Is there anything better than a nice hot bubble bath?
Sinful Sunday: Soaking
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Why No Sex-Positive American Should Ever Listen to Conservative Talk Radio*
Ten years ago, when I lived in the most conservative part of California, I worked in a small office where I was forced to listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio all day.
There will be no bargain, young Jedi. I shall enjoy watching you die.
The unholy progeny of Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando. I can’t be the only one who sees it.
Well, maybe I wasn’t forced. Nobody held a gun to my head, and there was nothing preventing me from leaving this job and taking another one. But the fact is that every weekday for the duration of his show, the radio in the office would be tuned in. The office manager was a big fan, and apparently couldn’t get through the morning without a heaping dose of right-wing bullshit, including homophobia, racial bigotry, and misogyny. Yeah, I understand that it was post-9/11, and much of the country was hysterical with fear, and whipped up into an often-religious fervor, vigilant against encroachments by the enemies of traditional American values. I understand that. But the idea that this should somehow translate to hatred against the marginalized within society, especially women, bewilders me.
Did I mention that the office manager was a woman? She was.
By now, you’re likely aware that Rush Limbaugh is under fire for comments he made against Sandra Fluke, a third-year law student at Georgetown University who was denied the right to testify at a contraception hearing in the United States House of Representatives – a hearing chaired exclusively by conservative-leaning males, i.e. those least likely to be impacted. Fluke’s testimony was eventually posted on YouTube.
Limbaugh went on the offensive, calling Fluke a slut and a prostitute, and suggesting that she post videos of her sexual activities online in exchange for access to affordable contraceptive coverage, something not provided by Georgetown. Now, I am the last to suggest that we should be surprised by such vitriol, as it is Limbaugh’s usual stock-in-trade. While Limbaugh has a substantial listener base and is immensely popular with his key demographic, he undoubtedly takes greater pride in his ability to offend and inspire anger. Personal attacks are the order of the day; Limbaugh famously derided Senator Ted Kennedy for his alcoholism mere days after Kennedy’s passing. (Note that Limbaugh has had problems with substance abuse and was arrested on drug charges in 2006.) So while I personally find Limbaugh’s comments reprehensible, I don’t expect sensitivity – or sensibility – from him.
Rush Limbaugh and John Wayne Gacy: Separated at Birth?
I might even go so far as to say that he is not entirely to blame. Yes, I consider him a self-righteous asshole. But his devoted following hangs on his every word, and will vote exactly as he tells them to. The Tea Party movement has proven that Americans are frequently willing – eager, even – to vote against their own best interests, and Limbaugh and his listeners provide further evidence. But as I stated recently on this blog, anyone who enjoys recreational (i.e. non-procreative) sex has no business voting for a Republican candidate, and neither do they have any business listening to Rush Limbaugh.
Nor, for that matter, do women. While I can think of numerous reasons why women might vote Republican – and given that I have more than a couple female friends who are staunchly conservative I’ve heard them all – the often blatant misogyny of the party’s policymakers, if not necessarily the party as a whole, puzzles me. In the early 1990s I found myself discussing politics with my mother’s sister. Both a Republican and a born-again Christian, the views she espoused, especially with regard to the place of women in society, were so anathema to me, so abhorrent and contrary to my own values, that I never again viewed her in the same way. For some time I wondered how someone like her could sell out her own gender. Then it dawned on me: All my aunt had done for the last thirty years was have children and cook. For most of my childhood, she was quite literally barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. She was the pin-up on the wall of every red-blooded right-leaning American male, just appealing enough to make him feel straight, but not so appealing that he felt compelled to jerk off.
I could analyze Rush Limbaugh, and I’m guessing that my conclusions would be correct. I’d guess that Limbaugh’s hatred of women comes from a deep-rooted self-loathing, probably at least in part because of his weight. I doubt that, as a child, he was popular with his peers, he was likely bullied, and I’m not going too far out on a limb when I speculate that women wanted little to do with him. As Dennis Miller pointed out before Limbaugh lost ninety pounds and Miller himself became a bloviating, self-important right-wing pundit, “anybody who hasn’t even seen his own penis in the past ten years is bound to be anti-woman.” And while Limbaugh slimmed down from gargantuan to merely overweight, his views have remained as despicable as ever, or have perhaps gotten worse. His currently less-bulky-than-it-was-fifteen-years-ago physique entitles him to criticize the weight of First Lady Michelle Obama, frequently referring to her as “Moochelle”, and it is this as well as his regular attacks againt House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for apparent botox treatments that exemplify his virulent misogyny.
