Dopamine, The Cruel Bitch Mistress

If you'll open your books to where we left off the other day...we talking about the exquisite agony of The Crush. The crush, as you recall, is where we basically become dreamy fuckheads, walking ids powered by the hideous/delicious combo of single-mindedness, spaciness, magnanimity to your fellow humans ("Everyone is so awesome!"), hateable neediness, and general giddiness alternating with sudden despair--all set to the constant backdrop of the throb of unquenched sexual desire.

As reader can't keep anything to myself put it:

Crushes are torture, but the most delicious kind of torture. They make you realize what a masochist you really are. It's such a fun feeling though when your insides are squirming and you're smiling at random people like an idiot because you're thinking about them again and your jaw hurts from smiling so hard/much.

If you are suffering thusly right now, please know that you're not acting like such a pitiful lovesick idiot because you're inherently weak or out of your fucking head, but because cruel, cruel dopamine is totally screwing with you. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, "a kind of natural drug associated with the expectation of a reward that brings us pleasure," writes Sheril Kirshenbaum in The Science of Kissing. Dopamine can start fucking you up even during a first kiss. Writes Kirshenbaum,

Spiking during a passionate kiss, dopamine is responsible for the rush of elation and craving, and can also result in obsessive thoughts that many of us experience in association with a new romance--almost like an addiction.

I'm sorry, did she say "almost like"? Because dopamine is involved with stimulating the mesolimbic reward system (Mmmm, you like it when I talk to you all scientifically, don't you?), the part of the brain involved with virtually all of the addictive drugs. Wheee!

It primes us to make us want more, making us feel energized. Some people pumping lots of dopamine even lose their appetites, or feel that they cannot fall asleep--not surprisingly, the same 'symptoms' commonly described when "falling in love."

So maybe you're not in love, maybe you're just high on dopamine, you friggin' junkie. Which can go either way, depending if your ardor is returned. Writes the delightful Helen Fisher in Why We Love:

Because romantic love is such a euphoric "high," because this passion is exceedingly difficult to control, and because it produces craving, obsession, compulsion, distortion of reality, emotional and physical dependence, personality change, and loss of self-control, many psychologists regard love as an addiction--a positive addiction when your love is returned, a horribly negative fixation when your love is spurned and you can't let go.

If you don't get your love fix, well, it's not good. The suffering includes all kinds of sucky withdrawal symptoms like "depression, crying, spells, anxiety, insomnia, loss of appetite (or binge eating), irritability and chronic loneliness," reports Fisher.

Fisher continues, and I suspect she based her research solely on my diary entries from 1987: "Like all addicts, the lover then goes to unhealthy, humiliating, even physically dangerous lengths to procure their narcotic."

Which is not good, either. (Well, it's sorta good.)

Our takeaways from all this?  Hmmmmm, I guess, if you're going to get all hepped up on dopamine over someone, at least try to make sure that they might be someone who'll like you back. Which, you know, is totally easy. (Helpful hint: After years of painstaking research--ahem, Nobel committee--I can say with a fair degree of certainty that emotionally unavailable, meanish, and your basic garden-variety insane dudes are not, to my great surprise, good choices. You're welcome.)

Anyway, after awhile nature finally gives us a break. Because even a good dopamine ride can be, well, a bit much. I mean there's only so much time you can spend in a state of constant arousal, contemplating such uber-focused matters as the insanely lickable curve of a loved one's particularly enchanting body part. "Our biology places a limit on how long the 'high' conferred by dopamine can last," writes Kirshenbaum. "Studies have shown that levels of this intoxicating neurotransmitter decrease as we become more accustomed to a romantic partner, which might be why sexual desire tends to wane with the same person over time." (See also: the Coolidge Effect in "Our Genes Can Be Heartless Puppeteers").

On the other hand, it also doesn't seem reasonable, or at all fun, to avoid excessive, stupid, sexy, out-of-your-fucking-mind passion, for fear of getting the dopamine monkey on our backs. As "Slow Sex: The Art and Craft of The Female Orgasm" author Nicole Daedone's current, possibly grammatically problematic, Facebook status says, "Desire is there to be lived inside of."

I will await your tales from the front....

xoxo
jill

[addendum: As the unrelentingly brilliant and hilarious Betty Fokker points out below in the comments, the sweeter, more mellow high of attachment and bonding chemicals conveniently kick in just as the harsher high of the dopamine fades.]

[addendum 2: My dear friend Tricia sent me this bad-ass article on the fleetingness and horrible unsustainability of such passion.]

(photo: Marlo Broekmans, Photo extraite de la serie "Autoportraits")

What I Do When I Leave You

Hey gorgeous,

Even though I've been away hustling words to afford enough Lexapro so I don't harm myself or others, I'm still thinking about you. All the damn time.

Let's just get to it then...

Disembodied Labia

I was working on a story about sex toy accessories* and came upon something that wasn't technically an accessory, but I had to tell someone (you!). I'd already seen a dick casting kit that you use to make a vibrating dildo out of your favorite penis (oh yeah) but what struck me was the ad for the Clone-A-Pussy Molding Kit.

Clone-A-Pussy seemed good for equal opportunity reasons (ERA Yes!) but apparently pussy-casting technology is not yet as advanced as for their dicky brethren. In fact, it kinda sucks. Mentions the site in not nearly bold enough font:

"Please Note: Your new pussy replica is a shallow likeness, without a hole, and not designed for ...ahem.... insertion."

So you can't even fuck it. It just sits there, like a homeless dried peach, but even less functional. Perhaps sensing the complete uselessness of such a product, the site offers this weak plan:

"Use the mold over and over again and create your own treasured collection of life-like vaginas."

(Warning: displaying "treasured collection" of disembodied labia pretty much insures you will never get in anyone's panties ever again.)

In quite related news, Clone-a-Pussy is now on clearance.

Disembodied Labia, Part 2:

Speaking of disembodied labia, as one does, I found this unsettling photo of the RealDoll labia repair kit.  I both love and hate how the labia is just sittin' there all unsexy and out-of-context, next to the tongue depressors and glue. It also makes me a bit cringey, maybe how like men feel when they see another man being kicked in the balls.

I showed this pic to my husband, because I cruelly enjoy making him uncomfortable, and he said "I kind of don't want to know why you might need that." Which is a pretty reasonable point.

My Cheatin' Heart
Here's some stuff you might like that wrote for other people (don't worry, they mean nothing to me and I was thinking about you the whole time.)
--An AlterNet story on the delightful dick pic judging site Critique My Dick Pic.
--A Cosmo piece I wrote on how to give a corkscrew blowjob, including the word "fucking," a possible suggestion to stick a sparkler up your bum and/or suck off household vegetables and a random Rankin-Bass reference is now running in friggin.....Redbook magazine. Yes, 70s mom mag, Redbook. I no longer understand the world.
  
