Ok, so 22 years ago, while cruising an unfamiliar row of books at the campus library for a paper on social theory this one title caught me out of the corner of my eye and I said “woah.” I picked it up and it changed my life.

Ok, not exactly, but it certainly changed the way I’ve thought about sex ever since.

The book’s called Smut: Everyday Reality – Obscene Ideology by Murray S. Davis, University of Chicago Press, 1983.

Here’s how he begins the introduction:

For many years I have been puzzled by two questions: Why does a person want to have sex with others? And why do other people attempt to stop him or her from doing it?

Sound familiar? I’d already started asking those questions when I read the book and I’ve been asking them ever since. Funny thing, though, is I’m only just now reading it again.

The great thing about Davis is he sidesteps the macro-level behavioralism of Kinsey and the micro-level instinctualism of Freud and, perhaps not surprisingly for a sociologist, examines sex at the scale of individual mature human beings in their social environments.

His biggest eye-openers for me were/are 1) the way he uses phenomenology instead of, say, poetry, sermons, or sociobiology to distinguish horniness from everyday reality and 2) the way he splits social attitudes about sex into three groups: those who think sex is transcendental and think that’s bad; those fear sex will disrupt society, those who hope sex will disrupt society, and those who think sex, while temporarily altering our perceptions, is still just something we do like eating, talking, thinking, or sleeping.

I also really appreciate when he says

Where the Freudians see sex as basically biological (with some experiential consequences), I will conceive of it as essentially experiential (with some biological consequences.)

That’s always made a bit more sense to me. It’s not that biology doesn’t have a role in human sexuality, it’s that it’s so small and/or elemental compared to the vastly more complex things we make of it that it’s almost irrelevant. Yeah, we get horny and if our horniness is frustrated then we get cranky too. But… We also get frustrated and cranky when we’re stuck in traffic, when we’re late cooking supper, when we’re tired, when… But you don’t see a lot of people writing books or giving sermons or passing laws about our sleep habits or our dining preferences or (the legitimate problem of “road rage” not withstanding) our commuting proclivities, but even less you see people defending our other antics in terms of biological imperitives, instincts, or disorders. So why pretend sex is just about hormone secretions and/or sin?

Fair warning: Over time it’s possible you’re going to get so sick of me posting riffs off of this book. (I’ve circled maybe 30 suitable items in his endnotes alone!) On the other hand… I realize I’ve been posting riffs off it since pretty much day one. So you might not mind a bit. (Especially if I’ll keep the citations down to a dull roar.)

Faded love, love gone wrong, promises made and broken. It’s the common theme for so much music because it’s common theme in so many of our lives. You’ve been burned so many times, to a point where you’re bitter about it, and ready to give up on men, or women, or your gender, or the other gender, or whatever-you-are-don’t-start.

Don’t get me wrong, bitterness is often a totally appropriate way to feel about the men or women who’ve been in your life. It’s just that there’s that genie in the bottle story where the genie says “for the first thousand years I was trapped I swore if I was rescued I’d shower my savior with riches, for the second thousand I swore I’d grant my savior everything he could wish for, but for the third thousand years I swore I’d kill whoever saved me so prepare to die.â€? The point being that a) bitterness about previous experience isn’t fair to carry forward onto new ones and b) bitter genies always trick themselves back into their bottles, as of course happens in the story! (And, of course, the person who finds the genie is very happy to see it back in the bottle as well, and then no change of heart, no promise, will pursuade them to let it back out. That’s fine for fairy tales but a nightmare when it’s happening to us.)

The hard part? (It’s really hard, you know?) The hard part is you have to figure out how to pick different partners. (And oh I feel like an asshole for saying this.) I’m not singling any one person out, you know. I’m saying everybody does this if they’re not careful. And we’re usually not careful. Cautious? Yes. Fearful? Often. Careful? Not so much. Not enough to avoid making the same set of mistakes again and again.