The thing is, even when Limbaugh was the size of a DC-10 as opposed to a mere 727, there was no reason for his critics to take a cheap potshot at his weight. Sure, back then Limbaugh might have needed a complicated series of mirrors in order to see his penis and today he might need a magnifying lens. But the fact is that body-shaming is wrong, especially when one considers that there are so many more valid reasons to shame a man like Rush Limbaugh, or better yet, to let him shame himself. Fat cracks are just too easy, and by calling attention to the weight of someone like Limbaugh or, to use a more current example, New Jersey governor Chris Christie, you are inadvertently downplaying his views on abortion, the environment, and marriage equality. His opposition to Jersey Shore, however, is spot on.
Say what you will about DJ Pauly D, he’s probably in favor of a woman’s right to choose.
Seriously, Rush – why oppose birth control in the first place? As I’ve stated before, people aren’t about to stop fucking for pleasure, and easy access to contraception would curb unplanned pregnancies. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that a decline in unplanned pregnancies would signal a decline in abortions, something about which the religious right would undoubtedly be pleased. It’s just common sense, isn’t it? Unfortunately, as I stated in my previous political post, it’s not about limiting the abortions. It’s about punishing women for taking sexual agency and having sex for reasons other than procreation. It’s strange, then, to think that religious and political conservatives wish to punish – indeed, to harm – the entire gender. I would have guessed that a faction of society that places such a high premium on procreative sex and, by all accounts, disdains homosexuality, wouldn’t dare treat women with such bitter, cruel disrespect. After all, without women, there is no procreation. In fact, without women, the only sex they’ll be having is the kind they claim – a bit too insistently, if you ask me – to be against.
In a perfect world, Limbaugh’s personal attacks and name-calling would fall on deaf ears. Potential listeners would have seen the harm in his constitutionally-protected hate speech and turned him off years ago. He wouldn’t have called Sandra Fluke a slut; the closest he might have come would have been to wake up in a public park, emerge from his dirty newspaper blanket, and chase a pair of necking teenagers away from his bench, all the while shouting “UNCLEAN!”, both hands tucked into the waistband of his smelly, bird-shit-caked sweatpants.
In a perfect world, this is Rush Limbaugh.
Limbaugh was unrepentant on Friday, now suggesting that Sandra Fluke should “think about maybe backing off the amount of sex” that she has. An odd suggestion, as anyone familiar with women’s bodies should know that the amount of birth control one uses correlates in no way to the amount of sex she has. That Limbaugh could display such abject, shocking ignorance and still be famous on anything other than a Tila Tequila level makes me weep.
Still, I can understand someone like Rush Limbaugh expressing shock and disbelief over women having lots of sex. I imagine he is used to revulsion and rejection. Here’s a newsflash, Rush: Many women are enthusiastic about sex. Just not with you.
This is now the creepiest picture ever posted to this blog. See the previous title-holder here.
UPDATE: Shortly after this post was published, Rush Limbaugh issued an apology to Sandra Fluke for “the insulting word choices”, citing the absurdity of discussing “personal sexual recreational activities” before a Congressional hearing held by Darrell Issa, a Republican representative. He insisted that it is not the business of the American people “to know what is going on in anyone’s bedroom”, a claim that seems to contradict his position on Bill Clinton and his sexual dalliances.
One doesn’t have to be a genius to understand that Limbaugh’s apology is about as insincere as a sixteen-year-old forced to visit his grandmother at her nursing home. Limbaugh doesn’t feel any remorse for what he said; if he truly had mixed feelings about his words he wouldn’t have repeated them so often, heaping on additional acrimony each time. No, Rush issued his half-assed apology after losing several sponsors, including Sleep Train, Sleep Number, Quicken Loans, and Carbonite.
Kudos, @Carbonite, for pulling Limbaugh ads. If I ever need to freeze Han Solo for transport to Jabba the Hutt, I will use your product.
— Jack (and Jill) (@jackandjillcpl) March 4, 2012
This makes his comparison of Sandra Fluke to a prostitute all the more bewildering to me. After all, it isn’t often that Limbaugh apologizes for the controversy he creates, so he must have been feeling major financial pressure. For the sake of money, he did something he wouldn’t normally do. He did something he might consider degrading, or beneath him, in order to better ensure his financial security.
