Recently in Techniques Category

Jessica of Jezebel says, of a study that on the... um... face of it seems to small (sample of 52 families) to warrant anything but a "hmmm.... interesting..."

According to a new study, "men were more likely to pair up with women whose bone structure was similar to their own mothers, with a similar effect holding for womens' choice of men," the Guardian reports. Read all about it here.

This is another one of those studies where there's got to be more to it than that because I'm pretty sure that people have been making that observation for a *very* long time. Even *before* Freud. :-)

At any rate it's certainly true for me, although I always figured it was just familiarity. The women in my family, including my mom, my aunts, and my grandmothers all tended towards dark hair, medium height, and farmer/athletic/active builds rather than thick or thin who dressed simply and wore little or no makeup. And surprise, most of my partners, especially my long-term ones, have been... dark haired, medium height, and muscular rather than thick or thin, etc., etc. I've always sort of assumed people feel the same entanglement of familiarity in attraction.

I still could be wrong though, and it could just be me and I could just be a giant Freud-could-rest-his-case pervert. Even though the (small) study says maybe otherwise. :-)

The tricky part for me, though, is that being of, um, roughly medium height, build, hair color, and activity level my mom and all my other women relatives were actually just... pretty much like about 65-80% of the U.S. population at the time I was receiving any potential preference "imprinting..." and so *once again* I feel the prospect of perversion slipping from my grasp! :-)

Anyway, without further criticizing a study I've only read about second or third hand I'll just say I'll be impressed if the researchers were able to filter out the standard bell-shaped curves of bone structure with the sample size they used.

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

JR of SilkenVoice echos Bitchy Jones and other independently sexual women who look at the world in one more Onion-style 'Cosmopolitan' Institute Completes Decades-Long Study On How To Please Your Man** way to please one's male partner. (See, especially, the exchange in the last few seconds of that video.)

Recently I overheard a conversation between two women with whom I am acquainted, a conversation that ended with: "....and he forgot to take out the garbage two weeks in a row! So that's it. No sex for a week." I shook my head. I said. "Oh, I'd handle that very differently." She said "Oh?" I said "Yes," and then waited. She took the bait. She said, "What would Kay do?" I grinned and said, "I'd tell him we were going to have sex morning and night every day for two weeks." "That's not a punishment!" she exclaimed. "Really?" I said and arched an eyebrow. "I didn't say he could cum." That shocked her speechless. Hee hee. She said it here.

Yup. Even *if* it was a good idea to sexualize punishment why on earth pick the method that most thoroughly cements every conventional gender stereotype in the book? And *definitely* if one was going to use sex for punishment why punish one's self as well as one's partner?

[** Onion link va Dr. Petra Boynton. --fl]

Anthony McCarthy of Echidne of the Snakes perhaps inadvertently shines a light on a classic "no-sex" class assumption.

You get used to filtering out commercials during the evening news but once in a while one breaks through your defenses. At the tail end of a Levitra commercial Sunday they included sudden deafness as a reported side effect. Sudden deafness now joins the list of announced effects of taking whoopie pills...

...the most interesting question is how far geezers, themselves, are willing to go to achieve rock hard erections into their late senescence. Would they accept having their head fall off, one wonders? Would they miss it? I’ve got to listen more closely tonight to hear if death is a reported side effect of aphro-geeziacs, by name or not. The answer may have already been reported.

Read the quote in context here.

A bit of desk clearing though. "Geezers?" "Late senescence?" "Aphro-geeziacs?" Sheesh, ageism much? Also, you don't have to be geriatric to have problems with erections. Prostate cancer survivors, diabetics, men with heart disease, and men with untreated (and sometimes treated) depression experience it long before they're "senescent," and sometimes even before their hair thins or grays. But I digress...

So! I've mentioned elsewhere that I think it's unfortunate that medication like Viagra is assumed to exclusively benefit men, or that contraceptive pills exclusively benefit women. McCarthy's post reminded me of those strongly-gendered assumptions about the two medications and then, with his "whoopie pills" characterization, gave it a nice nudge forward. Check it out!

- Language of erection pills: frivolously facilitate (men's) sexual enjoyment, i.e. "whoopie." Because, you know, inside the "no-sex" class paradigm only heterosexual men enjoy sex. Their heterosexual partners merely endure it.

- Language of contraceptive pills: virtuously prevent (women's) pregnancies. Because, you know, inside the "no-sex" class paradigm women's interest in sex begins and ends at pregnancy.

But are women always and only interested in contraception only so they won't get pregnant while passively lying back and thinking of England? And are men really always and only interested in erections for own pleasure? Sure, sometimes (and for those sometimes thank goodness for modern sensibilities about divorce.) But always? Only? The dominant paradigm says so. Why support it?

As I said in that previous post, for most heterosexuals both contraception (especially earlier in life) and erection medication (especially later in life) are as much for *couples* as for individuals.

---

Quick question about Viagra and similar drugs: It looks like there really are a lot of unpleasant side effects and it sounds like they're not all that rare either. So are they really consumed as recreationally as pop culture seems to think they are?

Donald Zimmer of AskMen.com manifests the foolishness of the "no-sex" class paradigm in "sex health advisor" column

sexual surplus

My husband and I have sexual problems. I am a freak; ready and willing to please him in any way, shape or form (with the exception of him being with somebody else). I will let him watch me as I do another female or let him do me while I do another female, but I don't like to share at all! The question is: How to I spark his interest in sex and keep it?

At one point he couldn't keep his hands off me. Now I can barely get him to put them on. I would just like to keep him interested, and was wondering if y'all had any advice? I'm not an ugly woman; I have put on some weight but my breasts went from a 36B to a 42DD. When they were smaller I had no feeling in them at all; now it's a whole different story! Plus I like the benefits that they bring to the bedroom.

Alexandra

Alexandra,

I think the source of your problem can be best summarized as follows: You can have too much of a good thing. In other words, your husband's current lack of interest may be the consequence of his having enjoyed free rein in the bedroom for so long. There's a lot to be said for keeping some forbidden fruit in a relationship; in the absence of taboos, every sexual act can become commonplace.

I'm no therapist, Alexandra, and you may eventually conclude that a therapist is required. But in the meantime, try doing a little withholding. You'll be surprised at how much more we want what we can't have.

Donald Zimmer
Read the quote in context here.

What's the name of that website Amanda Marcotte used to reference? The one that reverses genders in any English text you paste into it? (I think as well as handling gendered pronouns and body parts it may have also been able to substitute first names, as in "John" for "Jane" or "Donna" for "Donald.") Anyway I ask because I'm... pretty sure Zimmer would have had different advise if his correspondent had been named "Alexander" instead of "Alexandra."

I mean, don't you think? Although actually our narratives about gender are such that *if* a man bothered to write in with such a complaint I'm not sure many advice columnists would have bothered answering.

I *am* sure, however, that a man wouldn't be advised that "... your problem can be best summarized as follows: You can have too much of a good thing. In other words, your [wife's] current lack of interest may be the consequence of [her] having enjoyed free rein in the bedroom for so long."

Funny thing, of course, is that it's actually excellent relationship advice for *any* partner who's sexual appetite is larger than his or her partner's! What makes it funny though, again, is that no one ever offers that solution to men even though we're far more likely to express the complaint.

See what I mean? The "natural" answer for a high-libido woman is "play hard to get." It's not the "natural" answer for high-libido men (which by convention is usually abbreviated as "men") because most people recognize that while it's possible it's neither fun nor easy...

Nor is "have less sex" exactly the most consistent advice for someone who's request was...

...how to have *more* sex.

Double-bind much?

[Hat tip to AAG. --fl]

---

Quick semi-digression: I chose the word "appetite" carefully, by the way, because that same disparity shows up in a lot of places. A few years ago some enterprising young economists studied phone dynamics of couples in long-term relationships. Their finding was that if one member needs to check in every two days and another every three then the first member will do nearly all the calling... with resulting resentment and irritation about "clinginess" and/or "aloofness"... even though given just a little more time the second member would want to check in *just as badly as the first!* And might even be the "clingy" member with a different partner who needed to check in every four days. The point being that "I'm not lonely *yet*" isn't the same as "I don't get lonely" or, more significantly, "I'm indifferent to you." In food the analogy would be "No thanks, I'm still full from our last meal," not "I never get hungry." And in sex the analogy would be "I'm not horny *yet,* not "I have a low or no libido."

