This week's sex diary at Daily Intel, "The Personal Assistant Deciding Whether to Schedule Sex Dates," is about a couple trying to have more sex - whether they succeed or not you will have to read the diary. (I edit these, fyi, which is why I post them every week. Sometimes people ask if I've written them and I'm like, "I'd have a totally different life if I wrote some of these.")
It made me think about the fact that I've never scheduled sex, but I do think, especially in New York, finding the time for dates, with or without sex, even when you want to see the person you're seeing, is hard. I have trouble with overscheduling and would daresay another vice, of a sort, is filling my calendar with things to do. A friend introduced me to a new cafe in my neighborhood and is basically planting himself there to finish his book and I'm gonna try to work off that energy. Anyway, sex scheduling...read more about it in the diary. I think maybe it's something easy to mock but if it works for people, why not?
Showing posts with label sexuality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sexuality. Show all posts
Sex After 50: The Naked Truth, new column
My latest column, "Sex After 50: The Naked Truth" quotes Naked at Our Age author Joan Price, who's about to go on a book tour, Sugar in My Bowl editor Erica Jong and more on senior sex. If you like the column, there are buttons at the top of it to spread the word - as always, that's much appreciated!
Joan Price is 67 and wants you to know that sex doesn’t stop at 50—or 60, 70 or 80 and 90!
The author of Better Than I Ever Expected is back with a new book, Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud About Senior Sex (Seal Press), inspired by the many readers who wrote to her asking about how to deal with issues ranging from vulvar pain to breakups, illnesses such as cancer and Alzheimer’s, as well as “dating while older,” erectile dysfunction, divorce, grief, even hiring people for sex or erotc touch. The tone of the book is supportive but realistic; Price isn’t telling seniors to expect to have the exact same kinds or frequency of sex, but instead that if you’re adaptable, sex can continue (with yourself and others) for one’s entire lifetime.
Throughout the book, Price and a series of experts such as Charlie Glickman, Lou Paget, Carol Queen, and Candida Royalle offer tips related to specific queries in concise, practical responses. Price is a big sex toy advocate as well. “When I review a sex toy on my blog, I concentrate on what it does well (or is supposed to do well!), and how well it works from a senior perspective. e.g. It shouldn’t hurt arthritic wrists; it should last as long as we need without overheating or turning itself off, and more.”
Read the whole column
Joan Price is 67 and wants you to know that sex doesn’t stop at 50—or 60, 70 or 80 and 90!
The author of Better Than I Ever Expected is back with a new book, Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud About Senior Sex (Seal Press), inspired by the many readers who wrote to her asking about how to deal with issues ranging from vulvar pain to breakups, illnesses such as cancer and Alzheimer’s, as well as “dating while older,” erectile dysfunction, divorce, grief, even hiring people for sex or erotc touch. The tone of the book is supportive but realistic; Price isn’t telling seniors to expect to have the exact same kinds or frequency of sex, but instead that if you’re adaptable, sex can continue (with yourself and others) for one’s entire lifetime.
Throughout the book, Price and a series of experts such as Charlie Glickman, Lou Paget, Carol Queen, and Candida Royalle offer tips related to specific queries in concise, practical responses. Price is a big sex toy advocate as well. “When I review a sex toy on my blog, I concentrate on what it does well (or is supposed to do well!), and how well it works from a senior perspective. e.g. It shouldn’t hurt arthritic wrists; it should last as long as we need without overheating or turning itself off, and more.”
Read the whole column
Sex Diary: "The 'Mostly Straight' Woman Jumping From One Male Lover's Bed to Another"
This week's sex diary is up! (I edit them.) It's: "The ‘Mostly Straight’ Woman Jumping From One Male Lover’s Bed to Another’s."
Official info on how to submit yourself as a diarist (or pass it on to your friends).
Would you like to take part in the glorious tradition that is the New York Magazine sex diaries? Just send an e-mail to sexdiaries@nymag.com with your contact information and why you think you'd make a good diarist. If you've got what it takes, we'll be in touch!
Official info on how to submit yourself as a diarist (or pass it on to your friends).
Would you like to take part in the glorious tradition that is the New York Magazine sex diaries? Just send an e-mail to sexdiaries@nymag.com with your contact information and why you think you'd make a good diarist. If you've got what it takes, we'll be in touch!
Sex Diary: "The Sorority Girl With Breast Implants Making the Most of Her Open Relationship"
This week's sex diarist is getting a lot of action. Check out: "The Sorority Girl With Breast Implants Making the Most of Her Open Relationship" - there's a lot going on in this one, enjoy! And see the end of the diary if you're a New Yorker who wants to write an anonymous weeklong sex diary (or know someone who might).
Sex diary: "The Divorced Doctor on Hormones"
This sex diary was a bit different and really interesting - there are medical things and sex things and exes and period sex and Starbucks. Check it out: "The Divorced Doctor on Hormones".
My SexIs Magazine Secrets of a Sex Writer one-year columnversary
I realized I never really marked the one-year anniversary of my column so here's all of them to date. You can always read the latest one by clicking here. Tomorrow's mentions beginner's mind, Cindy Gallop's e-book Make Love Not Porn and quotes a piece on sleeping with a slut from Thought Catalog! They usually go up around noon, every other Wednesday. You can also follow @SexIsMagazine on Twitter.
"Unpacking My Relationship Baggage"
"Do Straight Women Need an After Sex Doll to Cuddle With?" (personal favorite!)
"Why I'm Taking The Year Off From Sex and Dating"
"Yes, Even Sex Writers and Call Girls Get Jealous"
"Skype Sex for Dummies"
"Is Social Media Ruining Your Sex Life?"
"An Ode to Pussy Waxing"
"My Year in Sex"
"Is The Handjob Passé?"
"Education Myself About AIDS"
"Sleeping With Married People"
"Ex Sex (Toys)"
"Attention Deficit?"
"The Nonconsensual Play Party Voyeur"
"Like a (Very Experienced) Virgin"
"Internet Dating Pros and Cons"
"Erotica Writes and Wrongs" (advice for submitting to my anthologies)
"10 Things I Want From My Next Relationship"
"Letting Someone Into My Bed"
"A Little Bit Poly"
"Loving My Body—Kinda, Sorta, Sometimes" - reprinted on Jezebel
"My Domme Side"
"Girl Crushes, Bisexuality and Bi-Curiousness"
"My 'Trendy' Post-Breakup Celibacy"
"'Are Your Breasts Real?' and Other Questions Not to Ask a Sex Writer"
"Unpacking My Relationship Baggage"
"Do Straight Women Need an After Sex Doll to Cuddle With?" (personal favorite!)
"Why I'm Taking The Year Off From Sex and Dating"
"Yes, Even Sex Writers and Call Girls Get Jealous"
"Skype Sex for Dummies"
"Is Social Media Ruining Your Sex Life?"
"An Ode to Pussy Waxing"
"My Year in Sex"
"Is The Handjob Passé?"
"Education Myself About AIDS"
"Sleeping With Married People"
"Ex Sex (Toys)"
"Attention Deficit?"
"The Nonconsensual Play Party Voyeur"
"Like a (Very Experienced) Virgin"
"Internet Dating Pros and Cons"
"Erotica Writes and Wrongs" (advice for submitting to my anthologies)
"10 Things I Want From My Next Relationship"
"Letting Someone Into My Bed"
"A Little Bit Poly"
"Loving My Body—Kinda, Sorta, Sometimes" - reprinted on Jezebel
"My Domme Side"
"Girl Crushes, Bisexuality and Bi-Curiousness"
"My 'Trendy' Post-Breakup Celibacy"
"'Are Your Breasts Real?' and Other Questions Not to Ask a Sex Writer"
Sex Diary: "The Brazilian Au Pair Enjoying Nameless Men and Her First Multiple Orgasm"
This week's sex diary at Daily Intel is a lively one: "The Brazilian Au Pair Enjoying Nameless Men and Her First Multiple Orgasm" - to pique your interest, here are her totals (the diarists write these themselves in most cases):
TOTALS: Ten orgasms, four free sushi meals, three acts of oral sex (received), three acts of fingering (received), one session of self-indulgence, three guys with no names, one sexting session, and one multiorgasmic experience.
