Ok, so from my perspective breasts are definitely very, very nice. The old adage “more than a handful is wasteful” is a bit of a canard not least because humans can learn to palm anything from a magician’s nickel to a basketball, but, again from my perspective, breasts of any size feel wonderful in my hands. They look wonderful too. And so, yet again from my perspective, it makes sense that after the “first base” of kissing I, like many men from my culture, would be drawn to their partner’s breasts as the next place, the “second base” to reach for.

But… but… here’s one funny thing about that. Breasts feel great to me, and for quite a few (but by no means all) women the hands of an even marginally clued-in man can feel very nice on their breasts. But in the baseball metaphor of getting to various “bases” with a partner we often completely blank out on the effectiveness of other, somehow non-“base” erogenous zones.

For instance thinking back on classic extended evenings with various partners (as best I can with my laptop suddenly suspiciously tippy in my lap… must be some kind of… um… lump under there) it sure seems like more partners have responded more aggressively to me when, say, I spend a lot of time kissing, licking, and even gently biting the sides of their necks and shoulders than when I’ve spent the same time kissing, licking, and stroking their breasts. (Come to think of it, I think more of my partners than not have been receptive to me lavishing attention on their breasts after first lavishing it on their necks and throats!) And yet convention allows women to bare their necks but requires you to cover your breasts!

So, again, I’m not saying that breasts aren’t erogenous zones. (Heh, duh, and other one-syllable retorts. Also men, of course have breasts) I’m just saying that in the objectively grand enough scheme of things I don’t know if they’re so much more erogenous than, say, the throat, forearms, the instep of the foot, of fingers, palms, wrists, or forearms, of the backs or insides of knees, of lower or upper inner thighs, or hips, lower bellies, or asses (to name some of the more obvious zones) to warrant it’s own metaphorical “base.”

But that’s not really exactly what this post is all about. It’s actually about sex in the post-Victorian, post-Title-9 world where women are no longer expected to, and no longer instructed to by institutions of church, state, and medicine, to lie passively back and “think of England.”

Anyway, when I think of the video pornography I’ve been looking at lately (I really only just started and I still vastly prefer text and still images) I’ve noticed a couple of things. First, in snippets that seem to be recorded by women who are sort of, I dunno, documenting what they do, women generally take off their pants to masturbate but very often don’t take off their tops. Meanwhile when they seem to be more intentionally performing for an audience of (presumably) men then the top often comes off before the pants, and breasts are given more time and attention. (And if I didn’t have one further point to get to I might stop here and ask whether you masturbate to “the bases” or cut straight to the chase. But I don’t want to stop yet.)

The other thing I’ve noticed from these various videos is how extraordinarily active sex seems to be — circularly influenced, I think, by industrial porn — compared to how most people I’ve seen having sex in real life. Not only are the men involved as rumpy-pumpy as ever, especially when above or behind their partners, but women too no not only rock, roll, and gyre but shake, shimmy, rattle, and grind in ways that put their generally (in porn anyway) unbound breasts in what looks like uncomfortably uncontrolled motion.

Which leaves me wondering if, left to one’s own devices, whether more women wouldn’t leave their bras on for intercourse rather than removing them as their partners, generally, would prefer. In other words would we see more sports bras during sex if we used fewer sports metaphors involving breasts as “second base?”

Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon says, dryly (emphasis mine)

Read her whole post here.

I think maybe even a few months ago I might have gone totally off-course with a typical (and, I swear, perfectly reasonable) rant about how women have to wear purses because clothing manufacturers steadfastly refuse to sew pockets into women’s apparel. And I might even have picked up on the counter-argument that many women, pressured to sacrifice practicality for a “clean silhouette,” won’t buy clothes with pockets. And a few months ago, after straining my little Y chromosomes extra hard, I might have opined that it’s out of control to deny pocketless girls even a small every-day (and not just “special days”) purse while their male counterparts slouch around in cargo pants with such big, baggy pockets that they can conceal not just an AK-47 and extra ammo but a carton of milk, a dozen eggs, and the collected works of Proust.

