To All Vanilla People: Our Time Has Come

Preface:

To identify as gay, or to have any sort of sexual identity, ostensibly implicates a discourse on sex.  And in the West we are particularly ambivalent about sex and sexuality.  Add to this, that "claiming" is only necessary when one's sexual identity is not given (for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, poly-amorous, transgender people, etc).  We claim our identities, and give them a position, because the mainstream discourse does not inherently provide a position for GLBT people (admittedly less so in the past).  And where a position does exist, it is often comparably asymmetrical--that is, our positions are endowed with less influence or power than those of our white, male, straight counterparts.  By "position" I mean social position--the stance we must take with its moral and cultural scripts that loosely limits how we relate and interact with others.  These moral and cultural scripts are complicated--from the pre- or post-marital sex debate, to debates about monogamy and polyamory, to debates about the actual terms we use to claim a position (Dyke, Queer, Butch, Lesbian, Gay, Homosexual, Trans, Boi, Kinky, Vanilla, etc), and to the strategies we use to stake claims (gay marriage vs. no marriage).  I am no expert on this topic, but in introducing my blog in this way, I hope to demonstrate that what I say next is locked within a foray of flying discursive moments, none of which should be underestimated.  Nothing I say retains a simple, uniform meaning.  And what I write has implications within and without the GLBT community--and such implications often differ depending on the perspective of the community in question.   

...

I am vanilla!  I claim my vanilla status, and I, right here right now, intend to stake a discursive space (a social position) for vanilla people.  Here I am--ramming a big wafer-colored flag into the discursive mound of Queer-eality.  Vanilla will no longer simply mean the absence of interesting sexual activity.  It will no longer be equated with lifeless monogamy or repetitive, redundant sexual activity.  For example, the sex-lives within marriage and monogamy, to remain alive, do not also necessitate menage a' trois, sex toys, role-play, fore-play, and the like.  However, these are not out of the question for vanilla people.  Like a straight man who might cross-dress, or a lesbian who might, for a second, consider wearing lipstick, vanilla people do not by definition reject complicated sex.  

What you do during sex is much less important than the substance underlying the sexual experience, anyway.  By substance I mean the meaning of the sexual experience—the feeling of the sex, the connection derived and enhanced in the context of the sex, the intimacy established and reinforced.  I place kinky on one side of a wide spectrum where vanilla is the opposite bookend.  Both kinky and vanilla are about more than the activity—they are about what the activity does for the people involved.  Kinky focuses on power-play where one person is dominant and the other is subordinate.  Kinky may involve intimacy, sensuality, connection, monogamy, etc, but Kinky does not necessitate these for its focus.  Vanilla focuses on "intimacy-play" where one person is revealing a part of their self while the other discovers it.  Vanilla is about opening oneself to mutual vulnerability in sexual interaction.  Vanilla may involve power-play (vulnerabilities often do), sensuality, connection, monogamy, etc, but vanilla does not necessitate these for its focus.  Vanilla sex may even involve some of the same props as Kinky sex or other types of sex, but vanilla sex manages such props in much different ways and with much different intentions. 

The most liberating thing about defining a positive space for the term “vanilla” is that we can now feel okay if we don’t like to fist, to flog, to use an abundance of toys, etc.  The focus in vanilla sex is on intimacy itself, which does not require complicated activity.  And even if vanilla were to involve complicated activity, such activity is much more likely to be connected to sensuality and to pleasure rather than to pain and to power.   

When I claim my vanilla status, I claim it because I like sex that is soft, sensual, playful, intimate, connected and sweet.  I also like sex constituted within a committed relationship.  It has been my experience that usually (but not always) commitment leads to enhanced trust and safety.  When trust and safety are present and enhanced, a much greater degree of intimacy and connection follows. 


The way we have codified and thereby related to the term "vanilla" indicates the twisted way our society relates to sex.  Vanilla is what you do if you follow the mainstream, and if you don't realize how freeing nontraditional ways of sex (and of being sexual) can be!  Vanilla people are somehow the bad gays, or like those still trapped unawares in The Matrix who, in their ignorance, are more a threat than an ally.  The regulative effect that Christianity has had on the West, has twisted our relationship to sex into a paradox.  We accept that it happens, that it is necessary, but we deny its accompanying pleasure, its utter beauty, and the significance it has (without a doubt) in how we manage and produce meaning.  Still in many liberal communities, there are no terms for relating to sex directly and openly, no ways of managing its pervasive influence in all hearts and minds.  We thus put ourselves in a bind—we hate ourselves for doing the very thing we know we must.  In the meantime, we never develop the proper tools to manage our sexuality safely and with balance.  We thus are forced into exploring alternative ways of being sexual, which are then pushed under the rug.  And although these alternatives are in themselves viable, they are part of a twisted system.  A way that we can dismantle this system is by claiming, as Queers, the oppressive side of sex as well.  We can accept "vanilla" into the fold.  A wonderful program with which I resonate, and which has applications for all ages is Our Whole Lives:  http://www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/ourwhole/

I found myself caught in this twisted system, and thereby torn by the examples set before me.  It seemed that I must either become monogamous and bored, or uncommitted and exhilarated. But these options are false dichotomies.  They do not even approach the full spectrum of sexual vitality and its idiosyncratic wonder.  At the very least, good sex and monogamy are not mutually exclusive.  And whether you are poly, bi, homo, straight or just plain queer, you need also to know that you can be vanilla.  It no longer needs to be a shameful word--a word we use to describe mainstream folk who apparently don't understand the value of sexual freedom.  One can be free, perfectly free, and vanilla simultaneously!  Praise vanilla people! Our time has come.