Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Watershed moment.

When my first serious relationship ended, I thought I would never get laid again. For more than a year, I didn't. I just figured that guys didn't like me, that I would embarrass myself if I approached them, and that sex was for pretty people and lucky people and you just don't get lucky that often. I would have said yes if someone suitable had dropped out of the sky and asked me for a roll in the hay, but I made no effort to drop out of anyone else's sky. From age 17 to 19 I was almost entirely celibate, and not terribly happy about it.

Then at age 19 I was out in the middle of Fuckin' Nowhere, Idaho, living in a shared motel room and working for food and a credit in an indie film, and on a whim I decided to post a craigslist "casual encounters" ad. I posted a very honest picture. I said I didn't care about age or looks or anything. I figured that way maybe I'd get at least one answer.

I was deluged. I didn't know that many people in Fuckin' Nowhere, Idaho even had Internet access, let alone were reading craigslist that night and wanted to fuck me. It was insane. I couldn't just get a man, I could choose a man. (For a night, of course, which changes the math considerably over wanting one to introduce to your friends and help you move furniture. But it was sex, not relationships, that pained me at that point in my life.)

I went to meet a guy who was quite a bit older than me, we had dinner, and then we went back to his place and humped like crazy bunnies. It was a little awkward--I wasn't very experienced at that time and there was more squirming around and humping than actual fucking--but it was also hot as fuck. The guy was entirely respectful and mostly sane and we had a good time and went our ways.

Somehow, that one skeevy encounter with some random middle-aged dude in the middle of nowhere turned my whole sex life around. Since then I haven't gone more than a matter of weeks without sex, but more importantly, since then I have (most of the time) believed I could get sex. That desirability isn't some objective thing I don't have--some people will desire me and some won't. Cock is always out there, and it's my decision whether I want it, not my good fortune to be awarded it.



I've gone back to craigslist a few times since--I've had a surprising number of experiences that were genuinely friendly rather than furtive, but the psycho factor is a little too high--but it wasn't really craigslist that opened my eyes, it was just a vehicle for discovering that men could want me. Maybe some girls know that just walking down the street (although probably not nearly as many as I would guess), but for me, it was a wonderful discovery. Skeezy Internet sex did wonders for my self-esteem and, in some ways, changed my life.



P.S.: I also got a response from one of my coworkers. Despite the fact that my face was completely visible in the photo, he didn't realize it was me. We never spoke of this.


P.P.S. : Okay, come to think of it, I think I actually had a bit of sex during my "almost entirely celibate" phase, like maybe actually a lot of sex considering Keith and CB and Danny and whatisface and that weird closet-case chick and her boyfriend... I was actually maybe not so celibate at all. But I maintain that it was still that craigslist experience that changed my attitude toward my own desirability.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Tactile peek.

One of my favorite things is the feeling of a man getting hard inside his jeans. A guy getting hard not inside his jeans is pretty awesome too, but there's something particularly naughty about the half-concealed boner. I can tell it's there, but he still has some secrets. I can squeeze it, but not stroke it.

I think it's like the difference between a naked breast and a nipple barely peeking through clothing. Being naked, that's utilitarian, that's how sex normally is. Being sexy in your clothing, the clothes trying to hide it but failing, that's a whole lot more interesting.

Plus, it's hard to get a guy's dick all the way out at a movie theater without someone noticing and getting all weird about it.

Monday, December 28, 2009

PT.

Here's a tricky question: in jobs like firefighting, police, and the military, should there be separate PT standards for men and women?

On one hand, it's not fair to ask women to have as much strength as men, we're smaller and don't have the hormones to build muscle easily. On the other hand, the real world isn't fair. Someone may be weaker by no fault of her own, but "fault" doesn't matter in a fire or a fight, a weak person is a liability to the team.

My feeling is that there should be one standard, but the people (okay, the guys) who design PT tests should think about what they're really testing for. Do the standards reflect the actual challenges of the job, or do they reflect a relatively arbitrary desire for people in the top percentiles of physical fitness? In other words, are you rejecting a woman because she can't drag hose upstairs, or because she isn't "generally physically fit"? If it's the latter, then sex-divided PT standards are appropriate. But I've never seen a fire go around poking bellies to see who's generally fit, and really, anyone who can pass performance-based standards can't be exactly Spuddie The Amazing Couch Potato.

So I'd say, yeah, make the women perform like the men, but don't make them perform to a standard that prefers men and barely relates to the job. A female firefighter who can run fast and lift heavy doesn't need to be asked how many pushups she can do, too.

Treading the Twisty line.

My current work partner is, to put it mildly, not from my cultural background. He was raised as a very strict Traditional Values Evangelical Christian complete with weird homeschool co-op, didn't have sex before marriage (which wasn't such a hardship since he married at 17), and he still doesn't know a lot of the important dirty words. I'm teaching him so much. (That's not a joke. He's not a prude, simply sheltered, and although he would never do any of these terrible things himself, he's quite fascinated by what heathens do in bed.) He's sort of in the process of moving into the mainstream; he's not renouncing his faith or anything but he's started swearing and drinking and other things people from his original community would never do.