We usually have two types we wind up falling for. The main type, and their woah-I’m-not-making-that-mistake-again opposite type. Problem is they’re almost always on the same pretty narrow path (maybe call it a railroad track) and as we go from relationship to relationship we just sort of… roll back and forth between the same two stations on the same line.

So the hard part is getting off that track and heading overland, which sucks a big dick at first, and often we wind up back at one of the two stations anyway. But the thing is that if you can really get off the track then you stop recognizing landmarks on the way and going all “uh oh, here it comesâ€? and bracing yourself defensively and, often preemptively, offensively.

Anyway, I’m not sure where this little outburst came from and I sort of apologize, but it’s the best articulation of the sort of cryptic thing I usually say which is that there are usually men or women all around us who would die for us if they could, but since they’re not on one of our “tracksâ€? they’re sort of invisible to us.

Anyway, that’s accidentally how I found my partner, when I was 35, after really, really realizing I was unlovable and unwantable and unsexy and unnecessary! My partner and I aren’t alike in so many ways. We’re more complementary (each filling in where the other lacks) than we’re really compatible. If I hadn’t just fuck-all given up I’d have never given her the time of day the day we met — she was pretty, yes, and friendly, sure, but she just wasn’t my type — she wasn’t heading towards either of my stations. As luck would have it if she hadn’t been in a similar state of mind she might not have bothered with me since I really wasn’t her type either.

Instead of being my type, because she wasn’t my type, she turned out to be someone utterly different than anyone I’d been attracted to before. Which was great because pretty much every time I saw one of those “uh ohâ€? landmarks and started bracing myself she’d take a different turn, one I’d never seen before. And, in this new terrain, of course I take different turns with her too.

Years and years later we’re still like that together. There are still bumps and stalls but they’re not predictable, they’re not routine, they’re not marked on the old railroad timetables. I love her till my hair hurts and my teeth itch, till my head aches and my heart breaks. If I were a folk singer (from Manitoba or Alberta or Saskatoon for some reason) I’d write a love song and the chorus would include “I’ve seen the mountains worn away, I’ve seen the great trees fall, my love outlasts them all.â€? I wouldn’t have gotten that if I hadn’t gone off the rails.

Anyway, if I can beat the railroad analogy to death, going overland has been a lot bumpier than rolling on nice, familiar tracks, but man, you get to go a lot more places.

It’s coming on Spring, you know. Spring has delights of its own but I’ll miss sitting on the couch by the fire.

I mean, I know it’s the ironic thing about being half-nekkid next to a fire while not caring to be half-nekkid when the weather’s warm. Thing is, when it’s cold out you can build a fire or put on more clothes. But when it’s hot? Well, there are only so many clothes you can take off. With a fire? You can still take off clothes but if that doesn’t work you can still step outside.

Happy HNT (or Half-nekkid Thursday!)

From Jessica at Feministing comes some interesting information about men, women, and body image. As you know I spend a lot of time asking people to honestly assess their bodies rather than assume that, because we see this flaw or remember that incident, we’re unattractive. Turns out body image may have an effect on people’s decisions to have protected or unprotected sex.

Apparently, young men who feel good about the way they look are more likely to have unprotected sex with multiple partners while young women with a positive body image were less likely to have risky sex. Interesting.

The men who were most satisfied with their appearance, and the most appearance-oriented — meaning they were highly invested in their looks and considered appearance to be important — were also the most likely to have sex without condoms and to have sex with multiple partners, Dr. Eva S. Lefkowitz of Pennsylvania State University in University Park and colleagues report.

...Among young women, in contrast, those with a more positive body image were less likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, Lefkowitz and her team found.

I think this is interesting stuff, but there’s a part of me that’s wary about an alternate conclusion that could be reached from this study—that women have “riskyâ€? sex if they have low self-esteem. If risky is defined as having multiple partners, the argument that women who “sleep aroundâ€? actually just hate themselves isn’t exactly new.

See the whole post here.

It’s disappointing that increased self-esteem doesn’t seem to help young men, but overall I believe this still warrants encouraging people to be more realistic about their attractiveness. It’s certainly a good reason to challenge people of either gender who are unrealistically harsh on themselves.