In those days I certainly would have steered clear of references to school boys and their boners. That, however, was then. This is now. Marcotte, having brilliantly lit a fuse under a rhetorical firework (danger of girls bleeding through their pants vs shooting up a school) sends it skyward where we can ooh and aah (emphasis, again, mine)

Of course, even if the rule was followed to the letter and security guards were miraculously discreet instead of getting a rise out of making teenage girls feel uncomfortable about their socially awkward fact of being members of the second sex—a fact teenage girls are just adjusting to, mind you—carrying the purse to class would broadcast loud and clear to other students that you were having your period. And we all remember, I’m sure, how teenagers are generally a classy set about each others’ sex-and-body mortifications. I guess they could make the mandatory humiliations a little more fair by walking around demanding randomly of teenage boys that they describe their unbidden boners.

The point being that a) unbidden boners (and during class in High School they’re almost always precisely that) are why teenage boys have historically been drawn to the loosest, baggiest pants possible, b) boys, especially lower and “outcast” boys are as subject to teasing about their boners as girls are about their periods but (and here’s why I think Marcotte’s crafted a rhetorical starburst) c) unlike tormented girls, tormented boys and their boners sometimes do shoot up schools! (Take a moment to ooh and ahh — that really was a wonderful device of rhetoric.)

And yet (emphasis mine one last time)...

The small Sullivan County school has been in an uproar for the last week. Girls have worn tampons on their clothes in protest, and purses made out of tampon boxes. Some boys wore maxi-pads stuck to their shirts in support.

After hearing that someone might have been suspended for the protest, freshman Hannah Lindquist, 14, went to talk to Worden. She wore her protest necklace, an OB tampon box on a piece of yarn. She said Worden confiscated it, talked to her about the code of conduct and the backpack rule — and told her she was now “part of the problem.”

And yet… somehow it’s girls, and their purses or lack thereof, that are part of the problem?

Quick question based on Tristan Taormino’s column in The Village Voice about kissing. She makes the point that sex workers, for instance, avoid kissing in settings involving porn or prostitution because it’s seen as crossing an intimacy boundary.

Taormino refers to some evolutionary psychology studies that — surprise! — confirm all common stereotypes about kissing! But since mouth-to-mouth kissing is far, far, far from universal among human cultures (and therefore studies hoping to “unlock” genetic tendencies may be, um, silly) it might be a bit old fashioned but perhaps more interesting to do some plain old sociology and see whether such reluctance is innate or derived from, say, that scene in Pretty Woman.

But rather than carp about misapplications of science I’m actually posting with a question that, whatever its foundation, does pertain to kissing and intimacy and that would relate not to sex work but to hookup-style casual sex.

When I was at my most sexually active, even after you both agreed you were going to have sex kissing might go on for hours anyway before even the first garments were loosened. I keep hearing (generally from disapproving sources) that contemporary casual sex is just too rigid and formalized to permit much intimacy so…

Question: you meet someone on, I dunno, CraigsList or in a bar or in the cafeteria or the Minneapolis airport or something and you decide you’re going to have a nice pleasant sexual encounter but probably no further contact afterwards. So… how much time do you spend kissing in cases like that?

Me? I’d still want to kiss. Kiss in a friendly way at first, exploring, tasting, getting into each other’s spaces without too much intrusion, mainly just teasing each other’s lips and tongues rather than trying to plough each other’s tonsils… in other words to kiss till we’re both so warm clothes just seem like a bad idea.

Does that make me old fashioned? Or just less evolved? Or just flipping out of it if I think I even need to ask? :-)

And since I’ve been passing along short, pithy quotes (sometimes with too much extra commentary) I ought to mention Blue Gal’s brilliant insight into the problem with “trophy wives” and other forms of turning real live partners into commodities:

There are men who think they need arm candy in order to impress other men. They are actually engaging in homoerotic dating, pleasing other men rather than themselves.

