Greta Christina's Blog

Sex, Spontaneity, and the "Swept Away" Myth

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

So why is the myth of sexual spontaneity so damaging?

I know. I've written about this before. Buy why else?

I've written before about the myth of sexual spontaneity: the myth that, for sex to be good and meaningful, the desire has to strike both partners out of the blue and be acted on immediately. I've written about how unrealistic the myth is, how poorly it fits into the reality of many people's sex lives; I've written about the narrow and limiting definition of sexual desire it creates.

But I've been thinking lately about another -- and in many ways more serious -- problem with the myth of sexual spontaneity.

And that's that it contributes to the idea that sex is dirty and bad... and thus makes people feel like sex is only okay if they don't take responsibility for it.

A lot of other feminists have talked about this: the myth of being "swept away." It's the myth that sexual desire should overpower you with blinding passion -- and that if it doesn't, if you plan for it, that's somehow cold and calculating and missing the point. And it's a myth that fucks up sex lives from beginning to end. It keeps teenagers from using birth control. It keeps people from talking with their partners about what they like and don't like in bed. It keeps people from educating themselves about sex, on the grounds that it should be "natural." It keeps long-term couples from making dates for sex.

And I would argue -- as many feminists have argued before me -- that the "swept away" myth essentially comes from the idea that sex is bad.

Let's look at another primal animal desire, one that we don't have as much negative baggage about. Let's take the desire to eat. We don't think that eating a meal is somehow diminished by planning for it; that eating is only true and beautiful if the desire strikes us out of the blue and we act on it at once. Sure, we'll stop and buy funnel cake if we smell it at a street fair... but we also buy groceries a week in advance, and make reservations for busy restaurants, and think in the morning or afternoon about what we might want for dinner, and make careful plans for special, festive meals.

Why?

Because we basically think that eating is okay. We have some complicated and messed-up feelings about food in our culture, sure; but most of us accept that food is a necessary and valuable part of life. We don't think there's anything wrong with planning a meal... because we don't think there's anything wrong with eating one.

But that's patently not the case with sex. Our culture tends to see sex, either as a sin that we must resist, or as a selfish luxury we can do without. We don't see it as a necessity, and we definitely don't see it as a central and valuable part of the human experience.

And yet -- obviously -- we still want it.

Which is where the "swept away" myth comes in. The "swept away" myth lets us have sex, while pretending to ourselves and everybody else that we didn't really want it, and didn't consciously choose it, and can't be blamed for it.

It's essentially a way of abdicating responsibility for sex. It's a way of convincing yourself that you didn't really choose this. You were overwhelmed by passion, by an animal urge or emotional flood that couldn't be controlled. You couldn't help it. It wasn't your fault.

It's like fantasies about bondage or rape: fantasies that, for many folks, let them enjoy sex, or enjoy thinking about sex, while still feeling like it's against their will and they're not responsible for it. Now, there's not a damn thing wrong with these fantasies. There's not even anything wrong with acting these fantasies out. But it's no way to live your entire sex life. (Unless you're into the 24/7 dom/sub thing... and even that takes a lot of thought and conscious choice, more even than most sex lives.) It's not grownup. It's not responsible.

And ultimately, it's not even that much fun. 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.

And maybe more importantly, the "swept away" myth feeds the monster of sex-negativity. It feeds the monster in our culture and in all of us that says that sex is a sin, and that while letting yourself be overcome with lust might be forgivable, consciously choosing to make room for it in your life makes you guilty of first- degree sex. With premeditation and passion aforethought.

I actually have nothing against spontaneous sex. I love spontaneous sex. Being overwhelmed with lust, blowing off your dinner reservations because your lover's ass has suddenly become way more important... that's lovely. It's like an adventure, like riding a rollercoaster. It lets you feel like your entire life isn't being measured out in coffee spoons; like you still have the capacity to surprise yourself, and to be surprised.

My problem isn't with spontaneous sex. It's with the myth of spontaneous sex. It's with the idea that spontaneous sex is the best sex, the sex we should all be having all the time, the only sex that counts. As one kind of sex among many, spontaneous sex is great. But as The One True Sex, it severely limits your sexual options. And it feeds into the monstrous idea that making sex a priority makes you a bad person.

So buy a vibrator. Make a sex date. Have a conversation with your partner about sexual things you might like to do. Call San Francisco Sex Information, and ask them a question you have about sex. Read a book about a kind of sex you're curious about. Do something that says, "Sex is a priority for me, and I am making a conscious choice that will shape what my sex life looks like."

And let's starve the monster together.

My Vision for a Sexual World

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. And I'm taking a somewhat different tack on this one. Instead of a critique or commentary on the sexual culture we have, I thought I'd sketch an outline of the sexual culture I'd like to see. It's called My Vision for a Sexual World, and here's the teaser:

Like a lot of sex-positive sex writers, I spend a lot of time ranting and venting about things in our sexual culture that I don't like.

Today, I want to do something different. Instead of bitching about the sexual culture we have, I'd like to present my vision for the sexual culture I'd like to see.

And the best way I can say it is to put it in a metaphor.

I would like us to treat sexuality -- and differences in sexualities -- much the same way we treat music.

To find out the details of the sexual world I'd like to see -- and why I think music is such a good analogy for it -- read the rest of the piece. (And as always, if you feel inspired to comment on this blog, please consider cross- posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog. They like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

What Does It Mean to Want Sex?

Please note: This piece doesn't discuss my personal sex life in lurid detail, but it does discuss it. Family members and others who don't want to read that, please don't. This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

What does it mean to "want" sex?

There was a letter to the Perv Panel advice columnists at Carnal Nation that's shoved this question into my mind. In the Lesbian Bed Death letter, the author says that, after four years in a committed relationship, neither she nor her partner has any real interest in sex anymore. In one sentence, she says they're content; in the next sentence, she says she feels like they should do something about it.

The advice from the Perv Panel was fine, as far as it went. But I think there's a very important core concept here that none of the advisors really got into.

It's this:

There is more than one way to "want" sex.

When we talk about "wanting" sex, we tend to mean the immediate animal urge. The hard cock or clit. The overpowering physical desire to get busy, now.

But there are other ways of "wanting" sex. You can want the effect sex has on your life, and on your relationship. You can want the closeness and intimacy it gives you with your partner. You can want the affirmation it gives, the feeling of being desired and valued. You can want the confidence and poise that being an actively sexual person can give. You can want the transcendence that sex can create, the experience of epiphany and transformative joy.

And for that matter, you can want the pure animal pleasure of sex... without having the immediate physical desire for it. You can know in your head how great sex can feel, and want to re-create that feeling -- without your dick or clit being hard right that second. (Sick people often don't feel much appetite for food -- but if they're smart, they know that food will make them feel better, and they know that once they start eating, their appetite is likely to return.)

This is a bit of a tricky distinction. So let me draw a couple of analogies before I move on.

I very rarely "want" to go to the gym. When I have a rare free moment, and I stop and think, "What do I most want to do right now?", the answer is very rarely, "What I most want is to lift weights and walk on a treadmill." And yet, once I'm at the gym, I enjoy it. I actually do have fun working out once I'm doing it. Of course it gives me medium- and long-term payoffs in stamina and mental health and such... but I'm not even talking about that. Walking on a treadmill and lifting weights is a positive sensual pleasure. Sometimes even an erotic pleasure. I just have a hard time remembering that until I'm actually doing it.

That may not be the best example. I realize I'm a bit of a freak, and not everyone is tickled to be at the gym once they're there. So I'll give another example before I get back to the point: Dancing. If I'm tired at the end of a long day, I often don't "want" to get in the car and drive across town to go dancing. What I "want" is to sleep. Or watch SpankingTube and jerk off. Or collapse on the sofa, order takeout, and watch The Simpsons.

And yet, I love to dance. At its best, dancing makes me feel transcendently connected with humanity and the universe. At its worst, it's a heckuva good time. It is one of the great pleasures of my life: a creative pleasure, an intellectual pleasure, a source of expansive shared joy with a community, a source of intimate shared joy with my wife. And on a purely physical, sensual level, it just feels good. Once I'm dancing, I am never, ever sorry that I went.

And in the same way, I am never, ever sorry that I had sex... even if I wasn't in the mood when we started.

It can be hard to overcome inertia and find the energy to do the things that we love. It's easy to focus on the necessities of survival and getting through the day, and then just blob out once those necessities are handled... at the expense of the things that give our lives meaning and joy. Especially if we're overscheduled and overworked. And for many of us, this gets harder as we get older. The automatically exuberant energy of youth often gives way as we age, and it takes more work and conscious effort to fan the flames into life. Especially when it comes to sex. And double especially when it comes to sex in long- term relationships.

And yet, one of the main things that defines being a mentally healthy grownup is that you can distinguish between the things you want right this second, and the things you want in the long run. Or even in the medium run. One of the things that defines being a mentally healthy grownup -- and this isn't a buzz-kill, this is one of adulthood's greatest joys -- is that you have the knowledge and self-discipline to defer the gratification of immediate desires, in order to fulfill larger, more deeply satisfying desires. This can mean passing on sex that you know is a bad idea even though you have a strong, urgent desire for it... but it can also mean pursuing sex that you know is a good idea, even though you have a strong, urgent desire to just order a pizza and then go to sleep.

And one of the things about getting older -- and about being in a long-term relationship -- is that sex tends to shift away from being a relentless, urgently demanding physical desire, and toward something familiar that's easy to put on the back burner... but that's richly and complexly satisfying when you set aside time and energy for it. It shifts away from, "I am totally starving right now, if I don't get a burger in the next ten minutes I am going to pass out and die," and moves toward, "We have some free time this Saturday -- why don't we cook something special? Let's make that roast chicken you like so much, or try that recipe for polenta with red pepper sauce we keep looking at."

These are two very different ways of "wanting" food. And don't get me wrong, both have their charms, I am a big fan of the starving hamburger lust. But it would be a huge mistake to say that only starving hamburger lust counts as "wanting" to eat. Setting aside time to plan and cook a meal also counts as "wanting" to eat, "wanting" the sensual pleasure and rich satisfaction that food can give you... even if you aren't hungry right that second.

I've written something like this before: how, in order for sex to be satisfying, you don't have to be in the mood when it starts. You just have to be willing to get in the mood. But I hadn't thought of it quite this way before now. Being willing to get in the mood -- being willing to seduce and be seduced, to be drawn in by the pleasures of sex even though you're not feeling it when you start -- is really just a different way of wanting it. It's an acknowledgement that, even though you may not "want" sex in the more immediate and narrow sense of the word, you still "want" it in the larger and broader sense... and that therefore, you're willing to prioritize it and make room for it in your life.

If you really, truly don't want or care about sex on any level... okay. I personally have a hard time getting my mind around that -- heck, I have a hard time understanding people who say they don't like to dance -- but I trust that, for a handful of people, it's probably true.

But I did not get that from this letter at all. Maybe I'm misreading it: but I did not get the sense that the author of this letter was genuinely happy with the status quo. (For one thing, if she were, she wouldn't be writing to sex advice columnists.) The author of this letter seemed dissatisfied and sad. It seemed like sex was important to her, or used to be important to her, and that even though the overpowering physical urge for it had dissipated, she still missed it.

So if what you mean by "I don't seem to want sex anymore" is "I no longer feel the immediate physical urge for sex that I used to, but it's still important to me and I want it in my life"... then I think it might behoove you to rethink what you mean by "wanting sex." I think it might behoove you to stop thinking of "an immediate and overpowering physical lust" as the only meaningful definition of "wanting sex"... and to give the "it's important to me and I want it in my life" meaning every bit as much weight.

My Very First Orgy, and What I Learned There

Please note: This piece discusses my personal sex life and my sexual history in quite a bit of detail. Family members and others who don't want to read that, please, absolutely, do not read this one. This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

My Very First Orgy, and What I Learned There

I know. The title makes it sounds like a third- grader's report on their trip to the planetarium. But you know, except for the third- grader part, it was sort of like that.

And I thought you might be interested to hear the story. I mean, who doesn't like a good orgy story?

My very first orgy happened when I was in college. Surprise, surprise. I call it my first orgy, but in a sense it was my only orgy: I've been to a decent number of sex parties since, but this was my only "puppy pile of bodies co-mingling more or less indiscriminately" that we tend to think of as a classic, Capital O Orgy.

It happened more or less spontaneously. Or at least without any planning on my part. My boyfriend and I were hanging out on the steps of the student union, when these three girls came up to us, said they were putting together an orgy, and asked if we wanted to join them. The girls were sort of renowned on campus for being what I would now call "sex positive bi-dykes" but didn't have a term for back then (hi, ladies, I still remember you fondly, if any of you are reading this drop me a line)... and it only took a couple seconds for me and my boyfriend to arrive at an enthusiastic Yes.

They said they needed a couple/few more people, and asked if we could round anybody up. So I raced off to one of my best friends, and spent half an hour unsuccessfully trying to convince him that the obviously most sensible action would be for him to blow off studying for his big math test and come to the orgy instead. (I was arguing that in twenty years he'd never remember the math test, but would always regret having passed on an opportunity for an orgy. An argument I still stand by.) Alas, my rhetorical skills failed me; so I finally gave up on my friend, and headed back to the dorm room where the festivities were being held.

There is nothing quite like walking into a dorm room with six naked people having sex together in a pile on the floor. Especially when one of them is your boyfriend. I had a brief moment of -- well, "shock" is too strong a word, let's call it "sudden adjustment" or "category error" -- as the reality of the situation was rather crudely borne in on me. Then I decided, "What the fuck, this is what I'm here for," hurriedly shucked my clothes, and joined in.

And I learned two very important life lessons: lessons that stay with me to this day.

Important Life Lesson Number One: I really and truly do like having sex with other women.

I'd known that I had sexual feelings about women for a long, long time. But apart from some childish experiments that could only be considered borderline sex at most, I'd never done anything about it, except swipe my dad's Playboys and fantasize nonstop. I'd been calling myself "bisexual" ever since I'd heard the word (at about age 12); but I also couldn't really be sure that the word was accurate. I had serious Nancy Friday/ My Secret Garden damage, and had been persuaded that having fantasies about something doesn't mean you really want to do it. Even when you have said fantasies constantly, every hour of every day, and have had them for years. (Note to Ms. Friday: No, having sex fantasies doesn't necessarily mean you want to do that thing in real life... but it sure as hell means that sometimes.)

This orgy was the first time I had actual, unquestionable sex with another woman. The first time, to put it crudely, that I put my tongue on another woman's pussy. And the moment I put my tongue on that other woman's pussy (hi there, L., if you're reading, I remember you too, and very fondly indeed), my core sexual self- identity was transformed, from "woman who has fantasies about other women but isn't sure what that means in her real life" to "dyke." It took no time at all. Tongue hovering above the pussy, not so sure; tongue on the pussy, dyke.

So. That's Important Life Lesson Number One. Pussy: good. Sex with girls: good. A lesson with very great impact on my life to this day, what with being married to a woman and all. Important Life Lesson Number Two:

I learned at that orgy exactly what, for me, jealousy was, and why I had it, and what I should do about it.

At the time of the orgy, my boyfriend and I had been having ongoing problems with monogamy. The problems being that he persistently cheated on me, and I was unhappy and pissed about it. At the time of the orgy, we were supposedly trying non-monogamy... but it was that half-assed version of non-monogamy that translates as "one person in the relationship wants no limitations on their sexual behavior, so they unilaterally declare the relationship non-monogamous, cat around carelessly with no regard for their partner's feelings, and insist that any problem their partner has comes from un-evolved possessiveness." (With the addendum, "And then they get hurt and angry when their partner tries to screw other people too." But I didn't find out that part until later.)

Needless to say, this turned out to be an unsuccessful experiment. It's a miracle that I stuck with non-monogamy. Hell, it's a miracle that I didn't get the clap. I felt threatened, abandoned, anxious, insecure, disregarded, unwanted... all those things that add up to raging, festering jealousy.

But I felt no jealousy whatsoever at this orgy.

I watched, up close and personal, as my boyfriend got his dick sucked by another woman... and I was totally okay with it. I actually kind of enjoyed it.

I did feel a twinge of something, something other than simple enjoyment and general okay-ness. Surprise, perhaps, is the best word for it. Sudden adjustment. Category error. But the closest I came to jealousy were a few passing moments of, "Shouldn't I be feeling jealous about this?" I kept expecting to feel bad about what I was seeing... and it kept not happening.

And it occurred to me: My problem with my boyfriend cheating on me wasn't a problem with him having sex with other people.

It was a problem with me being left out.

My problem was with him spending his time chasing other women at the serious expense of time spent with me. It was with him making major decisions about our relationship unilaterally, and then making me feel guilty that I wasn't okay with it. It was with him blatantly trying to seduce other women in front of my face, even though he knew it upset me. It was with him spending nights with other women without consideration for the fact that I might be worried and wondering where the hell he was.

This was the problem. And therefore, the orgy wasn't a problem. The orgy was an experience we were sharing, a decision we made together, a sexual adventure we were having as a couple. None of the "being abandoned and disregarded" stuff that was going on with the cheating was going on in that puppy pile.

And that lesson has stuck with me to this day.

The specifics of what I do and don't need from non-monogamy have changed a lot since then. Mostly, they've loosened up. I don't need to be in the room if my partner is having sex with someone else; I don't really mind if they flirt with other people when I'm around; I'm okay if sex with other people takes time away from me, as long as that time isn't vast. I just need to feel like my feelings are being taken into consideration; like I'm involved in the decisions; like my major triggers will be worked around even if they're not rational. I just need to not feel left out.

