My vibrator is out of batteries. This realization hit me last night after a particularly raunchy television show (to each their own). I found myself desperately searching my room for another battery operated device to be sacrificed but found myself cursing the overwhelming presence of rechargeable items in my apartment. The loss of my vibrator was a moment of true weakness. After months of lacking a sexual partner I have become dependent on sexual pleasure. Without my vibrator I felt a serious low-- one that made me realize how important that orgasm really is to my sanity and frankly, how I get turned on knowing I'll be getting off.
I mentioned my tragic loss at happy hour the next day to my lovely lady friends who range from religiously celibate to practically engaged to, well, those who view sex as something to be served with breakfast, lunch and dinner-- no matter who the waiter is. With one exception, everyone felt my pain. Despite having men frequently, having intimate relationships or even a moral repugnance to premarital sex every single one of the ladies used a vibrator. It struck me, having clinged to my vibrator only to overcome my recent lack of sex, that even girls who were having frequent sex with men felt at a complete loss without their own mechanism for as my friend called it "the orgasm you couldn't fake if you wanted to."
Yet, for some reason the vibrator has been seen as a tool for the lonely --as something women who cannot have a man have to use to meet our single sexual needs. The problem is that when women who are involved in sexual relationships are still using it, there needs to be a new discussion about how getting off has become more of an issue than getting some. Women, for the most part, have accepted that they will not get off every time they have sex. Women have to view sex as less a gamble and even more often a challenge. Men's egos have to be stroked more often than their dicks-- so when a woman finds herself in the throws of a sex that isn't going to get her there, she has to weigh the fake against the inevitable insecurity and often frustration that follows. Yet, the vibrator shows that women do care about getting off and have found the vibrator the relationship-saving compromise as opposed to the single woman's weapon of choice.
For some reason there is still a stigma that follows discussion of vibrators, dildos and sex toys to get women off. The problem is that men are not always so great at it. If women could view sex as men do-- varying in intensity of the result instead of the absence of it-- I would not see it as the problem it is. Women statistically will not get orgasms from pure vaginal stimulation, they will not get off from sex and they will not tell men when they are just doing something wrong. This combination of factors means that making discussions and usage of vibrators okay is an important step in making sex better. Practice makes perfect, ladies. You can't expect men to teach you what you like and how you like it. You have to know. They best way to get to know yourself is to embrace your own sexuality, masturbation and good vibrations.
So after a quick run to the convenience store across the block I am getting back on my getting off. You all should get on it too, because nothing is as big as a turn on as knowing that at the end of the road, instead of the big fake you will get the big O.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Turning On 'Getting Off'
Sunday, May 18, 2008
How Casual Are You Really?
I'm a secret Modern Love addict. I read the NYTimes columns on a regular basis, but especially during times of love-life insecurities, I seek out these first-person narratives on dating, love, and sex. Reading other people's strange takes on love in modernity makes me feel less strange. Key word searching for my dilemma of the moment brings me internet solidarity; key word searching for worst case scenarios brings me a sense of relief. Finding modern love is difficult, joining forces with an army of similarly minded young singles helps me to (ahem) celebrate singleness and ruminate on togetherness, and otherwise just accept whatever the hell this is that's called "dating."
I especially liked the winner of the College Essay contest, Marguerite Fields. (Quick pause so you can click here and read her well-written, poignant, thoughtful essay.)
Marguerite's story sounded a lot like many of my own. She's talking about "dating" (if you want to call it that) in a culture deeply ambivalent about commitment. She doesn't want to place "expectations" upon anyone else, but she's a little lost about how to navigate an expectation-less social tapestry. Because the way we conceptualize courtship and dating is based primarily on unspoken expectations, once these thought constructs are gone, knowing where to go next is pretty tricky. Whether these thought constructs can ever really disappear is up for debate.
I don't mean to defend the traditional, patriarchal mode of dating. I don't advocate playing by the rules, nor do I think a woman should let a man pay, hold the door, igrovel to be next to her etc... My point is that while we're debating whether or not a man should pay, just getting men to deem it necessary to do more than simply send a text message is almost impossible. I think too often, people romantically involved treat each other worse than they would treat their friends, and that's the main problem. For some reason, once entered into the realm of "relationship" no matter how casual, the odds of things becoming socially strange (in the situations Marguerite and I have dated in) go up fast.
I don't have a take away or lesson, except for this. I think it's really important to know whether you can handle a deeply ambivalent relationship. If carefree and casual is for you, that's great, but don't saddle your friends with unremitting complaints about a non-committal partner, if he's never led you to think he was anything but that. Greg's original message "He's just not that into you." is wrong in placing all the relationship agency in the hands of men, but he's not wrong in helping women identify men unlikely to submit to even the simplest demands of friendship. IF he's not a good friend, he's not a good lover. Leave him (or take the best parts of him and try to practice zen-like non-attachment. I'm not sure which is better.)
