Speaking in the context of an interview about musical tastes, political blogger and former philosophy major Matthew Yglesias says

I know it’s just a turn of phrase, but I think the whole conceptual framework of “guilty pleasures” speaks to some weird underlying puritanical elements in American life. Despite the whole “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” thing in the Declaration of Independence, our public culture is very resistant to the idea that people should try to spend more time doing things they enjoy or that producing enjoyment for others is a good thing to do in life.

Source: Matthew Yglesias

I think what's even more emblematic is the minor point that in general "guilty pleasures" refer to things that are considered pleasant but unexceptional on the one hand and not really all that bad or bad for you on the other... in other words pretty general, widely understood, and in other words completely normal pleasures. Case in point would be appreciation for the pop singers Katy Perry and Lilly Allen. Shock! Horrors! What next? Long hot baths? Sleeping in on the weekend?

The problem being that for the most part we've got this idea that "normal" or "ordinary" is boring or disappointing. Which in turn leads to the notion that something like oral sex, blindfolds, dirty talk, role playing, or sensation play (i.e. spanking) are "naughty." As opposed to, like, something virtually everybody does at one point or another in their lives. (See also "pre-marital sex.")

Sigh.

Hate to say it, gang, but it's significant that to every Puritan minister "mundane pleasure" was a euphemism for "earthly delight."

Photo by Flickr user spike55151. Used under a Creative Commons license.Photo by Flickr user spike55151. Used under a Creative Commons license.XXXX" class="imagecache-Normal" />

Kate McCombs says

Sometimes “hand jobs” get a bad rap. “Intercourse’s [or a blow job’s] poor cousin,” some people say. And as it applies to women, “fingering,” while an accurate descriptor for some vulva/vagina stimulation activities, evokes a rapid in-out motion of finger-in-vagina, which is insufficient for most women to to experience orgasm. The phrase often invoked to bring some legitimacy to the act, “mutual masturbation,” brings to mind more routine self-pleasure rather than the exchange of delicious, playful climaxes. Despite the negative press, the manual pleasuring of your partner’s sexy bits can be a delightful addition to your sexual repertoire. Variety is, after all, the spice of (sex) life.

Source: Debby Herbenick's My Sex Professor

I'm really not sure why we're so quick to pooh-pooh manual pleasuring, although as McCombs laments, compared to almost every other kind of sex act there are very few euphemisms for it and few of those make it sound either interesting, desirable, or very pleasurable.

Which is a shame because while like pretty much everything else about sex it takes time and practice but, once taken, the results can be elegant, intimate, erotic, and eye-rollingly enjoyable.

I mean, seriously, to the extent we're able to use our hands* is there any limit to the situations our hands can't be central to?  We already use our hands for timid first-time explorations, for gleefully surreptitious mischief, for foreplay, for massage, and for even the most operatic moments of domination and submission.  And as I pointed out years ago in Giving everybody a warm round of (self) applause "let's get over even the faintest fantasy that women's orgasms from hands-free intercourse are 'normal' or 'real' orgasms.  Nor should we forget about using our hands on ourselves to show our partners what we enjoy.  And while we're at it let's remember that very often our partners are able to take their own pleasure seeing, or at least knowing, when we touch ourselves.

And finally, while McComb is careful to point out that there are some illnesses that can be transmitted hand to hand, she also reminds us that while hands are a great way to transmit pleasure to each other, they really are a remarkably safe way to minimize transmitting other things.

Anyway, point is, rather than look at... darn it all I really want more vocabulary for this... rather than look at "manual stimulation" as high-school substitutes for "real thing" activities we should recognize and embrace what we can do with them, in bed and... elsewhere.

* It would be ableist to assume that everybody has uses of their hands.

Photo by Flickr user spike55151. Used under a Creative Commons license.XXXX" class="imagecache-Normal" />

Photo by Flickr user davidgljay. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Via Marginal Revolution, it looks like the mainstream is finally (finally!) starting to notice asexuality.

Here is much more, interesting throughout, hat tip to The Browser.

Source: Marginal Revolution

It's about time.

I love that the image MR author Tyler Cowen chose was of an asexual man. It's neither intolerable nor inconceivable that a man would be disinterested in sex, because there are plenty of examples in history and around the world, plus there's a whole minor literature of complaints by women of their partners "slowing down," of various religious dictates of men's obligations to "provide" or "service" their wives, of men mourning the loss or declines of their libidos, and so on. And the whole semen conservation thing.

There's also whole unusual-in-the-west notion that men are naturally chaste, modest, and moral and instead it's women who should be blamed for promiscuity (though usually because they want to get pregnant, not, heaven forfend, that they're ever just horny.) Which explains why acceptance of Rule #1 makes it seem (falsely) logical that it's women who are most likely to be asexual.

But if it's not inconceivable and intolerable to become a third bogus Rule of Desire it's certainly not a familiar notion that young, healthy, even vital men might ever be disinclined or disinterested.

In reality, of course, men and women seem to be roughly equally inclined to be asexual.

Anyway, asexuals: they're neither straight nor queer but they're here. We'd all be better off if we got used to it.

An anonymous guest-blogger at Em & Lo has written the best, most useful useful and myth-busting sex-related post I've read in a very long time.

As a 21-year-old virgin I thought sex was going to be the most overwhelming, painful, awkward, terrible, awful experience ever.  Why did I think this?  Because friends, magazines, and blogs all over the place said so. Not so! Yes, cashing in your V-card is a big deal: your first experience can set the tone for how you approach and engage in sex for years to come. Which is exactly why you shouldn’t stress and fret about the impending deed for weeks or months (or even years!) beforehand like my boyfriend and I did. If you follow these 10 prep rules, then when you’re ready, you can relax and just do it

Source: Em & Lo

You really, really want to go read the post for details on the ten prep steps she recommends but here's the simple list:

1. Make sure you’re with a partner that you trust completely
2. Admit it’s your first time
3. Share your expectations with each other.
4. Get your protection lined up beforehand.
5. Speak up in the moment.
6. Related to #5: Even if you think it’s a stupid question – ask!
7. Be sensitive to your partner’s concerns.
8. It’s okay if you laugh!
9. Lower your expectations.
10. Help the sex feel great.

Again, each item makes sense enough.  Her explanations make them even better. Go read them.

What I love about the post is that any one of those items, let alone all ten, dismantles almost everything that makes stereotypical virginity "loss" disappointing or worse.  More to the point, if you use any (or preferably all) of your 10 items first-time sex can become the beginning of something new rather than the end or “loss” of something irreplaceably valuable.

It's probably no surprise that I've noticed the interplay between the standard narratives about virginity "loss" for women and both of the bogus Two Rules of Desire. Of course sex for the first time is supposed to have all kinds of symbolic value and of course the pragmatic experience for women is supposed to be over on the negative side of the dial! Inside the dominant paradigm that drives the Two Rules, women aren't really supposed to enjoy sex in the first time, the adjustment from "naturally" never having sex to having it is supposed to be about as jarring as a fish getting hooked, and thanks to rule #2 she's certainly not supposed to be enthusiastic -- instead she's supposed to be chastely "submitting" in order to seal some kind of transactional deal for love, support, or duty.

Note: If you were to transpose a few adverbs and adjectives in the blogger's introductory paragraph you've got the corresponding v-card myth for young men.  But what I really like about her list is that each of those items would benefit for men and boys for their first times as well.

And one last thing: That list of 10 ways to make your first time positive is also a list of 10 great reasons why it’s ok to wait. First because why do something when you’re not ready, and second, when you are ready why settle for anything less than making it good for you?