Do read what preceded that!
If you like it, do me a favor and like it on Facebook? And/or tell your NYC friends who want to be anonymous exhibitionists to email about writing their own diaries (it pays):
Would you like to take part in the glorious tradition that is the New York Magazine sex diaries? Just send an e-mail to sexdiaries@nymag.com with your contact information and why you think you'd make a good diarist. If you've got what it takes, we'll be in touch!
TOTALS: Ten orgasms, four free sushi meals, three acts of oral sex (received), three acts of fingering (received), one session of self-indulgence, three guys with no names, one sexting session, and one multiorgasmic experience.
Do read what preceded that!
If you like it, do me a favor and like it on Facebook? And/or tell your NYC friends who want to be anonymous exhibitionists to email about writing their own diaries (it pays):
Would you like to take part in the glorious tradition that is the New York Magazine sex diaries? Just send an e-mail to sexdiaries@nymag.com with your contact information and why you think you'd make a good diarist. If you've got what it takes, we'll be in touch!
What Geneen Roth’s Madoff and money memoir Lost and Found Taught Me About My Misguided Sex Life
I didn’t pick up Geneen Roth’s new memoir Lost and Found: Unexpected Revelations About Food and Money (at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, for $3 - shop there!), about losing her life savings to Bernie Madoff, thinking I’d glean some of the most stunning insights into my sex life that I’ve ever had, but that’s exactly what happened as I tucked into this gripping tome. Roth, who’s made her name as a body image/eating disorder memoirist/expert, workshop leader and Oprah favorite, reveals not only what happened after she realized her life savings was gone but how she came to invest with Madoff and, most of all, the false beliefs she had about wealth and value and money prior to the Madoff revelations.
What struck me as I started to read was that the ways Roth approached money, I approached sex and dating and love for a long time. Like her, not consciously, but the links are so clear the book may as well have been written for me—that’s how I felt as I read, like she’d pried into this scary neediness and ass-backwardness way of going about it taking care of it. It really is true: money, food, sex, WHATEVER. If you’re not digging deeper and trying to work on yourself, none of those things will ever work, will never be as comforting as honest, true introspection and self-love.
The same ignorance, the same searching, the same neediness, the same never being satisfied. The insight was so overwhelmingly obvious I couldn’t miss its repeated spot-on application to the point that I almost felt like I was reading two books at once—the story of her money, and the parallel story of my complicated relationship with relationships. While I have mishandled my finances to an extreme degree, it’s been in an opposite way from Roth; she amassed a million dollars with her husband and invested it with Madoff, while I’ve only amassed debt for a youthful three years spent at NYU Law School without graduating, along with other money owed, but that is a topic for another day.
What I want to talk about here are the connections that leapt out at me from the pages of this book in ways that were unavoidable, unmistakable and utterly familiar. I’m sure they could just as easily apply to any of the ways we ignore our own needs and beliefs because there is a comfort in hiding, in ignorance, in fantasy. Roth’s bluff was called and in the process, so was mine. So while I’m going to be talking about what I got out of Lost and Found, I’m not trying to speak for Roth. I’m also not trying to say that I am or was a sex addict or anything pathological like that, that anyone who engages in the same behaviors I have has a problem, or anything beyond the understandings I came to about some very specific people I was involved with. I can’t dissect every one of those relationships here, but suffice it to say that, cumulatively, they were the impetus for me taking this break from sex and dating to get back to whoever I am on my own, whoever I am when I strip away that scary neediness. I’m not apologizing for my actions, simply analyzing them, and why I thought they would work, but never ever did.
Roth writes, “...I was also acting on another core and seemingly conflicting money belief: that there wasn’t—and would never be—enough. Enough love, enough money, enough rest, enough food.” I can’t even think about this without it bringing tears to my eyes because when I look back especially at the last year, at 2010, that is precisely how I behaved around affection, attention, both of which I was seeking from having sex with people who weren’t able to provide more than very momentary affection, and never in the way I truly wanted.
I am hesitant in many ways to put forth even this most personal of revelations, lest it play too easily into the idea that women want love, and men want sex. I have a book whose title pretty much says that on my bookshelf; like many of the others sitting there, it hasn’t been cracked open. I’m not saying that by definition sex per se is the problem, for me or anyone else, but that the ways I was going about looking for those things I thought were missing through my life got played out in extremely unhealthy ways and I kept repeating those patterns over and over and over again. It’s not something I can just close up in a cardboard box and seal with packing tape and ship into outer space, either. It is still very much there and especially when I deal with the people in question, who are my friends, who I still care about very much. The whole point of my writing this post is to let go of any lingering impulse I have to “blame” them for not being who I wanted. It’s not their fault or my fault, but I’d be a failure to myself if I didn’t look at how I can fix those patterns going forward. There is still that part of me that wants to measure up to some mythical standard that I didn’t when I was with this group of people (I have very individual relationships with them, but I say “group” in the sense of my collective relationship to them) so that maybe the fairy tales I’d like to think I don’t believe in but maybe secretly do will come true. That is a very hard thing to reckon with when you’d like to think you’re strong, empowered, feminist, self-sufficient, and come to realize that maybe, deep down, you are none of those things.
There was a frenzied nature to what I was doing, to who I was seeking out, to repeatedly turning to people who had explicitly made it clear they were not interested in the kind of relationship I was interested in, yet I kept returning to them for those momentary hits of a combination of attention and pseudo-intimacy. I couldn’t pause long enough to focus on any one of them because I knew that individually they had already rejected me, so I reached for as many people as I could find. Yet I also see that I sought out people who were out of my reach, perhaps in the way that Roth was willfully ignorant of what was happening with her money. I hung on to the false hope that I would suddenly measure up in the eyes of the people I’d imbued with so much power over me, and every time I actively believed they had the power to make me more than I was (and that if they didn’t want to do that or just weren’t that into me, that therefore I was, by definition, less than, much, much less than), I was denying my own role in choosing, daily, whether I was going to advance my life or stay back in the darkness.
Roth writes:
It’s easy to want to change, but it’s hard to actually change. Very, really hard.
You have to be willing to be uncomfortable, enter the unknown, do things your ego doesn’t want to do. You have to value being true to what you glimpse as possible—to the heart of your heart—more than you want to be right or get your own way or be uncomfortable.
And then you have to act on what you discover.
I am facing a lot of uphill battles in various areas of my life, ones I’ve ignored because they were too pesky, messy, sad, frustrating, too full of self-recrimination. Instead of making even the smallest steps towards ameliorating these issues until just recently, I threw myself into being some fictional ideal of a good girlfriend, a good lover, whatever that means. I thought that if I just, say, brought the right snacks to a boy’s home, or was good at sex, or was available at the drop of a hat, or fixed the broken links on a webpage, or whatever act du jour I imagined would secure me some place as Awesome Sexy Girl, rather than sitting with and examining my reality, I would magically leap over all my problems, that they somehow wouldn’t exist, or wouldn’t be important, because I would get that importance high off of being with someone else that that rush would overcome all those other challenges, erasing them as easily as I blocked them from my mind.
It wasn’t quite as conscious as that, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that since I turned the white noise of relationship drama to the lowest possible setting I’ve started to take major steps toward fixing some of these looming issues, some basic functions of Being an Adult, like setting up my home so I can have guests and finding a doctor and accountant and saying hard things to people I respect. In my mania, instead of picking up even a few of the pieces of laundry littering my home, I washed other people’s dishes. Now, there is nothing wrong with washing other people’s dishes, but looking back I see how desperate I was, how I let myself fall into a place where being left felt like the worst feeling in the world, where I was sitting refreshing my inbox when I should have been doing much more important things, my heart lighting up like a slot machine when I saw a certain name there. At the time that felt natural, and I kept returning to those same people from that same place of extreme neediness. I also assumed it was invisible, that I didn’t radiate my desperation quite as clearly as I probably did.
