Sexual Edumacation

Couple demonstrating "sexual gateway activity"

Breaking news from my time machine that travels back to one week ago...

Reports Jezebel:  
Yesterday, the Ohio House Finance Committee's Republican members voted to adopt a state budget amendment that mandates an abstinence-only approach to sexual education....The idiotic measure will "prohibit the teaching of sexual education coursework that endorses non-abstinence as an acceptable behavior or promotes sexual gateway activity." "Sexual Gateway Activity" — what's that?: 

ORC 2907.01(B) “Sexual contact” means any touching of an erogenous zone of another, including without limitation the thigh, genitals, buttock, pubic region, or, if the person is a female, a breast, for the purpose of sexually arousing or gratifying either person.

In addition, teachers can't distribute contraceptives at school, because nothing keeps a teen not pregnant more than not giving them condoms.

***
So I want to be all mad about this, but not only am I far too aroused by the erotic writing of ORC 2907.01(B) to think straight, but the part of my brain that gets mad at people for being stupid does not want to become engaged with this.  Especially the thought that spawns of these Ohioans, made sexually ignorant by their mandated sex-free sex ed, will predictably--yawn--fuck incorrectly and poorly, but not poorly enough to prevent unwanted pregnancy, thus producing even more of their kind. And so on and so on.

Nope, I'm gonna look the other way today. To good things happening in sex education, which I would define as sex ed that provides, you know, education. (This does not include my own 1970's sex ed in Georgia which was taught by the gym teacher and involved lots of talk of vas deferens. I learned nothing about real sex. The whole good part--attraction, arousal, or hell, even a basic how-to--was dismissed with a vague reference to "the sperm meeting the egg.")

So, yes, good sex ed, like:

1.  The adult sex ed classes offered in San Francisco by Kink.com. They feature real life people demonstrating real life sex, orgasms and whatnot for the class.  

Writes Tracy Clark-Flory in My X-Rated Sex Ed Class:

It isn’t just a live sex show, though. Before any pants were removed, [instructor Madison] Young passed around a diagram of the g-spot, reviewed the anatomy, dispelled myths about female ejaculation and goaded the audience members into talking about how they liked to be touched. Then she whipped out a speculum and brought her model Ava, or “stunt pussy,” up to the front of the room. In went the clear plastic device and then Ava began to stimulate herself with a Hitachi Magic Wand in an attempt at making her g-spot swell and become more visible.

.....My mind was blown by this sex-ed class even before the squirting began — but that was plenty mind-blowing on its own. Ava got up on the table in front of the class, spread her legs and began stimulating herself with a Hitachi and a stainless steel g-spot stimulator. Young explained what we were about to see: “It’s the release of all the juicy fluid that’s building up in the para-urethral sponge … and then it pushes forth through the urethra.” Young answered audience questions over the buzzing of the toy and Ava’s growing moans. And then there was a sudden burst of clear ejaculate that splattered inches from my feet.

After a vigorous demonstration of hand techniques on a melon, Clark-Flory leaves not only with an unsettling image of Gallagher, but the realization that there is still so much to learn about our bodies.

...Even having grown up in hippie-dippie Berkeley, Calif., having attended a feminist-minded women’s college, having read about hand-mirror-toting consciousness raising circles, having ended up reporting on sex for a living, I had never clearly seen what the vaginal walls actually look like — at least not outside of an illustrated diagram. I tell you, it was a revelation: I wanted to hightail it to the nearest Good Vibrations and buy my very own speculum — and one for each of my ladyparts-having friends. It made me angry that all those times I’ve had a gynecologist uncomfortably perched between my legs, they’ve never offered to hold up a mirror.

2. Meanwhile, the French, who continue to do, well, life, better than the rest of us, offer their postpartum women free classes in la rééducation périnéale, or reeducating the listless post-baby pelvic floor muscles so that they can actually work again. The classes include biofeedback and a coach to help teach proper Kegel techniques.

Writes Claire Lundberg in  The French Government Wants to Tone My Vagina:

Despite the occasional embarrassment, these sessions actually work. There haven’t been extensive studies done, but what studies exist show that la rééducation significantly reduces incontinence and pelvic pain at nine months after giving birth. Frankly, I’m happy there’s a medical professional paying attention to what happened down there. Rééducation périnéale gets scoffed at in American and Canadian publications as one of the most lurid examples of the indulgent French welfare state, but as far as I can tell, we do exactly nothing in the United States to help women get back into shape after giving birth.

