On Male Sexuality

I haven't written far too long, but it’s not because I forgot about you. Quite the opposite. I’ve been reading a lot of material that I’m hoping to write about, and picking up even more from the library, and even drove around the state to go to a lecture*. What’s happened is I’ve gotten overloaded with material to write about. So today, rather than cover every possible detail of a book I read recently, I’m going to stick to a small portion of what the author talked about. The book I read was called Male Sexuality: Why Women Don’t Understand it (and Men Don’t Either) by Dr. Michael Bader.

This sets me up for an easy Master Bader joke, but I’d like to think I’m above that.

Bader is a psychoanalyst who uses his experiences dealing with clients to inform his opinion about a wide variety of things about male sexuality. As previously stated, he has a wide variety of opinions on all of this, but most of it comes from a fairly simple concept.

Bader believes that all of our (men and women) sexual proclivities come from what he calls pathogenic beliefs. A pathogenic belief as he describes it, is a belief about the world that is so firmly engrained that you may not know you hold it. Because he is rather Freudian in his approach**, he believes these come from our parents at a very young age. These beliefs come to shape what we consider to be truths about the way the whole world works, and they deeply affect our relationships, and more interestingly for people like me, our sex lives. He gives plenty examples of how this plays out in his patients’ lives. Unfortunately, most of these examples are fairly extreme. It’s expected that a lot of his patients that have large problems come from extremely messed up childhoods, but using only those examples makes it harder to apply to other lives. However, the broad trends he discusses seem to fit right in with people I know, even if they didn’t come from broken homes.

America's Most Wanted's dramatic re-enactment of a broken home.

One of the most basic ones he discusses is guilt over what he calls “sexual ruthlessness”. Now, this term may sound a bit worse than what he means. The term ruthless in this context is being borrowed from its definition in child psychology. A more fitting term might by selfishness, as it basically means to do something without experiencing undue worry about the other people involved. Now, you know I’m not arguing that we just do whatever we want in bed without caring about your partner, so I know you’ll let me finish explaining. What a healthy, sexually ruthless man can do is, say, enjoy a particular position without worrying about if she’s bored with it, or if he’s going too hard, or if she actually wants to be doing it anyway. Again, not that we should never ask any of these questions, but many people (and, Bader argues, men in particular) have a hard time EVER ignoring this voice, which dramatically gets in the way of pleasure.

He says that men have this guilt in particular because men are forced to go through a different experience growing up. He argues that while every child has to separate from the mother and become a different person, males have the extra step of becoming a male, and needing to assert their male-ness. What this means is that men are forced to do more work to distinguish themselves as male, which can lead to a bigger risk of being emotionally cut off. This might sound a little crazy, and it admittedly takes some getting used to as an idea, but honestly, I think it can make sense even without the Freudian have-to-leave-your-mother business. Basically, cultural forces have a huge impact on the psyche of both men and women. We talk all the time about the media giving unrealistic expectations about women’s appearance, but just as prevalent are ideas about masculinity and what that means. I’m not talking about the beer ad ideas of masculinity, but what a lot of men end up hearing from women throughout their lives and, most damagingly, sometimes from their mothers.

Now remember, Timmy: I don't like sex with your father, so that means that no woman will ever want to have sex with you, either.

We hear things like women only putting up with sex to get what they really want (this one is damaging to both genders, of course), or that guys are creeps for looking at a woman or asking for her number, or any number of other things. I’m not arguing there are no creeps. What I’m arguing is that there are a huge number of men who are not creepy, but are terrified of being creeps, and have a much harder time being able to do normal things, like talk to a strange woman, or enjoy sex. I’m not sure if it’s because of the plethora of feminist literature I’ve read, but I know I find myself in that position sometimes. I think about talking to a girl at a party, or any number of other situations, and hesitate, thinking I don’t want to be an asshole/creep. When I take a step back and look at the situation objectively, I realize there’s nothing wrong with what I want to do, but the worry often keeps me from looking at the situation rationally. This fear has also, I’ve realized, affected my taste in women to an extent, as well. Though when I’m in a relationship I tend to be very grounded, attached, and SOMETHING, I have a strong tendency towards very independent women. It’s not a stretch at all to imagine that I appreciate strong women in part to quell my worries that I would be oppressing them by being my usual male self.

I know it may be a bit hard to believe that men have a hard time feeling okay being masculine, especially if you’re a woman that has dealt with your share of creepy/asshole men, but as soon as I read this hypothesis, it instantly rang true for me.

So! What does this have to do with how it affects your sex life? Well, one of Bader’s most important arguments is that people use fantasies to negate their pathogenic beliefs. An obvious example of this is men who prefer to be dominated. If they are worried that they are hurting the woman, or if the woman is actually enjoying it using traditional gender roles during sex, what better way to ease his worries than to have the woman do all the work?

This basic concept helps explain a huge bit of mainstream porn. There is no question that a large percentage of mainstream porn is aggressive. If you took just this bit of information, you might argue that men are inherently misogynistic, or that they wish they could be aggressive or even violent with women all the time. There is an important component missing from this view, however. It is the fact that with few exceptions, the women all appear to be enjoying themselves to what is usually an exaggerating degree. The women yell out in a way that would make you question the sanity of your partner if she started doing it. They seem to have orgasms every few minutes, even though nothing ever touches their clitoris. This is not to say that there is no porn out there in which the woman does not appear to be enjoying herself at all***, but mainstream, popular porn is full of enthusiastic women. What this tells us is not that we don’t want women to not enjoy themselves; we want women to enjoy themselves quite a bit, even when we’re being ruthless. Since many men worry that the things they want to do in bed are either weird, kinky, or degrading, having women who are clearly enjoying themselves no matter what helps negate that worry and allows these men to become aroused.

