Free

I know that mostly we talk about sex but we also talk about health. Today is a huge day for women's health so let's talk about it a little.

As of today women's preventive health services are free. Not even a co-pay, ladies. That's contraception, breastfeeding, and domestic violence counseling among other things. This info graphic I saw at Feministing outlines the good news and points out how important it is. Please take advantage of this wonderful thing. I've been putting off getting my annual screenings so long I can't really call them annual and it's time to fix that. Please join me! If you need convincing let's spend a minute for this short video at Shakesville outlining the benefits of contraceptive use by women. We're all better off if we're well informed, right?

Now, some people, of course, think this is a terrible idea (women's health care in general and contraception in particular). To be clear, I agree that the Affordable Care Act isn't perfect. On the other hand no one plan could possibly be perfect for everyone in such an enormous country. I do believe that making sure that our citizens are healthy is a top priority and that prevention is cheaper than cure. This, to me, is one step in the right direction.

The past weeks have brought stories of rape apologia, declarations that women aren't funny, denigration of women who don't look like Maxim magazine models, sexual harassment ignorance,  and a host of other bad news. It's heartening that this one little step forward is happening right now. It doesn't fix everything but it makes me feel a tiny bit better.

50 Ways To Read Your Lover

I try to always be upfront with you so lets be clear, I haven't read 50 Shades of Grey. My To Read pile is already out of control. People whose opinions I value have read the book or parts of it and said that it's not terribly well written. People whose blogs and tweets I follow who are core members of the domination and submission communities have had some problems with the way they've been portrayed. Now, I'm not judging anyone who reads stuff that's well written. I read and watch a lot of crap. More even than I ought I'm sure, however, I decided that it was ok not to read this particular stuff if it was going to mirror my experience wading through Twilight. Despite taking it off my list I had great plans to write a whole Alternatives to 50 Shades of Grey post but, as you can see, it hasn't materialized.

This evening I swung by a friend's house briefly. She's moving and has been sweating to the tune of her own packing all day. Before I left I pawed through the books in her giveaway pile. I moved one book back and forth about three times before I stopped myself. It was Our Bodies, Ourselves and I don't own a copy. I thought, "I write about bodies and sex. I need a copy of this book."

Well, you can't say that if you don't actually write about bodies and sex. That was enough to inspire me to get my ass (and my fingers and my brain) back here. As I strolled home with my bodily instruction manual clutched to my modest chest I mulled over how I should begin my Alternatives post. About halfway there I realized that I've written more than one post on the subject already. Why am I trying to reinvent the wheel? Let me do a round up of those posts below so we can share them with anyone who might be interested. One of my favorite parts of this site and the G-Spot column before it is the conversations. The one fantastic thing about 50 Shades is that it's upping the odds of people talking about sex and desire and pleasure. I've got my fingers crossed that we'll all have more opportunities to share (and read) these gems.

My tardy review of the anthology Bitten. Not just BDSM but plenty of that if you need it.

I don't think any of our readers would call Speak pornography but here's my post about the people who do.

Another round up, this one of all the ways you can enjoy the work of Susie Bright.

On the non-fiction shelf we've got Bonk, Mary Roach's exploration of sex in our society.

The only thing I've been recommending to people who like 50 Shades that I haven't mentioned here is Anne Rice's Beauty series. It's been around a long time so many of you may know it. It's very specifically BDSM. I've got the first one and re-read parts of it often but haven't gone on to the rest. I think I'll have to add those to my very tall To Read pile.

I'll see you soon with another of the posts I've been procrastinating on. Let's keep the conversation rolling!

Who's That Girl?

I have a window in my bathroom. If you're from most places this isn't a huge deal. If you live in New York it's like I just said my cat shits diamonds. My window is small but so is my bathroom so it works out great. It's by the tub and has a sill where I can keep shampoo and stuff. I love showering in the sunlight but don't get much of a chance to do it.

The last few days I've hit the sweet spot and showered in warm rays of sunshine. It turns out the angle of the sun makes for a reflection I've never seen before. At the foot of the tub I can see my upper body clear as if the tiles were mirrors. Almost that clear but not quite because in the reflection I look like I have the most enormous rack!

I've always liked my breasts but they couldn't be classified as enormous in any context so it's cool to see myself as this character out of a bad Skinemax feature. I'm all soapy and wet and normal showering protocol starts to look way more racy than it really is.

It's no surprise to me that seeing oneself out of context can make you feel sexy even though seeing yourself with fresh eyes isn't always so great. A few years ago I went on a weight loss program not because I felt especially fat but because I saw some photos and I didn't recognize myself. I wasn't hugely overweight but I didn't feel like me so I decided to try and change it. This shower experience was similar in that it took me a moment to realize it was really me I was seeing but, in contrast, it was completely delightful. I believe that I've gone about my day with a little pep in my step, a little swagger in my wagger, if you will, because of it.

When was the last time you saw yourself differently and it felt great?

Pick A Little Talk A Little

I don't know how many of you know the origins of this site but I think now's a good time for a quick refresher. When Mrs. G founded a community blog called the Women's Colony she, rightly, thought that a sex blogger would be a good piece of the puzzle. She already had a team of fantastic writers so she (I assume, I wasn't there but this is the impression I got) asked around to see who wanted to grab that apple off the tree and everyone politely declined. We'd met in person and we were blog friends so she asked me if I would do it. I don't know if she knew before that offer that it's something I'd been interested in for a long time.

So I joined the Colony Crew and loved writing the G Spot column even on the days when I hated it. Mrs. G was right, it was a really popular section. It was not, however, a column that always got a ton of comments. People were reading but they were keeping mum. They seemed shy to talk about sex in general as well as online. We made some decisions about encouraging anonymity for comments if it made people feel more comfortable and the discussions opened up a lot. I'm sorry that, when the site closed, those comments were lost because I learned a lot. Some lessons were easier to accept than others, sure, but I was grateful to learn them anyway. After getting to know and trust me as a moderator and with the ability to post anonymously our readers were extremely brave and giving which led me to keep the conversations going here, albeit sporadically, after the Women's Colony was no more.

