Tag Archives: sexual practices

October 14, 2016 · 6:53 am

Thought Experiments On Double Standards

I’ve done a lot of whining on gender and double standards this week. For that, I apologize. I know that’s a real mood-killer. I’m an aspiring erotica/romance writer. Talking about these issues isn’t making anyone horny. That’s not good for my creative energy or my prospective customers.

That said, I’m not a fan of whining just for the sake of whining. That’s what children, internet trolls, and annoying reality TV stars do when they want to distract themselves from how little they actually contribute to society. I’m not a whiner. My parents had a low tolerance for whiners. Whining isn’t sexy and even the best erotica/romance writer in the world can’t make it sexy.

I bring issues like double standards up because it’s not just relevant in terms of where our society is at the moment. It also affects my work. When I’m working on a novel, I find myself hesitating at times to take the story in certain directions because of the gender of the characters involved.

One particular issue that came up recently involved my book, “The Final Communion.” That book has a sizable glut of erotica elements, to say the very least, but I did find myself struggling with certain scenes. I always intended to tell the story from the perspective of a female character. However, when I brought some male characters into the mix, I struggled at times to give them the depth I wanted.

This is largely because within those erotica elements, it’s hard to develop male characters outside the expectations we have towards society as a whole. Compared to women, those expectations are horribly skewed and unbalanced. We expect men to be aggressive. We expect men to be callous. We expect men to jump through any number of hoops just to get a chance at having sex. Do you see the running theme here?

I admit I played into some of those expectations in “The Final Communion.” I tried to add depth where I could, but it’s unavoidable in some respects. Our culture and our expectations shape our collective tastes. It affects how we relate to one another, how we seek love with one another, and how aspiring erotica/romance writers craft their novels.

So far, I feel like I’ve painted a bleak picture of sorts. I’m giving the impression that it’s hopeless. Men and women will never get along. They’ll never be equal. There will always be conflict between the horny men who just want to have sex without all the red tape and the horny women who want to just want to have sex without the stigma.

Does this mean double standards will never go away? Well, I don’t like to think in terms of such absolutes. At the moment, the research is not all that promising. According to an article in Psychology Today from 2014, which cited multiple studies, this is our current situation:

  1. Unlike premarital sex in committed relationships, which was once a hot-button topic but now viewed as OK by most Americans, the battle over the acceptability of casual sex has not (yet) been won by either side.

  2. A multitude of attitudes exist simultaneously among young people: Some consider casual sex wrong for everyone; others consider it OK for everyone; and others still consider it wrong for some but not for others.

  3. Women continue to be more conservative than men in their attitudes toward casual sex in general.

  4. There is still a double standard in the population as a whole, but only a minority of young men and women endorses it.

  5. Among those who endorse a traditional double standard, most are men.

The data is mixed, as it often is with all the insane complexities of the human condition. It’s also not final. No study ever is and those claiming to be are probably funded by tobacco companies, the Koch brothers, and the Vatican.

At the very least, it does highlight some trends that offer at least some glimmers of hope. Most notably, it reveals that Rick Santorum’s efforts have failed miserably. Acceptance of pre-marital sex is becoming so common that we’ve stopped punching each other in the genitals over the issue. When there are so many health benefits to orgasms and promiscuity, I call this a win.

However, even as acceptance of pre-marital sex grows, our inclination to shame others and whine about it still lingers. This is to be expected. Human beings are amazing creatures, but we’re still at the mercy of clunky, inefficient biological processes that often manifest in our societies.

Hell, we still have countries in this world where women don’t even have the right to drive a car. We can’t expect some of these outdated attitudes to disappear just because enough people whine about it.

For me, the most promising revelations of this study is that, while the sexual double standards for men and women are still there, the participants don’t exactly approve of it. This, to me, is the glimmer of hope that’s worth highlighting.

A lot of these double standards aren’t overt. They don’t walk up to you, slap you in the face, and scream into your ear for five hours every day. We tend to fall into them for the same reason we thought wearing bell-bottom pants was fashionable. It’s just the collective tastes of our peers that we don’t notice or scrutinize.

However, if you point it out to people and make them aware of it, they see the inherent unfairness of these double standards. That’s important because fairness is one of those powerful concepts that’s very important to the survival of a highly social species like ours. We don’t have the teeth of a shark or the muscles of King Kong. We need to work together to survive. That means fairness is a big fucking deal.

Current research also supports this. According to a study published in 2012 in Psychology Science, infants in the second year of life already possess context-sensitive expectations relevant to fairness. That means even when some of us are still in diapers, we have bullshit detectors that reveal the inherent unfairness of these double standards.

I still concede that some of these double standards have some basis in caveman logic, but only to a limited extent. It’s culture, injustice, and unequal power structures that skew these standards to an excessive degree.

For this reason, I believe that the double standards we apply to genders with respect to sex will one day fade, just as our attitudes towards casual sex did. It won’t happen overnight. We probably won’t even notice it. Angry old people complaining about today’s youth will still probably whine about it, but some people will always find a reason to whine. It’s better for society as a whole if we don’t make it easier for them.

With that in mind, let’s try a little thought experiment, which I hope to explore in future books. Let’s imagine a time several decades into the future where these egregious double standards between men and women simply fall out of favor. By all accounts, society is equal with respect to gender, or at least as equal as any sexually dimorphic species will allow.

This means that men and women are punished equitably for the same crimes. Nobody shames each other for having too much sex or wanting more sex than they have. Radical feminists and men’s rights activists aren’t influential or are all dead from whining themselves to death. What kind of society would that be? How would it operate?

Picture the following scenario. It’s one I’ve used before, but let’s apply the thought experiment to it.

Man: Hello ma’am. You look very beautiful today.

Woman: Thank you. You look quite handsome yourself.

Man: Thank you. I appreciate that. Listen, I’m single at the moment. I’m not looking for any long-term relationships at this point of my life, but I find you very sexually appealing and if you want, I’d like to have sex with you tonight.

Woman: I appreciate your honesty. I’m single at the moment too. I’m certainly open to long-term relationships, but I respect your current desire. And since I find you sexually appealing too, I’d be happy to have sex with you tonight.

Man: Great! Would you like to do it at my place or yours?

Woman: Let’s do mine. I live closer. It’s just easier.

I admit this is a laughably simplistic scenario. It’s so simplistic that it wouldn’t even qualify as a script in a low-budget porn movie. Even so, it highlights the necessary elements.

Two consenting adults walk up to one another. They don’t bother with elaborate flirtations or games. They just honestly tell one another what they want and respect each other’s desires. That’s as simple and basic as it needs to be.

This same scenario could’ve even played out another way. Consider this.

Man: Hello ma’am. You look very beautiful today.

Woman: Thank you.