And he tends to say sexist things without realizing it. Not overt, "git in the kitchen bitch" stuff, nothing that's meant as an offense, but he loves to deride frivolous or wimpy things as "girly." (Or "gay," which is, intriguingly, a synonym. But "lesbian" doesn't connote toughness and strength, so it's not a consistent system.) He's always saying shit like "I drink light beer, I'm such a woman." Or "that guy was acting like a total girl. Man up, pussy!"

I'm never sure how far to go with pointing out that, hello, the person you're talking to is a total girl, cannot man up, and has a pussy. And I love me some Double Chocolate Stout.

On the one hand, he's a decent guy to me and we know each other pretty well by now, so I think he'd at least try to listen. On the other hand, I don't want to be a controlling jerk. There's a line between standing up for your gender and being the Language Police that wants Christmas carols to say "peace on Earth and good will toward multi-gendered inclusive humanity," and I'm not sure which side of the line I would fall on. Or more importantly, which side of the line he would see me on. It's hard to refute negative stereotypes of my gender by acting sensitive and demanding. A real man would laugh it off.

With the beer thing, I did point out that I like dark beer, and he thought it was very funny that a woman liked man beer and vice versa, but I couldn't quite explain why that's not the point. The point isn't "sometimes girls do manly things," the point is that the whole concept of manly and womanly things is 98% a crock of shit. There's no beer that interfaces better with a Y chromosome than another, for god's sake, so declaring a beer manly and seeing women who drink it as exceptions (or more perniciously, "cool girls," not like those lame girls who like girl things) is ridiculous. Some people like some beers and some people like others, and you can leave it at that. It's not important, it's not exactly denying my civil rights, but it's symbolic of a pointlessly gendered worldview. And one that always seems to assign my gender the shittier beers.

Kind of hard to convey all this to a guy who's only spent a couple years out of a culture that really would have me in the kitchen.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Why sex is dirty.

I have a pair of stuffed animals, a little horse and cow, that I've had since I was born and they're extremely special to me; they sleep in my bed every night and ride in my bag everywhere I travel. They're worn threadbare from twenty-four years of hugging and they're filled with as much love as a human can pour into an object.

And long ago I decided that they could never see me have sex. If I have a boy over, or if I'm going to masturbate, Horsie and Cowie have to go under the pillow. Their little eyes have to be shielded. Partly because they represent my childhood, but mostly because they're... special. They're innocent. And much as I protest that sex is innocent and carries no inherent "dirt," in this one area I cannot practice what I preach.

---

The local fetish club (ahem, sex-positive community center, it's a very cool organization but it's a fetish club and doesn't need to kid itself) sends out a weekly mailer with their activities and I was surprised to see they had events on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It seems sad somehow. I know not everyone can or wants to be with family on Christmas, lots of people don't celebrate it at all, but... it's Christmas, man. I'm Jewish and the thought of spending Christmas at a fetish club strikes me as unbearably depressing.

---

There's a deeply ingrained hatred for the simple pleasures of the flesh in our culture. We hate the slut, the glutton, the layabout, the drunk, not just for the consequences of their actions but for the cheap dirty pleasure they're giving themselves. They didn't earn that! The only guiltless joys are hard-won. (Maybe this is why an "easy" woman is looked down on.) Pleasure without accomplishment feels secretly immoral.

It goes against sex-positivity and the general semi-hippie social mores of the Internet, but this anti-pleasure sentiment isn't all bad. The nagging sense that the pleasure of orgasm isn't as "real" as the pleasure of climbing a mountain is what drives people to achieve, rather than simply enjoy. If everything I need to be happy is right between my legs, why bother being human? Why learn, why explore, why create?

I think this is the origin of sex-negativity, of much-maligned concepts like Protestant work ethic and Catholic guilt and Jewish guilt. It's the root of slut-shaming and homophobia and Promise Rings. It's why monks and priests are celibate and why Americans can't go to the beach naked. And it's also, kinda, the basis of humanity.

Pleasure-negativity sucks balls when you're trying to have a fun night out or a funner night in. But pleasure-negativity is also what gets you out of bed in the morning. The ability to think beyond your next fuck or next meal separates humans from animals. It's a shame that we get all down on fucking and eating, since they're fine and joyous pastimes, but I think we have to hold a little prejudice against earthly pleasures to drive us to greater things.

I hate feeling guilty about fucking, but I need to feel guilty about not going to work, and I think the two are inextricably tied.

Promise Rings are still pretty stupid though.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Three strawmen.

I so often hear sex described in terms of genitals. Sex is all about penis and/or vagina, and everything else is trappings. (Especially for men, because lol men only want warm holes lol.) This is, to me, a bit like saying running is something you do with your feet. Feet are important for running, yes, but if you think your arms and hips and lungs and heart just sit there...

