Greta Christina's Blog

How Sexism Hurts Men: "Undateable"

If you were to read a book, written by men, giving straight women advice on how to turn themselves into acceptable romantic partners
-- a book consistently advising women to adhere to a rigid, narrow window of traditional gender roles if they hope to find and keep a man -- what would be your reaction?

Would your feminist sensibilities be horrified? Would you be writing angry letters to the publisher, or posting angry rants about it on the Internet? Would you mock it as a hilariously campy example of '50s and '60s social propaganda... and be shocked to realize it had actually been published this year?

So what would you think of a book written by women, giving straight men advice on how to turn themselves into acceptable romantic partners... which consistently advises men to adhere to a rigid, narrow window of traditional gender roles if they hope to find and keep a woman?

If you're a feminist -- and I'm going to assume that if you're a regular reader of the Blowfish Blog, you're probably a feminist -- you're familiar with how social programming guilt-trips and fear-mongers women into rigid and sexist gender roles. It's not like it's hard to find examples of it. It's freaking everywhere. But I think we're less familiar with how social programming guilt-trips and fear-mongers men into rigid and sexist gender roles. Our feminist sensibilities aren't on as much of a hair trigger for male gender-role propaganda. And when this propaganda is subtle, I think we often overlook it.

But we have a magnificently un-subtle version of it in a new book: Undateable: 311 Things Guys Do That Guarantee They Won't Be Dating or Having Sex.

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Thus begins my latest piece on the Blowfish Blog, How Sexism Hurts Men: "Undateable." To find out how exactly this light, silly bit of pop-culture fluff works to perpetuate narrow and rigid gender roles for men -- and how it supposedly applauds men's confidence in their masculinity while spending 184 pages undermining it -- read the rest of the piece. (And if you feel inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

On Intimacy

Please note: This piece discusses my personal sex experiences in some detail. Family members and others who don't want to read about that, you may not want to read this.

What does intimacy mean?

And how can it be reached?

I've been thinking a lot lately about sexual intimacy. I wrote about it in my recent exegesis on masochism; I wrote about it in my review of the Japanese movie about the blow-up sex doll. I've been thinking about what sexual intimacy is, and how it's different from sex. And I've been thinking about why it's often so elusive... and what we can do to create it.

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Thus begins my latest piece on the Blowfish Blog, On Intimacy. To find out what I think we can do to create sexual intimacy -- and what the paradoxes and pitfalls are that get in its way -- read the rest of the piece. (And if you feel inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

Adult Toy Story: Romance vs. Reality in "Air Doll"

A sad, tired man takes the late train home from work. He comes home to his consolation: dinner and conversation and lovemaking with his beautiful girlfriend. Except his girlfriend is a blow-up doll. The conversation is entirely one-sided; when the lovemaking is over, he scrubs out her removable vagina with a hose.

This has clearly been going on for some time. How long, we don't know. The next morning, though, the doll comes to life. Or comes to something like life.

And her story begins.

There are a lot of ways to look at "Air Doll," a beautiful, thoughtful, oddly delicate new film from acclaimed Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-ada ("Still Waiting," "After Life," "Nobody Knows"). And the sexual angle isn't even the most obvious one. There's quite a bit of sexual content in this film, but -- surprisingly for a movie about a blow-up sex doll -- it's not the main focus. The existential questions -- what does it mean to be alive? what does it mean to be conscious? how do we distinguish between people and non-people? -- leap much more to the foreground.

But this is me. And this is CarnalNation. So let's talk about sex.

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Thus begins my latest piece on CarnalNation, Adult Toy Story: Romance vs. Reality in "Air Doll." To find out more about what this new movie says about sex -- and especially what it says about sexual intimacy -- read the rest of the piece. (And if you feel inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to Carnal Nation -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

Some Evolving Thoughts About Weight and Sex

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

I want to start by saying this: I am just talking about myself here, and what's true for me. These issues are heavily loaded, emotionally and psychologically and politically, so I want to spell that out right from the start. I'm not evangelizing for weight loss; I'm personally finding it to be beneficial, erotically as well as in other ways, but I've also found it to be complicated and a whole lot of hard work, and I know that the cost- benefit analysis about it is different for everyone. I'm not talking about what's right or true for anyone else. I'm talking about what's right and true for me.

As regular readers of my blog know by now, I've been losing weight for close to a year now, and have so far lost 50 pounds. This isn't something I'm doing for aesthetic reasons, btw: I'm doing it primarily for health reasons (mostly a bad knee that was getting worse).

But the weight loss is having a complicated set of effects on my sexuality: on my libido, my sexual self-image, my feelings about my sexual history, my cultural politics about sex and bodies. Mostly good... but complicated. And I haven't seen a lot of writing elsewhere about these effects. Most of the writing I've seen about weight and sex has either been your standard "Lose weight and magically fix your sex life!" jargon (which I think is bullshit), or fat-positive, body-positive, "fight body fascism and connect erotically with the body you have" activism (which I more or less support, but with a few serious caveats). I haven't seen much writing about weight and sex from people who are controlling their weight and feel good about it... but who are still informed by the cultural criticism about how our society views weight and sexuality.

So, as usual, when I don't like the news, I'm making some of my own.

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The main effect that weight loss has had on my sexuality has been on my libido. Which has gotten cranked up to eleven, and beyond. (Not that it was exactly low-key before...) Being in better health, being stronger and getting more exercise, feeling more conscious of my body, feeling more comfortable and more at home in my body, being happier with how I look and how I fit into my clothes, getting more compliments and attention... all of this is brewing into an explosive libidinous mix that's making me feel like I've been shot out of a cannon. Just walking down the street is an exquisitely erotic experience: like my skin is humming, like I'm erotically at one with the universe, like I want to stop and hump tree trunks. I feel like I'm exploding in a hundred directions at once. I feel like I want to masturbate twenty times a day.

A lot of this has to do with just being in better health. The things I'm doing to lose weight -- eating a healthier diet, getting tons of exercise -- have increased my physical energy, my mental health, my ability to sleep, etc.... all of which are increasing my libido. A lot of it, too, has to do with not being in a state of cognitive dissonance. Before I started losing weight, I was in serious denial about my health and my body and how I felt about it... and cognitive dissonance about your body is not a mental state that's conducive to feeling connected with it. And some of it, I'll acknowledge, has to do with the increased compliments and sexual attention I've been getting as my weight has gone down. (Although... well, that's complicated. More on that in a minute.)

But a huge amount of it, I think, has to do with the simple fact that I'm paying closer attention to my body now, in overwhelmingly positive ways. (I'm not talking about being self-conscious, btw; I know that paying close attention to one's body, in a critical and self-loathing way, can have a terrible affect on libido and sexuality. I'm not talking about that. I'm just talking about being conscious.) I think about my body way more than I ever did: how it feels, how it looks, what it wants in terms of food and exercise and sleep, how it's changing, how it's the same. I'm not living in my head as much as I used to: I'm inhabiting my body now, more than I ever have at any time in my life. And that means I'm inhabiting my sexuality more.

A lot more. Hoo, boy.

Which is good. More than a bit frustrating at times -- my life is not currently structured to let me masturbate twenty times a day, and our societal norms do not permit the public humping of tree trunks -- but good. Being intensely horny is a complicated pleasure... but as long as I'm getting laid fairly regularly, it is nevertheless a pleasure.

The compliments and increased attention, on the other hand... that's a lot more tricky. It's not that it sucks. Of course I like compliments and attention. Human beings are social animals, and while it might be lovely if our self-esteem came entirely from within and didn't have any basis on the approval of peers blah blah blah, the reality is that our self-esteem doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's a complex, mirrors- reflecting- mirrors jumble of how others see us and how we see ourselves. So of course I like compliments and attention, and of course they make me feel better about myself.

But at the same time, the compliments and increased attention I've gotten as I've lost weight have been a seriously mixed blessing. When people get really effusive about how amazing I look now, a big part of me is resentfully thinking, "So what did you think of me when I was fat? You think I look amazing now -- did you think I looked disgusting then?" The line between feeling flattered by compliments and feeling defensive and pissy about them is razor-thin. Especially from people who knew me before I lost the weight... and only started paying sexual attention to me afterwards. (Some people -- especially gay men, for some reason -- do have the knack of paying good, tactful compliments to people who are losing weight. If you want to pay a compliment to someone who's losing weight, you can't go wrong with, "You look really good, really healthy -- have you been working out?")

The thing is, though? I honestly don't know how much of this increased attention is because my body is now a type that more people find attractive... and how much of it is because I feel more attractive, and more libidinous. There is nothing hotter than someone who feels good about themselves, someone who loves their body and their sexuality. And there is nothing less hot than someone who, as a Facebook friend put it, is "slouching and sulking as if they are simultaneously angry at the world and apologizing for existing." Am I getting more attention now because a lot more people prefer thinner women to fat women? Or is it because I'm walking down the street radiating sexual joy and looking like I want to hump tree trunks? I suspect it's some of both. I really wish I could tease them out. It would give me a better sense of when to get pissy about compliments, and when to just let them in already. (People who meet me for the first time now, since I've lost the weight, have no idea what an advantage they have: they don't have to deal with my hair-trigger, "So what did you think I was before -- chopped liver?" defensiveness.)

And I do realize that this pissy defensiveness isn't entirely fair. I mean, I have preferences myself about what body types I do and don't find attractive. Most of them aren't absolute deal-breakers... but it's not like they don't exist. So it's a little unfair for me to expect other people not to have their own preferences.

It's a delicate balance. How do we critique overly rigid cultural ideals of sexual attractiveness... while still acknowledging people's right to be attracted to whoever they're attracted to? How do we ask people to question and critique their -- our -- desires, to look carefully at the ways that a sexist, consumerist, celebrity- obsessed culture shapes our libidos... while still acknowledging that people don't really have control over who we do and don't have the hots for?

I don't know. It's a mess. And of course I know that the "effusive compliment" people mean well. I know that in our culture, "You look like you've lost weight!" is almost universally considered a compliment. And my weight loss project has, in fact, involved a lot of hard work... so when people get really effusive about how great I look now, I try to hear it as praise for the accomplishment, not as an insult to how I looked before.

But that's hard. Especially since the "You looked like such a fat slob before!" implication of "You look so much better now!" plays right into another part of what's making this process sexually complicated -- the disconnect I'm feeling with my sexual history.

A huge amount of my libido right now is focused on the changes my body is going through, and the ways it's different from what it was before. Which is understandable: things that are in flux get more attention than things that are in relative stasis. But this has had the unfortunate effect of making me feel weirdly disconnected from my body and my sexuality of the past. My willingness to accept how unhappy I used to be with my body, and how much in denial/ cognitive dissonance I was about it, is making it hard to remember that I did, in fact, like my body at least some of the time when I was fat, and that at least some people found that body attractive, and that I did get a substantial amount of sexual pleasure from it.

I know that this disconnectedness is totally irrational. I know that fat bodies can be happily experienced as sexual, both from the inside and the outside. There are, for instance, plenty of fat people who I see as intensely sexual and would do in a hot second. And I know that it's seriously counter-productive. I was a fat woman for years -- years in which I lived out some of the most powerful and formative aspects of my sexuality, and years in which I had some of the best sex of my life. I know that I have to find a way to inhabit my current sexual body, and at the same time make peace with my old one. (If anyone has any suggestions or experience about this, btw, I'm all ears. This is a tough one.)

And while I mostly feel happier and less self-conscious about my body than I used to, there are still aspects of my body and my appearance that I'm not thrilled about. It's been weird to accept the fact that even when I reach my target weight, I'm still not going to be the cultural ideal of female attractiveness, and I never will be. And while I've been letting go of a lot of my old body dislikes, I've also been picking up one or two new ones. (Let me tell you about loose skin sometime.) Losing weight doesn't mean dropping the battle against body fascism -- either externally or internally.

I don't know. It's a mess. A mess that on the whole I feel good about, but a mess nonetheless.

Thoughts?

Harder

Please note: This post, and the post it links to, discusses my personal sex life in extensive detail. Family members and others who don't want to read about that stuff are strongly advised to skip this one.

Do other masochists run into this conundrum?

If so -- how do you deal with it?

There's a kinky paradox I run into sometimes. It's entertaining, but it's also a little frustrating at times, and I'm wondering how other people deal with it.

Here's what it is.

Sometimes when I bottom, I just want it to feel good. I physically enjoy pain -- certain kinds of pain under certain circumstances, anyway -- and the sensations and endorphins and whatnot are just pure sexual fun. It's like eating very spicy food: it's a complicated pleasure, but it is a pleasure, and my body processes it as such.

But sometimes, when I bottom, I want it to hurt.

I mean, really hurt.

I want it to hurt harder than I want.