Man: Listen, I’m single at the moment. I’m not looking for any long-term relationships at this point of my life, but I find you very sexually appealing and if you want, I’d like to have sex with you tonight.

Woman: I appreciate your honesty. I’m single at the moment too, but I’m afraid I don’t find you sexually appealing. I’m also not really in the mood for sex right now. I appreciate the offer though. I’m sorry.

Man: That’s okay. I’m disappointed, but I understand.

Woman: Thank you.

Again, it’s laughably simplistic, but it reflects the same underlying theme. Both individuals are up front and honest with their desires. Men don’t have to act like James Bond and women don’t have to act like every female character in “Seinfeld.” They can just be fair and honest with each other in matters of sex, love, and desire. What a concept, right?

I offer this thought experiment because some of my ideas for novels take place in the future. I enjoy looking to the future and imagining how our world and our society will change, both in terms of technology and in terms of how we’ll relate to one another.

It’s a concept I don’t see explored often in romance or erotica. I’d like to explore it in whatever unique way my perverse mind can conjure. I don’t have any clear plans at the moment, but when I do, rest assured I’ll do what I can to make those plans sexy as hell.

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October 13, 2016 · 6:43 am

Double Standards And How They Screw Both Genders Over

A couple years ago, I took a trip to New Orleans. While I was there, I frequented many bars on Bourbon Street, as many people do when they visit the Big Easy. In doing so, I noticed a common theme of sorts, one that highlighted some rather annoying differences between men and women.

It played out in two distinct scenarios. If you’re a man sitting by yourself at the bar, slamming back cheap beer and tequila shots while occasionally glancing towards the pretty girls, then congratulations. You’re a creeper. You couldn’t be more creepy if you wore clown makeup and had a machete growing out of your ass.

The second scenario is the exact same situation, but with a woman. If you’re a woman sitting by yourself at the bar, slamming back the same cheap beer and doing just as many shots of tequila while glancing towards any man, then congratulations. You’re probably going to get laid that night and chances are you won’t have to worry much about your reputation. It’s New Orleans. Like Las Vegas, the whole city may as well be a giant mulligan.

This highlights an annoyingly common, but not wholly illogical double standard between men and women. Call it the slut-versus-stud dilemma. Call it unbalanced sexual dynamics. Call it anything you want. It’s still a frustrating inconsistency for anyone who claims to value freedom, gender equality, and everything Rick Santorum stands against.

We all know how this inconsistency plays out. A man goes out, has sex with two Japanese twins, a Sweedish bikini model, and a Russian gymnast in one night. The next day, he gets high-fives and praises form all his friends. Hell, some them will want to smell his cock just to get a whiff of the sweet scent of pussy. The man is a stud.

On that same night, a woman of the same age and level of attractiveness goes out and has sex with a bouncer, two joggers, and one of Brad Pitt’s stunt doubles. The next day, she’ll probably endure an intervention from her family and friends. What kind of woman goes out and has that much sex for no other reason than because she enjoys it? She’s a slut. There must be something wrong with her. End sarcasm.

It’s one of those unspoken rules that some will talk about, but in the wrong way for the wrong reason. When it comes up, it usually focuses on the slut-shaming that women endure for wanting to have more sex than society deems appropriate. This sucks too. Slut-shaming in general is a major dick move, if that’s not too fitting a term. However, there are two sides to this coin and I’d like to talk about the other side.

I don’t deny it. When a woman goes out and has more sex than celibate priests say is acceptable, she gets a lot of shit for that. It can affect her family and friendships. It can affect her job prospects. Hell, female teachers have been fired for being too sexy. That sucks. That’s an injustice. We, as a society, should call bullshit on that.

However, let’s at least try to be fair because there is a part of the male perspective that’s equally unjust. Sure, a man probably won’t lose his job if he has sex with ten bikini models over the weekend, but there’s another injustice within that dynamic that should also be called out.

It manifests in the form of expectations and assumptions that men and women share about sexual intimacy. I’ve mentioned it before when I’ve talked about sexual promiscuity. Our current culture, with respect to gender dynamics, sets it up so that men have to jump through all these hoops to even have a chance at getting sex.

Those hoops include going out on dates, paying for meals, giving rides, offering expensive gifts, remaining in constant contact, and accommodating the woman in every way in hopes that she’ll decide he’s worth seeing naked. Every woman has a different set of standards, but at the end of the day, she’s still the primary decision-maker. A man can jump through all of these hoops, and even a few he doesn’t have to, and she can still decides he doesn’t get sex.

Needless to say, this can be annoying and frustrating to men. It’s a reason why some men hold deeply misogynistic views. That’s also part of the reason why men respect and admire those who can get so much sex without jumping through all these hoops. They’re like gurus or infomercial salesmen. They have skills and insights that we want to mimic, copy, or buy.

We’re men too. We want sex too. We want to know the tricks of the trade. That’s why we’ll eagerly befriend others who have better success at getting sex from women. That’s why we won’t shame them and will make every possible excuse to defend them. We want to be like them, learn from them, and draw from their experience.

Using caveman logic again, this makes perfect sense. Like all living creatures, we’re hard-wired for two major imperatives: survival and reproduction. If there are any ways to improve our efforts with the latter, we’ll be inclined to do it and make every possible excuse to justify it.

This means that men’s pursuit of sex isn’t always rational or ethical, for that matter. We’ll make whatever excuses we have to because it’s a biological imperative. Those imperatives tend to trump laws, culture, and social norms. Biology doesn’t give a damn what sort of arbitrary rules we make or what deities we conjure. We need to survive and reproduce, damn it!

So let’s revisit that frustrating double standard. Let’s re-evaluate it with the perspective of both the man and woman in mind. There’s a lot we can say about it. There’s a lot to interpret. Thankfully, a brilliant comedian named Jim Jefferies has already nicely summed it up with the following anecdote.

Once again, comedy tends to echo with a harsh truth. Now I would take issue with his concept of how fair this double standard is. It’s debatable what constitutes fair in matters of sex and gender dynamics.

It does, however, highlight the deeper inequalities that only make some amount of sense when we look at it through the harsh lens of caveman logic. Despite what radical feminist types may claim, men and women are very different.

The human race, like many species, is sexually dimorphic. That’s just a fancy sciencey way of saying that the different genders of a species exhibit unique characteristics beyond having different body parts to rub together. Human beings have plenty of those characteristics. We’re different in terms of muscles, body hair, facial structures, bone structure, hormone balance, and all sorts of other characteristics that I’m not qualified to describe.

The most defining trait, however, is that women are the ones who bear the babies. Men only provide the seeds. That means there’s an inherent imbalance in the sexual dynamics at play. If a man has sex with 25 women in one night, he has a chance to get them all pregnant with his genes and, thereby, propagating the species as his biological imperative says. A woman, on the other hand, can have sex with 25 men, but still only have one or two children in that same time-frame.