The point where this anatomical synecdoche becomes a problem is, often, when people start using it as an excuse to trivialize sex. Sex is frivolous, it's debased, it's something you really shouldn't give too much weight too, because it's just genitals. You shouldn't risk or sacrifice anything just to please your stupid genitals.

That statement becomes somewhat less self-evident if it's rephrased as "you shouldn't risk or sacrifice anything just to please your entire body and mind."

-------

I've said before that I don't think "it isn't a choice!" is a good response to homophobia--it's true, but I'd rather say "even if it was a choice, so what?" Otherwise you frame homosexuality as a disability, something that has to be tolerated because it's inevitable rather than accepted because it's legitimate.

I'm going to extend that to fat. I don't like it when people answer "eww, fatty!" with "some people have hormonal problems or are on meds and can't help it." Although my reasoning is different. In this case, maybe they could help it, maybe they do have the physiology of an average person and simply ate too much... what's it to ya? Maybe it isn't smart or safe to overeat, but there's lots of people who take risks with their own bodies--contact sports players, people who don't wear helmets on motorcycles, people who have terrible diets but are skinny--who don't get the kind of schoolyard shit from grown adults that fatties do.

Maybe a fat person did get that way by stuffing their face full of Cheetos and pork rinds (she typed, miserably sarcastic, as she ate her dinner of skinless chicken breast with side of steamed peas), but that doesn't make them evil or gross or less of a person. And although fatness is unhealthy, I won't argue that, I feel like people who go on about healthcare costs and double plane seats and "the obesity epidemic" are sometimes just trying to justify their visceral reaction to a body shape that doesn't appeal to them.

"Tonight on CBS News: The Ugly Epidemic: new government programs to deal with the rising numbers of tragically unsexy Americans."

-------

On drunken sex: I'm uncomfortable with people stating that drunken sex is rape. But I'm also uncomfortable with people saying that sex with an incoherently drunk person is okay.

I think the important distinction is that there are multiple levels of drunk. There's too drunk to make good decisions, and then there's too drunk to make any decisions. I think someone who has impaired judgement, but still basically has control of themselves and will remember things in the morning-someone who can't drive, but can at least walk home unassisted--is capable of giving consent. If a girl is dizzy and giggly and producing cartoon *hic* noises, but she knows who you are and what's going on and she actively participates, I don't think it's rape to have sex with her. If she's close to passing out and her "consent" is more like "not resisting," that's rape.

It's true that a drunk person might make a decision that they wouldn't make sober, and I think that taking advantage of someone in a state of impaired judgement is a dick move, but I don't think it's on the level of a crime. Saying "yes" when you really shouldn't have is a whole different ballpark from never saying "yes" at all.

I actually don't like participating in the Internet sport of "Is It Rape?" that much, I think it's bad taste for someone who's never been seriously sexually assaulted and isn't in law enforcement to be drawing stupid hypothetical rape/not-rape lines like this, but I'm unsettled by college propaganda posters about how if she's drunk you're a rapist. Because there's drunk, and then there's drunk. They're just not the same thing.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Cleanliness.

I had a one-night-stand a little ways back with a guy who seemed normal enough: cute curly hair, the not-socially-hopeless kind of geek, super cuddly and sweet. And the sex itself was okay if terribly ordinary--if I moan and say "ooh, I like that" after you spank me once, that is not your cue to never spank me again--but afterwards, he immediately ripped the sheets off his bed and stuffed them in the laundry bin. Then jumped in the shower and scrubbed himself down, and asked me "aren't you going to shower now?" and more or less made me shower.

And then bid me good night and was very sweet and cuddly again.

Huh. It's not like we got fluids all over. Maybe I'm gross, but I definitely would rate vanilla sex with no spillage as a Kleenex and shower-in-the-morning situation, not something requiring immediate decontamination. I don't think it was an insult to me, but there was definitely some weird hangup going on there.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

What I'm reading now.

Happyendingz - confessions of an erotic masseuse.

It's a fascinatingly matter-of-fact look into a business I always thought was little more than a cover story--but no, there are erotic massage places that take the "massage" part somewhat seriously and don't have fuckin', and CJ works at one of them. She has great stories and comes off as just an ordinary person with an interesting job.



Now I feel bad about that "just." I hate to be saying "oh, she's like a normal person even though she's a sex worker," because that's awfully condescending. She is normal! I shouldn't even have to say that! She's probably not normal in certain ways because no one is! She doesn't need me to defend her!

...augh, just read her blog, you'll learn fun stuff about handjob massages.

Internet Money.

In the past month I've been doing very well making money off the Internets (via Ebay and Etsy primarily, making jewelry and reselling used books--the per-hour rate is embarrassing considering how much of my "free" time has been spent working, but the total has been getting to over $100 a week), and since it never rains when it could be pouring, yesterday I got an email offering me even more Internet money! Yay!