And I figured that out at the orgy.

So here are my study questions for the rest of the class: What life lessons have you learned from your sexual adventures? How have you applied these lessons to your life? Have any of these lessons been relevant to your life in areas other than sex and relationships? The class is now open to discussion. There are no wrong answers.

Tantric Orgasms and Sacred Sex: New Age Spirituality in the Sex Community

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog -- and it's another one that both my atheist readers and my sex readers are going to want to check out. It's about the prevalence of New Age spirituality in the sex- positive community... and why, exactly, I think that's so common. It's titled Tantric Orgasms and Sacred Sex: New Age Spirituality in the Sex Community, and here's the teaser:

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece on this blog about my skeptical, materialist, atheist, entire non- spiritual view of sexual transcendence, and why you don't need to see sex as metaphysical to see it as magnificent and meaningful.

I deliberately didn't make the piece critical of spirituality and religion. Partly, that simply wasn't the point of the piece: the point wasn't to tear down the spiritual view of sex, but to offer an alternative to it. And partly, I'll admit, it was because many of my friends and allies in the sex community have spiritual beliefs about sex, in some cases deeply held spiritual beliefs, and I was gun-shy about alienating them.

But I recently gave an interview to Greg Fish of the Weird Things blog, who read the piece and wanted to talk with me about it. And what Greg mostly wanted to know was the very question I'd been deliberately avoiding. He wanted to know why, in my opinion, so many people in the sex- positive community are so heavily invested in associating sex with spirituality and religion.

This is an attempt to answer that question.

That's just one of the ideas I've come up with about this. To find out more about why I think the sex-positive community is so invested in spirituality -- and why I care -- read the rest of the piece. (And as always, if you feel inspired to comment on this blog, please consider cross- posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog. They like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

Is All Porn the Same?

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

You may have read or heard this criticism of porn. I've heard it more than once. It goes roughly like this:

"All porn is basically the same. Porn may be fun and arousing -- but as a literary/ art/ cinematic form, it's inherently tedious. After all, there just aren't that many ways for people to have sex. So describing or depicting it is automatically going to become repetitive."

Now. Obviously, I have no truck with this attitude whatsoever. But it took me a little time thinking about it to realize what exactly was wrong with it.

Not that much time, though.

First, and at the risk of being snarky: If you think there are only a handful of ways for people to have sex, then I feel sorry for your partners. There is quite a bit more variety available in sex than a few standard variations on fucking and sucking. Read any good general sex guide, like The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex or The Guide to Getting It On, and you'll get a sense of the tip of the iceberg. Or take a look at the wildly entertaining, insanely thorough Human Sex Map. You could spend an entire lifetime trying all this stuff and still not scratch the surface. (Thanks to Joreth for the link on the Sex Map!)

But second, and far more importantly:

What makes porn interesting isn't that it comes up with some new and different sex act, or some new combination of previously known sex acts.

What makes porn interesting is that it comes up with new ways to look at sex.

Think about other topics for literature or film or art. Think about, say, murder. There are only so many ways people can commit murder, too. You can shoot someone; stab them; strangle them; poison them; bludgeon, electrocute, smother, or drown them; set them on fire; cut off their head; hit them with a vehicle; throw them off a high place. I'm sure there are more... but you get the idea. There are probably no more ways to kill a person than there are to have sex with them. Maybe even less.

And yet murder is a vastly fruitful topic for art and film and writing, one that inspires both fascination and respect. Yes, genres such as murder mystery or true crime may be looked down on... but I don't think anyone would argue that all writing/ film/ art about murder is the same.

Why? Because, while there may be a limited number of basic methods to commit murder, there are a limitless number of reasons to do it. And a limitless number of consequences for it. And a limitless number of ways to feel about it: before it happens, and during, and after.

What makes writing about murder interesting isn't that it comes up with a new and different physical method of committing murder. What makes, say, "In Cold Blood" or "Hamlet" more interesting than, say, "The Vicar in the Parlor" or "A Deadly Game of Love" or some other generic detective novel of the month is that it makes you look at murder differently. And for that matter, it makes you look at humanity in general differently. It makes you look at what causes conflict between people. What makes that conflict turn murderous. Why some people murder and others don't. Whether everyone is ultimately capable of murder. Whether murder is ever justified, and if so, under what circumstances. How murder affects the person committing it. How murder affects a family, a community, society as a whole. The relationship between moral responsibility and abusive upbringings or mental illness. Etc., etc., etc.

And what makes good porn more interesting than... well, than "The Vicar in the Parlor" or "A Deadly Game of Love" or some other generic porn novel of the month?

It's exactly the same thing. Good porn makes you look differently at what sex means to people. How sex feels to people. Why people want to have it (apart from the obvious biological drive). What people get out of it (again, apart from the obvious). What about sex can be surprising. What about it can be disappointing. How sex can change relationships. How it can change the way people see themselves. How sex can bring out the worst in people, or the best, or the most complicatedly human. Etc., etc. etc.

Now, I can hear a chorus already starting to ring: "Lord, have mercy. Porn with plot. Shoot me now." And I'll certainly admit that bad porn can be bad by being too plot- heavy, just as it can be bad by having no plot at all. Plus, to make things worse, a lot of plot- heavy porn makes the mistake of simply dropping the plot in around the sex, with little or no concern for their relevance to each other, in that Plot/ Sex Scene/ Plot/ Sex Scene structure we're all so depressingly familiar with.

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about weaving the two together. I'm talking about making the sex a central part of the character and motivation... and vice versa. I'm talking about sex scenes that get you inside, not just what the characters are physically doing or physically feeling, but that gets you inside how it feels to be these unique people having this particular sex. I'm talking about sex scenes that get you to care passionately about these people and the sex they're having, and that move their story forward. And I'm talking about non-sex scenes that keep the theme of sexuality alive, taking the changes and discoveries that happen during the sex and running with them. I'm talking about porn where you don't even divide it into "sex scenes" and "plot scenes," where it's all just an integrated part of a compelling and arousing story about sex.

And that kind of porn can come in infinite variety.

Yes, a lot of porn sucks. Porn is just as subject to Sturgeon's Law as any other art form: 90% of it is crap because 90% of everything is crap. Porn may even be somewhat more subject to Sturgeon's Law than other art forms -- since, like any art form that's stigmatized or trivialized, talented and ambitious artists often stay away from it for fear of ruining their careers. (A phenomenon with an unfortunate vicious circularity to it.)

But the "All porn is the same" critique is unjust. It marks an unwillingness to explore the more interesting and imaginative regions of it... or, in a more generous interpretation, simply an unfamiliarity with those regions. And to roll your eyes and complain, "I don't want plot in my porn, I just want it to get me off" -- and then turn around and complain, "Porn is so boring, it's all the same" -- is unjustness compounded. It's trying to have your cake and eat it too... and then complaining that the fact that you can't is the baker's fault.

(P.S. Just to clarify: I'm not specifically talking about video porn here. I know that when a lot of people hear the word "porn," they think "video porn"; but for an assortment of reasons, I actually think video porn is less fertile ground for genuine variety and artistry than other media. I'm talking about porn in general, and about solo-artist media like writing, drawing, and comics in particular. That caused some confusion in the comment thread when this piece originally appeared on the Blowfish Blog, so I want to set the record straight here.)

Good In Bed

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

What does it mean to be "good in bed"?

This phrase, "good in bed," has been stuck in my head lately. It's a phrase I've thought about a lot over the years.

And I've come to the conclusion that I don't like it.

I should get this out of the way first: Yes, of course, there are some basic skills that anyone hoping to have good sex should acquire. It's more "basic pieces of knowledge" than anything else, really. Knowledge of male and/or female sexual anatomy and response (depending on which gender or genders you're boinking). The understanding, for instance, that clits usually prefer somewhat delicate and indirect stimulation, and that dicks typically prefer a fairly firm touch. The understanding that most women take a while to get aroused and to come, and that most don't come from vaginal penetration alone. The understanding that erections tend to not respond well when their owners feel pressured to perform. Where the G-spot and the prostate are. Where it is and isn't safe to spank. That sort of thing.

But once you have that stuff under your belt?

In my experience, once you have these basics, good sex isn't about learning a lot of fancy tricks or positions. It's about communicating: being able to say what you want without pessimism or fear; being able to listen to what your partner wants without getting threatened or hurt. It's about being familiar with your own body and your own desires and responses, so you can communicate them in the first place. It's about being perceptive: paying attention to non-verbal signals as well as verbal ones. It's about giving a shit about your partner's pleasure in the first place, and being able to get aroused by their excitement as well as your own. (Which, as Ingrid points out, may not be a skill that can be learned...)

And it's about the luck of the draw: having good sexual chemistry together, getting off on the same sorts of things. You can have all the physical skills and know-how in the world, and be the clearest and most tactful communicator of your desires, and the most attentive listener to your partner's desires... and if it doesn't click for the two of you, then it doesn't click. If you like it hard and nasty and he likes it sweet and sensual; if you like a marathon every week or two and she likes quickies four or five times a week... then the two of you are not going to be good in bed together, no matter how good each of you might be separately. (Not right away, at least. You might get good together if you really like each other and are committed to making it work... but it's going to take some effort, and some willingness to compromise.)

I think the phrase "good in bed" is problematic for a lot of reasons. There's the reasons mentioned above: people tend to use "good in bed," not to mean "perceptive and good at communicating," but to mean "possessing the physical skills required to get their partner off." This puts the emphasis on physical parlor tricks, positions and gestures and whatnot, instead of perception and communication. And it de-emphasizes the sexual differences between people: the fact that your particular skillset might have worked great with Mary or Mark, but it's not doing bupkis with Jean or John. Even that "basic knowledge of anatomy and response" stuff won't always help: knowing that women generally prefer a lighter, more indirect touch on their clits will do you no good at all with women whose clits like it rough. (If you're doing more complex or sophisticated forms of sex, like BDSM, then physical skills do become more important... but I think the basic principle is still the same.)

The "good in bed" trope also contributes to the idea of sex as an achievement, or a competition. We tend to talk about being "good in bed" the way we talk about being good at making cocktails, or good at tennis. It makes it less about pleasure and joy... and more about ego. It makes it less about, "We are having such an amazing time together," and more about, "I am such a hot stud/ sexy bitch. I can turn this woman/ man/ wombat to jelly. I am the bomb." (Quick tangent: Are people saying "the bomb" anymore? I'm a middle-aged lady, and am kind of out of it when it comes to current slang.)

Which brings me to my final issue:

I think the phrase "good in bed" implies that sex is something one person does to another... instead of something two people do together. (Or more than two. I'm not particular.) It implies that being good in bed is a quality that one person has, instead of a quality that two (or more) people have together. It implies that sex is about the power one person has over another, instead of the power two (or more) people can create for themselves and each other. (Not that I have anything against one person having power over another, in a consensually kinky way... but you know what I mean.)

So I'd like to see us talking about "good in bed," not to mean, "possessing the physical skills/ studliness to make their sex partners intensely aroused and orgasmic," but instead to mean, "good at communicating and paying attention during sex." And ideally, short of some very basic knowledge and skills, I'd like to see us stop talking about one person being "good in bed" altogether.

I don't think one person is good in bed.

I think two people are good in bed together.

Or more than two. I'm not particular.

Sex, Culture and Religion with Greta Christina: My Interview with Weird Things

I've just done what I think is a very cool interview with Greg Fish of the Weird Things blog (a blog devoted to "exploring science, the strange and the unknown"). Greg read my Skeptic’s View of Sexual Transcendence piece on the Blowfish Blog, and asked to interview me about the intersection of sex and religion. (It's not a podcast, btw: we spoke in person on the phone, but Greg then transcribed and edited the interview and posted that on the blog.)

We talked about why New Age spirituality is so prevalent in the sex-positive community; whether there's a sex- negative community; how traditional religious communities reconcile their fear and hostility towards sex with the injunction to be fruitful and multiply; what inspired me to write about a skeptical/ materialist view of sex in the first place; and what my vision is for an ideal sexual world.

The interview is titled Sex, Culture and Religion with Greta Christina. If you want to read what I have to say about all that, check it out. (And if you're inspired to comment here, please consider cross- posting your comment to Weird Things as well -- I'm sure he likes comments as much as I do.) Enjoy!

Money Changes Everything: "The Girlfriend Experience"

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's a review of the new Steven Soderbergh movie about prostitution, "The Girlfriend Experience." The piece is titled Money Changes Everything: "The Girlfriend Experience", and here's the teaser:

I'll admit I was skeptical. Even biased. When I heard about "The Girlfriend Experience," a movie about a high-end prostitute who provides companionship as well as sex -- and what happens when she gets emotionally entangled with a client -- I expected one of two things.

I expected a) a morality play about the consequences of turning love and sex into a commodity, with either a sadder- but- wiser ending in which the guy just can't live with his girlfriend being a prostitute, or -- more likely -- a happy ending in which the prostitute leaves the business to be with the guy...

or else b) a wacky romantic comedy, the kind that might star Ashton Kutcher and Sarah Jessica Parker, full of amusing secrets and misunderstandings and cross-purposes that all come to a head at the end of the second act and all get resolved in the third. With, of course, a happy ending, in which the prostitute leaves the business to be with the guy.

I was wrong. It's neither. Steven Soderbergh's "The Girlfriend Experience" is thoughtful, complex, emotionally nuanced, and thoroughly grown-up. It's definitely a flawed movie (I'll get to that in a moment), but it's an interesting movie and is very much worth seeing. And, although the prostitute is the central character, in an odd way the movie isn't really about prostitution. Instead, the movie uses prostitution as a way of commenting on the economies of human connection, underscoring the link between money and emotion in a variety of non-prostitution relationships... both professional and personal.

To find out more about this movie, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy! (And if you're inspired to comment on this piece on this blog, please consider cross- posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog as well. They like comments there, too.)

Abstinence, Birth Control, and the Difference between Theory and Practice

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's about the idea that abstinence is a 100% effective method of birth control... and what, exactly, is wrong with that idea. It's titled Abstinence, Birth Control, and the Difference between Theory and Practice, and here's the teaser:

So how effective -- really -- is abstinence as a birth control method?

Bristol Palin, Sarah Palin's famously "unmarried and pregnant at 17 and an unmarried mother at 18" daughter, recently went on a tour of the TV talk shows, advocating -- in an irony so massive I feel puny standing next to it -- abstinence for teenagers.

And one of the arguments she made -- with her baby on her lap -- was that abstinence is the only 100% effective way to prevent pregnancy.

Now, if Bristol Palin, or anyone else, had gone on the TV talk show circuit arguing that, say, birth control pills were the only 100% effective way to prevent pregnancy -- and they'd done so with their unplanned baby on their lap -- they'd have been laughed off the stage. But people tend to see abstinence as different. People -- and not just right-wing ideologues -- tend to see a failure of abstinence as a failure of the people practicing it... not as a failure of the method.

So today, I want to talk about how we do -- and do not -- measure the effectiveness of any given method of birth control.

To find out how the effectiveness of birth control is usually measured -- and to ask why this theory doesn't get applied to abstinence as well -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy! (And if you're inspired to comment on this piece on this blog, please consider cross- posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog as well. They like comments there, too.)

My Partner Cheated On Me With Their Right Hand

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's about a particular form of jealousy, one that I find baffling and am trying to figure out: namely, the jealousy some people feel about their partner masturbating. It's titled My Partner Cheated On Me With Their Right Hand, and here's the teaser:

Let’s take a closer look at jealousy for a moment. We tend to think of jealousy as a single emotion. But I don’t think that’s so. I think it’s more accurate to think of jealousy as a stew of different emotions. It’s part fear — fear that your partner will leave you for someone else. It’s part insecurity — insecurity about your own value and desirability in comparison to someone else. It’s part hurt feelings — hurt feelings of being unwanted, rejected, left out. And it’s part just flat-out controlling possessiveness — the feeling that your partner’s sexuality belongs to you now, and that they shouldn’t have any sexual feelings or experiences that don’t involve you.

Now.

Which of these feelings have anything at all to do with a partner masturbating?

To find out which of these feelings I think is the key to masturbation jealousy -- and why I'm still so baffled by it -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy! And if you're inspired to comment on this piece on this blog, please consider cross- posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog as well. They like comments there, too.

Oh, and BTW: Sorry I haven't been blogging for a couple of days. I've been laid up with a stomach bug (no, it's not the swine flu), so I've been horizontal on the sofa pretty much since Wednesday night. Am feeling much better now, though, and should have a proper new post up in a couple/ few days.

Simple Pleasures: A Review of "First Time"

I have a piece up on Carnal Nation, the new website for news, reviews, advice, and commentary about sex. My piece is a review of the new adult comic collection, "First Time," written by French female author Sibylline and drawn by an assortment of artists. It's titled Simple Pleasures: A Review of "First Time", and here's the teaser:

Interesting scenarios about sex, simply and skillfully executed, with an eye for both the excitingly hot side of sex and the human side.

Sometimes, that's all it takes.

Of course, that's harder to accomplish than it might seem...

First Time, a collection of erotic comics all drawn by different artists and written by the same author, fell into my lap a couple of weeks ago. (Conflict of interest alert: I work for a company, Last Gasp, that sells the book, which is how it fell into my lap.) When you've worked around porn for a long time, sometimes you can just smell when something is special. Within fifteen seconds of opening First Time, I knew I was going to love it; within three minutes of flipping through it, I knew I was going to be raving about it.

And yet, it's hard to put my finger on what exactly makes the book so special.