Need You So Bad
I am working on a piece about the best porn sites "for women" and wondering what you'd recommend. I'm not entirely sure what constitutes a womanly site, but I guess to me it's something where--if there is a woman, or women, involved--they are doing things an actual woman with normal sexual responses would do, or at least would want to do. Where would you send me? (And don't tell me about that book Porn For Women where men are vacuuming, unloading the dishwasher, etc... cause that it's not actually that funny--or sexually arousing either. There's a big difference between "sexy" and just "nice things to do.")

~~~~~~~~~

Okay, lovey, I'm gonna leave you here for a bit, but here's a new bowl of water and a nice fresh leaf.  And don't forget to tell me about your girl-friendly porn!

xoxo
jill

*Hey, reader who bought Taming My Teddy Bear--An Erotic Story (Plushie Fetish Book 1) via the IBWMW Amazon link in the right margin (thanks!), you may enjoy the part about Jumbo Wolf with a SPH. 

7 Things I Learned at Homemade-Sex-Toys

Homemade Sex Toys is a site for people who like DIY projects. But what sets these folks apart from regular old Squaresville do-it-yourself-ers is that, instead of thinking, "Can I fix the broken breadmaker?" they think, "Can I have sex with the broken breadmaker?"

Now, I am utterly arts and crafts deficient, so I have a healthy fear having sex with anything I made. And near as I can tell, none of my 6th grade-era macramed plant hangers or bicentennial rug hook projects seem the least bit fuckable.

Still, I admire a can-do attitude, so I wandered around the site awhile instead of doing any number of more productive things. The site wasn't nearly as entertaining as I'd hoped, but I did learn a few things. To wit:

1.  People of both genders can have sexual relations with a cucumber. (New slogan for Association of Cucumber Growers? Send memo.) I think we all know what women can do with a particularly sexy cucumber, but men, if so inclined, can hollow out the insides of a cuke (not one of those long skinny kinds) then make sweet sweet love to it. Important: Do not fall in love with your cucumber because this is a relationship that must remain brief (see also: composting).

2.  Men can also have sex with a whole host of household objects including a heated melon, balloons, a doctored-up toilet paper roll and a bean bag chair. (Note to self: avoid bean bag chair). Women can have sex with a blanket, a cell phone (There is indeed an app for that), and a toothbrush.

3. To my surprise, there's a whole section on fucking toothbrushes. When I got to the heading labeled simply, "Toothbrush in ass," I had to click away because I was too busy running to get my toothbrush--No! NOT to put "in ass"!--but to grab it to make sure it never leaves my side. I am going to insist that my toothbrush take an immediate vow of chastity.

4. The holes on blow-up sex toys are sealed with pull tab-like bits of plastic "for hygienic and safety reasons." (Warning: removed tabs may alert the blow-up doll's strict parents that you two did more than just "hang out at the mall.")

5.  You can make your own solar powered vibrator. I like solar power and *mumbling a bit here* yes, fine, I like vibrators, but when it got to talk of "soldering" and diagrams like this...

...I knew I'd rather just pony up the cash and get a vibrator made by vibrator-making professional. Besides part of the whole "solar" thing is that it uses the sun, meaning, you'd be gettin' down with your jimmy-rigged, questionably-soldered solar vibe out in the damn yard.

6. There are people who enjoy inserting a banana into their loved one's personal sexual orifice, then eating said banana.  I am not one of those people. Again, I like bananas, I like my loved ones, and yet...

7.  And finally, and perhaps most importantly, this information: "Jerking off with Icy Hot or Ben Gay will put you in a world of hurt." Which--although I now strangely intrigued by the idea--I will probably just take their word on.

xoxo
jill

(photo by Dennis Hopper.  Image source:  http://lacontessa.tumblr.com/post/3253789357/dennis-hopper-photo-photography-bikini-1960s)

What Was Your Formative Smut?

"Is it okay if the girls watch 'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt'"? my friend texted pre-kid sleepover.

Considering my 13 year old had just seen the majority of the Louie episode where Louis CK ends up in a sex toy store, yeah, Kimmy was fine. (In my defense, I kept thinking the Louie ep was somehow gonna become more appropriate, like, any second. This, despite the fact that the characters were talking about vibrators and it was Louis CK, for fuck's sake. #MagicalThinking)

"I was reading Harold Robbins, Jackie Collins and Xaviera Hollander at their age," noted my friend. "The basement bookshelf was where my mom kept all the smutty books. The Story of O. Lady Chatterley's Lover. Portnoy's Complaint. I spent entire summers down there. She. Had. No. Idea."

You see, my pretties, back before the Internet, when you wanted sexual information, you had to cobble together what you could. It involved a combination of covert reading sessions in back aisles of book stores, excavations under the beds of pervy neighborhood dads (that is, all dads) and checking out the bookshelves of your parents' more free-thinking friends. My own sex ed was an unwieldy mash-up of:

--Sidney Sheldon novels
--Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex: But Were Afraid to Ask
--Where Did I Come From? in which 1977-era cartoon grown ups offer mildly helpful/icky information such as "The man pushes his penis up and down in the woman's vagina, so that both the tickly parts are being rubbed against each other. It's like scratching an itch but a lot nicer."
 --Fear of Flying
--Playboy, Penthouse and the rare Hustler
--The Sensuous Woman by "J"  (at the time her advice on giving proper head and the like was apparently so scandalous she couldn't even use her whole name.)
 --National Geographics (there is no such thing as a single issue of National Geographic--they travel only in packs) for boobic studies.

And yes, Xaviera Hollander, aka The Happy Hooker How strange to realize I'd gotten a ton of my sexual information from a hooker. A happy one, but still.

I studied these books like the Quran, looking for clues on how to behave once naked with another--and to figure out what the hell words like "necking" and "petting" meant. (Actually that's probably not what people are studying the Quran for.) My furtive peeks at these books, for better or worse, shaped my sexual worldview and informs my life even today. (Thank you, "J," you little hussy, for the "silken swirl.")

So yeah, was it the same for you? What was your formative smut? Where'd you find it? What did you learn?  Did any salient passages stick with you to guide your later sexual self? 

Here's the contest part: 

To enter, tell me what your formative smut was. That's it! From among your answers, I'll pick a winner, semi-randomly, depending on the vagaries of my mood. Deadline is Wednesday, May 27. [edit:  contest has ended. To see winner, click here.] You can comment below, use the comment form at right, or email me at jillhamilton001@gmail.com.

The winner gets a choice of:

-- a $50 gift certificates to Good Vibrations, fine purveyors of sex toys.

OR

--a Pearly Waterproof Rechargeable Silicone Vibrator ($100 value) also donated by Good Vibrations.

"So....wanna fuck?"

Sex Museums!
My story "9 Amazing Sex Museums That'll Blow Your Mind" is running on AlterNet, featuring the highly important information that at NYC's Museum of Sex, there's an G-spot exhibit that's a Hall of Mirrors Maze. If you find your way to the spot, you can move your hands around to play the theremin. Which is genius.

Donations!

"I had to donate! Otherwise I was just exploiting your blog for sex," Phebie wrote, sending money I plan to blow on household electricity. Thank you, Phebie!

"It's about time I paid a subscription fee for the wonderfulness that is you delivered straight to my inbox!" wrote Ada, who signed up via PayPal to make automatic monthly donations, thus forcing me to change the honorary title for Robert, formerly IBWMW Minister of Being the Blog's Only Patron.

To Phebie, Ada, Robert, all those who've donated before, plus anyone who shares posts (like Juanita, who bravely shares practically every post, even the ones with unseemly words like "VAGINA" in the title) and the tons of people who provide smart/funny/deep comments, you keep me out of the Pit of Despair and more like Pit of Despair Adjacent, which is a much nicer area.

Now go think of your formative smut and write me back.

xoxo
jill

(Photo source)

Sex Museums!

Hey, gorgeous. My story on sex museums ran a week ago or so on AlterNet, but if you're too lazy to click over, I'm bringing it here to you--much like a cat brings its half-dead animal victims to your doorstep.