This is where the caveman logic bleeds right into basic economics. Nature is crude, blunt, and doesn’t give two whiffs of a skunk’s ass about our assumptions and expectations about sex. Nature just wants our species to survive and reproduce. That means it’ll follow crude incentives.

Now that’s not to say we should just accept these injustices and imbalances. We shouldn’t. Slut-shaming women and deifying promiscuous men to the extent we do asinine, even by the standards of basic biology and caveman logic.

Our attitudes and expectations towards sex and gender dynamics are skewed. It gets teachers fired. It makes social outcasts of people who don’t deserve it. It also creates every annoying antagonist in every teen movie ever made. We don’t need more of that in our society. We don’t need to distance ourselves from one another more than our genders already do.

We can’t circumvent our biological imperatives or our caveman brains beyond a certain extent. We just tend to push that extent way farther than it needs to be. There are injustices and inequalities in our current attitudes towards men, women, and sex. These injustices and inequalities are making it harder for us to relate to one another, to understand one another, and (most importantly) to love one another.

We can acknowledge our inherent differences on a biological basis. We can modify our attitudes towards how we go about sex, how we pursue relationships, and how we relate to one another. It takes work, more so than an aspiring erotica/romance writer can provide alone. I hope my books can inspire others to re-shape those attitudes.

Unjust assumptions can only lead to unjust actions. Unequal attitudes can only lead to unequal understandings. At the end of the day, we’re still wired to seek out love and intimacy with one another. Let’s not make it harder on ourselves.

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October 12, 2016 · 6:53 am

Monogamy May Be Going Extinct (Too Soon)

A big part of being a romance/erotica writer is finding new ways to explore romantic and sexual love in novel ways. Let’s face it. There are only stories you can tell about love at first sight. Those themes are as old as Shakespeare and it’s hard to make those stories interesting these days.

There’s still a place for these kinds of bland, basic love stories and there always will be. I’ve certainly used those elements in my own books. We’re an affectionate species. We love to love every bit as much as we love to hump. However, the ways in which loving and humping manifest will change with time, culture, biology, economics, and whatever happens to be a popular internet meme at the time.

There are already some ongoing trends that are making religious zealots, registered republicans, and anyone overly fond of the 1950s very nervous. According to the Centers for Disease Control, marriage rates are declining. Divorce is declining as well, but that’s to be expected when people aren’t getting married in the first place.

If that weren’t horrifying enough to the “Father Knows Best” crowd, the average number of sexual partners isn’t one. According to the CDC, men average approximately 6.7 sexual partners over the course of their lifetime while women average around 4.3. Seeing as how men tend to exaggerate the amount of panties they’ve moistened and women underestimate how often their panties get moist, let’s just call it an even 5.0 for both genders.

For some people, these numbers are truly terrifying. It means people are daring to love more than one person over the course of their lifetime. It means they’re daring to have sex for reasons that don’t involve consummating a marriage, making a baby, or showing homosexuals on how it should be done. The horror.

I hope everyone can appreciate the sarcasm in that last paragraph because this really shouldn’t be terrifying. People have sex. People love more than one person. It happens because people are complicated creatures. We can’t even agree over pizza toppings and ice cream flavors. How can we possibly agree on the right way to love and make love to one another?

I say this as someone who comes from a family that has a fair number of divorces and a fair number of marriages that’ll probably last until the sun explodes. I know how erratic and fickle our passions can be. It makes sense that our eyes, as well as other parts of our bodies, would wander.

I’ve talked about it before on this blog. Our bodies and our biology don’t know that we live in an era of Tinder, internet porn, and no fault divorce. As far as our brains are concerned, we’re still hunting and gathering in close-knit tribes on the plains of the African savanna.

Within those tribes, monogamy can happen, but it’s not the only way our passions manifest. In some cases, like when women die in childbirth or men die hunting sabretooth tigers, we need to be able to share our passions with others.

Loving more than one person doesn’t just make sense from a biological perspective. It makes sense in that it ties us together closer as a tribe. If we love each other and want to have sex with each other, we’ll be that much more dedicated to protecting and supporting each other. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s also a sexy thing. Even the most ardent clergyman or nun can’t deny that.

So when I hear stories about how monogamy is in decline or that family institutions are decaying, I want to roll my eyes and bash my head into a brick wall. This sentiment gives the false impression that monogamy has always been the end all/be all of sex, love, and relationships. That’s just not how the world works. It’s not how we’re wired as humans. It’s not even the theme of most sitcoms anymore, as “Modern Family” can attest.

So who is claiming that monogamy is in decline? It isn’t just the usual cast of clowns from the overly religious types who think their particular deity wants them to micromanage every aspect of our personal lives. Even more liberal types, like the Young Turks, are proclaiming loudly that monogamy and family life is going the way of disco, bell-bottom pants, and the Macarana.

Now I can understand the doom-saying from both sides. They’re looking at the same data and noticing the same trends. People just aren’t getting married, having children, and living around a white picket fence for the rest of their lives anymore. For some strange reason, this life doesn’t appeal to every member of the human species. Go figure.

That’s more sarcasm by the way. Sarcasm is necessary when addressing any form of doom-saying, be it from wide-eyed hippie liberals or fire and brimstone loving religious nuts. However, this sentiment that monogamy is in serious decline is worth taking seriously, if only because it means I may have to tweak the themes of my books.

As I’ve noted before, the current economics for marriage and monogamy are shit. The legal framework in which love and marriage operate are woefully unequal. In some ways, men get screwed over. In some ways, women get screwed over. It is a horribly unequal, inefficient institution that may as well have been crafted by divorce lawyers getting paid by the hour.

Since I’ve beat that dead horse more than it needs to be beaten, I won’t go off on another rant about why divorce sucks and why expectations of monogamy are unrealistic. I don’t think I need to belabor those points than I already have. However, there is one element to this sentiment that I think is worth pointing out and it’s something the Young Turks even discussed to a certain extent.

While it may be true that marriage and monogamy are in decline, it’s not necessarily declining in an equitable manner. What do I mean by that? Well, in the same way that divorce and marriage laws are woefully unbalanced, our cultural concepts of sex, romance, and gender relations are just as out of whack.

It isn’t because of the rise of feminism or radical feminism. It isn’t because of men losing their edge or fearfully protecting their male privilege either. In many respects, the problem has to do with the lingering impact that our uptight, puritanical, monogamy-loving culture still has.

Keep in mind, we still live in a culture where women can’t agree on whether Kim Kardashian showing her naked body on the internet counts as empowering or shameful. We live in a culture where a man can’t just walk up to a woman, say she has nice breasts, and not dread being sued for sexual harassment. We live in an environment where false accusations of sexual assault can ruin lives.