An American woman gets her six-week postpartum checkup and, if nothing is seriously wrong, she’s cleared to have sex again and sent on her way. If she’s lucky, the doctor or midwife reminds her to do her Kegel exercises, but without much guidance. Meanwhile, at least in the experience of many of my friends, she may still be experiencing a variety of symptoms that, while not medically serious, sure are annoying, embarrassing, and strange, and not at all conducive to reinvigorating her sex life. Elective “vaginal rejuvenation” through plastic surgery is on the rise in the U.S., though this surgical reconstruction is largely aesthetic and pays little or no attention to returning sensation or control to the woman. Americans’ lack of attention to the female body after giving birth is our own version of the modesty gown or the word vajayjay; we’re covering our eyes and pretending there’s nothing there to see, until it can no longer be ignored.

So yeah, there is good stuff happening. Just not right now, or last week for that matter, in Ohio.

xoxox
jill

(photo via Lady Cheeky)

Real Sex Lives: Nola, "I had an affair. Now what?"

This is the latest "True Wife's Tale," an IBWMW series about real people (doesn't have to be a wife despite "wife" being right there in the name) telling the truth about their sex lives. As I've tiresomely overstated, the idea is that knowledge=power, the truth will set us free and any other number of slogans I learned watching Saturday morning cartoons in the 1970s. In that spirit, don't be a Judgey Judgerson and be criticizing dear Nola's choices. You haven't walked in her moccasins (see above: life philosophy gleaned from 70s children's TV), so even if you think her moccasins are slutty, amoral moccasins, keep that $%$% to yourself.  Here then, is Miss Nola, or Ms. Nola, I suppose, since she's married:

I hadn't had sex with my husband for a year.  Which in a way was fine. Not the no sex part, which was soul-killing, but the "with my husband" part. We had been together a very very long time and sex, which had never been the focus of our relationship, had dwindled down over the years until our sex life was only definable by its absence.

When we used to have sex, it was...fine. Orgasms were had, equipment worked, words of love were exchanged. But it was never hot. Or creative. Or after a time, something that either of us seemed to want. At first this was okay--I had kids to raise, a job to do, books to read. But after I turned 40, I experienced some sort of rebirth and, for the first time in my life, felt my own sexuality. I felt free and sexual and full of life.  I tried to turn it back on with my husband. I'd ask him to have sex and though he seemed perfectly happy doing it, he'd never instigate. Whenever I tried to explore things a little further, I got the feeling I was making him uncomfortable.

Eventually I resigned myself to a sex life with my own hand. 

But still... I felt so ripe and ready. I looked at my body in the mirror and it was still good.  Maybe better than it had ever been. I wanted someone to appreciate the particular curve of my hip and the way my nipples poked out through my shirt. I wanted to be kissed well and hotly desired. I felt like my body and sexuality were going to waste.

This is the point where the old lover appears via Facebook. Mine did and he was just as hot and dangerous as ever. We exchanged insanely sexy texts, emails and pictures and had phone sex in which I came so loudly I was afraid the neighbors could hear. Back in college, Old Lover very blunt and very sexual. He would say things to me like "Your pussy is so wet" which, to me, accustomed to the earnestly fumbling boys I'd been with, felt so dirty and scandalous. I was so prissy then and the way he talked about sex and so relished it was incredibly freeing. 

Talking to him 20 or so years later, I felt the same freeing feeling about sex which--depressingly--I hadn't experienced since him. My body still reacted instantly and violently to him. To this day, he is the only person who can make me go wet just from the sound of his voice. I concocted elaborate fantasies to tell him on the phone, and as I whispered the details to him, I relished the way his breath would quicken, the way he would gasp out "You have me so turned on right now" and his moans as he came. Once I sent him a picture of my boobs while he was at work and he had to go into the backroom to jerk off. I loved how sexy and beautiful he made me feel.

So yes, not only was he making me feel hot and gorgeous and letting me see my body in a whole new light, but in talking about sex and sharing these fantasies, I was--finally!--getting to share my sex life with someone who was not me. Which I was, and for the rest of my life will be, incredibly grateful.

When we finally met in person, the sex was amazing. But not in the way I'd pictured. I thought it would be all dirty and elaborate, perhaps ending with me crawling around the floor or something. Instead it was pretty basic, some very sweet kisses, a lift of my skirt and in.