There were no crushingly mean comments this time around, though one commenter complained that there was no mention of the Icelandic Phallogical Museum, even though there, like, was. In the second paragraph. I tried to feel miffed and insecure about it, but it just wasn't up to the level of the chick who yelled at me: "You have Numb Vagina Syndrome!" 

Anyway, here you go. I killed it just for you:

Sure, there are undeniable pleasures to seeing a nicely curated Natural History Museum exhibit on African savanna animals, but sex museums offer a whole different spin on the museum experience.

Risque exhibits like a giant inflatable boob bounce house (the Museum of Sex) or displays of the sex toys our pervy ancestors stuck up their primitive orifices (several museums--our ancestors were a randy lot) mean lots of visitors and sex museums are popping up all over the world. Even Iceland has one—the Icelandic Phallological Museum, featuring more than 215 penises and “penile parts” from mammals, including Homo Sapiens.

Here's a list of some of the world's best, if you happen to be in the area. Just don't call yourself a sex tourist, 'cause that's a whole different thing.

Museum of Sex, New York City

Around since 2002, MoSex puts a cheeky spin on sex ed, sexual history and erotic art. Running now is FUNLAND: Pleasures & Perils of the Erotic Fairground, an art installation by conceptual artist duo Bompas & Parr, featuring carnival attractions so guests can “contemplate the sexual subtext of carnivals.” (“Carnival sexual subtext” being for most people, maybe...zero?) Still, it's clever, silly and arty with grown-up fun like the boob bounce house (you can really jump in it), Grope Mountain (a body parts climbing wall) and a hall of mirrors maze leading to a “grotto” representing a woman's g-spot. Which is genius. Once inside the grotto, you can manipulate your hands to play the theremin, which is even more genius.

Sex Machines Museum, Prague

The Sex Machines Museum is small, but has about 200 gadgets showing how humans can't leave well enough alone when it comes to sex. See devices designed to make sex better or at least more interesting, like a racy 1880s chamber pot with a mirror or a chair with strategic holes to facilitate oral sex. There are also contraptions designed to block out sex entirely, like a German chastity belt from 1580 and a really horrible looking electric (!) anti-masturbation device from 1915 (Which, as you know completely wiped out the worldwide scourge of masturbation forever hence. Jk.) If you need to take a breather to balance your humours, step into the theater to screen 1920s porn from Spain, some of world's earliest.

MusEros, St. Petersburg, Russia

“Know everything about what others are silent!” says MusEros' (translated) site, referring to the Soviet penchant for secrecy in, well, pretty much everything. In the History Room (“You will know at first hand that there was sex in the Soviet Union!”), there is a special sex chair reportedly used by Catherine the Great. The Modern Room showcases human ingenuity via a seesaw festooned with strategically placed dildos, a chair rigged up with a naughtily-situated feather-covered spinning wheel, and a glass case of blow-up dolls including men, women, and sheep, waiting with mouths permanently agape ready for your love. The Erotic Culture room has sex artifacts from all over the world and fun facts like “For a long time Koreans believed that the best way to turn a man on was to prick his root of penis with a needle.”

Erotic Heritage Museum, Las Vegas

The newly reopened Erotic Heritage Museum makes good on any expected Vegas showiness with exhibits like props from a “Star Wars” porn parody, a Ron Jeremy fortune telling machine and an extensive chart on all Game of Thrones sex acts. They have historical artifacts like Chinese figurines from the 1700s doing “it” and vintage porn posters plus pieces of more dubious educational value like a penis made of pennies. You can also get tickets to Puppetry of the Penis, which you will have to look up yourself—though be forewarned that is sometimes referred to as “genital origami.”

World Erotic Art Museum, Miami

The World Erotic Art Museum was started by the late Naomi Wilzig, a spunky erotic art collector/grandmother and features of 4000 works, from 300 BC to the present. It's a lowbrow/highbrow jumble with Chinese shunga books (erotic art offered as gifts to new brides on their wedding night) and erotic drawings by acclaimed artists workin' blue including Rembrandt, Picasso and Klimt happily coexisting with more kitschy stuff like a four-poster bed with, naturally, penis posts. Guests also dig WEAMs gift shop fare like 1970s/80s Mexican sex-themed comic books for $5 and an especially good collection of postcards.

Venustempel/Sexmuseum, Amsterdam

Amsterdam's Sexmuseum, may not be the most comprehensive museum of its kind, but it's the longest operating sex museum, first opening its doors in 1985 with a small display of 19^th century erotic objects. It's since expanded to three floors (albeit narrow Netherlands-size floors) of sexy detritus including fetish gear, a flashing mannequin showing his mannequin naughty bits and historical artifacts like a 16^th century chastity belt. Admission is cheap and you'll know the place by the giant bronze penis/seemingly irresistible photo op spot out front.

Museum of Eroticism, Paris

This wide and varied collection is based on the huge erotic art collection Alain Plumey and Jo Khalifa amassed over 30 years. Their devotion resulted in 7 floors of over 2000 pieces including Aztec fertility idols, Nepalese temple carvings and some Japanese wooden dildo/shoe combo which seems unfit for either purpose. Currently running is an exhibit devoted to the history of brothels from the late 19^th century until 1946, including “Polisson et Galipettes,” a collection of freshly-restored erotic silent film shorts made in France between 1905 and 1930 used to 'warm up' the patrons of Paris's famous brothels.

Jeju Loveland, South Korea

Jeju Loveland bills itself as a sexual theme park, but it's more like an erotic sculpture garden with over 140 naked statues going far beyond typical “statue mode” of standing around looking dignified. Loveland is located on popular honeymoon destination Jeju Island and was created to help newlyweds lose their inhibitions by wandering among statues in various states of fuckery and a lovely penis garden. (No figures on how many newlyweds leave with even more inhibitions.)

There's also a Museum of Sex and Health on site, with a mashup of sex education films, novelties like a hands-on "masturbation cycle” and sciencey human body part models alongside less anatomically-correct pieces like a penis with wings and a penis tail and, for good measure, a regular penis in the usual place.

Antique Vibrator Museum, San Francisco

“Your great-great-grandmother might have owned a vibrator” notes Antique Vibrator Museum's web site, in probably not their most alluring enticement. Still, the Antique Vibrator Museum, located at the Polk location of seminal (er...) sex toy store Good Vibrations, offers a fascinating history of hysteria, the vibrators designed to help relieve this rampant “problem” and vintage ads that hedged around the benefits of the vibe without saying exactly where women could put it. ("American Vibrator ... can be used by yourself in the privacy of dressing room or boudoir, and furnish every woman with the essence of perpetual youth.")

Highlights include a 1906 Detwiller pneumatic vibrator that ran on (ack!) compressed gas and a Magic Rotating Disc with its box showing its tasteful use on non-crotchal areas like the feet, back and oddly, the upper arm. There's also Dr. Macaura's Pulsocon Blood Circulator, a turn-of-the-century hand crank number that never caught on, perhaps due to hand crank twisting motions meeting voluminous bushes of 1800s-era ladies. The Good Vibes site also offers a virtual tour of vibrators, starting with the extra scary ones from 1869-1920. 

(Photo: Salvador Dali, Paris, 1938.)

Formative Smut Contest Winner! Plus (Arguably) The Most Delightful Entry Which, In a Cruel Twist of Fate, Did Not Win

"Before I was out of the 5th grade, I had read Judy Blume's 'Wifey,' repeatedly perused a number of Hustlers, and watched (and re-watched a few times) 'Clockwork Orange.' I turned out OK, but I don't recommend that course of study for anyone," read MattM's excellent, yet also cruelly non-winning, entry in the What Was Your Formative Smut? contest.

There were so many good entries that, in the end, I just went with first responder @empiregrrl. For empriregrrl's promptness, she gets her choice of the highly fuckable Pearly Waterproof Vibrator from Good Vibrations OR a $50 gift card, also provided by Good Vibes.*