In other words, our current culture isn’t ready to let go of monogamy. We’re still kind of stuck on it. We still have these strange, skewed expectations about how men and women relate to one another, both romantically and sexually.

We expect women to be reserved and prudish, never freely engaging in sex with as many men as she wants. If she does, we as a society just assume there’s something wrong with her and go out of our way to shame her. It can’t possibly be that she just enjoys having sex and all the toe-curling pleasure it gives her.

We also expect men to be aggressive, pig-headed brutes who would gladly hump a dead cow if it looked enough like Jennifer Lawrence’s ass. If a man goes out and humps every woman within his area code, then he’s just being a man. If he actually goes out of his way to love and be faithful to one woman, then he must be a total pussy.

You see the problem with these expectations? Now try to imagine a society functioning without monogamy. It just can’t work. Our collective heads will explode from all the double standards, hypocrisy, and conflicting biological imperatives.

The fact remains that gender relations in our current society are just too fucked up right now. They’re too unequal. They’re too imbalanced for monogamy to decline to the extent that doomsayers fear. I’ll let the immortal Eric Duckman sum it up in the most crude, offensive way possible.

https://youtu.be/G8xp8BQxftE

It’s unavoidable. Men and women today aren’t ready for a post-monogamous society. Too many of us still cling to the “Father Knows Best” principles of how love, relationships, and sex should manifest. Almost as many cling to the politically correct sentiment that one gender must be guilted and shamed to no end for past injustices. It seems like there’s no way for society to achieve a healthy balance.

I try to be more optimistic than that. Our society always has room for improvement. Trends change. Cultural attitudes change. We, as a species, are great at adapting to new conditions. It’s part of what makes us the dominant species on this planet.

We tend to be slow, clumsy, and inept as hell when adapting our culture to new conditions, but we do get around to it. I believe that at some point, the incentives for a truly balanced understanding of love, relationships, and sex will be greater than the forces driving us apart.

It may take a long time, but it’s one of those goals that is worth the wait and the effort. It’s a goal I hope to explore in my books in various ways. I might not be able to speed up the process, but I can at least make the wait entertaining and sexy as hell.

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September 22, 2016 · 6:04 am

Of Commitments and Disappointments

A big part of every meaningful romance is commitment. Without commitment, a romance has no more depth and meaning than a dentist appointment. It’s a big part of the process that comes with loving someone enough to want to sacrifice for them. Being willing to sacrifice, share, and understand is part of the foundation that makes a romance work.

I say all this because we, as a society, do a piss-poor job of fostering commitment. The fact that I’m saying this shortly after my rant on marriage and divorce is not a coincidence. This is an important issue that involves major expectations (some of them flawed) and important life lessons (that are difficult to heed).

I discuss this issue with the full admission that I have a difficult history with commitment. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a steady girlfriend and, without getting overly personal, none of these relationships progressed beyond a certain point. We never lived together. We never shared a bathroom. We never shared a toothbrush. We never really got the chance.

So please don’t think of me as an expert on this issue. I’m not. I’m just someone who deals with commitment out of necessity. As a romance/erotica writer, I have to understand and explore it on some levels. Even without relationship experience, this is surprisingly hard.

There are all sorts of jokes we can make about commitment these days, but there are a few common themes. Like many flawed concepts, these jokes have a clear gender disparity. Commitment joke for men are very different compared to women and it shows in our assumptions about each other.

Most of these jokes and flawed assumptions can be boiled down to a few simple stereotypes. Women want commitment from men. Men want to avoid commitment at every turn. Women want someone to provide for them and cater to their every waking need without question. Men want to be able to put their penis in whoever they want with as little effort as possible.

Are these jokes funny? Hell yeah! I laugh at them all the time. Are these assumptions flawed? Definitely. No man or woman fits perfectly into the stereotype that manifests in every sitcom, Beatles song, and Hugh Grant movie. We are a diverse and varied species, both in appearance and in thought. It’s just too damn hard sifting through all that variety. We just try to make it easier on ourselves by making assumptions.

However, making assumptions is not the problem. It’s when those assumptions turn into expectations that we get problems. We’ve raised an entire generation of children to believe that the world operates by the same rules as Disney movies. Then, they find out how much we lied to them and wonder why they’re so jaded and bitter. What else explains the rise of hippies, hipsters, and reality TV?

For women, the expectations place a heavy burden on men. As young girls, movies and TV give the impression that they’re all princesses and one day they’re dutiful prince will come along. He’ll be big, strong, handsome, and understanding in every way. Most importantly, he’ll be 100-percent dedicated to them and only them. He’s basically a pet who owns a castle and pays for their shit.

For men, it’s just as bad, but in a different context. Growing up, boys (at least those without personality disorders) don’t see themselves as the Prince Charming that the girls want. They see themselves as the heroic underdog, fighting against the odds and overcoming them so they can get the glory, the fame, and the pretty girl that comes with it.

They think that the dynamics of every Rocky and Karate Kid movie ever made are accurate representations of how the world works. They’re destined to be just as disappointed as the girls who think they’re princesses waiting for a Prince Charming.

They think that just being the underdog and having the drive to overcome the odds is enough. Things like talent, chemistry, and understanding are all secondary. They just need to stick to the script, wait for the pretty girl to fall into their arms, and let the credits role.

Given these laughable expectations, is it any wonder that we suck at commitment these days? By we, I don’t just mean me. I’m referring to society as a whole when it comes to romance. Men and women place all these ridiculous expectations on their relationships and how they approach themselves. Then, they get upset when those wholly ridiculous expectations aren’t set.

This is akin to lighting a fire-cracker, holding it in your hand, and getting upset that your hand got burned. We set ourselves up for disappointment, get upset when that disappointment hits, and blame others for it, which in turn gives us more reasons to not commit to one another.

It’s a sad and brutal cycle. It’s a self-inflicted wound that manifests slowly and subtly, torturing us like death by a thousand paper-cuts. It’s at a point where women don’t just expect a Prince Charming and men don’t just expect a pretty girl. They think they’re entitled to it and will gut punch anyone who may deny them.

This is a dangerous mentality that plagues both genders, but being the optimist I am, I see glimmers of hope. I even highlighted one this past summer when an X-men comic showed that the relationship between Cyclops and Jean Grey didn’t have to stick to overplayed Disney tropes. I think an emerging generation is realizing that these old expectations are bullshit and we, as a people, need to refine our understanding of commitment.

There are still extremes. The contract Christian Grey wanted Anastasia Steele to sign in “50 Shades of Grey” shows that we can go overboard with our expectations. At least in Christian Grey’s case, he presented a legally binding document that limited the ambiguity. I don’t think we need to be that legalistic in the real world, but the concept is sound.

First, we acknowledge our expectations. Second, we share them with others and do our best to ensure they’re understood. Finally, we recognize that sometimes we’re the asshole when our expectations aren’t met.