---

P.S. I was so startled by Zimmer's advice I nearly forgot about Alexandra's trapped-in-the-paradigm self-introduction: "My husband and I have sexual problems. I am a freak; ready and willing to please him in any way"

Unpacking all the different layers in those two sentences could take all day. Let's just say in order to be a freak she'd have to

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

Holly of The Pervocracy raises an excellent point about a recent, highly... uh... stylized Psychology Today cover photo on "seven taboos that are perfectly natural."

By using a model so conventionally sexy, they dodge the question of why the kink itself is sexy. Everyone already knows why a slinky blonde in vinyl with a whip is hot; it's a lot more provocative to explore why a short pudgy dude in cotton underwear with a whip is hot.
She said it here.

I mean think about it. In the "no-sex" class world a stereotyped hottie with a whip is just a slightly different verse of the same old "prove yourself worthy or I say no" song we straight men teach ourselves to believe every partner sings.

The erotic appeal of pudgy boy in y-fronts and a whip, though, cuts right to the heart of actual, you know, kink.

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

AlwaysArousedGirl wrote a lovely post today about personals, profiles, popcorn buckets, promises, and... penis size.

Upon being promised a huge, overflowing, never-ending bucket of popcorn, the expectation in your mind has been set and set high.  No one really needs a barrel of popcorn, but if the offer has been made, you want it fulfilled, and by God there had better be enough for ten people.

Think of how different your mind-set would be if you were told to expect an average-sized bucket.  Or even a small bucket!  When once the snack arrived, you might be surprised by a more than fulfilling quantity.

I call today for nothing more or less than the truth in penis marketing.  Men, if you have an penis that is average in length and/or girth, wear it proudly.  Use it proudly.  Say “NO!” to the artificial inflation of cock statistics and yesYesYES to being honest about what’s rockin’ in your pants.

Proclaim “I’m average!” with your head — and your dick — held high.
She said it here.

Anyway, I totally love the metric AAG uses: it's not whether they're large or small for her, it's whether or how well their actual size matches the descriptions.

Yes, there may be actual "size queens" in the world but, um, they're going to figure it out. And for every one of those there's someone else who'd rather not have her cervix banged into anyway. And so... why fudge?

One last thing. My penis is almost perfectly average in length and girth and I actually am pretty proud about it.

In a piece subtitled "Why does it take a cliché to draw attention to the problem of fathers' rights?" Dahlia Lithwick of Slate makes the vivid point that our fondness for the stereotype of the dramatically aggrieved ex-husband seeking greater custody of his children interferes with reforms of divorce and custody proceedings that really ought to be, and maybe need to be, taken up.

I recognize the allure for some men of the man-pushed-till-he-snaps narrative. My husband rents those movies, too. But for every Clark Rockefeller and Darren Mack, there are dozens of nonviolent fathers who believe that the mere fact of their divorce should not result in an arrangement in which they pay for the right to see their kids on alternating Sundays. If the family-court system is ever going to improve, we need to hear their stories, not these endless tales of kidnappings and murder. Much of what's wrong with family law today lies in warmed-over stereotypes of men as fundamentally unsuited to caring for children. Lionizing Clark Rockefeller or other violent, lawless fathers will not promote fathers' rights or fix the family-court system. It merely perpetuates the same outdated ideas about fatherhood and fathers that have tainted the family-law system for too long.

The rest of the article is pretty cool. You'll find it here.

That seems about right. Of course I'm a father and I have a hard time with poorly examined stereotypes so of course I'd encourage that sort of destigmatization, where the Alex Baldwins, and Clark Rockerfellers become non-poster-boy icons of divorced fatherhood in favor of, you know, the more representative, um, majority.

But the general point seems pretty important for so-called "sex bloggers," who -- I'm pretty confident an assessment of court records would show -- differ from non-bloggers only to the extent that they publish rather than don't publish their experiences and opinions.

And yet thanks to current case law, in need of reexamination or not, bloggers in general and "sex bloggers" in particular are extraordinarily at risk of what I'd like to (arrogantly) deem the Figleaf Principle: twitting about sex obstructs discussion of substantive issues.

This can play two ways, by the way. First, upon discovery a judge officiating a custody hearing may be much more inclined to act on a motion that includes salacious allegations of sex clubs or bisexuality than on one that includes allegations of more substantive issues such as means of support or management of substance dependencies. And second, alarm over salacious allegations may distract supporters from what may be more seriously substantive ones.

Both concerns, I might add, are justified. An "otherwise" blameless divorced mom who supplements her income by anonymously reviewing sex toys in the privacy of her own home *should not* be at risk of losing custody. A couple involved in BDSM *should not* be able to wave their floggers or rope burns at each other in court. And a judge *should not* be swayed by the "scandalous" nature of a custodial parent's sexuality, *especially* if said sexuality in no way infringes on his or her parenting. But on the other hand *we* shouldn't let acceptance of a good party organizer enable his or her drinking problem. Nor should *we* let our admiration for this or that leather master enable his or her tendency to abuse the owl-shit out of acolytes.

Just a Girl of Don't Ask Me- I'm Just A Girl, a former model, raises some pretty interesting questions. (All emphasis hers.)

I think the how can we reconcile what we like doing with the risk of harming others? discussion is one that needs to be had within the fetish and bondage photography community.

How can one “responsibly” create and display content that is potentially triggering and/or disturbing to sexual assault survivors (and sometimes other folks, too)? Do people who create this kind of content have an obligation to be extra sensitive to the needs of sexual assault survivors?

There’s not a discussion being had that I know of.

There seems to be a lot of Not my problem! and It’s freedom of expression/speech! comments being thrown about whenever it’s brought up.
Read the excerpt in context here.

One of these days I've got to write about triggering, especially given the shooting at my family's church last week, but for now I'd just like to say that yeah, it seems like there are a lot of areas where people fly the (perfectly valid, often even perfectly legal!) "not my problem" flag. It's technically true that BDSM practitioners have no responsibility for 3rd parties who's childhood abuse issues are triggered. It's technically legal that animal testers have no responsibility for any, say, anti-vivisectionists who's issues are triggered. It's technically not Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, or some Knoxville gun dealer's responsibility that they gave Jim Adkisson the means and motivation to shotgun a bunch of people watching children perform songs from Annie. And I'm perfectly serious, they're under no obligation to do anything about anyone else's problem. They're *really not!*

Whether they're *smart* to leave it at "I have every right..." is a different question.

But here's the deal, and why I think JaGirl asking is different from, say, me asking it: I wouldn't be anchored by *my* right because in her instance I'm neither a fetish/bondage model or photographer.

I feel comfortable raising this issue because there are related areas where *I* benefit from the umbrella of rights to, say, be my own model *and* photographer... while, of course, there are other areas (ahem Knoxville-area gun dealers) where "Not my problem" probably isn't the most diplomatic course of action even if it is well within their legal rights. (And, obviously, no, I'm not equating fetish photography with gun dealers, instead I'm equating culture subject to repeated calls for restriction or elimination with culture subject to repeated calls for restriction or elimination.)

Petra Boynton takes a look at the recent story about Viagra possibly working for women on anti-depressants. I actually thought the press handled the press release relatively well compared to earlier stories that semen alleviates depression or this not-even-meant-as-a-prank fellatio/breast-cancer-prevention story from last year. That's actually *not* a vote of confidence though. While most of the articles have been surprisingly clear that the viagra thing worked for only a very small subset of women with sexual side-effects from anti-depressants Boynton has other concerns.

The media coverage has been predictably uncritical. It has tended to suggest that Viagra is a wonder drug that will save depressed women, and as a subtext suggested it could also help the sex lives who weren’t depressed too.

If you are a woman or the partner of a woman with depression there are several things you need to know about this research before you go asking your doctor for a Viagra script.