So yes, completely loved everyone's entries and it was so good to know I wasn't the only Jr. Perv skulking around in the back aisles of book stores looking for dirty information I might one day need. Back then--I said, sounding like a fucking grandma (a phrase which, now that I write it, sounds like it could be interpreted another way entirely)--such activities were absolutely not discussed. I think this was especially true for girls, but maybe for everyone. I felt like what I was doing was wrong, pretty shameful and I was probably the only one in the world who did such things. I never mentioned any of it to anyone, ever.

(Until now, that is, when I'll tell all of y'all, plus any weirdo who happens to wander in via some fucked up Google search [like today's Misguided Googler who arrived via "Demi Moore anal." Sorry to displease! Come again any time!])

I hope it's different for curious kids today. No one should feel like a creepy weirdo because they want to know about a damn basic fact of human existence. I mean, we don't keep the Knowledge of Eating secret, forcing kids to sneak online to see how to cut a steak or something. (Although if the secret food porn was like regular porn, it would show cutting the steak easily with a butter knife, the steak would be moaning "ohyeahohyeah" etc...) My point is, we really need to stop being such babies about sex.

We *may* be getting better about this. The sex ed at my daughter's middle school, according to my interpretations of the giggling from the back seat during carpool, actually shows kids how to put on a condom. Though, weirdly, they demonstrate this using a pear instead of a more obviously penile-looking fruit (Banana, I thought you had this gig!) I can see this causing further confusion as girls faced with their first set of dick n' balls try to decide which part looks more pear-like.

At the end of the class, my 13 year old daughter will be coloring a picture of "The Uncircumcised Penis" which I plan to display on my refrigerator because I think the idea of a penis coloring page so perfectly captures the awkward, uncertain space that a 13 year old kid occupies--no longer really into coloring, but sure as fuck not ready for "The Uncircumcised Penis."

Anyway, like I said, I loved all your entries, especially this one from Keppie. It's kinda long, but if you have the time, it's totally worth it--funny, true and containing the phrase "he thrust his man-meat into her pulsing velvet cavity."

Love you hard. That is, a lot. Not, you know, hard. Though that's pretty good too.

xoxox
jill

The Guide(s) to Good Sex
by Keppie

Dr. Ruth's Guide to Good Sex, by Dr. Ruth Westheimer

The huge red and black block print on the cover gave nothing away other than the title, but wasn't that enough? Good sex, it screamed in inch-high letters. Guide. A book that was confident enough to put that on the cover had to deliver. In the late eighties, I was still naive enough to know I didn't want to be naive anymore, and this book promised a good solid start in losing some of that innocence—and in a practical way, to boot! It was written by a doctor, so it had to be a reliable source. Of course I had sat through “the talk” with my mother and the requisite basic sex-ed course in school (I was of an age that it was still given on filmstrip. Filmstrip!), but I was ready to learn more than the fundamentals. I wanted to know ... what it was no one was telling me. In short, the good stuff. The fun stuff.

I had recently begun reading romance novels (known charmingly and colloquially as bodice-rippers) for the informative smut to be gleaned from them. Janelle Taylor, Danielle Steele, Johanna Lindsay, to name a few. I quickly learned to recognize which authors were “soft porn”: i.e., mostly kissing and some canoodling scenes before cutting back to the plot (yes, there is some plot in those things), and which authors featured all-out X-rated passages, with the whole deed spelled out in lurid detail. The thing was, as a young reader, it wasn't quite explicit enough. I say that because while the scenes were invariably exciting, the flowery language used phrases like “he thrust his man-meat into her pulsing velvet cavity”. While this is undeniably specific and leaves no room for doubt about what is happening, as I reached an age where I was starting to wonder how I would one day fit into this scenario, it left me more and more terrified. Did I want man meat shoved at me? Did I want to pulse like that? Could I? I looked at the boys in my band class and in the hallways of my school who I had known for years and on whom I'd developed crushes, fleetingly and somewhat regularly since puberty, but I couldn't link liking them to what I was reading in those novels. Man-meat indeed.

Beyond the somewhat skeptical education they endeared, romance novels had left me with another, less tangible yearning: the idea that I wanted to be part of a relationship like the ones I was reading about. Apparently, relationships that were blissful, romantic and ended happily also included man-meat and pulsing velvet cavities. Therefore, if I wanted to be happy, I'd better figure it all out. Since no one in band class was offering to help me, I had only my own ingenuity on which to rely. As a time-tested nerd, I turned to the resources that had never failed me in the past.

Which brings us back to Dr. Ruth.

I don't recall where I found the copy of it; I know I would have been too mousy to have checked it out from the library. It is far more likely that it was wedged on the shelves in our musty basement collection of rag-tag books for some reason. Wherever I acquired it, I squirreled it away under my Laura Ashley pillow sham for further inspection when I was sure not to be disturbed. Reading romance novels is one thing; you can always claim that you like the story. People may or may not believe you, but there it is. There is only one reason you'd be reading a guide to good sex, and it isn't for the plot. My underage cheeks burned at the notion that anyone would guess I was even interested. I cracked the cover and dived in, waiting to be overcome with tips to make me a sex goddess.

Suffice it to say that the book was a major disappointment. It was a somewhat dry medical text that was directed, predictably, at people who needed practical advice about something that they had been doing for a long time and, presumably, no longer found even the word “sex” titillating the way a teenage girl did. It was sex advice in print form as if your eighty-year old no-nonsense German grandma sat you down and told you the best way to bake a kuchen. Which is pretty much exactly what it was. At an age where the power of rampant hormones hijacked me into raging arousal for Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (God, why?), I got nothing out of it. It was a disaster.

The next and last book in the my misadventures of my sexual awakening came not long after the Dr. Ruth incident. I had gone back to the solace of my romance novels, and I had recently found one at a bargain bookstore for a good deal. It wasn't the kind I normally read—I preferred wild time-travel fantasies or romps through the middle ages—as this one didn't have any swoon-worthy cover art featuring Fabio and some half-naked lady. It was a woman's face, clearly from present times, which was kind of a bummer. In its favor, however, it did feature glittery purple letters for the title, which read “Working”. At the price of only a quarter, how could I refuse? As an avid reader, I knew I'd be through it in a matter of a few hours. I bought it.

The book that lives in infamy is “Working” and in tiny letters, had I read more closely, says: “My Life as a Prostitute” by Dolores French with Linda Lee. I did not notice the subtitle until I had it home, wherein my eyes practically popped out of my head. As I mentioned earlier, though, I was an avid reader and curiosity got the better of me, so I began to read.

“Holy shit”, I would have said, had I not been a goody-two-shoes. Then “Holy shit” again and some more for good measure throughout the memoir, which was an extremely frank (and funny) recounting of this woman's years in the business of prostitution (not a surprise, since it clearly stated that on the damn cover). As a side note, she later goes on to become the president of HIRE (Hooking is Real Employment), campaigning for women's rights and becoming a real activist for the cause, but to be fair I was not interested in the empowering part of her story at the time. I was interested/horrified by the descriptions of sex, which were plentiful and detailed. In a way the romance novels were not, I might add. No man-meat to be found here.