And even when I thought I’d purged those habits, I keep being reminded how easy to fall back into they are, how easy it is to think that if I just find that person who can see past all my neuroses, all my messes, all my flaws, they will validate me in a way I can never do myself. I also had this immense urge to fixate on the ways I thought I’d been done wrong, rather than the ways I played into the demise of those relationships. And, like Roth not absolving Madoff, I’m not saying that some of those relationships couldn’t have ended in a kinder way, but how I handled them is my and only my responsibility.
In the last two months, I’ve started taking steps toward fixing some of the holes I’ve dug for myself. I have not always made the right choices, even now, but even the fact that I’m actually sitting down with my “issues,” and trying to figure out how to tackle them is a major improvement over, um, internet-stalking someone. I still do that a little bit, which is probably natural, but part of what I’m doing in this year off is trying to figure out how to actually be friends with people who I have a complicated history with, how to move past that because for all the heartache and painful moments in the last year, I do get something out of all those friendships. I’m trying to get something actually healthy and meaningful out of them, instead of replicating those old patterns, and navigating that is not easy. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say there will always probably be at least some sexual tension between me and this group, though group makes it sound like some sort of orgy and it’s precisely the opposite. The fact that I have these really strong connections is the blessing and curse of all of this. If I didn’t have any connection it would be easy to walk away (I think) but ultimately I think I’d be losing out. Yet these are people I have to keep somewhat at a distance, and I’m not used to that. I am not very good at putting up walls and barriers with people I care about, and I’m especially not good at it when I think they have something to teach me. But if it comes down to it, and the choice becomes dropping those friendships or re-experiencing that really searing sense of rejection, I will choose the former. At least, I hope I will choose the former.
It’s an extremely slow, lonely process, on so many fronts that sometimes it feels entirely overwhelming and many nights I’ve been tempted to seek relief from that overwhelmingness in someone else’s bed. I know that that option is there, and I know too that in the moment, it would feel really fucking good. In the moment, I wouldn’t have to be the girl getting letters from tax collectors, the girl stepping over a morass of belongings, the girl with the failed book, the girl with the number on the scale that she despises. I wouldn’t have to be anything in me I don’t like in that time, and perhaps that is the crux of the problem: I don’t want that escapist kind of sex anymore, no matter how wonderful it feels in the moment, no matter what lies I might be able to whisper to myself to validate it. It feels so counterintuitive to how I’ve lived my life for the last fifteen or so years to keep turning down sex with people who are smart, kind, sexy, simply because they want only those moments, and not what comes after. Part of me, often a very big part, wants those moments too, thinks I deserve them, would rather be anywhere than at a Starbucks with R.E.M. playing on a Friday night.
I’m much more curious about what everyone else’s life looks like than what it looks like in those hollow places inside of me. It’s not pretty to face when you’ve made the same mistake over and over and thought the next time would be different, the next time you’d be deemed better/hotter/more worthy. Roth’s interviewee, Michael, says in the book, “It’s as if the muscles of my heart started to atrophy.” Whoa. I underlined that because, yes, when I was bed-hopping, boy-hopping, frantically rushing to get that fix, that high, my heart was long gone most of the time. When it was there, though, I was all in, all in in a way that was ultimately so dangerous, making me so unstable.
I’d given up on my heart, left it way, way behind, assumed that love, the big, special and beautiful kind, was for other people. I got the scraps of it, the secondhand love, the almost-but-not-quite love, and I don’t want to be someone who is content with that, who thinks so little of herself that she is ready to accept that as all she is worth, while the other ladies get the real thing. And the more I kept seeking out utterly untouchable, unreachable, unavailable people, the more I let my heart atrophy, because, like I’ve done in almost every area of my life, I set myself up to fail from the outset. There is a difference between trying and simply realizing it isn’t going to work. When I’ve done that, I’ve been able to be friends with and make peace with the people involved because I know that there is something valuable there. It just isn’t what I thought it was and could never be. I was so besotted by my own romantic visions of how I wanted people to see me that I couldn’t accept how they actually saw me. Again, I thought I just had to “work harder” at being me in order to, to grab a phrase from the zeitgeist, be winning. And since February 1st, when I decided to start my sex and dating hiatus, I’ve stopped trying to work harder on “being me” and have just been being me, which is sometimes humbling and sometimes euphoric.
I wrote the previous words, with a few slight edits, the Friday before last, but couldn’t quite finish it, and since then, a few things have changed in my life, but the work I’ve been doing on myself is something I am determined to continue, whether I’m in a relationship or not (for the record, right now I am, more on that and the abbreviated hiatus another time). I think separating how I think of myself versus how any of that group from my past thinks about me is a vital step in moving forward, in learning new ways of interacting that don’t involve that level of desperation, that don’t turn anyone in my personal life into my own wannabe Madoff savior.
What struck me as I started to read was that the ways Roth approached money, I approached sex and dating and love for a long time. Like her, not consciously, but the links are so clear the book may as well have been written for me—that’s how I felt as I read, like she’d pried into this scary neediness and ass-backwardness way of going about it taking care of it. It really is true: money, food, sex, WHATEVER. If you’re not digging deeper and trying to work on yourself, none of those things will ever work, will never be as comforting as honest, true introspection and self-love.
The same ignorance, the same searching, the same neediness, the same never being satisfied. The insight was so overwhelmingly obvious I couldn’t miss its repeated spot-on application to the point that I almost felt like I was reading two books at once—the story of her money, and the parallel story of my complicated relationship with relationships. While I have mishandled my finances to an extreme degree, it’s been in an opposite way from Roth; she amassed a million dollars with her husband and invested it with Madoff, while I’ve only amassed debt for a youthful three years spent at NYU Law School without graduating, along with other money owed, but that is a topic for another day.
What I want to talk about here are the connections that leapt out at me from the pages of this book in ways that were unavoidable, unmistakable and utterly familiar. I’m sure they could just as easily apply to any of the ways we ignore our own needs and beliefs because there is a comfort in hiding, in ignorance, in fantasy. Roth’s bluff was called and in the process, so was mine. So while I’m going to be talking about what I got out of Lost and Found, I’m not trying to speak for Roth. I’m also not trying to say that I am or was a sex addict or anything pathological like that, that anyone who engages in the same behaviors I have has a problem, or anything beyond the understandings I came to about some very specific people I was involved with. I can’t dissect every one of those relationships here, but suffice it to say that, cumulatively, they were the impetus for me taking this break from sex and dating to get back to whoever I am on my own, whoever I am when I strip away that scary neediness. I’m not apologizing for my actions, simply analyzing them, and why I thought they would work, but never ever did.
Roth writes, “...I was also acting on another core and seemingly conflicting money belief: that there wasn’t—and would never be—enough. Enough love, enough money, enough rest, enough food.” I can’t even think about this without it bringing tears to my eyes because when I look back especially at the last year, at 2010, that is precisely how I behaved around affection, attention, both of which I was seeking from having sex with people who weren’t able to provide more than very momentary affection, and never in the way I truly wanted.
I am hesitant in many ways to put forth even this most personal of revelations, lest it play too easily into the idea that women want love, and men want sex. I have a book whose title pretty much says that on my bookshelf; like many of the others sitting there, it hasn’t been cracked open. I’m not saying that by definition sex per se is the problem, for me or anyone else, but that the ways I was going about looking for those things I thought were missing through my life got played out in extremely unhealthy ways and I kept repeating those patterns over and over and over again. It’s not something I can just close up in a cardboard box and seal with packing tape and ship into outer space, either. It is still very much there and especially when I deal with the people in question, who are my friends, who I still care about very much. The whole point of my writing this post is to let go of any lingering impulse I have to “blame” them for not being who I wanted. It’s not their fault or my fault, but I’d be a failure to myself if I didn’t look at how I can fix those patterns going forward. There is still that part of me that wants to measure up to some mythical standard that I didn’t when I was with this group of people (I have very individual relationships with them, but I say “group” in the sense of my collective relationship to them) so that maybe the fairy tales I’d like to think I don’t believe in but maybe secretly do will come true. That is a very hard thing to reckon with when you’d like to think you’re strong, empowered, feminist, self-sufficient, and come to realize that maybe, deep down, you are none of those things.
