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Intern Katy of Jezebel says (emphasis mine)

Unfortunately, the vasectomy is hard to sell, according to doctors. Many men, like Michael Lewis, author of Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood, view the procedure as somewhat akin to castration. Lewis says his own vasectomy made him feel like a “traitor to [his] sex.“

She said it here.

Well, he’s got the traitor to his sex part right.

Seriously? The guy’s supposed to be some great big-swinging dick reporter? (He actually introduced the term “big swinging dick” to financial reporting in Liar’s Poker!) He’s supposed to be good enough to report credibly on Iceland’s entire economic meltdown after a long weekend spent there but in 49 years he can’t even figure out how his own penis works? W the F?

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More from Katy’s source (USA Today, I think, but visit her post and follow the links.)

Myths about vasectomy persist. The biggest, doctors say, is that it will lower testosterone levels and affect sexual function and desire. “We still spend a lot of time explaining that there is absolutely no effect on sexual function or libido,” [University of Illinois at Chicago professor Lawrence] Ross says.

Yeah, like I had any less testosterone when I got my first vasectomy?

Like I had any more after my reversal?

Like I have any less after my follow-up vasectomy?

I don’t think so.

Actually I’m pretty sure when it comes to testosterone I’ve got plenty. If I had anymore I’d grow antlers.

Hey, you want the inside scoop on what vasectomies have done to my sex life? Wanna know what women have generally done to my penis after seeing those little scars?

Raunchy things.

Lascivious things.

Exotic things.

Loving things.

Enthusiastic things.

Repeated things.

Repeated things.

More repeated things.

Eager things.

Things that by and large have felt very, very good!

But most importantly?

Exactly the same things they wanted to do before I had them.

Except more frequently. Because for a man, before or after, there’s really no… well… fucking difference between having a vasectomy and not having one except neither he nor his partner needs to worry about anymore, um, “innocent byproducts.”

Than they already have.

Than they already wanted.

Than they already planned.

Sheesh!

Katy says

Despite the fact that the vasectomy is a safer, simpler process than female sterilization, more women undergo sterilization surgery than men (half of women using birth control ages 40-44 had had their tubes tied, while only 20% of men that age have). It seems that the vasectomy has a real PR problem.

Seriously! More sex more often? Zero concern about unplanned, unwanted pregnancies? Less stressed out partners? No impact on testosterone? Opportunity to call Michael Lewis a wuss? What more PR do you possibly need?

Sheesh!

So I realize I’ve done a couple of posts in the last week that were all related to a stealth brain-changing post from Britni Danielle of Oh My God, That Britni’s Shameless who said

I absolutely love when a man comes on my tits or stomach. I adore being covered in come. I also love when a man comes in my mouth. I think it’s totally hot. I don’t necessarily love having someone come on my face, but if it’s someone I’m dating and he really wants to, I’ll let him. So where do I HATE when a guy comes? Inside me (without a condom).

Read the quote in context here.

My post about Shere Hite and her view that depictions of men in porn are impoverished compared even to, for instance, their sexual expression while they’re masturbating, the one linking to Guttmacher’s Rachel K Jones assessing withdrawal as contraception, one about heteronormative assumptions embodied in proposed revisions to the DSM, and even the one from Em & Lo questioning why stains from women’s menstrual blood are more problematic than “wet spot” semen stains after intercourse were each influenced by Britni’s post questioning the utility and/or desirability not of PIV intercourse but PIV intercourse culminating in male ejaculation as the default/desirable/fallback/ultimate sex act.

Many of the above posts have sparked cool conversations in comments. Other comments have (not-unreasonably, considering) questioned my judgment for being, for instance, so sanguine about “withdrawal.” There’s a longer answer, which would be the possibly radical idea that intercourse itself should be employed as “foreplay,” but the shorter answers lead back to Britni’s post.

Kink In Exile tackles head on the masturbation question that’s been percolating around the intertubes (and, obviously, in real life) recently

Someone did in fact ask why it might be hard for some people to orgasm with a partner if most of their orgasms have been through masturbation. I should first clarify that question to say “...if they can masturbate to orgasm successfully.”

...

