Interviews, Take 3: The Illustrious Claire

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On Incest

There is an exception, we are told, to every rule. The rule I most commonly espouse on this blog is to be accepting of other people's ways of life, so long as it doesn't harm anyone else. In thinking about a possible exception - for me at least - I have found a possible contender: incest.

To begin the discussion, I'd like to clear up that this is only a question when it involves consenting adults that bear no children. The risk is so much higher for genetic defects when close relatives have children that I'm never okay with that.

But, in the case of consenting adults that never have kids, what is one to do? It doesn't come up as often as other sexual irregularities due to the Westermarck effect, in which children do not become sexually attracted to the people around whom they grew up. This was documented in jewish kibbutzes, where children live with many other families. Even though they were not blood-related to many of the children with whom they grew up, they would never marry inside their kibbutz. So we know that we have an ingrained aversion, but that it is not due to blood-relations. What, then, of separated children or siblings? This mother had her son when she was 14 and gave him up for adoption. 27 years later they met up, and are now in a happy, loving, sexual relationship with each other. Again, they're happy, not having children, and not hurting anyone else. What is there to disagree about?

Typical brother and sister in their natural habitat.

And yet it still irks me. I'm fairly sure this is still just because of a base reflex, and not due to a further logical reason. However, that doesn't mean that gut reactions are entirely invalid. Because virtually our entire society is against incest, it takes a particular type of person to still go through with the arrangement, knowing what sort of opposition is faced. This is of course not to say one should be wary of iconoclasts, but it is easy to imagine situations in which many of these relationships are quite unhealthy. For instance, in the case of parent-child relationships, there is always a power dynamic at play, even if they didn't grow up together. A parent has a lot of emotional leverage over a child, and this makes, if not the issue of consent, the issue of health and strength of relationship, a pressing matter.

In the case of this couple, the father met his daughter at the age of fifteen, but didn't really stay in her life. The mother had to say about them, "We used to joke he would turn up once every two years to spend a day with her." This sets up some seriously fucked up dynamics in the relationship, and believing that their relationship is healthy is really difficult. They've also had two children, one of whom died at a young age of congenital heart failure. This is something I absolutely cannot abide. But even if children weren't involved, I'm still not convinced I'd be okay with it.

Loving brother and sister? Or loving devious hellspawn sodomy?

There is still the issue of reunited brothers and sisters. There was a BBC documentary titled Brothers And Sisters In Love a few years back that deals with that exact issue. Unfortunately I was unable to procure a copy, but this shows that it is at least somewhat prevalent. The power dynamic is of course no longer in play, but it still makes one wonder if there is not some deeper psychological trauma going on to completely dismiss any sort of cultural norm - as well as the laws against it - to be with a sibling.

What do you think? Two consenting adults not hurting anyone is always okay? Is there an exception? I'm really interested in what other people think about this.

Images via branagcompendium.com, artistregister.com

Beautiful Agony

Beautiful Agony is a website that I have never had a subscription to, and probably couldn't handle it if I did. While I watch porn, these videos are so much more intense than regular porn, and I feel vulnerable just watching them. That being said, I would strongly urge those who feel adventurous to watch the free preview in the top left corner.

To allay some worries, Beautiful Agony is solely a website showing people from the shoulders up. You see people achieving what is known as a complete sexual cycle: rest, arousal, orgasm, rest. Usually this is through masturbation. Once again, You may watch porn, but this is something different.

Hope y'all like it.

Sexual Violence: a PSA

I assume that the erudite readers of my blog know all about this issue, but I feel it's important enough to address a second (and third, and fiftieth) time. With this in mind, I hope I do not appear condescending when I tell you that I'd like to walk you through some information about sexual violence. Not just statistics: I'm sure you've all heard that 1 in 3 women are sexually assaulted by the age of 18, and that 1 in 5 women will be raped in a five-year college career. You know that the vast majority of rapes are committed by people that the survivor knew personally. While we should all be outraged by this and looking to change it, there's only so much one can do. To do my part, I'd like to talk about what constitutes sexual assault so people, both male and female, can avoid it.