As he kissed me and slid slowly inside of me, I felt something that was beyond sex. I felt the most sublime squishy glowing pleasure I've ever felt. I don't know if he was shaped differently than my husband or was just bigger (yes), but his cock was touching me in some deep deep place, both metaphorically and literally. It was fucking profound.  Which I guess is the same thing as profound fucking, which it also was.  For me, it wasn't a tensing thing that would lead to orgasm (and in fact it didn't), but something that was beyond orgasm.  It didn't need to go anywhere because it was already there--in this amazing spot of squishy grand fuckiness and oh-god his scruffy cheek and sweet lips and floating in a sublime space that was like somehow existing inside an orgasm.

I couldn't do anything but clutch onto his big hairy shoulder and cling to him and feel just...gratitude.  Gratitude for him and for this incredible feeling he gave to me. It was the best moment of my life.

"I contain multitudes"--Song of Myself, Walt Whitman.

*****
Of course it ended badly. (Who could've seen that coming?) And I've done a lot of furtive weeping. But I don't regret any of it. I'm glad I'm jumped into the fire and got to feel that feeling. I got to live in passion and threw myself into life, fully and with an open heart.

*****
A few days after it ended and the weeping continued, my friend recommended I have a toss with my husband. We did and it was...decent. It did stop the weeping. And I realized that one of the things I'd been crying about was the idea of going back to a sex life alone. I saw that I could have pretty good sex, in home, with none of the emotional b.s. 

I'm still not sure if that's gonna be enough for me.

I have a little bag of sexy lingerie and some sex toys I bought when I thought I'd be going to see Old Lover again. Right now it's sitting unused under my bed. I'm thinking of it as my sexual Hope Chest.

Thank you to dear Nola and the rest of you who have been so honest and brave to share. If one of the rest of y'all has a tale to tell, rip your little heart out and send your story to: jillhamilton001@gmail.com.

xoxox
jill

(photo: Lady Cheeky)

Bill Gates and Condoms, A Big-Ass Tub o' Lube, Monsanto, and Other Notably Unrelated Things.

Improper condom use

When I lived in Ann Arbor, I wrote for a magazine section named "Tidbits." "Tidbits" is a terrible name. Tidbits are a low-end dog food, or possibly something you have to sweep up from a rodent's cage. When talking about my work, I would use convoluted verbal arrangements--much like this sentence itself--so as never to actually have to call the little blurby things I wrote "tidbits." Because I have my dignity, you know. Fucking "tidbits." Still hate it.

However, today's blurby post proves that although I am now far, far away from Tidbits, I still have some tidbitiness about me. (Sweep those up, will you?) But hell if I'll call 'em Tidbits. Here...let me think of a Theme. Let's see, the theme today is Things That Don't Go Together. Which is lame, but at least it's not Tidbit lame.

1. Bill Gates and Condoms
Emily sent in the financially important news that Bill Gates is offering $100,000 to the person who can design a better condom. The idea is this: Although condoms have been around at least 400 years, people don't really like them. Yes, they're cheap, easy and very effective in preventing STDs and pregnancy--so calm down, no one's saying don't use them or anything. However, they do feel kind of sucky and I think we can all agree that they look a bit ridiculous. (Pssst, not talking about you. You look sexy as hell in a condom. Your condom-encased penis looks absolutely nothing at all like a burglar wearing pantyhose over their face.)

Anyway, the idea is that you develop a condom that's somehow...better. Maybe it gives more sensation, maybe it's easier to put on, maybe it just looks mighty fine. All up to you.

What walks down stairs, alone and in pairs?

This ORIGAMI male condom is an example of what the Gates people consider to be an innovative condom. Besides that fact that it looks like it might make a pleasing SPROING noise, the folding design offers the following "advantages," according to its makers:

1. Easy donning method slides the condom onto the penis in 2.8 seconds.
2. Consistent expansion/contraction of the condom provides a natural reciprocating motion of the penis inside the lubricated condom.

Still, I think they still have a way to go aesthetically, and hell, perhaps the condom you design will go on in 2.7 seconds. However, if you are timing your own condom-donning, keep it to yourself or your partner will be gone in 5.4 seconds. Deadline to enter May 7, 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time.

2. Vinegar and Douche
A question for you: Why are there vinegar douches? Vinegar smells horrible.  There is no smell anyone's got going on down there that could be improved by adding vinegar to the mix. I get that vinegar's a weak acid (or I do now after Googling it) and it might have something to do with balancing flora or something, but is there no other weak acid to do the trick? Maybe a can of Sprite, or, hell, if you're shoving stuff up there anyway, how 'bout something inherently decent smelling like a basil leaf or an Altoid? (Btw, pretty much everyone besides the makers of Summer's Eve products agrees that douching is bad, unhealthy and not advisable. Especially using stinky-ass vinegar.)