At the end of the day, commitment is a two-way street. Sometimes the lanes in that street are uneven, as I pointed out in my divorce post. That just means we have to navigate that street more carefully. There are going to be differences and not just between the genders. Those differences are bound to change as time goes on. The key, in the end, is to find someone whose differences and expectations match your own. That’s what makes for meaningful commitment and more meaningful romance.

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September 20, 2016 · 6:07 am

How Men and Women (Legally) Screw Each Other (Over)

There are a great many ways for men to offend women. In fact, there are so many that men these days have to walk on egg-shells every day, picking and choosing their words as carefully as possible. They have no idea whether asking a woman about her favorite kind of ice cream will result in a date or a sexual harassment claim.

We’re at a point in our culture where pretty much anything can be construed as sexual innuendo. Take the following sentence:

Sure, I can give you a ride, ma’am.

It seems innocent enough. People probably say this in polite conversation every day. Now, channel you’re inner 13-year-old who just discovered internet porn. That ride isn’t referring to a car and what the man wants to give the woman has nothing to do with traveling. If the guy’s dick had a mouth, it would probably say this:

Sure, I’ll give you a ride, ma’am. Now come over here and sit on my dick while I fuck you!

I’m not saying that happens outside a bad porno. I’m just saying that it’s implied more than we care to admit.

We live in an era where the old patriarchal order is giving way to a new, more equitable way of doing things. By and large, this transition has been very positive. Few outside the clergy and Congress would argue that society is better when both genders get a chance to live their lives as equals instead of adhering to a rigid caste system where the individuals at the top get to decide what, who, and how often they fuck.

As positive as this new way of doing this is, there are a few wrinkles that we’ve yet to iron out. I’m not just talking about the wage gap, spousal abuse, or gender discrimination either. Instead, I want to focus on something a bit more subtle. I want to focus on the other side of the gender imbalance coin that often goes unnoticed.

One of the oldest and most effective ways to offend a woman these days is to tell her to get back in the kitchen and make a sandwich. I don’t know what it is about wanting women to make sandwiches. Making is a sandwich is not that hard. Plus, I kind of like making my own decisions about how much peanut butter I use. That’s just me.

For whatever reason though, the idea of a woman making a man a sandwich is symbolic of that old Father Knows Best mentality that women belong in the kitchen, men belong at work, gays belong in the closet, and sex belongs in a darkened bedroom. We all know that old trope and even most men thinks it’s laughable. However, there’s another unspoken side to that laughable trope that few talk about and isn’t a laughing matter.

Let’s re-examine that old sandwich joke for a moment. Let’s examine it from both sides time. We all know this side from the man:

Shut up and make me a sandwich!

However, what about the side of the woman that says:

Shut up and sign this legal document that entitles me to half your shit and custody of your kids whenever the fuck I feel like it!

Does that sound right? Does that sound like something any woman would say out loud? Of course not. Women wouldn’t say this out loud these days any more than a man would order them to make him a sandwich. However, this dynamic is an inescapable part of modern gender dynamics and it’s making us hate each other way more than we should.

I’ve discussed before on this blog how certain cultural taboos are driving the two genders apart and ruining our sex lives. At least those taboos and quirks aren’t legally enforced. What I just described though does have the full weight of the law behind it. We don’t call it a taboo though. We call it no-fault divorce.

I can already sense some people cringing at the mere mention of the word. Divorce is one of those few concepts that’s hard to make sexy, even for an aspiring erotica/romance writer. I know how ugly it can get. I come from a family that was shaped by divorce. While my family never let it get too ugly, it’s still the ultimate mood-killer that can turn any kind of passion into a toxic (not to mention expensive) mistake.

The modern concept of divorce is actually very new in the grand scheme of things. For most of human civilization, divorce was only granted if there was cause. If a man beat up his wife, cheated on her, or lied to her about the premise of their relationship, then that was grounds for divorce. People couldn’t just get divorced because they felt like it.

That all began to change in the mid to late 20th century. Here in America, the great state of California enacted the first no fault divorce law in 1969, a year that isn’t that ancient when you consider how many people these days recall/complain about it. By 1983, the same year Michael Jackson released Thriller, nearly every state in the union had no-fault divorce laws on the books. When you consider that civilization as we know it is over 4,000 years old, this may as well be the historical equivalent of an abrupt kick to the balls.

This is a painfully apt metaphor because this phenomenon completely changed the dynamics of marriage, especially for men. It shows in the data. According to the Centers for Disease Control, divorce rates really began to spike around the late 60s and early 70s, which is around the same time that no-fault divorce entered the picture.

Granted, there had been spikes before, but these usually came in conjunction with wars and economic upheavals. That’s understandable to some degree. It’s easy to imagine a marriage getting overly strained at a time when bombs are dropping and everybody is flat broke. No-fault divorce took a different path, but this time it screwed over one side more than others.

Once again, it all comes back to economics. I know. It’s right up there with chicken pox and dead kittens in terms of unsexiness, but it’s still the primary driver of damn near everything that guides human civilization.

Using the same caveman logic I’ve used before, we can see the incentives that guided marriage for most of human history. Remember, it wasn’t until recently that people started marrying for love. Most of the time, marriage was a loveless business arrangement. Even without the love though, it had incentives.

Men needed women who could bear children that would inherit their property and/or work the fields. Men can’t have children so they need to provide a home for a woman in which to bear those children. By marrying a man, a woman got a home and a steady supply of care. By marrying a woman, a man got children who could work the fields and inherit the property. It’s a model that served civilization well for a long time…to a point.

The problem with this model is that it had a lot of incentives to keep women in the home and out of the workforce. Remember, this is also an era where most women died in childbirth and there weren’t as many tools with which to maintain the home. Keeping women in the home helped protect them to some degree while the men did the back-breaking labor that their wealthy overlords demanded.

That model needed tweaking in the modern era. It was no longer enough for men to just work the fields and fight wars anymore. The economy became more complex. Opportunities became more varied. As a result, new incentives emerged that drew women into the workforce. Over the course of the 20th century, women became as integral a part of the economy as men. They still aren’t entirely equal in many cases, but compared to 95 percent of human history, it’s pretty damn equal.

Unfortunately, this equality doesn’t extend to divorce. While women are gaining more education and independence, we still have these old taboos and biases that cling to us like ticks. Is a marriage in trouble? It must be the man’s fault. Is a woman unhappy? It must be the man’s fault. Is a home unstable and unhealthy? It must be the man’s fault.

Turn on any sitcom, watch any movie, or listen to any song and the themes are almost all the same. Every problem in every relationship can be heaped on the selfish, arrogant, whiny, insecure, irresponsible, irredeemable man. Men don’t love their children as much. They don’t put as much energy into a relationship. They’re more selfish and stupid. It’s the basis of pretty much every single episode of the Simpsons and Family Guy.