Instead, my naiveté fled during the course of 200-some pages as I read about people doing things to each other that, in my brief and inadequate reading of Dr. Ruth and Danielle Steele, I had no idea was even an option for people to do each other. I read about people peeing on each other in bathtubs while being dressed up as cats and eating tins of cats food (why? why?), sex on canola-oiled up sheets, men who liked to smell farts, men who could only come if they were being spit on ... my brain rebelled. What if Adam from band class wanted me to smell his fart? Oh my God! But I was also undeniably turned on by all of the things I was reading. What was happening? Why was I so turned on by the clearly disturbing things I was reading? Was I a weirdo? Was I going to grow up to be a hooker, too? Cue: existential crisis in suburbia, big time.

"My 7 Most Erotic Experiences," Guest Post from Erica

After finding herself divorced, in her 50s and recovering from a tepid sex kind of marriage, Erica created A Sexy Woman of a Certain Age to explore, celebrate and encourage sexual confidence in older broads. Who, I will remind you again, are sexy as fuck.

Her blog is smart, sexy and real and I admire Erica in all kinds of ways, not the least of which is that her Twitter handle is @OhGodErica. (Is there really any better sequence of words than "Oh God (insert your name here)"?  But, you know, with your actual name instead of "insert your name here.")

If you haven't been over to her blog, do so at once.  But first, have a lot at Erica's "My 7 Most Erotic Experiences," take a shower, then head over after you look presentable.

******
Erotic: of, devoted to, or tending to arouse sexual love or desire.
I live on the tenth floor of a high-rise and my bedroom windows give me a wide view into the rooms of the surrounding apartment buildings. I love the feeling of sun on my skin so I tend to leave the blinds open while I get dressed in the morning. I’m a bit of an exhibitionist — shocker, I know! — so I also tend to leave the blinds open when I get undressed at night.

One evening I was traipsing around my bedroom in my lingerie looking at the neighboring building. Directly across from me was a man standing perfectly still at his window. Peering at me. There was too much distance between us to make out his face, but I could see his torso. It was shirtless, lean, and lovely. We stood like that for a bit, until a woman appeared behind him. He continued facing me and I felt a surge of warmth from my groin as I inhaled sharply. But the woman must have said something because he closed the blinds.

I stood there, irked that my erotic Rear Window fantasy had been cruelly yanked from under me. Ever since I’ve moved into the high rise, I’ve hoped to catch a glimpse of a couple in flagrante delicto.

And I’ve hoped that the man in that couple would watch me watch him.

* * *
Last Sunday morning I laid in bed sipping hot coffee and gazing out my sun-streaked bedroom window. I remembered the moment with the man across the street and wondered if he would ever indulge my voyeuristic inclinations. It was a such a brief snapshot in time, but one with a visceral pop in my erotic memory.

As I made my way to the bottom of my coffee mug, I thought about what makes some sexual experiences sexier than others. Sometimes it’s the level of emotional intimacy. Sometimes it’s the degree of novelty and risk. And sometimes it’s just an exquisite blend of pheromones: a profound chemistry with someone who, at first glance, might not even be someone you would normally choose to be with.

So before it was time to drag myself out of bed and dive into my weekend to-do pile, I decided to play a game with myself. I let my mind drift back over my sexual history and pick the first seven erotic memories that materialized — and that still left a palpable charge.

The Voyeur 
One summer afternoon when I was nine years old, I was doing underwater somersaults in a friend’s pool. When I came up for air, I saw my friend’s older sister french-kissing her boyfriend. They were kissing beautifully, passionately, oblivious to the gawking string-bean treading water nearby. I heard moans and murmurs. I knew I was witnessing something private, and I should turn away, but I was mesmerized. Whatever they were doing, I wanted it. Maybe not now, but someday.

That make-out session was soulful, and blazingly erotic. It is etched into my arousal template, a visceral blueprint for passion.

The Erotic Kiss 
I grew up in a university town. Every year at graduation time, high school kids would wall-vault their way onto campus, cavorting with drunken graduates and alumni during a three-day long bacchanal. The summer I was sixteen, I was desperately in love with a 15-year-old Adonis. Rumored to have lost his virginity at 13, he was a star athlete and a bad boy. Every girl wanted him. We had had an ongoing flirtation, and that balmy night, buoyed by beer and hash, we drifted from the pack. We stood in the middle of the quad, wondering where our friends had gone. I looked up to see him flashing that rogue smile as he drew me into him.

No one had ever kissed me like this. His lips and tongue moved expertly over mine, and I could feel his erection as he pushed his pelvis against me. Lurching footsteps and peals of laughter swirled around us as we melted into each other in a sensuous embrace that I hoped would never end. I wasn’t just aroused; I was transported. My body felt that it had merged with his. I had crossed over from garden-variety adolescent make-out sessions into an almost mystical realm of lust and tenderness.

We dated for a few weeks, but I wasn’t ready to surrender my virginity. He took his coke-can sized penis elsewhere, leaving me in a heartbroken heap.

Reader Mail: How to Tell Your Husband You've Been Faking It, Numb Vagina Syndrome and "I Saw This and Thought of You"

"Oh yeah, right there. Perfect."

So much to cover today. Hop aboard and hold on.

Backlash!
Two final spawns from my article on the Science, Sex and the Ladies doc and the oddly-controversial statement that most women need some kind of clitoral stimulation to come:

--First, reader "Allie" needs your advice!

"I hope this is anonymous. I am obsessed with your writing and views. I really want your advice even though I don't know you and you don't know me. I'm gonna get right to the dirt[y]:

I love my husband but he only makes me cum about 25% of the time we have sex. I've hinted and basically told him that I can really only cum when he rubs my clit. I really want him to read your article. I think he would finally get it. But I am also worried that there would be a fight because he might realize how often I've faked it to spare his ego...I love him and don't want to make him feel inferior even though that is not my intention. Do you have advice for me? What should I do or say?"

Got anything for her, brothers and sisters? 

Being Publicly Flogged--Not Nearly As Hot As It Sounds!
I went and looked (again!) at the comments on the above article even though that is always, 100% of the time, a terrible idea. However, this time there was a highlight, and that was the women who decided--quite on her own--that I what I was really saying was that a woman couldn't feel if a man was penetrating her. (Clearly, she doesn't know that I, like, live for that particular feeling.) Anyway, just before the comments closed forever and I couldn't respond, she started yelling at/toward me that I clearly had "Numb Vagina Syndrome," as I'm sure she would have done were we to meet in person.

She was quite insistent on her NVS diagnosis, despite the fact that I hadn't actually mentioned my own personal vagina. However, to be safe, I will ask my doctor to check me for Numb Vagina Syndrome. Though I think I'm okay, at least according to my medical book. Which I read in Braille, using my vagina.

Reader-Penned Books!
The Jezebel Effect: Why the Slut Shaming of Famous Queens Still Matters by perennial bad-ass/historical writer Kyra Cornelius Kramer is a smart fiery rant on how we throw the slut label on chicks for doing pretty much anything. I am in particular admiration of Kyra's skillful wielding of slut synonyms including "slammerkin" and "Tarty McHo, Mayor of Skeevyburg."

The Orgasm Rebellion by Frank Lingo, a former Kansas City Star columnist who wrote about environmental and social justice issues, is "an erotic historical novel set in 1899, when women went to doctors for treatment of 'hysteria.'" he writes. Women fight for equality and social justice--but with sex scenes.

Donations!
Thank you to this month's dear, dear donors who used the link there at the right to make sure I can maintain my Lexapro supply:  Dana, Sarah of Sarah's Silks and especially Robert, the IBWMW Minister of Being the Blog's Only Patron, who has set up an automatic donation to go through every damn month--even those months when I just put up lame ol' reruns due to existential crisis, despite aforementioned Lexopro use. Viva Dana, Sarah and Robert!

"I Saw This and Thought of You!"
That is, the subject line of any email I get whenever someone happens upon some weird/funny/completely fucked-up sexual thing. Lately, people kindly thought of me when seeing:

