TWG who's been blogging for nine years and who I've been following since I started my blog six years ago (today!) and who is now blogging at yet another new location has some cool insights about disclosing her sexual proclivities instead of just bottling them up.

I used to deny this stuff, just get to it in my head (or alone), but with the last few guys, I just let it fly. And you know what? It's better. First off, I've been older and more confident sexually, which helps A LOT. Second, I know now that if the reaction is, "you're a freak" that's their problem and certainly not mine -- just because your needs don't match up doesn't mean anyone is a freak. Vanillians, enjoy your vanilla. Knot fetishists, tie up your BD-loving friends. Etc.

So the new guy? He's game. And thinks it's cool, and that we have great sex together (I think so, too). He likes how I respond to the stuff I *told him* works for me. I like that he likes to do it. So yeah.

It's so important to figure out what works for you and get to the point where you can own it. You will have so much more fun in every part of your life that way, but especially in the bedroom (or random bar bathroom, wherever floats your particular boat). I'm glad I finally gained that experience and confidence that let me do so.

Source: watergirl down

Not sure what Caitlin Flanagan would have to say.  Except maybe that she's really disappointed that TWG seems to be growing happier, more confident, and more self-expressed with both her hookups and long-term relationships as she grows instead of all dried up and unhappy and, I dunno, all covered in chewing gum with sweater lint in it or something.

It kind of makes you think that happiness has something to do with doing what you want instead of, y'know, doing what you just think you're supposed to.  (Whether that's thinking you're supposed to have fewer partners than you've had, as Flanagan would tell us, or if you think you should have had more, as, say the PUA folks say we all should.)

Here’s one of Holly of The Pervocracy more delightful kinks.

I find that serving others’ kinks is, for me, a kink in itself. The archetypal example is foot fetishism. It does, really, nothing for me. Feets is feets, and might as well be elbows or nostrils for all I care. But when a guy is into feet — that does something for me. The nothing-in-particular I feel having my toes sucked turns into an oh holy God YES when I see what it does to him. I don’t want my toes sucked, but I want my toes sucked by a foot fetishist.

Read the quote in context here.

I don’t know how common that particular kink is. If you even want to call it that. It might be common enough that you wouldn’t even call it a kink.

Anyway, I’m often that way. Vanilla sex with a vanilla partner is delightful. Outdoor sex isn’t usually my thing but it’s been wonderful with a partner who loved it. Same with dirty talking, which usually makes me want to roll my eyes.

Although truth be told it took me a while to get over some of my social hangups. In the pre-G-Spot days there was the partner who tried to convince me she only got off on penetration. That kind of freaked me out since I “knew” vaginal sensation was a myth and a sign of self-oppression… and so I broke things off. And I practically ran away from someone who said she fantasized about spankings. But… in retrospect all I want to do is look them up some day and apologize. It’s not just that I was being a big jerk who was sure he know what other people should or shouldn’t be turned on by, it was that if I’d let myself listen to myself then they and I would have had perfectly delightful times together.

Well this is about as random as my posts get. So since the beginning of the year my family has been watching an episode per day of the teenage-Superman soap opera Smallville. Go Netflix. For some reason the combination of angst, adventure, intrigue, romance, danger, lust, and parental modeling has just worked to keep us in all-ages conversation about all sorts of things. We’re currently toward the end of season seven, which is probably more episodes of anything I’ve ever watched. Go figure. But I digress…

Today for some reason I decided I wanted to know what Michael Rosenbaum looks like with hair. He’s the guy who plays the perpetually, almost delightfully complex Lex Luthor character.

Anyway (yeah, yeah, I’m getting to the point) I found a bunch of photos on Google Images (the link, again) and randomly clicked on a thumbnail, expecting to get a better look.

What I didn’t expect, but what I instead got, was a link to page “M” of a blog called Ticklish Male Celebrities, hosted by Lady, evidently from Bulgaria (judging from her email domain’s country code) who’s description reads

I’m a woman of art, who has one weird… weakness – ticklish guys :)

The side description says

The blog’s besically an alphabetical list of famous actors/musicians/writers/footballers, etc, who’ve admitted they’re ticklish. You can check the “Tickling Media Forum” to see their list of male celebs, so you’d know where I got most of the information from. Myspace mesaging also helped LOL :) I’d also upload photos of the guys in question, barefoot if possible.

That’s pretty much exactly what the blog is about. It’s been around since September, 2008, which makes it fairly venerable in blog years. And though the unusual method of just adding new entries to one of 26 “alphabetical” posts makes it hard to tell, Lady keeps it active and up to date.

Anyway, if you’re into very, very soft-core “man candy” images, or if you’re into mostly-barefoot men, or if you’re into ticklish men, or you’re just looking for unusual celebrity trivia the site could be just the ticket.

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Doh! While researching fetishes (there’s this persistent but obviously mistaken belief, going back to Freud no less, that only men have fetishes) I discovered that, according to The Manual of International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10 version 2005), something is technically a fetish if and only if it involves a fixation on or use of inanimate objects for sexual gratification. If one is instead attached to activities instead of inanimate objects then the technical vocabulary is “paraphilia.” I think most people have probably heard the term paraphlia. What I didn’t know was that when one is erotically fascinated by specific body parts like feet or hair it’s called “partialism.” Since most people’s sexual attachments to objects, activities, or body parts aren’t obsessive enough to count as “diseases and related health problems,” though, it’s fine to lump them all together or to mix or match them. Or you could just call it all “kink.” Or, as long as it really isn’t interferingly obsessive, since appreciation for sexual variation is actually pretty common you could do what I do and call it “normal.”

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Getting back to my original obscure intention, the photos of Michael Rosenbaum didn’t really show what he looks like with hair so my search continues. But just for the record here’s her entry on Rosenbaum, bare feet and ticklishness quotes included.

Michael Rosenbaum (plays Lex Luthor on “Smallville”) This is how his AOL Live interview went (9/02)..
Hi Michael! Are you a ticklish guy? If so, where?

MichaelRLive: “Sure. Where am I not, that’s the question.”
http://www.michaelrosenbaum.com/aol.html

Scroll way down to find the entry.

Cool and completely unexpected discovery.

I’m not sure why massage is supposed to fall under the heading of “vanilla” play. Unless maybe it’s its familiarity as “foreplay” that breeds contempt. But there’s so much more to massage than “candles and a backrub!”

The range of sensations you can create with massage goes from ethereal to enervating, devastating to divine. It requires a great deal of trust in multiple dimensions. A well-designed massage table, even a light one, can easily support an amazing amount of kinetic force, motion, and weight. The right height for massage happens to be the right height for a lot of other activities. They’re designed to resist water, oil, and silicone-based lubricants. And where there are massage tables there’s usually plenty of sheets, towels, heat sources, ice, and privacy. They easily accommodate service or dominance, submission or surrender, and best of all.

Best of all, switching is encouraged.

By the way, by arguing that massage isn’t “vanilla” I’m not arguing it must therefore instead be “kinky.” Quite the opposite. I think it nicely demonstrates the false distinction between the two. First because the overlap too broad for the distinctions to be useful. Second because the distinction is incomplete. Consider, for instance, that people who approve of “kink” are likely to also be far more accepting of “vanilla” massage whereas most of the “only for procreation” crowd are going to regard massage with as much suspicion as they would spanking. Finally? Certain subsets of “kinky” people are likely to dismiss both massage and spanking as insufficiently edgy and therefore equally “vanilla” activities.

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Incidentally, there’s a Half-Nekkid Thursday meme version of this post here.