Real pain -- pain that's genuinely hard to take, pain that hurts harder than I like -- is what makes me feel helpless, and out of control. It's what gets me tapped into my fantasies of non-consent; it's what gets me feeling like what's happening is being forced on me against my will. Or, at other times (actually, sometimes at the same time, which is weird and contradictory but I'm not going to worry about that too much), pain that hurts harder than I like is what makes me feel submissive. It's what gets me feeling like I've put myself into my partner's hands: like I don't belong to myself any more, and have given myself away as a gift, to be used and played with at my partner's whim.

All of which is awesome. All of which I like very much, in a way that's very different, and in many ways more intense, than the relatively simple, easy- to- take, endorphin-y fun stuff.

But here's the paradox.

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Thus begins my latest piece on the Blowfish Blog, Harder. To find out the paradox of liking pain that's harder than I like -- and what I think it says about the sexual connection generally and masochism specifically -- read the rest of the piece. (And if you feel inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

How Often Should You Ask For Something? Part 2: The Specifics

When it comes to asking for what we want in bed, how do we draw the line between asking and pressuring?

In last week's column, I wrote about a letter to Scarleteen, the sex advice Website for (primarily) teens and young adults. In this letter, a 17-year-old girl complained about her boyfriend who said he respected her sexual limits, but then kept asking for the same thing... over and over and over again. Scarleteen suggested that, since the boyfriend had made his desires clear, the ball was now in her court: his continued requests had crossed the line into pressuring, and he should bloody well knock it off.

Now, like I said last week, when it comes to the particular circumstances of this particular letter, this principle is very clear-cut. No matter what you might decide about the nuances and gray areas of "asking versus pressuring," surely "asking for the same damn thing every single time you have sex with someone when they've clearly said 'I'm not ready for this now and won't be until at least (X)'" lands squarely on the "pressuring" end of that spectrum. Scarleteen's advice on that front was entirely solid. If anything, I'd argue that they cut this guy too much slack. Personally, I'd be less inclined to advise his girlfriend to have a serious heart-to-heart about why he keeps bringing this up when she's made her limits very clear... and more inclined to advise her, as Dan Savage so often does, to dump the motherfucker already.

But like I also said last week: I don't think it's fair that the ball should always and forevermore be in the court of the person who said "No." I don't think it makes sense that the person who said "No" to a particular kind of sex should always be the one to raise the question again. If "asking for something over and over again every single time you have sex" is a lousy place to draw the line between "asking" and "pressuring," I think "asking once and then never bringing it up again for the entire duration of the relationship" is a pretty bad place to draw it as well.

So where should we draw it?

How do we value the right to say "No" to any kind of sex we don't want to engage in -- while still valuing the right to ask for what we want?

How -- specifically, practically -- can we make this distinction?

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Thus begins my latest piece on the Blowfish Blog, the follow-up to last week's piece: How Often Should You Ask For Something? Part 2: The Specifics. To find out my specific, practical thoughts on asking for what we want in bed without it crossing the line into nagging or pressuring, read the rest of the piece. (And if you feel inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

New Fishnet Story: "War Games"

"Under Stalin," Sergei gritted out as he put his shoulders under the spray again, "I would have had you flogged."

"Oh, I am sure of it," Cherevkin said, amusement coloring his tone. "In fact, I don't doubt you would have insisted on seeing to it personally. And liked it."

Sergei's head snapped up. "Watch yourself, comrade."

"I was enjoying watching you. Pity you stopped," the colonel answered. And he started fiddling with the control for the showers.

He growled. Couldn't help it, an actual growl, as he stared at the bastard. The spray fluctuated on his body, hot then cold, strong then weak, as Arkady toyed with the water pressure and smiled at him.

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That's an excerpt from the latest story on Fishnet, the online erotic fiction magazine I'm editing: War Games, by Jackie Weiss. To read more, read the rest of the story. (Not for anyone under 18.) Enjoy!

Sex Writers, Drooling Horndogs, and the Suspectability of Male Sexuality

Please note: This piece includes a couple of passing references to my personal sexuality. Family members and others who don't want to read about that, use your judgment on this one. This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

Why is the "sex writer" field so dominated by women?

I've been thinking about this question for many years. The publisher of this very blog brought it up in a conversation we were having, and it's been on my mind off and on ever since. It came up again at a recent salon of sex writers and activists; it came up yet again, although more obliquely, in a conversation I was having with a porn writing friend of mine.

Why is the "sex writer" field so dominated by women?

There are exceptions, obviously. Arguably the most famous and influential sex writer right now is the sex advice columnist Dan Savage. And there are others, of course: David Steinberg, Dr. Marty Klein, Charlie Glickman, I could keep going. And of course, there's plenty of dumb, generic, Maxim-magazine type sex writing from men; in some senses it's silly to complain about sex writing as female-dominated, given how much of the dumb crap there is. But it does seem as if sex writing -- serious, intellectual sex writing, at any rate -- is one of those rare fields that's largely taken up by women, and in which women are both more visible and more generally respected.

And thinking about this question is making me think about the suspectability of male sexuality.

I think that when women write about sex, we're assumed, in some ways, to be dispassionate observers. Of course we get targeted as sluts and whores and whatnot. But we're also seen as bringing a fresh perspective to the subject, and a cooler eye, and a more thoughtful point of view.

When men write about sex, on the other hand, they're assumed to be drooling horndogs.

Of course men have sex on the brain, this assumption goes. They're men. They think with their dicks. That's what men do. Who cares what they think about sex? We all know what they think about sex. What men think about sex is that they want it.

The very fact that sex is seen as a primarily male experience makes male sex writers, paradoxically, seem less serious. Our society sees sex as being about maleness: male desires, male insecurities, male satisfaction. Our culture is sexually obsessed with women, of course; but it's sexually obsessed with women as -- and I'm turning into a '70s lesbian feminist as I write this -- the objects of desire, rather than the subjects of it. Sex is seen as a male topic. But therefore, we all too often assume that we know what men think about sex, and how they feel about it. Male sexual desire is assumed to be simple: an animal urge to put a dick in a wet hole. With, occasionally, some variations in the way of orientation and paraphilias. And I think this makes it harder for male sex writers to be taken seriously. Anything they have to say on the subject is likely to be seen as suspect.

Now, I'm not writing this to complain about the terrible unfairness of this reverse discrimination. Yes, this is to some extent unfair. It's unfair to men to assume that the only thinking they do about sex is with their dicks, and that they therefore don't have anything to contribute to a serious conversation about it. (Also, I feel compelled to point out, men aren't the only ones who sometimes think with the little head instead of the big one. Believe me, I speak from experience.) But given how much regular discrimination women deal with in almost every other occupation, I'm not crying a river over the fact that this one little field of endeavor has a more female stamp on it.

That's not the point of this.

The point of this is twofold. One is this: I, selfishly, want to read more of what men have to say about sex. I want to read more about the varieties of male sexuality, from people who are living it from the inside. I want to read more about the varieties of female sexuality, from people who are seeing it from the outside. I want to read more about how men feel about this "animal urge horndog" label they've gotten stuck with: to what extent they think it's true, to what extent they think it isn't, how the reality and the unreality of it weave together in their experience of their sexuality. Sex is too interesting and too important a topic to limit most of the serious thought about it to one gender. And in addition to hearing what men, qua men, think about sex, I want to hear what individual men think about it: what Dan and David and Marty and Charlie and so on have to say. Sex is too interesting and too important a topic to limit the voices who can talk about it seriously to the voices that are attached to vaginas.

A porn writing friend of mine was talking with me recently about a story he'd written; a kink-themed story, in which a male character was using economic leverage to take sexual advantage of a female character. My friend found this fantasy scenario hot (as do I -- hoo, boy!)... but he was finding himself somewhat uneasy about it as well. In particular, as a good feminist, he felt uneasy about eroticizing these gender dynamics and the economic power that men have over women.

And yet, if the story had been written by a woman, telling the story from the female victim's point of view instead of the male perpetrator's, I doubt that he would have felt any qualms about reading and enjoying it. It bugged me a little that he felt that way about writing it. It made me wonder how many other good male porn writers had considered writing stories like this, had even started to write stories like this... and had stayed their hand, for fear of being seen as, or indeed for fear of being, drooling sexist male horndogs who just want to take sexual advantage of women. If so -- that sucks. I, selfishly, as a fan of kinky porn in which men do fucked-up things to women, would like to read more stories like this that are written by men. I know what this fantasy feels like from my end of it. I want to learn more about what it feels like from the other end, from thoughtful feminist men who get off on it, too.

So that's my first point. My second point is this:

I've lived my whole life dealing with the various and sundry ways that female sexuality gets demeaned, by being ignored or trivialized or assumed to not exist.

Thinking about this topic is making me realize the various and sundry ways that male sexuality gets demeaned... by the mirror image of that process. It's making me realize that the amplification of male sexuality -- the funhouse mirror that takes the image of a man and distorts it into a drooling tongue and a hard dick -- has the effect of demeaning it as well.

And that sucks for all of us.

How Often Should You Ask For Something?

If you've asked for something sexual, and your partner has said "No" -- or "No, not now, maybe some other time" -- is it okay to ask again?

And if so... how often?

I was inspired to write this by a letter to Scarleteen, the sex advice Website for (primarily) teens and young adults. A 17-year-old girl has a boyfriend who wants to finger her -- and he keeps asking for it. He says that he respects her right to say "No"... but he keeps bringing it up. Over and over again. Like, every time they do sexual stuff. She's made it clear that she won't be ready for that for a while; she's told him, "Wait 'till I'm in college and we'll see." To which he says "Okay"... and then brings it up again the next time.

Scarleteen's advice, in a very short oversimplified summary: "Asking for a particular sexual thing every time you have sex is not okay. It's pressure, and it doesn't count as taking 'No' for an answer." And in my opinion, this advice is totally sound. Especially for this particular situation. No matter what broad general guiding principle we might come up with for "How often is it okay to ask again for something when your partner has said 'No'?", surely "Every single freaking time you have sex" has got to be an unacceptable answer. And when you're talking to an audience of largely teenaged girls -- many of whom have yet to develop strong No-saying skills -- that goes double.

But while this one situation does seem to have a clear answer, it does raise some interesting broader questions. So again I ask: If you've asked for something sexual, and your partner has said "No" -- or "No, not now, maybe some other time" -- is it okay to ask again?

And if so... how often?

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Thus begins my latest piece on the Blowfish Blog, How Often Should You Ask For Something? To read more about the blurry line between pressuring your partner and asking for what you want, read the rest of the piece. (And if you feel inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

New Fishnet Story: "For Love or Pay"

I was stretched out on the grass, flat on my stomach, elbows propped up and binoculars pressed tight to my eyeballs. Some ants were using my bare legs as an obstacle course, and mosquitoes were probing my bare arms for veins. Not exactly the sexy, high-tech, action-packed lifestyle of the PI that you see portrayed on-screen and in-print. But a living, nonetheless.

My current assignment was to determine if one "Evan Michaels" was actually in love with my client, Morris Mercer, or merely gay for pay. It promised to have all the usual irritating aspects of domestic cases, along with large dollops of boredom mixed in. Rich Mr. Mercer had suggested I follow Evan around for the few days my client was out of the country on business, see if the guy visited any girlfriends, showed any interest in said girls beyond just friends.

So, I was making love to a grassy knoll that overlooked Mercer's rambling ranch house in the hills and fondling a pair of high-powered night-vision binoculars. Just me and the insects under the light of a silvery moon.

Until Evan suddenly sauntered out of a sliding glass door and padded over to a poolside lounger. Even in the greenish glow of my goggles he was a sight to behold. Big and built, with long, smooth legs topped by wide, rippling thighs, stomach flat and ribbed, pecs cleaved and plated, arms thick and heavy. He had a Superman tattoo on his left breast, and that was no false advertising. His hair was tousled, chin dimpled, face strong and stone-cold handsome, a plush pair of lips the wettened cherries on the mouthwatering hunk of man-cake.

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That's an excerpt from the latest story on Fishnet, the online erotic fiction magazine I'm editing: For Love or Pay, by Heather Towne. To read more, read the rest of the story. (Not for anyone under 18.) Enjoy!

Sex in the City, But Lost in the Desert

Honestly? It would have been a lot easier to write the Marxist/ anti-capitalist review of "Sex and the City 2" than the sex review. And I'm not even a Marxist. There is a bizarre dearth of sex in "Sex and the City 2"... and there is a lavish parade of repulsive, garish, bloated consumerist excess in the movie, on a level that could persuade the most ardent free-market advocate to storm the Palace and depose the Tsar. It would have been a lot easier to write up this movie for The Nation than for Carnal Nation.

But here I am at Carnal Nation. And there's certainly enough sexual content in "Sex and the City 2" to justify reviewing it here. That is, if there's enough content in it of any kind to justify reviewing it anywhere. Or if "content" is even the right word for this vapid, glib, tedious mess.