...And all I would have to do is post reviews of commercial sites and not admit that I was getting paid for it. Nothing in the email actually says "favorable reviews", but c'mon now. If you want to crowdsource your viral 2.0 social buzz, don't just go offering random strangers money to lie for you, that's as clumsy as it is skanky.

Anyway I'm in no rush to monetize this blog. I might sell advertising sometime if it isn't annoying--I'm talking sidebars, not giant page-obscuring abominations-- but content? This thing's nearly as personal as my diary, and I don't write "today I went to McDonald's and enjoyed the all-new delicious Angus Third Pounder" in my diary.

I'm a slut, not a ho. I got my principles.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Links People Sent Me.

Woman's life made 'unbearable' by insatiable libido

To be honest this isn't a sex story so much as a medical story, and if her symptoms keep up long-term I wonder if surgery or some kind of nerve block might be justified. It also sounds like her problem isn't "libido" per se but genital hypersensitivity--closer to priapism than nymphomania.

I've noticed that there are (at least) two different kinds of horny I experience. One is a desire for the full package of sex, for human connection and kinkiness and lots of experimentation and enjoyment. The other is more akin to needing to pee--it's just a physiological desire for orgasm. It's the difference between "let's make love all night, baby" and "oh man, I wanna come so bad right now."

The second kind is not only less noble, it's less fun, and I don't think someone cursed with that kind of horny all day long is in a good situation at all.


Vintage Sex Ed

Thoroughly entertaining, although sadly I haven't had the chance to watch it all yet. I think it would be more instructive to make a gallery of current sex-ed materials; I'm guessing they don't lack for howlers. My sex-ed classes seemed to focus mainly on the idea that if girls had "self-esteem" they wouldn't want to have sex. Which is the complete opposite of my real-life experience, in which sex bolsters my confidence and confidence gets me laid.

But I guess the message of "as a teenage girl, you may feel pressured to have sex by the sexiness of your boyfriend and how good he is with his fingers and the fact that sex feels fucking fantastic and you can come over and over and it's so good oh God" didn't pass the curriculum review board.


Why James Chartrand Wears Women’s Underpants

A well-known blogger "comes out" as female, and tells a heartbreaking and scary story of how taking on a male identity changed her life.

Instantly, jobs became easier to get.
There was no haggling. There were compliments, there was respect. Clients hired me quickly, and when they received their work, they liked it just as quickly. There were fewer requests for revisions — often none at all.
Customer satisfaction shot through the roof. So did my pay rate.
And I was thankful. I finally stopped worrying about how I would feed my girls. We were warm. Well-fed. Safe. No one at school would ever tease my kids about being poor.



It's true: all the taken men are best

Silly "scientific" horseshit. It's (at least as written here) a great example of a study finding results that could mean many things, and then shoehorning them into a form that confirms stereotypes as comfortably as possible. The actual results: women are more attracted to the same man when they hear that he has a partner.

That's sort of interesting, but then the interpretations go all kinds of wacky unsupported places: women are "poachers," women are competitive, women want a man to be "socially desirable." Maybe, but nothing in your actual research tells me any of that. (Here's a thought, I know it's ickily qualitative, but maybe she should've asked her subjects why they found these hypothetical partners attractive or not. Or for all I know she did, but it sure didn't make it into the article.)

My own hypothesis is that a man who's very good-looking but not in a relationship leads to the question "so why not?" and suggests he either doesn't want to be or he comes with some baggage; and a man who's not very good-looking, well, he's not very good-looking. Obviously there are plenty of cute single guys who'd be good boyfriends, but I can see that reasoning. Still, my hypothesis is just that, a hypothesis, and I wouldn't publish it in a big national magazine before I actually tested it.

Finally, I'm always amused that people can get grants and press for "studies" that amount to little more than playing "would you rather" with a bunch of undergrads. I can play this game too! Hey roomie, would you rather fuck Kurt Russell or Shia LaBeouf? Kurt? Awesome, me too.

BREAKING NEWS: WOMEN PREFER OLDER, HARIER MEN:
Possibly a subconscious desire for their own fathers, or for rich men to support them, or to steal the husbands of older women. Women are filthy creatures.

Monday, December 14, 2009

iPorn.

So there I was, searching the iTunes App Store for some mindless fiddly-fiddly games to while away the workday, and what's topping the "most downloaded apps" charts?

iPasties - Women wearing pasties!
Pocket Girlfriend - A woman wearing underwear! (And she says "dream girl lol" snippets about loving shopping for tools and hating foreplay, hurrr. I never got the whole "guys hate foreplay" meme, most guys I've been with seemed to be having a pretty good time, perhaps they were all just great actors. Geez, now I'm going to worry.)
Naughty Hotties - Women basically just standing there!
Beautiful Boobs - According to the reviewers, one single picture of a woman and she has clothes on!
Naughty X-Mas Hotties - Women in Santa suits!