To find out what what exactly makes this book so special, read the rest of the review. (BTW, Carnal Nation pays by the hit, so if you click on the review, you'd be doing me a kindness.) Enjoy!

A Skeptic's View of Sexual Transcendence

Please note: This piece mostly isn't about details of my personal sex life, but it does include a passing reference to my personal sexual practices. Family members and others who don't want to read that stuff, use your own judgment about this one.

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog... and this one, both the atheists and the sex fiends will definitely want to read. (And the atheist sex fiends will absolutely want to read it.) It's titled A Skeptic's View of Sexual Transcendence, and here's the teaser:

For some reason, the sex- positive community is also, very often, a spiritual community. (At least in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live.) It's not often a conventionally religious community; but many varieties of Wicca, Goddess worship, shamanism, Tantra, astrology, chi, chakras, belief in a collective metaphysical consciousness, and other forms of New Age belief and magical thinking permeate it, both privately and publicly.

This troubles me. I am a hard- core atheist/ materialist/ naturalist/ humanist/ skeptic/ whatever you want to call someone who doesn't believe in any supernatural entities or substances. And I'm just as unconvinced -- and almost as troubled -- by the ideas of the Goddess and chi energy and immortal consciousness and so on, as I am by the ideas of God and angels and Hell.

Now, I'm not writing this piece to argue against religion. I may yet write a piece criticizing spiritual beliefs and practices in the sex- positive community... but it's not what I'm doing here. (If you want to see my reasons and arguments for my lack of spiritual belief, you can do so here, and here, and here and here and here.)

What I want to do here is offer an alternative.

I want to offer a positive way of looking at sexuality and sexual transcendence that doesn't involve any sort of belief in the supernatural. I want to offer a sex- positive philosophy that is entirely materialist. The materialist view of life in general and sex in particular is often viewed as cold, bleak, narrow, mechanical, reductionist, and generally a downer. I don't think it is. And I want to talk about why.

To find out what my positive, non- downer atheist/ materialist/ naturalist/ humanist/ skeptical alternative is to sexual spirituality, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

P.S. If you're inspired to comment on this piece on this blog, please consider cross- posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog as well. They like comments there, too.

"An Actual Lesbian Girlfriend," Or, Why You Should Never Listen to Dan Savage About Bisexuality

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

Usually, when I write about a Dan Savage "Savage Love" sex advice column, it's with respect and admiration. It's usually with a strong desire to share his ideas more widely, and to expand on those ideas with my own.

Not this time.

This time, I am smacking Mr. Savage across the head, and telling to stop acting like a twit.

In a recent column (well, recent when I originally wrote this piece), Savage compiled a sampler of questions from students on his recent tour of universities. And among them was this question:

"I'm a lesbian, and my girlfriend is bisexual and wants to have a three-way with a man. This makes me nervous. What should I do?"

Savage's advice?

"Get yourself a refillable Xanax prescription, or get yourself an actual lesbian girlfriend."

WTF?!?

This advice is so irresponsible it made my jaw drop. But because the advice is so terse -- and because the snark- to- content ratio is so disproportionately high -- it's a little hard to tease out its actual content, and the actual intent behind it. Near as I can tell, though, it seems to be one of the following three things. All of which suck.

Lesbians should beware of relationships with bisexual women, since bi women will leave lesbians for men. In a relationship between a lesbian and a bi woman, this will always be a irreparable source of anxiety. Lesbians are better off with other lesbians -- they're more reliable.

Right. And no lesbian in the history of Lesbonia has ever left her lover for another woman.

I have never been able to figure this one out. Why is it so intolerable for a lesbian to be left for a man, or for a gay man to be left for a woman? Why is this so radically different from being left for another woman, or another man? Dumpage is dumpage. Why should the genitals of the person you're being dumped for make any difference?

Maybe Savage has fallen prey to the myth that bisexuals can't be monogamous or satisfied in a relationship, because they'll always be yearning for the gender they don't have. If so... does he have any evidence for that? Is there any reason to think that being hot for both women and men makes you restless and cheaty, any more than being hot for both blonds and brunettes does?

And is there any evidence for the idea -- one that Savage has asserted before, with no apparent basis in actual research -- that bisexuals are more likely to wind up in opposite- sex relationships than same- sex ones?

The snark here is especially puzzling because, in this very column, Savage answers a more general question about three-ways with a thoughtful and fair reply. Question:

"We are a couple in a long-term committed relationship and have casually considered the possibility of a three-way. It would have to be with someone neither of us knew (or saw) to reduce any chance of an emotional attachment. Good idea?"

Savage's advice:

"Three-ways with complete strangers are kind of difficult to arrange -- unless you're willing to go the rent-a-third route. But if you want to have a three-way with someone trustworthy and safe, you're better off doing it with an acquaintance or an ex."

A reasonable answer. A bit broad, could have used some clarification; but fine for a column of quickies. And his quickie response shows a basic respect for both the questioner and their partner, and for both of their sexual desires. Why doesn't the bisexual girlfriend get the same respect?

So. That's Option 1. Option 2:

Lesbians should beware of relationships with bisexual women, since the bi women will try to get them to do sexual things -- like FFM three-ways -- that the lesbians don't want to do.

Right. And no lesbian in the history of lesbianicity has ever pressured her lover to do sexual things she doesn't want.

If your bisexual girlfriend wants to have a three- way with a man, and it's not your thing, then say, "No." Or, if you're non-monogamous, say, "No, I don't want to, but you go knock yourself out with some other partner." Or, if the idea doesn't completely gross you out and you like to be good, giving, and game, say, "Yeah, sure, I'll give that a try."

Just like you would if your lesbian girlfriend wanted to fuck you in the ass, or wanted you to dress her up like a pony, or wanted to role-play at being Ann Coulter and Martha Stewart -- or wanted to do a three-way with another woman -- and it's not your thing.

What does that have to do with bisexual versus lesbian?

If Mr. Savage wouldn't advise anyone else to break up with their partner solely because of their unshared interest in ass play or pony play or Coulter play... why is he advising this woman to break up with her bisexual girlfriend, solely because of her unshared interest in MFF three-way play?

Finally, Option 3:

None of the above -- at least, not clearly or explicitly. Dan Savage just has a bug up his butt about bisexuals, and he enjoys yanking our chain and watching us jump.

If that's it, then good job. Well done. Here I am, Mr. Savage, along with probably lots of other bisexuals, jumping at the yank of your chain. If you wanted to make Serak the Bisexual cry, mission accomplished.

But is that really a mission you want to accomplish?

Do you really want to convey misinformation about bisexuals -- especially to college students, many of whom are only beginning to figure out sex and their own sexual identity -- just so you can have fun watching us get ticked off?

Let me ask you this, Mr. Savage. If you read a sex advice columnist who deliberately spread harmful sexual myths about gay men, just because he had a grudge against them and took pleasure in provoking them... how would you react? Would you think, "Oh, that cut-up, he has such a wacky sense of humor"? Or would you think he was acting like a bigoted, irresponsible, manipulative twit?

See, the other bug that Savage seems to have up his butt about bisexuals is that we take ourselves too seriously, and don't have a sense of humor about being goaded. Unlike everybody else on the planet -- and definitely unlike every other marginalized group -- we get annoyed when people deliberately poke at our sore spots with a stick. How unreasonable of us.

The bisexuals I know have a great sense of humor -- about bisexuality among other things. But yes, freakishly enough, when you prick us, we bleed. When you poison our reputation, we suffer. And when you wrong us, we may not revenge, but we fucking well are going to squawk about it.

It's the phrase "actual lesbian girlfriend" that really frosts my cookies. I have been an actual girlfriend to my sweetheart -- also female, also bisexual -- for over eleven years. Technically, I suppose I'm not her "actual girlfriend" anymore, since we've gotten married -- three times, in fact -- and I'm now her "actual wife." But the fact that I am an actual bisexual wife instead of an actual lesbian wife has exactly zero impact on my love, my loyalty, my passionate devotion to her, and my commitment to our relationship.

And I have more than paid my dues for the LGBT community. I've worked for shitty pay for LGBT community businesses; I've donated money to LGBT organizations; I've written at length, over the entire course of my career, about LGBT issues. I am not Them. I am Us. And I am tired of gays and lesbians treating me like a Them simply because I have crushes on both Rachel Maddow and Alan Rickman.

I don't know what your issues are with bisexuals, Mr. Savage. I don't know whether you got dumped for a woman by a bi guy and got your heart stomped, or what. And I don't care. You're acting like a twit. You've acted like a twit about this issue for as long as I've been reading you. Get over it.

You're a sex advisor. As such, you have a responsibility to base your advice on reality -- not on your personal biases or vendettas. Try this for a quickie answer to the question: "Relax. If you don't want a MFF three-way, say 'No.' Just like you would with any other sexual request you're not interested in." Or, if you want to be more nuanced, try this: "What exactly are you nervous about? Are you afraid she'll leave you if you say 'No'? Or if you say 'Yes'? Figure out what you're nervous about. Tell your girlfriend. Find out where she's coming from with this and how important it is to her. And work it out."

See? Was that so hard?

You're a sex advisor. You're usually a good one. Act like one. Don't give advice that misinforms people -- especially young people -- about bisexuals, just because you have some weird bug up your ass about us. Get over it already.

Anti-SM Hysteria? In San Francisco? (Moooo!)

(If you're not a Bay Area resident, ask someone who is to explain the "Moooo!" joke.)

You know, there are some assumptions I make because I live in San Francisco. And one of those assumptions is that, when I pick up one of the local alternative free newspapers, I won't find grossly bigoted misinformation being spread about my consensual sexual orientation.

I was wrong.

San Francisco residents may already be aware of the "Whipped and Gagged" piece that ran this week in the SF Weekly -- a lurid and hysterical piece on the Kink.com porn production company, attempting to whip up outrage over the fact that Kink.com employees got technological training funds from the State of California... and equating consensual sadomasochism with torture. (Violet Blue does a thorough evisceration and debunking of the piece on SFAppeal.)

The hysteria about "your taxes are paying for porn!" is irritating enough. (Kink.com is a legally recognized corporation in San Francisco, and had every legal right to apply for and receive these training funds.) But it's nothing compared to the grotesque misinformation the piece spreads about SM. It repeatedly describes Kink.com's films as "torture- based pornography" and "videos depicting sexualized torture," and repeats the anti-porn canard that porn performers don't want or freely choose the work, and only go into it out of economic desperation. (In fact, Kink.com is renowned for seeking out performers who are lifestyle players and who give authentic, enthusiastic performances -- and for treating those performers well.)

I sent the following letter to the SF Weekly, both as a letter to the editor and as a direct email to the editor himself. I encourage all readers of this blog -- especially those who live in the Bay Area -- to send their own letters. They're not going to know that we're mad if we don't tell them.

Editor:

I thought you should know that, as a direct result of Matt Smith's bigoted and willfully ignorant piece "Whipped and Gagged," I will no longer be picking up the SF Weekly, or looking at it online.

I would not read a paper that was luridly bigoted and hateful about gay people, and I have no interest in reading a paper that is so luridly bigoted and hateful about consensual sadomasochism. In equating consensual sadomasochism with torture, the piece fosters grotesque misinformation about sadomasochists. And Smith's response to criticism about the piece makes it clear that he is not only unapologetic about this, but is likely to continue doing it in the future.

To try to whip up hostility and fear of sadomasochists in a town as proud of its sexual diversity as San Francisco is not only unethical, but one of the most foolish business choices I can imagine. Unless a sincere and strongly worded apology is forthcoming, you have lost at least one regular reader -- and I suspect that this piece is losing you more. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Greta Christina

Sex, Spontaneity, and the "Swept Away" Myth

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's about the myth that sex has to be spontaneous, that you have to be swept away by impulsive passion, in order for it to be any good -- and why, apart from the obvious reasons, the myth does damage to sex lives. It's called Sex, Spontaneity, and the "Swept Away" Myth, and here's the teaser:

I've written before about the myth of sexual spontaneity: the myth that, for sex to be good and meaningful, the desire has to strike both partners out of the blue and be acted on immediately. I've written about how unrealistic the myth is, how poorly it fits into the reality of many people's sex lives; I've written about the narrow and limiting definition of sexual desire it creates.

But I've been thinking lately about another -- and in many ways more serious -- problem with the myth of sexual spontaneity.

And that's that it contributes to the idea that sex is dirty and bad... and thus makes people feel like sex is only okay if they don't take responsibility for it.

To find out how the "swept away" myth is linked to the idea that sex is bad -- and what we can do about it -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

P.S. If you're inspired to comment on this piece on this blog, please consider cross- posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog as well. They like comments there, too.

Perverts Put Out, Sat. April 25

If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area, or if you're going to be in the Bay Area this Saturday, I heartily encourage you to come to Perverts Put Out, the long- running pansexual reading and performance series. I'm not reading this time, but PPO is always a good time, and is often a transcendently mind- blowing and amazing time, with readings and performances about sex that are funny, freaky, poignant, thought- provoking, unsettling... and, of course, hot.

This Saturday is their Erect the Maypole edition, and readers/ performers will include Meliza Banales, m.i. blue, Sherilyn Connely, Nabil Hijazi and TedPro, Thomas Roche, horehound stillpoint, and Hew Wolff, with emcees Dr. Carol Queen and Simon Sheppard. Perverts Put Out will be on Saturday, April 25, starting at 7:30 pm, at CounterPulse, 1310 Mission Street in San Francisco. $10-15 sliding scale. I'll be there -- hope you will, too!

What Does It Mean to Want Sex?

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. I think this is one of my better pieces -- not that any of them suck, but I'm especially proud of this one -- and I especially encourage you all to check it out. It's about the common "bed death" problem in long- term relationships... and about what we mean when we say that we "want" or "don't want" sex... and how rethinking the one can be a way of dealing with the other.

It's called What Does It Mean to Want Sex?, and here's the teaser:

When we talk about "wanting" sex, we tend to mean the immediate animal urge. The hard cock or clit. The overpowering physical desire to get busy, now.

But there are other ways of "wanting" sex. You can want the effect sex has on your life, and on your relationship. You can want the closeness and intimacy it gives you with your partner. You can want the affirmation it gives, the feeling of being desired and valued. You can want the confidence and poise that being an actively sexual person can give. You can want the transcendence that sex can create, the experience of epiphany and transformative joy.

And for that matter, you can want the pure animal pleasure of sex... without having the immediate physical desire for it. You can know in your head how great sex can feel, and want to re-create that feeling -- without your dick or clit being hard right that second. (Sick people often don't feel much appetite for food -- but if they're smart, they know that food will make them feel better, and they know that once they start eating, their appetite is likely to return.)

This is a bit of a tricky distinction. So let me draw a couple of analogies before I move on.

To find out more, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

One Night Stand: A Review

Something from the archives today. This review was written for Alt.com. FYI: This piece includes references to my personal tastes in porn; family members and others who don't want to read about that, please don't read this piece.

Real dyke porno.

God, I love it.

Porn aficionados may know Fatale Video as one of the first producers of "by lesbians for lesbians" video porn (and of the groundbreaking "Bend Over Boyfriend"). They were making feminist indie porn in the '80s and '90s, way back before it was cool. (Conflict of interest alert: I worked for Fatale and its sister company On Our Backs, well over a decade and a half ago, and I performed in one of their videos.)

Lately, Fatale has taken to distributing adult lesbian videos from other filmmakers, making indie dyke porno available to a wider audience. And this business model is being put to excellent use with their latest release, One Night Stand (Pour Une Nuit). A queer/ dyke/ tranny-boi porno from France, One Night Stand is an intense, authentic, raunchy porno, with a kinky sensibility, an emphasis on immediacy and heat, and a gritty, arty, urban feel.

The look of One Night Stand is not slick -- but it's not amateurish, either. The grainy hand-held look gives it the raunchy, entertainingly dirty feel of an amateur porno shot in someone's basement.... but it was filmed by someone who clearly gives a shit about filmmaking and knows their way around a camera. The lighting has a tough, urban look without being harsh or shadowy. And the shaky hand-held-ness is done expertly, always in the service of capturing the eroticism and energy of the scene.

In other words, you get the best of both worlds. You get the authentic, passionate, in- your- face realism that's so appealing about amateur porn... with the skill and artistry of professional work. In some ways, "One Night Stand" looks even grittier and shakier than a lot of amateur videos... what with it not having been shot by a single static camera stuck on a tripod. But it's also striking and beautiful, with the strong, sensual impact of a real movie that most amateur pornos are missing.

(The rest of this review contains explicit adult material. If you're under the legal age to read adult material in your area, do not click through to read the rest of the piece.)

What Women Want, and the Myth of the Psychic Lesbians

Please note: This piece includes some references to my personal sex life and sexual history. Family members and other who don't want to read that, please don't. This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

So. "What women want."

This New York Times article has been making the rounds. The one about scientific research on what women really want sexually. I wrote about it myself, focusing on the more sciency aspects of the article.

Today, I want to talk about something else.

I want to talk about the myth of lesbian sexual infallibility.

And I want to talk about the fundamental flaw inherent in the very question, "What do women want?"

The Times article got me thinking about this very pervasive myth about sexuality, one that I held myself for many years. (I hate those, don't you? I always get more cranky about misconceptions that I once believed.)

The myth is this:

Lesbian sex is better than straight sex... because who knows better how to make love to a woman than another woman? Who knows a woman's body better than another woman? Who knows what sex and arousal and orgasm feel like to a woman, better than another woman?

Okay. So. Can anybody tell me the flaw in this myth? You, there. Making out at the back of the class. What's the flaw?