By Limbaugh’s definition, isn’t that what a prostitute does?
Still sponsoring Limbaugh’s show: Pro Flowers. Why not drop them a line?
-Jack
*We get political sometimes. It happens. It is our belief that one can’t run a sex blog in America without occasionally thinking – if not blogging – about politics. It is not our intention to offend, but rather to drag the issue into the spotlight and, in doing so, to force our fellow American voters to take action. If you don’t, you shouldn’t complain when you wake up one morning and discover that your rights have been taken away.
Formspring Friday: Highlights
If you’re looking for our Flash Fiction Friday story, it can be found here.
Tell us the highlight of your week, sexual or not.
Jack’s Answer
How about if we give a sexual and a non-sexual highlight of our week? The non-sexual highlight of my week was definitely the dinner party we threw Thursday evening. We love socializing, and tonight was our first time entertaining company since the move. We cleaned the house, prepared a delicious meal, and had a great time catching up with friends we haven’t seen in awhile. Our guests didn’t depart until well after eleven PM, which is pretty late for a weeknight. Actually, considering that I regularly go to bed after two in the morning, it’s really not that late, but considering that I still had a Flash Fiction Friday story to compose – as well as this post – it’s pretty late. But it made for a very memorable evening. We would love to do this on a regular basis, although logistics including the schedules of all concerned make it a less-common occurrence than we’d like.
The sexual highlight of my week was probably when Jill walked in from work on Wednesday afternoon and announced that she needed my cock in her mouth. I know that she said so mainly in order to turn me on, but I’m also aware that when she gives me head she gets as much out of the experience as I do. We began in the living room but soon Jill suggested that we move into the shower so as to facilitate cleanup. I shampooed her hair while she sucked my cock. If you’ve read our blog for any length of time you might know that Jill gets aroused from having her hair washed, and has even climaxed during one particular visit to the hairdresser. Between my stimulation of her scalp, and her own stimulation of her clit, it didn’t take her long to cum, and I followed suit shortly thereafter. The best part, however, may have been the fact that the baby napped until well after we’d finished and dried off.
Jill’s Answer
My non-sexual highlight was definitely sleeping in until ten AM one day this week. I almost never get to sleep in. Most weekdays I get up early so I can work out or just get ready for work, and on the weekends I usually get up when the baby gets up, so that she and I can spend some time playing or reading books. Sometimes if we’re staying with Jack’s parents, they will get the baby out of bed and get her dressed, washed up, and ready for the day. But on this particular day Jack got up before the baby did, and when she awoke he kept her occupied so that she wouldn’t wake me. What a great guy.
The sexual highlight of my week occurred on Wednesday night. Jack and I dropped the baby off with a babysitter and paid a visit to our storage facility. By now we know where the security cameras are located, and we parked in a blind spot. We made out, and then I stripped from the waist down and Jack fingered me until I came. We got in the back seat and we made out some more. I climbed on top and rode him, and he came inside me. It was really exciting, and although the facility was deserted we knew that could have changed at any minute. Needless to say you’ll be able to read more about this on Sunday in our Sunday Scoreboard: Week 5 post.
If you want to ask us anything, drop us a line on Formspring, or use the handy Formspring widget on the right-hand side of our blog. We like sexy questions!
Flash Fiction Friday: Green
Credit: Source Unknown
Sabrina leaned against her bedroom wall, listening with bitter envy as her twin sister got fucked in the next room.
Sabrina and Katrina did everything together. They shared a two-bedroom apartment, and even worked at the same café. This particular afternoon a handsome gentleman walked in and sat in Katrina’s section. Sabrina watched from across the café as her sister flirted with him, and when she brought the bill Katrina made sure to include her cell phone number.
Now, as their energetic thrusts rattled Sabrina’s bedroom wall, Sabrina acknowledged that it wasn’t her twin’s fault. She understood chaos theory, and she knew that a slight zephyr might have sent him to Sabrina’s section instead. (114)
-Jack
Behind the Scenes
Once again, Ram the Sunlover is filling in for Panserbjørne this week, and his requirements were a 119-word limit, and the expression “slight zephyr”. As with last week’s prompt, I found myself looking up the word “zephyr”. Yes, I’d heard it before, but I had no tangible knowledge as to its meaning. The word primarily refers to the west wind, or any gentle breeze. I hadn’t yet come up with the chaos theory angle, and I was unsure about the incorporation of the word into the story until I noticed that the two women appeared to be twins. At that point, I quickly devised the storyline in which one twin laments a potential suitor choosing her sister, and rationalizes that a minor initial change – a slight zephyr, accoridng to Sabrina – their positions might have been reversed.