Now I've got no problem with boys liking sexy women, I kind of enjoy it when they include me in that category, but there's something missing here, isn't there? So I searched on "sexy men," and to my surprise, there were a few apps listed. Nothing compared to the giant heap of million-download "sexy women" apps, but a few. To my total non-surprise, more than half of them were tagged "gay."

The explanation I usually hear is "oh, women are horny, but they're just not visual." Frequently followed by bemoaning how women never notice them because they don't look like Hugh Jackman. Also, I haven't noticed any sleazy iPod apps where you simulate a deep emotional connection with a sexy man. (Well, there's some Twilight apps. Eurgh.)

And then again. Much as I want to deride this thole thing as sexist and ridiculous, there's an inconvenient fact here--I found the sexy men apps, I noted them for blogging purposes, and then I didn't buy them. I don't collect pictures of sexy men. I don't Google for them. Looking through my computer and my DVDs, you'll find plenty of porn of couples having sex, but not a lot of standalone men. Most pictures of a guy just standing there posing don't appeal to me that much. The other women that I surveyed in a recent intensive five-minute study of my house (n=2) don't really fixate on man candy either. We like our men to look good, yes, but we don't go nuts about them if that's all they do.

So maybe women aren't visual, at least not in the centerfold-admiring way that a lot of men are. I really hate to admit any kind of psychological gender difference, and I can feel my brain already scanning for ways to blame it all on Society, but this one seems to be staring me in the face. And it's wearing a sexy Santa suit.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Horrifying realization.

Some women wear panty-liners every day. Like, even when they don't have their periods!

...Am I gross because I don't?

...Why has no one marketed absorbent dick-liners for men?

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Cosmocking: January '10!

Bubblegum pink cover! Amanda Bynes! Her outfit is nice except for a weird belt around her belly and no belt in her actual belt loops! I just realized that the women on Cosmo covers never wear bras! Best headline: "Your Hoo-Ha Handbook: Get a Healthy, Sexy Vagina"! Some supermarkets put a black plastic thing in front of the stack of Cosmos for decency's sake and I don't blame them!

Every month Cosmo has a feature called "The Real Story" in which a "body-language expert" analyzes a few photos of a famous couple and tells you whether their relationship is happy or not. Because people's chance expressions in paparazzi snaps give you a pretty good window into their true feelings.
On the surface, they look like one big, happy family, but the couple displays subtle signs the bond may not be strong. There's a gap between them, and while A-rod gazes directly at Kate, she appears distracted and looks in the opposite direction.
She doesn't stare at him constantly! She averted her eyes from him for at least 1/100th of a second! Their relationship must be crumbling!

Show him who's in charge with a flick of your wrist. Instead of just unbuckling his belt, grab the buckle and pull it fiercely from the loops. Then add a little flourish by snapping it like a whip before tossing it aside.
Okay, I'm trying this, and I have a considerable advantage over most Cosmo girls in that I actually know how to crack a whip. Out of ten attempts, I hit myself four times and looked like a complete dork ten times. (And cracked zero times, a belt is too short and heavy and has no popper.) I imagine that an undressed man a few inches away from this dorkery would not have fared well.

Conventional wisdom says that a woman should ask a date questions to draw him out instead of talking about herself. Well, science now says screw that. A recent study shows that guy dig chicks who use the word "I" often. Of course you don't want to monopolize the conversation, but telling personal stories and referring to yourself can go a long way.
Okay, so I can talk about myself, but not too much, and also ask him some questions, but not too many, and use the word "I", but don't monopolize, and for God's sake act natural!

There's a "paper doll" feature with cut-outs of male celebrity faces that you're supposed to stick on top of a picture of a naked model holding a towel over his cock to create a simulated celebrity nude. Huh. I'm really not sure what to make of this. ...Huh.

I dunno, man, I'd rather see the model's own face. Rest of him ain't bad.

The cover hype: 100% Hotter Sex: Thrill Every Inch of His Body Using a Move No Woman Has Dared to Try on Him Before.
The actual article: girl-on-top sex. Wow. That was worth my $4.79.

Lower yourself onto him in a sideways sitting position, and rub your butt back and forth over his abs and thighs like a windshield wiper while he's inside you.
Huh? What? Sideways? Like a windshield wiper? I can't picture this at all. I think I've almost got it visualized, but no, that would break something, that can't be right. Are we talking regular car windshield wipers or those bus ones that have a swivel?

Join a flag-football league, and feel each other up midgame.
This would be 500% more entertaining (and sexier!) with a tackle football league. As it is, you're just going to seriously piss off everyone who came to play football.

"I bought a belly-dancing outfit, turned on some exotic music, and attempted to give my guy a sexy striptease. But all he did was laugh hysterically at the show--for the next 10 minutes. I burst into tears and locked myself in the bathroom until he apologized."--Julie, 29
Maybe it's just me, but I can't imagine locking myself in the bathroom over something like that. I imagine myself, depending on what kind of laughter, either A) laughing along and throwing the outfit aside and falling into his arms naked like God intended, or B) getting right in his fucking face and telling him that if my body is fucking funny to him he doesn't fucking deserve it. Locking yourself in the bathroom is ridiculous teenager shit, and I wouldn't entirely blame him if he just walked away and left you to unlock yourself in your own sweet time.