The "story": Four characters from a television show -- Miranda, Samantha, Charlotte, and Carrie Bradshaw, a woman who has now soared to the top of my "most loathsome fictional characters" list, just a notch or two below Yahweh -- attend an extravagant gay wedding, in shameless pandering to the fantasies of the show's gay male fans; travel to Abu Dhabi on an extravagant all-expenses-paid junket, in shameless pandering to the luxury lifestyle fantasies of their recession-stricken audience; and experience serious life crises that get neatly resolved in fifteen minutes or less.

The thing is almost entirely incoherent. Which makes it tricky to analyze. It's hard to unpack the viewpoint of a movie when it has the attention span of a butterfly on meth and can't keep its view focused on one point for more than three seconds. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this incoherence itself -- including the sexual incoherence -- is, in fact, the crucial point.

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Thus begins my latest "Media Darling" piece for Carnal Nation, Sex in the City, But Lost in the Desert. To find out more about the sexual incoherence of the new Sex and the City movie -- and how this incoherence winds up belitting even the few germs of good ideas trapped in this parade of grotesquery -- read the rest of the piece. (And if you feel inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to Carnal Nation -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

New Fishnet Story: "Soft Landing in the Tropics"

Unfortunately, even under my blue, at-home-now sweat pants, the warm feel of Rita’s bare-to-the-hip leg draped over mine means otherwise. I want her to know I’m glad she’s here. With my unpinned foot, I begin to lightly stroke her exposed thigh. Rita sighs and continues to read.

There’s always a point of no-return in the middle of something you know you shouldn’t be doing. If that something is between a man and his step-daughter, at its apex, a gentleman step-dad excuses himself and walks away. Instead of using it to walk, my curious left foot slides higher, plowing the slippery boxers along the curve of her, hoping for a peek at some panties.

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That's an excerpt from the latest story on Fishnet, the online erotic fiction magazine I'm editing: Soft Landing in the Tropics, by Gary P. Victor. To read more, read the rest of the story. (Not for anyone under 18.)

Please note: This story contains content that some people may find disturbing, such as non-consent, borderline consent, seriously bodily harm, or incest. If you're not interested in reading stories with this type of content, please don't read this story. Enjoy!

You Got Religion In My Porn!

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

If there are any other porn writers out there -- pro or amateur -- I'm curious: Has this ever happened with you?

And to all you porn readers out there: Have your reading interests ever shifted in this direction?

I've been writing more porn fiction lately. In the past, fiction never came easily to me, and I typically spent six months or more writing and re-writing a single story. Lately, though, a lightbulb has gone off over my head about how to write porn without needing it to be 4,000 words long or agonizing over every word (a topic for another piece), and of late I've been writing porn fiction at a much faster clip.

And a weirdly large amount of it has been about religion.

So I'm trying to figure out what that's about. I'm not a religious person, and I don't come from a religious background. I was raised by rock-ribbed agnostics: at most I've had a vaguely woo belief in some sort of world- soul; and today, I'm a hard-core naturalist/ atheist. And until recently, I was never very interested in religious porn. It didn't gross me out or anything; I just never got the appeal.

So why the recent obsession with religion in my porn?

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.

I suppose I should clarify: My religious porn is not about spirituality. It is not about Tantric energy, or ancient Wiccan rituals invoking the Goddess, or Pan coming back to Earth and fucking it into enlightenment. It is not slash porn about Kali and Vishnu, or Jesus and Mary Magdalene. It is not about the saints, mortifying their flesh into transcendence. (Although that last one, now that I think about it...) My religious porn is about religion. Human religion, as humans practice it. It's about religious followers being led by their faith into sexual lives they find disturbing and confusing; about religious leaders using their power to sexually manipulate their followers; about fervent religious believers struggling with sexual guilt. (Dark things. Nom, nom, nom.)

And I think my religious porn is about two things.

I love to write porn about borderline consent. I usually don't care for porn about unambiguous non-consent: I tend to find it either horrific or unconvincing. I do, however, adore porn where consent is technically present but emotionally absent; porn where a character feels that they don't have a choice, even if they do. And religion is fertile ground for that. Cult members desperate to please their leader; wives who comply with their husbands' increasingly bizarre sexual demands because their faith teaches that marriage and obedience are sacred. People who are free to leave the sexual situations they feel forced into, as long as they're willing to suffer eternal damnation. That sort of thing.

And I love to write porn about shame.

Shame is often at the center of my fantasy life. And when it comes to shame, religion is very fertile ground indeed.

It's not just the obvious sexual shame that many traditional religions teach. It's not just the standard social shame at breaking the rules of your religion and disappointing your family/ neighbors/ religious teachers. It's the deep, personal shame at disappointing God. It's the belief that, no matter how secret you keep your sexuality, no matter how private and not- hurting- anybody your sex life is, God is always watching. God knows every dirty thing you do. When you fuck, or get spanked, or look at dirty videos on the Interweb, or even just whack off in the dark, God is watching, like an omnipotent voyeur. He's even watching the dirty movies you screen for yourself in your mind. And unless your sexuality fits into his fairly specific vision, your sex life is letting him down. How selfish of you. You should be ashamed. (The details of that specific vision vary from religion to religion, of course... and of course, we have the puzzling question of why he created your sexuality that way in the first place... but let's not worry about that now.)

As an atheist writer, I find this notion repellent and sad. It makes my heart hurt; makes me rage at pointless suffering and ruined lives. It makes me want to devote the greater portion of my writing career to battling it.

But as a porn writer?

Dark things. Nom. Nom. Nom.

So. Other porn writers? Other porn readers? Have you ever found your writing/ reading wandering into this area? This is sort of new territory for me, and if anyone has thoughts about it, I'd be very curious to hear them.

For examples of what I'm talking about:
Christian Domestic Discipline
Penitence as a Perpetual Motion Machine
"Deprogramming," from X: The Erotic Treasury, edited by Susie Bright

New Fishnet Story: "The Great White"

The man behind the counter said it was new in. The large conical shaped snout, the upper and lower lobes on the tail fin, the side gills, they are all anatomically correct. The rows of razor sharp teeth have been replaced with soft and pliable plastic incisors, each one acting as a stimulator similar to those found on cock rings. But the best part of all, so the man said, is the dorsal fin. Inside the shark is a tiny motor that runs off batteries. By pressing a small button on the tail section, the motor sends little vibrations to the tip of the dorsal fin. Once the head section of the shark has been fully inserted, the fin is perfectly placed to tickle the clitoris. As well as being arguably the most well known predatory fish in the ocean, nature has designed the arguably the best ergonomically satisfying dildo on the market.

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That's an excerpt from the latest story on Fishnet, the online erotic fiction magazine I'm editing: The Great White, by Craig Wallwork. To read more, read the rest of the story. (Not for anyone under 18.)

Please note: This story contains content that some people may find disturbing, such as non-consent, borderline consent, seriously bodily harm, or incest. If you're not interested in reading stories with this type of content, please don't read this story. Enjoy!

Lady Gaga: Music Videos As Porn

I realize that I'm late to the Lady Gaga party. (Hey, I'm 48 years old. Cut me some slack.) But I gotta say -- I'm impressed.

If I just listened to her music, I'd only be moderately interested. I think her music is perfectly fun, well- above- average dance pop music. But I've been watching her music videos... and they're making me think that this woman is a force to be reckoned with. (Yes, I realize she doesn't direct her own videos -- but they are clearly collaborations, strongly shaped by her artistic vision, and they're a central part of her public persona.)

And what's striking me about Lady Gaga's music videos is not just how smart they are, or how imaginative, or how lovingly crafted and visually stunning, or how just flat-out funny. What's striking me about Lady Gaga's music videos is how strongly influenced they are by sex culture: by fetish fashion, by sexploitation flicks, and by plain old dirty porn.

What's more, they seem to be strongly influenced by these cultures, not as an outsider, not as someone who's manipulating this imagery to titillate/ shock the audience, but as an insider, someone who's intimately familiar with both sex culture and sexual marginalization. This isn't Britney Spears, using schoolgirl or slavegirl or girl- on- girl imagery to excite her audience without any apparent understanding or affinity for it. Lady Gaga's music videos (coupled with her interviews about her work) show a thoughtful, informed insight into polymorphous perversity. She has an analysis that could easily hold its own in any queer theory/ gender theory/ sex theory forum -- and damn do I love a sexy girl with an analysis! -- and her freak flag is waving high and proud.

In a way that -- if I can be crass for a moment -- makes her videos very functional as porn. I've certainly seen other music videos that turned me on. I can't remember seeing any that made me this hungry to watch them again and again... with a vibrator handy.

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Thus begins my latest "Media Darling" piece for Carnal Nation, Lady Gaga: Music Videos As Porn. To find out more about how Lady Gaga's music videos are influenced by sex culture and porn -- and how they're different from other music videos that use sex to sell -- read the rest of the piece. (And if you feel inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to Carnal Nation -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

Sex and the Off-Label Use of Our Bodies

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

What are our bodies meant for?

One of the most common condemnations of non-standard sex -- from homosexuality to masturbation -- is "that's not what those body parts were meant for." Genitals and sexual desire were supposedly designed for reproduction, and reproduction alone: by God (as the argument most commonly goes), or by evolution (as the argument occasionally gets made). To use these parts/ desires for any other purpose is dangerous at best and sinful at worst.

Okay. Let's set aside for a moment the question of whether there even is a God, much less one who purposely designed the human body to fulfill his divine plan. The most common counter to this accusation is that it doesn't get applied consistently. Not even by people who do believe in a God who created our bodies. As Dan Savage once pointed out: Our noses weren't "designed" for us to rest our glasses on -- and nobody gets their knickers in a twist over that. Off-label uses of our bodies are ridiculously common. I could come up with them all day. Our feet weren't "meant" for us to operate the pedals of a car. Our mouths weren't "meant" for us to play the harmonica. Our heads weren't "meant" for us to display giant novelty foam-rubber cheese wedges and other oversized signals of allegiance to sports teams. Our hands weren't "meant" for us to type on computer keyboards. (Boy howdy, were they ever not. My recent tendinitis flare-up is evidence enough of that.) And that doesn't stop anyone from doing these things.

So why should sex be an exception? No, our mouths and assholes weren't "designed" for sex, by God or by evolution. So what? We use our bodies in lots of ways and for lots of purposes that they weren't "designed" for... and nobody considers that immoral. Computers and harmonicas and giant novelty cheese wedges are seen as acceptable and even positively neat. Why is anal sex somehow a perversion of the natural order?

A good argument. And one I frequently make myself.

But today, I'm going to take it a step further.

Off-label uses of body parts and biological functions aren't just acceptable and morally neutral. They are some of the most beautiful, honorable, and deeply treasured parts of the human experience.

Human beings took our animal need for palatable food... and turned it into chocolate souffles with salted caramel cream. We took our ability to co-operate as a social species... and turned it into craft circles and bowling leagues and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We took our capacity to make and use tools... and turned it into the Apollo moon landing. We took our uniquely precise ability to communicate through language... and turned it into King Lear.

None of these things are necessary for survival and reproduction. That is exactly what makes them so splendid. When we take our basic evolutionary wiring and transform it into something far beyond any prosaic matters of survival and reproduction... that's when humanity is at its best. That's when we show ourselves to be capable of creating meaning and joy, for ourselves and for one another. That's when we're most uniquely human.

And the same is true for sex. Human beings have a deep, hard-wired urge to replicate our DNA, instilled in us by millions of years of evolution. And we've turned it into an intense and delightful form of communication, intimacy, creativity, community, personal expression, transcendence, joy, pleasure, and love. Regardless of whether any DNA gets replicated in the process.

Why should we see this as sinful?

What makes this any different from chocolate souffles and King Lear?

Rigid moralists -- of the "don't use your asshole for sex, that's not what it's meant for" variety -- are often fond of talking about "what separates us from the animals." Our self-restraint, our ability to delay gratification, our ethical judgment... these things supposedly make us finer and more noble than the animals, those base creatures who live only to eat and avoid predators and produce the next generation.

I, for one, don't think anything separates us from the animals. We are animals. We tend to forget that. And in fact, recent research is showing that many non-human animals also have ethics and the ability to delay gratification and whatnot. We're not as unique as we like to think.

But I do think we're special animals. I do think we have abilities that make us different from other animals. And at the top of that list is our ability to take our animal instincts, and transform them into pursuits and achievements that have nothing whatsoever to do with their original functions of survival and reproduction -- pursuits and achievements that serve no purpose but to create meaning, and connection, and knowledge, and joy.

Sex is most definitely one of those pursuits.

It deserves as much respect as any other.

New Fishnet Story: "Broom Closet"

It took a little bit of cunning to get out of "Serenity Now -- Step One" class, but since I've been such a goody-goody I'd racked up some trust points and the instructor bought my story that I was feeling queasy from weaning off my meds. The truth was I was feeling really horny and wasn't about to pass up broom closet sex.

I went back to my room to give my lie some credibility, and to change into a skirt and take off my panties, having the passing thought that what if he just wants to talk?