That's right. Gold star for you. The flaw in this myth is:

Women are not identical.

Oddly enough, different women are, you know -- different. We have different sexual responses, and we like different things in bed.

So being a woman does absolutely nothing to provide us with a magical golden key to the heart of female sexuality. There is no heart of female sexuality. There are only female sexualities. And they're all really different.

Example. Back in my younger days, I occasionally had sex with guys who prided themselves on knowing women's bodies... and in particular, on knowing how gently women liked to be touched. And I had to practically smack these guys across the nose with a rolled- up newspaper and scream, "Will you please just pinch my fucking nipples already? Harder. No, harder. No, really. Harder. Thank you. Sheesh."

And this -- incompetence? Cluelessness? No, that's too harsh. Let's call it temporary inexperience -- doesn't just apply to men. My own early fumbling sexual experiences with women were more than enough to demolish the myth of lesbian infallibility. The story of my first one- on- one sexual encounter with another woman would be depressing and pathetic if it weren't so funny.

And it'd be depressing and pathetic if it didn't have a happy ending: namely, the rest of my life, in which I've figured out a lot more about sex with women (and men, for that matter) than I knew in my early 20s. And in which I've gotten a lot more comfortable just asking my partners, "So, what do you like?"

Which is really the point here.

We aren't born knowing how to have sex. Or at any rate, we aren't born knowing how to have good sex. And we double certainly aren't born knowing how to have good sex with this particular person, the one we're having sex with right this minute.

Now, there is actually some evidence that lesbian and gay male couples may, on average, have more satisfying sex lives than opposite- sex couples. The Masters and Johnson study on sexual satisfaction in lesbian, gay, and straight couples (cited in the book "Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex") is Exhibit A.

But if you look at that research, you'll see that the reason for this pattern isn't that lesbians have some sort of psychic insight into what other women like. (Or ditto for gay men.) In fact, it's the exact opposite. The research showed that same-sex couples -- of both genders -- were more likely to take their time. They were more likely to pay close attention to their partner's pleasure and sexual responses, and in fact to get their own arousal from it. They were more likely to lavish attention on their partner's whole bodies, not just their genitals. And they were much more likely to talk easily, openly, and more often about what kinds of sexual activities they did and didn't enjoy.

In other words: If lesbian sex really is better than straight sex, it's not because lesbians "know what women want." It's because lesbians take the time to learn what their lovers, specifically, want. (Why that is, I don't know. Harebrained speculation available on request.)

There are certainly some broad differences between female and male sexual responses. I wouldn't deny that. Women tend, on average, to take more time getting aroused than men. Women tend, on average, to take more time reaching orgasm than men. Women tend, on average, to be less likely than men to come purely from penis- in- vagina intercourse. If you believe the study reported in the Times article, women tend, on average, to have a greater disparity than men between what arouses them physically and what arouses them mentally. Etc. Male and female sex organs are different -- obviously -- and even if there were no psychological/ emotional/ cultural issues in how women and men are taught to feel and behave around sex, those physical differences are still, well, going to make a difference. If you're going to be a good lover -- whether you're having sex with women or men, whether you yourself are a woman or a man -- a little Sexual Anatomy 101 should definitely be on the agenda.

But these differences are generalizations. Tendencies on average. Overlapping bell curves. There are, for instance, some women who get aroused quickly. Who have no trouble coming. Who love to get fucked, and get off from it. Etc.

There is no universal "what women want."

And in any case... women aren't born knowing that stuff, any more than men are.

I think the myth of lesbian sexual infallibility tends to let straight men off the hook. It's like, "How can I ever know what my lover/ wife likes in bed? I'll never know how what sex feels like to her! I don't even have a pussy! It's hopeless!"

Well. Let's see. You could try doing what I did when I was first having sex with women. You could read up on female sexual anatomy. You could read up on common patterns of female sexual arousal.

But if you really want to know what women want, I suggest you ask the one you're in bed with.

Or the one you have bent over the kitchen table. Tied to the doorframe. Standing over you with a whip in her hand. On the floor with your face between her legs.

I'm not particular.

My Very First Orgy, and What I Learned There

Please note: This piece, and the piece it links to, discusses my personal sex life and my sexual history in quite a bit of detail. Family members and others who don't want to read that, please don't.

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's about the first time I ever went to an orgy; how it came about; and what I learned from the experience. The piece is called My Very First Orgy, and What I Learned There, and here's the teaser:

There is nothing quite like walking into a dorm room with six naked people having sex together in a pile on the floor. Especially when one of them is your boyfriend. I had a brief moment of -- well, "shock" is too strong a word, let's call it "sudden adjustment" or "category error" -- as the reality of the situation was rather crudely borne in on me. Then I decided, "What the fuck, this is what I'm here for," hurriedly shucked my clothes, and joined in.

And I learned two very important life lessons: lessons that stay with me to this day.

To find out more about the pile of naked bodies on the floor and the important life lessons I learned there (no, really!), read the rest of the piece. Enjoy! (Oh, and if you decide to comment on this post in this blog, would you consider cross-posting your comment on the Blowfish Blog as well? They like comments there, too.)

Call for Adult Fiction Submissions: Fishnet

I have a new gig! Starting pretty much now, I am the new editor of Fishnet, the online erotic fiction magazine of Blowfish. I'm also the old editor of Fishnet -- I was actually the nagazine's first editor, way back in the mists of time when dinosaurs ruled the earth -- and I'm thrilled to be back in the saddle.

So if you're a writer of erotic fiction, please read over this call to submissions, and send me your work! And if you're not a writer of erotic fiction but you know people who are, please feel free to post this call for submissions and pass it along. This is an open call for submissions, and I'm happy for it to be sent and posted anywhere that it's legal.

A quick note to my blog readers: Due to this gig and its demands on my time, I may be blogging slightly less often than I used to. More likely, I'll be pulling a bit more stuff out of the archive than usual. But not to worry -- I'm still passionately devoted to this blog, and will still be here almost every day with wisdom and rants about atheism, sex, politics, dreams, and whatever. And you'll be getting my picks of erotic fiction... so on the days that I'm not here, that should help give you the strength to carry on. :-) (And yes, I will occasionally be publishing my own work there.)


FISHNET MAGAZINE:
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR EROTIC FICTION

Fishnet, the online erotic fiction magazine of Blowfish, is seeking submissions. We are looking for adult fiction that is both literate and hot: fiction that explores the human experience of sexuality, while at the same time working as fun and exciting stroke material. We want hot fiction that goes beyond a mere sex scene -- give us a good story, get us inside the skin of your protagonists and show us what they find exciting about the sex they're having. Good writing is important, as is originality. Tender or melancholy stories are fine, but we're also not afraid of stories that push boundaries, that blur the lines of gender, propriety or even consent. Challenge our assumptions, but make our toes curl while you do it.

Payment: Fishnet pays 5 cents per word, paid on acceptance. We will need your real name, address, and a US social security number (if you have one) before we can pay you. We are happy to run pieces under pseudonyms, if you prefer.

Rights: We take first perpetual web rights, exclusive for 6 months; a non-exclusive print anthology reprint right; and non-exclusive, perpetual audio performance rights (i.e., we can podcast it). The author retains copyright and all other rights.

Length: We are ideally looking for pieces longer than 1000 words and shorter than 4,000. Shorter and longer pieces will be considered, but are less likely to be accepted. Absolute upper limit: 6,000 words. (Long pieces may be split and published in two parts.)

(Addendum on length: Please note: We can only publish a handful of longer stories, and are much more likely to say "Yes" to pieces that are 2,500 words or less.)

Content: We are open to stories about any and all genders, activities, and sexual orientations. Stories about non-consent are acceptable, but will be prefaced as such. We cannot accept stories about explicitly underage characters.

Reprints: We are strongly focused on original material. We will consider reprints if they are exceptional. Reprints will be paid less than original work.

Submission method: Send submissions and inquiries to fiction-editor@blowfish.com. Please send submissions by email, as text in the body of the email -- no attachments, please, they will be rejected unread. Please include a short bio (100 words or less) with your submission. Bios may include a link to your blog or website. Please include Fiction Sub: (STORY TITLE) in the subject line, replacing (STORY TITLE) with the title of your story. Please also make sure that your submission does not contain "curly quotes" or other special characters. Please mark paragraph breaks with double line breaks, not with tabs.

Please also send a short cover letter that mentions the word count of the story enclosed and a couple of any relevant fiction sales (we also welcome first-time authors). We encourage you to send the cover letter as a separate email in case our spam filter catches the story by mistake; if we get just the cover letter, we know something happened and can contact you to fix it.

Multiple submissions: Please, no more than three submissions per author at one time. Multiple submissions should each be sent in a separate email.

If you have questions or want to submit work, please email fiction-editor@blowfish.com. We look forward to seeing your work.

Blinded With Science: Sex, Sexology, and What Women Really Want

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

So why do people do the sexual things they do?

And more to the point: If you have a theory about why people do the sexual things they do, how would you prove it?

There's an article in the New York Times that's been making the rounds, a piece about current sexology research and what it says about female desire. The bit that's getting the most attention is the research by psychology professor Meredith Chivers on different types of visual erotic stimulation (images of men and women doing it, images of two men doing it, images of two women doing it, images of solo men, solo women, monkeys, etc.), and which types aroused men compared to women. And what this says about male versus female sexuality. And what that says about how our sexualities evolved.

The data everyone's talking about, though, isn't so much about what kinds of dirty pictures women and men like to look at. (Although that is interesting and pertinent: if the research is correct, men tend to be aroused by a fairly narrow band of imagery that clearly correlates with their sexual orientation, while women tend to be aroused by imagery that's all over the map.) What's getting the attention is the stuff about how hard it is determine which images women are aroused by... because women's self- reported mental responses, and their involuntary genital responses, don't match up.

At all.

Hm.

Now. Chivers' conclusion is that women are physically aroused by a broader range of visual stimuli because, due to evolutionary pressure, it behooves women to be physically ready for sex they don't want. To put it more bluntly: Women get raped. If women are physically aroused by a broad range of visual stimuli, we will be physically ready for sex even if we don't want it, and are thus less likely to be injured during rape. Thus increasing our chances of survival.

Um...

Okay. That's the preface. Here's what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about how difficult it is to draw useful conclusions about the evolutionary reasons behind any behavior. But especially sexual behavior, and behavior related to gender differences... since both sexual behavior and gender roles have heavy cultural baggage, and are the subject of intense social pressure, both conscious and unconscious, pretty much from birth.

So here's my argument.

Is Chivers' explanation plausible?

Sure.

And I've spent the last twenty minutes or so coming up with a whole passel of explanations that are also plausible.

Why are women stimulated by a broader range of visual stimuli than men?

It could be that women's sexuality is more bound up with emotional attachment than men's... and emotional attachment is more complex than simple lust, with a wider range of potential objects.

It could be that women live in a culture steeped in imagery of sexual women, a culture where women are constantly presented as objects of sexual desire, and thus even straight women learn to see other women that way.

It could be that women's sexual desire is less gender- specific than men's. (There's some other data in the Times article backing up this theory.)

It could be that women are less aroused by visual erotic stimulation than other forms (such as verbal), and that showing women visual images isn't the best way to figure out what we're aroused by.

And it could be that women's sexual desire is more complex and multi-factorial than men's in many ways, with a less specific and more sweeping scope.

And why is women's self- reported mental arousal less likely than men's to match our measured genital arousal?

It could be that women are taught from birth to be disconnected from our bodies and our sexuality, so we don't find it as easy to identify our genital sexual responses.

It could be that women are taught from birth that being sexual is dirty and bad, and so aren't as comfortable speaking frankly about it as men. In other words, women don't want to admit what it is that's turning them on. (Even to themselves. See above.)

It could be that male physical arousal is easier to notice -- what with the boner and all -- and thus men are more likely to define "arousal" as "genital arousal," and to self- report it as such.

It could be because of Chivers' "surviving rape" explanation.

And it could be, again, that women's sexuality is more complex and multi-factorial than men's, with a stronger "purely mental" component.

To be very clear: I'm not actually advocating any of these positions. I'm coming up with them to make a point. That point:

I could do this all day.

And I'm not sure how you would test any of these theories.

See, here's the thing. As evolutionary biologist PZ Myers points out, there are enormous problems with these sorts of evolutionary "just-so stories." They're very easy to come up with (fun, too!), but they're very difficult to test. You have to somehow screen out cultural influence (was the study done cross- culturally, or just in North America?). You have to screen out historical influence (if X behavior pattern is universal now, how do we know it was universal a thousand years ago, or thirty thousand?). And you have to screen out behaviors that are inborn from behaviors that are learned. As Chivers herself acknowledges, "The horrible reality of psychological research is that you can't pull apart the cultural from the biological."

And as any good skeptic knows: If a theory isn't testable or falsifiable, it's worthless. Whether it's a belief in God, or a conspiracy theory, or a simple theory about the evolutionary forces driving the development of certain sexual responses... if there's no possible data that could prove your theory incorrect, or no way to acquire further data either supporting or contradicting your theory, then your theory is useless. It has no power to explain the past or predict the future. It's pointless. It's not even wrong.

It's easy to come up with possible explanations for behavior. Especially when it comes to sex. It's almost like a Rorschach test: in the absence of a truly excellent set of supporting data, the theories people come up with to explain sex tells you more about the theorizers than they do about the theories.

It's a lot harder to come up with theories that are really supported by all the evidence; theories that explain and predict evidence that can't be explained or predicted any other way; theories that are more than just examples of the human brain's amazing ability to come up with explanations for stuff.

By all means, we need to be doing careful scientific research into human sexuality. I wouldn't in a million years suggest otherwise. We just need to be very cautious, very rigorous, and very slow, about coming to conclusions about what that research means.

These ideas were developed in a comment thread on Pharyngula.

Is All Porn the Same? The Blowfish Blog

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's a defense of porn against the criticism that it's an inherently tedious, cookie- cutter art form; that because there aren't that many ways for people to have sex, porn is automatically going to be repetitive. It's titled, Is All Porn the Same?, and here's the teaser:

First, and at the risk of being snarky: If you think there are only a handful of ways for people to have sex, then I feel sorry for your partners. There is quite a bit more variety available in sex than a few standard variations on fucking and sucking. Read any good general sex guide, like The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex or The Guide to Getting It On, and you'll get a sense of the tip of the iceberg. Or take a look at the entertainingly long list of adult movie genres available for rent at Bluedoor.com. (Admittedly, many of these genres refer to technical formatting and plot devices and whatnot... but there are more than enough sexual options to keep an enterprising couple busy for a good long time.)

But second, and far more importantly:

What makes porn interesting isn't that it comes up with some new and different sex act, or some new combination of previously known sex acts.

What makes porn interesting is that it comes up with new ways to look at sex.

To find out more about what I think makes good porn interesting -- and why porn is no more likely to be repetitive than writing/ film/ art about any other topic -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Sex -- The Great Exception

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

Why should sex always be the exception?

From laws about free speech to social rules about polite conversation... why is sex the exception?

Yesterday, in a piece about censorship and the controversial Robert Mapplethorpe art exhibit, I talked about how William F. Buckley was offended by sadomasochistic sex: so offended that he equated it with the Holocaust. I talked about how intensely offensive I found this comparison. And I argued that, if people like Buckley are allowed to ban forms of expression that offend them -- such as the Mapplethorpe exhibit -- then people like me will be able to do the same with forms of expression that offend us... such as Buckley's repulsive opinions.

And then I pointed out that, of course, the main difference between Mapplethorpe's photos and Buckley's words was that Mapplethorpe's photos were sexually explicit, and Buckley's words were not. So therefore, in any court of law, my "If he can ban my offensive expression, I should be able to ban his" argument would be laughed out of the room. Sexual speech does have some First Amendment protection -- but not nearly as much as it should. Obscenity laws exist, and have been both applied and upheld. Recently, even. When it comes to the principle of free speech and free expression, sexually explicit content is an exception.

Which leads me to today's question:

Why is sex an exception?

The principle of free speech is interpreted pretty darned broadly in the U.S. But there are exceptions. There are exceptions for false advertising. For violating copyright. For slander and libel. For revealing state secrets. And for talking about sex.

In other words: Sex is seen as being in a category with fraud, theft, character defamation, and treason.

Why?

What -- if you'll excuse my language -- the fuck?

The whole idea of "community standards" for obscenity is another perfect example of this principle. Think about it. We don't allow communities to set standards for any other area of expression. We don't allow communities to set standards for expression of political opinions or religious beliefs; for musical genres or styles of poetry. But the idea that a community should be able to set its own standards for sexual expression: this, for some reason, is seen as totally normal and entirely reasonable.

Thus creating a legal situation that, if my understanding of the law is correct, would otherwise be considered untenable: a situation in which a reasonable person cannot tell ahead of time whether or not they are breaking the law. A porn producer in Los Angeles, whose product may be shipped all over the country, has no way of knowing whether the possession and sale of their video will violate the law in Bumblefuck, Tennessee. They have no way of knowing ahead of time what the legal limits are, so they can stay within them. They won't know until after the trial. They won't know what the crime is until after they've been convicted of it.

And the "I know it when I see it" obscenity principle is yet another example. Can you imagine a Supreme Court Justice saying, "I don't know what treason is, but I know it when I see it?" "I don't know what establishment of religion is, but I know it when I see it?" The whole point of courts is that they're supposed to tell us what the law means. They're not supposed to punt the question to "community standards" and to vague intuitions that we all supposedly agree on... except that we don't.