The short version is this: sexual assault is doing anything physically sexual with a person without their consent. It does not have to be male/female, it does not have to be penetrative. It does not have to involve a penis or a vagina.

You can be raped by someone you've had sex with before. Just because you wanted to one time does not mean you no longer have the right to say no. Just because you've agreed to some sexual activities, does not mean you've agreed to all of them. You can agree to making out, or taking your pants off, or to oral sex, while still not wanting to have sex. In fact, you can start having sex, and if something happens that you no longer want to, you can stop then, too.

You can get drunk and take home a stranger, but know that intoxication can negate consent . That is, don't go home with a girl that is too drunk to make any sort of decisions. Yes, people get drunk and hook up. But use some judgment. While I think all of this is true from a basic judgment standpoint, this is all also true from a legal standpoint. If you and/or your partner are drunk, be especially careful under those circumstances to have enthusiastic consent.

Enthusiastic consent is a term that has recently come up in the literature. This is the concept of not just not saying "no", but making sure you say "yes" before things get moved further. This can help eliminate what some consider to be a gray area of "well, she didn't say no, I thought it was fine." This is good for both parties. Who really wants to have sex when both people aren't excited about it anyway? So start asking people if they want to take things further. It doesn't have to be awkward, it can be hot. Even if it doesn't feel completely natural, I guarantee your partner will forgive a slight lack of grace for being concerned about their wellbeing.

Finally, if you are raped, report it. Resist the urge to shower or clean yourself off, and go straight to the police. Enough said.

I think that's about all I really wanted to get out. Tell your friends, male and female (though hopefully you've already made them start reading my blog). This is stuff that everyone needs to know. If y'all have any questions or comments, let me know.

On the Female Orgasm

I like having orgasms. I try to have them pretty frequently, in fact. Ideally, I have them with a friend. Such things are better shared. In fact, I think orgasms are so great, I hope all of my friends have them. This is why when a friend gives me an orgasm, I try to give her one, too. It's just a nice thing to do.

However, sometimes this is easier said than done.

It can be tough for some women to orgasm at all. So much so that people do some silly stuff in order to have them. For example, there's a commune for men and women in San Francisco dedicated to giving women orgasms. Seriously. The New York Times wrote about it here. While I'm not convinced I need to go live in a commune to help give a woman an orgasm, it's still something I've been interested in for a long time.* Being a science-minded man, I started looking around at information on the matter. Not just how-to guides, but information on whether women actually do have a hard time orgasming, and why.

The first thing I'd like to share with you is something I learned from Bonk, the best book on sex I've read. There is a chapter dedicated to this very topic. I'll spare you from many of the details, but I'd like to lay out a quick history. Marie Bonaparte, great grand-niece of Napoleon, was sexually unsatisfied. She didn't orgasm from sex, and didn't know why, but decided it was due to the distance between her clitoris and her vaginal opening. To test this theory, she measured this distance on 243 women in France, and found that women with a distance of less than an inch had a much greater chance of achieving orgasm from sex. Since this study in the 20s, there have been subsequent studies that at the very least indicate there is an important relationship between the two. The basic reasoning for this correlation is the skin around the clitoris gets pulled upon during sex, and creates stimulation. In other words, even most intercourse-induced orgasms are still due to the clitoris.

There is a good reason the clitoris is so pivotal - it's sensitive. We know, you say. But you may not! Did you know, for instance, that it has 80,000 nerve endings? Twice as many as the penis? Unfortunately, however, we managed to lose sight of this when one Sigmund Freud came around and told people that clitoral stimulation is infantile, and as a woman matures she should embrace her feminine role of taking dick, and should only have vaginal orgasms. Somehow people bought this (including Bonaparte, in fact, but she eventually changed her mind again) and in medical journals and sex books alike the clitoris was ignored. Luckily, second-wave feminism began, the clitoris was rediscovered, and has remained a publicly worthwhile organ since.

What? It's a flower. Get your head out of the gutter.

