Dopamine Withdrawal and Litost

Litost is a nearly untranslatable Czech word, a state of feeling miserable and humiliated. "Litost is a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery," writes Milan Kundera in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.

Anyone who has experienced the end of a love affair and/or unrequited passion is well aware of litost, translatable or not, because there it is, living in your head, all fucking day and night.

There are already plenty of good reasons why the death of passion is so unbearable. I mean, hmm, there's the personal rejection of everything you are, the shame ("Why the fuck did I think it was wise to text him that picture of my butt?"), the anger/incredulousness at the other person's inability/fear/general fucktardedness at not seeing how flippin' incredible you are, and the sadness over that very same thing. I mean, well, it all sucks. Hard.

But in one of the crueler aspects of neurochemistry, just when you're hitting this personal low happens to be the exact second that dopamine decides to flee the scene. Dopamine, as you will recall, from Dopamine, The Cruel Bitch Mistress is a chemical that floods your brain in the first throes of love. (Oh, god, remember how good it was? I'll pause a moment here for anyone who needs to take a sobbing break...)

A dopamine high is great--there might be nothing better--but it's a harsh, difficult-to-manage kind of high. Someone giddy on the dopamine may be very creative, in love with the world, happy and open to the many glorious wonders of the world and their fellow human beings. Dopamine just hammers on your reward system in your brain and you feel good, man. Really good. This, however, is accompanied by less delightful effects like lack of sleep, loss of appetite and a need to keep the good chemicals coming through increasing intensification of the affair. But you kinda don't care because everything else is just so...amazing.

Dopamine acts in the same way as pretty much any drug of abuse, according to Helen Fisher in my now-dog-eared copy of Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love:

If the beloved breaks off the relationship, the lover shows all the common signs of withdrawal, including depression, crying spells, anxiety, insomnia, loss of appetite (or binge eating), irritability, and chronic loneliness. Like all addicts, the lover them goes to unhealthy, humiliating, even physically dangerous lengths to procure their narcotic.

That is, litost. (a side note: As one who has well tried the whole "unhealthy, humiliating" etc... route, I can advise you with some authority that that's not gonna work out so well for you.)

So what the fuck are you supposed to do, faced with the one-two punch of psychological trauma coupled with, basically, a really harsh drug withdrawal?

Unfortunately, your options are not terribly exciting, but rest assured, they do work. After a time at least. A very unpleasant, suckfest of a time. For advice, I would steer you to my two gurus in matters of the heart, one modern, Helen Fisher, and one ancient, Roman poet Ovid (43 BC-17AD).

According to Fisher, the cure is basically--do other shit. (Fisher, a respected author and scientist, uses much more genteel language, of course.) Take a walk, go have a coffee, climb a mountain, get a dog. All non-"them" related activities that give you pleasure are fine. Meditate, don't eat sweets or hit the booze, get plenty of sunlight, and plaster a big ol' fake smile on your face to convince yourself and others that you are just fucking fine. (This actually works, according to Fisher, "The nerves of these facial muscles activate nerve pathways in the brain that can give you feelings of pleasure. Even imagining that you are happy can spur pleasurable brain activity.")

Also, you can't go around thinking of your former lover, that hideous, unappreciative, (too fucking sexy, no! wrong train of thought!) emotionally-stunted wreck of a person, because that just makes it worse. You must physically remove reminders of their wretched existence to eliminate chances of backsliding. Suggests Fisher:

You must remove all evidence of the addictive substance: the beloved. Throw out cards and letters or stuff them in a box and put it out of reach. Don't call or write under any circumstance. And depart immediately if you see your former lover in the office or the street. Why? Because as Charles Dickens said, "Love...will thrive for a considerable time on a very slight or sparing food." Even the briefest contact with "him" or "her" can fire up your brain circuits for romantic ardor. If you wish to recover, you must expunge all traces of the thief who stole your heart.

Meanwhile, back 2000 years ago in Remedia Amoris (Remedy of Love), Ovid was pretty much dishing up the same advice--do other shit.

Love is the child of idleness, as slothfulness begets sensuality. It behooves you, therefore, to be active, and you may succeed in breaking the painful shafts of Cupid and putting out his torch.

And Ovid goes further than having you burn letters and such (which he does recommend as well), he advises leaving town entirely. "I believe in drastic treatments only, for there can be no cure without pain," he writes. But the principle is the same, do anything to avoid re-fanning your ardor.