But it isn't just to obscenity laws that this exceptionalism applies. Heck, it isn't even just laws. We have, for instance, a basic (if sometimes grudging) respect for the idea that different people have different tastes: in music and movies, food and clothing, places to live and home decor and almost every other aspect of life. But not in sex. Differing tastes in sex are still seen as a moral issue, even when they affect nobody but the people having the sex.

And we don't even feel comfortable talking about sex, the way that -- in this chatty, opinionated, "couldn't shut us up with an industrial vice grip" country -- we feel comfortable talking about almost every other aspect of our lives. Even though better information about sex broadens our sexual perspective, making for both better sex lives and greater tolerance of sexual diversity, we are still reluctant to discuss our sex lives with anyone but the people we're having them with. We'll talk about deeply personal, powerful things -- jobs, family, food, music, drugs, travel, childhood, art, even politics and religion -- but not sex. Not in any detailed way. That's just... different.

Why?

I don't actually have a good answer to this question. I do think I may have a glimmer of one: Sex makes us feel irrational, and it's probably asking too much to expect us to behave rationally about it. Sex is a powerful force in our lives, a fundamental animal drive, and we tend to be irrational about those, to set up essentially random taboos around them to give us a feeling of control. People have a lot of fears about sex... and those fears can be exploited by powerful people trying to make headlines and win elections. And of course, the United States is a country founded in Puritanism, a country in which conservative religion is a powerful force... with both the irrationality and the fear of sex that comes with that territory.

But I don't really have an answer.

I just want us to pay attention to the question.

I want us notice the phenomenon. Whenever we treat sex as a side of human experience that is set apart, different from all other aspects of human experience and with special rules all its own -- or when we see other people treating it that way -- I want us to start asking: Why?

And if we don't have a good answer -- if we can't really come up with a good reason for why sex should be made an exception -- I would like us to seriously consider knocking it off.

Offended

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

Does a society have the right to protect itself from being offended?

The other day, we were watching "Dirty Pictures," a made- for- TV movie made in 2000 about the Robert Mapplethorpe censorship case in Cincinnati. For those who might be too young to remember: Robert Mapplethorpe was a gay photographer whose work included a certain amount of sexually explicit imagery, including some depictions of fairly extreme sexual practices. In 1990 there was a big kerfuffle when the director of the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, Dennis Barrie (played in the movie by James Woods), was tried on obscenity charges for displaying the Mapplethorpe photos in his museum.

The movie is good -- overwrought in places, but overall thoughtful and interesting, and good at giving the events a human face. And the format is unusual: the basic form is a docu-drama, but it's interspersed with commentary from real people, from Salman Rushdie to William F. Buckley, talking about the controversy and the issues it raised.

It's William F. Buckley I want to talk about today.

Buckley was speaking in defense of the prosecutors of the case. He said that a society has the right to decide what it's offended by... and to protect itself from that which offends it. And at one point he said -- I'm going to have to paraphrase here, since I erased the Tivo before I realized I wanted to write about it -- that a society can look at sadomasochistic imagery, and at the concentration camps in Nazi Germany, and say, "We don't want this."

And I was so offended by this statement, it took my breath away.

I don't mean mock offended. I don't mean "offended as a useful rhetorical device" offended. I was genuinely, seriously, viscerally offended. I wanted to reach into the television and smack him across his smug little rat face. I sat there, shocked, thinking, "Did he just go on national television and equate consensual sadomasochism with Nazi Germany?"

How dare he.

How fucking dare he.

It is, in my opinion, grossly outrageous to equate a sex act between consenting adults that gives them both pleasure with the deliberate genocide of millions. It's not just offensive to sadomasochists. It's offensive to people who went through the Holocaust. It dehumanizes the one, and trivializes the other. It was one of the most offensive things I'd heard all month.

And yet at no point in my outrage did I think, "There oughta be a law. He shouldn't be allowed to do that. There oughta be a law against equating sadomasochism and the Holocaust."

Why not?

I'm trying to think of a nice way to say, "Because I'm better than him." I'm failing. Because I'm better than him.

What Buckley failed to realize is that the First Amendment that protects our right to offend one another works for everybody. Him, me, everybody. What he failed to realize is that, if Cincinnati can pass a law saying that an image of a man peeing in another man's mouth is offensive and can therefore be banned, then San Francisco can pass a law saying that equating sadomasochism with the Holocaust is offensive and can therefore be banned.

I would never try to do that. I refer you once again to the "I'm better than him" principle. But there are some folks on the left who don't quite grasp the "We can't ban speech just because we don't like it" concept. (As I learned when I defended Fred Phelps' First Amendment right to express his evil, hateful, repulsive opinions... and ran into a bunch of progressives who were all too eager to find loopholes in the First Amendment just so we could nail the bastard.) If we don't protect speech that offends in Cincinnati, we can't protect speech that offends in San Francisco.

What Buckley failed to realize is something blindingly obvious, something many, many people have said before me: We don't need the First Amendment to protect the radical assertion that puppies are cute and apple pie is delicious. We don't need the First Amendment to protect popular speech. We need the First Amendment to protect unpopular speech. We need the First Amendment to protect Nazis marching in Skokie, and war protesters wearing black armbands to school in Des Moines; to protect Fred Phelps when he pickets funerals, and lefty radicals when they burn the American flag. We need the First Amendment to protect Robert Mapplethorpe in Cincinnati... and we need it to protect William F. Buckley in San Francisco.

In other words: We need the First Amendment to protect speech that offends people.

That's the whole freakin' point.

Now, many people at this point are going to argue -- Buckley himself would probably argue if he were still alive -- "Yes... but sex is different. When it comes to sexual expression, we have community standards for what's acceptable. That's what was at stake here -- a community's right to define what obscenity is for themselves. Not about politics or religion or art. Just about sex. Because sex is different."

But I have yet to see any good argument for why sex should be different.

Sex is often seen as different. Sex is often the great exception: to free speech laws, to free enterprise laws, to notions about good manners, to notions of ethics and morality.

But I have yet to see a truly compelling argument for why that should be.

And that's tomorrow's piece.

Good In Bed: The Blowfish Blog

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog -- about the phrase, and the concept, "good in bed": what it means, what it implies, what it says about how we view sex, and so on. It's called, strangely enough, Good In Bed, and here's the teaser:

What does it mean to be "good in bed"?

This phrase, "good in bed," has been stuck in my head lately. It's a phrase I've thought about a lot over the years.

And I've come to the conclusion that I don't like it.

To find out why the phrase "good in bed" gets up my nose, read the rest of the piece. (And if you have comments you want to post here, please consider also cross- posting them to the Blowfish Blog -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

The Sex Meditation Commune at 7 A.M.

Please note: This piece discusses my personal sexuality and sex life. Family members and others who don't want to read about that stuff, please don't read this.

So blog reader sav was kind enough to send me this article, which she thought -- rightly so -- I would find fascinating.

It's a piece in the New York Times, titled The Pleasure Principle, about a new age commune in San Francisco, One Taste, dedicated to female sexuality... including a form of female- centered group spiritual practice called "deliberate orgasm" or "orgasmic meditation."

I realize that this article should be fertile ground for me. I should be able to gas on for days about the unsettling connection between woo spirituality and the sex- positive movement. Or about the assumption of heterosexuality in this particular practice. Or, indeed, about the apparent inability of the New York Times to write anything at all about sex without snickering. I may yet do one or all of these things.

But at the moment, I'm finding that I just can't get past this sentence:

At 7 a.m. each day, as the rest of America is eating Cheerios or trying to face gridlock without hyperventilating, about a dozen women, naked from the waist down, lie with eyes closed in a velvet- curtained room, while clothed men huddle over them, stroking them in a ritual known as orgasmic meditation -- "OMing," for short.

Pertinent phrase: "At 7 a.m."

At 7 a.m.?

AT 7 A.M.?!?!?

Each day?

Are you fucking kidding me?

At 7 a.m., Ingrid can barely drag me out of bed to help medicate the cat. At 7 a.m., I've had maybe five or six hours of sleep. On a good night. On a less good night, I've had three or four. And even if I've been a good girl and gotten to bed at a reasonable hour instead of staying up 'til two writing porn, I am never, ever, ever interested in sex at seven in the morning. I am barely interested in life at seven in the morning. I think the only times I've ever had sex at seven in the morning have been times when I've been up all night. And while a seven a.m. bonk can be a lovely thing at the end of an all- nighter or an acid trip... well, sadly or blessedly, my days of all- nighters and acid trips are now behind me.

I won't deny that the thought of being in a room with a dozen other women, with a dozen men fondling our genitals and focusing devotedly on our arousal and orgasm, does have a certain appeal. But the thought of it happening at seven in the morning fills me with unholy dread. And the thought of it happening at seven in the morning every day makes me want to run screaming into the night. The beautiful, beautiful night. More than anything else in this article (which, admittedly, was about as trustworthy as anything else the Times writes about sex, which is to say not very much at all), this single fact has convinced me that this organization is, to put it mildly, not for me.

7 a.m.

They have got to be fucking kidding.

Sex, Moods, and a Wife's Selfless Duty: And We Are in What Century Again?

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

The fascinating thing is this.

There's this.... thing on the Internet. A pair of columns by conservative writer/ radio host Dennis Prager, exhorting wives who aren't in the mood for sex with their husbands to suck it up and do it anyway, pretty much whenever he wants. You really have to read it for yourself (if you have high blood pressure, be sure you've taken your medication first), but here's the gist:

A man know that his wife loves him by "her willingness to give her body to him." Therefore, she should only rarely refuse to have sex with him when he wants it. And her decision to accept or refuse sex should have nothing to do with whether she's in the mood for it, or whether she thinks she's going to enjoy it. A considerate husband will of course recognize that "there are times when a man must simply refrain from initiating sex out of concern for his wife's physical or emotional condition"... but apart from "those times," a wife should pretty much never say "No." And her mood should have nothing to do with that decision. Sex is an obligation that a wife owes to her husband, and for a wife to refuse it simply because she's not in the mood is just plain selfish. (Oh, and by the way: This isn't just how nature made us. It's how God wants it.)

No, really. I'm serious. It'd be laughable if it weren't so appalling. I could scarcely believe it was written in this decade. It reads like a marriage manual from the '50s... and not a very modern marriage manual from the '50s at that. It almost makes me want to call parody on it and invoke a sexual version of Poe's Law ("it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that can't be mistaken for the real thing").

But the fascinating thing is this.

If you take out all the content about gender roles?

If you take out all the sexist, retrograde, "sex is an obligation that women owe to men," "women's sexual desires are less important than men's," "close your eyes and think of England," Total Woman dreck? If you leave out the creepy, oft-repeated language about a woman "giving her body"? If you disregard the bizarre assumption that sex is always something men initiate and women either accept or reject? If you ignore the unsubstantiated at best, blatantly wrong at worst assertions about women's and men's sexualities... including the assertion that experiencing sex as a sign of love is somehow exclusive to men? If you overlook the idea that sex with a passive, compliant meat puppet will make men feel loved and satisfied? If you pass over the glaring omissions... such as the idea that men have an obligation to pay attention to women's sexual pleasure, and if women are repeatedly saying "No" to sex, maybe it's because their men are inconsiderate lovers who treat sex as something women do for them, instead of something they both do for each other?

If you can squint real hard and somehow ignore all that?

What he's saying is not radically different from stuff I've said in this very blog.

I, myself, have argued that you don't always need to be in the mood when you start sex. You just need to be willing to be in the mood. If you always wait until you're both in the mood -- especially if either or both of you are stressed, getting older, parents, a couple who's been together for a while, or just insanely busy -- you may wait a good long while, and will wind up having a lot less sex than either of you wants. But starting to have sex can get you in the mood, even if you weren't in the mood to start with. It's a good idea sometimes to let yourself be seduced, to start having sex before you're in the mood and let yourself get drawn in it as you go.

I've even argued -- very controversially -- that if a person unilaterally and permanently refuses sex to their partner without being willing to discuss or negotiate it, it is not automatically the worst moral choice for that partner to seek out sex elsewhere. An argument that was based on the idea that sex -- not sex on demand whenever and however you want it, but some amount of some kind of sex -- is one of the things we have a right to expect in a romantic relationship. (And no, I don't want to start that argument again. Please, for the sweet love of Loki, let's not start that argument again.)

And I certainly wouldn't argue with the proposition that sex is one of the main ways that people in a relationship feel loved. Like, duh.

But what on earth does any of that have to do with gender?

What on earth does it have to do with what men want, and what women should do about it?

If you spend even a cursory amount of time reading sex educators, sex therapists, sex advice columns, etc., a glaringly obvious pattern will jump out and smack you across the face. The pattern is this: A lot of couples have significant differences in how often they like to have sex... differences that can cause serious problems in their relationship.

And that pattern has little or nothing to do with gender.

Lesbian couples can have significant differences in how often they like to have sex. Gay male couples. Couples where one or both partners are trans or unconventionally gendered. People in triads and other non-coupled relationships.

And opposite sex couples can certainly have significant differences in how often they like to have sex... differences that most definitely cut across gender lines. In hetero couples with differing libidos, sometimes it's the man who wants it more often -- and sometimes, it's the woman. Pretty often, it's the woman.

It's certainly possible that, on average, men tend to want sex more often than women. (I haven't seen any good research on this one way or the other... but it wouldn't shock me.) But even if that's true, it's hardly a universal rule. Plenty of women want sex more often than their male partners. In fact, a disturbing number of these women have had the crummy experience of being insulted, mocked, and rejected by their male partners for their high libidos.

So I ask again: What's gender got to do with it? Why was this framed as a salvo in the battle of the sexes?

Let's try an experiment. Let's take the gender stuff out of this piece of advice, and see what happens.

Here's what you get when you take the gender stuff out. Sex is one of the important ways that people in a relationship feel good about themselves and know that they're loved. Sex is an important part of a romantic relationship, and people have a right to expect it. Often, however, people in relationships have differences in how often they want sex. These differences need to be worked out, since they can cause real problems in the relationship, including the problem of one or both partners not feeling accepted and loved. That working-out may involve a reasonably happy-medium compromise, in which one partner winds up having sex somewhat more often than they'd normally be inclined to, and the other winds up having it somewhat less. (It can involve other solutions as well, such as non-monogamy or redefining what you think of as sex... but let's stay on topic, just this once.) And if you always wait until you're in the mood to have sex, you may end up having sex a lot less often than either of you wants, and a lot less often than is good for your relationship. You don't always have to be in the mood; you just have to be willing to get into the mood.

See? That wasn't so hard, was it?

But when you put all that gender stuff in? When you make this about women's sexual responsibilities to men, instead of people's sexual responsibilities to their partners?

It's not just wrong. It's not even just sexist. It taps into a toxic mythology that made people miserable and ruined relationships and marriages, for decades and indeed centuries. It is a revival of a sexual system that was demeaning and depressing for both women and men: a system in which women's sexual pleasure was considered trivial at best and non-existent at worst, in which sex was a service women were expected to provide for men on demand without concern for their own desires, in which women's bodies were a commodity that men were entitled to and women were obligated to "give." It is a form of relationship between men and women that our society has largely been rejecting... and with good reason.

And that's the real tragedy of this sorry piece of writing: It didn't have to be this way. There was a germ of a good idea buried in the toxic waste: a germ of an idea about how, in sex as much as in the rest of your life, you have to look after your partner's needs as well as your own; to be willing to be flexible and accommodating; to not let your moods control how you treat each other; to take pains to make sure your partner knows they're loved.

But the toxic waste was so overpowering that it makes me seriously question whether the germ of a good idea was really what Prager cared about. It makes me seriously question whether his crucial issue was "men need to know that they're loved"... or whether, instead, it was "women need to know their place."

You Got Religion In My Porn! The Blowfish Blog

Please note: This piece, and the piece it links to, includes references to my personal sexuality: not to my sex life per se, but to my sexual fantasies and my tastes in porn. Family members and other who don't want to read about that, please don't.

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's about the influence of religion on porn: not religion being used to oppress or demonize porn in this case, but religion as inspiration for porn. I've been writing more erotic fiction lately, and a fair amount of it has religion as a major theme... something I never used to be interested in, either as a porn writer or a porn reader. So I'm trying to figure out what that's about... and am asking other porn writers/ readers if they've ever found their interests shifting in this direction.

It's titled You Got Religion In My Porn!, and here's the teaser:

Part of it, I think, is actually the atheism. Not surprisingly, I spend more time thinking about religion now that I'm an atheist blogger than I have at any time in my life (since I was a religion major, anyway). So religion is just on my mind more... and consequently, it's more in my libido.

Plus, being a critic of religion, the darker aspects of religion are particularly on my mind. And the erotic imagination/ porn- writing parts of my mind are pretty dark, and they tend to gobble up dark things like they were chocolates. Nom, nom, nom.

And of course, as Ingrid points out, anything that's forbidden or taboo almost automatically becomes erotic. As an atheist, religious thinking about sex -- imagining sex through the eyes of a fervent believer, putting myself and my libido into that mindset -- feels kind of taboo... and thus it becomes more erotically exciting than it might otherwise be.

I think there's something else, though; something other than the accident of what I happen to be thinking about these days. That's probably why I started playing with it in the first place; but it doesn't explain why I've been running with it so eagerly.

To find out what I think my new-found interest in religious porn is about -- or to chime in with your own thoughts and experiences about it -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

(Note: If you decide to comment on this piece here in this blog, please consider cross- posting your comment to the piece itself on the Blowfish Blog. They like comments there, too.)

Right of Refusal

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

So when do you have the right to absolutely refuse a certain kind of sex to your partner?

