recruit.

I am a very good judge of value. After a few years studying human behavior and practicing, interviewing people for jobs and gigs, negotiating, and handling the volatile material that composes human interactions, I became very sensitive and capable of detecting the patterns of conversation and behavior that elicit what I want to know about people.

Most people have low self-esteem, but at the same time try [hard] to project more value than they have. Both women and men tend to have this shortcoming: They have value that they don’t know how to demonstrate. And they lack value that they try to bullshit you into thinking they have. That happens quite often actually; particularly by people hustling or bullshitting you.

I detect that fast, I detect it soon, and in general I avoid people like that.

For two reasons. The first is that most people confuse their self worth with their value to others, and don’t know that self worth comes from the inside. They look at their check book, their car, their house, and their relationships, and think that they are worth proportionally to those things they have. It would be a fine system when you are on top, making money, and playing around, but sucks when you are broke and things don’t go well.

Self-worth can mean different things to different people in different stages of life. How we assess our self worth is usually dependent on what stage or place we find ourselves at the moment. It can be a personal determination as to what we value the most; and if we don’t possess what we value the most, we can deem ourselves deficient and self worth plummets.

But aside from not understanding their own value, people also confuse it for a second reason: They think others are capable or perceiving their real value, whatever it is. That is not a good presumption. Others tend to be just as confused and blind about your value.

When you walk into a party and people see you come through the door, do they know you are intelligent and sensitive, and that you manage your money well, or that you take good care of your parents, or that you are honest and reliable and treat others with respect? They don’t notice any of that because there is no easy way to notice it. You need to use symbols, strategies, and language to get those values through. Many people get frustrated when they don’t see people appreciating and noticing what they consider to be their virtues, while it is their own responsibility to find ways to make others perceive those virtues and, consequently, perceive value.

People judge a book by its cover. They respect or discount you instantly based on your appearance. You can have the best personality around, but if you look sloppy, people assume you are sloppy.

Value does not manifest other than through symbols: Body language, spoken language, images, information about you, referrals, personal looks.

It’s unfair, your personality should be all that matters. Your ideas and work ethic should be the what people consider first. But they don’t. People respect those who look like they deserve respect. They spend money  on those who look like they already have money. And they seek relationships with those that seem to already have them or have already experienced them.