--A glass dildo you can put your dead loved one's ashes into and do dildo stuff with it (Tara)
--A permanent vibrator you can install in your vagina ("brilliant in theory but I'd be scared to try it out," says Christina.)
--3D printed sex toys  ("Think of the possibilities! So cool. Also potentially creepy, because a lot of public libraries and schools are trying to have 3D printers, which is how I ended up stumbling on the article. Still. So cool," writes A.)
--A knitted version of Kama Sutra positions, shown above (Carrie)
--8 Weird Porn Genres including one in which men post pics of cum-covered figurines. ("I'm surprised you didn't write this," says Cathya, who may or may not be dissing me.) 

Robert, Dana, Sarah--hope you got your money's worth. I'm off to check my vagina for cocks, chihuahuas or any other errant objects my Numb Vagina Syndrome may have caused me to overlook.

xoxo
jill
 
(photo News Dog Media)

Semen Strips are Still Not Candy, Vaginal Oppression, and other Reader Mail.

Grapes: A more suitable snack choice

--Semen Strips--Still Not Candy
"This stopped me dead in my tracks," wrote the apparently recovered William Quincy Belle, sending a screen shot showing IBWMW is the #1 hit on Google Canada for "semen strips are not candy." (Sadly, we still languish at number 3 here in the U.S.)

Still, I stand by the "not candy" statement regarding Masque--a kind of watermelon fruit-roll-up product that you place in your mouth before giving head to neutralize the taste of your lover's very Life Essence--despite the company's confusing assertion in their FAQs: 

"They are certainly not candy and were created for an intended purpose. However, we have many people in our office that eat them merely for the taste."

Which indicates to me less about semen strips' deliciousness and more that the Masque corporate offices are in dire, dire need of a decent vending machine.

--The Misguider Googler of the Day
The dear soul who found us via the search term "woman has fat camel toe vagina."  

--My Work Sullying Other Places
The brave and beautiful Erica at A Sexy Woman of a Certain Age is running my piece The Appeal of an Older Woman. She also called me a "debauched ninja" which I fucking love. Look for her piece about her 7 most erotic experiences appearing here anon.

My article about Trisha Borowicz's bad-ass film Science Sex and the Ladies and how it's pretty much biologically impossible for most women to reliably (or ever) come via p-in-v fuckery is currently running in Salon as The Simple Secret To Making Women Orgasm No One Understands and AlterNet as The Simple "Secret" to Making a Woman Orgasm That Way Too Many People Don't Get (it's the number one story!)

I made the mistake of reading the hatey comments, which for the record is not a good way to start your day, and got all bunged up when people said stuff like "I come vaginally--that's BS, you're oppressing me, etc..." (Note:  If the majority of people have an experience but you don't, that doesn't mean the statement is untrue, it just means you're in the minority.  Because that's how statistics fucking work.)

Anyway, tons of nicer, more logical people shared the story via Facebook and Twitter and totally got it, like Jane Rising who wrote this today: 

I was raised Mormon, and Mormons are taught that masturbating is BAD BAD BAD. I was a good Mormon girl, so I never ever touched myself. For reals. I got married at age 22, and was expecting all of my sexual frustration to come to an end in holy matrimony. But my husband didn't seem to know anything about sex, either, and it just never felt that good to me. We were just doing it the way we saw people do it on tv or in movies (the PG-13 ones, of course). It took about 5 minutes, and for me it was just wet and slimey and didn't feel like anything other than a mess. He seemed pretty happy with me, though, so I patted myself on the back for being a good wife.

As time went on, he seemed less and less happy with me. He wanted me to be thinking about sex all the time, and I wasn't. He wanted me to want him, and I didn't. He wanted me to "get into it," and I couldn't. So he sent me to a sex therapist, who was supposed to "fix" me. Nothing really changed.

After 16 years unhappily married to this man, I filed for divorce. And about a year later I stopped being Mormon. Imagine my surprise when I had sex for the first time with someone other than my husband. This new guy spent a few minutes with his fingers on my clit and I was through the roof. I started weeping. He wanted to know if something was wrong. Why was I crying? Because I had just had my first orgasm at age 39, and it was so easy. After all those years of anger, blame, frustration, guilt and pressure, I finally realized that I was not broken. Not broken one bit.

I haven't had a chance to watch this movie yet--I just read about it today for the first time. But the message of this film needs to be spread far and wide, and hopefully make its way to women like I used to be--women trapped by ignorance in a miserable sex life. We need to know our own bodies, claim them, and love them.
****
Huzzah!

--"Gigantic and Instantly Fun"

Murca, a blogger in Estonia, wrote this about In Bed With Married Women:

Minu see lemmik väljamaa blogi peab juba mõnda aega suurt pidustust avaldades ja taasavaldades lugejate päris (voodi)elu lugusid. Ja see on nii hiigla tore ja kõhe ja huvitav ja veidral kombel haarav, et ma just mõtsin, et üks blogi ei saa enam paremaks minna ja siis see läks.

which according to Google translate means:

My favorite Väljamäe this blog has been for some time, and big parties by publishing a pretty taasavaldades readers (bed) life stories. And it is so gigantic and instantly fun and exciting and strangely captivating, so I just mõtsin that one blog will no longer get better and then it went away.

Which, for me at least, could also use a Google translation. If you speak Estonia, let me know what it means. Unless Väljamäe means "you're vaginally oppressing me," in which case, keep that $%## to yourself.

--Why I Can Never Get A Real Job, Reason #47
A friend who moved away said her daughter remembers me as "the penis and vagina pals lady." Which is awesome and totally what I'm doing the very next time I'm called upon to do an animated feature and/or children's puppet show.

xoxox
jill

Real Sex Lives, Severene: "I just had the most fucked up sexual experience."

Inhospitable

(You have arrived at the end of a grand celebration in which we're running IBWMW's favorite Real Sex Lives, stories in which readers anonymously share the truth about their sex lives, or lack thereof. Please don appropriate viewing goggles.)

*****
This new one is dark and raw, but with some beauty and Life Lessons--just the way I like it.

Here, then, today's entry from Severene: 

I just had the most fucked up sexual experience and I don't know what to do with it.

I'm just gonna write it down because I need to purge it or codify it or maybe just see if written down it makes better sense. Here goes:

I had a fight with my husband and I left. From the car, I called my old lover. The one who three months before had decided he would just never call me again. It would have been nice if he would have informed me of this, but he is not nice. That was part of his appeal.

Since he'd disappeared on me, I had been completely lost, weeping inconsolably every night. Yes. Every. Fucking. Night. For three months. I walked hollow-eyed through my life like a specter, tears welling up at any reminder of him. This happened a lot since my reminders included:  doctors, the city of Houston, pretty much any song on the radio, references to following your instincts/heart, hospitals, any mentions of fucking in general, the entire Jewish people... you get the idea.

Perhaps fleeing was just an excuse to see my lover again. I wanted him to hold me in his arms and tell me everything was gonna be all right--even though it wasn't gonna be all right. He has a big hairy bear-like body and I just so needed to be near him. Physically, close to that big body, like it would heal me.

I called him hysterically crying and asked if I could stay for two nights at his house in Houston. He told me things were going well for him but he could "always fit me in" or something like that that made me feel like shit. He sounded pleased though. He told me it "wasn't going to be free" and I was going to end up licking cum off my tits. It seemed like a good deal to me.

I drove like crazy, speeding for hours, weeping and/or feeling elated that I was going to be well-fucked by this man again. I was a mess. You don't have to tell me that.

I arrived at his house before him and waited out front for a few minutes. He pulled up and, for a moment, smiled and looked happy. I met him in his garage, hugged him and burst into tears.