3. Lube and Bulk Buying

The crush-worthy Firehorse_on_SL alerts us to the availability of this 55 Gallon Drum of Lube"Maybe a purchase for a very open-minded shopping club?" she suggests. It comes with a pump, weight 522 pounds and costs $1,235.94, which seems a bit steep, but the shipping is free so maybe it all works out. There are only "new" tubs available, which is probably for the best.

There are some semi-funny reviews over there--not anywhere near as good as the ones for the BIC Cristal For Her Pen (if you haven't seen them, go there at once) --and I am ashamed to admit that I laughed at one recommending the lube tub as being perfect for a session of schtupping the old, and presumably vaginally arid, Helen Thomas.

In case you're wondering, I just looked up the veteran newswoman to see if she was dead and she's not (Good news, Helen!), so I don't feel quite as bad. However, I don't want to malign her. Maybe ol' Helen is a tight and slick as...well, a Helen Thomas. "Oh God, watching you slide that Origami male condom on in 2.8 seconds is making me so...fucking...wet. Helen Thomas wet."

4. Monsanto and Sex Blog

I have a new piece up at DAME magazine, Monsanto: Six Truths and a Lie.  It's about the various dickish things Monsanto has done, which, upon researching, were actually more numerous and hideous than I'd ever dreamed.  Go on over and comment and/or share via Facebook or Twitter if you're feeling Fight the Powerish.

xoxoxo
jill

(umbrella image)

The Return of Reader Mail Friday, featuring "Insane Monster Bush"

"Did you mail that letter to Emma yet?"

1. The Russians like their Mom Porn

This is why I love my readers so. One among you, Tim, forwarded me a link from PornMD, which is a porn search engine where dear Tim coulda been looking up any weird-ass thing he desired, including such videos as "Bianca's Insane Monster Bush" or "This Ass Ain't So New Anymore."

But what tweaked his fancy was a nerdy sociological chart, Global Internet Porn Habits Infographic. There, you can click on a state or country and learn brain-clogging information such as "monster cock (gay)" is the second most popular search term in Kenya. Or that the more racist a southern state seems, the more likely "ebony" will be the most popular porn. Or that the people of the Czech Republic have a thing for "castrated shemales" and Icelanders like "prostate massage."

I also learned that it was a bad idea to click on the term "old man porn." Though, in hindsight, that probably should have been self-evident.

2. Happiness is a Warm Bum

Not sure what "healing" implies.

Meanwhile, lovely reader Christina sent in The 10 Worst Products for Men Ever Created which included such products--attention people of Iceland--the Prostate Gland Warmer. Apparently you stick the pointy end up your bum and the light bulb is there to...I don't know...to indicate to others that you've fired up the prostate warmer yet again?

Wrote Luis at Cracked: "We were rather discouraged to find out that the light bulb was not activated solely by the mighty electrical currents generated by a human rectum like a potato in a 4th grade science fair project." Indeed. I also kind of want the light to make that little sound Rudolph's nose makes when it lights up, but I think the Prostate Warmer technology of 1925 was not quite there.

3. "Hey Emma"

Finally, in response to the Vagina Panty! labiaplasty post, A MALE READER wrote in shouty caps.:

HEY EMMA: I READ SOMEWHERE THERE IS AREA NEAR NEW ZEALAND WHERE THE WOMEN ALL HAVE EXTREMELY LONG INNER LIPS.  THEY ARE CALLED HOT-IN-TOTs.  THE ARTICLE CONTINUES TO STATE THAT THIS IS GENETIC, ESPECIALLY IN THIS AREA.  CAN YOU EXPLORE THIS AND TELL ME IF I WAS FOOLED OR IS THIS A TRUE FACT?

Dear MALE READER,
Thanks for sending me off on a tangent of learnin'. Yes, people of Khiokhoi tribe in Africa were called Hottentots by European immigrants, though that is considered to be a derogatory term. They did and do have elongated labia and some employ stretching techniques to further lengthen their lips and enhance their sexual pleasure and desirability.

According to Wikipedia which, you know, may or may not be accurate, Stephan Jay Gould said, "The labia minora, or inner lips, of the ordinary female genitalia are greatly enlarged in Khoi-San women, and may hang down three or four inches below the vulva when women stand, thus giving the impression of a separate and enveloping curtain of skin."

The Europeans were aroused and fascinated with these women and their bountiful lips but, instead of just accepting that fact and seeing where it led them, they decided that such labia clearly indicated moral depravity, racial inferiority and all-around sluttiness.