Deleted Scenes
Given the relatively small word limit, I planned the story to be tight and focused. In other words, I knew there wouldn’t be room for numerous scenes or any in-depth plot or character development. The only aspect of the story that changed was the circumstances in which Katrina met the handsome gentleman with whom she eventually has sex. In my earliest concept, the man passes the two sisters on the sidewalk; Katrina happens to be walking in front of Sabrina. In another concept, the twins are eating lunch in a cafe and the handsome gentleman is their waiter.
Soundtrack
Definitely something to do with envy. How about “Green is the Colour” by The Coral, or “Hey Jealousy” by Gin Blossoms?
The Naughty Hangout: Love in an Elevator
This week, the main theme at The Naughty Hangout is “Work”. We opted instead to combine the two alternate themes, “Sky High” and “Public Space”. Here I am in a freight elevator, going up.*
Head over to The Naughty Hangout and see who else participated this week!
-Jill
*I would have said “going down”, but the theme was “Sky High”, not “Down Low”.
Fun in the Park
She pulled into an open parking space and waited.
She was early. It was six minutes to eight o’clock, and the sun was overhead. The car park was nearly deserted, not just here at the top level, where her car must have stood out like a sore thumb among the empty spaces; but on the lower decks, where she counted at most six vacant cars, all likely left behind by bar patrons who’d wisely called cabs the night before.
She regarded the red bag on the seat next to her. It was large, ornate, and tied with shiny ribbon. She’d gotten it from a locker at the train station, led there by His explicit instructions. It wasn’t heavy, and she had spent the last four days wondering what was inside. She didn’t dare peek through the ribbon and tissue paper within. She knew she’d be punished if she did.
At eight o’clock, her phone rang. She put the call on speaker and set the phone on her dashboard. His familiar voice told her to open her gift, and she carefully untied the pretty red ribbons that held the handles together. When that was done, she opened the bag and withdrew a few sheets of pink tissue, which she set down on the passenger seat. At last, she peered inside.
A silky black camisole and matching thong waited inside. Beneath them was a pair of black fishnet stockings. She waited for His command before she took them out of the bag, and once it was given she enjoyed their softness in her hands. She thanked Master for His generosity, then realized with equal measures of shock and excitement what was coming next. His words sounded through the speaker less than a second later.
“Put them on.” His voice was neutral, noncommittal, but it was all she had of Him. She didn’t know His name, or even what He looked like. They’d met online – she considered that strange, as they hadn’t actually met, had they? – and communicated exclusively through e-mail and instant messenger conversations for weeks. She didn’t even hear His voice until they’d been playing together for three months. That was how He wanted it.
She put on Master’s gift. It wasn’t easy to change her clothes in the driver’s seat, especially when a security patrol car passed on its regular rounds. Master was most insistent that she stop what she was doing in order to avoid arousing the security guard’s suspicions. She paused, took her phone in hand and made a show of having a conversation. The car didn’t slow down as it passed, and once it was out of sight she continued.
After she had put on the lingerie Master had given her, she was ready for her next task. She knew exactly what He would tell her to do, and she was eager. But she’d never start without His permission.
“Play with your pussy.”
Her fingers met her lips, just a tentative touch at first. She knew better than to get too worked up too quickly. This might take hours, though considering her arousal she hoped not. She’d already soaked her new panties, and she knew she was on her way to doing the same with the upholstery. She continued to play, deliberately avoiding her clit. She hadn’t been told to touch it yet, and if she disobeyed, He would know.
The car park was nearly surrounded by high-rise office buildings. She didn’t know where Master worked; He didn’t volunteer that information, and she knew better than to ask. But it was obvious that He’d chosen this location for her because it provided Him with a good vantage point. And arranging this meeting of sorts on a Sunday morning ensured that only He would get to enjoy her.
“Lower your camisole”, He said, “and play with your nipples.”
She did as she was told. She didn’t want to take her hand off of her pussy, but a command was a command. She caressed her breasts for a moment, then realized that He hadn’t told her to do that. She squeezed her nipples between her fingers, feeling the already-hard peaks stiffen further.