[Note: While this post will discuss sexual experience only on the assumption that all other factors met your personal criteria for a satisfactory and compatable relationship. Please insert the words “all other things being equal” where appropriate because, of course, it’s always entirely appropriate. —fl]

So September of Standing in the sun brings up an interesting point about sexual experience and sexual competence. (I’ve added italics for emphasis.)

We haven’t slept together in eight months, which is also the last time I had sex. Sex-sex, not counting fooling around with another guy a few times, which let me tell you, was NOT as good as the first time we hooked up, either. I thought he’d be better at things, being as promiscuous as he is, but he wasn’t.

Read the whole post here.

This observation meshes rather nicely with an idea AAG of AlwaysArousedGirls raised yesterday.

It’s crossing my mind how dreadfully inexperienced I am. By your late 30s you should have a considerable stockpile of sexual knowledge, right?

I don’t. I’m woefully inadequate in many aspects of sex simply because I’ve not had enough of a chance to practice.

...

The enthusiasm is there, definitely. But the raw skills? Perhaps not.

Does anyone reading this feel like a Master of Sex? Or are there aspects of sex that everyone feels shaky performing? Tell me.

Read the whole post here.

I’ve been brooding lately over the question “what does it mean to be jaded” for a couple of days. I haven’t been able to get a hook, a lead sentence, a unifying theme, and so there it sits, a nagging suspicion that too much of a good thing is no better than not enough and no good way to put it. But this? September and AAG’s posts point in a more managable direction.

What does it even mean to say you’re inexperienced? Or, for that matter, experienced?

I’m pretty sure we could get together and arrive at some baseline definitions of sexual competence but would such standards include numbers of partners? Numbers of encounters? Quantities of orgasms received or delivered? (I sort of hope not since orgasms are only one of a number of ways to measure enjoyment and we too often disregard all others.) Might it be number of techniques mastered? Number you’ve heard about and are willing to attempt? Would speed be a factor? Efficiency? Endurance?

Assuming one’s partner meets your personal criteria for baseline competence do you think less of them for not knowing more? Where does joyful enthusiasm fit it? How about someone who can skillfully roll your eyeballs all the way around backwards… but seems annoyingly board as he or she does so.

Andy Warhol had a number of, um, interesting issues, but I don’t think they were related to his eating the same lunch (tomato soup) every day for 32 years. And we’ve probably all been over to dinner with someone who’s never content to cook the same thing twice but also manages to cut corners on and/or scorch everything. Including the lemon wedges. We’ve also probably all experienced a little anxiety about serving meatloaf or stir fries to friends who cook for a living… and perhaps been surprised when they ask us for second helpings. Or thirds.

Me? Here’s what I want. Someone who’s had enough experience to know what she wants. Someone with enough confidence to know it’s ok to talk, to ask me what I want, to tell me what inspires her. Someone with enough experience to adapt what she might have heard is supposed to be true to fit her reality and mine. After that, additional partners, or additional positions, or additional interests are wonderful, delightful, inspiring, and — in relation to the rest — relatively unimportant.

So! Is it fun to have had lots of experience? You bet. Are you missing something if you or your partner hasn’t tried everything? Sometimes. Maybe. Usually not.

Finally, please don’t think I’m saying routine sex is better than a sexual Circ de Solei. I’m saying that once you reach baseline competence I think it’s better to be able to say “I’d like to try [that] sometime” without adding “or I’m missing out.”

Update: Ooh, ooh, extra credit to whoever produced this Flash-based music video. (Via Huneeb at Raw, unfiltered sticky sweetness.)

[Kochanie is a frequent commenter here and she’s got a lot of great ideas. Yesterday she gave me a suggestion that was so well-formed I would have felt bad taking credit for it so I’m going to promote it to its own “guest blogging” post. I haven’t asked her permission to do so, and she may kill me for it, but promoting comments is an honored tradition in blogging so I’m going for it. —fl]

Figleaf,

In your response to AAG’s comment, you said that you are sometimes shy and sometimes bold. If you still wish to explore gender stereotypes, I think that shyness among men and boys would be a good topic.