The study does rightly state that some anti depressants can lead to sexual problems (usually the inability to have an orgasm through intercourse or masturbation, taking longer than usual to reach orgasm, and/or a lack of lubrication). In order to be an issue, however, women can’t just have these symptoms - they have to be bothered by them too. Meaning if a woman finds it difficult to reach orgasm but isn’t distressed by this then it is not an issue requiring clinical intervention. It’s worth noting that depression can lead to women finding it difficult to reach orgasm or have any desire for sex. It can be worrying for a depressive patient who recieves pharmacological treatment and expects to feel better to discover their sex life hasn’t returned in the way they wanted.

Read Boynton's full analysis here.

While research subjects were chosen from women who didn't have orgasmic difficulty until they began taking anti-depressants Boynton points out that care givers nor patients (nor, perhaps, patient's partners) might not be so discriminating.

[T]his is not always just down to the side-effects of medication - the underlying causes of the depression may not have gone away and could easily still be contributing to a woman’s sexual problems. For example problems within a relationship, family difficulties, work problems, economic or housing difficulties, issues with childcare, isolation or a lack of support could all be contributing to a woman’s sexual difficulties.

And that gets to a point *I* think about a lot when I think about men and Viagra. And depression. And consent.

I don't have erectile dysfunction, or at least not yet -- I'm only in my 50s -- but I do have mild bouts of... I'll call it "physical" depression because while I still feel optimistic, cheerful, even playful mood-wise I get loss of energy, shyness or withdrawal, sleeping a *lot* more than usual, oh, and two other symptoms that I think of a sure-fire indicators: resumption of nicotine cravings (even though I quit years ago) and diminished libido. I'm in the middle of one of those slumps this summer, which partly explains my slow posting rate, my horrible personal-correspondence rate. (This doesn't count as the apology to everyone who's map I've seemingly dropped myself off of.) As in Boynton's last paragraph external factors such as having children and partner home for the summer, a busy travel season, various elderly but fairly distant relatives passing away, a ton of projects around the house, and an extended allergy season are seriously contributing factors.

I actually think I'm starting to come out of the slump a bit -- as is often the case we only notice these things when things start to improve, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have posted about it in the first place if I wasn't perking up a bit. But I digress... if only slightly.

Anyway, I was already sort of thinking about in my earlier pink-is-for-girls/blue-is-for-boys pill post but it seems like some of the consequences of the Viagra for Women story illuminates similar problems for men.

For instance while my partner and I are pretty compatible when it comes to conflict resolution in the past I've been involved with people who loved both to argue and to then have make-up sex. I'm not sure if I'm just sensitive (I once slept, literally slept slept, on a mattress made entirely of sacks of dried peas so I can't be *too* sensitive) but after an argument all I want is a lot of time, alone, to process. The *last* think I want is physical contact, let alone *sexual* contact! Which with one partner in particular was cause for further acrimony as she was pretty insistent that make-up sex was important in relationships.

Had Viagra been available at the time I might have felt it was a good solution to "my problem" with sexual interest after arguments. Instead the solution I eventually found was to end our relationship -- which was probably for the best for both of us considering our, well, other considerable incompatibilities.

Anyway, just to be clear this isn't a "what about the menz, we getz pressher too" post. Instead it's just an observation that some of the concerns anticipated in the event a "female libido" pill is developed might be examined among depressed or alienated Viagra users.

Because (as I mentioned in that pink/blue post) while Viagra has certainly been trumpeted as a "get back the feeling" drug for men it's also been an "it's about time" drug for their partners. Who, after all, are often healthy and generally younger humans and therefore as likely to desire sex and intimacy as... men in similar situations who despair of *their* partner's libido.

So... I'm a little rattled today (believe me that didn't help although a lot of unbidden tears throughout the day hasn't hurt either!) Anyway, I'm not sure any of this makes sense.

I'm just saying that from my own *situational,* post-argument disinterest in sex, and my experience of pressure to meet a partner's expectations in those situations, I'm just saying that an enterprising young student of psychology or relationship therapy might get a nice paper out of studying some of the perhaps less obvious reasons men might take Viagra... with it's possible insights into potential consequences of "Viagra for women."

Photo by Flickr user Gnarls Monkey. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Alexa Stanard of RHRealityCheck.org says

Michigan women with health insurance can find themselves paying up to $65 a month for a prescription to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. Meanwhile, their insured male counterparts can pick up a free prescription for Viagra.
Read the quote in context here.

This is *so* not to single out the excellent Alexa Stanard but I'm going to go off the beaten path here and ask if we can all, all of us, just get over the idea that a) contraception and b) Viagra each benefit one but not both sexes?

Yes, we can maintain our respective "no-sex" class narratives: that only men but not sex-indifferent women are interested in erections; that women, but not obligate-sex-seeking men, are concerned only about pregnancy and/or contraception. We can even find plenty of instances where those stories play out. But do we want that to be *the* narrative? Really?

Because preferences for Mars/Venus story lines notwithstanding, there's *absolutely* no different policy response necessary, no less a "gotcha" frame for disparate attitudes towards bridled vs unbridled sex, no less flipping hypocrisy, nor betrayed failure grasp basics of health policy: the problem is just as large when framed in terms of availability of free Viagra for hetero** couples but very expensive hormonal contraceptives.

In fact, when you put it in couples terms the contrast is even more stark, and starkly regressive: Federal policies and insurance coverage encourages high-pregnancy-risk pharmaceuticals and discourages high-pregnancy-responsibility pharmaceuticals. Which is about right anyway.

Coverage should extend, at equivalent, levels to both contraception *and,* when necessary, erectile dysfunction not because, pill-wise, some people still think "pink is for girls, blue is for boys" but because for many couples the lack of both is an obstacle to their sexual lives together.

Question for women readers who's hetero partners are old and/or ill and/or prostate-surgery post-op enough to need Viagra: does it benefit only him? Question for men readers who's hetero partners are young enough to still need contraceptives: does it benefit only her?

[** And let's not even start with all the heteronormative assumptions. --fl]

Photo by Flickr user Travis S. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Heather Corinna, who's got a new weekly column at RHRealityCheck.org effortlessly clarifies at least three misconceptions in response to a young man's question

novastar asks:

"I'm not gay, but I like my butt and anus played with. Can someone tell me why?"

Heather replies:
I sure can, and I'm glad you asked.

Know what? Some gay men do NOT like having any sort of anal sex. Enjoyment of anal sex does not define or determine homosexuality, and lack of enjoyment of anal sex does not define or determine heterosexuality. So, a guy can be gay and yet not be all that interested in or even enjoy anal play. You can also be gay without engaging in anal sex: being gay is about being attracted to the same-sex, not about having a certain kind of sex, so even a gay guy who never has sex with anyone is still gay, just like a hetero person who has never had sex can still know they're heterosexual and be heterosexual. A guy can be straight and enjoy anal sex great big bunches: if you only desire anal play with men, then we're dealing with an orientation issue, but if you desire and enjoy anal play full-stop, it's just not about sexual orientation. Men of all orientations may or may not enjoy sexual anal stimulation, and the same goes for women of all stripes.
She says all that and more here.

Funny when you think about it, really. I mean even going by the most generous percentages for LGBT populations there are *substantially* more straight people into anal play than LGBT people, or, dialing in closer, substantially more straight men into it than gay men.

Which raises an interesting corollary: Sadly for the "ex-gay" conversion community even though there are more straight people like it than gay, not only doesn't ass play make you gay, it won't make you straight either!

Commons
Photo by Flickr user Franco Folini. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Zula of Submissive With Claws says

I only want Dad to "give me away" at my wedding (assuming I ever get married) if my husband-to-be is walked down the aisle by his mother. Either he's escorted too, or I get to walk down the aisle by myself, like a big girl.

To my amazement, my mother and sister dismissed the idea, saying things along the lines of, "Oh, it doesn't mean that anymore!" (That is, "giving away" the bride no longer means the father is relinquishing dominion over her.)

I've heard a phrase along the lines of, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist." The same thing can be said of sexism.

Read the quote in context here.

Yup, the same can definitely be said of sexism. One can only "give away" that which is in one's possession. One can only receive that which is given away if the given-away thing becomes one's possession.