“Very good, slut. Play with your pussy again.”
When she raised the straps of the camisole onto her shoulders, she was met with a sharp rebuke.
“I didn’t tell you to cover up.” She apologized, and once again lowered the straps. He repeated His order to touch herself. She did. Her fingers traced the soft, delicate folds, collecting wetness on their tips. He didn’t tell her to stay away from her clit, but He didn’t have to. She knew that when He wanted her to touch her clit, He would tell her so. He said nothing further and, taking His silence as an implied order, she continued what she was doing.
She enjoyed the pleasure she was feeling, not only the pleasure of touching her pussy, but the pleasure she derived from obeying Master. But she wasn’t sure how long she could go without giving in and indulging her aching, throbbing clit. In her heart, she knew she had to hold out for as long as Master wanted her to. No matter how long He made her wait, eventually He always let her cum.
When she noticed the security patrol car in her rear view mirror, her heart almost leaped from her chest. This time, the car was stopped right behind her own. She didn’t want to panic, but she stopped playing and picked up her phone. By now, the security guard had exited the car.
She spoke breathlessly into the phone. “What do I do?” Master didn’t answer her. She looked around for something to cover up with, and grabbed the blouse she had earlier removed. As she tried to wrap it around herself, she called out to Master again, with desperation in her voice.
The security guard tapped on the window. She rolled it down.
He spoke: “You can touch your clit now.”
-Jack
Go see who else is being wanton this week!
Retro HNT: At last, my love has come along…
TMI Tuesday: February 28, 2012 – Sex & Romance
This week’s TMI Tuesday is about sex and romance. Who doesn’t enjoy a little romance or the art of seduction before engaging in sex? Often times the prelude is better than the actual ‘event’.
Jack’s Answers
1. You are sitting alone in a restaurant because your lunch date is late. Do you:
a) Throw something and then make out with the waiter.
b) Check to make sure he or she didn’t get into an accident, then wait patiently for two hours and use the time to compose a love song or poem.
c) Send a nasty text followed up by a voice mail telling him/her that “romance is dead and so are you!”
d) Wait for 20 minutes, and then text-message a pal to join you for lunch.
It probably depends on how long I’ve been dating this person. If it’s someone I’m supposed to meet for the first time, I’ll give her twenty minutes. But I have a cell phone, and I’m guessing that, like every other human being on the planet, she has one too. So if she’s running late and didn’t bother to call, she’d better be severely injured, or really hot. After the twenty minutes are up, I’d probably get out of there. If I know someone who’s nearby and might want to have lunch with me, I suppose I’d call her. But we’d likely go elsewhere; nothing would be worse than to have the tardy date walk into the restaurant and catch me eating with another woman. Especially if she’s got a valid reason for being late and not calling.
This is what happened the last time I was stood up in a restaurant.
2. What’s more important, a romantic relationship or your career?
I’m going to say that a romantic relationship is more important. At different times in our relationship and our marriage, both Jill and I relocated for the sake of the other’s career, leaving behind our own. I should also point out that, when we were dating, I moved a few hours away from Jill for a business opportunity. We had been together a little over a year. There was no explicit commitment. By all rights, she probably should have dumped me. In that instance, while I had every intention of staying with her, I suppose it can be said that I chose my career over our relationship.
3. You love to role play in the bedroom, which one of these is more likely to be your kink?
a. Doctor and the naughty nurse
b. You’re the gardener, I’m the hoe
c. Persnickety principal and the wayward pupil that needs a spanking
d. Me Tarzan, you Jane
e. Scattered-brain boss and the seductive secretary
Right now I’m inclined to go with (a). I’m not sure why, but the medical setting seems most conducive to sex. Last week I had a dental appointment, and for whatever reason, as soon as they reclined me to a horizontal position, I was seriously rock-hard. I stayed that way for the entire hour-and-a-half appointment.
Maybe we’re doing it wrong.
4. When you want sex, who tends to make the first move?
a. Me! I like to go for what I want.
b. It varies. Sometimes my partner/significant other/date or sometimes me.
c. Oh definitely the other person. Even if I want it, I’m not about to admit such a thing.
d. I drop subtle hints hoping he/she will pick up on it.
Definitely (b). Jill and I seem to initiate sex equally at different times.