The worries don’t always have to be just about manliness, of course. Another common pathogenic belief (or so argues Dr. Bader) is that men can feel that having desires is cumbersome upon their partner, and expressing these desires is a burden for them. This results in men feeling like a chore when they consider asking their partner to try something, even if it’s something their partner may want to do.

Things like this.

These are only a few examples, but they are especially poignant ones, and they are ones that make a lot of sense to me. Maybe this is because they most closely relate to me, or because I have heard stories of similar situations, or just because it seems to fit in with my own ideas about masculinity. At any rate, he clearly has a lot more to say about these and other issues, but this is a primer and an insight into some of the most interesting parts of what Bader has to say. I don't agree with all of it, but I agree with enough of it that this was a very worthwhile find for me.

I'm planning to get back into reading and writing soon, so bug me about it!

*Well, two, but the second one filled up before I got there. I was PISSED. More on that in a later post, probably.

**In case you didn’t know, we don’t actually like Freud. This is something I’m hoping to talk about soon as well. Though in this case, I think Bader is probably right in his thoughts.

***Though Bader argues that even if they're not LOOKING like they're enjoying it (BDSM subs are rarely beacons of sunshine) women agreeing to be in the porn is complicit consent/enthusiasm. That point is more arguable, but still valid to a degree, I think.

images via radaris.com, wordpress.com, morninpaper.com, worldofstock.com

On Adrian Colesberry

Carrying on for a bit with the trend of posts on books, I will be taking look at a book that has recently grown very near and dear to my heart: How to Make Love to Adrian Colesberry by Adrian Colesberry.

See? The cover is even nice and discrete. No one will know what you're reading about.

Now, with a title like that, you would assume that it must be a joke book. It is certainly a funny book, but to consider it nothing more than a humor book would be a major discredit to it. The book is, ostensibly, is exactly what it sounds like: a chronicling of everything the author likes in bed. Written well, that’s already enough to hook me, but I realize I’m not quite in the majority there. However, literally half the book is annotations. In these annotations, he tells anecdotes about his own life and relationships. Though the book is already full of information on him and his exes*, the annotations give an extra layer of depth and character to the author that make the book really feel like you know the guy.

And who wouldn't want to know this guy? Clearly the woman behind him does.

Again, though, I realize that I’m happy to just hear about other people’s sex lives for days on end without complaint, but that’s not for everyone. So what makes this book worth reading for everyone (and I do mean pretty much everyone)? Well, aside from being very, very funny, it’s genuinely informative. For women, There aren’t too many good sources for sex advice. Sure, you can learn Ten Ways to Turn Your Man to Mush from Cosmopolitan, or whatever the kids are reading these days, but really, does anyone listen to that shit? I really, deeply hope not. What this book does is lay out in meticulous detail everything a man likes.

Now, I don’t mean “a man” to mean “every man”. Surely you know, you savvy read-my-old-posts reader you, that everyone is different, and just because one person likes something doesn’t mean that everyone will. What’s so great about this book, though, is it tells you ALL about what one person likes, in a lot more detail and honesty than most women will ever get to hear. Further, the anecdotes provide a huge number of examples of how he found out he liked (or didn’t) like something in bed, and the stories are, aside from interesting, an insight into how you can find out these things for yourself. But you're already a guy, you say? I personally found his self-reflection enlightening for myself. The way he digs into himself is infectious, and it makes you want to consider things about yourself. You may not be that much like him, but even the things that are different are interesting, as most of them aren't necessarily gender-specific. In other words, much of what he says could apply to either gender, so so it's still super informative for men.

And look here: information can be sexy.

Another things that I find absolutely fantastic about this book is how up front Adrian is about his own peculiarities in the bedroom. I don’t mean kinky stuff (though there’s plenty of that, too), but, for instance, he can only come from missionary position, and even then not often. By the time I read this (halfway through the book), I was sure that he had to be the greatest lover of all time, and this threw me for a loop. Of course, not being able to orgasm easily has nothing to do with being a great lover. I know this, but this book cemented it more firmly in my head with such a concrete example. There are infinite more moments like this, where in learning about his (and his exes) differences you remember why sex is so great: because it’s not the same for any two people. Again, these are things we hopefully already know, but this book gets it across in a much better way than simply saying it outright (like I do). I’m going to quote him at length here as an example that struck me as especially fascinating of something that takes great self-awareness and honesty with one’s self to even recognize.

For Adrian Colesberry, lust feels a lot like aggression.** He’s been aware of this for many years, so he’s not going to get confused, like teenage boys often do, and say something mean when he really wants to touch your boobs. He’ll just touch your boobs (if and only if that’s already a part of your relationship). That way, you don’t get your feelings hurt and you do get your boobs touched. Win-win.Once you start fucking him, you might think that his feelings of lust would clarify themselves, seeing as they are being directly addressed, but just the opposite is the case: They get closer and closer to aggression in an asymptotic approach. Again, he’s in control of this and isn’t liable to get confused and insult your mother when he likes your mother fine but wants to flip you into doggie-style. He’ll just flip you into doggie-style without a word about your mother. And assuming that you enjoy getting vigorously fucked from behind, that’s another win for the both of you.

He then goes on to explain a number of different ways he gets this aggression out (dirty-talking, spanking, hair-pulling), etc. This is the sort of thing that I'm sure plenty of guys can relate to, but may not notice about themselves very easily. He is full of wonderful insights like this.