That doesn't mean that the parent of a grown child should never accompany them down the aisle at a wedding -- my mom walked with me just as my partner's father walked with her. We all enjoyed it very much and I don't think we would have had it any other way. We just were mindful enough, though, to make it quietly clear that it was *our* wedding, one *we'd* arranged, and therefore nobody was giving anybody away... even if "it doesn't mean anything anymore."

Oh dear, I may be no fun at all but this is a no-brainer to answer. I actually saw a pair of edible panties at a "bachelor" party a long time ago and can you say "fruit leather?" In other words not even boring!

No panties, on the other hand, are just bogglingly nice! Not so much in the classic/cliché sense of "nothing up my sleeve skirt" effect, although that's nice. What I'm thinking more about is more like no panties in bed when we're half asleep and spooning together. I know the middle of July isn't the best time to think about it in the Northern hemisphere, but those of you at the antipodes might appreciate that I can warm up more than my side of the bed and covers. No panties under, say, yoga pants is also a nice, especially when it's *not* a surprise because we got dressed together and we're only dressed and downstairs at all because that's where the kitchen is and we both know that as soon as coffee's ready we'll quickly drift back up stairs, a trail of clothes and maybe morning newspaper sections on the stairs behind us.

Actually the one nice thing about edible undies, I suppose, is that they're easy to tear off Last-Tango-In-Paris style. Though to be honest there's a trick to tearing off regular panties, assuming they're soft and old enough to be that kind of expendable. Although there have to be 10,000 other perfectly enjoyable ways to take real panties off.

And then there's the question of what *you'd* rather find under a nice pair of jeans. There's also the lexical quandary of describing how exactly it could be delightful rather than a disappointment to find nothing under my jeans. :-)

Still following up on the twenty questions I found at Amorous Rocker of Not Your Average Chick that I decided to answer one at a time instead of all in a rush. So...

12. Dirty Talking or Dirty Talking To:

This is probably going to be short. And maybe even sweet. I can write dirty words, and certainly *think* dirty thoughts. I can even *role-play* talking dirty if I have a little time to think about it. Although I tend to prefer innuendo to the actual seven dirty words. And of course there's all the things two or more people can say when they're flirting.

But past that? Pretty much by the time you have your hand have moved anywhere on my body but my shoulders I just have a *very* difficult time forming complete words. Let alone complete sentences.

It's not that I become clumsy any other way. Quite the opposite really. It's that the more physical I become the more my ability to express myself migrates from centers of speech into my body -- my hands especially but my arms and legs, my mouth, my torso and cock.

I still have ears, though, and so if *you* can still talk dirty I'm likely to respond *very* enthusiastically.

Update: Outside the scope of the question I'm just as enthusiastic about soft sighs or sharp intakes of breath.

Photo by Flickr user Christy Bassman. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Still following up on the twenty questions I found at Amorous Rocker of Not Your Average Chick that I decided to answer one at a time instead of all in a rush. So...

11. Role play or Reality:

Oh this one's easy when you look at it literally. *Playing* a pirate is one thing...

Being a pirate is all fun and games,
Till somebody loses a hand;
It spurts and it squirts and it jolly well hurts,
Pain only a pirate could stand.
The fash'nable look is a nice metal hook,
But now you can't play in the band;
Being a pirate is all fun and games,
Till somebody loses a hand.

Lyrics "You Can't Be a Pirate," by Don Freed

I know that sounds light-hearted but I'm actually pretty serious. The difference between role playing and reality has a bit of bearing on how a heck of a lot of people seem to get off, and how that plays out in the rest of the world.

Making up a trivial or imaginary excuse for a pre-sex flogging you'll both enjoy is *extravagantly* different from an actual tied-to-a-pirate-ship-mast *flogging.* Pretending you're strangers meeting in a lounge-lizardy hotel bar and having wild, drunken, unprotected sex in the bathroom or parking lot is pretty different from, you know, actually having unprotected sex with a stranger. And while peeping in your informed partner's window as they undress, then sneaking into the room once they turn the lights out is kinky fun, peeping a random stranger's windows, let alone sneaking into their rooms, is more than a little bit criminal.

So! If I ever took your wrist in my hand in a darkened room, and tugged you towards the moonlight filtering in through old venetian blinds with a gruffly whispered "what have we here," you'd know exactly what was going to happen next... because we'd have negotiated at least the general outline together first.

Lux Alptraum of BOINKOLOGY says

Well, some men are, it seems: according to the Details blog, more and more young men are getting vasectomies. Which, quite frankly, we support. If men don’t want children, and they know they don’t want children, taking the steps to prevent it is the responsible thing to do.

Read the quote in context here.

I got a vasectomy at 21 because I didn’t want to get anyone pregnant. And because the only alternative was condoms which, at the time, was considered better than nothing… but only barely. Unlike every other form except tubal ligation, though, vasectomies are permanent and that’s pretty unreasonable. When I got mine I did so with the intention that if a partner and I wanted children at a later date we’d try for a reversal or, if that didn’t work, we’d adopt. Or at least *I’d* adopt if *I* wanted children.

It turns out that in strictly mechanical terms vasectomies are a little more reversible than the numbers indicate: most men get their reversals in their 50s, often with partners in their 40s, and so even when the procedure works sometimes it’s just too late anyway. Because I was younger than typical (late 30s) and my partner even younger (early-30s) things went, well, swimmingly. I already had an appointment lined up for a second vasectomy when our second, planned child was born because I really believe, passionately that every child should be a planned, wanted child.

Leave it to Details Magazine, though, to populate their article with the moral equivalent of trolls. No "kumbaya"-playing contraceptive responsibility over there.

"Now I can never have a girl say I made her pregnant," [Marcus] Whitlock says. "I don't have to worry about being tricked."

Or "oopsed," as some advocates of vasectomy put it—as in "Oops, I guess that was a breath mint, not a birth-control pill."

...

Tim Vass, a 34-year-old technical writer in Florida, got snipped in May 2007 after a half-dozen pregnancy scares, including what he says were two attempted oopsings. Both of the latter were one-night stands; he says one woman admitted she didn't know who the father was and the other demanded a DNA test that proved her wrong. After his procedure, Vass experienced swinging-from-the-chandelier sex for the first time. "It's like eating junk food and knowing you're not going to get fat," he says.

Source: Details Blog

Fortunately Details suggests other reasons a man might want a vasectomy.

But men opting to get vasectomies before the age of 40 aren't motivated only by an irrational fear of sneak pregnancies. They're also spurred by a philosophical argument: Why should women be in control of when—and if—they have children?

Charming, no?

What's the deal with Details Magazine anyway? Like the male equivalent of Cosmopolita every article seems specifically designed to make the reader an even bigger loser! This article makes me think of the Seinfield character George when he was trying to break his engagement someone. Kramer says asking for a pre-nuptual agreement is a sure-fire way to insult someone into breaking up with you so...

George: Listen... there's something that's been on my mind and we haven't really talked about it. It's kind of important to me.

Susan: What is it?

George: Well... I put a lot of thought into this and I think I would like you to sign a prenuptial agreement.

Susan: A pre-nup?

George: Yeah.

Susan: [bursts out laughing]

George: What's so funny?

Susan: You don't have any money. I make more money than you do. Ha ha. Yeah, gimme the papers I'll sign 'em.

Randomy Googled source: Mahalo.com "George Costanza Quotes"

So, like, yeah, in exactly who’s dreams would a woman want to "oopsie" the average Details reading career Kinko’s desk clerk into parenthood? (Sheesh. Did you see their article on "demanding" anal sex last year? Same kind of lame.)

Anyway, the good news is “stupid” is never the same thing as “wrong” when it comes to personal reasons for using birth control. And the more demand, from any quarter, for more male contraceptive options beyond latex and scalpels the better the odds industry will finally start to deliver.

Kit Roskelly has a "Kink 101" article up at the F-Word. The article is pitched at the perfect level for feminists who are concerned, but not deadset-convinced, that BDSM violates feminist principles. If you're kinky, feminist, and sick to death of having to argue about this issue, Roskelly's article is not for you. But if you're on the fence, it's worth checking out.

