This isn’t one of those meme things, it’s just a series of questions Julie of What’s your pleasure? posted at the end of a nice post about kissing.

Q: When is the last time you made out with someone?
A: Way, way too long! I know guys are supposed to always be impatient to move on to the main course, but really, what’s the flipping rush? I admit I prefer not to stop at kissing (one reason I wouldn’t feel comfortable “just” kissing anyone other than my partner) but there’s a lot to be said about pausing at kissing for a very long time.

Q: #2 How do you like to be kissed?
A: I like almost all kinds of kissing, on all kinds of places, but I really enjoy the kind where you’re both applying a little suction so your lips and tongues are really locked together and swirling past each other.

When my hands are busy elsewhere and a partner has been maybe a little too distracted to really kiss back I love the reaction I can get from very gently taking your upper lip between mine and teasing it with my tongue.

Q: Where do you like to be kissed?
A: When I’m not being kissed on my mouth or other obvious places I really enjoy being kissed on my temples and hairline. If you get me really aroused first I really enjoy being kissed where my shoulders meet my neck. And sometimes when I’m really aroused it’s great to have my nipples kissed, licked, and sometimes bitten.

Q: Any kissing turn-offs?
A: “Empty” mouth kisses where your lips are touching but your tongues don’t really come into contact. It’s warm but sort of like kissing into empty space.

Feel free to say whether or how you like to kiss, either on Julie’s blog, here in comments, or in your own blog. Again, it’s not really a meme. It’s just a set of good questions about an often overlooked topic.

When she comes home after a heavy workout, or after scoring a soccer goal and a beer after? That works for me. (22 words)

Quick note: Anyone who can’t give himself a better orgasm than he can have with a partner needs practice masturbating. (A corollary, by the way, would be “anyone who can’t have as good an orgasm during sex with another person as they can by themselves also needs practice.” Pursuing the corollary at this point would detract from my upcoming point.)

I have a feeling that men who feel this way (and there are certainly a lot of them) are confusing the pleasure of genital stimulation with the pleasure of human connection/communication that comes from body (and not just genital) contact. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, men aren’t encouraged to acknowledge the pleasure they receive from intimacy. To appropriately misappropriate Abraham Mazlow’s dictum, when you’re told the only tool you have is a screwdriver, everything starts looking like a screw.”

Xylophone Inspired by the masturbating-with-other-people theme Magdelena, Storm and others have explored with delightful humidity I wanted to suggest a change of emphasis and give a stamp of approval to the practice of masturbating while touching or eating one’s partner.

One of the first times I got to perform cunillingus on a naked woman (for “modesty’s” sake we’d always done it through her undies or pantyhose before) we were lying on a thick, new 70’s-era shag carpet. This was in, of all places, a hallway fairly near the top of some stairs so we could bolt if/when we heard her parents come in. Anyway, she was lying on her back, with her ankle-length peasant dress bunched up around her shoulders (that dress was handy — if she had to stand up in a hurry she was instantly dressed) and her feet wide apart on the hallway’s opposite walls. I was fully dressed on my belly with my head between her legs where I could explore her open thighs, upturned vulva, smoochable inner lips, and mysterious-at-the-time clitoris with my inquisitive tongue and lips. I don’t think I can post often enough about how totally cool… what a full sensory delight it is to perform cunnilingus but it’s just the best! Anyway, There I was lying on the floor, my erection pressed against the soft carpet, and before I knew it I became totally lost in the sheer sensual pleasure of the look, feel, flavor, aroma, and sounds of my mouth on her sex and the friction of my cock pressing into the carpet. Which was sort of a shame since I also sort of lost track in the procedural sense that I was also supposed to be giving her an orgasm.

Some years later the roles were reversed when a partner was eating me as she squatted next to me and, it turned out, grinding her clitoris into one of her heels. Her mouth stayed fastened tight around me and her tongue never stopped moving but her focus drifted further and further from getting me off until she finally had an orgasm of her own.

In both those cases what were ostensibly efforts to bring one’s partner off became additional masturbatory stimulus. In both cases the “offending” party was pretty embarrassed for going “off task.”

The more I think about it though, the more I like the idea. Kissing, sucking, and licking a partner really does feel good in its own right. Watching a partner masturbate really is exciting. So now I’m just wondering whether there’s a way to put those two things together on purpose instead of by accident.