There was a frenzied nature to what I was doing, to who I was seeking out, to repeatedly turning to people who had explicitly made it clear they were not interested in the kind of relationship I was interested in, yet I kept returning to them for those momentary hits of a combination of attention and pseudo-intimacy. I couldn’t pause long enough to focus on any one of them because I knew that individually they had already rejected me, so I reached for as many people as I could find. Yet I also see that I sought out people who were out of my reach, perhaps in the way that Roth was willfully ignorant of what was happening with her money. I hung on to the false hope that I would suddenly measure up in the eyes of the people I’d imbued with so much power over me, and every time I actively believed they had the power to make me more than I was (and that if they didn’t want to do that or just weren’t that into me, that therefore I was, by definition, less than, much, much less than), I was denying my own role in choosing, daily, whether I was going to advance my life or stay back in the darkness.
Roth writes:
It’s easy to want to change, but it’s hard to actually change. Very, really hard.
You have to be willing to be uncomfortable, enter the unknown, do things your ego doesn’t want to do. You have to value being true to what you glimpse as possible—to the heart of your heart—more than you want to be right or get your own way or be uncomfortable.
And then you have to act on what you discover.
I am facing a lot of uphill battles in various areas of my life, ones I’ve ignored because they were too pesky, messy, sad, frustrating, too full of self-recrimination. Instead of making even the smallest steps towards ameliorating these issues until just recently, I threw myself into being some fictional ideal of a good girlfriend, a good lover, whatever that means. I thought that if I just, say, brought the right snacks to a boy’s home, or was good at sex, or was available at the drop of a hat, or fixed the broken links on a webpage, or whatever act du jour I imagined would secure me some place as Awesome Sexy Girl, rather than sitting with and examining my reality, I would magically leap over all my problems, that they somehow wouldn’t exist, or wouldn’t be important, because I would get that importance high off of being with someone else that that rush would overcome all those other challenges, erasing them as easily as I blocked them from my mind.
It wasn’t quite as conscious as that, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that since I turned the white noise of relationship drama to the lowest possible setting I’ve started to take major steps toward fixing some of these looming issues, some basic functions of Being an Adult, like setting up my home so I can have guests and finding a doctor and accountant and saying hard things to people I respect. In my mania, instead of picking up even a few of the pieces of laundry littering my home, I washed other people’s dishes. Now, there is nothing wrong with washing other people’s dishes, but looking back I see how desperate I was, how I let myself fall into a place where being left felt like the worst feeling in the world, where I was sitting refreshing my inbox when I should have been doing much more important things, my heart lighting up like a slot machine when I saw a certain name there. At the time that felt natural, and I kept returning to those same people from that same place of extreme neediness. I also assumed it was invisible, that I didn’t radiate my desperation quite as clearly as I probably did.
And even when I thought I’d purged those habits, I keep being reminded how easy to fall back into they are, how easy it is to think that if I just find that person who can see past all my neuroses, all my messes, all my flaws, they will validate me in a way I can never do myself. I also had this immense urge to fixate on the ways I thought I’d been done wrong, rather than the ways I played into the demise of those relationships. And, like Roth not absolving Madoff, I’m not saying that some of those relationships couldn’t have ended in a kinder way, but how I handled them is my and only my responsibility.
In the last two months, I’ve started taking steps toward fixing some of the holes I’ve dug for myself. I have not always made the right choices, even now, but even the fact that I’m actually sitting down with my “issues,” and trying to figure out how to tackle them is a major improvement over, um, internet-stalking someone. I still do that a little bit, which is probably natural, but part of what I’m doing in this year off is trying to figure out how to actually be friends with people who I have a complicated history with, how to move past that because for all the heartache and painful moments in the last year, I do get something out of all those friendships. I’m trying to get something actually healthy and meaningful out of them, instead of replicating those old patterns, and navigating that is not easy. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say there will always probably be at least some sexual tension between me and this group, though group makes it sound like some sort of orgy and it’s precisely the opposite. The fact that I have these really strong connections is the blessing and curse of all of this. If I didn’t have any connection it would be easy to walk away (I think) but ultimately I think I’d be losing out. Yet these are people I have to keep somewhat at a distance, and I’m not used to that. I am not very good at putting up walls and barriers with people I care about, and I’m especially not good at it when I think they have something to teach me. But if it comes down to it, and the choice becomes dropping those friendships or re-experiencing that really searing sense of rejection, I will choose the former. At least, I hope I will choose the former.
It’s an extremely slow, lonely process, on so many fronts that sometimes it feels entirely overwhelming and many nights I’ve been tempted to seek relief from that overwhelmingness in someone else’s bed. I know that that option is there, and I know too that in the moment, it would feel really fucking good. In the moment, I wouldn’t have to be the girl getting letters from tax collectors, the girl stepping over a morass of belongings, the girl with the failed book, the girl with the number on the scale that she despises. I wouldn’t have to be anything in me I don’t like in that time, and perhaps that is the crux of the problem: I don’t want that escapist kind of sex anymore, no matter how wonderful it feels in the moment, no matter what lies I might be able to whisper to myself to validate it. It feels so counterintuitive to how I’ve lived my life for the last fifteen or so years to keep turning down sex with people who are smart, kind, sexy, simply because they want only those moments, and not what comes after. Part of me, often a very big part, wants those moments too, thinks I deserve them, would rather be anywhere than at a Starbucks with R.E.M. playing on a Friday night.
I’m much more curious about what everyone else’s life looks like than what it looks like in those hollow places inside of me. It’s not pretty to face when you’ve made the same mistake over and over and thought the next time would be different, the next time you’d be deemed better/hotter/more worthy. Roth’s interviewee, Michael, says in the book, “It’s as if the muscles of my heart started to atrophy.” Whoa. I underlined that because, yes, when I was bed-hopping, boy-hopping, frantically rushing to get that fix, that high, my heart was long gone most of the time. When it was there, though, I was all in, all in in a way that was ultimately so dangerous, making me so unstable.
I’d given up on my heart, left it way, way behind, assumed that love, the big, special and beautiful kind, was for other people. I got the scraps of it, the secondhand love, the almost-but-not-quite love, and I don’t want to be someone who is content with that, who thinks so little of herself that she is ready to accept that as all she is worth, while the other ladies get the real thing. And the more I kept seeking out utterly untouchable, unreachable, unavailable people, the more I let my heart atrophy, because, like I’ve done in almost every area of my life, I set myself up to fail from the outset. There is a difference between trying and simply realizing it isn’t going to work. When I’ve done that, I’ve been able to be friends with and make peace with the people involved because I know that there is something valuable there. It just isn’t what I thought it was and could never be. I was so besotted by my own romantic visions of how I wanted people to see me that I couldn’t accept how they actually saw me. Again, I thought I just had to “work harder” at being me in order to, to grab a phrase from the zeitgeist, be winning. And since February 1st, when I decided to start my sex and dating hiatus, I’ve stopped trying to work harder on “being me” and have just been being me, which is sometimes humbling and sometimes euphoric.
I wrote the previous words, with a few slight edits, the Friday before last, but couldn’t quite finish it, and since then, a few things have changed in my life, but the work I’ve been doing on myself is something I am determined to continue, whether I’m in a relationship or not (for the record, right now I am, more on that and the abbreviated hiatus another time). I think separating how I think of myself versus how any of that group from my past thinks about me is a vital step in moving forward, in learning new ways of interacting that don’t involve that level of desperation, that don’t turn anyone in my personal life into my own wannabe Madoff savior.