There was a letter to Dan Savage that got me thinking about this. A woman who's a rape survivor has a boyfriend who wants to act out a rape fantasy with her. A serious, hard-core version of a rape fantasy, too, in which he could spring it on her at any time, and she wouldn't get to use a safeword. Not surprisingly, she said "No" -- and instead of dropping it, he's continued to pressure her about it, accusing her of being manipulative and having no regard for his needs, and bringing it up again and again.

Dan's advice: Dump the motherfucker already.

I totally agree with Dan's advice, as far as it went. A rape survivor absolutely has the right to say "No" to acting out a rape scene that they think will traumatize them... and to drop the partner who won't take that "No" for an answer.

But I'd actually go further than that.

I'd say that anybody has the right to say "No" to any particular form of sex, for any reason whatsoever.

This isn't just about pressuring a lover to do a heavy-duty edge-play scene, a lover for whom that particular scene is an emotional minefield. Yes, that raises giant red flags for me. That definitely makes me agree that his ass should be dumped; that the letter's author is entitled not only to keep saying "No" to his request, but to kick him to the curb and never look back.

But if someone had written to Savage Love saying, "My lover is pushing me hard to give him oral sex, I've been willing and happy to try other stuff with him but I really really don't want to do this, and he's pressuring me hard about it and is refusing to drop it and is saying I'm manipulative with no regard for his needs"... my reaction would be more or less the same. Not as extreme, and shaded with several Ifs and Buts and waffly equivocations... but more or less the same. My red flags would not be waving quite as high, or as frantically. But they'd still be waving.

Now.

Here, as promised, are some of those Ifs and Buts and waffly equivocations.

If the things on your "No" list aren't actually going to cause you trauma -- if they're just things you're not that crazy about -- then I do think it would be sporting of you to give them the old college try. To say the least. When we're looking at our sexual likes and dislikes, I think it's important to sort them into what I call broccoli and tofu: the things that make us want to hurl just thinking about them, and the things that simply aren't our favorites. And if something simply isn't your favorite -- or you've never even tried it and you just think you won't like it -- then I think it's more than a little selfish to not even consider it. I don't think we have a right to expect our partners to give us anything and everything we want in bed... but I do think we have a right to expect that they care about our sexual pleasure and want to help us get it. That's sort of the point.

I also tend to agree with Dan Savage that there are certain basic sex acts -- oral sex, say, and light bondage -- that are... well, basic. Things that most people assume will be on the menu in a sexual/ romantic relationship. If you're going to say "No" to rape fantasies or diaper play, I don't think you need to say anything else... but if you're going to say a permanent, non-negotiable "No" to giving oral sex, I think you need to be aware that you're stepping outside the common expectations for a relationship, and should perhaps show some extra flexibility in other areas to make up for it.

And if you have an insanely huge laundry list of things on your "No" list, none of which you're willing to negotiate or even consider, then that's definitely a problem. If you're saying "No" to oral sex, that's one thing... but if you're saying "No" to oral sex, and manual sex, and tying each other up for sex, and dressing up for sex, and sex outside the bedroom, and so on and so on and so on.... that, in my opinion, is seriously obnoxious.

Any or all of this may make you unreasonable. It may make you inflexible. It may make you unsporting. It may make you not exactly the best lover on Loki's green earth. It may make you, in short, a jerk. It may make sex advice writers everywhere advise your partner to dump your sorry ass and move on.

But you still have a right to it.

Ultimately, you get to be the one who decides what your hard "Absolutely not" list is.

And if there's just a couple/few things on that "No" list? If you're generally good, giving, and game in bed, if you're generally interesting in pleasing your partner and open to trying things they like, but there's just a couple/few things that really just gross you out? You know you're not being rational, but they just do?

It doesn't matter what those things are. It doesn't matter if the thing you don't want to do is a hard- core no- safeword rape scene or a garden variety blowjob. You still have the right to say "No"... and to have that "No" ultimately accepted. And it doesn't make you unsporting, or unreasonable, or selfish.

Yes, we have a right to expect our partners to take our desires seriously. Yes, we have a right to assume that our partners want to give us pleasure and are willing to be flexible to make that happen. And if the sex is really not working -- whether it's because our partner is an unreasonable, selfish jerk or the two of us just aren't sexually compatible -- we have the right to end the relationship.

But we don't have the right to get the exact sex we want, from the person we want it from.

So I ask again: When do you have the right to absolutely refuse a certain kind of sex to your partner?

Always.

You always have that right.

The Erotic Fiction Anthology: A Victim of its Own Success: The Blowfish Blog

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's about the strange nostalgia I have for the days of my youth when erotic fiction anthologies were few and far between, instead of numerous and widely available like they are today. It's called The Erotic Fiction Anthology: A Victim of its Own Success, and here's the teaser:

I don't normally indulge in "It was so much better in the old days" nostalgia. I'm 47 years old, and am highly conscious of the dangers of incipient old farthood. And I've felt for years that if you refuse to see anything good in current popular culture, you might as well just start yelling at kids to get off your lawn. Anyone who thinks movies aren't as good as they used to be needs to start watching documentaries; anyone who thinks hip- hop is just artless noise needs to start watching "America's Best Dance Crew."

But when it comes to erotic fiction anthologies, I have to admit that I have more than a touch of cranky old-fart nostalgia.

And strangely, it's a nostalgia for the days when erotica was stigmatized, marginalized, and dirty.

To find out why a sex- positive writer like myself would be even a little nostalgic for the days when erotic fiction was even more stigmatized than it is now, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

"An Actual Lesbian Girlfriend," Or, Why You Should Never Listen to Dan Savage About Bisexuality: The Blowfish Blog

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's about a recent sex advice column by Dan Savage: a writer who I usually like and respect, but who gets it wildly and insultingly wrong about bisexuals (a pattern he's had for as long as I've been reading him, and one that makes me want to tear my hair out).

The piece is called "An Actual Lesbian Girlfriend," Or, Why You Should Never Listen to Dan Savage About Bisexuality, and here's the teaser:

In a recent column, Savage compiled a sampler of questions from students on his recent tour of universities. And among them was this question:

"I'm a lesbian, and my girlfriend is bisexual and wants to have a three-way with a man. This makes me nervous. What should I do?"

Savage's advice?

"Get yourself a refillable Xanax prescription, or get yourself an actual lesbian girlfriend."

WTF?!?

This advice is so irresponsible it made my jaw drop. But because the advice is so terse -- and because the snark- to- content ratio is so disproportionately high -- it's a little hard to tease out its actual content, and the actual intent behind it. Near as I can tell, though, it seems to be one of the following three things. All of which suck.

To find out what I think Savage might be trying to say here -- and why I think it sucks -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

25 Things About My Sexuality

Please note: This post includes extensive and detailed descriptions of my personal sex life. Family members and others who don't want to read about that stuff are advised to stay as far away from this one as possible.

There's this blog. Sort of an anonymous confessional/ revelation blog about sex. You write in, telling 25 things about your sexuality -- hence the name of the blog, 25 Things About My Sexuality -- and they post it confidentially. (My boss told me about it, thinking -- rightly so -- that I'd be interested. Sometimes I really like my job.)

But I didn't see any reason to do it anonymously. (Although, to be honest, my list would have looked somewhat different if I were posting it to an anonymous blog...)

So here, in no particular order, are 25 things about my sexuality. If you want to play, you can do so on the 25 Things blog... or you can do it on your own blog and post a link here if you like... or you can do it in a comment here, as long as you keep it reasonably concise. (More concise than I did, at any rate.)

FYI: If this seems more focused on my sexual history and my mental and emotional sex life rather than my current physical sex life, there's a reason for that. I respect Ingrid's privacy and don't like revealing too much about our sex life together; so I'm focusing on those parts of my sexuality that I can reveal without violating her privacy.

Craig’s List Porn: The Blowfish Blog

Please note: This post, and the post it links to, includes descriptions of my personal sex life, including my personal tastes in porn. Family members and others who don't want to read that, please don't.

Hi, all! I'm back from the wedding, and am finally almost caught up on my sleep. I'll blog about the wedding as soon as I get pictures from it; and I should have a new original post up here soon.

In the meantime: I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog! It's about an odd source of erotica that I've becoming mildly obsessed with: namely, the Craig’s List Casual Encounters ads. The piece is called Craig’s List Porn, and here's the teaser:

I'm finding this interest of mine a little puzzling. I mean, it's not like the ads, as porn, are all that high- quality. Boy, howdy, are they not. If I were reviewing them as a porn critic, I'd be merciless. They make all the mistakes that bad amateur porn makes (and bad pro porn, for that matter): they're full of cliches, they tend to be either too terse or too florid, they either over- describe the physical action or don't describe it enough. And they -- how shall I put this? -- fail to grasp what it is about the sex they're describing that might grab the attention of the reader and make her want to find out more. Not all of them -- I've seen a few that I'd give a "keep working, this has potential" to if they showed up in a porn- writing class -- but mostly.

(snip)

But when I'm looking for fantasy material, I still find myself drawn to them again and again. They're certainly not my Number One source of free online porn (right now that would be SpankingTube), but it's one I keep coming back to.

And I'm trying to figure out why.

To find out what it is about this poorly- written grab bag that makes it such compelling fantasy material, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

"Milk" and the Joy of Sex

Since the Oscars are coming up, and "Milk" has been nominated for eight of them, now seems like a good time to run this piece here. This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

I realize this may come across like the welder's review of "Flashdance." But today, this sex writer wants to talk about the depiction of sex in "Milk."

Because it was so strikingly different from the way sex gets depicted in almost every major Hollywood movie.

Not just different. Better. Way, way better.

You've no doubt heard about "Milk," the new biopic about the history- making San Francisco gay activist and city supervisor Harvey Milk, directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Sean Penn. If you haven't already seen it, you've probably heard that it's brilliant, that it's inspiring and moving and tear- jerking and funny, that Penn's performance is nothing short of astounding. All of which is true.

But today, just for a change, I want to talk about sex.

See, unlike most Hollywood movies about gay people, the sex in "Milk" is not downplayed. It gets a starring role. And unlike most Hollywood movies, period, sex is treated, not as a joke, not as a source of easy fearmongering and/or cheap titillation, not even as a source of dramatic angst and despair a la "Brokeback Mountain," but as a source of joy and liberation, a central part of a human life, worthy of value and respect.

(Warning: Spoiler alert. Spoilers are all over this review like a cheap suit.)

The story begins with Harvey (Sean Penn) meeting his soon- to- be lover, Scott Smith (James Franco). And they don't meet cute. They don't meet by fighting over the last chocolate cake at the bakery, or accidentally getting each other's dry cleaning, or being stuck together on a cross- country car trip. They meet when Harvey hits on Scott in a New York subway station and takes him home to fuck. (Well, I guess that's sort of meeting cute...)

The pick-up is a bittersweet scene in some ways. Harvey is a buttoned-down, closeted, middle-aged gay man who's turning 40 that day, and the hip, dishy Scott at first treats his advances with skepticism and disdain. But the pick-up is also a sexy and funny and joyful scene. And the pick-up turns into a real relationship, with the couple moving across the country to San Francisco together and soon launching Harvey's political career.

Lesson: Sex can spark love, and sex can change lives.

What's more, the reality of casual sex in the gay male community of the 1970s is handled with a rare and delightful combination: an attitude of laughing appreciation, and an attitude of "No big deal." It's not shoved behind the curtains like a dirty secret; it's not luridly flaunted for the audience to simultaneously leer and condemn. It's folded into the story as smoothly and as naturally as spices being folded into batter.

Important political alliances are started with guys flirting and trying to pick each other up. A meeting with a major gay publisher is accented with Harvey's lover swimming naked in the man's pool. Two men celebrate a major political victory by blowing each other in a broom closet. And the topic of bars and bathhouses and the anonymous sex that happens therein is woven into the dialog as casually and unapologetically as the topic of jazz in "Some Like it Hot," or the topic of spaceships in "Star Wars." It is acknowledged as a potential political liability, to be sure... but it's never treated as something to be ashamed of.

Lesson: This is a community, and a movement, that is built largely around sex and sexual liberation. And hooray for that.

As for the sex itself... well, there's not a huge amount of it. But when it's there, there's no turning away from it. It's not explicit, there's no full-frontal or anything. But it's lusty, and it's physical, and there's no mistaking it for anything else.

Lesson: Sex is sex. It's real, it's a part of life, and it's pointless to ignore it or pretend that it's anything other than what it is.

Finally, the contrast between the loving, joyful, full- of- laughter life of Harvey Milk and the tight, drab, out- of- touch life of his fellow supervisor and eventual assassin Dan White (Josh Brolin) is made vividly clear. And it's presented largely as a contrast between sexual repression and sexual liberation.

White's resentment of Milk is complicated, of course. His political resentment of Milk's freethinking politics and rapidly rising fortunes, his personal resentment of Milk's popularity and perceived betrayal, are all probably more crucial than the sexual issues. But a key factor in his hostility and creepy fixation with Milk -- as depicted in this movie, anyway -- is sex. His bafflement and revulsion with the sexual libertinism of 1970s San Francisco, his envy of same, possibly even his own repressed homosexual desires... all of these converge into a toxic mess that focuses onto Milk and culminates in murder and eventual suicide.

Lesson: Sexual repression destroys. Literally.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I think I'm just trying to say: You have to see "Milk." Not just because it's brilliant and insightful and beautifully- made. If you're at all interested in sexuality -- in the history of sexual liberation, or the influence of sex on political and social history, or the depictions of sex in popular culture -- you have to see "Milk."

Trust me on this one.

What Women Want, and the Myth of the Psychic Lesbians

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It ties together the notion that lesbians naturally know how to please another woman sexually better than straight men, with the age-old question, "What do women want?" It's called What Women Want, and the Myth of the Psychic Lesbians, and here's the teaser:

I want to talk about the myth of lesbian sexual infallibility.

And I want to talk about the fundamental flaw inherent in the very question, “What do women want?”

The Times article got me thinking about this very pervasive myth about sexuality, one that I held myself for many years. (I hate those, don’t you? I always get more cranky about misconceptions that I once believed.)

The myth is this:

Lesbian sex is better than straight sex . . . because who knows better how to make love to a woman than another woman? Who knows a woman’s body better than another woman? Who knows what sex and arousal and orgasm feel like to a woman, better than another woman?

Okay. So. Can anybody tell me the flaw in this myth? You, there. Making out at the back of the class. What’s the flaw?

That’s right. Gold star for you. The flaw in this myth is:

To find out the flaw in this myth, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Blinded With Science: Sex, Sexology, and What Women Really Want: The Blowfish Blog

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's about recent scientific research into female sexual desire, research showing (among other things) that women's physical reactions to sexual images don't tend to line up with our mental reactions (you know, the New York Times article everyone's talking about)... and the dangers of jumping to conclusions about the "real" reasons for any particular sexual behavior.

It's called Blinded With Science: Sex, Sexology, and What Women Really Want, and here's the teaser:

It's easy to come up with possible explanations for behavior. Especially when it comes to sex. It's almost like a Rorschach test: in the absence of a truly excellent set of supporting data, the theories people come up with to explain sex tells you more about the theorizers than they do about the theories.

To read more, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Oh, and a small favor: If you comment on this piece here, could you also cross-post your comment on the piece itself on the Blowfish Blog? They like comments there, too. Thanks!

Faint Praise: "Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships"

This review was originally written for Alt.com

Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships
by Tristan Taormino
Cleis Press. ISBN 978-1-57344-295-4. $16.95.

I've been waiting a long time for this book.

For many years, the bible of open relationships, the comprehensive "non- monogamy 101" text that got recommended to everyone, was "The Ethical Slut." But I had real problems with "Ethical Slut." I thought it was more or less fine, but I definitely found it too focused on taking care of yourself, and not focused enough on caring for your partners. (Especially for a book with "Ethical" in the title.) And while I did recommend it to people, I always hedged my bets when I did.

So I was very excited indeed when I saw Tristan Taormino's new book, "Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships." And even before I cracked it open, I was ready, perfumed pen in hand, to praise it to the skies.

Now that I've actually read it, here's what I have to say:

It's fine.

If that sounds like damning with faint praise -- you're right. It is. And I'll explain that in a moment.

But I do have genuine praise for this book, and I want to make that clear up front. "Opening Up" is a solid, insanely thorough guide to non- monogamous and polyamorous relationships. It covers a wide variety of different kinds of open relationships, with extensive discussions of the possible options and arrangements, pitfalls and solutions, that come with each. It provides a solid foundation for newcomers to these kinds of relationships, and offers interesting new options to folks who are already doing it. And it doesn't have the big failing I found in "The Ethical Slut." The need to be considerate of other people while still taking care of yourself permeates this book. And I greatly appreciated that.

I have a few quibbles with a few of the author's ideas and choices. (I was, for instance, annoyed that she illustrated the "changing from being primary to non-primary partner" situation with such a utopian example.) But none were deal- breakers, and I don't feel a compelling need to detail them here. If you want to find out how open relationships work, get some guidance on figuring out whether they might be for you, and learn some road-tested ways to manage them, then this is a fine book. The information is good, it's solid, it's useful, and it's thorough.

I know, I know. Damning with faint praise. So I'll just get to it: my big critique of the book, the thing that's keeping me from lavishing it with unqualified praise.

It's not very well written.

And I found that to be a serious problem -- not just for readability, but for actual content.

The main problem with "Opening Up" is that it's way, way too abstract. There are pages and pages of unbroken therapy- speak about communication and boundaries and owning your own feelings. After a while, it got to be like a not- very- funny satire of a very bad therapist. And there's far too little in the way of specific examples, details of particular arrangements and options and possible solutions to problems.