5. When it comes to lovemaking, select the answer that best describes you/your attitudes
a. vanilla – meets society’s middle of the road standards
b. adventurous
c. kinky
d. trisexual – I will try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure. –Mae West
Relatively speaking, I consider us to be (c), kinky. Granted, I’m sure there are those who see us as comparatively vanilla – but there are certainly those who would view our sexual escapades as beyond adventurous.
6. You want to seduce that sexy someone, what is the sweet-nothing that you’ll whisper in his/her ear?
Without getting specific, it would be something equal parts flirty and intelligent. While trying to answer this question, I found myself at a loss. Jill pointed out that I spend a good part of the typical weekday whispering – sorry, Tweeting – such sweet nothings into the virtual ears of various online friends. If you’re one of these friends, and I’ve managed to dampen your panties with a carefully-chosen word or two, what did I say?
Bonus: What’s your idea of a romantic getaway?
Jill and I in a secluded cabin with a warm fire, a king-size bed, a few bottles of pinot noir, and nowhere to be.
Jill’s Answers
1. You are sitting alone in a restaurant because your lunch date is late. Do you:
a) Throw something and then make out with the waiter.
b) Check to make sure he or she didn’t get into an accident, then wait patiently for two hours and use the time to compose a love song or poem.
c) Send a nasty text followed up by a voice mail telling him/her that “romance is dead and so are you!”
d) Wait for 20 minutes, and then text-message a pal to join you for lunch.
I would probably go with (d). I’d wait twenty minutes, but then if I hadn’t heard from my date I’d probably leave. I guess if it was somewhere I really wanted to eat, I might order food or call a friend to join me, but really, I don’t want to be there when the thoughtless asshole shows up forty-five minutes late. Realistically I’m just going to get the hell out of there.
2. What’s more important, a romantic relationship or your career?
My career is very important for my own economic livelihood. Fortunately I’m in a situation where I can have both a romantic relationship and a career. I enjoy what I do very much, but if I had the opportunity to be in a relationship where I was guaranteed life-long financial support, I would happily give up my career and live a life of leisure.
3. You love to role play in the bedroom, which one of these is more likely to be your kink?
a. Doctor and the naughty nurse
b. You’re the gardener, I’m the hoe
c. Persnickety principal and the wayward pupil that needs a spanking
d. Me Tarzan, you Jane
e. Scattered-brain boss and the seductive secretary
Of these, the doctor and nurse scenario described in (a) sounds the most appealing. This fantasy situation includes beds, desks, operating tables, and other horizontal surfaces on which one could lie down or be bent over. Plus I assume there would be restraints, and lots of probing. I like these things. Oh! Plus if you get hungry there’s a cafeteria downstairs!
We have a very active fantasy life. Don’t you dare judge us.
4. When you want sex, who tends to make the first move?
a. Me! I like to go for what I want
b. It varies. Sometimes my partner/significant other/date or sometimes me.
c. Oh definitely the other person. Even if I want it, I’m not about to admit such a thing.
d. I drop subtle hints hoping he/she will pick up on it.
It’s usually (b). While Jack and I are often on the same page sexually, we aren’t mind readers. Any one of
us is as likely to make the first move as the other. However, sometimes one of us will drop a subtle hint, as
described in (d).
5. When it comes to lovemaking, select the answer that best describes you/your attitudes
a. vanilla – meets society’s middle of the road standards
b. adventurous
c. kinky
d. trisexual – I will try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure. –Mae West
I think we are mostly (b), adventurous. I hesitate to describe us as (c), kinky, because when I think “kinky” I tend to think of BDSM and other activities in which we don’t regularly participate. I guess it’s relative, though. One person’s vanilla is another person’s kink, and vice versa.
6. You want to seduce that sexy someone, what is the sweet-nothing that you’ll whisper in his/her ear?
“I want to get naked with you.”
Bonus: What’s your idea of a romantic getaway?
My ideal romantic getaway would be to hop on a plane and fly to a beautiful beach on the Mediterranean Sea. We’d start with a walk on the beach as soon as we arrive, and then a romantic dinner, followed by a massage. The rest of our getaway would feature lots of sex, followed by more walks on the beach. And there’s got to be chocolate-covered strawberries too.
Absent that, a little Legend of Zelda cosplay would be perfect.
How to play TMI Tuesday: Copy the above TMI Tuesday questions to your webspace (i.e., a blog). Answer the questions there, then leave a comment below, on this blog post, so we’ll all know where to read your responses. Please don’t forget to link to tmituesdayblog from your website!