Back Up Your Birth Control Day blogging
I'm blogging this as part of the Day of Action around the Back Up Your Birth Control Campaign.
I’ve had various moments in my life where I could have used e.c. (emergency contraception), but a few are more crystal-clear than others. There was a time in early 2006 when I thought it was on the market without a prescription and it turns out it wasn’t, which was not a fun little while. Then later that year, with a man who was kindof a mirror image of the first one, I also needed it again, because I’d again had unprotected sex.
I thought that I was past that, that I had moved on to a more responsible, early-thirties, sexually active person, so the last time I needed e.c. was really the most wrenching for me, something I think about a lot as I contemplate possibly being (hetero)sexually active again (which is a story for another time, but suffice it to say, whether that’s in November or earlier, I don’t want to make the same mistake). At the time, I was on and then off birth control. I was using the NuvaRing, and when I had the money ($50, with insurance), I would buy it, but otherwise, I would just use condoms.
But then I started seeing someone where we weren’t using condoms, and while I was using the ring, it was fine. There was a while where I wasn’t, though, and I was pretty sure, in my head, that I was ready for that. I told him I wasn’t using anything and we couldn’t have intercourse and yet that’s precisely what we wound up doing and for the longest time I felt so stupid about that. I still do, to a large degree, and am so grateful that I was able to get e.c. Now, I was waiting for a check at the time, as I often am, and waiting out the time between when that payment arrived, and when I could get the pills, was excruciating. It was also a very lonely time because I couldn’t turn to the person involved, and I felt like if I told my friends about it they would just tell me I was stupid for having done that in the first place.
I didn’t quite realize that, well, life happens. That a lot of women, smart, strong, powerful, amazing women, some of them my friends, find themselves in similar situations. I wish my friends had had e.c. handy, or handier, than they did. I don’t say that because I think abortion is morally wrong; I am completely pro-choice. I say that because even from my limited perspective, that was not a choice they wanted to make. I’m not going to speak for anyone else but seeing up close how challenging an unwanted pregnancy was for at least one friend, I wish all of us who either suspect or are sure we’ve had unprotected sex that might lead to pregnancy could easily assuage those worries.
Yet even as I’m participating in the blog carnival, I can tell you that after that incident, though it changed how I thought about my own sexuality, changed how I thought about who I wanted to sleep with, changed how I looked at my own sense of agency and responsibility (and made me 100% convinced that I, as a woman, owe it to myself to never, ever rely on anyone else to possess that responsibility for me), it did not mean that I walked around, or am walking around now, with e.c. on me. I guess I figure that if I do need it, I will go down the block to the drugstore and get it. Maybe there is a teensy tiny part of me that thinks that if I have it handy I’ll be more sloppy with my birth control, if and when I do need it, because of that safety net. But this year I am all about working on myself and not “fixing” old errors, but learning from them. That made a huge impression on me because it showed me that I am not always as responsible as I'd like to be, whether regarding my sexual choices or my financial ones, and that as someone who does, in fact, want to be a parent one day, that is not the kind of behavior I want to model, and not the kind of person I want to be. (Please note: I am not saying there is a "kind of person" who doesn't use birth control or forgets to use it, but that in this specific incident, I actively went against my own self-interest and that certainly made me question why I'd be willing to do that.)
That was a turning point for me because I realized some of the falsities I was telling myself about myself and my own responsibility and autonomy when it comes to this issue. I thought that I had everything so neatly under control and to realize that I didn’t, that I was willing to risk something so huge, for something so momentary, threw me in a major way. It made me realize that I need to pick who I share my body with a lot more carefully, and that I can only do that with people who I can also share everything else with—my mind, my fears, my mistakes. I couldn’t do that in that situation, and yes, I am getting to what this has to do with emergency contraception, and that was what really did a number on me.
So, in conclusion, I fully support more awareness around emergency contraception. I think so many of us are too hard on ourselves too much of the time, to the point that we are self-defeating. Having e.c. on hand just in case, for you, or for a friend, is not a sign that you are planning to have unprotected sex, and even if you are, or think you might wind up in a circumstance where you might, it is worth the peace of mind.
And if we are talking about emergency contraception as a health care issue, I can tell you that those days I was waiting to get that direct deposit were some of the most stressful of my life. There is no way they were anything approaching “healthy” and I am naturally prone to worrying so that certainly exacerbated it. If you are going to use e.c., while it is effective for up to 120 hours (5 days), it’s best taken as soon as possible.
According to Planned Parenthood:
Emergency contraception can be started up to 120 hours — five days — after unprotected intercourse. The sooner it is started, the better it works.
Emergency contraception is also known as the morning-after pill, emergency birth control, backup birth control, and by the brand names Plan B One-Step, ella, and Next Choice. Plan B One-Step and Next Choice reduce the risk of pregnancy by 89 percent when started within 72 hours after unprotected intercourse. They continue to reduce the risk of pregnancy up to 120 hours after unprotected intercourse, but they are less effective as time passes.
For more information about emergency contraception and the morning-after pill, visit:
womenshealth.gov
Planned Parenthood
I’ve had various moments in my life where I could have used e.c. (emergency contraception), but a few are more crystal-clear than others. There was a time in early 2006 when I thought it was on the market without a prescription and it turns out it wasn’t, which was not a fun little while. Then later that year, with a man who was kindof a mirror image of the first one, I also needed it again, because I’d again had unprotected sex.
I thought that I was past that, that I had moved on to a more responsible, early-thirties, sexually active person, so the last time I needed e.c. was really the most wrenching for me, something I think about a lot as I contemplate possibly being (hetero)sexually active again (which is a story for another time, but suffice it to say, whether that’s in November or earlier, I don’t want to make the same mistake). At the time, I was on and then off birth control. I was using the NuvaRing, and when I had the money ($50, with insurance), I would buy it, but otherwise, I would just use condoms.
But then I started seeing someone where we weren’t using condoms, and while I was using the ring, it was fine. There was a while where I wasn’t, though, and I was pretty sure, in my head, that I was ready for that. I told him I wasn’t using anything and we couldn’t have intercourse and yet that’s precisely what we wound up doing and for the longest time I felt so stupid about that. I still do, to a large degree, and am so grateful that I was able to get e.c. Now, I was waiting for a check at the time, as I often am, and waiting out the time between when that payment arrived, and when I could get the pills, was excruciating. It was also a very lonely time because I couldn’t turn to the person involved, and I felt like if I told my friends about it they would just tell me I was stupid for having done that in the first place.
I didn’t quite realize that, well, life happens. That a lot of women, smart, strong, powerful, amazing women, some of them my friends, find themselves in similar situations. I wish my friends had had e.c. handy, or handier, than they did. I don’t say that because I think abortion is morally wrong; I am completely pro-choice. I say that because even from my limited perspective, that was not a choice they wanted to make. I’m not going to speak for anyone else but seeing up close how challenging an unwanted pregnancy was for at least one friend, I wish all of us who either suspect or are sure we’ve had unprotected sex that might lead to pregnancy could easily assuage those worries.
Yet even as I’m participating in the blog carnival, I can tell you that after that incident, though it changed how I thought about my own sexuality, changed how I thought about who I wanted to sleep with, changed how I looked at my own sense of agency and responsibility (and made me 100% convinced that I, as a woman, owe it to myself to never, ever rely on anyone else to possess that responsibility for me), it did not mean that I walked around, or am walking around now, with e.c. on me. I guess I figure that if I do need it, I will go down the block to the drugstore and get it. Maybe there is a teensy tiny part of me that thinks that if I have it handy I’ll be more sloppy with my birth control, if and when I do need it, because of that safety net. But this year I am all about working on myself and not “fixing” old errors, but learning from them. That made a huge impression on me because it showed me that I am not always as responsible as I'd like to be, whether regarding my sexual choices or my financial ones, and that as someone who does, in fact, want to be a parent one day, that is not the kind of behavior I want to model, and not the kind of person I want to be. (Please note: I am not saying there is a "kind of person" who doesn't use birth control or forgets to use it, but that in this specific incident, I actively went against my own self-interest and that certainly made me question why I'd be willing to do that.)