There are of course other things at play, however. Were you to talk to the Zwi Hoch, from the Center for Sexual Therapy in Israel, or my lovely friend Berta with whom I talked about this stuff this morning, they would tell you that sexual positions can play a huge role. Different positions can help hit the clitoris more easily, regardless of its distance. There is also the elusive Grafenberg spot, or the G-spot. This, for those uninitiated, is a small area of skin on the front interior wall of the vagina about 3-4 inches from the vaginal opening that is especially sensitive, and can cause women to orgasm from stimulation of just this area. In fact, Zwi Hoch (but not Berta, though I'm sure she could have) published a paper in which he "trained" 64 percent of his noncoitally orgasmic subjects to have orgasms vis a vis the G-spot. In most of these cases it was from manual stimulation, though in some it was from "anteriorly directed intercourse. This is how scientists say "doggie style" and still get published in medical journals.

But I digress. We know that only 20-30% of women orgasm from plain old intercourse. Hopefully I shouldn't need to say this, but just in case: this doesn't mean that women don't enjoy it. One can be anorgasmic and still have a wonderful time in the bedroom. However (and I shouldn't need to say this either), that doesn't mean you shouldn't try and get your girl off. Just because she doesn't come from sex doesn't mean she can't come. I know you know this, but we still hear plenty about women achieving orgasm less often than men from straight sexual encounters. And not just a little less. Four times less in committed relationships, and ten times less in casual hookups, says a recent study. Why?

I don't think it's because women are faking it, despite what Hollywood tells us.

The same article has a rather dismal theory: men don't care, especially if it's not their girlfriend. If the girlfriend doesn't make the guy try to get her off, he may not do it; and if it's a casual hookup, forget it. How we live with men all around us like this is baffling to me. It isn't a fully rewarding sexual experience for me if I'm not utterly sure that my partner had a great time too. This isn't related to my emotional attachment to the girl, or whether we're dating or not, just a basic sense of reciprocity. While these statistics are disheartening, I try not to despair. Fellas** reading this: step it up. If you're getting off, she should too. At least make a valiant attempt. Some girls won't come, others may not want you to try like you want to, but seriously. At least ask. Ladies reading this: make dudes step it up. If a guy doesn't do what he can to make sure you have a good time, he's not worth your time. Not being invested in a partner's orgasm is a character flaw. I mean this seriously and wholeheartedly.

Besides, don't you want your partner to look like this because of you?

Now, I know the reaction some of you may have. It's harder for girls to get off. In most cases, that's certainly true. Sometimes the challenge may even seem insurmountable. But odds are good the girl knows what she likes, and she can help you out if you don't know. And besides, it's worth the time and effort. She'll be happier, you'll be happier, and I'll be happier. Because I can sense when people are having orgasms. I'll know.***

*Actually, abnormally so. Years and years before the first time I ever went down on a girl, I'd spend hours on the Internet reading up on what one is supposed to do. For some reason, it was something that I really wanted to make sure I did well. I have no idea why oral stressed me out so much more than everything else, but it definitely did.

**And queer girls too, though I think reciprocity is a little more inherent in same-sex relationships.

*** Seriously.

Images via john07eom.wordpress.com, freshmilc.com, japingape.blogspot.com

On Deviancy

This probably comes as no huge surprise, but I talk with my friends about sex a lot. A lot of the time, it's in the way that I do on this blog, having political or philosophical discussions tangentially related to sex. Porn, prostitution, and abstinence-only education are all examples that come up frequently. A lot of the time, however, it's closer to sexual counseling. I have friends that, especially when they're with a new partner, will tell me all about the sex they're having, in no unclear terms. I've been doing this with a handful of friends over years, and more than anything what this has made me realize is that people tend to think they're a lot weirder than they are.