Finally, this book is great because Adrian is so sex-positive. Of course he would be, you think, given the topic. But he goes well beyond the call of duty. He doesn’t just fill his prose with parentheticals like the above, reminding you that consent is important. The line I have quote most often since reading the book is on the topic of orgasms. More specifically, he lays out all of his past girlfriends orgasms, ie if they happen, how they happen and how far into the lovemaking they happen. At this point he mentions he’s dated a few women who never came with him (some only came from masturbation, some just didn’t come) and that though he likes getting you off, if you have a hard time reaching orgasm, that won’t stress him out, and it shouldn’t stress you out either. Because, as he puts it, “fucking towards a goal creates a possibility of failure where there shouldn’t be one.” Absolutely genius.

On the same note, it would be very easily to treat his exes like chattel throughout this book, as he's cataloguing all of his sexual experiences with these women. Instead, he manages to treat them all with the utmost respect, even when using a story about one of them as an example of what not to do. ***

This, I realize, isn’t so much a book review as most of these posts will be. This is my outright telling you to buy this book. It’s really, really good. It’s funny, it’s disarming, it’s informative, and it will just make you happy to read. Do it.****

* And I mean full. He graphs them with various data sets early on, giving information like height weight and cup size. But it's not at all dehumanizing, like it could sound from what I just said. Far from it, he treats all of these women with the utmost respect. More on this later.

**Yes, he talks in the third person for the whole book. It’s annoying for about three pages, then you stop noticing. And actually, even though the book is by nature unabashedly self-involved, not seeing “I” and “me” written all over the place makes it seem less so.

***In fact, he uses in one (and only one) place in the book my new favorite term for all of his exes together: the pantheon. Exquisite.

****If you’re like me and just can’t get nearly enough of this guy when you’re finished with the book*****, he has a blog, too. It puts mine to shame, so I shouldn’t actually link you to it, but I’m going to anyway, because he hasn’t been writing for a few months, so he’s not competition. Go! It’s amazing.

*****Yes, I'm kind of in love. Yes, it may have caused some problems in other relationships for me.

images via amazon.com, blog.creativeloafing.com, blog.okcupid.com

On Cunts

Hooray, the blog is back. I’m not sure exactly where I want to take it in the future, but for the present I think I want to write a few articles based on books I’ve been reading. I’m excited to hear what else you might want me to write about, but in the mean time, I’ll just dive right in. Today's will be Cunt by Inga Muscio.

She's really setting me up for a Georgia O'Keefe joke here.

I wanted to say that the first thing I noticed is the tone (we'll get there shortly), but that’s not quite true. The first thing I noticed was, not surprisingly, the first page of the book. Before the foreword, preface or introduction (all of which are present) there is an author’s note stating “Unless otherwise stated, throughout this book the words ‘gentleman,’ ‘man’ and the like are used to refer to the tightly knit, male social power structure as it is recognized in American patriarchal society.” She then goes on to explain that there are nice men in the world, and she respects some of them, but that first bit is extremely problematic for me. I understand this disclaimer is intended to be a “I don’t hate all men, so please don’t get worried by my terminology”. But the book is called Cunt because she wants any term that gets used for the vagina to be a positive one, so she’s trying to reclaim the term. Clearly she feels strongly about the power of words. And yet, here in the first sentence of the book, she says that she plans to use the word “men” to mean a very specific sect of males and corporations and a number of other intangible things, specifically in America. The idea that she will then be saying things like “men keep us down” and “men don’t give a shit about women or what they think” and think that it will have no repercussions is ludicrous. Given that she makes up words or sticks words together or repurposes words slightly throughout the book, it seems neglectful that she wouldn’t come up with some term that can mean what she wants it to without using the word we already use to mean, you know, all males.

And yes, dear readers, she makes up words. I won’t say much about it, but the whole tone of her writing is very specific, I’m sure very intentional, and EXTREMELY annoying. If you plan to pick this book up, expect a lot of ain’ts, don’ts (instead of doesn’t), and in’ s (instead of ing). This is mixed in with a hefty dose of new age vocabulary*, and while both are irritating separately, they’re especially difficult to get through in tandem. I still have no idea what she was trying to accomplish with having this in there, but it was really hard to focus on the points she was making early on. Admittedly, though, by the end of the book I had nearly stopped noticing. I hope to regain my intolerance shortly, however.

No, not that kind of intolerance.

In the first section of the book, she discusses the word itself. She likes the word cunt rather than the vagina, in part because vagina only refers to the inner part rather than the whole lovely organ,** but also because the name comes from the Latin word for sheath. Sure, that’s a little weird to have the “correct” word for vagina be only in relation to the penis. Then, however, she goes on to only refer to the penis throughout the section as “prick”. Wait a second. Doesn’t that sort of have the impression of only being related to the vagina? Not to mention being the most violent of the commonly used terms? I don’t believe that she dislikes all men, but the complete lack of though about men involved is frustrating, disheartening, and makes the whole book harder to read.

Besides, the term "vagina" is just inaccurate. You can't fit a sword in there.

In a final criticism, other than just seeming entirely inconsiderate about things she’s demanding for men***, she occasionally takes things to what I consider a radical, unhealthy view that is actually harmful to the cause. It comes up sparingly, but there are the occasional quotes like:

“A gentleman who doesn’t have the physical and/or emotional sensitivity to use condoms couldn’t possibly possess the self-confidence required to fully procure the infinite soundings of pleasure from the depths of a woman’s being, via the endlessness of her cunt.” (emphasis hers)

Obnoxious new-age diction aside, this again just shows utter disregard for the full acceptance of men, when she’s asking for that acceptance of women. Now, in the vast majority of cases, absolutely, men should wear a Goddamned condom, and if it’s casual sex, there’s more or less no way around that. But she’s talking about a long-term solution, as opposed to any other form of birth control. I personally know men who flat out cannot orgasm with a condom on, and have heard of many others who can’t maintain an erection with one on. Saying that it’s all down to sensitivity seems callous or ignorant. And I’m still not sure what that has to do with self-confidence.