Today blogging Titan, Sweetney, opened up a conversation about moms and sex. In part she wonders if any moms are having sex because they aren't really talking about it. She was surprised to find that the majority of commenters are emailing her their answers. I'm not surprised but I'm glad that her readers trust her enough to talk to her about it even if they want to stay anonymous to the larger internet. I encourage you to check out the post if you haven't already. Let's talk!

Finding Your Own Technique

Eden Fantasys had a booth in the Expo Hall at Blogher this year. They were displaying some high end toys and giving gift bags with two different kinds of lower end vibrators. The branded bags were proudly displayed all weekend long and I have overheard countless conversations about how women will be getting their goodies home. Some want them in checked baggage with minimal scrutiny. Some are shipping them home with other swag that won't fit in their luggage. Yesterday I found myself alone in a big conference center bathroom and next to the sink where I washed my hands was a small swag backpack. Curious if it was empty and abandoned or if I should turn it in to lost and found I peeked in the open zipper to see one item, the giveaway vibe. Oh no! I decided to leave it there. I figured either someone was too embarrassed to have it or pass it on and had chosen a lost treasure approach to recycling or they'd want it back but might be too shy to describe it at lost and found.

What would you have done?

But Before I Go...

I'm headed off to Blogher in a few hours but I was reminded of a couple of things this morning. First, I owe a friend a vibe recommendation post. So overdue. I will get on that, so to speak, as soon as possible. Second, I will be in the very same city as the original, awesome Good Vibrations storefront. So going. So. Absolutely. Going. Stay tuned.

In the mean time, would you help me tide my friend over by letting her know what your favorite sex toy is, please? I now live in fear that her current vibe, which is on its last...well, legs, will give up the ghost before I've chimed in about what she should get next.

I'll kick us off. I haven't tried this one but I would really, really, like to. I saw it over at Epiphora's blog when she was putting together a round up of green sex toys. It's the Ina Rabbit Vibrator by Lelo. I guess it's not for everyone but it sure looks like it might be for me!

Ok, now you go.

Hello Stranger

***The following is a reprint from the Kizz & Tell's origins as a column known as The G-spot at The Women's Colony. There was a rousing discussion there when it was first published on March 9, 2010. Hope we'll get a little more of that today. Thanks for reading. ***

The G-spot is coming a little early this week (heh) in order to be part of the theme issue. The photo challenge will appear Friday. There isn't a lot of physically raw information here but emotionally some of it may be triggering. Proceed with that in mind.

Tom Wilkinson in Normal

There's this great movie from 2003, Normal. Tom Wilkinson plays Roy Applewood, a mild mannered midwestern guy and Jessica Lange is his wife of many years. They have teenaged kids and a nice, comfortable suburban life. Until, of course, Applewood admits to himself and eventually to his family, friends and neighbors that there's something he hasn't yet dared tell. He's a woman and he needs to change his body to match his identity.

I've been thinking about Normal because I've been thinking about how little we know each other. It's especially prevalent on the internet because blogging has evolved into something that often celebrates brutal honesty while providing numerous opportunities to conceal truth. I recently read Heather Armstrong's book, It Sucked & Then I Cried. It took me a long while to get to it because I understood it would cover the period of Dooce's life that I had first read online. I suspected she'd add some new information but that mostly it would be familiar. She did and it was. There were two glaring omissions, from my biased point of view, two stories that, from my angle, were absolutely critical to understanding who Heather is. Right off the bat that's crazy because it presumes that I have any idea who she is just from reading her web site for a number of years. I've never met her, what makes me think I know her? Who am I to say that the bathtub poop story or the bra cabbage story are any more or less indicative of her true self than anything else. But, I read it, she told me who she is. Didn't she?

 Felicity Huffman in Transamerica

I blog now. I tell people who I am. Sometimes I'm pretty honest about it. On the other hand there are things that I leave out. In the same way that there are plenty of things I leave out when I talk to people or write them letters or post on Facebook or fill out a job application. Sure, posting that picture of me from when I was 25 with a migraine and a shitty perm and the glasses that ate Kentucky can seem like an act of soul baring but I'm 41 now. I have a life and a job and a dead dog on my bookshelf, that picture costs me nothing emotionally and people like it so out it goes as some twisted kind of currency. But it doesn't mean that everyone who reads me knows me. How could they? I still haven't told anyone what it was like lying on the floor next to my beloved pooch the day I arranged to put her out of her misery. Not by blog or in person or a letter or by smoke signal. And how could anyone know me if they don't know that?

Maybe the people who know me in real life and read my blog know most of me, though, enough of me, whatever that is. Misti, Chili, Chrome & Auntie have my cell number and can text me in the middle of the night if they need me. They live in different places so we don't see each other all the time but we're friends on terra firma so they must have some advantage. Except how many times do I write something and get an e-mail or a text from a good friend, "What's going on?!?!?" "Is that about so and so doing such and such?" "I didn't know you were doing that."

Kizz in Montreal 199?

Which brings us back to Normal. How well can we ever know anyone, even someone with whom we've made babies (or at least practiced really, really hard)? For me, the most intricate part of this movie's writing is parsing Lange's character because she knew her husband, she loved him and they'd been together a long time. She wasn't going to have any more surprises, they were on the path to happily ever after and then she finds out that, the way her husband and best friend perceives it, she's never known his core being. It's not her fault. How could she have known if he'd carefully constructed a life that protected him from such a potentially dangerous revelation? And yet he'd led her to believe that she knew him. He'd encouraged her to open up and be her most vulnerable self with him with expectation of reciprocation and...he didn't.

Can we ever really know anyone?

We hear that question a lot. It comes up in relation to sexuality, to politics and, of course, to religion. Knowing that we still pair ourselves up, make friends, help neighbors, comment on blogs, love each other and lay bare our souls for other people to poke around in. Life is full of surprises and not all of them are good. I am continually surprised by people, especially on the internet. A commenter on my lark of a post regarding a sexual Olympics said she didn't understand it at all. Thank goodness for her, because, as silly as I know it was, I thought it was almost boring in its straightforwardness and yet it was so far out of her mindset she couldn't even fathom it. How would two people like us ever meet up in person? But here we are. She read it all the way through and took the time to comment about it too. It's miraculous, this deeply flawed medium.  I derive great joy from reading the stories of lives that writers give me (and you and everyone else) and it's all non-fiction, it's all the truth...whatever that is. Isn't it?