In a broom closet? Not likely, dummy.

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That's an excerpt from the latest story on Fishnet, the online erotic fiction magazine I'm editing: Broom Closet, by Paula Treconi. To read more, read the rest of the story. (Not for anyone under 18.) Enjoy!

Porn, Social Criticism, and the Marginalization of Kink

Is it valid to criticize rough-sex porn for perpetuating misogynist images of women?

Or, to look at the question from the other side: Is it possible to critique rough-sex porn without marginalizing kink?

If you've been around the porn wars, you've almost certainly run across a particular form of anti-porn critique. "Erotica may not be inherently bad... but look at how misogynistic so much commercial porn is! Look at how it portrays degradation and violence against women as sexually pleasurable! Women being slapped and treated roughly during sex! Women being called sluts and whores and sex toys! Women being given forceful deep-throat blowjobs that make them choke and gag! Is that a vision of women and sexuality we want to accept?"

I was reading one of these screeds the other day (somebody linked to it in a Facebook conversation)... and I started spewing out a seriously annoyed mini-manifesto/ rant.

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Thus begins my latest piece on the Blowfish Blog, Porn, Social Criticism, and the Marginalization of Kink. To read the mini-manifesto/ rant about how critiques of rough porn marginalize kink -- and my more nuanced analysis of whether political criticism of porn should be handled differently from political criticism of any other form of pop culture -- read the rest of the piece. (And if you feel inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

New Fishnet Story: "I Wish You Were Braille"

I sat up and kissed him hard; part of my brain wanted to take a chunk out, to consume him, chew him up and swallow. We knelt on the bed facing each other. Finally I could reach his ears, his neck; I ran my tongue in the hollows of his collarbones and followed the thumping vein in his neck up to the back of his ear. His hands were all over me, under my clothes, on top of them, like they were another layer of skin that felt just as good to touch as my bareness underneath.

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That's an excerpt from the latest story on Fishnet, the online erotic fiction magazine I'm editing: I Wish You Were Braille, by Louise Lagris. To read more, read the rest of the story. (Not for anyone under 18.) Enjoy!

Why Does Porn Matter?

Why does porn matter?

In my career as a sex writer, I've written many times in defense of porn. I've written about why it's morally defensible. I've written about why it's legally defensible. I've written about why it's a valid thing for people in monogamous relationships to enjoy. I've written about why it's feminist... or at least, why it can be feminist, why it's not automatically and by its very nature sexist (even though a fair amount of it is).

Today, I want to talk about something else.

I want to talk about why porn matters. I want to talk about what porn contributes: to individuals, and to a culture. I want to talk about why porn has redeeming social importance... even the "no redeeming social importance" stuff, the sleaziest, skankiest, artistically shabbiest, porniest porn you can imagine. I want to talk about why porn, simply by its nature as porn, has value.

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Thus begins my latest piece on the Blowfish Blog, Why Does Porn Matter?. To find out why I think porn -- not sex art, not erotica, but regular old "purely for the sake of turning people on" porn -- is important and valuable, read the rest of the piece. (And if you feel inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

Porn, Relationships, and What It's Reasonable to Ask For

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

When you're beginning a relationship, is it reasonable to ask your partner not to watch porn?

Yesterday, I posted a column here about porn. I was writing in response to an advice column by Scarleteen, an answer to a letter from a young woman who was upset because her boyfriend watched porn. I posed the question, "In a monogamous relationship, is it reasonable to expect your partner not to watch porn?" And I concluded that it was not. I concluded that people have the right to watch whatever they want when they're by themselves and on their own time, and that asking a partner not to watch porn is no more defensible then asking them not to watch reality TV or read true crime. I concluded that trying to regulate your partner's private cultural pleasures -- pornographic or otherwise -- is like trying to regulate their imagination.

But some readers thought I'd misread Scarleteen's advice. They said Scarleteen's point wasn't that people have the right to ask their existing partners not to watch porn... but rather that if someone objects to porn, they should spell that out at the beginning of a relationship. And on re-reading the Scarleteen column, I think they're right. In my defense, the situation I was writing about was, in fact, the situation described in the letter -- dealing with an existing partner who watched porn, and trying to decide what to say to them. But I do think I misread Scarleteen's intention in their response, and for that, I apologize.

So now I'm going to address the position Scarleteen took: that people who object to porn and are beginning to date someone should spell out their position early, and should state clearly that they don't want to be involved with someone who watches it.

And I'm basically going to stand by my original position.

Which is that this is an unreasonable, overly controlling thing for an adult to ask another adult. It's somewhat less unreasonable than asking it of a partner you're already involved with, someone who's already gotten emotionally invested in your relationship before you dropped your "It's me or the porn" ultimatum. But I still think this is seriously pushing the line between "reasonable negotiation of desires and limits in a relationship," and "controlling attempt to regulate not only your partner's behavior, but their imagination."

Here's why.

Like I did in the previous column, I'm going to take this question out of an erotic context, to give it some perspective. (I am, however, going to keep it gendered for the moment, since much of the previous conversation was about gender and sexism.)

Let's say a single straight woman has objections to televised sports. She thinks they're immoral, or politically objectionable, or she simply finds them upsetting. (Which some women do -- as do some men.) And let's say she tells all her potential partners, "I just don't want to be involved with someone who watches sports. Ever. Even when I'm not around. Even on their own time. Even if it's just when they're hanging around with their friends. If we're going to get involved, you have to be someone who doesn't like watching sports on TV, and you have to promise never to do so."

Would that be a reasonable thing to ask?

I would argue No.

And I'd argue it pretty darned strongly.

At my most sympathetic and calm, my response to that would be, "You should know that an awful lot of men watch sports on TV. And plenty of those men don't fit the stereotype of the sports-obsessed Neanderthal. You seem to be making a lot of assumptions about what kind of man likes to watch sports on TV, and whether those men could share your basic values -- assumptions that really aren't warranted. If you're going to rule out all men who ever like to watch sports on TV, you're going to limit yourself to a very small dating pool indeed... without a very strong or reality-based reason for doing so. You might want to rethink this. You might want to look more carefully at why you feel so strongly about sports -- and at whether there might be a better way to handle those feelings than refusing to be involved with anyone who enjoys them."

If I were feeling less sympathetic and calm, my response would be, "Are you out of your mind? What difference does it make what your partner watches on TV when you're not around? How is that any of your business? Again -- you seem to be making a lot of assumptions about what kind of man likes to watch sports on TV... assumptions that really aren't warranted. What on earth makes you think that's a reasonable thing for one adult to ask another?"

And frankly, if I were dating that woman, I'd end things as soon as I could after that conversation -- even if I didn't like sports. I'd see it as a huge red flag that she had a very controlling side of her. I'd see it as a huge red flag that she was a seriously insecure person -- one who dealt with her insecurities by expecting her partner to tiptoe around them. I'd be out the door as fast as I could -- even if I never planned to watch another sporting event in my life.

Why should porn be different?

If watching porn didn't carry the stigma that it does -- if any and all pursuits of sexual pleasure didn't carry the stigma that they do -- would we see these two situations as any different? If it weren't the case that sports are a generally accepted cultural activity and porn is emphatically not, would we even be having this conversation? If there weren't a stigma around porn, would anyone seriously consider asking their partner never to watch it... and if there weren't shame around porn, would anyone who was asked not to watch it take the request seriously?

Now. To be fair, it's certainly true that in relationships, we get a few "I know I'm being irrational, but I feel strongly about this, so can you please just humor me?" free passes. I think we do, anyway. But when we ask for those free passes, I think we need to acknowledge that that's what we're doing. I think we need to acknowledge that we're asking for something unreasonable, above and beyond the call of duty -- and not act as if we have the moral high ground.

And we need to recognize that not everyone is going to say Yes. We need to recognize that a lot of smart, thoughtful, decent people are going to turn us down. Especially when the activity we're asking our partners to forgo is something that's both ridiculously common and generally harmless.

Like watching sports on TV.

Or watching porn.

Does my hypothetical woman have the right to ask her potential partners not to watch sports on TV, even when she's not around? Sure, she has the right to ask. We have the right to ask for pretty much anything. We have the right to ask our potential relationship partners to not smoke, to tie us up on a semi- regular basis, to take Argentine tango lessons, to watch the entire DVD set of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in a one-weekend marathon, to wear polka dotted underwear every Friday without fail.

But does that make it a reasonable thing to ask?

Is "don't ever watch sports on TV, even when I'm not around" a reasonable thing for one adult to ask of another? Is it reasonable to expect that people will say Yes? Is it reasonable to expect people to even take this request seriously?

I don't think so.

There are lots of things that we have the right to do, which are still not right or reasonable for us to do. We tend to make that mistake a lot: the mistake of thinking that because we have the right to do something, we should therefore just charge on in and do it. It's not clear thinking. We have the right to scream bigoted epithets on the street corner, too. That doesn't make it right or reasonable to do it.

Now.

I will qualify all this by adding: If someone is very firm in their anti-porn position -- if they've thought it through carefully after being exposed to many sides of the debate about it, and their feelings against it are still as strong as ever -- then yes, they should warn their partners up front that this is the case. I don't think it's a reasonable thing for them to ask... but reasonable or not, if it's a dealbreaker for them, then by all means, they should ask it. If I were dating someone who felt this way, I sure as hell would want to be warned upfront, before I'd invested a lot of time and emotional energy in the relationship. I'd want to run screaming sooner rather than later.

But here's the thing. In this particular letter, in the letter to Scarleteen that started this whole conversation, I did not get that impression at all. Nothing about this letter gave me the impression that it was from a confirmed, hard-core anti-porn feminist who was familiar with feminist arguments in favor of porn and had rejected them. Everything about it seemed to be from a young person who was upset by porn, and who ascribed much her of her upset to the supposed sexism of porn... without ever really thinking about it carefully, and without ever being exposed to feminism that enjoys and supports porn. (Scarleteen seems to have gotten the same impression, since they made sure to tell her that being anti-porn wasn't the only way to be feminist, and they provided links to a wide variety of feminist writings on porn.)

So my advice to her would not be, "If you're opposed to porn, to the point where you're not willing to be involved with someone who ever watches it, you need to spell that out early in a relationship."

My advice would be, "If you're opposed to porn, to the point where you're not willing to be involved with someone who ever watches it, you need to seriously rethink whether that's a reasonable thing for one adult to ask another. If you're assuming that a shared opposition to porn means you'll have shared values about sex and gender and politics, you need to seriously rethink that assumption. You need to be aware that there are a lot of pro-porn feminists in the world -- women and men both -- and that opposition to porn isn't the default feminist position. You need to be aware that an awful lot of men watch porn, and it doesn't automatically make them sexist objectifiers of women. You need to be aware that refusing to be involved with any man who watches porn is going to seriously limit your dating opportunities -- and is likely going to rule out a fair number of men who might otherwise be great for you. You need to be aware that asking someone to limit what they do and don't watch when they're not with you is likely to come across as insecure and controlling... even to people who share your basic tastes. And you need to be aware that since there's so much shame and stigma around porn, a lot of men aren't going to feel comfortable standing up for their right and desire to watch it, and you may not get a straight answer about it. You might want to think about whether there's a better way to deal with your insecurities than asking your potential partners to never even look at erotic photos or videos of other women.

"And if, after all of that, you're still opposed to porn, to the point where you're not willing to be involved with someone who ever watches it -- then yes, you need to spell that out early in a relationship. But you need to be aware that you're asking for a lot. And you need to not take the moral high ground about it."

Being a feminist means, among other things, recognizing people's right to sexual autonomy. Women's and men's. If you're going to deal with your bad feelings about porn by expecting your partners to forgo a private sexual activity that doesn't involve you in any way, you need to consider whether that's really consistent with your feminism.

New Fishnet Story: "For Loki"

We had a few more rounds and then went to Room 8. The room had no sink to wash the dirt from my nails. Not even a toilet. Just a bottle of disinfectant lotion on the nightstand along with a roll of paper towels. The wastebasket overflowed.

She asked me what I wanted.

"My dog back."

"What?"

"I need to be held, and then I want to smack your ass."

She told me the price and I paid it. Keeping the big bills out of view.

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That's an excerpt from the latest story on Fishnet, the online erotic fiction magazine I'm editing: For Loki, by Devin Hansen. To read more, read the rest of the story. (Not for anyone under 18.) Enjoy!

Can Watching Porn Be Cheating?

This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

In a monogamous relationship, is it reasonable to expect your partner to not watch porn?

There was a recent letter to Scarleteen, the sex advice and information site for teenagers and young people. In this letter, the querant was upset because her boyfriend (a) watched porn, and (b) would soon be going on a road trip with his buddies in which he might be getting lap dances. The querant was upset about this -- partly because she was a feminist who thought these activities were sexist, and partly because it triggered insecurities about her own body and made her feel inadequate.