There's breaking news in "guy world": many committed guys are treating themselves to a little too much one-handed fun, and it could leave both of you feeling less than satisfied in bed. [...] Once you've gotten it out in the open, the best course of action is for him to simply stop cold turkey. [...] If he is resistant, you may need to seek out the help of a therapist.
Oh what the fuck Cosmo. What the fuck. No, Cosmo. NO.

(Among many, many other objections: this is like the exact opposite of "breaking news." I don't think this is "breaking news" among monkeys.)

Q: My boyfriend is extremely possessive. We've dated for a year, and in that time, I've never even thought about cheating on him. But he still gets upset when I as much as talk to other men. I've basically lost all my guy friends, and I'm fed up. How can I get him to understand that I'm not going to cheat on him?
A: [...] try asking him why he's so jealous--like you said, you've never done anything to justify him feeling that way. If he can open up about it, great. You guys may be able to come to an understanding and strengthen your relationship in the process.

Cosmopolitan magazine: getting women beaten since 1965!

There's probably more stupid stuff but I can't read any more after this. This guy is psycho, he's separating her from her friends, this letter has more red flags than a bullfight, and Cosmo's advice is that she should confront him and try to strengthen the relationship. SHE IS GOING TO GET HER ASS BEAT, Cosmo. Oh, probably she doesn't exist or the publication cycle is too slow to be relevant, but maybe she's reading, and certainly other women in her situation will be reading, and maybe your advice could help them protect their emotional and physical safety. If you weren't a bunch of FUCKING ASSHOLE IDIOTS.




This marks the first time I've actually written to Cosmo about their content. You can do it right here and maybe a human might read it? Potentially. (If you do, be a dear and don't mention Cosmocking. Although everything I reprint here is fair use of small excerpts for parody and criticism, I'd rather not risk drawing the heat.)

Makeup.

I don't really "get" makeup. I wear a little bit sometimes, but I don't really understand why, I'm just conforming to expectations. (Or coping with a really horrible zit, but that's not the full makeup monty, it doesn't count.) I guess wearing makeup when I go out represents putting effort into my appearance, but I'm not sure what that effort is for. These are my questions:

1) Is makeup supposed to be sexual? Since it's gender-specific and supposed to enhance "attractiveness," I assume that means sexual attractiveness. But lots of women wear it to work, monogamous women wear it away from their partners, no one's scandalized when teenagers wear it, and some women won't leave the house without it. So I guess it's supposed to be sexy, but not literally advertising for sex--and I don't know what that means. Just a passive expression that one has a feminine sexuality, I guess?

2) Is makeup supposed to be invisible? It's obviously not, in the standard application; no one naturally has red lips or colored eyelids. But when you read articles about makeup, a lot of the emphasis is on concealing or emphasizing your natural features. Blush is intended to simulate a strong cheekbone, not a pink smear on your face. Mascara is an attempt at fooling people into thinking you naturally have really big eyelashes... which is a good thing, I guess? But no one feels cheated to find out that a girl's apparent super-eyelashes were really just makeup. So I don't get it.

3) Does makeup really make that much of a difference? When I put on makeup, I still look exactly like Holly, just slightly palette-swapped. I wouldn't fool ya for younger or thinner or anything. I can't imagine anyone being attracted to makeup-Holly who isn't attracted to me regular.

Unless makeup isn't about the appearance it creates but the signals it sends--"I'm feminine and I put some work into myself." But then the craft of makeup should matter less; there shouldn't be so many concerns about doing it just right, if the presence of makeup matters more than the content. I guess that's where the "work" part comes from, though. Even if it's completely circular work to display the presence of work, you still have to do it right, geez.

This whole subject confuses me.

"The Silent Strike!"

Fabulous video link, courtesy elmo_iscariot:

Cosmo Brainstorming

(NWS dialogue but visually inoffensive.)

Monday, December 7, 2009

My First Porn Site.

When I was thirteen years old, my best friend and I started a porn site.

Well, an erotica site; it didn't have photos, but there was a sizeable selection of written and drawn erotic (or more often "erotic") material. It was hosted on GeoCities, and hamfisted in every way--the layout was a mess of big purple text and teenagerish babble, the pages were random collections of anything we thought would be cool, and the content was an unsorted hodgepodge of things we'd made, things stolen from other amateur sites, and things stolen from the free sections of professional porn sites. We had no concept of copyright and would post anything that CTRL-C could grab.

We did have a PayPal account set up and linked to the site, but (fortunately) the technical intricacies of a password-protected paysite were way beyond us and we charged on a "donation" basis, which of course never made us a red cent.