How does this relate to the G-spot? In a lot of ways. Let's think a little bit about all the ways we could be surprised by a partner: The biggies include but are not limited to infidelity, infidelity with a side of STD, coming out as GLBTQ, announcing transsexuality, falling out of love, quitting a job. On a smaller level what if you were approached by your partner about a desire to explore bondage or swinging or a fetish of any kind (mother-baby play, furries, feet, lingerie, anything), or mutual masturbation or a new position or public sex acts?

My dog, Emily

Have you ever been confronted with something like this? Have you ever felt, for a moment, that you really didn't know the cherished person in front of you? How did you handle it? My challenges have been few in this regard and I've been fortunate that they've been very much in tune with the way I think. I took a chance one day and asked a boy about a pair of handcuffs. He didn't balk, he didn't re-evaluate his vision of me, he grabbed his debit card and found the nearest place to buy handcuffs. When I unbuttoned his jeans a few months later and discovered a cute pair of ladies' cotton undies it turned out to be more delight than shock. I wonder if he still wears those sometimes. What if he'd added a wig and heels? What if he'd wanted to try breath play, which scares me? What if he wanted to try long term celibacy, which also kind of scares me?

Misti's foot, one of my highest viewed photos on Flickr

For the record I don't remember how Normal ends. I know it's difficult for Mrs. Applewood but I think she defends and supports her husband with everything she has. I could be wrong, though, I might just have blocked the disappointing part out.

Soar Like A Frog

Chocolate based recipes, love stories and jewelry ads have been assailing me for a week. For the most part I don't care. I love chocolate, I'm a sucker for a love story (I'm voluntarily watching the Robert Downey, Jr. episodes of Ally McBeal and they are smoking) and I can easily tune out the jewelry stuff since they're not hawking things that are my style. Everyone has their saturation point, though. I'm not here to hate on the day, no holiday rooted in chocolate can be all bad, but I would like to provide some balance.

Once upon a time in a cool apartment in New York City's Chinatown I sat on a grungy futon to receive a gift of love. It came in an intricately carved wooden box, the kind sold on a big sheet on the sidewalk alongside statues of giraffes and elephants and skinny women with big boobs. "It" consisted of a number of animals origami-folded out of bright colored paper. Along with the fauna was a story. The boy lifted each carefully creased creature out of the box and paired it with a line of a little poem. The poem was all about how wonderful a person I was and how I, I don't know, elevated his humanity or something. Off the top of my head the only line I remember was about making him soar and the only item I remember was a frog that actually hopped when you flicked it just right. I also remember that it was deeply sweet and kind and heartfelt if just slightly corny. At the bottom of the box were, I think, 2 subway tokens so we could go somewhere specific in the city, I don't recall where.

Go ahead, you can give your big aaawwwwww now, I'll wait.

To understand the fullness of the moment, however, you have to realize that watching him present this gift was an out of body experience for me. I couldn't absorb the sweetness of it because I had stepped out of my skin and was standing beside myself well nigh screaming in my own ear, "Oh no he isn't. Is he? Please tell me he's not. He can't! What are you going to do if he does? We cannot do this. There is just no good way about it. Make it stop. Right now you, you make it stop right now or else....or else...." and then the subway tokens came out. I was, well not sure, but strongly afraid that he was going to propose to me. Small metal object coming out after the paper critters read as "RING! RING! ABORT! ABORT! ABORT!!" instead of, "Cool, free train ride." I didn't want to marry him. We led a life so woven together with all of our friends and families and pets and jobs at that point that leaving didn't seem feasible but staying? To agree to stay in that place, emotionally if not physically, would require powers of self-deception even I did not possess.

I can only imagine how my reception looked to him. I sat, silent and stiff, as he poured out these words and presented these items straight from his heart then, when I saw that they weren't rings, I must have sagged in relief. How would that have read? I know he was nervous, that was part of what scared me so, and it turns out he had good reason to be.

I still have the box and the origami. Just passing by it in a bunch of keepsakes gives me awkward pit-of-the-stomachness. Throwing it away seems disrespectful, though, so I bury it a little lower in the detritus of a life I used to live and wait until next time.

Now you go. Let's not limit ourselves to Valentine's Day. What's the most awkward romantic moment you can remember?

It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's....Well...

I am completely off my schedule here. I know it, I acknowledge it and I'm looking at it. Right now I'm taking it as a good thing and trying to write here when I'm inspired. I've been reading things I want to write about and stopping myself because "it's not the day for that." Well screw that!

AAG has a Blogger Anonymity Project. If anyone wants to write about something but needs a safely anonymous place to do so you can email your post to her and she'll share it in her space with none of your personal details. Today she's shared post #5 in the project and I really want you all to go read it.

The upshot is that a woman who identifies herself as polyamorous is married to a man who has mostly identified himself as monogamous. He's entering into his first relationship outside their marriage and she's working through what that means to her personally and for their marriage.

Please don't assume you know how this letter is going to play out. If you have the courage to read to the very end of the piece you'll have so much more to digest about what keeps people together and about the choices we make about love. This is a topic I roll around in my head all the time. ALL the time. It may have something Freudian to do with being an only child and always having been a partial participant in someone else's marriage or it may just be that I write a lot so I am nosy about how things work. Either way my feelings about non-monogamy aren't in the least clear cut and this woman's insight and bravery brought my understanding to a whole new level.

I would love to have all of you read this anonymous piece and to hear what you think about it. I'll be devouring the comments over there so I'll keep my eye out for you.

Not That First Time

I'm trying these days to be more interactive with my internet. I've been urging myself to volunteer for things, to make more comments, to speak up even when I don't think what I have to say is especially exciting. That's why I spoke up when AAG asked if anyone would like to review a web site for one of her clients. Perfect way to make a one on one connection and learn about a new site and get myself out of my shell.

Now to explain why I'm writing this review of SexForums.com four days late.

I knew nothing about the site I'd be reviewing when I agreed. That's not a bad thing, I think it's kind of good for the way I'm wired. If I don't know what it is I can't come up with all the reasons I'm not right for the job. 