Two questions then:

- Would idly nuzzling and eating your partner improve your masturbatory experience? Would you like to try it? Don’t forget you can always switch places after.

- If your partner were masturbating for you would you mind if he or she idly ate and nuzzled you as well? Would you like to try it? Don’t forget you can always switch places after.

It’s pretty obvious I’d answer yes to both questions. It occurs to me that one frequent complaint about sixty-nining is that you can be so distracted by what your partner does it’s hard to concentrate on what you’re doing. I think that taking turns this way removes that pressure to perform and lets you just enjoy your turn.

Ok, so imagine a candle-lit room, soft music playing gently in the background, a nice light meal, a bottle of good wine, some dancing and romancing barefoot on a silk-soft rug in front of glowing embers in the fireplace. I look you in the eyes and reach for your top button. I kiss you, eyes still open, and unbutton once. We kiss again and I unbutton twice. My warm hands reach into your open blouse and your eyes flash wide when I send the rest of your buttons flying in one strong, fluid motion. Your bra is gone, deftly unhooked and tossed away and now our eyes close as I hold you close for more deep kisses, my fingertips lightly stippling your newly bare flesh. Another quick move and I’ve swept you into my arms, lifting your body to taste your breasts and then, still kissing them, I kneel and lay you gently on the rug, reveling in the golden light and dusky shadows on your body. A moment later and you’re skirt and stockings are gone as well and my hands roam, almost tickling but never quite, exploring, exploring, pressing your shoulders down, sliding across your belly, lifting behind first one knee and then the other, raising one arm and then the other over your head. And then, before you can react, creamy-soft ropes snake ‘round your wrists and moments later your ankles. More kisses, more stroking, then a blindfold. You hear a little clink of fine china and then the unexpected aroma of fresh heavy cream, perfectly warmed to body temperature, and the sensual pleasure as I pour it over neck, chest, breasts, belly, thighs, toes…

Then after a final kiss you hear my footsteps towards the door. The door opens…

...and 500 tiny, hungry puppies scamper in to lap and nip the cream with little tongues and sharp but very weak tiny teeth. :-)

Cherry Bomb of Queen of Cream: True tales of the sex industry in the city summarized, oh, three quarters of everything I’ve ever tried to say about relationships, sex roles, alienation from your sexuality, and social pressure to have sex in one tidy little paragraph.

The point is, if you want to get laid, go hunt someone down on Craig’s List. If you want to get fucked, wander into a relationship without any idea of what you want or what the other person needs, and you’ll find out exactly what I mean.

Yikes! Wow! That pretty much says it all.

CB works in a adult-accessories store. Someone bought a vibrator, claiming she was swearing off men and needed something to replace them. In an extended post exploring that customer’s offhand remark CB just lays out the other side of a point I keep coming back to: that men, alienated from intimacy, are led to believe they need sex when they really (also) need love.

I couldn’t help being incredulous at the idea that that’s all men were to her. Not to wax Old School or anything, because we all know you don’t have to love someone to sleep with them, but I wondered if she had considered that maybe her issue with men didn’t have anything to do with sex. People, do NOT purchase a vibrator if what you should be buying are therapy sessions. I promise it is not an even trade.

Listen, I am a huge advocate for getting off without getting complicated, but don’t go soliciting sex if what you’re really after is love.

...

So, back to the chick buying the male-replacement vibrator. She sounded like she was reading a script straight out of Cosmo magazine or something: “Ladies, if he doesn’t understand you, kick him to the curb and buy yourself a vibrator to celebrate!â€? That’s not an independent, feminist attitude. That’s fucking stupid. It’s buying into all the commercial, Men-Are-From-Mars, Women-Are-From-Venus divisive tactics meant to convince us that there’s no way we could have anything in common. Of course we don’t. If we were more similar, then you could probably share a bottle of shampoo with your boyfriend instead of him needing his pine scented American Crew shit, and you using Herbal Essence. Get it? The more we believe we are incapable of understanding the opposite sex, the more money we’ll spend on books, condoms, toiletries, Sex in the City DVDs, liquor, vibrators, and therapy to help us try and figure it out.