Remember that you must stay away, for it is possible that embers of the fire that consumes you are still smoldering treacherously beneath the ashes of your surface indifference. To return prematurely will undo all the efforts you have wasted on your cure. It will be fatal to come back and find that your absence has merely given you a keener appetite for what is bad for you.

If these sound too grim, there are three more methods that sound a little more fun:

1. Take on a second lover and "let your affection hover uneasily between the two," counsels Ovid. The idea is more lovers = a certain helpful detachment.
2.  Overdose on the loved one. "Throw yourself at her night and day; have your fill of her in every way and manner; and she shall prove the means of curing your ills," wrote Ovid. For some reason, our brains refuse to continue getting a dopamine fix from the same person. Eventually, your brain just stops responding to the dopamine flood (see also: "The Coolidge Effect" in "Our Genes Can Be Heartless Puppeteers") unless you....
3. Find some other incredibly bangable mate. Writes Fisher: "Of all the cures for a bad romance, by far the most effective is to find a new lover to fill your heart." And start the whole fucking thing again--Wheeee!

(photo source: Frantisek Drtikol: Nude With Circles, 1928)


*Thank you to Nicole Daedone for reminding me of the lovely word, litost.

Note: This is running again by request from a heartbroken chick and is 3rd in a series of body/sex/mind/chemical fuckery.  See also Dopamine, the Cruel Bitch Mistress and The Crush, Explained by Science.

Nosy-Ass Question for You About Making Out

Today's reader mail reminded me of the olden days of the blog when it was about married women and how the fuck they were dealing with the realities of married sex. Over the years (four!), it has become way less Studs Terkel-ish and sociological and more Onahole-ish, which, quite frankly, I have no excuse for.

Anyway, here's an earnest letter from "Janet," that reminds me of the blog of yore, née "In Thy Bede Withe Thee Married Wiffe."

Hi! I love your blog. I know this is somewhat tame, but as a person who has been with the same man for about 6 years, and has sex regularly, I wonder about making out. We haven't sat around and made out since about 4 months into our relationship. There is occasional kissing during sex, but really not much. And really, thinking about sitting on the couch and making out seems kind of gross to me now. Is that normal? Do people who have been married for 20 years make out with each other? Maybe you could take a poll. I keep wondering why we don't do that so much (couples in general) as we do when we first meet. Thanks!

Now, this is actually completely interesting to me because not so long ago two different women confided in me (note: don't confide in me) that although they were still somewhat into having sex with their long-time husbands (depending on vagaries of their moods, how pissed off they were, how interesting their book/show/other diversion was, etc...) they were super-not into kissing the husbands.  Like kissing seemed...yes...gross!

So what is that? Has anyone else has a similar experience?

I have a poorly-formed theory that it has to do with hormones--the basic idea being that before one's puberty hormones kick in, kissing seems disgusting and maybe there is sort of a return to that kissing=icky mode as one's hormones recede again with time. Anyone? Yes?

Whatever it is, it's a crying shame because there is nothing better than being kissed by someone who knows how to kiss the hell out of you.

Last week, I watched a video from One Taste on the pleasures of making out as an experience, not a route to something else. Though it's not gonna tell you anything you don't already know (plus you have to put your email address in to watch it), it did remind me of the delightful sensuality of making out. The sexy deliberate kisses finding sweet, soft places on their neck, the focus on sucking on an earlobe the exact right way to make them groan, the deep melty, lust-heavy kisses with swollen lips and sort of desperate pressing against each other through your clothes and feeling the hard ridge of cock*. God. Remember this?

So yeah. Are you doing that anymore? And if not, why not? Spill it.

xoxo
jill

*Or whatever it is/was you feel/felt. Don't want to be too hetero-normative.

(p.s. while looking for a photo, I came across this one which I love, though prob. a bit too penisy for me to post. I'm in enough damn trouble already. Nothing stopping you from looking though...)

A Little Love Note for You Today, from Lady Chatterley's Lover

I am off doing tedious things but I haven't forgotten about you. I give you this in your day, a passage from Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence. It came out in 1928 but in a heavily censored version because it was considered to be so smutty.