The first thing I needed to do was register as a member of the site (super easy, you can get away with basically entering a username and password but you can also elaborate on who you are and what you're looking for to focus the kind of suggestions the site will offer you) and forward that info back to AAG so I could be upgraded to a VIP for the duration of the review process (regularly starting at $8.33/month). I got a quick look around the site and was, predictably, overwhelmed.

Here we go back to my history. I'm unpracticed with forums. The most time I've ever spent on them has been in a fanfiction context and there I mostly skimmed the conversation and just read the stories. When I search for erotic writing or imagery online I generally fall into a rabbit hole jumping from site to site when a story, picture or blog entry strikes my fancy. I've never tried to have conversations or form connections in this way before. I've tried two internet dating sites. On one I didn't even get through the extensive registration process and the other one I got through that part and read a couple of profiles of my matches and have now lost my log in information and not signed in again. All of which makes me the best person to review SexForums, because I am about the freshest pair of eyes you can get, and the worst, because I don't even know what I'm looking for. I'm choosing to go with my strengths, though, and just tell you what I see.

I was intimidated by the site because it's new to me so I found a ton of excuses to put off my exploration and then it was Thanksgiving and then I got sick and then I was a coward and finally today after a heroic effort of memory to recall my password (Beware if you're a hotmail user, for some reason SexForums and hotmail had trouble communicating. They have my email address entered properly but it takes a long while for me to get communications and their system registers an error when it tries to send to me.) I spent a few hours poking around the site, if you'll pardon the expression, and I had a lot of fun.

The novelty factor is, for sure, in play to some extent. The way I'm wired might mean I wouldn't come back regularly but I sure would have a good time while I was there. (Note to self: write down your damn login info.) Now, I don't know how many of the readers here have ever played on a sexual social networking site before so forgive me if I'm covering familiar ground but let me give you an overview.

You create a profile and you can tell people what you're like personally, professionally and sexually (sort of like you'd do on any special interest social networking site like GoodReads or Blogher or Ning). You can then explore the forum conversations, share photographs, live chat with other users, be matched with others with like interests, start a blog or just browse other people doing all these things. It's a lot of information. I went to photos first because I happened to get an alert about the recommended photos of the day. I toured four or five pages of photos and found a little bit of everything, from explicit sexual contact to close ups of genitals to titillating but hardly X-rated boudoir shots. Something for everyone, probably, but the recommended shots were heavily weighted toward women's bodies and faces. I don't think I saw one male face and not much more than penises and balls. My settings are leaning toward straight and bi-curious settings, though, so I think if things were a little different I might have come across more man on man action and more full body shots of men.

From there I checked out a couple of people's profiles and blogs and I started to get the feeling I was too old to be playing in this pond. In my random searching most members were barely into their 20s aside from one gentleman in his 50s whose profile picture is of a tortoise. I did not know how to take that last bit at all. There was a lot of text-speak and bad grammar and poorly written come on lines that were a turn off for me. Which is not even to speak of the animated gifs and fancy emoticons.

I understood I was casting the net wide so I headed off to my profile and searched for people in my age group. First I tried men from 34 to 52 (don't know why, that was my random approximation of appropriate ages for me) living in the US and turned up three gentlemen. One of them was a guy down South who featured himself being given a blowjob in nearly every photograph. His forum posts and personal description pegged him as someone I'd walk away from in a bar even before he made his obligatory "joke" about women being barefoot, pregnant and ideally toothless. I was not encouraged. I widened my search range to ten years on either side of my own age, so 32 - 52, and scored one more guy. From his photos he's built like the governor of CA in his heyday, he's also articulate, and filled in some blanks about his career and personal feelings as well as his sexual ones. He put the hope right back in me, though I was sad that there was only one of him in my self-imposed age range. I'm realizing as I write this that I limited myself in another way that I can go back and check on. SexForums seems to have a relatively deep international base as well. If I release my geographic restrictions I might find a lot more fish in this particular sea.

What reminds me of this is another forum thread I found. I can't even begin to explain to you how I found it, I was reading recommended threads and jumping from profile to profile of people who struck my fancy so it was a rabbit hole situation again. Anyway, the thread was titled, "Numbers," and it started with a longish explanation of positional numbering and the way we visualize and articulate numbers. The conversation that follows rolls back and forth between discussions of language, math, self-esteem and sexual terms in a variety of languages. It was a fun party conversation, something I could see myself actually participating in. It felt like a good way to get to know people on a couple of levels before sharing photos of our pink parts and discussing the ways we liked to rub them.  These are all discussions I love to have but I need a little lead up I guess. Later on I found a thread about anal fisting that was fascinating to me in light of my previous post on the vaginal version.

That thread lead me to the profile of a woman who I'd like to be my SexForums fairy godsister. She's young enough to be my daughter but let's go with sister for this situation. She's a young, bisexual woman who seems to have some experience as a dominatrix. She writes well and seems knowledgeable about all things sex and social media. You know how new waiters trail an experienced one before going solo, I feel like I should stalk her a bit but not in a creepy way, more in a trailing wait staff kind of way until I see where the people I click with hang out on this site and how I can best get to know them.

Now, there are some weirdnesses. For instance while I was writing this I went over to SexForums to check on a reference and found I had a message waiting. It was from a 35-year-old, US-based, straight guy and he wanted to know if my name was a combination of Kiss and Jizz. That's not the weird part. The weird bit is that he didn't show up in my previous search. Perhaps he has certain privacy shields in place that prevented it but if not then I can't really recommend the search function on the site.

All that being said I think this is an aspect of sexuality online that I'd like to explore in some more depth and this seems like a good place to do so. In a relatively short time I was able to find an area of the community where I felt comfortable and was easily able to overcome my shyness and respond to my questioner. I don't know how quick I'll be to post revealing photos of myself but I'm grateful that others don't share my reticence because I sure did like looking at them. Sometimes you run into sites with photos and videos of people who don't seem as though they're having much fun. Since all the sharing here is by members and therefore presumably consensual there's a much lighter vibe about it.