I'm not a kink expert by any means; I just like to whack my boyfriend with things, like to be whacked with things, and have attended a few kink events. Most of what Roskelly says strikes me as true and helpful; I especially like "feminism should not have a prescriptive stance on female sexuality" and "Consent is an absolute requirement of sexual interaction". You could nitpick about the safewords (you don't need to say 'red light' if you have some other way of communicating that things are going really really wrong, and you should probably agree on a safe tap before anybody stuffs anything in anybody else's mouth) but the basic idea of safewords is pretty sound. Both partners need a way to say, "stop" and be taken seriously.

I have one substantive criticism of Roskelly's article. (This criticism is not new. Trinityva, who writes at SM Feminist and The Strangest Alchemy, has made this point repeatedly; my favorites are here and here.) Twice in her article, Roskelly urges kinky feminists to be mindful of the social context in which their desires arise. But what does mindfulness entail, exactly? Are we supposed to seek the reasons for our kinky fantasies and desires? At this point, I don't think anybody really knows what causes people to have one set of sexual tastes rather than another. And if you did know what caused your sexual desires, what would you do with that information? Learning that your rape fantasies are the result of childhood trauma wouldn't necessarily eliminate your rape fantasies.

There are things in the neighborhood to be mindful of. Are you really satisfied by the kinky sex you're having, or are you doing it because you feel pressured? (And being in the dominant role doesn't mean that you're necessarily satisfied by the sex; submissive people can be very good at manipulating their partners into indulging fetishes they don't really get off on, in a way that's not reciprocal. Bitchy Jones' kinky sexism category has a depressingly large number of examples.) It's also a good idea to reflect on how your expression of your desires affects other people. Does the person next to you faint at the idea of needles? If so, it's not very respectful to play with needles right in front of them. Does the event you're organizing have pictures of naked women, and only women, on the walls? If so, you may be alienating some of the women who attend. In my experience, BDSM people are already more mindful about this stuff than average, but extra reminders never hurt.

I'm on board with mindfulness if it's meant to apply to actions. But what's inside your head is yours.

Audacia Ray of Naked City: a Village Voice blog about sex posts about something near and dear to my heart: how much of the need for foreplay is biological and how much is just situational.

This lede is, apparently, not a joke:

Predatory women are destroying the sexual confidence of young men in Ireland -- with some men as young as 20 now turning to Viagra to prop up their flagging libido.
A growing 'ladette' culture of women who prefer instant action is proving so intimidating that more and more young men are taking the blue pill to cope.

This from the Independent, which expresses not just concern about the fragile young men, but horror at the behavior of young women, who are acting like men!
Read the quote in context here.

Well this kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it?

The only reason men have a reputation for being "always ready" is that, um, since we're assigned the traditional role of initiators that's meant that *by definition* if we weren't ready we weren't initiating.

And when people say women are "acting like men" what they mean is "women aren't waiting for him to make the first move."

A corollary, by the way: when you say "welcome to what women experience all the time" a big part of what you're saying is "men are having to deal with initiation when they're not ready."

But here's the stupid thing: if you define "needs propping up" as "needs help getting in the mood" then...

Ok, *two* things. If you define "needs propping up" as "needs help getting in the mood" then...

1) "Foreplay," which originally meant "stuff he's got to do to get her ready for sex" stops looking so gendered since, *surprise* it's as much a function being initiated upon when your partner's already in the mood rather than something intrinsic to complicated or jury-rigged "lady parts."

2) It's an opportunity for women to play, instead of the traditional be "played with," which has those gendered undertones of "play catch up." And it's an opportunity for men to learn to be played with as well as to play. Which, if you try it, is actually pretty awesome... *if* you don't trip over the idea that men are failures if they're not always johnny on the spot.

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

Amanda Marcotte, writing at RHRealityCheck.org says of the (religiously motivated) "365 Nights" program where (at least some) couples try to have sex every night for a year (or, in a milder version, for "101 Nights")

There's a point to all this.  Mandatory sex is part of the larger tendency of our culture to see sex as something that needs to be tightly regulated.  Not that it's bad for couples to make sex a priority.  In fact, that seems smart to me.  But why does everything have to be about measurements and controls?
Read the quote in context here.

There's a similar trend, in porn, in letters to Penthouse (which, according to a Susie Bright interview with a former editor, really are written by readers), in some circles of mostly-youthful "sex positive" types, and the occasional sex blogger, to tally (usually women's) orgasms during sex.

It's not an altogether bad thing. Years ago I used to reflexively count phone poles, parking meters, and stair steps on long walks to or from campus. On those rare occasions I to be in a thunderstorm I still count the seconds between flash and thunderclap. But it's not particularly useful either, not really useful enough to keep track of once you get to your destination, or go inside.

And when it comes to orgasms (oops, a pun) it's always seemed a lot more interesting to just have, or help with, the next one or, when everyone's on a roll to do what you can to make one merge seamlessly with the next.

Unless it's a really big deal to have one at all but even that's a lot more about whether one or the other did or didn't at all. (Years ago I took an orgasm-suppressing anti-depressant for situational, well, depression, and under those conditions it was a pretty big deal for my partner at the time, and of course me.)

I also think programs like 365 are a bit of a thumb in the eye of partners who are struggling to have children. Especially for those who believe, or are told, that conception is more likely when the woman comes. (Especially since the evidence isn't very compelling.) For my friends who've been through it there was always plenty of keeping track, diligence about days, and orgasm, but... not so much enthusiasm.

The whole point, as recounted expressly by those friends, is that when sex and even orgasms become a duty they stop being fun. (It's what's behind the point that consent is only the *ground floor* and not just a green light for sex.)

I guess the bottom line is that sometimes it's actually fun to keep informal tabs of numbers, as it was for me in my parking-meter-counting days. What matters more than, well, tabbed columns of numbers, though, is to be *mindful* about sex the way we're mindful of non-sexual things in our lives with our partners, lie birthdays, favorite places to eat or visit.

Sex can feel very, very nice.

If you do it one particular way, with a particular kind of person, during particular days of your or your partner's menstrual cycle, assuming you or your partner are old enough but not too old to ovulate or inseminate then, yeah, you can also reproduce.

Oh, unless by "sex" you mean only "penis-in-vagina intercourse to male ejaculation between ages 15 and 25, or as long as both of you are still 'hawtt' enough that someone else would want to watch." If you mean that then yeah, you get a lot of reproduction that way.

But that's a pretty limited definition of sex.

An *extravagantly* limited definition.

That doesn't mean a lot of people don't enjoy PIV intercourse, or even that they shouldn't. It just means it's a bit of a framing trap to assume it's about, or even *mostly* about reproduction.

Photo by Flickr user Jude.C. Used under a Creative Commons license.

[Note: I'm on vacation in what may be very limited internet service so this is a pre-recorded and (I very much hope!) a self-publishing post. I may not have much opportunity to reply to comments but you're comments are still very welcome. I'll reply as soon as I can. You're some of the best commenters in the blogsphere so you're always welcome to respond spiritedly but respectfully to each other's comments while I'm away. --fl]

No matter how often a politician, professor, soldier, fellow student, business associate, neighbor or any other hypothetically-sexually-deprived thorn in your side "just got laid more often" they'd still be a thorn in the side. The idea that sex reduces aggression or increases a) is manifestly and even observably true and b) is just another manifestation of the myth of sexual scarcity.

[Note: I'm on vacation in what may be very limited internet service so this is a pre-recorded and (I very much hope!) a self-publishing post. I may not have much opportunity to reply to comments but you're comments are still very welcome. I'll reply as soon as I can. You're some of the best commenters in the blogsphere so you're always welcome to respond spiritedly but respectfully to each other's comments while I'm away. --fl]

Funny how often "not feeling safe" is mistaken for "modesty." Hmm. Gee.

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

[Note: I'm on vacation in what may what's proving be very limited internet service. I've been mostly relying on \pre-recorded and (I very much hope!) a self-publishing posts. I'm taking the opportunity to use (limited) access here in a car-repair waiting room to try to catch up on a couple of ideas, but I may not still won't have much opportunity to reply to comments but you're comments are still very welcome. I'll reply as soon as I can. You're some of the best commenters in the blogsphere so you're always welcome to respond spiritedly but respectfully to each other's comments while I'm away. --fl]

Quoth the Monty Python sketch

Second Bruce: Here! Here's the boss-fellow now!