Scarleteen's reply? Feminism doesn't automatically mean you're anti-porn -- there's a wide range of feminist views about pornography -- and enjoying porn doesn't automatically make you sexist. When it comes to the details of your relationship and the agreements you make about sexual activity outside it -- from porn/ lap dances/ other sexual entertainment to flat-out non-monogamy -- you need to decide what would be your ideal, what would be on your "absolutely not" list, and what you're willing to compromise on. And you need to recognize that your partner has as much right to their version of this list as you do to yours -- and then see if you can negotiate a common ground.

Which sounds perfectly reasonable at first.

And then I started thinking about it.

Normally I adore Scarleteen, and recommend them unreservedly as a source of sex info and advice. And I feel a bit churlish calling them out on this one, since I found out about it because they were kind enough to link to me in their "wide range of feminist views of porn" section. If their advice had been about almost any other form of sexual activity, I would have been right there with them. And when it comes to the lap dances, I think their perspective is valid.

But when it comes to porn, I think they missed the boat.

I'm going to go out on a limb here:

I don't think anyone has the right to expect their partner not to watch porn.

Why not? Well, let me put it this way. Do people have the right to expect their partners not to masturbate? Or, for that matter, do people have the right to expect their partners not to watch reality TV or read true crime? On their own time, when they don't have any obligations and their partner isn't around?

And if not -- then why on earth would anyone have the right to expect their partner not to watch porn?

Even in a very close, seriously committed relationship, people have some basic rights to privacy and autonomy. What they do all by themselves, on their own time, in ways that don't have any significant impact on anybody else -- that is entirely their own damn business. Trying to regulate your partner's porn watching is like trying to regulate what they read, what movies they watch, what art they see. No -- it's not like that. It is that. That is exactly what it is. The fact that the content of the writing or the movies or the art is sexual is irrelevant. Trying to regulate your partner's cultural pleasures is like trying to regulate their imagination. And that's just as true of pornographic cultural pleasures -- and the sexual imagination.

There are some obvious exceptions. If your partner's porn-watching is seriously affecting your sex life? If their porn is making them dissatisfied with you, or is creating unreasonable expectations about what sex and bodies are supposed to be like? If they're watching porn to the exclusion of having sex with you? Or if they're watching porn so much that it's interfering with their personal or professional life, or is making them spend themselves into serious financial trouble? That's different.

But "I feel threatened and insecure when my partner watches porn, therefore I have the right to expect them to stop"? I don't see it. I mean, would it be reasonable to expect your partner not to watch "American Idol" because it made you feel threatened and insecure about your own singing ability? Even if your partner loved your singing, and made that clear in word and deed, and continued singing with you as much as they ever did?

And if not -- then why is porn any different?

If you feel insecure and bad about your body and your sexuality -- I completely sympathize. I've been there, I'm still there sometimes, and it sucks. But there are better ways of dealing with that insecurity and inadequacy than expecting your partner to forgo private, independent activities that don't involve anyone else, and that have nothing to do with you. There are reasonable compromises that we can ask of our partners in our relationships. This is not one of them.

(Follow-up to this piece appears tomorrow.)

Old and Improved: Long-Term Sex and the Myth of the Slow Decline

Please note: This piece discusses my personal sex life, in a certain amount of detail. Family members and others who don't want to read about that, please don't read this one.

When you've been involved with someone for many years, does having sex with them become a chore? A duty? Like cleaning the toilet?

Via Pharyngula, we have a charming piece of marital advice from Christian marriage advisor Mark Gungor. The gist: Couples who have been married a long time shouldn't expect sex to be as exciting and passionate and emotional as it was in the early days. They should expect it to become safe and comfortable and unexciting. But they should go ahead and have sex anyway -- because it'll feel reasonably good even though it won't be as great as it used to be, because it'll be good for the marriage, and because it's one of your basic marital duties. The money quote:

As I said, sometimes sex is just sex; it's what you do when you are married. Just like cleaning the toilet is what you do to keep your house clean... and I bet you don't have this great desire or huge emotional connection to scrubbing the porcelain! [Bold in original - GC] You do it because it needs to be done and that's the way it is with married sex... it does need to be done! It's the glue that God gave us to bond us to one another. The bible is very clear that it is your responsibility as a spouse.

There are so many different directions I could go in on this one, I don't even know where to begin. (Although screaming and tearing my hair out would be a good start.) I could talk about how Gungor utterly fails to talk about how long-married couples could make their sex lives more exciting... and instead, encourages them to settle for what amounts to a lifetime of mutual mercy-fucks. I could talk about the profoundly screwed-up gender assumptions in this piece -- the assertion that "Women, more often than men, get hung up on this one and think they have to have all these warm and fuzzy emotions to feel like they can get physical with their husbands" [again, bold in original - GC], and the notion of "chick flicks being a huge culprit" in creating unrealistic expectations of marital sex. (As if there's something patently stupid about expecting warm emotions during sex with your spouse -- and as if men never have unrealistic expectations about sex.) I could talk about this pattern of hard-core Christian marriage advisors giving advice that's almost right, advice that with a little tweaking could be halfway decent... but that, because of their profoundly messed-up assumptions about gender and relationships and religion and whatnot, goes completely, hideously, would- be- laughable- if- it- weren't- so- desperately- sad wrong. (A place I've gone in the past, and thus don't feel a compelling need to re-visit.) I could talk about how yes, you don't always need to be in the mood for sex when you start, as long as you're willing to get into the mood as things get going -- and how this still doesn't translate as sex being a chore or a duty. I could even beg Gungor, for the sweet sake of fuck, if he's going to compare sex to a household chore, could he please make it vacuuming or laundry or something less disgusting than cleaning the toilet?

But today, I want to go someplace else.

I want to talk about the assumption Gungor makes without even thinking, the assumption that forms the foundation for everything else he writes in this piece... an assumption that's very, very common, not just among Bible-thumping marriage advisors, but in the culture at large.

It's the assumption that, when you've been in a relationship for a long time, the sex just naturally becomes less exciting. It's the assumption that of course sex is passionate and intense and highly charged in the early days of a relationship... and that, of course, as the years wear on, sex is going to become less exciting and passionate, and more routine and predictable. There's no use fighting it. That's just the way it is.

*

This begins my new piece on the Blowfish Blog, Old and Improved: Long-Term Sex and the Myth of the Slow Decline. To find out more about this assumption that sex in long-term relationships will always slide inexorably into unexciting routine -- and why I think it's a load of dingo's kidneys -- read the rest of the piece. (And if you feel inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

Atheism and Sexuality - Greta Speaking at Stanford Monday, May 10

The sexual morality of traditional religion tends to be based, not on solid ethical principles, but on a set of taboos about what kinds of sex God does and doesn't want people to have. And while the sex-positive community offers a more thoughtful view of sexual morality, it still often frames sexuality as positive by seeing it as a spiritual experience. What are some atheist alternatives to these views? How can atheists view sexual ethics without a belief in God? And how can atheists view sexual transcendence without a belief in the supernatural?

I'll be speaking on this very subject at Stanford on Monday, May 10, at 7pm. Building 420 (Psychology) Room 041, Stanford Main Quad. I'll be speaking for an hour, with plenty of time for a question and answer session after -- so come with good questions!

The event is sponsored by Atheists, Humanists, and Agnostics (AHA!) at Stanford, and is part of my ongoing gig on the speakers' bureau of the Secular Student Alliance. (Who are awesome, by the way, and you should become a fan of them on Facebook.) If you're in the Bay Area, come by and say howdy!

A Feminist Defense of Boobquake

Chances are you've heard about Boobquake. It went viral pretty fast.

In case you haven't: Iranian Muslim prayer leader Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was recently quoted as saying, "Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes."

No, really. I know, you thought earthquakes were caused by plate tectonics -- but really, it's immodestly dressed women, leading young men astray.

So Jen McCreight -- feminist/ atheist blogger, student leader, award-winning scholar in evolution and genetics, and all-around bad-ass -- decided to conduct a fun little pop-science experiment: Encourage women to dress immodestly for one day, and see if there was any significant increase in earthquakes or seismic activity. It was meant to be a small, offhand joke among her blog readers and Facebook friends; instead, it went totally viral on the Internets, and wound up with news coverage on CNN, the BBC, the Washington Post, and all over the damn place. (Conflict of interest alert: I know McCreight, and have a friendly collegial relationship with her.)

But many feminists responded very negatively to Boobquake, calling it exploitative, demeaning, trivializing, objectifying, and a whole host of other sexist bad things. Beth Mann at Salon said, "Women on parade again ... sigh. Since when did we "stick it to the man" by wearing low-cut shirts or short shorts?... Unfortunately, we live in a world that sees that kind of freedom of expression as a photo opportunity or another cheap thrill." Jill at I Blame the Patriarchy described the event as, "encouraging women to protest oppression by capitulating to Dude Nation’s fondest desire." Negar Mottahedeh and Golbarg Bashi created a Facebook group in response, Brainquake... describing McCreight as a "so-called feminist," decrying how Boobquake "has aroused the evidently insatiable enthusiasm of the web community, male supporters in particular who can't wait to see 'regular' girls and women, many their direct friends to 'showing off their tits'," and arguing that "Violence against women and girls has a direct correlation to the sexualisation of women and girls." Etc. Etc.

So before I begin my rant, let me summarize.

A patriarchal, profoundly misogynist man used his position of religious authority to demonize and control women, and to irrelevantly blame the ills of the world on our vile, dangerous sexuality.

Women responded by saying, "Screw you. Our sexuality is not responsible for earthquakes -- snicker -- or any other horrible ills. Our sexuality is amazing, and we will claim it and flaunt it any damn way we choose. Our bodies, our right to decide."

How, exactly, is that not feminist?

*

Thus begins my new piece on Carnal Nation, A Feminist Defense of Boobquake. To find out more about why I think Boobquake was feminist -- and to find out why I think the feminist objections to Boobquake were essentially just more moderate versions of the original "Immodest women cause earthquakes" insanity -- read the rest of the piece. Enjoy! (And yay for my new "Media Darling" gig at Carnal Nation! Watch for me there, every other week!)

New Fishnet Story: "Three"

I bring him home from a show on a Friday night. Through the blacklights and a filter of beer and tequila, he’s friendly and vibrant, his skin a canvas of tattoos and piercings. I have already drunk too much by the time I meet him, but he stays with me after the show, walking night-noisy streets at my shoulder and laughing over coffee until I’m sober enough to drive. He’s from out of town, staying at a hotel with friends, so I take him back to my messy apartment and we push the clean laundry off the bed and finish a bottle of wine and fuck like two people who know they’ll never have to find out whether it’s a mistake or not.

*

Thus begins the latest story on Fishnet, the online erotic fiction magazine I'm editing: Three, by Leftarrow. To read more, read the rest of the story. (Not for anyone under 18.) Enjoy!

On Trying New Things... And Re-Trying Old Ones

I was eating sushi the other day... yes, I promise, this is about sex.

I was eating sushi the other day, and it sparked a mini-revelation about trying new things -- and about re-trying old things I think I don't like. And it's occurring to me that this mini-revelation could apply to lots of things other than food. Like -- oh, say, just to pick one example completely at random -- sex.

I've been trying of late to expand my horizons about food. I'm a mildly picky eater, and I really don't want to be. There's a huge world of food out there that millions of people take tremendous pleasure in, and I don't want to be closed off to it. (You can start drawing parallels with sex anytime.) And if other people are enjoying some culinary delicacy, then... well, that's certainly no guarantee that I'm going to like it. But it's a pretty good guarantee that I'm not actually going to die from it.

So I'm trying to expand my horizons. Which means trying new things, obviously. But it also means re-trying things I've tried before, and decided I didn't like.

And I had a mini-revelation about a specific strategy for doing that... a strategy that I think can be applied to sex as well.

*

Thus begins my latest piece for the Blowfish Blog, On Trying New Things... And Re-Trying Old Ones. To find out my specific strategy for learning to like food I thought I didn't like -- and how that strategy can be applied to sex -- read the rest of the piece. (And if you feel inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

I Feel The Earth Move: Boobquake 2010!

As you may already have heard -- it's not only been all over the atheosphere, but all over the news -- Iranian Muslim prayer leader Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was recently quoted as saying, "Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes."

Blag Hag blogger, atheist student leader, and all-around badass Jen McCreight is conducting a scientific experiment: Get women around the world to dress immodestly for one day -- today, Monday, April 26 -- and see if we cause a significant uptick in seismic activity.

So with Jen, for the sake of science, I offer my boobs. (And Ingrid offers hers.)

New Fishnet Story: "In the Stacks"

There could have been better places to do it. I knew that. Sure. I know a lot of things, but processing information is always a little bit harder when you’re pressed up against a shelf in the stacks with a girl making sure you stay there, all curves slotting into your own curves like a fucking puzzle piece, all black hair and mint gum and hands rough and chapped from the cold wind outside.