The way people masturbate is often different from the mechanics of partnered sex. You may have learned to masturbate in an environment of secrecy and so you do it quickly, but find that partnered sex doesn’t allow you to reach that tempo. Or maybe you find an angle from which to approach your own genitals that feels soo good, but is harder to do with partnered sex. Your body gets used to the way you’ve been getting it off and expects that kind of contact; you change things up, don’t go fast enough, or don’t hit the right spots and suddenly it doesn’t work. Keep in mind also that many women can’t orgasm from vaginal penetration alone. So what do you do? Pay attention to how you masturbate, how your partnered sex looks and what physical differences exist there in. You can then try masturbating in a way that is more reflective of partnered sex or adding toys to partnered sex to make sure you’re hitting all the right spots.

She said it here.

There’s been a fair amount of conversation lately about the merits and demerits of masturbation as it relates to partnered sex. Given that masturbation is now effectively mainstream… as is conversation about sexual function and dysfunction… it’s a good time to talk about integrating solo and partner sex competency instead of imagining they are or should be separate.

At least for women back in the 1970s Shere Hite announced a strong correlation between learned masturbation position and, I think, orgasms during intercourse. (Darn it I’m probably going to have to look it up now.) Anyway, I distinctly remember her saying something about women who learned to masturbate in face-down or curled-up, upper-legs-crossed positions having difficulty and thinking yeah, that could be a problem. Although that was so long ago now that rear-entry intercourse was still largely considered a (demeaning, intimacy-avoiding) kink.

I had a little epiphany about sex and masturbation a couple of years ago, based on remarks from someone who said she never got off on intercourse and so she’d wait till her partner was asleep and then masturbate really surreptitiously. That experience was probably more unusual for men but since the advent of Prozac and other anti-depressants many men need a manual override to have orgasms during partner sex as well. There’s also, as you hint, a bit of a subculture among young men (at least) who might fantasize madly about whoever they’re oriented to… but in practice prefer the pace and, possibly, the auto-focus of masturbation. Oh, and finally, there are any number of people in kink who don’t care for or who even actively dislike, say, being beaten black and blue while it’s happening,_ who nevertheless get off hard in anticipation, on recollection, or both. So my epiphany was that we ought to get over the idea that we ought to reconsider not just the 70’s notion of “simultaneous orgasms” as ideal but the idea that intercourse is the “right” way to have orgasms at all.

The key, though — one that Hite missed or disregarded in her post — is that just because you develop one set of neural pathways to orgasm (through this position or that sensation) it doesn’t mean that’s the only way you’ll ever be able to do it. The obstacle, at least physically, is that it can take almost as long to grow the nerve pathways as it did to learn the first way. That’s fine if you mix it up while learning (something Betty Dodson talked about at least in her workshops.) It’s harder if you learn on the sly, if you’re uncomfortable or in denial about doing it at all, or if you get the idea (from porn, say, or bible-study classes) that it’s supposed to be this way instead of one’s own way. Or, preferably, ways.

None of this is to say orgasms during partnered sex is bad (in fact, as they say in the blogosphere, “heh.”) It’s just that as Kink In Exile points out, if you’re pretty good at having them by yourself, and if neither you nor your partner are brow-beaten and/or drum-beaten into being embarrassed that it might be so. And while I’d never make promises, who knows? Given that expectation stress and performance anxiety are major buzzkills, not worrying about it might even improve one’s odds with one’s partners.

See also:

• The Masturbation Industry from Noli Irritare Leones
• Why Am I Boner Kryptonite from The Beautiful Kind
• It Was Bound to Happen from Secret Lovers Lane
• And No, I Accuse! from Skin::filter()

• And most recently, Did You Come? from Calico

If you’re an adult you can click here to see a probably-not-work-safe image.

Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon takes on the barkingly stupid but highly predictable assertions Ken Blackwell during his appearance on a Chris Matthews segment about abortion and contraception.

Ken Blackwell has nothing at all to add to this, of course. He just screams about how he and his are going to pray away female sexuality, and it’s just a matter of time. It’s mildly useful that Blackwell openly admits and downright brags about how he and his are basically against women having sex and that the only form of birth control they’ll tolerate is the pill you hold between your knees.

...

Blackwell’s argument against the existence of non-procreative sexual intercourse is actually kind of funny, though.  He comes right out and says we should abstain as a way to differentiate ourselves from other animals.  In my experience, however, wearing clothes, speaking, and walking upright tend to be enough to signal to other humans that I am not a lemur or a newt.

It’s all good, you can read it here.

Not to mention that we also differentiate ourselves from the animals by…

... having non-procreative sex!!!!

Sheesh!

By the way, drawing all sorts of conclusions about mate selection among other totally disparate species would be a lot easier if the creationists were right and we could just pray away all interest in non-procreative sex.