(Enter fourth bruce with English person, Michael)

Third Bruce: 'Ow are you, Bruce?

First Bruce: G'day, Bruce!

Fourth Bruce: Bruce.

Second Bruce: Hello, Bruce.

Fourth Bruce: Bruce.

Third Bruce: How are you, Bruce?

Fourth Bruce: G'day, Bruce.

Fourth Bruce: Gentlemen, I'd like to introduce a man from Pommyland who is joinin' us this year in the Philosophy Department at the University of Wooloomooloo.

EveryBruce: G'day!

Michael Baldwin: Hello.

Fourth Bruce: Michael Baldwin, Bruce. Michael Baldwin, Bruce. Michael Baldwin, Bruce.

First Bruce: Is your name not Bruce?

Michael: No, it's Michael.

Second Bruce: That's going to cause a little confusion.

Third Bruce: Mind if we call you "Bruce" to keep it clear?
Source: University of Adelaide Library; Monty Python script for "The Bruces"

Amanda Schaffer, Slate.com's Medical Examiner column, has a nice article debunking a pair of books in the evidently bottomless genre of "mars/venus" pseudoscience. This time by "reluctant" feminists but that's almost beside the point. We already know that people *want* there to be a difference, preferably large ones, nevermind how surprisingly little supporting research there might be. (I think it would be a lot more interesting if someone would just write a book about that.)

Given the radical proposition that both men and women are *people,* it should come as no surprise that roughly equal numbers of men and women are anorgasmic and/or asexual. But it perpetually surprises us as much, maybe more, as the news that except maybe in childhood men and women have virtually indistinguishable verbal skills and word usage.

And therefore it shouldn't surprise us that men and women, people all, should be equally eroticized by sensations associated with submission and masochism.

I mean, compare the difference between the following snippets, first from Holly of The Pervocracy, who says

Submission's easy to explain. Pain's hard. It's not just about giving up control, it's about giving up control and being betrayed. If D/s is a trust fall, SM is a trust fall where you hit the ground. Still thrilling, and with a competent top still safe, but... fuuuck, it hurts.

I've heard people say things like "masochists transform pleasure to pain," or "it's not pain, it's intense sensation." Really? Is that what it's like for you? Maybe it is. But for me, there's a lot of real, no-euphemism pain in the experience. Certain types of pain are straight-up pleasurable: very mild slap 'n tickle, pain during sex, and sometimes pain that's sufficiently severe and extended that I get a little out of my head. The meat of a scene, though, hurts me.

So why? Dunno. I don't think it's any kind of negative or self-destructive impulse; hitting makes me happy! I do get a little high afterwards, but it doesn't happen every time and I don't think it's the primary motivation. Ascribing it to The Patriarchy is too ridiculous for words. Maybe it's just one of those random oddities that people are born with. Like an eleventh toe.

Read the quote in context here.

As opposed to Richard of Down On My Knees who says

That people who aren’t gifted with masochism can’t grasp it never surprises me. They don’t have our special superpower that transforms “Ouch!” into something rewarding.

This afternoon I thought of one aspect that is especially obscure.

If, like me, you are a certified pain slut then pain can feel good in itself as it happens. Well, sometimes. Not necessarily when you push toward the edge. At least not straightforward obvious pleasure. I’ve yet to evolve the vocabulary for the experience.

Or not at the time. Certain pains don’t lend them to immediate gratification: a hot ointment, like IcyHot, that causes a terrifying tingle. Nor when you endure a quality or level of pain solely to please the top. The reward comes later. I remember evenings when the happy afterglow to a series of a demanding scenes didn’t kick in until the following morning.

Read the quote in context here.

Oh wait! There's not much difference there at all is there? Oops!

Which brings me to a point Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon brings up (all emphasis mine, but note especially the bold text)

Not too long ago, a friend of a friend joking-aggressively asked me while we were out and about what the difference between misogyny and sex is.  Mind you---we were sober.  So I kind of blinked at him and was like, “Come again?” I know the game Bait The Feminist, but this one didn’t even make a lot of sense.  He tried to clarify, but it wasn’t helping.  I kept thinking he was trying to imply that feminists think straight male sexual desire itself is somehow anti-woman, but he knows that I can’t possibly think that, so I was confused.  Later I thought about it and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt---maybe there are men out there who really do struggle to find a way to desire women that doesn’t have a backlog of misogyny and resentment towards women.  God knows that our culture doesn’t do much to help men out in this regard, and in fact encourages men to resent women for being desireable, and to rectify the dissonance between feeling vulnerable towards women because you desire them and feeling superior to women because of your social station by making the act of intercourse a symbolic conquering of the female body.  In case that sort of heady language is confusing, a good deal of porn simplifies things by making women choke on cocks, look generally uncomfortable, get double-pronged in painful-looking ways, get spat upon, and get called names like “slut” and “whore”. 

Read the quote in context here.

Here's the deal. You *can't look* at Holly's post without recognizing that there's *some* foundation to all the popular tropes of androcentric porn: women women really, even *really* really get off on pain even though it just hurts. I'll go even further and say that anyone who denies, for instance, Holly's experience or fails to support her is denying not only her sexuality, or her gender, but denying the radical proposition that *she's* a person. So for someone to say I'm denying, or disputing, or disrupting, or disrespecting those women who get off on pain, humiliation, and submission, no matter how "extreme" I could in all fairness accuse them of deliberately misreading my position. (Not that I would, of course, I'm just saying I *could.*)

But here's the other deal. You can't look at Holly's post next to Richard's virtually identical post without recognizing the deep truth of Amanda Marcotte's post: Women have no monopoly on masochism, men are equally equipped to be enthusiastic masochists and bottoms, no more women than men overall are masochistic and/or subservient and yet... the bulk of popular porn in terms of downloads, in terms of rentals, in terms of "most favorited" on upload sites like YouPorn or RedTube, in terms of "have to see it to believe it" blooper sites specializing in sexual and nonsexual pratfalls... are about hurting, humiliating, and dominating women to one degree or another.

In keeping with the Monty Python sketch at the top I'm tempted to call it the "all women are named Bruce" fallacy. And, while we're at it, the "no men are named Bruce" fallacy. Except, of course, that someone would point out that *no* women are named Bruce, and that not that many men are either.

One might be excused, however, for assuming that a disproportionate number of porn producers, let alone consumers, are named Bruce.

It would certainly explain the data better than the next 80 best-sellers claiming men and women are from such different species it's a miracle of both Church and Science that we can interbreed at all.

[Note: Note also the thuggish homophobia mocked in the Python sketch. Although note also the not-too-veild colonialist contempt by Englishmen for Australian erstwhile colonials.

Also note: I highlighted the text in Marcotte's post, "I kept thinking he was trying to imply that feminists think straight male sexual desire itself is somehow anti-woman, but he knows that I can’t possibly think that..." Yeah, that would have confused me too. Most feminists I know really don't think straight male sexual desire is anti-woman. I think that would actually be *anti-feminist" attitudes towards straight male sexual desire are anti-woman instead. After all *they're* the ones who think men are just so flipping superior we can ruin women just by touching them with our pee-pees. All the more reason to prefer feminism, eh? --fl]

Going back to a much earlier (2006!) post about the language of orgasms, another good reason to seek a more active, verb-ish, non-noun-ish way to express orgasms is that something you *do,* as opposed to something you just "have," carries less status-related baggage associated with it.

I've mentioned elsewhere that too often orgasms are used as a way to keep score. How many you have can become all that matters. Give your partner one? Score points! Couldn't have any? Eeeep, you lost! Give your partner several? More points! Sometimes it's like some kind of pinball games except what are you supposed to do with all those points? Win a free turn? This is perfectly consistent with something you can have or give, but it's possible to fetishise orgasms just like it is to fetishise all sorts of other things.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all trying to devalue orgasms. They're wonderful things to do with yourself or someone else, or to do for someone or have someone do for you, and of course it can be disappointing (not to mention frustrating) when you aren't able to do them yourself or for your partner. I'm just saying orgasms aren't things!