The question of pricing can't be overlooked. I was allowed a free peek into a higher level of service. If you've read here for any length of time you know that I'm notoriously worried about money and reluctant to spend on myself. If I was freer in this respect I'd own everything NJoy makes. Due to that I suspect I wouldn't have tried this without the reviewing option and I can't speak to how this pricing compares to other sites (if anyone else can speak to that please do in the comments!).

I look forward to spending more time on the site. Please let me know if you try it out, I'd be interested to hear about other experiences.

Dang, I got so wrapped up in my own thing I nearly forgot the conversation starters. Have you ever explored a site like this? If so do you have any suggestions for me? If you haven't, do you think you would? How much do you think you'd be willing to share?

End Times

I've been so cold outside walking this nutty dog this weekend that I almost wrote you a post asking if you wear (or allow your partner to wear) socks while, well, knocking his or her socks off. I decided there just wasn't enough substance to that, though. Feel free to answer if you like, frankly, I'm torn. Socks aren't sexy but I hate to be cold.

Instead I was thinking about beginnings. I was ready to be all sweet and sappy and talk about first kisses and first feelings and first nights on the bear skin rug by the fire with the champagne and the strawberries and no socks. Then a funny thing happened.

While thinking about beginnings I got sideswiped by my fucking brain with thoughts of a recent ending. There's this guy (every story starts out like that) and we've been off and on and off and on and oooooofff and on for decades. Through an accident all my own we got sort of back on last spring. The first night we were together was...adequate. Where adequate means you really want to get back together with the person to erase that memory because it's totally fucking bumming you out. We met up one more time after that and in the space of less than an hour were somehow crashing and burning so historically that I ordered him out of my house and no one got laid. It was an ending. Admittedly we're people who've seen a lot of fake endings with each other over the years but, I tell you, after that I continue not to be sorry to have seen the last of him.

I will, however, be sorry for those two evenings to have been the last of it. How many movies have we seen where someone gazes off into the middle distance and says, "If only I'd known that was going to be the last time..." In this instance I'm left wondering if I'd known would I have slept with him again at all? I'm a girl who eats the crust of her toast first because the middle of the bread tastes better and I like to finish the meal with the better taste in my mouth. On the other hand a night in the sack is usually far and away better than any day digging ditches so where's the harm?

There's a cost to some old memories for sure. Even if said memories were shot with a vaseline covered filter I'd almost rather have them at the forefront than this, let's call it highly uncomplimentary, one. It makes me sad about the guy, sad about myself, sad about the whole relationship which, while nowhere near perfect, held a lot of great things for me.

I guess the conversation starter is two-pronged this chilly November morning. 1. Regarding my situation, if I'd known, do you think I would or should have gone forward? 2. Do you have any last times that make you look back (for any reason) and say, "If only I'd known..."?

Revisiting Bring Me A Shrubbery

As many of you know, the inspiration for our Monday conversations comes from a column I wrote at The Women's Colony. I plan to reprint all those posts over time. Due to an exciting but overfull Halloween weekend this seemed like a perfect time for a reprint. 

This whole post is written with apologies to Aunt Snow, our real landscaping expert here at the Colony.

Aaryn did it. It's her fault. Thank heaven above for Aaryn! She wrote about her tolerance levels for northerly manscaping this week and I saw a theme. You know me, when I see theme potential I jump on that like stink on a vag...you know, let's explore that issue in another post entirely.

I do not, er, manicure the lawn per se. I mean, I try but...eh. I do get sick of the whole deal and occasionally trim it down enough that a nice French braid is no longer an option but that's mostly because I use the dressing room before my dance class and I feel peer pressure about my low lying ground cover. I watch porn and still I've not seen such a variety of options for styling the pubic area until I started going to this particular studio. Mostly brazilian waxes with the younger set, some neat and extremely slim landing strips, the occasional subdued Bermuda triangle but no full, natural bush. The joint caters to ballet dancers, there are probably rules for your body hair if you dance ballet seriously.

The only part of me I've ever waxed was my eyebrows. I kind of love having it done but my skin thinks I'm a sadistic bitch. I may be. I was given my first eyebrow wax by a good friend. She got a wax, rubbed a finger over the smooth area, smiled and looked nothing different. I looked like I'd walked full speed into a door for the rest of the day. I'm a tender, blushing flower, what can I say? So the thought of getting my vaginal surroundings waxed makes me shudder. I like the idea of not having to shave or worry about the whole thing. Heck, I even like the idea of not having to decide what it should look like or where it should stop. I do not like the idea of writhing in pain for a day and half every time I get it done. Also? I'm cheap. Isn't it expensive to ask someone else to handle your delicates? Especially around hot liquids.

Ok, and I'll admit this, too, I'm afraid it'll be incredibly awkward and embarrassing. I shave the whole thing down a little occasionally, sort of like weed whacking in spring, but again with the sensitive skin. I get bumps and ingrown hairs and it's not, to my eye, much prettier either way. Will waxing be better than that? I need a play by play of how this is going to go before I'm going to be able to go through with it. Tell me what it's like! Panties off, I assume? Do you pre-trim? Will the lady say mean things about my Sleeping Beauty's forest-level vines and shrubs? Does it hurt to wear jeans after? Do they really make you hold your own cheeks apart like in that one scene from Californication where the porn actress is getting her "back nine" cleaned up?

What about depilatories, does anyone still use Nair? I tried it once, only on my legs, and it was sort of a nightmare. I got nervous that all my skin was going to peel off, too. That was a mental issue, though, I didn't have any physical reaction to the goop. Do they still make the Epilady? That seems like a very bad idea but what do I know I practically bled out shaving my knees last week!

Whenever I think about this subject I think of Carrie Bradshaw. There's an episode of Sex and the City where she gets her first Brazilian and later, by the pool, the ladies are discussing it. She pulls her legs in close, wraps her arms around them and whispers, "I'm cooooold." I find that I don't love the look of a completely bare bajingo (seriously, do I sound 5 when I use all these stupid words, I feel 5, thank goodness "bare bajingo" has a nice ring to it) not because it's infantile or disgusting but because it makes the poor cooch look so vulnerable and, frankly, kind of lonely. I don't mind a landing strip configuration but it's sort of like modern architecture, a glass fronted geometrical building is interesting sometimes but I prefer a stately Victorian with a wrap around porch if I have my 'drothers. I think I'd look best with a permanent isosceles triangle, not too big, not too small and not rising too high off the green, if you'll pardon the expression. How much is that going to cost me?