Is it any wonder why, according to the National Parents Organization, that there’s an unmistakable bias in the judicial system towards men in divorce court? Women tend to get custody of the kids, half the man’s assets, and regular alimony payments. On top of that, the man doesn’t even have to cheat on her. She can get this all if she fills out the right paperwork and has a competent divorce attorney. In that sense, the movie Liar Lair may as well be a goddamn documentary.

Go back to the economics for a moment. Look at the incentives as they stand. Then, picture this overly simple conversation between a man and a woman.

Sure! I’ll have sex with you and have your kids. Just sign this legal document that entitles me to half your assets and custody of your kids if I ever feel unhappy enough for any reason whatsoever.

Is it any wonder why marriage rates are declining rapidly among millenials? Is it any wonder why men are reluctant to commit these days? Is it any wonder why some men show hostile attitudes towards women?

This is a problem. This is making it difficult for us to love each other. Men and women can hate each other all we want. Our biological wiring doesn’t give a shit what the law says. It still drives us to want to be together. We can’t turn that drive off, but we can do something about these perverse incentives. We just have to acknowledge they are perverse and realize that there are more effective ways to love one another.

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September 9, 2016 · 6:31 am

Busting Myths About Circumcision

Brace yourself. I’m going to do one more post about circumcision. I promise this will be the last time I bring up this topic, at least for a while. As I said in my little personal side-note on the subject, I don’t enjoy talking about this. No man does. That’s why it’s taboo. However, like all taboos, it’s something worth confronting.

We already know there are all sorts of crazy myths and taboos about sex. It’s such an uncomfortable, awkward, complex topic that too many people insist on making more complex than it needs to be. I’ve already done a post about busting the most popular myths about sex. Now, I intend to do the same with circumcision.

Unlike some of the other sexual myths, circumcision is one of those taboos that disproportionally affects Americans more than most other western countries. According to the World Health Organization, only about a third of the global male population over the age of 15 is circumcised whereas the prevalence in America is around 79 percent. Even if you suck at math, you know that’s not a trivial difference.

While it’s true that circumcision has cultural roots that go back centuries, the reasons for those traditions aren’t the same here in the USA. In Bronze Age times, circumcision was primarily a religious rite and a cultural practice. Their reasons may have been practical on some levels. This is an era where rubbing goat shit on your face probably counted as makeup so there may have been some hygienic benefits.

It actually goes beyond that. Back in these times, tribes of people did all sorts of things to identify themselves as part of a certain tribe. It’s easy enough for someone to just join a group by drinking a shot glass full of wasabi, but for someone to snip off part of their dick? That takes dedication. That shows that someone isn’t just a member of a tribe. They’re committed.

Fast forward to the 19th and 20th century and we don’t need those kinds of tribal practices anymore. We have Facebook accounts, Twitter feeds, and social security numbers to identify ourselves and our groups. There’s no need to mutilate part of your dick. However, we still do it, thanks in no small part to the efforts of anti-masturbation crusaders like John Harvey Kellogg. Even after Mr. Kellogg’s bullshit fears about masturbation were debunked, we still do it.

People still give reasons for it. They even claim to back these reasons up with science. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good science. So as a public service, I’d like to list some of these myths and why they’re bullshit. This is a list compiled by the fine folks of the India Times. Feel free to reject, accept, or verify them as you see fit.

Common Male Circumcision Myths Debunked

Myth #1: Circumcision is an effective way to prevent HIV

Fact: The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) states that “Male circumcision should be recognised as an additional, important strategy for prevention of heterosexually acquired HIV in men…(but) should never replace known methods of HIV prevention.” However, this does not provide any kind of protective benefit to the female partner involved and instead puts her at risk of contracting HIV.

Myth #2: Circumcision prevents penile cancer

Fact: No clear evidence has been concluded to state that circumcision completely prevents penile cancer. However, it is worth noting that the penile cancer rate is much lower among circumcised men than uncircumcised men.

Myth #3: Infants do not feel pain during circumcision

Fact: Many doctors do not believe in the use of anesthetic during circumcision. But circumcision is quite painful for the infant just like in any other older child or adult. Even the analgesic used during this procedure only decrease the pain and does not eliminate it completely. The baby will feel discomfort for about seven to ten days.

Myth #4: Circumcision is a perfectly harmless procedure

Fact: Circumcision is painful and can cause infections, hemorrhage, scarring, urinary problems, etc.

Myth #5: Circumcision can completely prevent urinary tract infections (UTIs)

Fact: There was one study conducted back in 1985 that stated that circumcised babies were immune to UTI. However, further studies conducted since then found no such backing that circumcision completely prevented the risk of urinary tract infections.

Still not convinced? Well, as I’ve said before, I know this is a touchy subject. It’s difficult to talk about. As with most things though, it can be made easier through the use of crude humor. So if you’re not interested in reading articles about circumcision, here’s a funny little video from the folks at College Humor that should explain/debunk circumcision just as well. If you have a weak stomach, but a good sense of humor, then you should be okay.

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September 8, 2016 · 6:51 am

A Personal Story About Circumcision (Seriously)

I know circumcision isn’t a very sexy topic for a blog that’s supposed to be promoting sexy products in the form of erotic fiction. It’s right up there with moles, puking, and diarrhea in terms of its ability to kill a mood. However, as unsexy as it may be, it is something that affects our sex life.

According to the CDC, around 79 percent of males are circumcised in the United States. If circumcision were a movie, it would have a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Something that prevalent and popular is sure to become entrenched to some extent. It becomes one of those traditions we just don’t question.

It’s not unlike what happens when a certain song or band becomes popular. It attains a loyal following of supporters that dare not question it, no matter what. Just look to Justin Bieber fans for proof of this.

I admit I didn’t really give circumcision much thought. It happened when I was an infant. Nobody remembers much about what happened to them as an infant. In that respect, it’s the perfect time to perform circumcision. What sober-minded adult would agree to let a doctor mutilate his genitals?

I’m sure there are a few. There are men who pierce their genitals, after all. Just google a Prince Albert, but make sure you have a strong stomach. Even with these outliers, it’s hard to imagine 79 percent of all men would consent to something like this. So why should we give circumcision a pass?

This brings me to my personal story. It happened very recently during a conversation with my mother. I won’t divulge the context or situation of the conversation. I have a feeling there are members of my family who would kill me in my sleep if I did. I’ll just say that we were talking about babies and infant care. It’s a topic that’s relevant for certain members of my family. That’s all I can say without looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.

During this conversation, my mom told me the story about my circumcision. Apparently, I was not circumcised shortly after birth, which is when most babies have the procedure. I had mine a few days after. I don’t remember what went into the decision-making process behind this.