Another quote on a very different topic but is still harmful is:

“Now when I hear of a man murdering a woman I assume that he raped her unless I read the fucken (sic) coroner’s report myself.”

What? Why? This quote comes after a harrowing story of a leader of a Seattle band getting raped and murdered, but only the murder made it to the headlines. No, that shouldn’t have happened. Yes, sometimes the media sucks. But really? Every time you hear of a murder, you won’t believe anyone except the coroner that the woman wasn’t raped? That isn’t just depressing, it’s absurd.

After saying all of this, you may think I hated the book. I didn’t, not by a long shot. The overall message of the book is fantastic, and one that I wish more women heard. It might be a bit much for a woman who hasn’t read any feminist literature, but the general “second wave feminism didn’t fix anything, there are still a billion problems, get pissed about it” is fantastic, and she does a good job of convincing the reader of just that. If anyone reading here honestly thinks that feminism has done all it needs to do, this book may well be for you.

Another thing I genuinely appreciate is that she gives practical advice. In multiple places she talks about concrete, practical things women can do for themselves. This includes alternatives to tampons (to save money and to not be giving it to a men-controlled corporation), alternatives to clinical abortions (that are not guaranteed to work but are much less unpleasant and a step you can try before going to a clinic) and advice on masturbation and sex (because how can you write a book about cunts and not cover that stuff?) Further, there is a big chapter on rape, and she covers a lot of important information about self-defense and ways to protect oneself.**** These are important things to learn about and things that aren’t taught in an institutionalized way in our society, and should be. Big chunks of her advice are things I hope every woman hears, if not from this book then from somewhere else.

On the whole I think that this book is almost too mixed to have a generalized opinion on it. I really like some parts, some parts really frustrate me, and some parts I think are actually destructive rather than helpful. I think Cunt is often considered to be a primer of feminist literature and philosophy, and as that I think it does its job admirably. It covers most of the good aspects of feminism and hits on a couple of the lame, man-hating parts, too. Maybe not the ideal book to convert the masses, but it’s a start.

*The largest section of the book (on cunt-as-a-body-part, not on cunt-as-a-word) is called The Anatomical Jewel. I’m as happy as the next guy to get on board with praising women’s anatomy, but something about this term just sounds so unattractive. I never got over it, throughout the whole book.

**A notion I understand and respect, as I often thought it was weird that we did that. Picture referring to your nose, your eyes, your ears, all as your face.

***Though, were she here to defend herself, she might say that a big part of this book is about women supporting women, not men; and that should go both ways; which I agree with to a point. But I still think a basic level of equality in her thinking could have gone a long way in this book.

****Not necessarily taking a martial arts class, but, in her main example, when going to buy smokes late at night, she puts on a big baggy sweatshirt to make herself less look womanly, puts a few rocks in her pockets to be able to throw, and she calls her friend who lives in the apartment above her and says “If I don’t call you back in 10 minutes, come looking for me.” Not necessary for every woman in every neighborhood in every city, but damn good advice for some.

images via goodreads.com, drudgereport.com, humanflowerproject.com

Twitter, of all things.

Dear readers, I have succumbed. I am now on twitter. I plan on using it chiefly for links that I don't have much analysis to add, but still think are worth reading. So if you want a some sex-related articles to read during your lunchbreak, feel free to check me out here. Hope you enjoy.

On Wanting to Want

I generally talk about sex on this blog like it's something that everyone wants to do all the time and always has a good time doing it. I know i'm guilty of it, but it's just how I like to think about sex. In my perfect world, everyone has lots of good sex all the time. But it's of course true that even when one has the option of having sex, even when it's someone you really care about, not everyone always wants to. Lack of sexual desire is extremely common, in fact. There are extremes of this (this NY Times article comes to mind), but people can struggle with it in smaller ways, too. In fact, one of the most common sexual problems couples face is a disparity in how frequently they want to have sex. It can be easy to write off as a natural and hopeless disparity between the sexes (though this problem is by NO means always gender-dictated), but this can be a very difficult problem for both parties. For the one interested in more sex, it can make them feel unwanted or unloved, or at the very least underappreciated. For the one wanting sex less frequently, they can feel pressured and uncomfortable, which will only make them feel even less horny. So what does one do about this, exactly? Blogger Greta Christina has more than a few thoughts on this that she has shared over many blog entries. These, combined with some other blogs and my own thoughts will hopefully give you a new outlook on the concept.

The first thing I'd like to cover is the idea of wanting sex in the first place. One way Greta talks about this is through the analogy of food, which I find extremely helpful. There are two basic ways one wants food. There’s the “Ohmygod I need to eat right this second” type, and there's the “I’d really like to have a good steak sometime soon. Maybe I should go get a nice cut this weekend” type. Both are inarguably still about wanting food, they just feel a lot different. Just because you don't have an uncontrollable physical urge on a regular basis doesn't necessarily mean that you don't want sex. Now, this is probably a slightly different way of looking at wanting sex, but that is, at least in part, due to the way sex is always portrayed in the media.

Then again, maybe this just doesn't sound like a stretch because this already looks like sex to me.

The only way we see romantic sex is when both parties are spontaneously overcome with desire, and are no longer capable of holding themselves back any longer. Greta calls this the "swept away" myth, and thinks it's symptomatic of a culture that needs to hide behind an altered, very emotional state to have sex be morally justifiable. That may have some truth to it, but I'm not sure how one judges that sort of thing. More importantly for this post, however, is that's it's a dumb myth, and it's harmful. As Greta said,

The "swept away" myth of spontaneity seriously limits your opportunities to learn about sex; to learn more about your partners desires and your own; to expand your sexual repertoire. It limits the kinds of sex you can have: if planning for sex ruins it, that pretty much rules out the acquisition of sex toys. Not to mention sex education materials, or smut, or birth control. And -- especially if your life is stressful and overbooked, or you're getting older and the spontaneous urge to boff is diminishing -- it limits your sex life in the most blunt and obvious way... namely, how often you have it.