Read that and more here.

I’m not quite sure “homoerotic” is exactly right but her point that while beauty is all well and good (really, it’s well and it’s good) when beauty stops being whatever it is in its own right, becomes a proxy for some other form of competition between others of one’s gender then yeah, not so healthy.

Susie Bright, in the course of a takedown of Bush-era terror-mongering and evidence-falsifying “all in a good cause” has a chilling reminder for all

There’s two phrases, that for me, will always describe the Bush Years: “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” and “Child Porn.” Our fears of annihilation and our children’s future being crushed were both hinged on these two… hoaxes.
...

People fret over what monster will abduct their kid on MySpace, when statistically, the web site is safer than their church.

Read the quote in context here.

Again the issue isn’t that there’s no child porn, it’s that lying about it, or, worse, ginning up stories, or legislation as in Mark Foley’s case, or, as Bright points out, in way, way too many churches (of multiple denominations) as a cover for one’s own sordid involvement is worse than counterproductive. !$!@$#~@$

Update: In comments Sharon says

I know what you are saying, but I think the timing is a bit unfortunate. Many of us are still getting over the shock of seeing that ubiquitous image of the 4 year old girl in Nevada— the one being raped every which way in a video allegedly found in the desert.

While I agree it’s embarrassing to me I don’t agree that it’s bad timing. I hadn’t heard about the case of the rather frantic search for a child identified in a video tape in Nevada. The very good news is that they’ve found the girl and there’s a manhunt for the perpetrator. The tape was evidently made several years ago and the girl has been with her family since the event. And thank goodness!

What’s cool to me about this particular case, in the context of this particular post, is that the case was revealed, investigated, and successfully concluded based on ordinary police procedures. Furthermore the disgusting sons of bitches involved have been arrested and will be prosecuted for thoroughly appropriate on-the-books felonies and, if convicted, will serve appropriately long sentences.

It’s further worth noting, however, that at no point does it appear that the nominally “anti-child-pornography” policies instigated against legal adult porn had anything to do with the arrest. Yet I suspect the case Sharon mention will be used to promote other anti-porn (as opposed to anti-child-porn) measures instead of, um, tracking down and prosecuting actual child-pornographers.

And because I want to be very clear about this: I’d really like to see more actual law enforcement of any form of sexual assault or abuse of anybody of any age, race, gender, or persuasion. And less diverting resources away from such efforts in order to harass otherwise legal adult pornography.

Miss Wolfe of Love in the Capitol on overhearing two guys discussing her blog and, since she hasn’t posted a photo, speculating about her looks.

it was at this point i felt the need to let them know i was there, not me as miss wolfe but as me a woman. i gave a little cough and they looked over and noticed me. they both got a little flushed because i overheard them.

me: did you ever think she doesn’t post her picture on there because she doesn’t want some weird stalker guy? (i get a blank stare)
me: i am sorry for butting in but i couldn’t help overhearing your conversation.
guy1: i never really thought about it.
guy2: i still think she’s a freak.
me: you shouldn’t say things like that because she could be sitting next to you. you don’t know i could be her.
guy1 and 2: both laugh (they think i am joking)
me: besides you said that her advice helped you a little so maybe shes doing a little good. maybe she wants to help men please women better. isn’t that good for you and your girlfriend?
(again i get blank looks, like i’m crazy)
me: sorry for interrupting, i needed to say something.

i packed up my work and moved to a different spot. i didn’t hear anything specific after i left. i don’t think they were happy with me interjecting. the second guy didn’t like me at all. i do remember hearing the word cunt as i walked away. i deserved it for interjecting but i couldn’t really keep my mouth shut. to the guy that reads the blog, i do exist and now you had the distinct experience of the only reader to ever see me and now know who i am. my only advice to all you me, watch what you say because you never know who is listening.

Read the quote in context here.

Talk about a rare treat. Not so much the other guy’s unkind remarks, and not so much the chance to get in the last word on your blog (although that would be sort of a treat.) But just to hear what an anonymous reader has to say when they don’t know it’s you. There just aren’t that many of us who get the opportunity.