*

Thus begins the latest story on Fishnet, the online erotic fiction magazine I'm editing: In the Stacks, by Sunny Moraine. To read more, read the rest of the story. (Not for anyone under 18.) Enjoy!

Greta Speaking at Stanford About Atheism and Sexuality, May 10

I have a new speaking gig scheduled! I'll be speaking at Stanford University about atheism and sexuality -- my two favorite polite dinner-table topics -- on Monday, May 10, from 7 to 9 pm. I'll be speaking for an hour, with plenty of time for Q&A afterward. The event is sponsored by Atheists, Humanists, and Agnostics (AHA!) at Stanford, and is part of my ongoing gig on the speakers' bureau of the Secular Student Alliance. (Who are awesome, by the way, and you should become a fan of them on Facebook.)

The event will be at Building 420, Room 041, Main Quad, Stanford (here's a map). If you'll be in the Bay Area, stop by, listen to me gas on, and come say howdy!

Mis-Matched Libidos: Can Mixed Marriages Ever Work?

If your partner doesn't like sex nearly as often as you do -- or if they like sex a lot more often than you do -- what can you do about it?

And when pondering this question, would your first and only answer be, "Break up"?

There's this thing that happens to me freakishly often. I write a piece inspired by a Dan Savage "Savage Love" sex advice column. I spend a little time surfing around, looking at other stuff he's been writing. And I find something that makes the top of my head come off in rage. Or at least, in profound irritation. I like the guy's thinking most of the time... but when he gets it wrong, he gets it really, really wrong.

In this particular instance of wrongness, Savage was writing about a pattern he sees a lot in his letters: the problem of couples with mis-matched libidos. In many couples, one partner is more interested in sex than the other, and likes to have sex more often. A whole lot more often, in many cases. It's a very common problem in relationships, and sex educators/ couples' counselors/ sex advice columnists encounter it again and again and again. (And no -- it isn't always the man in opposite-sex couples who wants sex more. Very often, it's not.)

Savage's advice? To all these people?

Give up. It's never going to work. He's just not that into you. Or she. Save yourself a lot of misery in the years down the road... and just call it quits now.

A piece of advice that left my jaw hanging open in shock.

Really, Dan?

That's your first and only answer?

Really?

I mean, just off the top of my head, I can think of half a dozen options that couples with mis-matched libidos might want to try. Without even thinking about it all that hard. Before we go advising couples around the world to call it quits, why don't we take a look at some of these options? (And if you can think of ones I don't mention here, btw, please speak up in the comments. This isn't meant to be an exhaustive list of ideas -- just a handful of the more obvious ones.)

*

Thus begins my latest piece for the Blowfish Blog, Mis-Matched Libidos: Can Mixed Marriages Ever Work? To find out what specific options I think couples with mis-matched libidos might want to try -- and to gape in astonishment with me at Dan Savage's "one size fits all" answer to these questions -- read the rest of the piece. (And if you feel inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

After You, My Dear Alphonse

"Oh, I don't know. What do you want to do?"

It took me way too many years to learn that this is not always a nice thing to say. That, in fact, it's usually not a nice thing to say. It took me way too many years to learn that, although "I don't know, what do you want to do?" may seem like a good way to be polite and accommodating and easy-going, much of the time it's actually a gigantic buzz-kill. It's a great way to wind up not doing anything fun at all. Especially if everyone involved is playing the same game, in endless rounds of, "After you, my dear Alphonse."

And that's just as true with sex as it is with general social intercourse.

I was inspired to write this, as I often am, by a recent Savage Love sex advice column. In this column (second letter from the top), the querant was asking what she and her boyfriend could do about a sex life that she described as "meh." And she said:

We often ask each other, "What else can I do for you?" I've shared a couple ideas, which we've explored to my minimal comfort, but he always says "Nothing" when asked if there's anything he wants to do or try. We have discovered that neither of us particularly cares if we, ourselves, reach orgasm, but we both care very deeply that the other is satisfied. In this light: While I don't care much if the sex is mediocre for me, I do want it to be better for him.

[facepalm]

I actually do have sympathy. I have so totally done this, way more times than I care to admit. I've held back on asking for what I want in bed, not just out of fear of being seen as freaky and sick (or as boring and trite), but out of fear of being seen as selfish. Even when my partner was asking me, "Is there anything in particular you'd like to do?" -- in other words, even when they were making clear, in explicit, unambiguous, actual words, that they wanted to know my sexual desires so they could potentially have the pleasure of satisfying them -- I've still dodged, equivocated, said some version of, "Oh, I don't know -- what do you want to do?"

So I have sympathy. But at the same time, this letter makes me want to smash my forehead repeatedly into the nearest flat surface. And then smack the querant on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. (Along with her boyfriend.)

Because this dynamic is a perfect recipe for mediocre sex.

*

Thus begins my latest piece on the Blowfish Blog, After You, My Dear Alphonse. To find out why forgoing your own desire in favor of your partner's is a recipe for mediocre sex -- and why it's actually a less generous approach to sex than it appears -- read the rest of the piece. (And if you feel inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

New Fishnet Story: "Forgetting"

"What are you doing, you bad boy?"

It was a situation in which a slip of the tongue was par for the course. So he pretended he'd misheard the first time.

"Oh, Greg," she repeated. The sound was not much more than a breeze from her lips.

He was about to say, "You mean Tom."

But then she said: "Greg, you're such a flirt. You know I'm crazy about you, don't you."

*

That's an excerpt from the latest story on Fishnet, the online erotic fiction magazine I'm editing: Forgetting, by A. Silenus. To read more, read the rest of the story. (Not for anyone under 18.) Enjoy!

New Fishnet Story: "The Quotidian Nightmare"

He thought of Marco's lip ring grazing her clit and his tan hands gripping her thighs. He thought of Lakshmi flushed with the freshness of the scene, all too willing to let Marco squeeze her breasts and pinch her nipples as much as he liked while he fucked her, sticking his dick in her deep -- undoubtedly deeper than John could go, as middling in size as he was. He thought of Marco's lean fingers in her mouth and his teeth catching her earlobe, of his cock pressing into the exact same space John's was pressing, of his cum filling her, and at that moment he shocked himself by muttering, "Fuck yes, I want him to fuck you, be a whore, fuck you right up like a whore," and coming -- like a collision, like a detonation, like a suicide in reverse.

*

That's an excerpt from the latest story on Fishnet, the online erotic fiction magazine I'm editing: The Quotidian Nightmare, by Rachael S. Kight. To read more, read the rest of the story. (Not for anyone under 18.) Enjoy!

He's A Super Freak: Tiger Woods and Sexual Compassion

Okay. Maybe I'm a freak of nature. But does anybody else like Tiger Woods better after reading the freaky text messages?

Or, maybe more accurately: Does anyone else have more sympathy and compassion for Tiger Woods after reading the freaky text messages?

Until recently, I had almost zero interest in the Tiger Woods sex scandal. Rich, famous, powerful man; maintained a squeaky-clean public image for years; turned out to be sneaking around on his wife with multiple mistresses and sex workers. Ho freaking hum. Wake me when something remotely unusual happens.

But then -- pretty much by accident, since I'd been ignoring this story to an almost aggressive degree -- I read about the text messages he sent to one of his sex partners, Joslyn James, which she saved and released to the media.

Including:

I want to treat you rough. Throw you around, spank and slap you

Slap your face. Treat you like a dirty little whore. Put my cock in your ass and then shove it down your throat

Hold you down while i choke you and Fuck that ass that i own

Then im going to tell you to shut the Fuck up while i slap your face and pull your hair for making noise

Where do you want to be bitten

I really do want to be rough with you. Slap you around

For years. And punish you for not seeing me more

I want you to beg for my cock. Kiss you all over to convince me to let you have it in your mouth

Next time i see you, you better beg and if you don't do it right i will slap, spank, bite and fuck you till mercy

I read these texts. And my whole perspective changed.

All of a sudden, my perspective on Tiger Woods was no longer, "Powerful man with a sense of sexual entitlement, who cheats on his wife with impunity and doesn't think sexual ethics apply to him."

All of a sudden, my perspective was, "Oh. He's kinky."

And that's a radically different perspective.

*

Thus begins my new piece on the Blowfish Blog, He's A Super Freak: Tiger Woods and Sexual Compassion. To find out more about how the kinkiness of these text messages are giving me a new, more compassionate perspective on the Tiger Woods sex scandal -- and about where that compassion ends -- read the rest of the piece. (And if you feel inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

All Boy-Boy Action

Please note: This piece includes some references to my personal sex life, and specifically to my tastes in porn. Family members and others who don't want to read about that, please don't. This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

The topic for today's sermon:

Women who like gay male porn.

And people who are surprised by this.

We'll start with the facts: There are some women who like gay male porn. I'm one of them. And I'm not the only one. Look at the widespread phenomenon of slash fanfic: erotic fiction about fictional characters, typically about two or more male characters, and typically written by and for straight women. (Kirk/Spock, anyone? Or are you more of a Snape/Draco girl?) And it isn't just written porn: there are women who like gay male porn videos, photos, comics. There's even an entire genre of Japanese comics and graphic novels, yaoi, devoted to gay male love and/or sex stories created for a female audience. (If you're one of these gay- porn- lovin' women, btw -- please speak up in the comments! I know more or less what I get out of gay male porn, but I'd love to hear what you get out of it.)

It's true that this desire hasn't been reflected very much in the video porn industry -- and video porn is what a lot of people default to when they think about "porn." But "women don't like gay porn" isn't a very good explanation for this. (Some better ones: Women on average are more interested in written porn than videos. And the video porn industry can be idiots sometimes: they're terrified of putting something on screen that might turn off straight guys; they largely ignore the potential of the women's market; and even when they try to cater to women's tastes in porn, they tend to get it laughably wrong.)

So those are the facts: Some women like gay male porn. Enough so that there are entire porn genres that cater to it.

And yet, many people seem deeply surprised by this. Many people assume that this phenomenon doesn't exist, and will ponder the question of why women don't like gay porn when so many guys love the girl-girl stuff And many people are entirely baffled when they hear about women who like all boy-boy action, wondering, "What on earth do they get out of it?"

So if you're surprised by the fact that some women like to watch/ read about two men doing it, let me ask you this:

Are you surprised by the fact that some men like to watch/ read about two women doing it?

"Girl-girl action" is so common in heterosexual video porn, it's not even considered a fetish. It's a completely standard menu item, like fucking and sucking. As for all girl-girl videos, they're all over the "hetero" porn market like a cheap suit. And nobody seems the least bit surprised by any of this.

So if you're puzzled by why some women are into porn with two guys, ask yourself: Why are some men -- indeed, a whole lotta men -- so excited by porn with two girls?

The answers vary, of course. Some men like girl-girl porn because they're not attracted to men. Some are actively turned off by the sight of men; others really just prefer to look at women. They get off on femaleness -- and they like to see a lot of it, undiluted by the maleness that they're just not that into.

Well, that's true for some women, too. Some women like gay porn because they're hot for guys, not girls, and guys are who they want to look at/ read about. They want to enjoy maleness, and male sexuality. And even those of us who appreciate both women and men in our porn sometimes like to enjoy just one or the other. I, for one, like lots of different kinds of porn -- but one of them is definitely the kind that's all about hard cocks and hard muscles. Undiluted by soft breasts and pussies.

Moving on: Some men like girl-girl porn because they like the fantasy of a three-way (or four-way, or five-way, or whatever) that includes them. They like to watch two (or more) women do it because then they can project themselves into the scene. They like to look at all this delightful female pulchritude... and then imagine themselves as the center of it all.

Well, that's true for some women, too. Some women like to watch/ read about two or more guys... so they can imagine themselves as the center of a whole lot of hot male attention. The delicious meat in a Kirk/Spock sandwich, if you will.

And some men like girl-girl porn for the exact opposite reason: they like the alien-ness, the difference, of women, and of lesbians. They don't want to project themselves into the scenario at all. They see women as excitingly mysterious, exotic even. They see lesbians in particular as enticingly out of reach. And they don't want that mysterious allure tainted by the quotidian familiarity of men.

And again, that's true for some women, too. For some women, gay male porn is alien, exotic. Forbidden fruit, even. It's like the key to the secret garden; a keyhole peep into a world we're not supposed to see.

I've read other explanations for why women like boy-boy porn -- explanations as varied as the women themselves. Some women like the fact that gay porn features seriously good-looking guys, while straight porn all too often succumbs to the "ugly guys with big dicks" phenomenon. Some like kinky porn, and they've found gay kinky porn to be harder and kinkier. Some like kinky porn with male tops, but aren't comfortable watching women they don't know get beaten and humiliated. Some like to watch intense butt-sex, and gay porn has plenty to spare. Etc. Etc. Etc. (And yes, for the record: The reasons some men like to watch girl-girl porn are wildly varied as well.)