I know I've talked about it before, but it's worth mentioning again: talking about things with your partner doesn't have to make your sex any less sexy.

You, the skeptical reader, are thinking "Alright Zach, you ridiculously handsome young man (this is when you wink at me), we get it, you can talk about sex, and sex is like food, but what does that mean? What can I do about the fact that I still don't want to have sex as often as my partner (or vice versa)?" The aforementioned blogger is a huge proponent of a rather unpopular option: scheduling sex. This, on the face of it, does not sound particularly romantic. But there are a lot of reasons why it may not be a terrible idea. First of all, there is the aforementioned swept away myth. Like a good meal, just because you know you're going to have sex one night doesn't mean it can't still be great.

Besides, wouldn't it be nice to see "SEX!" thrown in on some days of your planner?

In fact, this brings me to one of the most important concepts she brings up on the subject: you don't have to want to have sex all the time, you just have to be willing to want to. It's perfectly conceivable that if you plan a night of romance in advance, one or both parties won't be in the mood immediately when the time comes. Just because you're not having urges right that second to jump your partner doesn't mean that all hope is lost. Especially if one partner is already in the mood, they can help get the ball rolling by doing things that turn the other one on. Just beginning to go through the familiar parts of foreplay can have a huge impact. Though I'm not exactly the poster child for waning sexual desire, this is something that has certainly come up for me. I've not always been in the mood when my partner first initiates. At the end, though, I have NEVER been unhappy with my choice to have sex.

This doesn't just apply for couples trying to schedule sex. If your partner tries to get down and you're not in the mood, do you try and get into it with them, or do you just get annoyed? If you're closed off to the idea that you could eventually get in the mood, then it's never going to happen. However, if your partner is patient and you're open to getting turned on, then you might be surprised at what you feel a short while later.

Greta mentions a few other ways to deal with desire disparity in one particular post that, in the interest of being fairly comprehensive, I'll share as well. The first of these is to rethink your sexual encounters altogether. If one person is constantly looking or sex but the other party isn't particularly interested, maybe there are other sexy things you could do together. You could try mutual masturbation, watching porn, reading dirty lit, or any number of other possibilities. It's not a cure-all, but it's important to remember that there are lots of sexy things that might sate some of your desires. Next on the list was thinking about when you want to have sex, during the day and in the week. Thinking about when you want to have sex and when you feel drained may help you realize that it’s not that you don’t want to have sex, it’s that your partner only wants to have sex at times when you’re not up for it. This is another place in which scheduling can come in handy. Next was, simply put, compromise. This is self-explanatory and certainly not ideal, but may at some point be necessary. The next is trying an open relationship. This is certainly a slightly more controversial option, but she makes a valid point: if it is a big enough deal that you’re considering breaking up over it, the worst that could happen is that it doesn’t work out, and you still break up. I’m extremely interested in the concept of open relationships and hope to talk about them more in the future, but safe to say that this is no necessarily an obvious option for most couples, but could be a great idea for some: there are many couples who are extremely happy with becoming open even though they were originally skeptical about it.

Guys, just don't expect it to look like this.

Finally, there is couples’ counseling. There are trained professionals who can help people through their problems, and rest assured: desire disparity is a common one. No couple is the same though, and having a professional to help you through it can be of great assistance.

This is obviously not the end-all guide to the issue, but I know it's a common problem, and I'd like to get a discussion on the topic rolling. Hopefully this can be a jumping off point for dealing with the issue, or at least getting people to talk about the issue at all. If anyone has come across the problem and has other solutions, I'd be terribly interested to read them.

images via closetcooking.blogspot.com, pheromones-report.com, genisisunit.com

Harvard Reads My Blog

Alright, when I decided that Indiana University reads my blog, it may have just been coincidence. But this time I'm pretty sure: Harvard reads my blog. They had a conference this weekend called Rethinking Virginity, and it's all about the power of words like slut and virgin, and how the concept of virginity is a lot more malleable than we may have originally thought. Sound familiar? There's a set of articles from various speakers discussing their panels here.

Condoms and Porn!

I'm still in Europe for another week, but I might as well keep you all a LITTLE entertained while I'm gone. This is a PSA reminding you to not be overly generous when picking your condom size, as it actually can have some negative repercussions. And this is an article about a church group offering an support group for porn addiction. Of course if anyone has a legitimate addiction, I applaud efforts to help people through them. You'll notice, though, a sneaky little sentence added in there: "The programs at Ms. Renaud’s group and at XXX Church diverge from secular sexual theory by treating masturbation and arousal as sins rather than elements of healthy sexuality." (emphasis added). Wait a minute. masturbation I'm used to hearing as not allowed. I don't understand it or agree with it, but I'm used to it. Now arousal is on the list? The Christians are really going crazy with this stuff now.

I'll be back soon with a fresh start. What do you all want to read about?

Kids Don't Know About Contraception

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted, folks. I'm doing a tour through Europe at the moment, and haven't had a lot of time to think about the heady (no pun intended) aspects of sex. To remind you all how important learning about sex is, though, I bring you this article on how kids today don't know what contraception does for them at all. Let this be a lesson to you all.

Are We Having Sex Now?

Alas, dear readers, I have finally found it. This is an old (as in almost twenty years old) article that was what made me want to write this post. I knew I had seen it on the web somewhere, but couldn't find it for the life of me when I wrote the post. Here it is. She doesn't cover any widely different territory than what I wrote about, but she paints a vivid picture about the confusion of it, and offers her own opinions, which I found fascinating. Hope you like it.