We were both virgins, and I was about to make fun of how this must've affected our writing, but looking back at the old TXT files, honestly, we were pretty damn good at theorizing. Knowing these files were written by thirteen-year-olds makes me feel all dirty. I didn't realize until just now that at age thirteen I knew exactly how buttsex works. (Also, my spelling and grammar were quite good. I'm so proud of little proto-Holly.)

So as fairly young kids my friend and I were so immersed in porn culture that we were not just avid consumers, we were trying in our puppyish way to join the production side. Three questions that come up in retrospect:

1) Where were our parents? Clueless, of course, not because they were negligent but because we were wily like foxes. We knew when and how to sneak computer time and cover our tracks, and "parental control" filters barely slowed us down. Our parents could have disallowed all unmonitored computer use and probably stopped us, but that would have put a considerable enforcement burden on them, and thirteen is probably too old to be so draconian--we used the Internet for legitimate purposes all the time.

2) Were our views of women or sex skewed? Probably not too badly. We looked at a lot of gay male porn, which was fairly equalizing, but also a lot of Japanese and anime straight porn, which was chockfull of humiliation and rape. I think we took it in fairly good humor--we understood the difference between rape fantasies and real violence, and I don't remember ever thinking that real rape was sexy or that humiliation fantasies were literal. Certainly I don't ever remember feeling or expressing any ill will toward the women in porn--hey, they're just actors.

3) Were we harmed? I don't think so. I'm not really sure what kind of harm to check for, honestly. I don't regret anything other than the copyright infringement and the poor web design. If we'd been a little dumber we might've posted pictures of ourselves, and that might have had consequences legally and socially, but I don't think the act of posting self-kiddy-porn would have done much to us psychologically. Even though it was sexual, we were coming at this from a pretty innocent place--we just wanted to entertain and get a little attention--and there was no sense of exploitation or debasement. We were in control of the whole project, after all.



So when people get all panicky about kids under eighteen being exposed to anything remotely sexual, pardon me if my monocle doesn't exactly fly off. Kids getting into sexual situations with older people is a different matter, but kids experiencing sexual material on their own or with peers is as natural as the morning dew and about as hazardous. Hot Coffee, sexting, racy scenes in library books, Janet Jackson's nipple, gay marriage taught in the schools, putting condoms on bananas? Yeah, whatever, I was younger than that when I ran a goddamned porn site.



In fact, the only thing that did get dangerous was a result of society "protecting" us. We could download pictures and text, but this was dial-up-era, and being under 18 we couldn't buy porn videos on our own. We had a friend who was 18, though, and he would buy porn and invite us over to watch it with him. Now that was some sketchy shit.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Summer loving, winter loving.

Summer sex always seems a little more expansive, exploratory. Let's do it outside! Let's get up early and do it! Let's run all around the house naked!

Winter sex is more comforting, even protective. Let's cuddle up under the covers! Let's hold each other in the dark.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Crazy clingy bitch.

An attitude I am really fucking sick of: "Yeah, this chick I fucked called back and was all like she wanted to see me again, talk about craaaaazy, I sure dodged a bullet, whoo."

Wanting human attachment is not crazy, assholes.

Look, I understand, sometimes sex is just sex. And assuming that a romantic relationship is inevitable or that it already exists after one fuck--that's a bit nutty, yeah. Stalking or harassing a guy and refusing to take "no" for an answer are definitely crazy. But merely wanting a relationship, asking about one, or even just wanting to have sex more than once--these are reasonable. It's unfortunate and awkward when one person wants a relationship and the other doesn't, but it isn't crazy. And it's really assholish to throw that implication on top of rejection. The answer is no... and you were a crazy bitch to even ask!

If a guy doesn't want a sexual relationship to go any farther, that's understandable. He's under no obligation. But have some goddamn grace about it. Acting like romantic interest is synonymous with bunny-boiling obsession is egotistical, hurtful, and really freakin' immature.




The impetus for this post was this article about the "cheetah," which is apparently a completely ordinary woman who "preys" on men by having sex with them. But the part that really touched a nerve was:

Both her Auntie Cougar and Cousin Puma have a certain dignity. They’re out there shakin’ it up, slaying dudes and taking names. Not so the cheetah, who hopes that her victim will find something in her searching eyes when he rolls over the next morning, and will try to subtly guilt him into another round next time they meet: “Hey, where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in so long.”

Because the only thing more pathetic than a woman who picks up men is a woman who picks up men and tries to connect with them afterwards. How dare she? Doesn't she know her place?

Oh no, the "youth" have technology!

One-third of youths have engaged in "sexting."

By "youth" they mean ages 14-24, so I'm included there, despite my increasing lack of resemblance to a wide-eyed apple-cheeked little innocent. It's fun to refocus the entire article with this in mind, and read sentences like "[Women] were more likely to share a naked image of themselves than [men], and those who are already sexually active were much more likely to send an image than those who were not sexually active." Already! At 24! I know, I'm the shame of my family. Hell, this entire blog is a truly malignant example of inappropriate youth behavior. Perhaps I'll kill myself: "About 12 percent of those who engaged in sexting activity have contemplated suicide, though the survey didn’t attempt to deduce if the suicidal thoughts were related to the often negative consequences of sexting."