When a man is shy about initiating a sexual advance, a woman can very easily misinterpret this as a lack of interest in her because she is too aggressive, or unappealing. Many relationships that barely started have met an untimely death because the woman assumed that ALL men were sexually bold, and a woman had to be VERY unattractive if a man did not hit upon her.

Similarly, a man may have walked away from a woman who was very attracted to him, because he felt shy, but was too embarassed to admit that shyness even to himself. Easier to say that the former girlfriend was too sexually aggressive.

Now there definitely are mismatches between low and high libido partners, as you and other bloggers have discussed. But in addition to differences in libido (which can vary for the same person throughout his/her lifetime), are we also complicating this compatibility issue by our assumptions about how normal men and women should behave sexually?

If you and your readers have already discussed this, just refer me to that post. You have almost 700 posts, and while I have read quite a few, I have not read all. Thank you.

Oh man you need to start your own blog, Kochanie. I’m so glad to have you here and I definitely love this idea — it’s all over my bugaboos about how stereotpe-based expectations torpedo us — but it would feel like poaching if I borrowed it.

You’ve raised some really good points.

Usually when I think about assumptions women make about men I’m still reacting to the oft-repeated assertion that men will never turn down an opportunity to get laid… even if our partner’s unwilling, even if our partner is unconscious, even if our partner is actually a horse, sheep, or goat. In other words, I’ve often been so worried that a potential partner thinks I want her only for her body that I may have left her thinking I didn’t want her at all!

The irony of it all is that when I was small my family’s favorite album was “My Fair Lady” and I know the words of Liza Dolittle’s complaint by heart:

Don’t talk of stars
Burning above;
If you’re in love,
Show me!

Tell me no dreams
Filled with desire.
If you’re on fire,
Show me!

Here we are together in the middle of the night!
Don’t talk of spring! Just hold me tight!
Anyone who’s ever been in love’ll tell you that
This is no time for a chat!

Haven’t your lips
Longed for my touch?
Don’t say how much,
Show me!

Show me!

Don’t talk of love
lasting through time.
Make me no undying vow.
Show me now!

Sing me no song!
Read me no rhyme!
Don’t waste my time,
Show me!

Don’t talk of June,
Don’t talk of fall!
Don’t talk at all!
Show me!

Never do I ever want to hear another word.
There isn’t one I haven’t heard.
Here we are together in what ought to be a dream;
Day one more word and I’ll scream!

Haven’t your arms
Hungered for mine?
Please don’t “expl’ine,”
Show me!

Show me!

Don’t wait until
wrinkles and lines
Pop out all over my brow,
Show me now!

DOH! I knew it, literally, by heart and still spent much of my life mantled and cumbered in Sensitive New-Age Guy straight-jackets. Talk about living proof that knowledge alone does not equal power? :-)

One of the best things about blogging is the opportunity to learn from my mistakes. Thanks for another hard but rewarding lesson, Kochanie.

[Everyone, of course, is invited to chime in here in comments or on your own blogs about mismatches not in libido but in boldness and shyness.]

My answer would be yes. I’d say it without words.

The original challenge goes like this: “The game is that you write a D/s, kinky or sexy haiku — write one, write a dozen — it’s up to you. What is a haiku you ask? It is verse form having three lines of five, seven, and five syllables.”

I don’t usually respond to tags. But since I have no ear for haiku, and since Miss Syl of put me in her tag list, and since I haven’t written many 25-words-or-less posts lately, I thought I’d tackle it with my preferred short form.

Hmm. D/s or kinky? How about kinky D/s instead?