Monday, May 12, 2008
I want a beer and to see something naked...
Jeff Foxworthy attempts to answer the always humorous question about what men are thinking. His response? "I want a beer and I want to see something naked." Jerry Seinfeld also attempts a response with "Nothing. We aren't thinking about anything. Our mind is a total blank." Chris Rock's famous line "Feed Me. F$%^ Me. Shut the F(*# up." has had people laughing for years. The odd thing is, women are not really guessing what men are thinking because we want to know, but because we want to show them that we think that way too. Somehow in the past decade, being a 'cool' girl became defined as thinking like a man...
You know this girl--you are sitting in a bar in a group of guys and girls and she asks you to move so she can watch Sports Center. The response is predictable: every guy at the table admiringly stares at her with an impressed glance as she focuses hard on the television screen. When you are sitting around the table laughing about how size does matter or how it is sad that hot television personalities are suddenly too young for you, she chimes in about how it is not the size but the skill, and by the way-- who are these TV stars? She only watches sports. It is hard for me to help rolling my eyes at this girl, but sometimes I feel myself becoming a version of her. For some reason admitting my love for Gossip Girl or my intimate relationship with Ben & Jerry is something I feel like I need to hide, while men often gloat about their video games, sports addictions and love of hot young female stars.
Of course there are women who like sports and sterotypically male associated activities. I happen to be an obsessive sports fan of one of my college teams. Yet, my problem is the way that embracing hobbies and interest that are associated with men is something girls use to get positive attention, while embracing female sterotypes is considered embrassing. Admitting that I like mixed drinks and think beer tastes like piss, might make that guy think that I am a prissy girl. If I concede I have never seen or cared to see Sports Center and would much rather watch Sex and the City while eating chocolate, I become somehow undesirable. While men who embrace their beer drinking, sports-obsessive personalities in public, women cater to them--yet my wine sipping, diet plan and shopping habit are compeltely off-limits.
There are men who can play this game too. Kudos to you, gentlemen. The ones who admit they cry when they get overwhelmed and thought 27 Dresses was a cute film. The men who will order a Sex on the Beach with a smile that says, so I like fruity drinks--you dont? Yet, for men who are trying to get laid, expressing a love of things that will make their date want to sleep with them is just a part of the game. If women only took it to this level, I would be keen to watch the show. The problem is that girls take it to competitive and pervasive level where it is used to undercut their female friends and reinforce the image that being girly, well, sucks. I know a girl who is an expert at this, always boasting about her love of beer and football while downing pizza and chips in front of the guys, while running off to the gym seconds later and living on salads for the rest of the week.
I love my girliness and I think men do too, because, well, it is me. I hate nature and hiking, but don't mind working my ass off in a gym. I am not really into shopping but love to find a bargain and could talk for hours about how much money I saved on a shopping spree. I eat ice cream like it is the secret to life and dance around my room (in headphones) when no one is watching. I cry in movies and would rather watch Hardball with Chris Matthews than baseball with anyone. I drink mixed drinks--rum and diets are my preferred poison and I think that the boys on Gossip Girl are so cute that I am inclined to send fan mail (though not hang up their posters, I am in my twenties...). I think the way women who embrace football while shunning shopping to look like more of a man, undermine how great it is to be a woman. It is not about what you like or do not like, but rather expressing who you really are. If you love football, great! But the chance of it being the most important thing in your life only when you are surrounded by male friends or colleagues and never in our one on one conversations is a little hard to believe.
So what are men thinking? I am sure that the answer varies--but I bet they are not all thinking, "man, I want a woman who is just like me, agrees with everything I say and likes what I like-- wouldn't that be awesome." So get him a beer, but you can order you like...I still think he'll want to get you naked.
JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU LESSON: Girls who flirt by feigning extreme loves of sports, beer and farting jokes are done. Crude senses of humor and interests transcend gender lines, ladies. Which means, the way you talk to guys should reflect the same interests and jokes that you use with your girls. No one is into people pretending to be a man to get a man, so embrace who you are. There are lots of things that turn men off quickly, but what you drink or watch on TV is rarely among the deal breakers. So be yourself--or if not that--at least dont become him.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
None of Your Business
In keeping with the Salt-n-Pepa theme, I would like to both welcome and applaud Hera for expanding this dialog on sexuality to actually include sex. On that note, let's examine another prescient message from our pop princesses: It's none of your business.
In 1993, Salt n Pepa penned the pop epic, "None of Your Business." For those of you not familiar with the lyrics, the chorus goes a little something like this:
"If I want to take a guy home with me tonight, it's none of your business."