That was a turning point for me because I realized some of the falsities I was telling myself about myself and my own responsibility and autonomy when it comes to this issue. I thought that I had everything so neatly under control and to realize that I didn’t, that I was willing to risk something so huge, for something so momentary, threw me in a major way. It made me realize that I need to pick who I share my body with a lot more carefully, and that I can only do that with people who I can also share everything else with—my mind, my fears, my mistakes. I couldn’t do that in that situation, and yes, I am getting to what this has to do with emergency contraception, and that was what really did a number on me.
So, in conclusion, I fully support more awareness around emergency contraception. I think so many of us are too hard on ourselves too much of the time, to the point that we are self-defeating. Having e.c. on hand just in case, for you, or for a friend, is not a sign that you are planning to have unprotected sex, and even if you are, or think you might wind up in a circumstance where you might, it is worth the peace of mind.
And if we are talking about emergency contraception as a health care issue, I can tell you that those days I was waiting to get that direct deposit were some of the most stressful of my life. There is no way they were anything approaching “healthy” and I am naturally prone to worrying so that certainly exacerbated it. If you are going to use e.c., while it is effective for up to 120 hours (5 days), it’s best taken as soon as possible.
According to Planned Parenthood:
Emergency contraception can be started up to 120 hours — five days — after unprotected intercourse. The sooner it is started, the better it works.
Emergency contraception is also known as the morning-after pill, emergency birth control, backup birth control, and by the brand names Plan B One-Step, ella, and Next Choice. Plan B One-Step and Next Choice reduce the risk of pregnancy by 89 percent when started within 72 hours after unprotected intercourse. They continue to reduce the risk of pregnancy up to 120 hours after unprotected intercourse, but they are less effective as time passes.
For more information about emergency contraception and the morning-after pill, visit:
womenshealth.gov
Planned Parenthood
Do Straight Women Need an After Sex Doll to Cuddle With?
That's the question I ask and answer in my latest Secrets of a Sex Writer column at SexIs Magazine.
“The best part of sex is cuddling.” That’s something a male lover once told me and I’ve always remembered it. I was surprised to hear it from him because he was very into the sex were were having, and is someone I’d consider a very sexual person, though also a very sensitive person. I don’t know why, I just didn’t expect him to say that, but I was glad he did. It was a bit of a revelation for me—men like cuddling too! Sometimes I agree, and sometimes I think I’ll take a hot, fast fuck over cuddling. But lots of people don’t want to choose between them.
When I opened up the package that arrived recently at my post office box and saw a stuffed doll, I at first thought it was something I could give to one of my friends’ kids. Then I took a closer look and discovered that this unexpected gift was actually a fair trade sex product, marketed as “My After Sex Buddy,” made by a collective of single mothers in Columbia (really!). I put him and the marketing materials away in my bag, and he’s lived on my couch ever since. Mind you, I’m someone who sleeps with a giant Hello Kitty doll atop my other pillows. I wouldn’t say I cuddle with her, but I do sometimes nuzzle my face into her softness and talk to her, not in the way I would a lover, more as a way to say things I don’t think I have anyone human to say them to.
Keep reading
“The best part of sex is cuddling.” That’s something a male lover once told me and I’ve always remembered it. I was surprised to hear it from him because he was very into the sex were were having, and is someone I’d consider a very sexual person, though also a very sensitive person. I don’t know why, I just didn’t expect him to say that, but I was glad he did. It was a bit of a revelation for me—men like cuddling too! Sometimes I agree, and sometimes I think I’ll take a hot, fast fuck over cuddling. But lots of people don’t want to choose between them.
When I opened up the package that arrived recently at my post office box and saw a stuffed doll, I at first thought it was something I could give to one of my friends’ kids. Then I took a closer look and discovered that this unexpected gift was actually a fair trade sex product, marketed as “My After Sex Buddy,” made by a collective of single mothers in Columbia (really!). I put him and the marketing materials away in my bag, and he’s lived on my couch ever since. Mind you, I’m someone who sleeps with a giant Hello Kitty doll atop my other pillows. I wouldn’t say I cuddle with her, but I do sometimes nuzzle my face into her softness and talk to her, not in the way I would a lover, more as a way to say things I don’t think I have anyone human to say them to.
Keep reading
Joan Price on me, Candida Royalle and others not having sex
Naked At Our Age author Joan Price writes on her blog about me, Candida Royalle, herself and other women who are taking a break from sex. I'm so pleased I made this decision; I almost wrote "belated decision," but I was so mired in a certain way of thinking that it didn't even occur to me until there was no other choice, until it was so glaringly obvious that I was looking for love/lust/attention/affection in all the wrong places and had to go all the way back and look for it within myself.
So thanks to the Top Chef and a very crazy November, December and January for leading me to the light! I'm trying very hard to take better care of my health, my home, my finances and resurrect my flagging writing and realized how much all of that energy was being taken away by devoting it to people who I so didn't belong with and vice versa. They didn't take it away, I did, and seeing that so starkly, seeing how I thought I was so empty I should continue to pursue and privilege the most unavailable of people, after a series of extremely unavailable people, well, that was just the kick in the ass I needed.
I repeated those poor choices over and over because they were familiar, easy, because I didn't think I deserved all of someone, so I settled for the tiniest slivers they could offer, for as long as they were interested, which is the subject of another piece I'm working on, but like stopping the sheer wastefulness of time and money I was throwing into In The Flesh with nothing to show for it, I stopped that madness of sex and dating to preserve myself and find out who I want to be. If I ever go back to it, and right now I feel like I'd be perfectly content to not and look into alternative means of procreation, I want to do so as a better person, not as the broken fuckup I was and still, to a large degree, am. I will never be perfect, and I am not striving for that, but I am working on measurable goals so that I can assess how I'm doing, hold myself accountable. I'll be lucky if I'm there in November, but November is where I'm focused, when I can leave 35 behind and hopefully wrap up a year of thoughtfulness and action over things I can be proactive about. Maybe that sounds inarticulate, and the last few weeks have been challenging but I'm 100% positive they'd be way more challenging if I was still engaging in very bad-for-me behavior.
That's why I loved the phrase "crazy girl willing to work on herself" in the Sascha Rothchild Vows profile in The New York Times. As for me, I'm glad it's not too late to save myself, to work on the long and, yes, at times lonely, path to being someone I can be proud of. I was never going to get there by privileging sex and dating over, well, me. In an ideal world, they would complement each other, but I never found that ideal, and maybe I never will. I am okay with that; I'm looking for those ideals within myself, within the things I have the power to change. Other people and their feelings about me are always going to be beyond my power to change, and I finally recognize that. And it doesn't feel like an exaggeration to say that has made all the difference.
So thanks to the Top Chef and a very crazy November, December and January for leading me to the light! I'm trying very hard to take better care of my health, my home, my finances and resurrect my flagging writing and realized how much all of that energy was being taken away by devoting it to people who I so didn't belong with and vice versa. They didn't take it away, I did, and seeing that so starkly, seeing how I thought I was so empty I should continue to pursue and privilege the most unavailable of people, after a series of extremely unavailable people, well, that was just the kick in the ass I needed.
I repeated those poor choices over and over because they were familiar, easy, because I didn't think I deserved all of someone, so I settled for the tiniest slivers they could offer, for as long as they were interested, which is the subject of another piece I'm working on, but like stopping the sheer wastefulness of time and money I was throwing into In The Flesh with nothing to show for it, I stopped that madness of sex and dating to preserve myself and find out who I want to be. If I ever go back to it, and right now I feel like I'd be perfectly content to not and look into alternative means of procreation, I want to do so as a better person, not as the broken fuckup I was and still, to a large degree, am. I will never be perfect, and I am not striving for that, but I am working on measurable goals so that I can assess how I'm doing, hold myself accountable. I'll be lucky if I'm there in November, but November is where I'm focused, when I can leave 35 behind and hopefully wrap up a year of thoughtfulness and action over things I can be proactive about. Maybe that sounds inarticulate, and the last few weeks have been challenging but I'm 100% positive they'd be way more challenging if I was still engaging in very bad-for-me behavior.