Do you (and your partner if applicable) landscape? And I'm not asking about your front yard, the one in front of your house. I mean your "stately pleasure dome." If you take my meaning.

Once Is Enough

I’ve recommended Vix to you all. According to her Twitter stream, after a period of playing the field her pendulum has swung again and she is looking for a relationship. No more of the one night stands or the swing lifestyle, she wants one person for night after night.

How can she do this to me?! I was studying her. She was my prep class!

Or something.

Here’s the thing, I’ve never picked someone up in a bar or at a sporting event or wherever and gone home with them. I’ve slept with someone once and then never again but never the first time I met them. For all I’m fine with talking about sex all the time I have some relatively deep-seated trust issues. I have to really know you before I’ll get naked. Hilarious considering the shit people I trusted have pulled while I’ve been naked but nevertheless the truth.

Don’t get me wrong, I am clear that I don’t have to have a one night stand in order to call my life complete. However, I wonder if I’m missing opportunities. Also, part of me thinks that fulfilling the stranger fantasy would be thrilling. Crowded room, eyes meet, pleasantries exchanged and you’re home before dawn. What could be better? Another part of me knows how abominable I am at making a first impression. I don’t know that I’d ever be able to relax enough to manage it on my end but I also can’t imagine, given how I tend to come across at first blush (just ask MistiRidiculous) I think it’d be a long shot that anyone would think, “Yeah, let’s get busy with the aloof, judgmental, neurotic chick! Right now!”

The reality is that I don’t know because I haven’t tried. I have no idea how these things work. The fact that I jump and apply the stink eye the minute a stranger speaks to me doesn't help my research. But I figure you all are a great resource so I’m asking. Have you ever picked someone up in a bar, had a one night stand, fulfilled the #1 female fantasy* according to Nancy Friday? What’s that like? Inquiring minds (and other anatomical features) want to know.

*I frequently mistype fantasy and fantasTy. It’s a whole different word but I think I like it. Sounds titillating.

I'll Try Anything Twice

Strangely enough for a person who is so afraid of new situations there's a whole host of things I'd like to try. Writing a sex column once a week for over a year means that I learn more every day about new things. I want to try a lot of them. Not having a partner for the past few years means I need to keep the list of desires up to date and close by in case I ever get a chance to whittle it down.

I wanted to try anal sex for a long while before I finally did. In my heart I wanted to but when a partner presented it to me I still balked. Like I said, afraid of the new. I kept thinking about it. We kept talking. Eventually we tried it and it was...not great. It was awkward and scary and, frankly, kind of uncool. After some more discussion and thought, preparation and plenty of time we tried again and, I gotta tell you, I'm into it. I liked it. I wanted to do it again. It's not something I'd do with just anyone, it's not something I'd do right away with anyone at all but I'd sure do it again with the right person. If you've read my fiction (and the stats indicate that some of you have) then you know I have nothing against the ass play.

Recent research has suggested I'd like to try wearing pasties. Actually three years of marching in the Mermaid Day Parade have suggested that. I priced them while I was shopping for temporary tattoos this year. Damn, they're expensive! But The Beautiful Kind posted pictures of these beauties and my practical side got a swift boot to the head. Perhaps if I save my pennies I'll be sporting some of those next June.

Maybe I'm wrong but I'll bet that anyone who's ever seen Risky Business has thought about having sex on public transportation. I thought it was hot then, I think it's hot now. I've passed many a boring commute by working out the logistics of intercourse on those ugly, plastic seats. Apparently some other New Yorkers were so intrigued they just went for it. Didn't even stop when other passengers got on the train! I don't think I've got that kind of chutzpah but maybe in the heat of the moment having an audience (with cell phone cameras) wouldn't bother me. We may never know.

The thing that's really crowding into my mind these days, though, is fisting. When I first heard about it I couldn't even imagine what that would look like. It seemed aggressive and painful and frightening, in an intriguing sort of way. As time passed I learned that it wasn't so much a fist and it was something you built up to with someone you trust, much like I did with the anal sex. A few weeks ago there was some discussion somewhere, either at AAG's blog or at The Beautiful Kind about whether fisting would stretch out the vagina into a gaping, frictionless abyss. TBK was so angry about the implication that she built something wonderful out of it. She set up a photo shoot of herself being fisted and blogged the results, complete with a before and after shot of her vagina, no gaping at all. I wish there were more photos of the process. I absolutely want to try that. I really need to write my list of desires down and put it in a safe place.

Hell, I really need to be more proactive about finding a partner to share this list with. 

Do you have a list? Will you share some of the desires that are on it? I'd love to hear.

Problem. Solution.

While I have, of course, many things to recommend I have arrived at the nooning of the Wednesday, Resource Room Day, with nothing written, nothing coming to mind, a lost list and much actual work to do at my actual job. How dare they, right?

My favorite piece of advice from my mentor is, "Make the problem your solution." My degree is in theatre so usually that meant realizing you didn't have enough money for a spot light so giving the actors borrowed flashlights and pointing them at each other instead or something of the that ilk.


Here, today it means asking a question instead of giving an answer. Because I know that we're a community of great knowledge and you know things that I want to know, you just haven't told me yet. So, what do you recommend I take a look at? Films, toys, stories, websites, people, pictures, fads, anything at all. Tell me something I don't know.

Please?

Revisiting To Tell The Truth

As many of you know, the inspiration for our Monday conversations comes from a column I wrote at The Women's Colony. I plan to reprint all those posts over time. Here's another one. For the record Parenthood is in its second season now and it's just as good as the first! Also, I left in a joke that was specific to the time this was written. I don't know if Gary is still reading here but I hope so.

Are you watching this new show, Parenthood? I was skeptical at first but with a creative team (Ron Howard, Brian Grazer) and a cast (Lauren Graham, Peter Krause, Dax Shepherd, Bonnie Bedelia, Craig T. Nelson, Joy Bryant, Erika Christensen, etc.) it's not a huge surprise that they're knocking it out of the park already. And this week, heaven bless the little punks, they gave me something to talk about here.