Ok, so I like to use the old philosopy of science joke about the cop who finds a drunk guy on his hands and knees under a street lamp, looking for his car keys. The cop asks where the keys were lost and the drunk says “way down the block.” The cop says “then why are you searching here” and the drunk says “because the light’s better over here.” Waka-waka-waka. I actually love that joke because it applies to so much of what we know about society in general and sexuality in particular.

Earlier I had a cranky post about unseemly sexism in Will Saletan’s article on differential ages of consent in Slate.com. I have kind of a love-hate relationship as a Saletan reader because he finds great information but I’m so often disappointed in his conclusions.

Now I happen also to have posted another cranky missal about how little is known — or at least paid attention to — about sex and gender as we age. In particular I grouse about how often sex and sexuality research has been conducted on college campuses where a) researchers congregate, b) research assistants tend to hang out, c) where it’s assumed the college-aged will be more forthcoming, and, finally, d) where the young people conducting the studies won’t have to think about sex between old wrinkly people in their 80s.

And yet… and yet… a question that’s left unasked might be “what makes anyone think college-age people might be more likely to answer questions about sex than their elders. Well, while the question might be left unasked, we might now glean an answer from Saletan’s not-so-questionable data. (Remember I like his data, I just worry about his analysis.)

So check this out (emphasis mine.)

Consent implies competence, and 12-year-olds don’t really have that. In a forthcoming review of studies, Laurence Steinberg of Temple University observes that at ages 12 to 13, only 11 percent of kids score at an average (50th percentile) adult level on tests of intellectual ability. By ages 14 to 15, the percentage has doubled to 21. By ages 16 to 17, it has doubled again to 42. After that, it levels off.

By that standard, the age of consent should be 16. But competence isn’t just cognitive. It’s emotional, too. Steinberg reports that on tests of psychosocial maturity, kids are much slower to develop. From ages 10 to 21, only one of every four young people scores at an average adult level. By ages 22 to 25, one in three reaches that level. By ages 26 to 30, it’s up to two in three.

Source: Slate.com

Got that? We draw conclusions about gender and sexuality from research conducted under “street lamps” where the light might be better, yes, but also where on averag less than half the research cohort have reached psychosocial maturity! And yet we assume what we learn about ourselves in our street-light-lit aggregate 20s is every bit as true of our 30, 50 or 75 year old selves.

Now here’s the tricky thing. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with people in their teens or 20s. “Emotional maturity” is a biased term so I’m not saying “nothing’s wrong” just to be nice. I mean nothing’s wrong! But! I think making assumptions about what “must” be true about sex and gender in general based on more conveniently collected responses and recollections in our college years might be as incomplete as basing them on grade-school years.

I’m just sayin’

I mention very often that men and women seem to be way, way more alike than we repeatedly tell each other we are. One reason, I think, that I think I’m right is that — sex instruction books, and college-age-oriented sex surveys notwithstanding — I’ve never assumed that sex and gender disappear after, oh, say, graduation from college. Or after grad school at the latests.

Funny thing, though. As people age men’s and women’s outlooks really do become more similar — men get more comfortable being emotional and snuggly, women get more comfortable being horny.

Another funy thing. We’re old far, far longer than we’re young. Yet most statistics are gathered, most books are written, most photographs are taken, and, of course, most conclusions are drawn before age 25 or so.

I try to mention this on a regular basis. This time, however, I’ve got a little backup from Daniel Engber of Slate.com (which has dedicated the week to stories about sex so I might quote them more often than usual.)

Old people have plenty of intercourse when they’re not in an institutional setting. A survey published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine found that a quarter of those between the ages of 75 and 85 were having sex, and many were doing it at least once every couple of weeks. A third of these sexually active respondents said they had either given or received oral sex in the past year.