They let us know, in no uncertain term, that judging other people for real or imagined sexual transgressions is uncalled for. Asking their listeners to please keep their opinions to themselves, Salt-n-Pepa emancipate themselves from the judgments of their peers, calling into question the underlying motivations of these (real or imagined) critics. Was it jealousy? Simple double standards? Hypocrisy? Either way, the moral of their story was that only one judge existed, and that was God (so they could bone as many people as they wanted, thank you, and let their holy father judge them if he wanted).
Whether or not the final endorsement of a higher power was necessary, I think Salt-n-Pepa give us some real ground to cover here. First, although it pains me to admit this, I think their message is almost certainly addressed to other women. In my experience, we are our own worst enemies when it comes to being the enforcers of social and sexual propriety. Too many women have become the objects of gossip for (real or imagined) sexual acts by the women in their lives, sometimes by their own friends. Granted, it's the patriarchal lens through which we view and understand sexuality that makes these distinctions possible. Men, as the rightful owners of sexuality go out and have as many partners as they want (or as many as possible) meanwhile sweet, docile women guard their chastity and wait for filial love to endorse their sexuality. However, by perpetuating sexual double standards and unnecessary sexual gossip, women only feed into the patriarchy.
Today's reality makes it clear that women are doing as much of the hunting and wild-oat sowing as men (sorry for the mixed metaphor). However, the fact that social mores have changed for the large part, has not fully changed our dialog. We're still using words like "whore," or "tramp" and passing subtle judgment on the "types" of women who would do those sorts of things. I mean what kind of a girl takes a boy home with her! My goodness! She's loose!
I don't know why we somehow get transported back to 1955 when we talk about sexual relationships, but trust me, this dialog of judgment and enforced innocence isn't helpful. While seeking to preserve a public image of the "good girl" we sell out the "bad girls" to the norms of patriarchy ultimately placing all women in bondage. The harm that we do each other in using language that denigrates rather than celebrates sexuality is far greater than the harm that could possibly come from any consensual sexual act between adults. Ladies, let's stop with the language of purity, blame, guilt, or fear and embrace our sexuality. Take a cue from Salt-n-Pepa and do what you want, cuz it's none of their business anyway.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Let's Talk About Sex Ladies
I have had the pleasure of following this awesome blog from afar for too long. It is now time for me to pony-up and let the world know that I am sick of the analytical, sobby dicussions of what a let down men are. Of course they are a let down. I mean let's be realistic: we are born and bred for complexity and they are, well, not. Yet, I think that this discussion about relationships has been missing a crucial aspect: sex. I find myself recently single and have been suffering through not one, not two, but three sexless months. Good vibrations, aluded to last week by the goddess of love and beauty, has not been enough for this lustful lady. I am experiencing something strange that men just do not understand: I'm a woman who really really just wants to get laid.
My requirements are few: no oldies, no creepies and no STDs. Most breathing, capable men will do the trick. Now, here is where we, as ladies, really need to talk about SEX. Men I have vented to about my frustrations seem to think that it is a little odd, in fact, wrong that a woman should be lacking a sexual partner. In their strange concept of the world, women should be able to walk outside their door and approach the first man who walks by with a simple, "Excuse me, do you have a second for a quickie?" only to find his eager response at the other end. Sorry guys. As much as this little fantasy might play well in your minds, reality check: does not work. Oh, it works on TV and in movies (especially of the adult variety) but not in real life. In real life, men I really just want to bang, want to talk. They think girls who go for one night stands are whores. They are wary of women who even mention sex, much less make it a responsbility. In all male efforts with cheap lines and lame tricks to get a girl, really if they just kept their mouth shut and let us do the talking they would find themselves getting lucky instead of getting the brush off.
So the issue really isnt men here. They are, well, thick. They are thick about women when it comes to sex. WE need to change the way WE talk about it. I mean come ON, why do we act like girls who want it are whores? Why do we giggle uncomfortably when women talk about wanting to get laid? banged? We act like women who want sex, will end up getting screwed. Like we really are the emotional train-wrecks men picture us as. We will inevitably have sex with them and turn into some lost puppy who follows them for weeks before it gets the message. We portray this image as much as they embrace it. We aren't candid with each other about sex, we aren't willing to discuss it as freely as we are relationships and feelings. Look at this blog. We are looking at the pain of a breakup, the condusions of single life and somehow we are missing the sex.
So let's talk about sex ladies, let's talk about you and me and let's talk about why in a world full of hormone driven men comprising just under fifty percent of the population we cant get a second for a quickie.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Tickling Your Fancy
I recently went to a masturbation workshop, and my take away message was "man, I wish I had a boyfriend." I think the evening of self-empowered sexuality was meant to make me think the exact opposite.