This comes about in two different ways. The first of these is some form of sexual dysfunction. I hear women worry that they're broken because they don't have orgasms from sex. This is troublesome if you don't know that only 20-30% of all women have orgasms from just penis-in-vagina intercourse. I'll hear girls who think they must be absolutely insane for not enjoying oral sex. Again, worrisome if you think you're the only one, but I know plenty of girls who are the same way. Even stranger to some people, I get guys telling me they can't come when they're with a girl. Lord knows this is a blow to the self-esteem of the male who's told his self-worth is based on his ability to impregnate a woman. Once again, though, this is not an uncommon thing. I've heard about it from male friends, or from female friends about their partners. One of the most important epiphanies I ever had about sex is that sex doesn't have to be penis-in-vagina, and neither party needs to orgasm from it. What kind of sex you have is up to you and your partner, no one else. One of the reasons I continue to find sex as fascinating as I do is precisely because there are so many variations on it.

This ties directly in with the other way people seem to think they're weird. I've talked to countless people about their sexual preferences, and in the same vein, I stopped thinking anything is weird. It doesn't take too long hearing about people with a thing for bondage (or S&M, or hairy arms...) before you realize that it's not a big deal. Not always from the person with the fetish. In many cases I get people whose partners were interested in something that they had either never done or just had never felt particularly interested in. Because my friends are wonderful, open-minded people, they decided to give them a shot, and a lot of the time they end up having fun with them. You'll never know if you like getting your feet fucked unless you try it. I'm not saying that people should do things they're plain uncomfortable with just to make their partner happy. But just because you're not thrilled about something doesn't mean it's not worth trying to make someone you care about happier and more satisfied. More importantly, even if you really don't want to do something, it doesn't mean your partner is weird or perverted because they do.

Seriously. Not that weird. Maybe even awesome. Keep staring. You might like it.

If there's one thing I want people to take away from this blog, it's that there are as many sexual profiles as there are people. It breaks my heart when I hear people say things like "Oh, he's into golden showers? I always knew he was weird." or "That's the type of girl that you just know wants to get tied up or something". First, there's a judgment being passed on the action itself. Just because something doesn't sound fun to you doesn't mean it's bad.* Second, there's a judgment being passed on the person. He's a freak, she's a pervert. Aside from the obvious fact that what goes on in someone's bedroom isn't anyone else's business, it doesn't necessarily affect any other part of their life. Which is the last point: it's impossible to tell someone's sexual preferences from outside the bedroom. I've met really strong people with strong personalities that enjoy getting thrown around in the bedroom. I've met people that lead the most straight-laced lives that do some of the craziest stuff I've heard in the bedroom.

I mean, really. would you look at this guy and assume he likes to be peed on?**

The short version of what I'm trying to say is really this: quit thinking you're weird for anything that happens in your sex life. More importantly, quit thinking other people are weird for theirs.

*This is basically the argument I use when talking about homosexuality, and I've recently realized how similar they are. People that consider themselves fully accepting because they don't hate queer people, then turn around and judge someone for having a foot fetish perplex me. The idea that they're being fully accepting of sexuality because of one single type of sexual interest is ridiculous. I'm not saying that all of these fetishes should appeal to everyone. Far from it. As these things go, I'm fairly vanilla in my sexual preferences. But to think someone is weird or bad or a pervert because of these things is absolutely preposterous.

**In case you didn't know, Ricky Martin actually does like golden showers. You can read the interview that got his official support pulled from Unicef here.

Images via musicstars.com.ar, heresycorner.blogspot.com

On Girls, and the Wild they Go

Realizing full well that I just recently wrote an article defending porn, I'm here today to talk about an extremely problematic series of videos that sometimes get lumped in with pornography. I'm talking about the Girls Gone Wild series. Now, there are certainly similarities between porn proper and GGW:

They both represent ventures that are first and foremost capitalist.

They both involve men paying to own a video of women getting naked.

However, I feel that there are a lot of important differences. An easy point to make is that the women actually get paid in porn, rather than just getting a t-shirt or something similar. Women are also asked if they want to participate in these things well in advance, and are presumedly sober, and under no (direct, in-the-moment) pressure from friends. This is not to say that every porn actor has signed up for a shoot when they were at their absolute best, but the difference is still stark.