Last Tuesday they tackled, among other things, faking orgasm.

(Insert loud minor chord played on, of course, the organ.)

I've never faked. Which is not to say I haven't thought about it. Usually after the fact. My timing routinely sucks donkey balls. I get a head rush when I come, flush bright red like a tomato from my chest right to the roots of my hair, so any guy who knows me and gives a crap would easily be able to tell if I was lying and any guy who didn't care probably wouldn't be someone whose feelings I'd give much of a damn about.

I have on more than one occasion said, "You know, this just isn't happening." or "Thanks but I'm done, even though I'm not...done, you know?" and probably at least once, "Please. Just stop. Now. Yes, now." It's always awkward but, to be perfectly frank, the idea of faking never came to me, if you will. By the time I put the brakes on I was so uncomfortable and tense and annoyed that honesty was the only option that popped into my head.

Given both of these facts I can't really say whether it's a good or a bad idea to fake. I've found honesty to be a good policy. Most of the guys I've known have put a high premium on making sure I got...all the way to the Emerald City, as it were, and while getting them to understand that I'd rather stay in Kansas for an evening was a little upsetting, I believe I reaped enormous rewards in the long run. If at first you don't succeed try try again, just, you know, later.

I'll let the Parenthood team speak for the pro-acting argument. Krause's character asks his sister (Graham) how he can tell if someone is faking orgasm. She replies, "You can't tell, honey, it's fake... You just put on a happy face and better luck next time... It's an act of generosity, a gift."

Krause questions, "A gift? How is faking it a gift?"

And Graham brings it home, "Because it says to you, 'Thank you so much for trying, please come again soon. Come again as soon as you possibly...'"

Now, as is our custom, I turn the question to you, ladies (and Gary*). Are you pro or con faking orgasm? Why?

*I hope that we have more than one male reader but, in the spirit of honesty, I want to say that if one of them begins to comment regularly I'm going to be sad to see the end of the (and Gary) joke. Thanks for reading Gary!

Tiaras & Liberty

So, I've already told you that I had the good fortune to have coffee with Tony Comstock last week. We had a good, if short, conversation that left my wheels turning full speed. If you think I understand everything that Tony is fighting for in terms of the internet and algorithms and censorship you give me too much credit. On the other hand, the more we talk the more I understand. I think that's the way it's supposed to work. Right? I had two breakthroughs in my understanding last week and I want to share.

The first is why what Tony is doing is important to you.

When I talk about Kizz & Tell I tell people about how the G Spot column started and that the one thing I heard repeatedly from readers was, "No one ever talks about this." It applied to everything from menstruation to manipulation, from vibe toys to emotional vibes, from bondage to blow jobs and I was amazed every time. No, not amazed, kind of angry actually. Sure, I don't talk about these subjects with everyone (well, not until now) but I have always had people I could talk to or internet sites I could check or, if I'm feeling old school, books I could read. To be told over and over that some people either don't have these tools or are feeling shamed about using them is irksome in the extreme.

At their basest level the algorithms that search engines use to filter results are not a bad idea. There's a lot of information out there and we all need help getting to the one result we really want. When these fancy calculations are pointed toward censorship it's also not a terrible idea. I mean, no one wants a kid to be looking up Disney Princesses and stumbling across home video of Walt Disney in nothing but a tiara. However, the filtering is clumsy making the execution of this not so terrible idea truly horrible.

While they are preventing the aforementioned Disney debacle they're also preventing you from coming across other people who want to talk about the subjects you find interesting (like me!). Every time people get naked it's not porn. Every time someone uses the word cunt it's not obscene. You and Tony and I all know this. I think most regular folks do. Somewhere in the morass of information are all the things you want and deserve to discuss. But, without the battle cries of the Tony Comstocks of the world, the time may come when you're not allowed to find them unless you already know where they are.

I'm guessing that won't do you much good at all.*

OK, now second, is an interesting question I want to answer. At a certain point every movement needs a front person. Tony repeatedly brought up Rosa Parks while we sipped our Big Machine beverages. She appeared at the fore of the civil rights movement because she did something courageous but also because she was a woman the leaders if the charge could feel good about shining a light on. She was a woman of untarnished reputation and high ethical standards. Maybe also because she was a woman of a certain age with a certain level of stability.

We are moving toward sex being a positive thing. We're moving toward a society where we aren't using sex just for sales or shame or procreation, toward a world where we admit that sex is something that pretty much everyone participates in to one degree or another. It's not shameful or upsetting or blameworthy. It's wonderful and we're lucky when it's going well and it's not good to hide it, in point of fact it's the hiding that's crippling us.

So, the question of today is, who would you put at the forefront of this movement? What poster person would you have represent all that healthy, open, varied, real sex? It might be a celebrity or it might be your grandma. Could be your neighbor or your state representative. Heck, maybe it's you! I'm going to wait until we get the conversation going before I throw out my choice...s. Partly I don't want to sway your answers but also because I'm having a hard time choosing. I'll meet you in the comments section when I've landed on someone.

So to speak.



*What can you do to help and support Tony's efforts? You can purchase his wares which helps fund the fight and let sellers know that his work is in demand. You can go over to his blog, read and comment. Getting more people into the conversation is vital. He also told me that the company could really be boosted by some more reviews on Amazon. So if you're familiar with the Comstocks' work and could write a review that would be awesome. (Also stay tuned for a Comstock giveaway in this space, I want to share the bounty I received.) Last but not least Tony has cut together You Tube compliant versions of a couple of their titles. If you're interested in viewing those please also leave a comment or I believe there's some sort of like button you could hit, too. I myself, am not particularly You Tube compliant so I'm not up on the details. Thanks for asking!

In Or Out?

@ToMotherNature wrote to me the other day, "I was talking with a friend the other day and we got to wondering: what are the privacy boundaries between couples? By that I mean: do you close the bathroom door, or do you leave it open no matter what you are doing? She and her husband have no boundaries; my husband and I do. We always close the bathroom door."

It's so interesting that this came up at this point. I recently read The Help where bathroom usage and shared bathroom usage plays an enormous part. It's not at all romantic in the novel but it's crucial. 

