SOS MAÏA
In theory, sexuality is no longer taboo. In practice, there are questions that we dare not ask anyone … In any case, anyone who can judge us (partners, friends) or recognize us (doctors, shrinks). Some confessions are bottles in the sea, anonymous, which are almost private diaries. Some questions, on the other hand, could concern millions of people and would benefit from being discussed collectively.
For years now, the columnist of “La Matinale”, Maïa Mazaurette (who is not a sex therapist, let us remember!), Has received hundreds of messages. She now answers them once a month, as part of her Sunday column, with her proverbial good humor – and her very personal obsession with a host of statistics.
The rise of feminism has cut off my husband’s desire. He realized that he is part of a system that uses sex to dominate women: since then he has felt lost. How to reconcile him with his sexuality and his desires?
To begin with, you can reassure your husband: that either partner feels lost in a period of questioning of the dominant sexual model, it seems rather normal. This upheaval can scratch some sensibilities, of course … but on arrival, we rarely regret the adventure. Moreover, your husband’s metaphysical doubts can be resolved very concretely, just like we take out our GPS when our sense of direction is lacking.
In sexuality as in high mountains, the easiest way is to refer to guides. I write “guides” in the plural to avoid a trap: that of the word of the gospel – particularly disastrous in the field of gender issues. In my experience, men who are newly “converted” to feminism are more easily recognized in the words of feminist men: I will therefore recommend only masculine content.
In literature, the essential work seems to me to be The Crisis of Masculinity (Les Editions du Remue-Ménage, 2018), by historian Francis Dupuis-Déri. This essay shows that masculinity has been in perpetual crisis since Methuselah… which considerably relativizes our contemporary anxieties. You can also offer Martin Page’s books (Beyond penetration, Le Nouvel Attila, 2020), Martin Winckler (The CHœheart of women, POL, 2009) or Ivan Jablonka (Righteous men, Threshold, 2019).
On the podcast side, I’m a big fan of JINS, which describes the sexualities of Arab and / or Muslim people in France… but which will resonate whatever your chapel or origin. On stage, and because it is better to laugh than to cry, I invite you to discover Laurent Sciamma’s stand-up shows (Fellow) and Guillermo Guiz (Next).
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