Indiana University Read My Blog

Or, you know, had already been thinking about this. Either way, they recently did a study in which they asked a whole bunch of folks "Would you say you 'had sex' with someone if the most intimate behavior you engaged in was ...," then gave fourteen different options. Some of the most interesting findings? Somehow only 95% of the participants consider penis-in-vagina intercourse to be sex. And, in a nod to my bit about coital imperative, that number drops to 89% if the man doesn't ejaculate. And men in the oldest test group, aged 65 and above, that number drops to 77%! These guys must have really stepped up their game when PIV is just foreplay. Man, getting old is going to be awesome.

On the Penis

Readers, I've done a terrible thing. In a post last month, I promised you that I would write my next article about why guys fuck their girlfriends harder when they haven't seen them in a while. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter I finally got the inspiration/courage to write an article I had been wanting to write for a long time. I'm here now to bring you the promised article. It is about the penis, and its role. You know the most obvious part: it's for fuckin'. But why does it look like it does? I'm here today to talk to you about penis morphology.

No, damnit. Not them. Get your head back in the gutter.

There are a couple basic things that separate the human penis from other primates'. The first of these is the size. Ladies, take note: your man is hung. No, I haven't seen it, don't worry. But if he's human, he's doing alright. Orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas all have penises that are much smaller in comparison to their body size.[1] Dudes in the audience, please take this moment to give yourselves a high five. This is most likely due to the fact that chances of conception are increased dramatically when sperm is deposited all the way back at the cervix.

Unfortunately, we have absolutely nothing on elephants. Yes, that's what you think it is.

There's a little side note that I'd like to share with you, as it absolutely blew my mind the first time I heard about it. It's related in that it's still evolutionary biology, but no longer about penis morphology. I'm pretty sure you can handle the tangent, though, especially if you've ever had a conversation with me in person. Anyway: when a woman orgasms, her cervix convulses, moving back and forth. While this is not agreed upon by the entire scientific community, it seems that if there is semen already deposited in the vagina (especially if it's back near the cervix), these convulsions make the cervix come down and pick up some of the semen, in a process known as "upsuck". How rad, I ask you, is that?

The other thing[2] humans have that no other species has is a glans. You know, the little mushroom at the top? Specifically, we have the coronal ridge, which is the part that juts out a little further than the rest of the penis. To figure out the reason for this ridge, we have to remember that as much as we like to pretend that humans are an entirely monogamous species, a lot of evolutionary biology is about beating out not just other suitors, but other partners. It turns out that our best guess as to why humans developed the coronal ridge is for using the penis as a "semen displacement device". See, for up to 48 hours after sex, semen can stay inside a woman. Say it's Wednesday, and Jane has sex. If she starts ovulating on Friday, she could still get pregnant from the sex she had with John on Wednesday. However, If Zach[3] comes along on Thursday and has sex with Jane, he can get the rest of John's remaining semen out of the way, and put his own in its place. Untestable, you say? Maybe before the porn industry. But now we have molds of all sorts of people's manparts and ladyparts. And that's just what the scientists used. By making a batch of fake semen[4], and using a couple dildos as well as a dildo without a coronal ridge at all, they found that the glans really does make a huge difference in getting the semen out of a vagina.[5]

Other than the ridge, the other factor in amount of semen displaced was how deep the penis goes in. This is where things get interesting to me.[6] The harder the male thrusts and the deeper he goes, the more likely the semen will be displaced. This got the researchers thinking, and it led to them making a survey they gave to college students asking them about their fucking habits. Probably not in those words. They're better with words than I am, I'm sure. In fact, I'm going to actually just use a quote directly from the Scientific American, as they put it pretty concisely.

In the first of these anonymous questionnaires, both men and women reported that, in the wake of allegations of female cheating, men thrust deeper and faster. Results from a second questionnaire revealed that, upon first being sexually reunited after time apart, couples engaged in more vigorous sex—namely, compared to baseline sexual activity where couples see other more regularly, vaginal intercourse following periods of separation involve deeper and quicker thrusting.

Anyone else's mind as blown as mine was? When men feel like there's a chance that their partner may have been unfaithful, they unconsciously have sex in a way that will keep the woman from getting pregnant from someone else. Who knew?

Well that's all I've got for now. I won't make the mistake of promising you a topic for next time. Instead, how about YOU tell me what YOU want to hear ME write about? Leave a suggestion in the comments!

1.We also last a lot longer. For other primates, sex usually lasts under 30 seconds, often under ten.

2. Well, I suppose there are a bunch of things. But in terms of penises, the differences are somewhat fewer.

3. What? Names were chosen at random.

4. For you budding sex chefs out there, the recipe used was: 0.08 cups of sifted, white, unbleached flour mixed with 1.06 cups of water. Bring to a boil, simmer for 15 minutes while being stirred, then allow to cool.

5. You do not have my permission to start referring to penises as "God's plunger".

6. Alright, let's be honest. More interesting. This stuff is already like crack to me.

images via wordpress.com and theage.com.au

TeleEroticist

I'm not a huge fan of twitter as entertainment. During the Iranian post-election protests, it was one of the best ways to get out important information quickly. Ditto for the Tienamen Square riots in China. However, as merely a method of looking at things that people say for fun, it's never really been my bag.

This was before TeleEroticist.

I've only been looking at a few posts, and she's only been on for about a week now, so I'm not going to become a convert or anything, but reading through things that a phone sex operator says about her job is terribly interesting to me. Give it a look.

Best Sex Writing 2010

Last night I went to a reading of a compilation called Best Sex Writing 2010. The editor of this collection has many other collections she's edited, including collections of BDSM stories and voyeuristic stories. She's also edited more than a handful of collections of erotica. Clearly, this is my kind of gal. Not to mention she looks like this:

This photos was on the front of postcards being given out at the event. Postcards, people.