Or put it another way, orgasms exist in the singing, not in the song. They exist in the notes played as they're played. They're the strings plucked, they're resonances and vibrations. They are themselves acts of creation, not the transcribed results (the "score?") of those acts.

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

[Note: I'm on vacation in what may be is very limited internet service so this is a pre-recorded and (I very much hope!) a self-publishing post. I may not have won't have much opportunity to reply to comments but you're comments are still very welcome. I'll reply as soon as I can. You're some of the best commenters in the blogsphere so you're always welcome to respond spiritedly but respectfully to each other's comments while I'm away. --fl]

So I'm starting to wonder how much of modern Western sexual progress has coincided with modern Western "bourgeoise" trends in housing. We're staying in a little summer-use ski condominium/time-share thingie that was arranged for us by friends. Unbeknownst to us it's a seriously one-room plus bathroom affair. That's fine as far as it goes, and it's a perfectly pleasant place, but while there's enough room for an adult and two children once you fold up the hide-a-bed couch there just isn't any privacy at all!

And I'm *still* being spoiled! We have only two children. The room is still quite a bit bigger than a lot of much larger and much more affluent families have in Japan to name just one other country. Neither nor both of our parents, nor any of our brothers or sisters live here either, as is often the case in, say, Moscow. And still being spoiled because even when I was very poor (nutritional-deficience poor, sleeping under interstate overpass or culvert poor, hitch-hiked from somewhere-on-the-Hudson New York to Philadelphia and back in a day because I couldn't afford a long-distance call for a correct address poor) I at least had the privacy of being on someone's couch, or porch, or back yard while they were in their bedrooms.

The idea, though, of ever being able to play a real adult disclosure/conversation-starter sex game with a partner is out of the question, however, even with all this one-room room. For that matter (at least to my sensibilities) sex of *any* sort is out of the question unless we sent the children off to the little rec center (oops, at least one parent must accompany...) or playground (oops, at least one parent must...) or... or...

I don't know how people do it. Which isn't, incidentally, a judgment call of any sort. I just, literally, don't know how it's done. If you know from first, second, or third-hand I'd love to hear it.

The first thing I can think of would be long showers together. What about you?

[Note: I'm on vacation in what may be very limited internet service so this is a pre-recorded and (I very much hope!) a self-publishing post. I may not have much opportunity to reply to comments but you're comments are still very welcome. I'll reply as soon as I can. You're some of the best commenters in the blogsphere so you're always welcome to respond spiritedly but respectfully to each other's comments while I'm away. --fl]

Red of The Red Sneaker Diaries reviewed an (almost -- turns out you've got to be hetero) very-cool sounding sex game that doesn't just facilitate sex, it facilitates exploration and communication about interest, boundaries, and adventurousness.

Sex Is Fun comes as an unassuming deck of cards. The cards divide into twelve piles – six for the guy, six for the girl (yes, that is the one negative to this game – it’s for a heterosexual couple – no two ways about it). The piles are all different topics: “Pillow Talk”, “Touch Test”, “Oral Action”, “Sex Play”, “Kinky Action”, “Act It Out”. Game paly is very simple. The first to go picks a card and acts on it, then the other player reacts, and a point is assigned based on the outcome. The preverbal ante can be upped by playing an “I Dare You” or “Prove It!” card, upping the number of points on the line. At the end of the game, most points wins. Simple really. I’ve said it before, simple is sexy.

Read the quote, and find links to the game vendor's site, here.

The solution, it seems to me, isn't so much to lament it's heterocentrism as to encourage them to develop sequels and/or extensions. (Hey, it works for games for children such as Killer Bunny and Carcassonne so it can work for games for adults as well.) And in terms of serving customers who could use it most? Tell me there's one relationship expert who can say (with a straight face and any credibility) that straight people need less work on real adult communication about sex than people of other, perhaps more necessarily aware, persuasions and I'll back down. :-) Seriously, even if it's only the first step it sounds like a step in a good direction.

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

Still following up on the twenty questions I found at Amorous Rocker of Not Your Average Chick that I decided to answer one at a time instead of all in a rush. So...

10. Bite or Suck:

Usually when someone says "bite me" they're being... well, non-gender specific, maybe but still not exactly polite. On the other hand they also say "you suck" so I guess that's a wash. Which is sort of a nuisance since both can feel wonderful under the right circumstances.

When I was very young and learning about sex from a variety of pre-1960 and therefore not terribly helpful medical, anthropological, and psychological texts (with the occasional almost-a-stroke-book pseudo-academic works thrown in) I learned the following about the Kama Sutra: "The book contains five chapters about what we'd consider "normal" foreplay and sixteen chapters about biting, scratching, and slapping one's partners for erotic effect." And yes, I'm sure I have the exact numbers wrong but not the approximate proportions. It didn't sound very tempting** and so I generally left off all that.

My loss, as I've learned since beginning to read other anonymous and then not as anonymous bloggers of kink.

Still, given a choice between the two I'd choose suck. And lick. And kiss. And mouth. And breathe warm breath across spots tender and mild. The latter, by the way, seems to work as well on recently spanked, bitten, or scratched spots as not... but not in my case if I'd agreed to pick only one. :-)

And again that's given *my* choice of one. A choice I'd rather not make.

I haven't been bitten much but if it's not oversharing once you arouse me to a certain point I adore having my nipples bitten. But then at that point I adore having them sucked as well. You hear every now and then people praising little nips during fellatio. My experience has been that it's... not so great. The side of my neck works well and so does the very top inside of my thighs. And while I've really enjoyed being bitten on the arms and shoulders it wasn't the sensation itself but the shared level of emotion, combined with a willingness to sacrifice a little comfort in the interest of not alerting parents.

Sucking though? I love, love, love fingers and toes. When I suck yours. When you suck mine. Not hard so much as warmly, wetly, and deepy... mmm, that's lovely almost any time. Earlobes? Yours or mine it's also wonderful. The inside of arms, yes, and all up and down the throat and shoulders and neck, too.

Breasts? I actually don't go in so much for sucking, or at least not the classic baby-nursing style though it's a lot of fun to slurp as much of your nipples and breasts as I can with a gentle suction and then swirling my tongue around and around. And around. But I love licking breasts even without suction at least as much. I don't know about you but I've noticed most people I've tried it with go deeper into haze when I kiss, or lick, or stroke the curves of the breast just below and to the outside rather than right over nipples. And, as I mentioned above, there's blowing gently over wet flesh first to chill it and then re-warm it again with hands or lips or tongue.

And speaking of lips and tongue, does anyone else enjoy licking and sucking their partner's lips during kissing? Gently biting there works wonders too, or would if not for that darn choice. It's always the lower lip that gets the mention for sucking but I've noticed the inside of most people's upper lip is a marvelous erogenous zone for that.

And of course there's all the different non-bite-y things one can do during cunnilingus. I used to think that eating a partner was end-of-the-world, I-could-die-happy paradise, and while I've gotten over that a *little* in the sense that I'm no longer outright fetishistic about it I still... mmm... what was I saying? Oh yeah, something I've wound up doing especially during side-by-side (as opposed to top or bottom) sixty-nine, you know, where you're each pillowing the other's head on your thigh, is gently slurping... ok I mean *sucking* an inner labia deep into my mouth and then swirling the flat of my tongue across the inner surface. Like maybe a lot of people I can get pretty distracted during sixty-nine but doing that doesn't take a lot of concentration. The only risk is that it tends to really distract the other person.

As for me? Well, fellatio tends to work in waves for me (I think this is true for a lot of people during oral, men and women) so one minute every nerve ending is on fire and a minute later I feel almost numb... although fortunately after another minute it's back to... where was I again? Anyway, when I'm cycled down it's wonderful when you pop me out of your mouth and tongue or slurp on the large, loose, soft vein along the side. You're not going exactly lose my attention no matter what but that's definitely going to keep it till my tide comes in again.

Anyway, I'm not going to say of biting that I could take it or leave it -- there are too many nice ways to do it to give it up completely. But sucking? I'll take that in a heartbeat. And give it just as quickly. Any time.

How about you?

Still following up on the twenty questions I found at Amorous Rocker of Not Your Average Chick that I decided to answer one at a time instead of all in a rush. So...