As far as I know, I think the logic was that my father was circumcised. So logically, I should be circumcised as well. It’s a tradition, I guess. Tradition is sometimes the only logic behind certain decisions. Then again, we’re not talking about a Christmas dinner here. We’re talking about a baby’s junk.

Whatever the reason, I had to get my circumcision several days after my birth. My mom then described the visit to the doctor’s office. It starts out simply enough. She says I was a healthy baby. Then, the big moment comes. The doctor breaks out his tools and prepares to cut into my baby parts. This is where it gets somewhat telling.

Before he does what he does, he asks my mother to leave the room. This may be something that’ll be uncomfortable, which ranks right up there with the warnings on imported fireworks as the most obvious statements in the world, and it may make me cry. My mom, trusting her doctor, does what he requests.

However, she says at the time, I give her this look that seems pretty telling. I know I couldn’t talk at the time, but I think I may have been trying to say, “Why are you letting this man cut up my penis, mommy?”

What I try to say doesn’t matter much in the end. I still get circumcised. I don’t imagine it’s all that comfortable. I think it’s pretty fair to assume I cried and there’s no shame in crying over getting your junk cut. Even the most manly of men have to admit that. After that though, my mom never speaks of it again and I never ask about it.

Now let make this clear. I love my mom. I love my dad. I have two of the best parents any guy can ask for. However, my parents are still prone to the influences of tradition and peer pressure. I don’t blame them in the slightest for deciding to circumcise me and my brother.

It’s just one of those inescapable truths. Sometimes society really does function like an 80s high school drama where people eat paste and snort ketchup on a dare. They probably understood that if I didn’t get circumcised, I’d look different than 79 percent of the male population of this country. In a world where people get bullied for awful reasons, it’s not unwise for parents to limit those reasons as much as possible.

So in light of tradition and peer pressure, it seems circumcision isn’t going away anytime soon. However, if tradition and peer pressure really are the primary reasons why we do this, I think it’s worth talking about. This is why I wanted to share this personal story. I know it’s not as entertaining as me admitting that I sleep naked, but this is something that affects me. It’s something that affects the lives of many men. Since it affects our sex lives, it’s going to affect women by default.

So let’s put it out there and ask a few uncomfortable questions. Sure, it’s going to make for some uncomfortable answers. It may even reveal that some of our cherished traditions may be bullshit, but in the same way open communication is important for our sex lives, it’s just as important for our overall health. When the conversation involves cutting up our genitals, I think that’s an conversation worth having.

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September 6, 2016 · 6:35 am

Profiles in Prudishness: John Harvey Kellogg

History is full of crazy, if not deranged, periods of sexual repression. It comes and goes like seasons, but like hurricanes in Florida or blizzards in New York, some seasons are more severe than others. Every nation, society, and culture has their own unique sexual climate so-to-speak. America, contrary to everyone on Fox News, is no exception.

I’ve discussed current trends in sexual repression on this blog before, from the myths of porn addiction to the toxic proclivities that hinder intimacy in modern society. While it may seem bad now, it’s child’s play compared to what our society has experienced in the past.

To give you just a faint idea of how extreme sexual repression got at one point in American, I’d like to do a quick profile of one of this country’s Grand Poobah of prudes, John Harvey Kellogg. If his name sounds familiar, it should. It’s the same Kellogg behind the breakfast cereal brands that most of us eat or have eaten at some point in our lives. By the time you learn about the man behind the meal, you may never look at cereal the same way again.

So who was John Harvey Kellogg? Well, before his name became synonymous with breakfast food, he was a respected doctor and an active participant in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church.However, as is often the case with the devoutly religious, he took his religion more seriously than most and this is what led him down the road to repression.

By and large, his views didn’t differ much from most other ardent Seventh-Day Adventists of the time. This is a religious sect that is repressive in more than just sexuality. It recommends a strict vegetarian diet, abstinence from alcohol and tobacco, and regular exercise. Kellogg was said to have adhered to this regiment, but he just had to take it several steps further.

Rather than go into the complex theological and psychological underpinnings of Kellogg’s personal views, I’ll just come out and say it as simply as I can. John Harvey Kellogg was obsessed with masturbation. I’m not talking the kind of obsession that leads to 10-hour masturbation contests. I’m talking about the kind of obsession that drove one man to make it his life’s mission to stop men and boys from masturbating.

It sounds like a bad joke from a Sunday morning sermon at a Mormon Church, but it’s true. John Harvey Kellogg really obsessed over masturbation. He wasn’t alone either. During the late 19th and early 20th century, America found itself in a good old fashioned moral panic over masturbation.

Was it logical? No. Did it have any science behind it? Of course not. Moral panics don’t work that way. They don’t have to. It just has to involve a large number of people being totally convinced that all the ills in the world are caused by one thing and one thing only, as though the human condition is ever that simple.

Let’s face it though. We’re human. We like easy answers. Back then, for reasons that religion and bad science helped fuel, masturbation was that easy answer. As such, John Harvey Kellogg took it upon himself to rid the world of this horrific vice.

So how did he plan on accomplishing this? Well, this is where his famous breakfast cereal comes into play. True to some of the other tenants of his church, he sough to use diet as a means of curbing the desire pleasure one’s self. He believed corn flakes would temper dangerous passions and limit the dangerous desires that lead to masturbation. Absolutely none of this is made up.

Remember this the next time you eat cereal with the Kellogg brand. While times have changed, its founder really wanted you to not masturbate. He thought diet and nutrition would accomplish that. The fact that dildos, lube, erotic fiction, and internet porn are still major industries shows just how badly he failed. However, Kellogg didn’t stop at diet. Remember, this guy was really obsessed with masturbation.

When diet and nutrition just weren’t enough, Kellogg favored an even greater extreme. In his seminal (pun totally intended) work, Plain Facts for Old and Young, he also recommended using circumcision as a means to discourage masturbation. Want to know why circumcision is so common among men in America? Well, you have Mr. Kellogg to thank for that.

Before he and his kind came along, circumcision was primarily a Jewish rite. It was rarely performed for medical reasons and was fairly uncommon. However, that changed once masturbation became public enemy number one. The idea was that the presence of the foreskin made masturbation too easy and they can’t have that. If someone is going to self-indulge, they need to make it challenging.

Once again, Cracked.com does an admirable job describing how these fears shaped the modern world that emerged in the 20th century. They also quote one of Mr. Kellogg’s recommendations for using circumcision. If you’re a man and you have a weak stomach, you might want to close this page.

5 Insane Ways Fear of Masturbation Shaped the Modern World

“The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues for several weeks interrupts the practice, and if it had not previously become too firmly fixed, it may be forgotten and not resumed.”

Still with me? Are you done cringing? Good, because as a man, it is pretty distressing. The idea of a young boy or a baby going through this procedure should make anyone feel queasy. It’s one thing to just preach and lecture others on the evils of enjoying one’s self on one’s own terms. It’s quite another when it involves involuntary mutilation.