Example. On the problem of envy:

"When you are content with who you are and feel secure and satisfied in your relationship, it greatly lessens your envy of others. Work on yourself and your relationships rather than being preoccupied by others around you. Value yourself and be grateful for what you have. If you see something in someone else or in their relationship that you really want, take steps to get it by changing something about yourself or your relationship. Otherwise, it's best to work on your own self-worth and insecurities to lessen or eliminate the envy." (p. 157)

This isn't enormously useful. It makes it hard to get a handle on how -- exactly, specifically -- you might make an arrangement that deals with your envy and makes your open relationship work for you. Plus it makes for a rather tedious read. Especially when it goes on for pages.

And it can feel rather dismissive. When a relationship guide advises people to deal with painful, difficult feelings by basically saying "try to stop feeling that way"... it's not the most helpful advice on Loki's green earth. If we could just change how we felt about things, we wouldn't need guidebooks on relationships.

This isn't universally true everywhere in the book. There are practical pointers and concrete ideas sprinkled throughout, and they're solid and helpful. But there aren't nearly enough.

I was stewing about this to my wife, and she kept asking, "Aren't there any interviews or quotes from real non-monogamous people, to bring it back down to earth?" Yes, there are. Taormino talked to over 100 people for this book, and interviews and quotes abound. But more often than not, they don't bring it back down to earth. The interviews and quotes are all too often in the same vague, abstract, therapy-speak vein as the rest of the book. Again, this isn't universally true -- there are some good stories with entertaining and informative details. But again, there aren't nearly enough.

Plus...

I don't know how to say this in a way that isn't catty. So I'm just going to say it: The writing is flat. It doesn't have elegant, formal grace; or fervent, fiery passion; or a friendly, chatty, invitingly casual tone. And it has almost no humor at all. The style is -- well, style-less. The book talks at length about the joy and liberation and abundant love available in open relationships... but it doesn't convey it. The enthusiasm is something less than infectious.

All of which adds up to a bad equation: a book that somehow manages to be both idealistic and uninspiring. It's kind of a neat trick, actually. "Opening Up" makes open relationships seem like a theory, an unattainably utopian castle in the air... AND like a tedious, drudge-like chore, a life of endless, mind-numbing processing punctuated with occasional sex. Both at the same time.

And that ain't right.

Let me put it this way. When I was in the middle of reading "Opening Up," I picked up a copy of "The Canon," Natalie Angier's book explaining the most important basic principles of the scientific canon to the non-scientist layperson. And once I picked it up, I never wanted to put it down. I wanted to be reading it every waking moment. And I found myself getting increasingly resentful of the fact that I had to set it aside and get back to "Opening Up" because I was on deadline for this review.

Now. Admittedly, "The Canon" is an exceptional book, highly acclaimed far and wide. And admittedly, I am a giant nerd. But still. I should not be more excited to read about covalent bonds and plate tectonics than about the ins and outs of multiple relationships. I should not be putting down the science book with dreamy, poignant longing... and picking up the book on boinking lots of different people with a sigh of dutiful obligation. That is just wrong.

Do get the book. Really. It's fine. It has good, solid, useful, thorough information, and if you want some guidance about navigating open relationships, I'm sure it will be quite helpful. I just wish I could be more excited about it.


(Conflict of interest alert: I work for a company, Last Gasp, that sells this book.)

Sex, Relationships, and the Hazards of Default Decisions

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

I once had a therapist -- a sort of lousy therapist -- who I was seeing when I was starting to question my long-established singledom and consider looking for a relationship again. I told her about a huge revelation I'd had: the revelation that many of the things about coupledom I was resisting weren't problems with coupledom per se, but problems I had with living together.

It was a huge, liberating flash of insight for me. I'd been automatically linking "romantic love" with "cohabiting," and I didn't have to... and I could therefore pursue the one even though I was highly dubious about the other. Neat.

And the first words out of my therapist's mouth?

"Or you could change your mind about that!"

Talk about a buzz-kill. The idea that you could have a serious love relationship without sharing an address? The idea that romance and sex didn't have to follow an invisible checklist of progress? The idea that a romantic relationship could be a series of separate choices instead of a giant package deal? She wasn't interested in discussing that.

I want to talk about how people make decisions about sex and relationships. Specifically, I want to talk about the unsettling frequency with which major decisions about sex and relationships get made by default.

Decisions that get made because that's what's next. Because that's what everyone else is doing. Because that's just what's done. (Or not done.)

The timetable is the most obvious example. There seems to be this rough timetable that Americans base their sex and love lives on: a timetable that rarely gets spelled out but that everyone seems to know about. It varies somewhat between different regions and communities (sex tends to happen faster in progressive urban areas, marriage is more likely to precede sex in conservative rural towns). But even between those regions there's a remarkable similarity... and within the regions, there's a expectation of homogeneity that's rather startling.

When you first have sex. When you make the decision about whether the relationship is serious. When you move in together. When you merge your finances. When you get married. When you have kids. Think about it. How much variety is there in your circle about when these things happen? And when people do step outside the standard timetable, how do other people react to it?

In my experience, there's surprisingly little variety in the timetable. And when people step outside of it, they're often met with surprise and bafflement at best, disapproval at worst. If you move faster than the timetable (having sex on the first date, say), you're "rushing things"; if you move slower than the timetable, you're "dragging your feet."

Here's an example from my own life. Ingrid and I didn't move in together until seven years into our relationship. In fact, the first time we got married (in the San Francisco City Hall same-sex weddings of 2004, the ones that got annulled), we weren't living together. And while nobody burned us at the stake for it, we were definitely met with a fair amount of puzzlement. We didn't get disapproval, exactly, but we got a certain amount of disapproval's more polite half-brother -- concern. And we got a lot of disapproval's slightly slow-witted cousin -- confusion. The amount of explaining we had to do about why we weren't living together and why we had no immediate plans to live together... it makes me tired just remembering it.

But for us, moving in together was too big a decision to make just so we could cross it off the checklist. For us, moving in together was something to do because, well, we wanted to do it and felt it was right for us... not because That's What Comes Next.

Especially since, for the first several years of our relationship, the question of moving in together wasn't a "When?" but a "Whether?"

See, default decisions about sex and relationships don't just get made based on the timetable. Default decisions aren't just made about "When?" They get made about "Whether?" as well.

Not just when to move in together -- but whether to move in together. Not just when to get married -- but whether to get married. Not just when to have kids -- but whether to have kids. It's astonishing to me how many people just assume that this is the path a relationship has to take, and if they want love and sex in their lives they better get cracking.

And there's more. What kind of sex to have. How often to have sex. Whether to have a joint checking account. (We recently had friends act as though we were space aliens because we still have our own checking accounts. Yes, we have a joint account, for bills and other joint expenses... but we each have our own money as well. And that works really well for us.) Whether to travel together, or sleep together. (Couples who take separate vacations or sleep in separate beds apparently get as much bafflement/ concern/ flak as couples who don't move in together.)

Whether to be monogamous. That's a huge one. The assumption that of course a long-term couple is going to be monogamous is a deep and pervasive one. Most people don't even discuss it.

Even whether to get into a serious relationship at all. I was single for twelve years before Ingrid and I fell in love. And for about ten of those twelve years, my singlehood was a conscious, positive choice. And if you think you'll be met with disapproval and baffled concern if you don't move in with your sweetie, imagine the disapproval and baffled concern you get when you tell people you're not interested in having a sweetie, period.

But here's the thing.

These decisions? They're too big -- and too personal -- to be making by default.

If we know anything at all about human sex and human sexual relationships, it's that the only constant is variety. Human beings have an almost infinite variety of sexual and emotional experiences: an eye-popping smorgasbord of feelings and desires, prejudices and preferences, turn-offs and needs. And we should be tailoring our decisions about sex to fit our individual experiences. We should not be forcing our sexual and romantic decisions into a one- size- fits- all garment... one which, like most one- size- fits- all garments, really fits only a handful of people.

Sex and relationships should be like a walk in the woods, where you pick the trails that suit your interest and stamina. They should be like a trip to the market, where you buy the vegetables that you need for your recipe. They should not be like an express train -- where the track is laid out ahead of time, and everyone has to get off at the same stops.


P.S. Just for the record: I do understand that, in some specific sets of circumstances, there is a genuine timetable, not a made-up social one. I understand that people who want kids -- especially women who want kids -- can't wait indefinitely. My point is that this in itself should be a set of decisions that's made consciously ("I very much want kids, I'd rather not be a single parent, therefore I need to keep an eye on my biological clock when I'm considering my romantic life"), instead of being made by default ("Kids should happen by the time I'm 35, so I should be married no later than 30, so now that I'm 27 I should stop dating people who aren't serious about marriage").

Atheism, Stripping, and More: Greta on "Feast of Fools" Radio

I'm on the radio!

Okay, Internet radio. But hey, this is the 21st century, and Internet radio is the new black.

The "Feast of Fools" podcast is a daily talk show hosted by Fausto Fernos and Marc Felion featuring celebrity guests, artists, musicians, actors and members of the GLBT community; a roundtable discussion of unusual news, social trends and features cocktail recipes and interviews. They recently interviewed me, in a funny, lively conversation that goes all over the map: from atheist philosophy, to religion in the LGBT community, to how to hire a sex worker.

Which I guess means I'm a "celebrity" now. News to me, but I'm not complaining. When do I get to be a judge on Project Runway?

Anyway. The podcast is titled Living Without Religion, and it's past of Feast of Fools' Gay Fun Show series. Come listen to me gab!

Sex -- The Great Exception: The Blowfish Blog

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It asks a question I've been asking myself for a long time: Why is sex always the exception?

Why is sex the exception to laws about free speech? Why is it okay for a Supreme Court Justice to say he can't define obscenity but he knows it when he sees it... when he wouldn't in a million years say that he can't define treason, or separation of church and state, but he knows it when he sees it? Why does our culture have a basic (if grudging) respect for differing tastes in music and movies and home decor... but little to no respect for differing tastes in sex?

It's called Sex -- The Great Exception, and here's the teaser:

Why is sex an exception?

The principle of free speech is interpreted pretty darned broadly in the U.S. But there are exceptions. There are exceptions for false advertising. For violating copyright. For slander and libel. For revealing state secrets. And for talking about sex.

In other words: Sex is seen as being in a category with fraud, theft, character defamation, and treason.

Why?

What — if you’ll excuse my language — the fuck?

The whole idea of “community standards” for obscenity is another perfect example of this principle. Think about it. We don’t allow communities to set standards for any other area of expression. We don’t allow communities to set standards for expression of political opinions or religious beliefs; for musical genres or styles of poetry. But the idea that a community should be able to set its own standards for sexual expression: this, for some reason, is seen as totally normal and entirely reasonable.

To find out more, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Offended: The Blowfish Blog

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's about a piece of sexual expression that deeply offended me... and what I intend to do about it.

It's called Offended, and here's the teaser:

He (William F. Buckley) said that a society has the right to decide what it's offended by... and to protect itself from that which offends it. And at one point he said -- I’m going to have to paraphrase here, since I erased the Tivo before I realized I wanted to write about it -- that a society can look at sadomasochistic imagery, and at the concentration camps in Nazi Germany, and say, "We don’t want this."

And I was so offended by this statement, it took my breath away.

I don't mean mock offended. I don’t mean "offended as a useful rhetorical device" offended. I was genuinely, seriously, viscerally offended. I wanted to reach into the television and smack him across his smug little rat face. I sat there, shocked, thinking, "Did he just go on national television and equate consensual sadomasochism with Nazi Germany?"

How dare he.

How fucking dare he.

It is, in my opinion, grossly outrageous to equate a sex act between consenting adults that gives them both pleasure with the deliberate genocide of millions. It's not just offensive to sadomasochists. It's offensive to people who went through the Holocaust. It dehumanizes the one, and trivializes the other. It was one of the most offensive things I’d heard all month.

And yet at no point in my outrage did I think, "There oughta be a law. He shouldn't be allowed to do that. There oughta be a law against equating sadomasochism and the Holocaust."

Why not?

To find out more, read the rest of the the piece. Enjoy!

First Time's a Charm

The piece I was originally going to post today went by the wayside (long story), so instead I'm putting up something from the archives.

This is a piece about bad sex. Specifically, it's about the first time -- well, more or less the first time -- that I had sex with another woman. What with it being a story about bad sex, I feel compelled to say two things: (1) I'm very glad I stuck with the "having sex with women" project despite a laughably bad first experience (an important lesson to remember when you're sexually experimenting), and (2) Yes, I've learned a lot since I was 24.

Please note: This piece discusses my personal sex life -- in particular, my sexual history -- in quite a bit of detail. Family members and others who don't want to read that stuff, please don't. This piece was originally published in 1997 on Fishnet.

First Time's a Charm

Okay. I was 24, which explains a lot. I had just broken up with my husband, I had just gotten into therapy, and the only time I'd ever had sex with another women had been at an orgy with my boyfriend when I was in college, which explains even more. So I answered this woman's personal ad; I don't remember now what it said, except that the headline was "Creamy Petite Asian" and the ad said she was looking for sex, not a relationship, which suited me just fine.

So we meet at the Mediterraneum, this quasi-beatnik cafe in Berkeley, and right away it's awkward city. We have pretty much nothing to say to each other -- she doesn't read much, I don't watch much TV -- and while she's reasonably attractive, she's not exactly setting off the old sprinkler system, if you know what I mean. Plus, this is maybe my second time answering a personal ad in my life. Plus, I'm acutely and grotesquely self-conscious, hyperaware of the fact that "I'm dating a woman, I'm dating a woman, I'm dating a woman," and way- hyperaware of my near- complete inexperience with said gender. Plus, this is a really shitty and difficult time in my life; I'm basically an aimless, passive, wounded bundle of neuroses, and I get awkward and tongue-tied at the drop of a hat. Plus, I want desperately to seem cool, and as we all know, wanting desperately to seem cool is pretty much an ironclad guarantee that you won't.

So there we are, drinking our coffees at the Mediterraneum, trying to find things to say to each other, with long awkward pauses in between blurts of failed communication, and lines of conversation whizzing past one another like cars on an overpass over the highway. At one point she says something about how she hasn't done this very much before, and I blurt out in a flood of relief, "I'm so glad you said that, I've hardly ever had sex with women before either," and she gives me this withering look and says, "I didn't mean that I'd never had sex with women. I've been doing that for years. I meant dating women in public." Great. Score one for Greta in the "seeming cool" portion of the competition.

Failing to find a hole in the floor of the cafe into which I can crawl and die, I sputter inanely for a bit instead and grasp for some other topic of conversation. We chat awkwardly for a bit longer, I'm trying to think of a graceful way to get the hell out of there, when she says casually:

"So, do you want to come home with me?"

HUH?

This catches me completely off guard -- or would have if I had been even remotely composed and on-guard at the time. It's definitely unexpected; with the possible exception of, "I am Anna Karenina, true ruler of the glorious Russian Empire, and there are bats in my underwear," it is pretty much the last thing I expected to hear her say.

The thing is, an honest answer would have been, "No, actually, I don't. You're not really my type, and I feel totally ill-at-ease and like a complete moronic geek- dork with this whole situation in general and with you in particular, and if you don't mind, I think I'd like to go home, bang my head against a wall for a few minutes, and then go make a big joke out of it with my housemates." On the other hand, I'm 24 and a dyke virgin (well, almost), and if I don't take her up on her offer I will never, ever, ever have another chance to have sex with another woman as long as I live. Besides, I want to seem cool -- remember? -- and saying "No" to a reasonably attractive woman you just met who wants to take you home and fuck you is definitely Not Cool. Besides, at this point in my life, I'm really bad at saying "No."

So I say, "Um... yeah. Sure. Okay."

"Great," she says. "My motorcycle's out front."

Well, at least I get a motorcycle ride out of it. Truth is, I'm actually pretty excited -- terrified of doing the wrong thing, and utterly clueless as to what the right thing might be, but excited nonetheless. It's not really a sexual excitement per se -- it's more of a getting- on- a- bus- that- you- have- no- idea- where- it's- going excitement -- but it'll certainly do for the moment. We get on her bike and head to her place in Oakland; she puts my hands down at the bottom of her belly, and I assume (wrongly, as it later turned out) that she wants me to feel her up, and I think that would be a pretty cool 'n sexy thing to do, so I try to get my hands into her pants. She's wearing skintight jeans, though, and I succeed only in working my right hand into her waistband, where it presses firmly against her bladder for the duration of the trip.

So we get to her house, and the first thing she does is flip on the radio. Lite rock, less talk. Or maybe The Quiet Storm; I forget. Right away, whatever shreds of a mood I have are blown into hamburger. There is no way in hell I can get in the mood with Christopher Cross on the radio. I drop my purse and my jacket on the floor, and stand there paralyzed in the middle of her bedroom, wondering what the hell I'm supposed to do next.

I honestly have no memory of how we got our clothes off and got into bed. I assume she managed it somehow. There's no way I could have made it happen; I was far too busy doing my imitation of a deer on the highway to have done anything so aggressive and forthright as taking my clothes off. And sadly, or perhaps mercifully, I have very little clear memory of what we actually did once we got there. I didn't have the faintest idea what I was doing, and she was offering no clues. "Asking clearly for what you want" was obviously not in this woman's vocabulary (to be fair, it obviously wasn't in mine, either). She was more of the trial-and-error, "grab something and play with it and see what happens and hope for the best" school of thought. And I sure as hell wasn't about to ask her. I wanted to seem cool -- remember? -- and saying "I feel kind of awkward and don't know what you want, why don't you tell me" seemed like the absolute pinnacle of uncool.