9. Rough or Gentle:

Hey this is a fun question. I'll start out by mentioning a lesson I learned from... somewhere a long time ago about roughness and gentleness between the sexes. (Yes, even I agree that anatomy creates *some* differences between men and women.) Anyway, the advise was to keep in mind that men tend to touch women's clitorises they way they like to be touched (very firmly) while women tend to touch men's cocks the way *they* like to be touched (fairly lightly.)

Learning that worked wonders for me both ways. Oh yeah, and here's the rub... doh! sorry about the pun! Anyway, one consequence of each of us touching the other the way *we'd* like to be touched is that it really *only applies to cocks and clitorises and not our entire bodies, our brains, or our lives! Women touching men gingerly doesn't mean you're hung up, you're doing exactly what makes sense. Similarly men aren't necessarily knuckle-dragging Neanderthals, we're just doing what we think would work best. (And yes, communication can work wonders there.) But the thing is that just because we like you to hold the shafts of our cocks much more firmly doesn't mean we won't melt the same way you may if you softly nibble our necks. And just because you want us to stroke your vulvas way more gently than we stroke ourselves doesn't mean the rest of you is made out of fragile flower stems either.

So that's one part of rough vs. gentle.

Another? Sometimes I want to send the buttons of your blouse flying and pulling the tattered sleeves down to your elbows to pin your arms as I devour you where your shoulders reach your neck, other times I want to spend an hour going button by button and warmly, wetly kissing each inch of newly bared skin.

Sometimes, when you're crampy, I want to deeply knuckle the bones of your hips and tailbone, and then a minute later I want to gently rest my palm over your lower belly to let the warmth of my hand soak through your skin.

Sometimes I want to gently fingertip your nipples till they crinkle, and then gently soften them again with my warm palms. Other times, when your lips are molten hot against mine and our breathing is short and sharp I want to maul your breasts with open hands, and catch your nipples hard between my fingers.

Other times (ok, more often than not) I'd rather tip our hips towards each other so knowingly, slowly, and so gently expert in our familiarities that the distinction of inside and out, while exquisite, are almost impossible to tell.Every now and then, though, I might want to pull you up to your knees by your naked hips, lean over you with my bristled chin scratching your neck and cheek and gravel pirate-like about being unsure whether to have you like a woman or like a boy as the curved underside of my cock presses against your perineum.

Sometimes there's the rough carpet in the back of a station wagon or van when the weather outside is frightful. Other times it's nice to feel air wafting gently across us while we're underneath a single sheet while the weather outside's delightful.

All in all I'd hate having to choose just one. You?

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

Still following up on the twenty questions I found at Amorous Rocker of Not Your Average Chick that I decided to answer one at a time instead of all in a rush. So...

8. Fast or Slow:

Hmmm... another very open-to-interpretation question! The very short answer? Slow please. At least at first. And at middle. After too. Middle to end? That's *very* circumstantial then isn't it?

Longer? I can be very fast about "bases," cupping your ass sometimes before we even kiss, lazily contouring your breasts, shoulders, and arms soon after we begin to kiss... pulling your nearer leg towards me. But then if that's fast, well, I also tend to wait longer to kiss -- I'm not obsessive about it but I *really* like the "three date" rule. And usually by three dates you've got an idea what each other's interests and boundaries are.

Another kind of fast vs. slow? I'm getting over it but if I slip I can wind up taking forever... sometimes in a good way as in the time I'll spend kissing from your collarbones to your inner knees. Other times not so great as in your "gagging for it" as Abby Lee put it and I'm oblivious. (Hey, if I wasn't the world's biggest dupe of men's dominant no-sex class paradigm would I be so impatient to subvert it?) That's where you can just grab me by the hand, or ears, and say what under some circumstances be outright romantic: "do you really need a hint?" (That's often all the hint I need.)

Another kind of fast or slow? One of the funny things about porn is how *fast* everybody goes. It's like an aerobics class. I could just be living in subjective time but it never seems like I move anything like that? (It's off topic a bit but I also don't go in much for that "thump-thump-thump," banging away, no clitoral contact sort of sex, at least not once we've settled in for a stretch. I'm pretty likely to roll you up on top of me and... um... sort of trapping your pubic bone between my pubis and the base of my erection while my hands on your hips to feel how you're moving and then matching your hip's movements with my own.)

Another kind? Is there anything nicer than taking the time to dip, dip, dip, going an inch further each time? Wow I love how that feels!

Another kind? I really enjoy oral sex and have since before I'd done anything else... or even anything at all! If I'm *too* slow to move on you can grab my hands, which I'll usually have up stroking your belly or breasts, and pull me up.

If we do tie-up games I'm usually *very* quick to untie you after, and should you tie me instead I'd prefer the same courtesy.

It's funny but I'm not sure quickies count either way -- at least for me they're never so much spontaneous as capping off a moment where both parties have been thinking, and possibly "no-we-shouldn't-there's-no-time"ing it for a while first. And so if the quickies themselves are fast the lead up (and the implicit promise of a long follow-up some time later) can be marvelously slow.

Let's see... oh yeah, and for readers who've said they enjoy tapotment... ok, percussive foreplay... ok, spanking, I'm inclined to begin with slow massage and then fast and very light, loose-fingered slaps to get your circulation going, then assuming we hadn't negotiated something different first I'd go pretty slowly, each swat followed by slow rubbing to ease the sting (in my hand too, remember.)

Oh, a final fast or slow: even though I've sort of since learned better, after sex I'm *very* fast to jump up and bring back a soft, warm washcloth. Gently sink your teeth in my lip or keep your legs around me if you'd rather I slowed down. On the other hand I'm usually exhilarated afterwards and therefore I'd probably be very slow to fall asleep even if wriggling, snuggling, and talking after sex *wasn't* fun.

Quote of the day from Holly of The Pervocracy

Cosmo suggested that to get kinky and taboo, I could wear sexy lingerie or give him an oil massage or--so very naughty--pretend we were strangers. Drew rolled up the magazine and spanked me with it.

She said it here.

Finally, a non-humiliating use for that @*%!#$ magazine. Because while nobody *has* to be kinky and taboo, *if* you're going to you probably don't want to try any direct method Cosmopolitan (or it's insecurit-industry brethren like Details for men) tend to suggest. (I think even 50 years on Cosmo occasionally hints that woman-on-top is kinky and taboo.)

Still following up on the twenty questions I found at Amorous Rocker of Not Your Average Chick that I decided to answer one at a time instead of all in a rush. So...

7. Thigh highs or Bodystocking:

Ok, this sort of harks back to the <<>> question in this series but... you know what I care about more than anything during any of this? Figuring out what moves (figuratively) and shakes (literally although quivers works to) my partner. It moves and shakes *me!* So even though I'm trying to answer which *I* enjoy if something about one or the other simmers you I'd rather you wore that.

That said I've never been a big fan of fan of body stockings. It's not that I'm *overly* obsessed with skin-on-skin contact, in fact I really enjoy the sort of bondage-y pleasures of laying a silky, satiny, or (yuppie-style) high thread-count sheet over a partner and hand-smoothing it over all the contours of her body, tucking it under her arms, then torso, then under one side and then the other of each leg, and then stroking her through the slippery-soft fabric that only slowly shifts the fabric away, uncovering her only an inch at a time till the last whip sheet falls away leaving nothing between her and the warm skin of my hands, and arms, and chest, and legs, and belly and cock.

But given a choice (and it's not always my choice since some people feel slippery playful in them) I still take a pass on body stockings, even fishnet-y ones. I've always been very impatient to get them off when someone wears them. Thigh highs, on the other hand, play into my serious preference for making out for hours. The few inches of bare skin between stockings and undies under a skirt or dress... the transition, I mean, from fingertips on that sort of zizzly-smooth texture of hose to the soft, soft skin to gathered gathered elastic legbands to the soft, humid texture of body heat captured behind cotton or satin... and when you're both grownups and have all the time in the world there on the couch or in the car? Oh my that's lovely. So yeah, definitely thigh-highs just for that.

Bonus: I know they're appallingly 80s but when I was in college hanging around socially with a bunch of dancers I thought their leg warmers and leotards were the total bee's (warm)