• Bound high on tiptoes, muscles straining, chest and ass striped and bruised, spent and quivering. Your shy smile thanks me. Then you undo my bonds. (25)
• What are you doing, figleaf?!? “Well, it’s sensuous when I stroke your body with a single feather. It’s kinky when I use a whole duck.” (25)
• “What am I stroking you with? Lipstick. Here. And here. And… here.” (12)
• Come kneel across my lap. Lower your skirt and panties. This will be harder than you’re used to. I’ll only stop… if you stop counting. (25)

I won’t tag anyone else but you’re more than willing to post own haiku or 25-words-or-less entries on your own blog or in comments.

A few days ago I came up with a couple of long-winded posts about language and power. (First this, then this.)

Today I was thumbing through the March 2006 issue of Scientific American and came across a short article that highlights just how much language can affect our perceptions.

What You See Is What You Say

Psychologists argue over whether language influences how people think. It could, however, affect half of what they see. The view from the right eye is processed in the brain’s left hemisphere, which also seems to handle language. Investigators at the University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley, tested how well the left and right fields of view distinguish between the colors known in English as blue and green. Most of the world’s languages actually use a single word for the two, suggesting that for English speakers, language influences the discrimination between blue and green. The researchers found native English speakers were faster at distinguishing bluish squares from greener ones if the differently colored square appeared within the right visual field. This effect vanished if the volunteers had to rehearse an eight-digit number, which distracted their verbal working memory. Look for the findings in the January 10 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA

Find the article, by Charles Q. Choi, on Page 32 of “Scientific American” March, 2006

As always, reports of scientific articles are often more sensational than the articles themselves, and the idea that vision is processed by different sides of the brain goes against my (very limited) understanding of visual neurology. Also, the article is subscription-only so I can’t see what the researchers actually say. Finally, the difference between science and propaganda (as the feminist author and professor Stephanie Coontz used to say) is that scientists seek evidence that their hypothesis is mistaken, and I’m unashamedly presenting this in support of mine.

Those disclaimers aside, I’d just like to suggest that if language we use can so strongly affect our perception of something as seemingly unambiguous and tangible as the colors blue and green, then our use of language certainly also affects less tangible but no less real factors such as social baselines (“women” and “men” for instance) and departures from those baselines. Which is why I think it’s important so important to choose our language carefully. Especially when the desirable qualified terms we seek (e.g. feminist woman) represents the majority, or at least plurarlity, position or when a qualified term we wish to introduce (e.g. “slut” for healthy sexual self-determination) is actually a desired condition for the baseline.

The answer may not be clear cut in black and white, but neither is it as ambiguous as blue and green.

Miss Syl of Sexeteria has asked some intelligent questions about the place of love in the world.

So often, looking back at my relationships (romantic and otherwise) and at my friends’, and even at the relationships described by all these bloggers I read, you just have to wonder why people keep reaching out for each other at all. Love seems to be a far more complex and difficult emotion than we like define it as. It has all the heart throbbing, sure. And after that, the long-time affection, yep. But then, along with that, there also seem to be other things inextricably blended into the mix that no one tells you about. Things like pain, hurt, guilt, misunderstanding, frustration, hidden motives, and even manipulation. Even those in the best relationships say they have to deal with this to some extent.

Often, it seems like love is mostly about overcoming, not…y’know…well…coming

Read her whole post here.

I think the fairy-tale answer is that we buy the “happily ever after” hand waving at the end of romantic fairy tales.

I know scarcely anything about Zen but I think I achieved accidental enlightenment when someone told me a Zen saying is “Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: chop wood carry water.”

To carry that point to a more material plane, before love you have to live in the world, and after love you still have to live in the world. The flaw, if there is one, is not that love, romance, contact, sex are inadequate. Instead the flaw (if there is one) is that we expect more from love than it can possibly offer.

Which is sort of unfair of us. Love and all that comes with it is wonderful. Wonderful as salt is to soup. However much as we wish it, however much fairy tales promise us, you can’t live on love. It can only be one part of a healthy balance of emotions. Most of the other emotions aren’t as much fun, but they’re no less essential.

Remembering that (or learning it) makes all the difference.

Update: And when we forget (or never learn) we risk disappointment.