That's why I loved the phrase "crazy girl willing to work on herself" in the Sascha Rothchild Vows profile in The New York Times. As for me, I'm glad it's not too late to save myself, to work on the long and, yes, at times lonely, path to being someone I can be proud of. I was never going to get there by privileging sex and dating over, well, me. In an ideal world, they would complement each other, but I never found that ideal, and maybe I never will. I am okay with that; I'm looking for those ideals within myself, within the things I have the power to change. Other people and their feelings about me are always going to be beyond my power to change, and I finally recognize that. And it doesn't feel like an exaggeration to say that has made all the difference.
Sex Diary: "The Polyamorous Transman Getting It On to the Glee Soundtrack"
For the Glee fans. And everyone else. This week's sex diary (I edit these) - scroll down to the bottom if you're a New Yorker who wants to submit a sex diary, and please tell your friends, it does pay.
"The Polyamorous Transman Getting It On to the Glee Soundtrack"
"The Polyamorous Transman Getting It On to the Glee Soundtrack"
Momentumcon conference on sex, feminism, relationships and more April 1-3 in Washington, DC
I'm looking forward to hearing and seeing all sorts of awesome people at the conference Momentumcon in Washington, DC April 2-3 like porn star Dylan Ryan, Big Sex Little Death author Susie Bright, the wonderful Tristan Taormino, Open author Jenny Block, Carol Queen, Funky Brown Chick Twanna Hines, Jamye Waxman and tons more. Check out the schedule . I am not speaking but I will be bringing some cupcakes and will have book postcards (I'm only attending late Saturday and Sunday but plan to pack as much into that time as I can). Check out these session titles - only downside is I can't go to them all! Follow @momentumcon on Twitter for details about the sessions.
Sessions
1. I Used to be a White Knight, but now I’m a Feminist
2. No Homo: Prejudice and Homophobia within the Gay Community
3. Traveling the Yellow Brick Road of Kink: How to Avoid The Flying Monkeys Along the Road to Oz
4. Polyamory & New Media
5. What it Takes to (Successfully!) Date a Sex Worker
6. How to Succeed in Business – Giving Customers What They Want When They Want It
7. Sex Worker and Single
8. Play With Your Food: The Delicious Space That Is the Intersection of Food and Sex
9. Who is SexyKitty69? Exploring the social media pros & cons of anonymity
10. Odd Girl Out: Straddling The Fields of Sexual Health and Sexual Pleasure
11. Teaching and Learning Tantra Online
12. One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Identities and Intersections
13. Women Taking Power: D/s dynamic as Feminism
14. The Feminist Connection
15. Podcasting — What’s in It for Me: Marketing, Mojo and Monetization
16. Porn Stars Off the Set
17. New Media Roundtable – Tips and Tools for Social Change
18. Feminism, Sex Toys and Capitalism
19. The Accidental Poster Child: How to Handle the Media When it Comes Calling
20. Sex Positive Interventions: The Feminist Sex Wars and Beyond
21. Business Management Techniques for Sex Positive Entreprenuers
22. How New Media Has Changed the Way We Think About Porn
23. Defining Non-Monogamy: Bridging the Gap in the Community
24. Blogging the Gap: How Sex Workers and Sex Writers Can Work Together
25. Ethics and Responsibilities for Sex-Positive Writing
26. Multigen Feminist Pornographers Mouth Off
27. A Spoonful of Chocolate Makes the Vanilla Go Down
28. Sense & Sexuality: How Taking It Off Empowers The World!
29. The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: Looking at Female Masturbation Past and Present
30. Sex in the Sanctuary
31. Personal Branding for the Sex-Positive Activist
32. Sex & Race in America: Opening the Bedroom Door
33. Special Events at MOMENTUM
Sessions
1. I Used to be a White Knight, but now I’m a Feminist
2. No Homo: Prejudice and Homophobia within the Gay Community
3. Traveling the Yellow Brick Road of Kink: How to Avoid The Flying Monkeys Along the Road to Oz
4. Polyamory & New Media
5. What it Takes to (Successfully!) Date a Sex Worker
6. How to Succeed in Business – Giving Customers What They Want When They Want It
7. Sex Worker and Single
8. Play With Your Food: The Delicious Space That Is the Intersection of Food and Sex
9. Who is SexyKitty69? Exploring the social media pros & cons of anonymity
10. Odd Girl Out: Straddling The Fields of Sexual Health and Sexual Pleasure
11. Teaching and Learning Tantra Online
12. One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Identities and Intersections
13. Women Taking Power: D/s dynamic as Feminism
14. The Feminist Connection
15. Podcasting — What’s in It for Me: Marketing, Mojo and Monetization
16. Porn Stars Off the Set
17. New Media Roundtable – Tips and Tools for Social Change
18. Feminism, Sex Toys and Capitalism
19. The Accidental Poster Child: How to Handle the Media When it Comes Calling
20. Sex Positive Interventions: The Feminist Sex Wars and Beyond
21. Business Management Techniques for Sex Positive Entreprenuers
22. How New Media Has Changed the Way We Think About Porn
23. Defining Non-Monogamy: Bridging the Gap in the Community
24. Blogging the Gap: How Sex Workers and Sex Writers Can Work Together
25. Ethics and Responsibilities for Sex-Positive Writing
26. Multigen Feminist Pornographers Mouth Off
27. A Spoonful of Chocolate Makes the Vanilla Go Down
28. Sense & Sexuality: How Taking It Off Empowers The World!
29. The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: Looking at Female Masturbation Past and Present
30. Sex in the Sanctuary
31. Personal Branding for the Sex-Positive Activist
32. Sex & Race in America: Opening the Bedroom Door
33. Special Events at MOMENTUM
Why I'm Taking The Year Off From Sex and Dating
Click through to read my latest SexIs Magazine column, "Why I'm Taking The Year Off From Sex and Dating."
Sex diary: The Female First-Time Fistee
This week's sex diary at Daily Intel features an almost date rape (disturbing) and a first-time fisting between a man and a woman. The Female First-Time Fistee.
And if you enjoyed it, I'd love it if you'd like it on Facebook. You can check out prior sex diaries here.
If you’re a New Yorker who’s over 18 and would like to be considered to write a Sex Diary (yes, it pays), email sexdiaries at nymag.com and let us know what types of sex your diary would entail. And please do pass this on to anyone who wants to be an anonymous literary exhibitionist. Thanks!
And if you enjoyed it, I'd love it if you'd like it on Facebook. You can check out prior sex diaries here.
If you’re a New Yorker who’s over 18 and would like to be considered to write a Sex Diary (yes, it pays), email sexdiaries at nymag.com and let us know what types of sex your diary would entail. And please do pass this on to anyone who wants to be an anonymous literary exhibitionist. Thanks!
Having sex versus writing about sex
These days I'm not having sex, but I am still writing about it, via journalism, my SexIs Magazine column and lots of erotica. I thought this really interesting Alexis on the Sexes column by my friend Alexis McKinnis brought up a lot of good points, and is relevant no matter what subject you write about, though sex is especially fraught. How do you tell someone you're just not that into their writing when they're your friend? She also gave me some fabulous compliments, so thank you back! And Surrender is my 38th anthology - with the release of Obsessed, Women in Lust and Best Bondage Erotica 2012 later this year, I'll have over 40 anthologies out!