Some contributors read some of their own pieces, including Janet Hardy, whose mere three page reading left me [1] short of breath, moved, and incredibly turned on. Finally, there was a piece read by Kerry Cohen, though it was originally written under a pseudonym, as it was piece about her plan to cheat on her husband.[2]It left me in a similar state, but with the added tension of hearing such a personal tale - as well as such a personal life decision - from the reader, and then going to talk to her afterwards.

Now, I realize that you all may not recognize books like the Ethical Slut, Loose Girl, or the name Rachel Kramer Bussel. However, being someone who seeks out this kind of literature, these are some pretty large names. Not only getting to see them in person and hear them read some extremely powerful literature of theirs, getting to talk to them afterwards[3] made me realize something that for some reason I hadn't before. Something about only hearing these women through either blogs or books, I somehow thought that they wouldn't be so friendly and open about these topics in public. Now, knowing that I love talking about these things with strangers and I haven't even made a career out of it, I shouldn't be too surprised.

This photo from a media event should have also given me an indication she wasn't too shy.[4]

I guess I'm trying to get across a few different things.

1. I don't think my interest in sex was waning, but this reading has certainly gotten it waxing. (get it?) And with this book now in my possession, hopefully I'll get some more interesting articles up soon.

2. You should pick up Best Sex Writing 2010. It's informative, it's hot, and it's written by some really great people whom you should feel good about supporting. In essence, every piece in there is what I shoot for in my writing.[5]

3. Remember that a lot of the time, strangers like talking about the same sorts of things you do, and don't mind dispensing with small talk. Next time you meet someone and you feel like talking about butt plugs? Try it on for size.[6] They might be into it.

1. Or, at least me. And the lady I was with. But really, probably the whole room.

2. She explained that her husband now knows about the essay and by the time it had gone to publication, she would have been okay with using her real name. I'm not on a personal campaign to out her or anything.

3. As terse and bumbling as I was, as they are a young sex bloggers...Backstreet Boys? What do the kids listen to these days?

4. I realize the pictures already give you a good indication, but she really is a sight in person. I was already having a tough time watching her walk back and forth, box of Voodoo Doughnuts in hand, when my friend points out matching finger sized bruises on each of her thighs. It was pretty rough.

5. Except I'm not, for example a gay male escort in San Francisco[6], so I couldn't even if I wanted to.

6. Yet.

7. Pun only kind of intended.

On the Definition of Sex and the Coital Imperative

One of my favorite games with a group of people I don't know too well is ten fingers. I'm sure you've all played it: you go around the group saying things you haven't done, and if someone else has, they put down a finger. As you might expect, whenever I play this game, sex is a major theme. There are a lot of "I Nevers" like Never had sex in an elevator (in this case, my finger stays up), Never had sex more than twice in a day (finger goes down), and Never had sex on Air Force One (obviously, finger goes down). When you happen to be playing with all straight people, these questions are often considered easy to answer, because we assume sex means PIV*. However, the first time you play this game with bisexual or gay folks, you realize you need to change your definition a bit. But what do we change it to? Do we just open it up to including oral sex? How about anal?

How about.....THIS???

One important question is whether we even need a universal definition. Admittedly, I'm not 100% convinced we do. To avoid confusion in my own life, I always just explain things fully. If I want to convey that I went down on a girl, I'll probably say that I went down on her, rather than leaving it up to saying that we had sex. However, not everyone cares to be so explicit. And there are plenty of times when any real explanation isn't called for at all.

Something I've noticed, though, is that it seems like an official definition only seems to be important when we're trying to be judgmental about sex. The first thing that comes to mind is the Numbers Question. If someone has had PIV sex with 3 people, but had oral sex with 20, how do they respond to the question "How many people have you had sex with?" Are they being dishonest if they give either of those answers? Should they feel required to say both, and explain them? These things are obviously situational, but it's clear how much of a difference a common definition can make.

Even more important than the Numbers Question is the worry of virginity. If someone is worried about not having sex until it's with someone they love or until they're married, it's good to know exactly what that means. For some people, I know that's included oral sex. I know some women, however, who understood sex to mean PIV so clearly that they started out having anal sex to maintain their virginity. This, to me, is ludicrous. But this goes to show that I have a different definition of what sex is than some people.

I'm not planning on proffering a universal definition here. I am, however, interested in this being a thing that people talk about occasionally. I personally think that using PIV sex as the only way to define sex is something people use as a scapegoat in both situations. Now, let me say that intercourse is definitely different in some ways than other kinds of sex, as all kinds are different, and for many people it's more important, intimate, or what ever else. However, to put it on a completely different plane doesn't always seem fair to me. If you're not sleeping with someone just to keep your numbers down, what's the reason for keeping your number low? What do you gain by abstaining from one particular sexual act in order to say you've only had sex with a certain number of people? If you're deciding to remain a virgin for some reason, what are the reasons you're doing it? Is everything other than PIV really okay, and just PIV isn't?

Not only does treating PIV as the only "real" kind of sex cheapen same-sex sex, but it also starts to dictate a certain way hetero sex has to go to actually "count".

No, damnit. Not that Count. While he's there, though, this always makes me giggle.

This brings me to my next topic: the coital imperative. It's supposedly common knowledge that all men hate wearing condoms, but I read an article a while back about why condoms are no fun for women, either. It's something I had never really thought about. Other than the obvious fact that skin is a more pleasurable feeling than rubber to most people, I hadn't ever really thought about the problem with condoms for women. A major problem with them, however, is that they can set up a narrative for how sex goes. There can be foreplay, but at some point, the condom goes on. Then it's penis in vagina until the man comes, then it's over. There are certainly exceptions to this, but it's no doubt a familiar scenario. Oral sex performed on a male doesn't feel as good with a condom on, nor does it taste very good.** Once you've had sex, oral sex on the woman will taste like rubber too, and is therefore less likely to happen as well. On top of this, proper condom usage dictates that men take off their condoms while they're still erect , so there can't be the snuggling directly after coitus that can be an essential part for a lot of people.

