I Love Samantha but Barbarella in the Excessive Machine Is More My Style

 

Samantha vs Barbarella

Let’s just say that I take on more than a few Samantha jokes in an average week. It’s true that I’m over-the-top committed to motivating, inspiring and on occasion, giving us a kick in the butt in the direction of living a Sensual and Superyoung life.

In America’s post Sex and the City world, Samantha reigns as the ‘cougar’ woman, the preying mantis female who consumes, then spits out, younger men after she’s used them sexually. Even Samantha says she’s deeper than that, and Kim Cattrall just laughs at the stereotypes of sexy, older women in America.

I now see Samantha differently, created to appeal to younger women, so ambivalent about the women who preceeded them. Many daughters of America’s second-wave feminists find the idea that their mothers remain sexually active a repulsive thought — another example of our narcissism and self-centeredness.

This unfortunate attitude was front and center at last week’s Erica Jong evening, which I covered in my last post.

Has no one ever been to France or Italy or Brazil, where sexy, older women and mothers aren’t marginalized or pornified but celebrated? America suffers from a serious quality-content vision when the subject is aging beautifully.

Samantha Sex Scene Viagra Video

Moving into the dark shadows of older-women’s sexuality, I found an alternative to Sam’s infamous Viagra video — which I just now found again on You Tube. 

Viewer discretion advised . . mostly the “f-word” and lots of singing in these two videos. Otherwise, no harm done.

Samantha Talks Sex in the City

Men are hard-pressed to understand that — while I adore Samantha — I’m far more “connected” than she is. When I listen to talk about sex — my sexual world, as described by women like Molly Jong-Fast and her friends Julie Klam and Karen Abbott, it’s not the world I’ve lived in, not that of Molly’s mother Erica Jong.

I do not pick up men like stray cats and never have, even though it’s as easy as eating apple pie. In our country a woman with a strong love of quality sex is still more likely to be considered a whore, than a responsible woman who embraces a positive sexuality.

While I support Erica Jong’s lifestyle because I refuse to criticize a trailblazer, this is not my life ever. Moral-majority America wants to cast sex-positive women as harlots. I have always been circumspect in the bedroom, committed to intimacy as a life-enhancer.

If you’re looking for a real-deal Samantha, American-media style, or Erica Jong’s sexual soul sister, I’m probably not your woman … much as I love Kim Cattrall and Erica Jong.

CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 16: (L-R) Grace Hightower, Naomi Campbell, actress Jane Fonda and Afef Jnifen walk the runway at the Fashion For Relief at Forville market during the 64th Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 16, 2011 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images)

Defending Jane Fonda

In the last two months I’ve been aggressively dragged into my past life as a feminist and political activist, trying to make sense of Molly Jong-Fast’s comments about feminism being a luxury women’s issue and her allegations that the world’s women have enough rights.

Today I found myself stepping up to the plate for Jane Fonda, a woman who is a muse at AOC.

My prior articles about Jane Fonda — including this one now being updated — focused on her approach to diet, exercise, sexuality and positive aging. Today I am defending Jane Fonda against her being dropped by QVC in an interview scheduled for yesterday, to promote her new book Prime Time. 

Social conservatives pressured QVC to drop Fonda over her anti-war activities and trip to Hanoi during the Vietnam War. Fonda made some very stupid mistakes on the trip, for which she has apologized countless times.

“I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me in an anti-aircraft gun, which looks like I was trying to shoot at American planes. It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanized such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless…”

Not only did I call QVC this morning (1-800-367-9444; hit 0 for operator), to protest their cancellation of Jane Fonda on freedom of speech grounds, I mention the incident in my Sensually Yours column for a reason.

The timing of the event comes in the midst of the Republican War on Women and my understanding that the daughters of America’s feminists often reject not only their mother’s values, but positive sexuality in general. I have no confidence that these women— many mothers themselves — will stand up for American women’s rights.

The allegiance between Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Molly Jong-Fast is clear — when the focus is women.