Just because someone has good sex doesn't mean he or she is able to skillfully write about it the morning after. I own bookshelves full of erotic short stories and novels, fiction and nonfiction, and I'd estimate approximately 10 percent of it is even worth rereading. I can't even imagine what a frustrating job someone like Rachel Kramer Bussel must have. She has edited nearly 30 anthologies, each packed with dozens of erotic short stories gleaned from hundreds of open-call submissions. I don't know how she's going to feel about me comparing her to a mainstream female porn star, but I'm about to, anyway: Imagine being subjected to mediocre to just plain bad sexual stimulation for hours and, if you're lucky, maybe something will get you off by the end of the workday. Rachel, if you're reading this, thank you for working so hard to make the world a better place.
Just because someone has good sex doesn't mean he or she is able to skillfully write about it the morning after. I own bookshelves full of erotic short stories and novels, fiction and nonfiction, and I'd estimate approximately 10 percent of it is even worth rereading. I can't even imagine what a frustrating job someone like Rachel Kramer Bussel must have. She has edited nearly 30 anthologies, each packed with dozens of erotic short stories gleaned from hundreds of open-call submissions. I don't know how she's going to feel about me comparing her to a mainstream female porn star, but I'm about to, anyway: Imagine being subjected to mediocre to just plain bad sexual stimulation for hours and, if you're lucky, maybe something will get you off by the end of the workday. Rachel, if you're reading this, thank you for working so hard to make the world a better place.
Tristan Taormino keynote speech at Oregon State University Modern Sex conference canceled because of "resume and website"
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New sex column: "An Ode to Pussy Waxing"
My latest sex column is "An Ode to Pussy Waxing." After that I am finally, finally writing about sex and social media. After that...I'm not sure. If you have column topic ideas, email me at rachelkramerbussel at gmail.com - I also have another interview coming up at SexIs, with Shameless author Pamela Madsen, about erotic massage (and more!).
Read this: How to Make Love to Adrian Colesberry by Adrian Colesberry
Read this. Just trust me. Also, it's for sale for $3.64 on Amazon. I met Adrian at the West Hollywood Book Fair, where he was very classy and gave all his fellow panelists a copy of his book (even the choice of hardcover or paperback!). It was brilliant, truly. Yes, funny, satire, etc., but also so much more. Worth many times that! Find out more at adriancolesberry.com. My review below.
This sex memoir is not only one of the best books about sex I've ever read, but one of the best books. Yes, the premise and opening are hilarious; ostensibly it's meant as a guide for anyone who wants to or might want to sleep with its author, Adrian Colesberry, who refers to himself in the third person umpteen times in the book. There's even a section to fill in why you want to sleep with him.
Upon cracking this open, you might think only a man with a huge list of lovers would dare to write such a book. Colesberry, by his count, has had 11 (I would adjust that number, given some information at the end of the book, but I don't want to create a spoiler). So, 11 women, who he breaks down by age, bra size, how he met them and pretty much any other standard you can think of. For, though this is indeed about Colesberry's body, preferences, childhood, emotions, etc., it's just as much about these women's, especially his ex-wife's. He manages to tell the story of his divorce in ways that are humorous, with venom lurking just underneath, and many of the cautionary tales involve her, though others, such as a failed threesome, involve other women. They have names like "The Great One," "The Innocent One," "The Expert" and "The Last One." None of them have invectives or mean names as, well, I'd be wont to do.
Colesberry guides you through pretty much every possible sexual permutation and though this could be clinical, especially in the footnotes we learn about his human foibles, his insecurities that are related to, but not completely about, his penis. That to me is the true genius of this book. We are taught that straight men, overall, have some major likes and dislikes and that for a woman who wants to bed such a man, she should adhere to them. Colesberry throws so much of that out the window; he does indeed have preferences and a certain sexual style, but he proves himself very open-minded. He is both showy and humble; of course there's an audaciousness to a project such as this, to talk about oneself in the third person and pretty much float the idea that you'll sleep with any woman who abides by the rules you've set out. But what emerges is something much more complex and human. If everyone had a book like this about them, I think there would be a lot less sexual confusion, but I doubt most people are up to the task of the minute self-examination Colesberry submits himself to or the cleverness with which he tells his tale. That anecdote at the end, the one I don't want to spoilt for you? Well, it is perhaps one of the bravest of all, and though its placement is strange, Colesberry offers up some context for it, while raising a million questions. Upon finishing, I didn't (sorry) want to have sex with Adrian Colesberry, but I did want to buy him a drink to praise his bravery, especially in a society where most people only go for the easy laughs about sex and rarely, even in their minds, allow for this level of scrutiny and thought about what truly turns them on.
This sex memoir is not only one of the best books about sex I've ever read, but one of the best books. Yes, the premise and opening are hilarious; ostensibly it's meant as a guide for anyone who wants to or might want to sleep with its author, Adrian Colesberry, who refers to himself in the third person umpteen times in the book. There's even a section to fill in why you want to sleep with him.
Upon cracking this open, you might think only a man with a huge list of lovers would dare to write such a book. Colesberry, by his count, has had 11 (I would adjust that number, given some information at the end of the book, but I don't want to create a spoiler). So, 11 women, who he breaks down by age, bra size, how he met them and pretty much any other standard you can think of. For, though this is indeed about Colesberry's body, preferences, childhood, emotions, etc., it's just as much about these women's, especially his ex-wife's. He manages to tell the story of his divorce in ways that are humorous, with venom lurking just underneath, and many of the cautionary tales involve her, though others, such as a failed threesome, involve other women. They have names like "The Great One," "The Innocent One," "The Expert" and "The Last One." None of them have invectives or mean names as, well, I'd be wont to do.
Colesberry guides you through pretty much every possible sexual permutation and though this could be clinical, especially in the footnotes we learn about his human foibles, his insecurities that are related to, but not completely about, his penis. That to me is the true genius of this book. We are taught that straight men, overall, have some major likes and dislikes and that for a woman who wants to bed such a man, she should adhere to them. Colesberry throws so much of that out the window; he does indeed have preferences and a certain sexual style, but he proves himself very open-minded. He is both showy and humble; of course there's an audaciousness to a project such as this, to talk about oneself in the third person and pretty much float the idea that you'll sleep with any woman who abides by the rules you've set out. But what emerges is something much more complex and human. If everyone had a book like this about them, I think there would be a lot less sexual confusion, but I doubt most people are up to the task of the minute self-examination Colesberry submits himself to or the cleverness with which he tells his tale. That anecdote at the end, the one I don't want to spoilt for you? Well, it is perhaps one of the bravest of all, and though its placement is strange, Colesberry offers up some context for it, while raising a million questions. Upon finishing, I didn't (sorry) want to have sex with Adrian Colesberry, but I did want to buy him a drink to praise his bravery, especially in a society where most people only go for the easy laughs about sex and rarely, even in their minds, allow for this level of scrutiny and thought about what truly turns them on.
Sex Diaries at Daily Intel (Nymag.com)
The weekly Sex Diary at Nymag.com (Daily Intel) covers one New Yorker’s sex life, and I’m now editing them. Below are links to a few of the latest ones, and there’s always a lively comments section. If you’re interested in writing one, email your basic information (why you’re a good candidate, age, neighborhood, sexual orientation, relationship status) to intel at nymag.com with "Sex Diaries" in the subject line and it'll get passed on to me – I will get back to you ASAP, but please be patient.
The Actress and Porn Writer Living With Her Mom
The Writer Whose Girlfriend Has the Sex Drive of a 13-Year-Old Boy
The Young Nanny/Student Seeking Sugar Daddy But Only Finding Online Hookups Instead
The Lovelorn Bisexual Looking For a Way to Gently Break Up With the Boy Toy Who No Longer Does It for Her
The Horny Single Gay Guy Wondering If All NYC Gays (Except Him) Are in Open Relationships
The Actress and Porn Writer Living With Her Mom
The Writer Whose Girlfriend Has the Sex Drive of a 13-Year-Old Boy
The Young Nanny/Student Seeking Sugar Daddy But Only Finding Online Hookups Instead
The Lovelorn Bisexual Looking For a Way to Gently Break Up With the Boy Toy Who No Longer Does It for Her
The Horny Single Gay Guy Wondering If All NYC Gays (Except Him) Are in Open Relationships