Awww yeah. Sexy, sexy, post-coital snuggling.

You realize, of course, I'm not trying to talk you out of wearing condoms. They're a good (though less reliable than many) form of birth control, and one of the only options available for casual partners. It brings up an interesting point, though, which is that this seems to be the narrative of sex regardless of the condom usage. The biggest problem with the condom is that it helps along and justifies this narrative. Even with condoms, people should still see if they can break out of this mold.*** At Planned Parenthood (find the one nearest you here), their own condoms are free, and they sell name brands at 10 for $1. It's not like you can't toss one off after having sex for a while, make out, then go back to sex later. That's just one example, though! Experiment!

Possibly the larger problem is that this is just simply what people think of as sex: penis in vagina until the guy orgasms. I know even I'm guilty of this. I've had sex where only I come, where only the girl comes, where we both come, and where neither of us come. This is all obviously sex, but unless I catch myself, I sometimes think of only the times where I came as actually "counting". Now, for me this only comes up in completely frivolous, how-many-times-did-we-do-it-yesterday sort of ways, but the fact that my mind still jumps to thinking this way is troubling.

What do you all think? How do you define sex? Do you find yourself getting stuck in the rut of the coital imperative?



*Yes, Penis-In-Vagina. And yes, this term does get used in the literature. I'm not making it up to seem cool. But it's hard to complain about sexy acronyms.

**Unless you dig the taste of rubber, in which case, well, go you.

***That is, if either party is unhappy with the arrangement. I'm not trying to tell you how to have sex if you're happy, but variety rarely hurts.


images via collegecandy.com, thrublurryeyes.com, almightyray.com

Duck Penis

Hey all. I'm on a trip into Berkeley, CA for a few days, and won't be able to post for a little bit longer. Know that I have a couple articles in the works. In the meantime? Here's what a duck penis looks like.

Eversion in air: from blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom from Carl Zimmer on Vimeo.

The Bible Just Got Awesomer

It turns out the correct translation of the book of Genesis may involve Eve having been made from Adam's penis. Anyone else as excited as I am?

On Masculinity and Evolutionary Biology

A while back I talked about masculinity and some of the issues I have with the term. This is because there's a specific societal stigma that is attached to the word, and I don't like a lot of the connotations it has. However, there are many things that are inarguably masculine, as they come from testosterone. I've been reading this book this week, and it focuses largely on the evolutionary reasons for attraction and sex. Evolutionary biology is one of the most interesting things in the world to me, as it helps explain why we do some of the things we do in concrete, rational terms. Some things this book talks about when it comes to attraction I knew from the anthropology class I took, but some were new to me. I thought I'd share some of them with you.

Pictured: what Wikipedia calls sharing, and I call deplorable stealing.

We all know that smell can play an important role in attraction, but you might be surprised to learn how much. A team of Brazilian researchers had men wear patches of cotton on their skin to absorb the sweat. Later they had women smell these patches without seeing the men to whom they belonged. Without exception, women liked the smell of the men with the most dissimilar genes to herself. The draw of dissimilar genes is twofold. Extremely similar genes (think inbreeding) can lead to birth defects and many other problems. On the other end, however, a child that comes from complementary genes will have a better immune system, and will help a child ward off infections.

In evolutionary biology, there are traits that are labeled either "honest" or "dishonest". An honest trait is one that a mate finds attractive and is a genuine representation of good genes and/or health. A dishonest trait is one that a mate finds attractive, but doesn't necessarily connote good health or genes. In mammals, symmetry is seen to be an honest trait. Humans like the look of symmetrical bodies much more than those with less symmetry. This is an honest trait because a person needs to be in good health in their formative years to end up being symmetrical, as well as having low levels of gene mutation. Are you ready for this? Women can smell symmetry, too. A series of studies had men wear a T-shirt for two nights in a row, then had women smell them - again, without seeing the men - later. They found the symmetrical men's scents to be the most desirable, and the asymmetrical men's to be repulsive.

I must be defective or something, though, because I still think this lady is hot.

This preference for symmetry is is also evident through women's preferences for deep voices. Women have a tendency to prefer deep voices over higher-pitched ones, and this is because body symmetry is more likely to produce deep voices.

Sort of a no-brainer (for most women - more on that in a minute) on this list is a masculine face. So what is it that creates a masculine face? This shouldn't be a big surprise, but it's the same thing that creates muscles mass: testosterone. Then why don't all men have masculine faces and washboard abs? Because during puberty, only healthy bodies can afford to create enough testosterone to create these features. So masculine facial features are another honest trait.

Pictured: the masculine face from which all other masculine faces were wrought.

In all of these cases, this preference is most predominant when a woman is ovulating. This is because when a woman is most likely to become pregnant, she is most attracted to men with good genes. During the rest of her cycle, she is more likely to exhibit a preference for men who will be good caretakers, and will stick around. These are rarely the same men. However, a British study from 2009 concluded that generations of women on the pill has made that interest decline. Because the pill keeps a woman from having days in which she is fertile, it eliminates the days she is most attracted to extremely masculine men. This study has certainly been contested, but it's food for thought, nonetheless.

Neat stuff, huh? I've got a lot of this book to go, so stay tuned for more fun facts.

Up next, though, why guys fuck their girlfriends harder when they haven't seen them in a while! (Seriously.)

Images via helicon7.com, artofmanliness.com