Sobered by this younger women’s ‘Sex and the City’ preference for stilettos, rather than a positive sexuality and intimacy with one’s lover (a term Jong-Fast despises as totally decadent), I am springing into action on all fronts.

Simply stated, in my own mind I see the parallels between the daughters of feminism refusing to accept its principles and the growing political attacks against American women’s bodies, led largely by male politicians in a Congress where women have only 17% representation.

Today I read that national icons like Jane Fonda are being routed from talk shows over social conservatives flexing their muscles. Is this the land of free speech? I think not.

Before S&TC’s ‘Rabbit’ Jane Fonda Experienced the ‘Excessive Machine’

It’s a fact that I enjoyed a bit of technology last year, having multiple experiences with electrical sex. For someone who finds rabbits totally boring and way too techno for my taste, I decided to explore the sensual realm of electrical sex, and I must tell you that I felt just like Barbarella.

Watching the “Excessive Machine scene from Barbarella” … hmmm. I like it, and no, it didn’t ruin the beauty of sensual massage with strong hands.

Men are rather intimidated by women’s use of gizmos, as if we’re sending a message that men are inadequate.

In my case, I agreed to ‘test drive’ some electrical sex equipment over a period of several sessions. It was an eye-opener into the futuristic world of pleasure, especially in a world where lovers are often separated by thousands of miles and must be inventive in nurturing each other’s sensual passions.

Last week I listened to my icon Erica Jong explain that the Internet had ruined everything when the subject is sex. I don’t share that viewpoint at all, which isn’t to suggest that there have been no downsides in the age of love on the Internet.

Barbarella reminds that sexual politics, feminism, women’s rights and positive sexuality remain intertwined, four decades after we got the party started.  Talking with Erica Jong last week and spring to Jane Fonda’s defense today, I realize that sexually-speaking, I am probably more like Fonda.

Barbarella (1968) in the Excessive Machine.

Jane Fonda’s not so calculating … more smoldering … not as knowingly manipulative with her sensuality in this dated Barbarella video. Personally, I have a reference point now, once that expresses my own self, with and without technology.

Lest I get in trouble with the ‘Sex and the City’ Samantha camp, don’t misunderstand me.

I know that many Jezebels, Wonkette’s and hoards of younger women are fearless about expressing their sexuality on a whim. For every sexually-uptight female there is her counterpart, living in a hookup culture. I understand and support you … and I won’t pull out research studies about the damage of drive-by sex, in our light-hearted discussion of Samantha and Barbarella.

Our Bodes, Our Selves

I’m all for novel sexual exploration. Frankly, it grows more dendrites in our brains, which is key to staying superyoung. Jane Fonda understands those facts; and I wish that Erica Jong had also embraced the health benefits of sex rather than living in unconsummated fantasy, which was her main message last week.

Returning to a consistent point about sensual intimacy at Anne of Carversville, I finally rebelled in my position as Fashion Director of Victoria’s Secret, not wanting to drive a wedge between women’s sexuality and customers who loved us, using a group of supermodels with wings to set a new standard of sexuality.

On the one hand, it seemed enlightened to send the strong message that women are Angels, not Devils, as sexual creatures. But the evolution of the Victoria’s Secret Angels was to lose our focus on the healthy sexuality of real American women, who need all the encouragement we can get in embracing sexuality as a positive and respectable life force.

VS tapped into the S&TC zeitgeist, stressing shopping not the act of sex itself as an expression of female sexual power.

Anne of Carversville exists to convince women that quality sex is truly good for us — for our health and well-being, our emotions and our minds. Older women are leading in this game of life, even if the American media can’t see the forest through the trees at times.

International culture is looking for sensual goddesses, and it’s older women’s opportunity and inherited right to play the leading role in the world’s ongoing sensual revolution. Forgive me, but we’re more likely to know what we’re doing in a complex cultural, morality landscape —  in and out of bed — no matter what our daughters say.

So many people are begging women of every age to take the lead — but especially the older women who have fought our way through this social conservative nightmare once already. AOC has absolutely joined this fight and we’re in for the long haul.  Anne