We walked inside and he sat down at his table and started going through his mail. He looked up at me, as though surprised I was still there. "You look ragged out," he said, disapprovingly.  I had been crying intermittently for several hours--a few months, technically--but he wasn't giving me any slack. I instantly felt a million years old, haggard and foolish in my suddenly too-short skirt. He gave me a sort of dismissive gesture so I left to wander his house.

His house was a smallish McMansion, which is not an oxymoron. It's the kind of place that has a grand showy staircase entry that makes odd-shaped, uncomfortable spaces below to accommodate this bourgeois idea of grandeur. He still lived like he did in college, even though he is a grown man, with milk crates as storage and half-read papers scattered haphazardly on the floor. He was using a loose garbage bag leaning against his kitchen cabinets instead of making the commitment to a real trash can. He was just crashing there, not making a life there, as he probably had in every space he'd inhabited in his 48 years on the planet.

He was incredibly uncomfortable that I was in his space and clearly wanted me to be...not there. This was horrible and obvious and I should have just left immediately, but I desperately wanted to fuck him and win him over and just have him stop wanting me gone. How was this so awful to him? We'd gotten along famously the last time I'd seen him--albeit in the neutral territory of a hotel--how was having me there suddenly so fucking unbearable to him?

I don't know if it was my "ragged out" appearance, the invasion of his space, my general hysteria or that his heart was now elsewhere (jeez, writing it down now and seeing all those things together, the answer is clearly "e. all of the above"), but he was now clearly Not That Into Me. I was wretched and humiliated but somehow still there like an asshole. I just couldn't accept what was happening and that he didn't love me or want me anymore.

He came over to me, bent me over the couch and hit me on the ass, hard, a few times--something he'd never done before. Then he walked into his kitchen and started looking around in the fridge. He's kind of like that. He will stick his dick in your mouth for a few minutes, pull his hard-on back out, then go sit down and have a bowl of grains or something.

Despite my humiliation or perhaps due to it, I was super turned on and still trying to act like everything was normal. He put a Lou Reed record on the turntable and pulled his dick out of his scrubs, making the universal signal for 'suck this.' I did, willingly and greedily.

His dick is tremendous. My eyes well up just thinking about it, it's really that good. So thick and fat and fucking huge. His dick is like if you took another man's dick, and inflated it with 2--maybe 3--big good puffs of air. I can feel it in my mouth still. I fucking love that thing.

"OK, I will fuck you then," he said after a bit, like I just earned something. He grabbed me and took me up his staircase to his bedroom, shoving my panties into my mouth along the way.

As he took off his clothes, I looked at his wide calves dispassionately. His legs are short, very stocky and nearly hairless. I don't really like them at all. I marveled for the billionth time why I was so fucking attracted to this man who, objectively, was not attractive to me. Unlike him, however, I did not say out loud the leg equivalent to "you look ragged out."

In bed, he asked if I wanted him to hit me again. I said no, and he said, "Beg me." "Please don't hit me," I whispered, not entirely sure that that was actually what I wanted. "Beg me to fuck you," he demanded. That wasn't going to be a problem for me. I really was hysterical, in both the modern and early 20th century interpretations of the word. I completely lost it, crying even more, begging and begging him, over and over. I completely lost my shit. In truth, it was strangely liberating. All that needy open-wound stuff that you try to hide from the world is what I was presenting to him. I was a fucking endless chasm of need and lust and desperate wanting and I let him see all of it. After bearing
witness to that... whatever the fuck it was, he seemed satisfied that I'd begged sufficiently.
He went into the restroom and came out, rolling a condom on. I burst into tears again.. "Why are you so sad?" he asked. "Because you have to wear a condom," I wept. The condom meant he'd been with other women and everything was different now.

He slid inside me and we barely moved. I came quickly and softly, twice. I looked into his huge brown eyes and said, "Can you feel how much my pussy loves your cock?" He nodded. The look on his face nearly killed me. It was so, I don't know, just open and dear. Or maybe I imagined it. It felt like we were making love, but maybe only I was.

Once done with the fuckery, things deteriorated further, if you can believe it. I--like an ass--or you know, like a fucking human being, grabbed on to his big hairy back and hugged him, wanting him close. And he couldn't fucking take it. "Hmmm, I'm oppressing you," I said, letting go and moving to the other side of the bed. But even that wasn't far enough and he got up and went downstairs. After awhile he came back and got into bed, willing me silently not to be there anymore. "You need to sleep, I'll go to the couch," I said. I did and we were both relieved.

He is the head of a serious hospital unit and got calls throughout the night. I could hear him up and down, all night, restless, taking calls, advising the night staff, working on the computer. I saw that his life, brain and probably his soul were filled with agitation and chaos, and it scared me. He wouldn't, or maybe couldn't, allow himself peace or comfort. It was like he was on coke, but without the happy or euphoric part. Two of the patients died that night.

I woke to the sound of him again moving around the house. He finally walked over the couch, pulled his cock out of his scrubs and stuck his huge hard-on into my mouth. "You are so hard," I murmured, taking him in as deep as I could. He pulled back out and said, "Got to go to work." Me, lustful, rejected, miserable, hopeful, and a million other things I still can't figure out, suggested that I could take him out dinner that night after work. He looked pained.

"I am out of sorts. I think you will be happier at a hotel," he said. Oh... We weren't, then, playing some sort of high-level psycho-sexual game, like the ones we played back in college that had turned on us so much. This was real--he really did hate me that much. I went red-faced with the realization and shame. Perhaps reacting to the look on my face--though that would be unlike him--he added. "I'll come tonight after work and stay with you."

Then he took a handful of twenty dollar bills from somewhere and dropped them onto me, one by one. They floated down, landing on me silently.  

Yeah.

And I was completely broken.

It's so beyond humiliating that I hate admitting how it all really happened. But I am telling you, both because it's true and because it has a happy(ish) ending.

That is,

After he left and I was alone in his terrible, tortured space, I finally got it that I could and needed to leave.

As I walked out and saw his yard, covered with gravel instead of grass or anything else living or beautiful or life-giving, I felt elated, like in the final scene of "It's a Wonderful Life." I didn't have to be in that barely lived-in house or try any more with this man I now realized was far too broken for me to fix. I drove home, crying yet again, but this time with gratitude. I had built a rich life and had a real home with gardens and fruit trees and pictures on the wall. I could even sleep through the fucking night. I was incredibly lucky.

In Shamanism, there is this idea of soul loss. That is, that you can lose a piece of your soul or vital essence after a trauma of some sort. Only through a soul retrieval, often done by the shaman, can that part be returned to its owner. I am not necessarily a subscriber to this point of view, but I do feel like for those three months I had lost a part of myself, of my heart, to this man.  And without it, I was so so lost.

But somewhere in our extremely fucked up sexual transaction that night, I got that part back and was whole again.

Maybe I went so low that it somehow circled back and became good. Or maybe my self-esteem got so fucking battered and kicked in the ass that it actually gave me self-esteem. I know it doesn't make much sense but that's what happened. It's like my re-set button was pushed and I was suddenly ok.

I still sometimes dream about his cock and wonder whether the sex, at least, was as hot for him as it was for me. The sex felt huge and dark and sexy and scary and horrible. We'd generated this terrible big awful energy and brought out each other's darkest sides and probably scared the shit out of each other. I don't see how it couldn't have affected him somehow. 