Guys get such a bum rap. They’re portrayed as clueless fumbling morons who couldn’t tell the difference between a woman’s naval and her clitoris. I mean, seriously ladies, on average it takes us about 13 years inside our bodies to find our own clitoris well enough to induce orgasm, so how can you expect every guy you jump into bed with to know immediately how to get you off? Men in our society are raised to think that emotional connections and feelings are pussy shit, and then when they get into relationships and have a difficult time understanding their partners, women roll their eyes and fume about how inept men are.

Well here’s a news flash: people are fucking complicated. I am a woman that dates chicks, and believe me, that does not give me any helpful edge. We spend our whole lives trying to figure out what’s going on inside of our own heads, so is it any wonder that we need a little help when trying to understand our partners?

...

The point is, if you want to get laid, go hunt someone down on Craig’s List. If you want to get fucked, wander into a relationship without any idea of what you want or what the other person needs, and you’ll find out exactly what I mean.

To really get it you need to read her whole post, here.

That’s pretty powerful stuff, a very pointed refutation of the thesis of Pamela Paul’s Pornified and Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvenist Pigs which cast women’s behavior in terms of trying to “fit” into promiscuous roles (created for them primarily by men, no less.) If you’ve followed this blog for any time at all you know I’m the first person to say enough sex is critical to everyone’s happiness, and though I say it less often I’m also the first person to say that love, real love, is every bit as critical. I’d like to be the first to say that the only immorality, the only sin, is to confuse the two but I’m afraid Cherry Bomb has beaten me to it.

My father, a deeply but unconventionally religious and philosophical man, is visiting this week. We were talking about the perils of modern society this morning and he said “you can’t can never get enough of something you don’t need.” This applies equally to sex. It applies equally to love. We can quibble about how much of anything we need, and acknowledge that everyone’s need is different, but if you’re not getting enough of one then I’m not sure you can be satisfied by more of the other, even lots more.

If I were to start Googling for favorite sexual positions I’d get so many hits the lights might go dim up and down the west coast if I tried to visit them all. Everybody’s got a favorite! Everybody’s got a theory. (Almost) everybody’s posted a list.

I think I’ve posted a couple of times on nice positions. (For instance a nice variation on rear entry intercourse.) And like everyone else I have my favorites. I’m sure you have your own.

This post isn’t about positions for intercourse though. It’s about positions for an equally common form kind of sex: masturbation. I remember Shere Hite produced a catalog of masturbation styles and positions in her two major reports. Her list for women is available online here at TheClitoris.com. I wasn’t able to locate her corresponding list for men online but you can probably track down a copy of her report on men’s sexuality in any large used bookstore.

Actually I’m going to narrow the topic of positions down even further, to positions that are particularly nice to watch someone masturbate in.

This is in keeping with my recent advocacy of seeing yourself as others do. We spend a lot of time with ourselves, and (at least when both parties consent) most people are curious about, and excited by, watching their partners touch themselves.

Which finally brings us to the question: If you want to show someone how you masturbate, with an eye perhaps towards showing him or her what you like or maybe just to show them a lovely view your perfectly average and therefore perfectly beautiful body as you climb to climax and descend into resolution.

It’s not an immaterial question. I’ve noticed that the difference between real and porn masturbation is about as wide as that between real and porn, well, anything else.

I bring this up for a couple of reasons. First because the other day Magdelena of Myths and Metawhores: Embodied Spirituality wrote a stirring tribute to masturbation that ended with

I wrote to someone last night, saying how masturbation is a most wonderfully intimate act to observe. I’m curious as to how rare it is for one person to self-pleasure before another. For many reasons, it evokes a raft of anxieties, concerning different judgments and fears. Yet once past these, we are in a secret garden of celestial beauty. The lover before us is emotionally nude and vulnerable. It’s a deeply touching involvement and a joy to share in. A most profane act made sacred again.
So lean in close my love, my body is talking with you and for you. And on my most intimate lips are silent words, spoken only for your eyes.

Read her whole post here.

And because, by coincidence, I was reminded of one a very convenient position for watching each other by the lovely couple at bisexuel.dk.