And telling her what I wanted was definitely out of the question. Mostly what I wanted was for her to turn the damn radio off. My memory of that evening consists mainly of awkward, start-and-stop fumblings and an acute consciousness of my own incompetence, punctuated every now and then by the awareness that yes, indeed, that really was Hall and Oates on the radio.

The one vivid memory I have of the actual sexual encounter was of me going down on her. She was very close to coming, and she started pushing back hard on my forehead, a move that I interpreted to mean, "Stop, please." So I stopped. I even patted myself on the back a little for having read her body language so well. Wrongo. Boy, howdy, was that ever the wrong thing to do. She sort of wound down, and a few minutes later she said in this kind of snide, frustrated voice, "Do you always do that?"

"Do what?" I asked.

"Stop right before someone's about to come."

"Uhhhhhh..." I retorted.

We didn't say much after that. She gave me a ride home in her truck; she kept her eyes firmly on the road, and I stared out the window and brooded. Christopher Cross came on the radio again, and she sang along as we pulled up into my driveway. "Ride, ride like the wind..." We parted with some conspicuously insincere noises about giving each other a call sometime; she vroomed away in her truck, and I hastily trotted up the stairs and into the living room where my housemates were playing gin rummy.

"So how'd your date go?" one of them asked.

I plopped down on the sofa, buried my head in my hands, and burst into giggles.

Sex, and the Difference between Jaded and Relaxed

Please note: This piece discusses my personal sex life: not at length or in great detail, but a little. Family members and others who don't want to read about that stuff, use your judgment on this one. This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

Does familiarity with sex breed contempt?

Some years ago, I worked for a seven- year stretch for a mail-order sex products catalog. (The one I blog for now, in fact.) It's a small company, and was even smaller when I was starting out there: the sort of company where everyone did a little bit of every job that needed doing.

So in the years that I worked there, I packed orders, received shipments, argued with vendors, stocked shelves, talked with customers about their orders, did product reviews, and wrote product descriptions... of porn, sex ed materials, lube, and sex toys. I sat at a desk within a few feet of the stock shelves... fully stocked with porn, sex ed materials, lube, and sex toys. For eight hours a day, five days a week, my day- to- day working life was spent surrounded by -- indeed immersed in -- porn, sex ed materials, lube, and sex toys.

Almost everyone I knew was aware of my work. Most of them approved. But even among the ones who approved, a surprisingly large number asked me the same question:

"Don't you get jaded working here?"

I remember, in particular, the time my brother asked me that. He was in town for a visit, and came by to see where I worked -- right at the moment that I was unpacking a big box of dildos and buttplugs and receiving them into inventory. He wasn't shocked, exactly, but he was definitely a bit startled. Partly by the big box of several dozen dildos and buttplugs... but more, I think, by the casual, matter- of- fact manner in which I was taking them out of the box and checking them off the invoice. And he asked me the question:

"Don't you get jaded working here?"

It's a question I got asked a lot when I worked at Blowfish. It's a question I still get asked as a sex writer. And my answer is this:

No.

In the years that I've worked and written about sex products and sexual issues, I have not become jaded about sex.

I have become relaxed about sex.

And jaded and relaxed are not the same thing.

Being jaded means you've lost your capacity to be excited and moved by something. It means that you've been made dull, apathetic, or cynical by experience or by surfeit (to quote Merriam Webster). It means you've seen so much of something that you just don't care about it anymore.

Being relaxed, on the other hand, simply means being at ease. It means being comfortable. It doesn't mean that you've seen so much of something that you don't care about it anymore. It means that you've seen so much of something that you think of it as normal.

I'm fascinated by the assumption that exposure to sex will make people bored with it. After all, sex is one of our deepest, most fundamental animal drives. Our interest in it is not going anywhere. I mean, we're exposed to food every day, several times a day, and we're not showing any signs of becoming jaded or bored with it. Why do we think being exposed to sex all day would make us jaded or bored with that?

Here's what I think.

In American society, our interest in sex is often very tied up with anxiety, and forbidden-ness, and secrecy. True, we have a popular culture that's saturated in sexual imagery. But it's sexual imagery that heightens our anxiety about sex instead of diminishing it. It's sexual imagery that's all about how sex is for the young and beautiful and fashionable, and none of the rest of us are good enough. And our popular culture also has the fucked-up paradox of being saturated in sexual imagery -- while, at the same time, being pathetically lacking in sexual information. We have exposure... but I don't think we really have what I would call familiarity.

So our interest in sex is often very tied up with anxiety, and forbidden-ness, and secrecy. Sex is seen as forbidden and bad; so exploring sex gets all tangled up with the thrill of crossing lines and exploring forbidden territory. Sex is seen as something that should be kept secret; so our fascination with sex gets all tangled up with our fascination with secrets and mysteries of all kinds. Sex is seen as something to be anxious and frightened about; so the excitement of sex gets all tangled up with the fear of it.

And I think a lot of people are afraid that if all these tangled threads get de-tangled, our passion for sex will vanish.

I think that for a lot of people, these tangled threads run so deep that they themselves are confused about which part is the mystery, and the frisson of fear, and the thrill of the forbidden... and which part is the pure, raw, animal libido, hard-wired into us through millions of years of evolution, via billions of ancestors who successfully reproduced because they were horny.

So I want to reassure these people:

Sex isn't going anywhere.

First of all: I've been working and writing about sex for almost 20 years now. And my libido still has plenty of tangles with secrecy and shame, fear and the forbidden. (Anyone who's read my more fucked-up porn will attest to that.) Those threads are woven in deep, and they're not going away. I've just spun them into rebellion and kink, like straw spun into ornery, perverted gold.

But more to the point: As I've become more familiar with sex, more immersed in it, more informed about it, more accepting of my own desires, more understanding of other people's... my libido has not diminished. If anything, it's done the opposite. And that's true for pretty much everyone I know who works with, or writes about, or is otherwise immersed in, sex and sexual culture.

Being relaxed about sex is like being relaxed about playing the piano, or meditating, or playing golf. It doesn't detract from the experience. It enhances it. It helps you focus, keeps you in touch with your body, makes you less prone to distraction, makes it easier to stay in the moment.

Being relaxed about sex doesn't make sex boring. It makes it that much easier to fully experience just what it is that's exciting about it.

Sex, Moods, and a Wife’s Selfless Duty: And We Are in What Century Again?: The Blowfish Blog

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's a... well, heck, let's call a spade a spade. It's the ripping of a new asshole of conservative writer/ radio host Dennis Prager, who recently wrote a pair of columns exhorting wives who aren't in the mood for sex to show their husbands their wifely love by sucking it up and doing it anyway, pretty much whenever hubby wants.

And it's a discussion of how simple the difference can be between a sane, reasonable piece of sex advice for couples with sexual differences... and a grotesque regurgitation of a retrograde sexual system that made sex and love a misery for centuries, for both women and men.

You don't want to miss this one, people.

It's titled Sex, Moods, and a Wife’s Selfless Duty: And We Are in What Century Again?, and here's the teaser:

But the fascinating thing is this.

If you take out all the content about gender roles?

If you take out all the sexist, retrograde, "sex is an obligation that women owe to men," "women's sexual desires are less important than men's," "close your eyes and think of England," Total Woman dreck? If you leave out the creepy, oft-repeated language about a woman "giving her body"? If you disregard the bizarre assumption that sex is always something men initiate and women either accept or reject? If you ignore the unsubstantiated at best, blatantly wrong at worst assertions about women's and men's sexualities... including the assertion that experiencing sex as a sign of love is somehow exclusive to men? If you overlook the idea that sex with a passive, compliant meat puppet will make men feel loved and satisfied? If you pass over the glaring omissions... such as the idea that men have an obligation to pay attention to women's sexual pleasure, and if women are repeatedly saying "No" to sex, maybe it's because their men are inconsiderate lovers who treat sex as something women do for them, instead of something they both do for each other?

If you can squint real hard and somehow ignore all that?

What he's saying is not radically different from stuff I've said in this very blog.

To find out what this almost hilariously archaic piece of sexist dreck could possibly have in common with my own sage pieces of sex advice -- and what the differences show about Prager's real motivations -- read the rest of the piece. Have fun!

Come See Greta Read! SF 1/16 and 1/29, Oakland 1/22, Marin 2/6

Hi, all! It's going to be a crazy month of literary porn readings for me. I have four different readings scheduled in the Bay Area for the next few weeks -- in San Francisco, Oakland, and Marin County. Three out of four of these readings are for Susie Bright's stunning new erotica anthology, X: The Erotic Treasury... and the fourth is the always astonishing, always inspiring Perverts Put Out!. So if you're going to be in the Bay Area on any of these dates, come by and listen to me read my porn! And say howdy -- I like to meet my readers whenever I can.

Here's the schedule.

Friday, Jan. 16, 7:30 pm
Counterpulse, 1310 Mission St., San Francisco
Perverts Put Out!
Perverts Put Out!, San Francisco's long-running pansexual performance series and its premier salon of dirty talk, has featured stellar line-ups of truly twisted, mega-talented artistes...and even an occasional naked mayoral candidate. Join us for the Bye-bye Bush edition, as we throw one last shoe at W. There will be the usual excellent array of delightfully pervy performers, including Charlie Anders, Greta Christina, Stephen Elliot, Shar Rednour, Kirk Reed, Thomas Roche, and horehound stillpoint, all emceed by your devoted servants Carol Queen and Simon Sheppard. A splendid (if somewhat disreputable) time is guaranteed for all.

Thursday, Jan. 22, 7 pm
X: The Erotic Treasury reading
Diesel, A Bookstore, 5433 College Ave., Oakland
The reigning mistress of erotica, Susie Bright, has expertly chosen 40 of the hottest stories ever written: breathtaking new stories as well as the most sought-after stories from the Best American Erotica series, which are sure to amuse, arouse, and twist your sheets. Elegantly designed in a "gotta-touch-it" die-cut slipcase with a stunning and sensual cloth-covered book, the package cultivates the quality and taboo satisfaction of the stories about all kinds of lovers: heartbreakers, foxes, maniacs, romanticists, hell-raisers, and utter bandits. This reading will feature Greta Christina, Donna George Storey, Pam Ward, and Susie Bright, with discussion time afterwards.

Thursday, Jan. 29, 7:30 pm
X: The Erotic Treasury reading
Books. Inc., 2275 Market St., San Francisco
See above about the book. This reading will feature Rachel Kramer Bussell, Greta Christina, Donna George Storey, Susie Hara, and Susie Bright, with discussion time afterwards.
Important note: This event is now at the Books Inc. on Market St. in the Castro, not at the one in the Opera Plaza. If you thought it was at the Opera Plaza... you thought wrong, pal.

Friday, Feb. 6, 7pm
X: The Erotic Treasury reading
Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera
See above about the book. This reading will feature Greta Christina, Bill Noble, and Susie Bright, with discussion time afterwards.

So if you're in the Bay Area, or you're going to be visiting in late January or early February, come listen to me read, and say hi. Or if you're shy, just come listen to me read, and then slink off into the night. In either case, hope to see you there!

On Writing Porn in Public

Please note: This piece discusses my personal sex life, in a fair amount of detail. Family members and others who don't want to read about that stuff, please don't read this one. This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

I'm not usually a fan of exhibitionism. Not the secret kind, anyway. I worked as a stripper years ago and enjoyed the work -- erotically as well as professionally -- and I'm perfectly happy to strip for a lover, pose and perform for them, etc. But the sort of sneaky, secretive, "fingering under the restaurant tablecloth/ fucking on the picnic table that you hope nobody can see" sort of exhibitionism has never done it for me. I'm not comfortable with the consent issues raised by involving people in my sex life who didn't agree to be involved. And besides, the fear of being caught doesn't make me excited. It makes me anxious, distracted, unable to concentrate on the business at hand. It's one of those kinks that I more or less understand intellectually, while being totally baffled by it emotionally.

But I've been discovering an exception.

That exception is writing porn in public.

Like countless other writers with laptops -- and like countless writers with typewriters and pens before us -- I've discovered the joy of writing in cafes. It's a great way to avoid both the claustrophobia and the easy distraction of working at home all day.

And I've discovered that there's something uniquely hot about sitting down at a cafe, opening up my laptop, and setting to work on a dirty story. Something that makes me finally get what it is that turns people on about secret exhibitionistic sex.

Part of it is that, without actually feeling unethical, it feels sort of naughty and bad. Like I'm getting away with something.

Breaking rules is almost always exciting... an excitement that can easily be turned sexual if you squint at it just right. And when you grow up in a culture that condemns almost anything sexual as wicked and forbidden, it's hard not to think of the wicked and forbidden as naturally sexual. But when you live in San Francisco in the sex- positive community, it's awfully hard to feel like anything you're doing is wicked or forbidden. We're all so damned accepting.

But writing porn in my neighborhood cafe? That definitely feels naughty. I love writing about ex-Catholic women seducing their priests, and sex workers being drawn into sadomasochism by their customers, and high school slumber parties gone wrong... when, as far as anybody knows, I'm just working on my Ph.D., or my manifesto, or my screenplay, or whatever it is people do on their laptops in cafes. (Yes, I know. Some of them are probably writing porn, too. Don't harsh my buzz. Anyway... that's also kind of hot.)

Add to that the fact that I almost inevitably get turned on when I write porn. If I'm not, it's a clue that I'm not doing it right. So you take the "secretly writing dirty dirty porn in broad daylight in a public place" aspect, and you add the "getting wetter and wetter by the minute in broad daylight in a public place" aspect... and it definitely makes me feel hyper-sexual, like an insatiable slut getting fingered in the back seat of a car because she can't wait 'til she gets home.

There's something else going on though, too. In an odd way, even though the public-ness of a public space is somewhat distracting, it also provides a curious focus.

See, when I'm writing porn at home alone, there's nothing to stop me from reaching for the vibrator when I get turned on. Which is a good time, of course -- writing porn puts my sex fantasies into sharp, intense focus, and I love jerking off when I do it -- but it does tend to derail the writing pretty damned fast. My porn is always better if I can hold off on masturbating to it for as long as I can. It's frustrating... but the frustration amps up the intensity of the scenario I'm trying to create, makes me focus extra-hard on the details and the motivations and the subtle emotional shadings.

And when I'm writing porn in public, I don't have a choice. I can't just jerk off as soon as I start getting turned on. (Not if I want to go back to that cafe, anyway.) I have to keep my attention on the writing. I have to channel my arousal away from my clit and into my story. Writing in public forces me to have the discipline that I don't always have at home.

Writing porn in public gives me focus in another way as well. When I get deeply involved in a raunchy fantasy, deeply turned on by it -- and then remember where I am, and take a sip of coffee, and look around me at the barristas and the cafe art and the people playing chess -- the contrast is like diving into a cold pool after sitting in a hot sauna. And getting back into my dirty story is like climbing back into the sauna. The shock of it wakes me up, makes me pay attention. It makes me feel intensely conscious of how I feel in my skin, intently present in the here and now.

And that's always a good place to write from. Porn or otherwise.

So now I'm curious. Am I the only one? If you're a sex writer -- professional or amateur -- do you ever write porn in public? And if so... what is that like for you? Is it harder than writing at home? Easier? Some of both?

And those of you who do like secret exhibitionism -- the actual sex kind, not the "writing porn in cafes" kind -- is this at all how you feel about it? Does it make you feel hyper-sexual and slutty? Intensely focused and conscious of the here and now? Frustrated in a way that winds up your arousal? Like you're getting away with something naughty? Something else entirely?

Prurient minds want to know.

What I Learned About Sex in 2008: The Blowfish Blog

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It's a Year in Review piece, summing up the things I learned about sex (or was reminded of about sex) from writing my column on the Blowfish Blog. It's titled What I Learned About Sex in 2008, and here's the teaser:

I learned that sadomasochism is starting -- just starting -- to be a no- big- deal part of the sexual landscape... at least as depicted in popular culture. Ditto gay sex, sex work, and -- to a lesser extent -- non-monogamy.

And I learned that, despite all that, mass culture can still have a pretty retrograde idea of what constitutes sexual liberation.

I learned that figuring out what kind of sex you do and don't like is an ongoing process that lasts a lifetime... because your sexuality can change over time, so you're trying to hit a moving target.

I learned -- or was reminded -- that the way people define sex and use language about it can have a huge impact on how they practice it.

I learned that working out is hot.

I learned that it's really, really, really hard to talk about cheating in a way that doesn't traffic in black- and- white moral absolutes, without seriously pissing a lot of people off.

To read more, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Right Of Refusal: The Blowfish Blog

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It talks about a recent letter to Dan Savage, from a rape survivor whose boyfriend wanted her to act out a rape fantasy with him... and was continuing to pressure her and pester her about it, despite her clearly saying "No." (Dan's advice: Dump the motherfucker already.) My post takes this letter and expands on it, to ask the question, "When do you have the right to absolutely refuse a certain kind of sex to your partner?" It's called Right Of Refusal, and here's the teaser:

I totally agree with Dan’s advice, as far as it went. A rape survivor absolutely has the right to say “No” to acting out a rape scene that they think will traumatize them . . . and to drop the partner who won’t take that “No” for an answer.

But I’d actually go further than that.

I’d say that anybody has the right to say “No” to any particular form of sex, for any reason whatsoever.

To find out more -- in particular, to find out more about the degree to which I equivocate from that position, and the degree to which I absolutely don't -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!