This is how far sexual repression can go. People like John Harvey Kellogg can become so obsessed with this one act of sexual expression that they are willing to actually torture and mutilate others to stop it. We still see that happening today with female circumcision, an equally horrifying process that I’ll save for another blog post. However, even today’s ardent prudes would cringe at what Kellogg recommended.

The anti-masturbation crusade of the late 19th century still affects America to this day and not just because of the lack of foreskins on many men. At the time, masturbation was part of a moral panic that believed this one particular vice would destroy society. It set a pattern for future panics.

We had panics over alcohol, which resulted in Prohibition and the crime it inspired. We had panics over marijuana, which are still being fought today. Now, thanks to the likes of Pamela Anderson, we may be on the cusp of a new moral panic over porn.

In every case, there’s no inherent logic to the moral panic. In the same way that the anti-porn crusaders of today shroud their panic under the guise of public health, John Harvey Kellogg did the same with his pro-corn flakes, pro-mutilation policies for curbing masturbation. It’s all for “public health” or “the welfare of children.”

Now it’s easy to ridicule men like Kellogg for their obscenely extreme views on sex, vice, and overall fun. However, I think that ridicule needs to be tempered to some degree because men like him, as well as women like Pamela Anderson, are very likely sincere in their beliefs to some degree. They’ve really convinced themselves that these vices are a problem.

Again, there’s no logic to this conviction, but they don’t care. They just need to grasp at whatever evidence, be it anecdotal or completely made up, will affirm this conviction. John Harvey Kellogg had a valid excuse to some extent because he lived during a time when our understanding of biology, physiology, and sexuality was still limited. However, in the age of the internet and Wikipedia, the anti-sex crusaders of today have no excuses.

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September 4, 2016 · 9:20 am

Busting Sex Myths From Cracked.com

It’s Sunday. It’s a holiday weekend. Everybody is either recovering from a hangover or making arrangements to recover from a pending hangover. I don’t want to distract too many people from such noble endeavors. It’s a holiday. We should be having fun and enjoying ourselves.

So for the sake of brevity, I’ll only do a brief follow-up from my post yesterday about Pamela Anderson’s outrageous hypocrisy at condemning the porn industry that made her rich and famous. Ms. Anderson’s hypocrisy is a byproduct of a frustratingly stubborn myth about porn and addiction. It’s just one myth in many associated with sex. When something is so taboo and varied, it tends to develop all sorts of crazy myths. With sex, some of those myths can become downright disturbing.

I’d need multiple blogs, a staff of at least 50 people, and grant money from several major universities to document all the myths about sex and sexuality. We’ve all heard something crazy about sex, what it is, how to do it, and what it does to us. From using lemon juice as a douche to eating certain foods to make your semen taste better, these myths exist and propagate with disturbing efficiency.

Thankfully, the fine folks at Cracked.com do a nice job of busting myths, including those pertaining to sex. Back in 2015, they did an article on 27 sex myths that too many people still believe. The only thing truly shocking about this article is that they only managed to list 27.

Cracked.com: 27 Sex Myths Too Many People Still Believe

So why am I citing a link from 2015? Well, one of those myths is relevant to what I wrote about yesterday. It involves the concept of porn addiction that Pamela Anderson whined about.

This actually makes her hypocrisy even worse because she’s focusing on the porn and not the underlying mental health issues behind it. She’s basically working under the assumption that the tail is wagging the dog here. As a noted animal-lover and PETA supporter, she should know better. Also, this study was done in 2009. She has no excuses.

There are all sorts of crazy myths that complicate and confuse our sex lives. Again, the main reason these myths emerge is because sex is so taboo and we refuse to talk about it. When we don’t talk about something, we don’t learn enough about it. When we don’t learn enough about something, we tend to make shit up to fill in the blanks. That sort of thing already gave us crazy conspiracy theories, fad diets, and organized religion. Let’s not let it ruin sex more than it already has.

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August 30, 2016 · 6:05 am

An Honest Question: How Open Should We Be About Sex?

How much is too much? Isn’t that an existential question that can apply to so many issues? How much government is too much? How much sugar is too much? How much violence is too much in a PG-13 movie? We ask this question about so many things. Naturally, it comes up a lot during issues about sex.

That’s to be expected. Human beings are sexual creatures. We’re programmed to do two things: survive and reproduce. Thanks to the advent of AK-47, fighter gets, and everything associated with Chuck Norris, we got the survival part down. We used to fear tigers, snakes, and wolves. Now they’re either endangered or they’re our pets. We won the survival game.

With reproduction, however, it’s a different story. Sure, as a species, we’re pretty good at sex. There are over 7 billion humans on this planet. Clearly, we’re doing something right. The problem is that our attitudes about sex are more eccentric than Andy Dick on a double dose of LSD.

We need to reproduce. It’s part of our biology. At the same time, however, we’ve created all these weird cultural attitudes that make us anxious and uncomfortable about sex. It manifests in religion, media, and cultural practices. I’ve talked about it before on this blog, but now I’d like to open the discussion up a bit.

Just how open should we be about sex? It’s an important question to ask. I know I’m asking it from an odd angle because I live in America. This is a country founded by Puritans. As the late Robin Williams once said, these are, “people so uptight, the English kicked them out.” So even though we call ourselves a free country, we have exceedingly prude attitudes towards sex. In fact, it wasn’t until 1965 that the last few obscenity laws that prohibited the distribution of materials on birth control were struck down.

It’s fairly clear that, as a society, we need to be more open to talking about sex. It can’t just be with our kids either. That thought alone is enough to make parents want to vomit violently. Even consenting, mature adults have problems talking about it.

In many cases, there are all these unspoken rules about sex. We’re not supposed to talk about our ex-lovers. We’re not supposed to talk about the really good sex we’ve had with partners who aren’t our spouses. We’re not supposed to talk about the sex we had when we were young. So what the hell are we supposed to talk about?

Again, this is an honest question. I talk a lot about sexual issues on this blog. Some, like various types of orgasms, are just fun little tidbits about our biology. Others are a bit more serious, relating to religion and sociopolitical issues like feminism. So what are the limits? What can and can’t we talk about?

I’ve confessed to sleeping naked. That’s pretty tame by internet standards. Seeing as how I write erotic stories, I feel it’s pretty important to know where that line is how far I should take it. So I’ll open this question up for others to discuss. How much is too much? How open is too open? We humans know a lot about being sexually repressed. How much do we know about being sexually open?

As we contemplate this topic, here’s another video discussing this topic from the fine folks at ThinkTank on this subject. I sincerely hope this generates some meaningful, yet sexy discussions.

https://youtu.be/e4UZrslqxFU

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