Right, she is the morally depraved one.

The most famous Khiokhoi was Sarah "Saartjie" Baartman who traveled around Europe in the 19th century as a freak show performer so people could gawk in moral superiority at her long (though veiled) lips as well as her buxom booty, another clear indication of her wanton sexuality.

But that was all a long, long time ago.  And certainly nothing like the porn watchers of Alabama and Mississippi surreptitiously searching for their "ebony" action, right?

xoxoxo

jill, or possibly, emma

Six-Word Sexual Memoir Contest Winner

Six: A little review might be in order

The Six-Word Sexual Memoir Contest spawned over 50 entries and the unsettling knowledge that some among us are not the brightest of pennies. Said duller pennies include the more than one person who submitted a Six-Word story that was more like six-ish words, and me for not only not catching the 5 and 7 word entries, but sending them out into the world via Twitter and Facebook. (I mentally put the person who sent in a 4 word story into an even lower category because, dude, that's not even close.) Thank you to the sharp-eyed Stacey and Andy, now respectively the new IBWMW Minister and Deputy Minister of Word Countery.

The winner of the purportedly very charming Butterfly Bliss vibrator (courtesy of Good Vibrations) is:  Samantha.

The Butterfly Bliss and friend

Yes, I know I said I'd choose randomly because I'm not gonna judge art, blah blah blah, but here's Samantha's entry:

He is broken; I am frustrated.

So yes, obviously Samantha must win. But there were a ton (equivalent to 47 pounds, metrically) of great entries. Here are some of my favorites, but do go back and check out the original post if you want to see them all. 

Ophelia said...
Silent success, as dorm mate snored

Sandra Davies said...
Ignorance, insufficient imagination: inescapable, lifelong tedium.

Lizzies Valentine said...
precocious preteen found jewish erotica: eureka!

not exactly "Saint" Michael said...
Lonely, awkward. Learned women, happy now.

Anonymous said...
More often than not: my hand.

Yinna said...
After 30 seconds: "OH!...shit. Sorry"

Anonymous said...
involuntary virgin until marriage, always horny.

MySS said...
Good loving gone bad, New lover

Christina said...
Twenties, eh. Thirties, oh! Forties, YEA!

Just a girl said...
Multi-orgasmic. Need I say more?

tineke said...
Nice warm-up, too short, almost came :-(

lgettings said...
Experimentation nearly kills me. Lesson learned!

Stacey Shelton said...
Boys or girls?? I chose both.

Indolent said...
Too shy for reality; reads erotica.

Highly sexual woman said...
I am a slut. Love it!

Dicky Carter said...
No orgasm again, she buys dildo.

Wendy said...
Babies first, then bliss: Second marriages!

L said...
olfactory susceptibility drives brief inadvisable affairs.

fitzlurker said...
One spouse; too many other women.

Anonymous said....
Fake my orgasms, even when alone.

Anonymous said...
Online dating too frustrating. Home masturbating.


xoxox
jill

p.s. If you see one above with a non-six amount of words, please be my guest, and dub yourself an Honorary IBWMW Minister of Word Countery. Any sea captain can help you fill out the proper forms.

Contest: Write a Six-Word Sexual Memoir

6 words: See-though partner kinda freaking me out.

Now that we've mastered the delicate art of bad erotic haiku, we now move onto the Six-Word Memoir. The six-word memoir was popularized by Smith Magazine spurred by a challenge Hemingway was reportedly given to tell a story in six words. He wrote: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." (Although since Hemingway was known to leave his stories at a good stopping point so he'd be inspired the next day, perhaps the first day's draft read: "For sale: baby shoes, never...")  I told my 11-year-old about the six-word stories and she went off to her room, coming back with "Party after war--no one came." 

So yes, you can go all dark like Papa and my dear daughter, or you can take it whatever direction you'd like. My instructions are just this: write your sexual memoir in just six words.

The winner, chosen randomly, because who the fuck am I to judge your Art, man, will be announced Tuesday March 19.

The prize is this Play-Doh-looking Butterfly Bliss Silicone Waterproof Vibrator courtesy of Good Vibrations. This g-spot intensive, plus outer stimulation set-up, according to my sex toy-selling friend, is good. Damn good. So you might wanna work for this one. Or if you'd rather just buy your way into it, click here.

Leave entries below as a comment or drop me a line at: jillhamilton001@gmail.com.

xoxox
jill

(photo source: Lady Cheeky)