There are lots of other great positions though. I remember sitting in armchairs across from each other in a guest-house living room on a fiercely warm day when she was wearing nothing but a long dress and I nothing but baggy shorts and we, too hot to do much more, teased each other by parting our legs — she lifting her skirt and I slipping myself out of a leg bottom — and languidly stroking ourselves. And another time, the first time in a bed after a very long camping trip where we lay naked on top of the covers in the hot dry night air with the full moon casting almost enough light on the bed to read by. I thought she was asleep, and I was just stroking myself all over, reveling in the newly-remembered feel of clean dry skin. This led to that (ok, a massive erection) and first little squeezes and then spidering my testicles with my fingernails and finally long strokes up and down, enjoying the sensation tremendously. I’m not sure I could have had an orgasm — I was moving unusually slowly since I was trying not to shake the bed — but fortunately it turned out she was awake and watching the whole time. And jumped my bones before I could finish.

Then there are the wonderfully lurid ways to show off. Being plopped on a chair before someone knelt in front of me and used her hands to guide mine and then, when I finally got the hint, sat there with a huge grin on her face, so close I could feel her breath on my thighs. Or kneeling over each other sixty-nine style so you both have a total ring-side seat.

The best position, though, I think, is also like sixty-nine where you’re both lying on your sides, your heads pillowed on your partner’s turned-out thigh. It’s intimate, nobody has to support their weight, you can help with kisses here or there if you like, and you both have all the time in the world.

So those are some of my favorite positions. What’s yours?

How come I’m comfortable saying “I fucking love you” but too inhibited to say “I love fucking you” when a partner and I are fucking?

Ok, so many, many years ago I was invited to sneak into someone’s boarding school dorm room so we could spend the night having sex. Compared to most of my partners over the years she had very large breasts, a C or D cup, maybe a little bigger. (Aside: I think another myth of porn is that you can tell cup size just by looking.) Anyway, over the course of the evening, and early morning for that matter, I noticed that pretty much any time one of her nipples hardened the other softened, and most of the time both were soft. I mentioned it and she said yeah, they were never hard at the same time, and then she did that thing where you kind of fan your hands over them with the fingers apart to make them stand up… and still when one perked up the other relaxed.

Yes, I was finally able to get them to stand up at the same time but we were more giggly and playful about it than serious or sexy, but that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I want to talk more about how everyone seems to know how to do that fanning your nipples thing.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining! Even when it’s not meant to be sexy it’s still adorable, and when it’s done to be sexy it’s really sexy. But is it just something you know how to do automatically or is it something you figured out.

Click for larger image

Anyway, I was just sitting here experimenting on myself. It feels pretty nice, not really “sproing” nice but pleasant enough, so I was wondering if the crinkly nipples it provokes are the main reaons or a side effect when you do it?

My inner adolescent wants to know. The grown man in me is mildly curious as well but mostly just appreciates the effect when you do, so he just says thanks. :-)

Finally, if you haven’t done it, or haven’t lately, try it (even if you’re a guy you ought to be curious what it feels like) and tell me what you think.

Ok, so here’s something that’s been bugging me lately. How come we never hear people say that this woman or that is expressing her masculine side?

I mean, when a man does something like weep tears of joy for love for his children, or take pleasure in domestic activities, or talk about his feelings, or take pleasure in prolonged foreplay with lots of talking, kissing, hugging, and holding before any pants are unzipped people say “he’s expressing his feminine side?”

You know about those two new books that were all the buzz last week? The ones that were kind of panicking about the way women, young women in particular, are learning to enjoy pornography and (horrors) oral sex the way their male peers do? How come nobody says “they’re just expressing their masculine side?”

Instead, at least according to those and other books, women are behaving that way under pressure from men. Not to put too fine a point on it, if someone told me I did all the cooking and shopping in my household, and much of the laundry, housekeeping, and childcare because I was under pressure from women… well, I’d give ‘em a fat lip. Or maybe just bore them to death by expounding at length about how a Volkswagon 1800 carburetor works. :-)

Seriously though. If Freya, or DTG, or Chelsea Girl, or VS, or Wendy, or KnT, or, or, or, etc., feel the way they do due to pressure from their male peers I want to hear about it. They certainly haven’t mentioned it.

That’s not to say nobody, man or woman, encounters or succumbs to pressure from the opposite gender. (And men and women often succumb to pressure from their own genders but I guess that’s supposed to be ok.) And it’s certainly not to say that men and women often step into, well, all sorts of things when they’re not ready, or when their hearts aren’t into it. But let’s get over this idea that, for instance, men will only comfort a crying child without pressure from women, or that women will only drool over Xana and Dax under pressure from men.

And that’s enough Saturday Non-salacious blogging for one day.