On Communication and Consent
Preach it, sister.
I haven’t always been good at communication. With all the social conditioning to which people are subjected, communication between men and women who know each other well isn’t always easy. But take two relative strangers and add to the mix the raging hormones of the typical teenager or young adult, and it’s a wonder that communication is even possible in the first place.
Even when I learned to communicate – and I mean properly communicate, not simply nod and say “uh-huh” whenever a woman spoke to me – I wasn’t an expert at reading signals. Nor did I ever relish the prospect of having to wade through the thick brush of vagueness and misdirection to decipher the true meaning beneath the surface.
While perusing Sexis, the EdenFantasys online magazine, I came across an article entitled Have a Little Kink with Your Consent. In it, the author discussed, amongst other things, how to make consent a part of sex play in such a way that it doesn’t interfere with or damage the overall mood.
I attended college in the mid-1990s. The sexual atmosphere post Clarence Thomas but pre Monicagate was one of extreme caution. Predatory male monsters were everywhere, and the fear of sexual harassment, rape, and other penis-driven crimes had hitherto mild-mannered men everywhere wondering if they could be part of the problem. The need for express written (i.e. explicit and provable) consent prior to sexual activity was drummed into our heads repeatedly. It was almost an equation: Failing to obtain said consent might land you in a jail cell where you’d have to fend off similar advances.
Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating. But only a little. And I’m not in any way saying that caution is a bad thing, or that the situation was overblown; sexual assault and rape are very real, very serious crimes, and beyond them, the “blame the victim” mentality so prevalent in society is one of the most inexplicable and horrible phenomena I can think of.
But as an awkward eighteen-year-old newly arrived at an institution of higher learning, overwhelmed by major life changes and a course load that would intimidate Lewis Skolnick and Gilbert Lowe, it would have been nice if there had been some kind of decoder ring that could tell me when my advances were desired, and when “no” actually meant “no”. Because it didn’t always.
Wait! Before you unfollow our blog in disgust, hear me out. Yes, we’ve all heard the anti-date rape ad campaigns insisting that no always means no. And for the record, I always understood the meaning of the word, and I always respected it. When I got a “no”, whether sheepish and half-hearted or decisive and firm, that was the end of it. It never even occurred to me that the woman I was with might not have meant it.
However, I can vividly recall three occasions in college where a woman asked me after the fact why I stopped. Once it was on the phone after I got home. Once it was the next day. Once it was a month or more later. Why did I stop? Because you told me no! It’s frustrating to find out that you missed out on sex because you couldn’t read a signal, although as far as signals go, “no” always seemed pretty definite to me.
It’s for this reason that I’ve never been particularly fond of game-playing in the context of a dating relationship. I’m aware of my own feelings, I respect them, and I don’t see the point of conforming to some arbitrary standard of behavior imposed by society at large. Additionally, I value honesty over all else. Even when it’s yielded things I couldn’t have expected or didn’t want to hear, I’ve always appreciated it.
I should point out that, with a handful of exceptions, the women I dated when I was single were the type who expected the man to initiate sex. As the author of the article states,
Women (even sex positive feminists like me) are socially programmed not to want it, and not to ask for it. Taking personal responsibility for crossing that line into sex – the irreversible line that can make everything potentially weird and confusing – is terrifying, yet empowering.
Because of this reluctance, there is sometimes an increased pressure on males to successfully traverse the uncertainty and get the job done. In my opinion this is an unfair case of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”. As a proactive male with dominant leanings who would nonetheless never dream of inflicting himself on a possibly non-consenting partner, this presents problems.
Telling the story of a date with an overly consent-oriented male, the author describes feelings of frustration over her date’s unwillingness to initiate physical contact without explicit consent:
This pattern continued as the night progressed. Long past the point that your average straight man would have made a crotch grab, he demurred. I was actually starting to become frustrated.
I understand that some people are excited by a partner who takes charge. I also understand that for some women especially, it is considered improper to possess and act on sexual agency. Ultimately, I think it comes down to honesty. We are all sexual beings, whether we want to admit it or not. We all have sexual wants and needs. If we could simply be comfortable with and honest about this, I think it would make for a much more sexually-harmonious society.
-Jack
This post was sponsored by EdenFantasys.
Matchbook Monday
We originally intended to call this post “Match Monday”, but by the time we got the right shot, we’d used up the entire matchbook. We hope you find it enlightening.
-Jill