(Fun fact: According to the World Health Organization, 15.3% of all Americans have contemplated suicide. Clearly sexting has protective effects.)

Beyond the definition of "youth" as an age group that's more than half legal adults, my other beef with this type of teen-sexting-panic article is that it's only describing a natural evolution of behaviors that kids have done since the dawn of time. Post-pubescent humans are horny, stop the presses.

The problem isn't that the kids are getting naked; the problem is that the kids might not be aware how permanent and shareable the record of their nakedness is. Kids (and, um, 24-year-olds) may have played "show me yours I'll show you mine" since genitals were invented, but the ability to then go and show hers to all your buddies has been expanded by technology. This is what kids need to hear: not that sexting is "inappropriate" or it'll make you suicidal but that it makes it easier for the whole school to see your junk.

(Total digression: I always hated it when I was a teenager and adults called sexual or vulgar behavior "inappropriate," without specifying what situation it was inappropriate for. If it's not appropriate when I'm off the clock in my own home, maybe appropriateness isn't your real concern. Jerks.)

In the long run, what's going to happen is saturation. When everything is digitally recorded, everyone will have filthy pictures out there; and when everyone is naked on the Internet, it'll stop being a big deal. I look forward to the day when "she took off her pants on the Internet" is about as exciting a news as "she took off her pants in her bedroom."

I also look forward to the day when people respond to "boyfriend shows whole school his girlfriend's crotch" stories with "that asshole boyfriend" rather than "that sexting slut!"

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Jealousy.

I don't entirely understand women who get jealous when their boyfriends look at porn. I understand strip clubs being more of a problem and hookers more still, but outside the health/ethics issues with a hooker these things really never bother me. They're not competition. A pornstar will never take him home and a stripper will never go hiking with him. They might get his cock, but they're no threat to his heart.

Unless he gets obsessed with them, but then your problem is less "that thieving slut" and more "that psychotic man."

The Two Myths of Desire.

When I started this blog, one of this first myths I wanted to tackle was that women weren't horny. (My counter-evidence consisting largely of "fuck, I'm horny.") Figleaf has a refinement he calls the Two Rules of Desire:

1) It is simultaneously inconceivable and intolerable for a woman to have sexual desire.
2) It is simultaneously inconceivable and intolerable for a man to be sexually desired.

I want to be careful how I present these. Obviously they're not true. And they're also not that widely believed; tons of women know they're horny for men and tons of men know that and love it. But they form a sort of infrastructure for a lot of misconceptions about gender and sexuality, from "sluts are psychologically damaged" to "pretty boys are gaaaaay." These two rules are the base myths that lead to Cosmo sex tips and "evolutionary" pop-psych and everything that Maxim has ever printed that wasn't about sports cars.

How they apply to some of my personal bugbears:

Cosmo - It is inconceivable for a woman to have sexual desire, so here's some tips on how to be attractive to him and how to please him in bed. When we do speak about your own sexuality, we'll assume you've barely thought about it so we'll either ignore it, or write "how to have an orgasm" articles that assume you've gone twenty-odd years and never touched your down-theres before.

Radical feminism - It is inconceivable for a man to be sexually desired, so heterosexual sex (or if not sex itself, any deliberate sexiness) must be all about pleasing men out of fearful or brainwashed submission. When a woman insists that no, she really desires guys and kinda likes them as people besides, this only shows the depth of the brainwashing or her lack of commitment to the cause. I've seen radical feminists propose a sort of Lysistrata solution to patriarchy, where we all withhold sex and sexiness until the happy-bunny Revolution comes; it's usually compared to a "strike" but for me it would be a lot more like a hunger strike.

PUA - It is inconceivable for a man to be sexually desired, so here's how to trick the bitch into giving it up. NO HEY REALLY IT'S ALL ABOUT SELF-IMPROVEMENT AND CONFIDENCE SO STOP BEING DIFFICULT BITCH.

Evolutionary psychology (not necessarily as a whole but when used as shorthand for "pop-psych articles about relationships that compare people to elephant seals and/or Neanderthals") - It is inconceivable for a woman to have sexual desire, so here's some misapplied animal analogies and poorly-researched assumptions about "cavemen" that explain that she may think she's horny but she's really just looking for genes for her babies. Ladies love them some babies.



PROGRAMMING NOTE: I know updates have been sparse lately and that's partly because I've been sick with the Lung Crud for the last month. I finally went to see a doctor today and got a bunch of medications and hopefully I'll be feeling sexier soon.

(It's also partly because of Fallout 3. But I didn't tell the doctor about that because I don't have a problem, I can quit whenever I want.)