I'm not sure what my point is here. I think my point is just this:

Yes, Virginia, some women like boy-boy porn. Exclusively, primarily, or as one of many porny varieties. And this fact is entirely unsurprising. Or it should be. The fact that some women like boy-boy porn should be no more surprising that the fact that some men -- okay, lots of men -- like girl-girl porn.

And if our culture took female sexual desire seriously, nobody would blink an eye at it.

Greta's Radio/ Podcast Interview with Jeff Farias

If you're a podcast fan, check out my radio/ podcast interview with Jeff Farias on The Jeff Farias Show. We talk about the atheist movement, atheist philosophies of death and the meaning of life, dirty comics, and more. Enjoy!

Closeted Politicians and Bi Invisibility

Does outing closeted gay politicians contribute to bisexual invisibility?

It occurs to me that the way I put that question is sort of answering itself. Let me re-phrase: Does outing closeted politicians who have sex with same-sex partners contribute to bisexual invisibility?

There's been yet another story in the news lately, about yet another rabidly homophobic right-wing politician who was discovered to be gay. (Roy Ashburn's the joker in this round of the game: he's the one who was arrested for drunk driving after leaving a gay nightclub with another man, and who finally acknowledged that he was gay -- after the story had been broken for days. Tangent: This kind of story is becoming so common, it's starting to be flat-out silly. It's getting to the point where, when a politician is rabidly homophobic, I just assume now that they're gay. It's become a standard item on my gaydar: Does he have unusually good fashion sense? Is he a little more aware of the works of Lady Gaga than is strictly necessary? Is he a right-wing politician who foams at the mouth about how disgusting homosexuals are and consistently votes against gay rights? Yup -- probably gay. I think we need to start a PR campaign about this: if "rabid anti-gay political activism" becomes a standard marker for "probable homosexuality," maybe fewer right-wing politicians will run with it.)

Anyway. Rabidly homophobic right-wing politician; secretly gay. But Amanda Mennis recently wrote me with an interesting question: Does this story of a secretly gay public figure -- and the absurdly long parade of stories like it -- contribute in some way to bisexual invisibility?

After all, most of the guys in these scandals (and it has just been guys so far) are married, or have some sort of sexual/ romantic relationship with women. Many of them have children. They're clearly capable of having sex with women. Doesn't that make them bisexual, not gay? Or at least, doesn't it suggest the possibility that some of them are bisexual and not gay?

An interesting question. And one that I'm finding tricky to answer.

*

Thus begins my new piece on the Blowfish Blog, Closeted Politicians and Bi Invisibility. To read more about how reporting on closeted politicians does or does not contribute to bisexual invisibility -- and how closeting screws up the ways we define sexual orientation -- read the rest of the piece. (And if you feel inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

Tears

Please note: This piece discusses my personal sexual fantasies and tastes in erotica, in a whole lot of detail. Family members and others who don't want to read about that stuff -- you really don't read this one. This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

As promised earlier: my exegesis on crying in spanking porn, and what makes it so hot.

I was writing recently about acquired tastes in sexual fetishes. I was writing about how being repeatedly exposed to certain images in porn can inspire you to pick up a fetish -- not a true, clinical, "can't get off without it" fetish, but a more casual, peripheral, "I really like to do this/ see this in my porn/ think about this when I whack off" fetish. I was giving, as an example of one of these pornographic tropes that I've acquired as a personal fetish, crying. Specifically, crying in spanking porn.

And I started wondering:

What's that about?

Other standard tropes of spanking porn make more obvious sense to me. The classic implements, the classic outfits, the classic roles being played -- they're mostly pretty straightforward, and they don't take an expert in semiotics or psychology to analyze where they come from and why people find them hot.

But the crying trope is, at least on the face of it, a little more unsettling. It's the sort of thing that rabid anti-porn activists point to when they're trying to prove that all porn actresses are forced into the business, either by financial hardship or at gunpoint. I mean, if the actress in a spanking porno is dressed as an underaged schoolgirl... well, even if you find the fantasy disturbing, you can always remember that this is adults consensually playing out a fantasy they both enjoy, and not actual child abuse. But if the actress or actor is actually crying, the line between "acting out a fantasy" and "genuinely upset" is a whole lot more blurry.

And it occurred to me:

That's the point.

The point is that it's real.

Crying in spanking porn is like cum shots in regular porn.

Not in the sense of "a trope that's become so ubiquitous it's now just part of the background noise." That's not what I mean. It isn't. (I actually wish it were a little more ubiquitous, since I find it really hot.)

Crying is like cum shots because it's proof that what's happening is real. It's proof, not only that the actors are physically engaging in the sexual acts they're portraying, but that they're feeling them.

There are lots of analyses out there about why cum shots are so ubiquitous in porn; why heterosexual men are so fixated on watching other men ejaculate, to the point where they won't be satisfied with porn unless they see it. But the most convincing analysis I've seen is that the cum shot is proof that the male actor was really feeling it. It's proof, not only that the sex was real, but that the sensations were real. (The man's sensations, anyway -- which is what hetero porn aimed at a male audience tends to prioritize.) It's proof that the arousal, the excitement, and of course the orgasm, all felt real to the man having the sex. Which makes it easier for the male viewer to project himself into the fantasy.

And that's what crying is in spanking porn.

I've seen plenty of spanking porn where the spankings themselves were obviously real -- you could hear the sounds of the slaps, you could see the impacts and the reddening bottom -- but where I had no idea whether the person on the receiving end felt anything at all about the matter. I've seen plenty of spanking porn where the recipient was so silent, so stiff, so unresponsive, that even with the sights and sounds of the smacks, I still had no idea whether the performer was feeling helpless, or defiant, or turned on, or anything at all except bored. The sights and sounds might as well have been done by special effects. The only reason I trust that they weren't special effects is that special effects are a lot more expensive than just paying someone to get their butt smacked.

But if the recipient is crying... I know they're feeling it. Not just that they're feeling the physical sensations of skin or wood or leather striking their skin. I know they're feeling it inside: the helplessness, the fear, the shame, the pain. The good stuff.

And that makes it easier for me to project myself into the fantasy. Regardless of whether I'm fantasizing about receiving the spanking or giving it. If I'm fantasizing about receiving it, and if the actress or actor is crying, I can project myself into their helplessness, their fear, their shame, their pain. I can feel these emotions and sensations myself. If it's a really good video, I can practically feel the tears welling up in my own eyes. And if I'm fantasizing about giving it, I can project myself into how powerful it feels to make somebody else feel all this: to make someone else feel so helpless, so frightened, so ashamed, so much in pain, that I make them cry.

You know. The good stuff.

It is sometimes unsettling. If a spanking model is crying, then that means the fantasy of helplessness and fear and shame and so on have crossed over into some sort of real feelings of helplessness and fear and shame. And that can be a little unsettling to watch in a total stranger. If you're the one who's crossing that line, if you're the one who's experiencing these difficult emotions and who knows exactly how you eroticize them -- or if it's your lover or fuckbuddy or whatever, the person on the receiving end of your chastisements and whose blend of arousal and suffering you're reasonably familiar with -- that's one thing. If it's some spanking model you've never seen in your life... then that's a little unnerving. It is to me, anyway.

But that unnerving quality -- the place where fantasy crosses into reality, the place where pretend situations conjure real emotions, and where difficult emotions cross their wires with intense sexual arousal -- that's a huge part of what makes kinky sex interesting. To me, anyway. It's a huge part of what I get out of my kinky sex life. It's a huge part of what I think about in my kinky fantasies. And it's a huge part of what I look for in my kinky porn.

And crying is what shows me that it's real.

Diet Coke and Mentos picture by Michael Murphy.

Some Evolving Thoughts About Weight and Sex

I swear: This is the last I'll be writing on this topic for a while. But I promised that I'd write a piece about the effects of weight loss on my sexuality... so here it is.)

I want to start by saying this: I am just talking about myself here, and what's true for me. These issues are heavily loaded, emotionally and psychologically and politically, so I want to spell that out right from the start. I'm not evangelizing for weight loss; I'm personally finding it to be beneficial, erotically as well as in other ways, but I've also found it to be complicated and a whole lot of hard work, and I know that the cost- benefit analysis about it is different for everyone. I'm not talking about what's right or true for anyone else. I'm talking about what's right and true for me.

As regular readers know by now, I've been losing weight for close to a year now, and have so far lost 50 pounds. This isn't something I'm doing for aesthetic reasons, btw: I'm doing it primarily for health reasons (mostly a bad knee that was getting worse).

But the weight loss is having a complicated set of effects on my sexuality: on my libido, my sexual self-image, my feelings about my sexual history, my cultural politics about sex and bodies. Mostly good... but complicated. And I haven't seen a lot of writing elsewhere about these effects. Most of the writing I've seen about weight and sex has either been your standard "Lose weight and magically fix your sex life!" jargon (which I think is bullshit), or fat-positive, body-positive, "fight body fascism and connect erotically with the body you have" activism (which I more or less support, but with a few serious caveats). I haven't seen much writing about weight and sex from people who are controlling their weight and feel good about it... but who are still informed by the cultural criticism about how our society views weight and sexuality.

So, as usual, when I don't like the news, I'm making some of my own.

*

Thus begins my new piece on the Blowfish Blog, Some Evolving Thoughts About Weight and Sex. To read more about physical mindfulness, the minefield of compliments, the hotness of self-love, alienation from one's sexual history, humping tree trunks, and more, read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

Penitence as a Perpetual Motion Machine

"I'm here to see Sister Catherine."

"Yes. It's nice to see you again, Mary. Please have a seat. Catherine has just finished up with another -- visitor. Why don't we take care of business now. She'll be with you in a moment."

Mary Elizabeth nods. She hands the woman behind the desk four hundred dollars in cash, and sits, keeping her coat on and her purse clutched in her lap. She tries not to look at the lobby: the garish red and black decor, the velveteen curtains tied back with steel chains, the worn spot on the black leather sofa. It makes it harder for her to think of this the way she needs to think of it. She sits, and stares at her knuckles gripping the handle of her purse, and waits.

"Mary Elizabeth. Please come in."

Catherine has stepped into the lobby. She is dressed, as always for their meetings, in a modified modern habit: the knee-length gray dress, the heavy hose and sensible shoes, the small, unimposing wimple. She has carefully wiped all traces of makeup from her face.

She takes Mary Elizabeth by the hand, and leads her to the now-familiar room, the one fitted up like a schoolroom. An office or rectory would have been better, but this was the closest they had.

"Sit down, Mary. We have to have a difficult conversation."

*

Thus begins the latest story on Fishnet, the erotic fiction magazine I edit. And this one is written by me: Penitence as a Perpetual Motion Machine, by yours truly, Greta Christina. To read more, read the rest of the story. (Not for anyone under 18.)

Please note: This is not a nice story. This story contains content that some people may find disturbing, including references to non-consensual sex. If you don't like that sort of thing, please don't read this story. But if you're a sick fuck like me -- enjoy!

Sex Writers, Drooling Horndogs, and the Suspectability of Male Sexuality

Why is the "sex writer" field so dominated by women?

I've been thinking about this question for many years. The publisher of this very blog brought it up in a conversation we were having, and it's been on my mind off and on ever since. It came up again at a recent salon of sex writers and activists; it came up yet again, although more obliquely, in a conversation I was having with a porn writing friend of mine.

Why is the "sex writer" field so dominated by women?

There are exceptions, obviously. Arguably the most famous and influential sex writer right now is the sex advice columnist Dan Savage. And there are others, of course: David Steinberg, Dr. Marty Klein, Charlie Glickman, I could keep going. And of course, there's plenty of dumb, generic, Maxim-magazine type sex writing from men; in some senses it's silly to complain about sex writing as female-dominated, given how much of the dumb crap there is. But it does seem as if sex writing -- serious, intellectual sex writing, at any rate -- is one of those rare fields that's largely taken up by women, and in which women are both more visible and more generally respected.

And thinking about this question is making me think about the suspectability of male sexuality.

I think that when women write about sex, we're assumed, in some ways, to be dispassionate observers. Of course we get targeted as sluts and whores and whatnot. But we're also seen as bringing a fresh perspective to the subject, and a cooler eye, and a more thoughtful point of view.

When men write about sex, on the other hand, they're assumed to be drooling horndogs.

*

Thus begins my new piece on the Blowfish Blog, Sex Writers, Drooling Horndogs, and the Suspectability of Male Sexuality. To find out more about how treating sex as male-centered actually demeans and trivializes men's sexuality as well as women's, read the rest of the piece. (And if you're inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

New Fishnet Story: "Interview With A Porn Star"

I was used to having sex with women minutes after being introduced. As actors we tried to keep a sense of humor and fun about the situation. It was professional, not sexy. That’s why they call it acting. You’ve just got to sell it for the camera. But the interview with Daphne was sexy. She was beautiful and intelligent and I was seismically attracted her. I swear, if someone had said, “Decide right now, based on the little you know, if you want to marry her” I would have said Yes.