I live alone with extremely needy animals so, frankly, my door is always open. If I were to choose to close it I know it wouldn't stay that way for even the length of a quick pee. As a matter of fact I actually test the door to make sure it closes properly before company comes. I always (always!) put the lid down when I'm done but never close the door at home. I have close friends who I'm totally comfortable peeing in front of. Too many houses full of people with only one or two toilets, if I've got to pee and you're showering or drying your hair and we both need to leave in 15 minutes then we're going to have to get over it. Hell, we've even shared stalls in public bathrooms if we've felt that we needed a little company.

I do have my lines, though. I don't generally pee in front of anyone else when I have my period because I use pads and there's a level of showing off all that blood that makes me feel weird and I won't poop in front of anyone. For years if there was someone else in a public rest room while I was "dropping the kids off at the pool" I'd have to plug my ears because if I couldn't hear it then I could pretend it wasn't happening...or something. I don't know, welcome to my brain, there is no map so you might want to sprinkle some bread crumbs while you walk.

Whenever this topic comes up I remember the first time a guy took a dump in front of me. We were flirtily hanging out and probably planning to have sex. I think he'd been at work so he decided to take a shower and I was talking to him, sitting on the bathroom counter in the fancy Soho loft where he stayed. Mid conversation he pops out of the tub, sits down and drops one while we chatted. I won't say I was horrified, because I wasn't, but I was damn well surprised, I'll tell you that.

I think it's nice to have the option of your closed bathroom door and to have it respected. For my money, I'd like to know that we can close the door and it will stay that when then one day if the bathroom user feels so comfy that s/he leaves the door open then that's a choice to be made from that side of the doorknob. In other words, don't walk in on me in the bathroom, it won't end well. I keep sharp objects and dangerous chemicals in there and I don't like surprises. Knock, ask, it doesn't cost anything to be polite. Or cautious.

Where are your boundaries on the subject of toileting? More interesting than that why are they?

Is This Thing On?

I was struck this morning by a phrase from this article on Blogher. It's a throwaway, tangential to the subject of the article, about an alleged sex tape that came out during the divorce proceedings of a celebrity and the author asides, "you would think that in this day and age people take the camcorder out of the bedroom, but apparently not in this case."  [sic]

If I'm perfectly honest my hackles went straight fucking up.

I'll agree that I'm sick of every celebrity on the face of planet earth getting "caught" with a sex tape. When you have a certain amount of notoriety it's probably not a bad idea to take a step back before you turn on your recording device and ask yourself why this particular activity is important to your partner. It's absolutely within the realm of possibility that they get a kick out of watching themselves have sex on screen but there's also a chance they're scamming you. It sucks and no one should have to think about it when all they're working on is a good old roll in the hay but it's a fact of life and, frankly, it has been since the first camera. It's just easier to disseminate the information these days. Not to mention harder to retrieve it once it's out there.

On the other hand I think a blanket disapproval of recording acts of sex and sensuality is fucking ridiculous. If you don't like doing something like that? Don't do it! And if you do like it may I strongly recommend that you only engage in this sort of performance with someone you trust. Not like, "I'd absolutely trust her to pick out fruit for me at the market" but "I'd trust him with my deepest, most closely held secrets." Because there's a third hand to this argument. There always is, isn't there?

I made a sex tape once. It was pretty tame as these things go, I guess. I was administering a blow job and the camera was at hand and he wanted to tape it for his own later viewing pleasure. I trusted him in all the ways I'd have asked someone else if they trusted a partner before allowing their techniques to be preserved for posterity. Quite seriously I cannot believe anyone else would give two hoots about seeing it, it was the process not the product that felt exciting. Although, now that I think about it, I've never actually watched the tape. I was too embarrassed at the time and it never really came up again other than a quick debate about custody so maybe it's the hottest thing ever and I could be a superstar and this selfish prick is depriving me of my fame and fortune. Damn him! OK, probably not. We don't speak anymore. Last I knew he had the tape. He could do anything he wants with those few minutes of one non-descript evening. I don't think he will for a number of reasons (his family, he's not at all tech savvy, it was actually on tape so has probably degraded quite a bit) but he could if he wanted to. Relationships change. You might trust someone completely at the moment and a year or two or ten later the story might be quite different. You never know, I get that.

I still don't think it's stupid to enjoy recording our sexual exploits. Is it a bit dangerous? Sure it is and to varying degrees depending on who we are and how we live the rest of our lives. But it's not stupid.

What about you, ever been taped? Any regrets? Would you do it again? Or for the first time? I promise I won't ask you to share your highlight reel!

Before The Cock Crows

I have never fallen asleep during sex. I have fallen asleep during conversations, during television shows, during classes, at my desk, on the floor of an airport, in various forms of transportation but never during any act of or leading up to sex.

At least with other people.

In part this may be due to lucky choice of partners. I lived with a guy who could fall asleep mid-sentence. Our bedroom was set up with the TV alongside the bed so we'd spoon to watch things. At some point he'd say, "I'm going to sleep now." As little as 30 seconds later something funny might happen on screen and I'd laugh and mention it to him only to find him absolutely dead asleep and unwakeable. It was like a circus trick...in the world's most boring circus.

I have punked out on myself, though. Once I actually get into bed I'm on a relatively tight schedule. If I go to sleep within 15 minutes or so I'll get the requisite 7+ hours sleep that keep me from being a monster. (I have a dog. I live alone. More than 8 hours of sleep are a thing of the past because I must do both the last walk of the night at 11pm and the first walk of the morning at 6:30 after my shower.) Sometimes I'll get a hankering and I'll think, "Well, you could just rub one out really quick before you go to sleep. You don't have to read a chapter of [insert name of intense, highbrow novel here to make me look good] tonight."

Here's the thing, though, don't you find that when you're tired there's no quick about it? I can't quite concentrate and then I'm moving slowly and the body isn't responding because, again, of the tired which means it's going to take longer and you're already lying down and Zzzzzzzzzzz. Only the light is shining in your face and your neck is all cricked up weird and you've got the outline of an erotic anthology imprinted on your right cheek.

Or is that just me?

No, really, is that just me? Have you ever fallen asleep and disappointed yourself or someone else? Misery loves company and this morning? I'm a little miserable.