The workshop leader was an awesome feminist who runs a female-oriented sex shop, Early to Bed, in Chicago. Using a giant, felt and velvet puppet vagina, she talked about female masturbation for almost an hour to a very receptive audience. I especially enjoyed her tales of masturbating throughout her youth. Funny.
Maybe it's graduate school or just one of those life periods, but I suddenly feel like most of my friends are single (and looking) and coming up empty handed (no pun intended) when it comes to men. Part of it, I know is the culture of school. No one has time or money for dating and hooking up is the new dinner and a movie. Part of it, I think, is Athena's before-mentioned alpha female complex. For women with everything: the job, the money, good grades, great friends, we're frustrated waiting around for men to call. It would be so much easier if our dating life were like our professional or personal lives. There, if you have an objective, work hard, and you'll achieve it. Dating, however, depends so much more on luck, subjectivity, the good graces of well-meaning but clueless males, it's difficult.
Take away: Vibrators are great, and because of the nature of this blog I feel it's my duty to tell women everywhere there's no need to wait for a man to make you happy, sexually or otherwise. However, if you're wishing for a spring fling instead, I totally identify with that.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
What Men Won't Tell You
I was recently sent an article about eleven secrets men keep from women. The article attempted to shed light on the fact that men golf to get away from their wives and think that women with curves are sexier than the stick figures in magazines. The article explained that men like to fix things around the house even if they complain about it and value a woman who can give them freedom to be an individual. Reading it I was not surprised by any of the information it provided-- as a woman I share a lot of these sentiments when looking at successes in a long term relationship. I want my own space, I like men who eat ice cream without running a mile the next day and I may not golf, but "girl's nights" and manipedi parties give me much needed escape. What the article did was make me think about the things men really don't tell us, and shuttered when the reality hit me that it is the things that matter most.
From the 1990s single woman in Ally McBeal to Carrie Bradshaw and even the newly single Blair Waldorf, stories of women devastated by breakups and live their aimless single life dominate the airwaves. Each show reveals a break-up that shatters an otherwise intelligent, powerful woman. In each situation there were push and pulls in the relationship that resulted in an eventual end, but the end always manifests the real things men don't tell us: how they stopped loving us. In each strong, single woman's journey they maintain a connection to the men that destroyed something inside of them, not out of desperation (or even patheticness as the shows sometimes depict it as) but out of a lack of closure. For some reason women are always caught of gaurd by the how and why and thus search for it in ways that lead us nowhere but deeper into the depths of what-ifs.
It is not just television. Friends of mine who have successful relationships worriedly call after their mind wanders to a past love who slipped away. I consistently find myself in tears during romantic films and audible books not out of dispair but apprehension. Like Ally, Carrie and Blair I too am an alpha-female. I am constantly surrounded with everything a person needs to be happy-- friends, success, a gym, a loving family and whiskey. And while I am not haunted by the end of my past relationships (the most recent being the most painful) I am haunted by the fact not a single man has ever really told me why. None of them have let me know something was wrong until it was too late-- over in their minds, while it was thriving in mine. I was of course attuned to problems as all relationships have their problems, but being caught off-gaurd begs the question why won't men tell you the truth: it is not, and never REALLY was going to be you.
In a famous episode of Sex in the City, Carrie, relieved to finally make amends with her ex wakes up the next morning to a post-it. Ally McBeal finds out five years after her break-up that he had already met the woman he would marry when he decided it was time to end it with her. Blaire Waldorf stood in front of her man, who had cheated in the past, and heard him tell her nothing could keep them apart only to abandon her immediately upon discovering her own indiscretions. The men all explain they didn't want to hurt the woman. They didn't want her to know it was entirely her fault. They didn't want her to know that she just was not the one for them. Instead they just thought she should know it was over. Relationships don't end, they dissolve-- yet for these women and myself, the dissolution culminates in a man trying to protect himself (or his soon-to-be ex) with what he will not tell us.
I do not know if it is better to hear from someone you love that on some level they knew that you were not for them. I do not know if it is better to hear that you are not the person they wanted you to be and someone else seemingly is that person. What I do know is not knowing makes the next relationship nothing more than a trap. For your damned if you assume that it will end and damned if you don't. What men do not tell us is when they don't think they love us anymore. They don't tell us that they are unsure about this relationship because there might just be someone better. They don't tell us that after weeks, months, years, decades of loving us, it has started to fade. They just tell us when it is gone.
So perhaps men do stare at other women's chests, perhaps they do like to hold the remote, perhaps they like when women take control in the bedroom, but these secrets of men are not what men won't tell us. I don't know how to discover the real secrets.