And now that it's really over, he will never tell me how it all was for him and why it was so hard for him. That makes me sad. I guess it doesn't make much difference though. I know have to go forward and not look back. That's what you do.

But I now know I have this huge scary amazing passion inside of me and that I may have a penchant for some fucked up shit. Still not sure what I'm gonna do about all that.

****
Have one of your own? You know what to do. 

xoxo
jill

image: Andre de Dienes, "Nude", c. 1960

Real Sex Lives, Reader Question Version: "What's the sexiest thing someone has done to get you into bed?"

One wooing technique.

(You have arrived in the midst of a grand celebration in which we're re-running IBWMW's all-time greatest Real Sex Lives stories.)

Hey you, a reader needs our help! Let's hop into the IBWMW Rescue Van!

Today's problem: Getting in the mood, with a emphasis on proper boner presentation. Here, let's let this improperly-wooed reader explain her predicament.

Dear Jill,

I need some advice from you and the thoughtful IBWMW readers if you would be so kind.

My husband is terrible at proposing that we have sex. The sex itself is good but I usually need a little time to warm up to the idea-- a little convincing-- and he can bring it up in a way that is a total turn-off (seriously, he recently walked up to me while I was doing the taxes and tapped me on the shoulder with his boner with a defeated expression before wandering off to the kitchen to consume a can of beans).

But here's the important part: he's a good listener, a sweet guy, and perfectly willing to try to change his approach. It's just that I can't come up with any really specific requests for him. We must be the two most unimaginative people around (before we jump in bed together, anyway). So I was hoping for some help from the IBWMW community: what is the sexiest thing someone has done to get you into bed? How do you get in the mood and initiate sex? I'm all ears for ladies initiating sex, too.

-Anonymous lady whose husband would be super embarrassed if he figured out this was about him.

Ok, I'm gonna be no help here because I actually like the whole primal Presentation of Arousal thing, though maybe without the can of beans aspect.

So my smart and lovely friends, you're in charge. Can you help this wordily-monikered Gentle Reader?

xoxo
jill

(photo source) 

Real Sex Lives: "In Praise of the Hand Job" by An Anonymous Husband

(You have arrived in the midst of a grand celebration in which we're re-running IBWMW's all-time greatest Real Sex Stories. Feel free to hang out awhile and look around.)

In Greek mythology, Hera and Zeus were arguing over which gender got the most pleasure from sex. Zeus said it was the women and Hera claimed it was the man. Tiresias, who had spent time as both a man and women, sided with Zeus. (For this, Hera struck him blind, adding further complications to already becoming overly eventful life.)

What I take from this is that the Gods are kind of jerky but have interesting conversations. There's also the takeaway idea of experiencing sex from the perception of the other gender.  Wouldn't it be interesting to have the body of the opposite sex for an hour or so? You could sort of ravish yourself and see what everything felt like.

That's why I like the following piece.  It puts me into the mind and body of a man, without the muss and fuss of expensive surgery or intervention by angry gods. But I'll stop yammering and get to An Anonymous Husband's take on the hand job:

The hand job doesn’t get much press, especially when compared to its more popular and storied cousin, the blowjob. Oh, I imagine the subject is still big in high school, where a quick gf/bf handy in the backseat of the car or on the family room couch is as close to sex as a lot of kids get. But married folks who have long since moved on to the main event tend not to think too much about the humble wife-wank, and I think that’s a shame. Because hand jobs, when done right, are awesome.

My wife enjoys sex more than any other woman I’ve slept with, but her overall libido, at least as far as quantity goes, is far lower than mine.  I’m in the same boat with millions of married men: I’m an every-night guy who happens to be madly in love with a once-a-week girl.

Unfortunately, I don’t do particularly well with “not getting any.” Without sex, I get cranky, irritable, and mildly depressed. The change is subtle- I don’t turn into a raging asshole overnight- but it’s there. It’s as if there’s a reservoir of happiness and contentment that, for better or for worse, can only be refilled with orgasms. Since one orgasm a week isn’t going to come close to meeting my wants and needs, I’m more than happy to go it solo when time and circumstances allow. But finding such

Real Sex Lives: Kat, "Let the horrible erotica begin."

(You have arrived in the midst of a grand celebration in which we're running IBWMW's all-time favorite Real Sex Lives.)

Kat wrote this for no other reason than to illustrate what bad smut is. Or perhaps to purge herself of the sentence, "He proceeded to kiss her with the fury of a toddler throwing a temper tantrum." Writes Kat, "Let the horrible erotica begin."

The couple walked along the edge of the water. They had only just met but knew that they were soul mates because that is how soul mates meet: on the beach at night.

They sat down on the blanket that the man, a massive Adonis with flowing gold locks, tanned skin and arms like a coal miner, had brought with him, knowing that he would meet the one who would complete him and would want to immediately to ravage her body as the ocean high tide ravaged the beach. He didn’t bring a condom though because he didn’t want any latex barrier between the woman’s love cave and the purple headed womb ferret that he was going to burrow into her.

He grasped her face and proceeded to kiss her with the fury of a toddler throwing a temper tantrum, and then laid her back. Their lips smelt together like two pieces of metal and they knew their bodies had been created to come together and create a single beast with two backs.

Her lips tasted better than his favourite bottle of beer and he was thirsty. He started to strip her clothing like removing old paint from a priceless antique desk. He kissed and munched on her neck as if he were a vampire and going to suck the blood out of her, except that she would like it. His hands wandered over her corporeal form like they wanted to touch her everywhere.

The woman hadn’t worn panties because she, too, had known that she was going to meet her soul mate on the beach and would spread her ivory appendages for his man-stick to enter her love-socket and create a piston of passion. The man looked up at her making sure she was ready for his tongue to do a Charleston on her pleasure button. She looked at him with eyes that would devour him if they were mouths. His hands spread her legs wider so that he could look at the entrance to her tunnel of love. His mouth moved closer and he blew lightly on her slices of salami displayed before him as if in the window of a fine deli. She shuddered at the sensation as if she were having a seizure. He gazed up her and whispered that he had skipped dinner and was starving, and would she mind if he sated his hunger with her womanly sauce. She replied that her highway to heaven was starving too: for his mouth and his tallywhacker.

Like a convict escaping from prison, his tongue darted from his mouth and attacked her love-bump like it was the getaway car. He sucked on her man in the boat and held it with his teeth and rasped it with his tongue. Up and down, back and forth, up and down, back and forth. And up and down, back and forth a lot more times.

He pressed his mouth into her center burrowing his tongue past the toll booth and up the highway. It was like having a threesome with his tongue being his wingman who got the first round. Her power of speech failed her when the pleasure came as scattering bunnies taking off for Wonderland.

He slid back up her body, the grit from the beach sticking to their skin like sandpaper. His bayonet stabbed her strawberry short cake and they began to rock back and forth as if traumatized by the ecstasy of each other. Her legs clamped around his hips like the jaws of a great beast and they lovingly bruised each others nether regions until he erupted into her like a tube of vanilla icing.

"I'm so glad we made love instead of fucking like people in other erotic pieces, my shining unicorn," the woman said.

"I would never degrade our spiritual connection by fucking you. Or asking your name," the man replied.

Fini

She hasn't posted in a few months but you can read more from Kat at Kat O'Nine Tales.

(The Th'ayes Have It, image courtesy the dear and generous Chaffyn. No implication of badness by its proximity to the bad smut, for the record.)