Apparently, the whole thinking about sex as if it were baseball — first base, second base, etc. — isn’t just annoying, but actually harmful for a whole host of reasons — including the fact that it’s “heteronormative.”
“Forget the fact that you need a dude wearing a mask to tell you whether you’re being ‘safe’ — the whole gambit falls way short,” Isha Aran writes in a piece for Fusion.
“More important, though, the metaphor is missing a key concept: consent,” she says.
No doubt: People who openly view sex as a conquest like a batter facing down a pitcher are creepy and gross — and the reality that many men seem to see it that way does bother me. Certainly, any dude who I heard talking about sex in terms of first, second, and third base would also be immediately identifying himself as someone whom I’d never spend time with.
#related#But Aran’s concerns about the metaphor go way beyond the consent-not-conquest idea. She also objects because the metaphor is “heteronormative” and “assumes that penis-in-vagina sex is the only goal of sex.”
No, there are no “consent talk” situations in baseball — but I’m pretty sure there are no penis-in-vagina situations either. (Unless of course I’ve been missing something at every ballpark I’ve ever been to.)
After all, couldn’t the “home run” just as easily refer to a sexual experience that was not “heteronormative” as one that was? And even if it did refer to only heterosexual sex — so what? I’ve always been under the impression that it’s okay for specific metaphors to be specific — but maybe I just need a lesson in inclusivity and to check my straight privilege.
— Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review Online.