*

That's a sample from the latest story on Fishnet, the online erotic fiction magazine I'm editing: Interview With A Porn Star, by Daniel Burnell. To read more, read the rest of the story. (Not for anyone under 18.) Enjoy!

Greta Reading at Perverts Put Out, "He Is Risen" Edition, 3/13

Hi, all! On Saturday March 13, I'm going to be reading at Perverts Put Out, the San Francisco sex reading series of song and story. This is the "He Is Risen" edition of PPO, celebrating sex and sacrilege, and I'm tickled pink to be part of it.

Perverts Put Out!, San Francisco's long-running pansexual performance series, has featured stellar line-ups of truly twisted, mega-talented artistes... and even an occasional naked mayoral candidate.

For the He Is Risen edition, Perverts Put Out will celebrate all things religious, putting the erection back in resurrection. A splendid sex-and-spirituality time is guaranteed for all.

Performers will include Jane Cassell, Sherilyn Connelly, Gina de Vries, Thomas Roche, horehound stillpoint, Juba Kalamka, and Greta Christina, all presided over by Dr. Carol Queen and Simon Sheppard.

Perverts Put Out: The He Is Risen Edition
Saturday, March 13
7:30 pm
CounterPULSE
1310 Mission Street, San Francisco (at 9th St., near Civic Center BART)
$10-15 sliding scale, no-one turned away

A Cornucopia of Climaxes

Important note: This piece, and the piece it links to, includes references to my personal sex life. Family members and others who don't want to read about that stuff, please don't read this one.

I've been thinking about orgasms.

Just for a change.

Orgasms, I think we can all agree, are great. (I know -- what a controversial and groundbreaking assertion! Alert the media!) But lately, I've been thinking about the vast variety of climactic sexual experiences that aren't, technically speaking, orgasms. I've been thinking about sexual experiences that feel, in some sense, like an orgasm, or like a second cousin of an orgasm -- a shiver, an explosion of energy, a feeling of relaxation and release -- but that probably wouldn't register as "orgasm" if I was hooked up to a Masters and Johnson orgasm- measuring machine.

We have a poverty of language about sexual pleasure. And this includes a poverty of language about climactic sexual pleasure. Every time I read about the four stages of human sexual response cycle (excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution), I feel like I'm looking at a map of a forest that's only mapping out the one path from the parking lot to the main lodge, without showing any of the trails and creeks and pastures. Technically, I suppose these not-quite-climactic climaxes fall into the "excitement" or "plateau" phase of the response cycle... but that language doesn't capture the feeling of rich, complex satisfaction these other trails have to offer.

So here are some of the not-exactly-orgasmic sexual climaxes I've experienced, and the language I've come up with to describe them.

*

Thus begins my new piece on the Blowfish Blog, A Cornucopia of Climaxes. To find out more about some of these varieties of sexual climaxes -- and to share your own with the rest of the class -- read the rest of the piece. (And if you're inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

Greta Interviewed on Amanda Marcotte's Podcast

The brilliant and prolific Amanda Marcotte (Pandagon and more) has been doing a podcast series on the Reproductive Health Reality Check website, and this week's podcast includes (among other things) an interview with me about atheism and sexuality. We talk about the traditional religious view of sexuality, what atheism can offer as an alternative, what atheists uniquely bring to the table in movements for social and sexual change, and more. Check it out!

Gay Mafiosi and Group Marriage Monotheists: Sex, "Caprica," and a Changing World

Well, I wasn't expecting this.

I've recently gotten sucked into "Caprica," the prequel series to "Battlestar Galactica" airing on the SyFy Channel. (Yes, this is about sex -- hear me out.) I hadn't planned to put yet another hour-long drama on my TV schedule, and Loki knows I don't have time for it; but I watched fifteen minutes of the pilot when I was channel surfing, and I got hooked. I'm such a slut. Give me a complex, thoughtful, nuanced exploration of consciousness and selfhood, and I'm anybody's.

And the show has had some surprising plot developments in the sexual arena -- developments that were all the more surprising for how unceremoniously they were introduced.

A quick precis, for those who aren't familiar: The weekly science fiction TV series, "Caprica," takes place in a world that's eerily parallel to Earth. But the world has some interesting differences from ours, and at the time this story takes place, they're a few years/ decades ahead of us. Technologically, and socially.

And "socially" is where the sex comes in. (Caution: Spoiler alert. Multiple spoilers. Suck it up.) There's a major gay character in "Caprica," and there's a major polyamorous character. And the way these characters and their sexualities get woven into the story shows a huge leap forward in the way our culture has started to view alternative sexualities... and an enormous leap forward in how we view our sexual future.

*

Thus begins my new piece on the Blowfish Blog, Gay Mafiosi and Group Marriage Monotheists: Sex, "Caprica," and a Changing World. To read more about the gay and polyamorous characters in "Caprica," and what I think they reveal about our own non-Cylon-infested world, read the rest of the piece. (And if you're inspired to comment here, please consider cross-posting your comment to the Blowfish Blog -- they like comments there, too.) Enjoy!

New Fishnet Story: "Piggy"

It was wet in that alley. There'd been so much rain that everything was damp, all the time. Most of what had got soaked during the previous night's downpour stayed soggy enough, even without the drizzle. Even without me there, leaking my -- well -- I'm getting ahead of myself.

Daddy likes me dirty. That is, she likes getting me dirty. That night we were headed to a party: Daddy was in her dress leathers, hair buzzed so close to her scalp it was practically just a stain, jawline severe and set. I assumed she was packing, but didn't go examining: I always got in trouble if Daddy caught me searching out the bulge of her cock; she said it wasn't ladylike.

I was clothed as requested: white slip, sheer white stockings, body barely covered. No earrings, no makeup, face scrubbed. No bra, even, so my period-heavy tits swung almost painfully beneath the sheer material of the slip. She told me to wear nothing that would present "any obstacle" to her -- so, no panties. In deference to it being the beginning (and thus the heaviest part) of my period, I wore a tampon, string clipped a bit so as not to be so obvious. I planned to remove it surreptitiously once we got to wherever we were going.

*

Thus begins the latest story on Fishnet, the online erotic fiction magazine I'm editing: Piggy, by Jen Cross. To read more, read the rest of the story. (Not for anyone under 18.) Enjoy!

The Learned Fetish

Please note: This piece discusses my personal sex life and sexual fantasies, in a whole lot of detail. Family members and others who don't want to read about that stuff -- you really don't read this one. This piece was originally published on the Blowfish Blog.

Can fetishes be acquired?

There's a truism among many people who think and write about sex. It goes roughly like this: Sexual desires, including sexual fetishes, are developed early in life. And they don't really change much. They can't be changed by social pressure or changing conditions or the personal wish to get rid of them, and they aren't subject to the whims of fashion. Not even fashions in porn. Porn caters to existing fetishes and desires -- not the other way around.

I've been thinking about this truism. And I'm coming to the conclusion that it isn't necessarily true.

Here's my problem with this truism:

I have, in recent months and years, acquired some fetishes that I never had before.

Now, these aren't full-blown fetishes in the standard sense. They aren't a necessary component of my sexual arousal and satisfaction. I'm perfectly capable of enjoying sex without engaging in them or thinking about them; I'm perfectly capable of enjoying masturbation without fantasizing about them. (I do think that core sexual desires, such as being gay or more deeply rooted fetishes, aren't very malleable; and unless it's a fetish that non-consensually hurts other people, I don't see any reason to try.)

But my new interests are fetishes in the less-standard sense. They occupy a significant portion of my erotic imagination. (Translated: I think about them a lot when I whack off.) I deliberately search for them in my porn, and fixate on them when I'm -- ahem -- enjoying my porn. And the sight or thought of them often sexually excites me, even if they're not coming up in a sexual context.

Specifically -- I know my readers, you don't want to hear about this in the abstract, you want the dirty lascivious details, and I'm happy to oblige -- I've acquired fetishes for many of the classic tropes of modern spanking porn. Hairbrushes. Belts. Schoolgirl uniforms. Helpless victims being spanked by cruel authority figures. Tears; i.e.. people, especially women, being spanked until they cry. (That's a rich and strange topic, btw: one that deserves its own post and will get one soon.)

I've always enjoyed these objects and outfits and tropes. But in the past, they were only a few among many that I eroticized. They weren't even at the top of the list. Some were high on that list... but they weren't at the top. They are now.

Now, the fetish for spanking itself... that's a lot closer to a classic fetish for me. It's not an absolutely necessary component of my sexual arousal and pleasure. But while it's not absolutely necessary, it's pretty darned central. I think about spanking a lot. If I go for too long without it, I get cranky. A majority of my masturbation fantasies involve spanking to at least some extent. (I switch around a lot in my mind -- from bottom to top, from girls to boys, from participant to voyeur, from cruel force to cheerful consent -- but it's a good bet that if I'm having a sex fantasy, somebody somewhere is getting spanked.) When I look for porn -- porn purely to get myself off, not porn to expand my erotic horizons or satisfy my yen for literate sex writing -- I generally look for spanking porn. And most of this has been true for most of my life.

But these specific spanking tropes? Not so much. They're definitely an acquired taste. A learned fetish.

There's little doubt in my mind where these fetishes were acquired. I watch a fair amount of standard modern spanking porn. (Mostly on SpankingTube -- it's free, and I'm broke.) These images are well-worn standards of standard modern spanking porn, cliches even, and I see them a lot. So my lizard hindbrain connects them with sex and orgasm generally; and my more complex and twisted human libido associates them with the erotic imagery it's already aroused by. Duh.

But it's still a little puzzling. After all, there are other standard tropes of modern spanking porn that haven't grabbed my libido at all. I'm obsessed with hairbrushes and belts... but I'm pretty "Meh" about leather paddles and floggers that you'd get at a sex shop. (I like them fine in person, mind you; I just don't fetishize them in my fantasies or my porn.) Schoolgirl uniforms and maidservant costumes send my libido up a tree... but trashy tramp-slut outfits just seem obvious and clumsy to me. I'm fascinated by helpless victims getting spanked against their will by cruel authority figures... but I'm a lot less interested in smart-mouthed brats getting righteously punished for their own good. I love white panties and black lace panties and boy-cut panties that curve up over the bottom of the butt... but I find thongs boring to the point of actual turn-off.

And I am almost entirely uninterested in standard female-dom/ male-submissive spanking porn. (Although part of that may be that femdom porn mostly caters to a male audience, and little attention is paid to seeing that the male submissive is reasonably attractive. If I'm going to fantasize about dominating a guy, and if I'm going to watch porn to spark those fantasies, I want the guy to be easy on the eyes. Or at least, not actually off-putting. But I digress.)

I guess to some extent, even my acquired fetishes still feed into the old ones. My newfound obsession with hairbrushes and belts feeds straight into my long-standing fetish for reality: for porn and fantasies that seem like they could easily be happening in an everyday sex life. My newfound obsession with white panties feeds straight into my long-standing fetish for the moment of the reveal, the moment -- drawn out as long as possible -- when a clothed erogenous zone is unclothed and put on display. My newfound obsession with shy, frightened schoolgirls caned by a sadistic schoolmaster/ mistress feeds straight into my long-standing fetish for the abuse of power. (Which may explain why the righteous punishment of brats doesn't do it for me. For a punishment fantasy to work for me, there always has to be a fucked-up element of "I'm using my power over you to satisfy my perverse whims" underlying the pretense of "I'm disciplining you for your own good.")

I am a bit conflicted about this. (Naturally. I swear, I'm not this conflicted and overthinking about my sex life all the time. I just don't usually bother to write think pieces about aspects of my sexuality that I'm completely comfortable with. It lacks dramatic tension.) On the one hand, I'm not crazy about my personal libido being shaped to this degree by commercial video porn. Commercial video porn is all too often a quagmire of conventionality, misinformation, body fascism, and cliche piled on cliche piled on cliche. Even in low-budget, micro-marketed niche porn like spanking porn. Sometimes especially so. For the same reasons that I don't want my tastes in food shaped by the mainstream food industry, I don't want my tastes in sex shaped by the mainstream porn industry. Like I wrote in my recent piece on the ubiquity of pubic hair shaving, it bugs me no end that commercial porn has become a primary trendsetting influence on sexual culture. It's just not a very good one.

But I do enjoy the degree to which my libido is malleable. It makes me feel open to new experiences. For the same reasons that I like learning about new music instead of just listening to the stuff I liked in my twenties, I like learning about new sexual fetishes instead of just enjoying the ones I liked in my twenties. And if I decide that I don't like how my libido is being shaped by conventional spanking porn, I can always turn it off. (The porn, I mean -- not my libido.)

Anyway. It doesn't ultimately matter; I'm fine with this however it turns out. But as always, I'm curious, and I'm nosy. So I'm wondering: Does anyone else have this experience? Has anyone else acquired new sexual fetishes later in life? And if so, have your newly-acquired fetishes mostly fed into existing ones... or have they opened up entirely different erotic avenues? Nosy minds want to know.