The absence of men is neither here nor there, but there is a separate problem that arises. In all of these videos, the cameraman will invariably ask some of the girls to make out, or have sex with each other. You can guess that my problem with this is not the presence of homosexual sex. The problem I have is with women making out with women for men's entertainment, especially if they're not actually interested in women. This is fucked up for a handful of reasons. The most obvious of these is the simple fact that we have women doing things just because a guy tells them to. Even taking gender out of the equation, one should stop and ask themselves why they would complacently do ANYTHING that a stranger tells you to. Furthering the gender roles doesn't help much, either. Worse than this is when it's a guy telling girls to perform sexual acts they're not interested in. One can of course make the argument that porn is full of women doing things that they're not excited about. While I'm sure there is a percentage for whom that's true, I've read too many interviews with porn stars to believe that all, or even most of the women involved dislike their job. In the case of GGW, I'm sure a few of the women are into other women, but in every case, the girls in these videos are told to mess around, and they do it immediately. I'm not saying don't make out with girls. I'm not saying don't make out with your female friends for fun. But come on, people. Don't do it because some tool with a video camera told you to.

And speaking of tools, there's still an extremely important point to cover, and that is that the founder and owner of the GGW franchise, Joe Francis, is a despicable human. He's gotten in legal trouble for trying to get underage girls in his videos, for coercing girls to be in his videos that didn't want to, as well as tax fraud and gambling debts. When he went to jail before appearing in court for 71 counts, including racketeering and child pornography, he made a public statement that anyone that bribed his jailers to give him preferential treatment, that "girls would be involved" in repaying them. Not to say that the average porn mogul has pure intentions, but it's that much more difficult to find anything reputable about the whole affair knowing the CEO is such a douchemachine.

Tell me that is not the most hatable face you have ever seen.

On a more personal note, I still don't understand for whom these videos are made. My curiosity was piqued my freshman year in college, and I downloaded one of these to watch. They just don't make sense to me. Having watched porn, I kept thinking I understood where things were going. The girls were playing coy, then taking their clothes off, and then they (or they and a guy or three) were going to have sex. Instead, nothing happens. They get naked. Then? They talk. Or sometimes make out with each other. In a few rare instances the girls will hook up a little more extensively, but in the end, you're not seeing much you wouldn't see on Cinemax. And yet these DVDs sell so unbelievably well that they keep cranking them out (there are well over 60 of these now) and turning a profit. It's not just that I don't see the appeal, which I certainly don't. More than that, I don't know who does. I've never met a guy who's actually bought one of these, or at least admitted to it. The question that continues to run through my mind, is why don't these people just watch porn? You have to be 18 to buy either one. Do guys who watch porn watch this too? Or is it only for the guys that aren't comfortable watching porn that watch this?

The only theory that makes any sense to me is one I've extrapolated from reading a discontinued blog, Confessions of a Porn Store Clerk, which I read years ago, and found it fascinating. She talks about men that, when they first start coming to her store, will only buy lesbian porn, one assumes because they think it's a little too gay to have to actually see another guy naked. Then after time, they'll slowly start to get into the heterosexual porn. Apparently, for whatever reason the next step is usually to Shemale porn. The last one is a slightly separate issue*, but homophobia seems like a pretty reasonable reason for men to buy GGW rather than normal porn.

Now before you start assuming shemales are gross, you might want to take a look at Nong Poy here.

Whatever the reasons for its success, I continue to not fully understand the Girls Gone Wild series, but hate whatever portions I do.

*Since I would hope you're all as interested as I was about why this last step happens, she states: "I have been given two interesting explanations as to why straight guys like women with penises. The first is that men don't believe that women like or want sex as much as they do. A chick with a penis, then, is a woman who has a full, hearty, male sex drive and must want sex as much as he does. The second one is almost touching to me: Vaginas are mysterious, and penises are by comparison fairly straightforward and easy to satisfy. A guy knows what to do with a penis, so if a woman has one he can be sure he knows how to satisfy her."

Images via wikipedia.org, gamespot.com