There’s no reason to think that nursing-home residents would be any less frisky, if left to their own devices. After all, we’re talking about a mixed-sex population living in close quarters with almost endless amounts of free time. Already, staffers routinely field patient requests for personal lubricants, pornographic magazines, larger-size beds, and prescriptions for Viagra. And that’s with the 1.6 million elderly residents who came of age before the sexual revolution. Within a few decades, nursing homes will bse replete with the desires and expectations of almost 7 million liberated baby boomers.

He said it here.

Rule #1: No yap about “throwing up a little in your mouth” thinking about older people and sex. Barring catastrophy I guarantee you’re going to be whistling a very different tune within the next 50-65 years. In which case you’re not really going to appreciate what today’s elderly are subjected to:

For now, though, never mind what they want: We seem content to let our elders lie in celibate repose as they wait for Oscar, the death-sniffing cat. In most nursing homes, residents are relegated to narrow mattresses with very little privacy. Nurses enter rooms without knocking, and express disgust at masturbation or coupling, and in some cases, residents are even deprived of conjugal visits from their long-term partners. (This 2004 case study [PDF] from Clinical Geriatrics describes a 77-year-old resident who is instructed by his doctor to “take cold showers” when he complains of sexual issues.)

Sheeahright — cold showers are going to work just exactly as well for you then as they do now, ok? The point being that while you probably won’t have sex with anyone in their 80s anytime soon it’s in your enlightened self-interest to pay sympathetic attention. That is all.

I’m sure it’s a complete coincidence that all the examples in Will Saletan’s article on differential ages of consent in Slate.com revolve around older men obtaining consent from younger women.

To be sure he includes a single “to be sure” (or in this case a “standards apply, in reverse”) but by and large the piece is a nice exegesis on men squeezing girls to see if they’re ripe.

The lowest standard is whether the partner you’re targeting is sexually developed as an object. If her body is childlike, you’re seriously twisted. But if it’s womanly, and you’re too young to think straight, maybe we’ll cut you some slack.

The next standard is whether your target is intellectually developed as a subject. We’re not talking about her body anymore; we’re talking about her mind. When you were younger, we cut you slack for thinking only about boobs. But now we expect you to think about whether she’s old enough to judge the physical and emotional risks of messing around. The same standards apply, in reverse, if you’re a woman.

He said it here.

Personally, while I happen to acknowledge that most cases of consent do revolve around older men and younger women (not least because nearly all relations revolve such age differential.) And I also acknowledge that consent cases involving older women and younger boys, while often sensationalized, are comparatively rare. However it’s also the case that while boy children don’t have anything as distinct as an age of first menstruation, they are nevertheless as susceptible to the perils of sexualization, manipulation, and objectification by adults as girls.

I think, given that one “to be sure,” that he intended the piece to work both ways. If so, though, I think if it were me I might have made the same points minus the loving details.

Can I just say that I’m sick and tired of “serial monogamy?”

I mean I might be getting a little radicalized to polyamory (a clunky-sounding word, by the way) here or something but does anybody think there’s any more virtue in, say, multiple marriages and divorces (or their secular, non-gender-specific equivalents) than in a series of “promiscuous” flings? Or a nice single relationship with sex with friends on the side?

Seriously. I’m just curious. I heard someone use the term in conversation the other day and it’s just been sticking in my craw ever since.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with it, anymore than there’s anything wrong with real monogamy, polyamory, or just having sex with lots of friends and acquaintances. What is wrong, I think, is imagining that any one of those things, especially serial monogamy, is somehow more virtuous than any other.

Call me a prudish libertine, or maybe a libertine prude, but it’s just not floating my boat anymore.

Update: Along these lines (well, barely) Jess McCabe points to a long-shot conservative Bavarian politician who’s proposed that

...marriage should last seven years, after which couples should make an active choice to renew their vows or dissolve their relationship, reports Reuters.
...
Pauli admits that the proposal is mostly meant to shake up the male-dominated, Catholic-dominated party, and it could well be a way to get people discussing issues of abusive, or just plain unhappy marriages.

Source: The F-Word Blog