In 1930, the comically-named Senator Reed Smoot, opposing an amendment to lift a ban on imported smoot, er, smut, threatened to publicly read indecent passages of imported books in front of the Senate. Which sound less of a threat and more of an awesome promise. (Sadly, in the end, an unrealized promise.)

Said Smoot, before he later presumably retreated to the Senate bathroom to jerk off, "I've not taken ten minutes on Lady Chatterley's Lover, outside of looking at its opening pages. It is most damnable! It is written by a man with a diseased mind and a soul so black that he would obscure even the darkness of hell!"

Anyway to me, Lady Chatterley's Lover is not obscene at all, but rather beautiful really, and smart about what goes down with women during really really good sex. Says the oddly poetic Wikipedia entry on the matter, "The novel is about Constance's realisation that she cannot live with the mind alone; she must also be alive physically." Which...well, yes.

Here 'tis. Try not to think of Senator Smoot during.

She would have thought a woman would have died of shame. Instead of which, the old shame died. Shame, which is fear: the deep organic shame, the old, old physical fear which crouches in the bodily roots of us, and can only be chased away by the sensual fire, at last it was roused up and routed by the phallic hunt of the man, and she came to the very heart of the jungle of herself. She felt, now, she had come to the real bedrock of her nature, and was essentially shameless. She was her sensual self, naked and unashamed. She felt a triumph, almost a vainglory. So! That was how it was! This was life! That was how oneself really was. There was nothing left to disguise or be ashamed of. She shared her ultimate nakedness with a man, another being.

Back soon...

xoxox
jill

ps if you and the bedrock of your nature are feeling a lack of routing by "the phallic hunt of the man" and need some vicarious love, you can read the whole book free on pdf here.

(photo via the lovely Lady Cheeky)

The Mysterious Case of the Talking Onahole

Nothing to do with the post but kinda hot.

I am bitterly disappointed to report that the mystery of what the Onahole says remains:

UNSOLVED. 

This, despite entrants coming in via e-mail, comments, Facebook, and Twitter, including one entry from a dude who calls himself an Onahole reviewer.

There were plenty of guesses, not one of them remotely plausible. Although since I remain sadly ignorant of the true sentiments of the Onahole, maybe they were exactly right.  My favorites were:

"Now more orifice-like!" from Bill.
"Otaku? Easy to hide from mom!" from Spiffy.
"Now in original and extra-crispy!" from...actually I just made that one up.

But not one among you bothered to learn how to read enough Japanese to tell me what--dear god, what?--this Onahole wants me to know.

I have secrets I shall not share

That this plasticized Essence of Womanhood remains essentially unknowable seems metaphoric and this would certainly be the spot for something deep but thoughtful, but we'll need to plunge ahead without art and meaning and make our rudderless, unexamined way to the next thing, that is:
The winners of the "What Does The Onahole Say?" Contest!

The very prompt Christina wins the delightfully throbby vibrator the MiMi Rechargeable courtesy of Good Vibrations, the very first sex-positive sex toy store in the country. Which is why we love 'em. Also because the MiMi costs $89 bucks and I love to give away FABULOUS PRIZES. Note: whenever I write "fabulous prizes," I am typing it to be read as "FABulous Prizes!" like an old game show host, so read it like that, if you will.

Looks kind of like Eva from WALL-E, but you mustn't think of that.

And the enjoyably persistent and brave Fitzlurker wins the Fleshlight Flight. (Thanks again, Good Vibes!)

That?  That is, uh, my clarinet

Fitz and Christina, send in your addresses and your fuckable mail will soon be at your door.

Ok then.

xoxo
jill

What Does the Onahole Say? New Contest! Win an Object to Have Sex With! (Or Make Love To--Up to You...)

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Things People Have Sex With That Aren't Other People--Japanese Edition

Don't look at the side of the box. Really.

While the rest of the us are still primitively having sex with our toothbrushes, Buzz Lightyear dolls and slutty slutty pool noodles, sex toy scientists in Japan are hard at work (er...) figuring out the very latest in gadgets we can put on, up or over our sexual regions.*

So that you won't be the Goofus stuck in the corner having sex with a dumb ol' hollowed out cucumber while the Gallants are modernistically experiencing perfect mechanically-calibrated orgasms with futuristic machines, here's what's happening overseas:

1.  The Onahole

Yes, we have our fleshlights and whatnot (including this shower mounted model--go us!), but Japan has really dipped deeply into (yes, that's how it's going down today. sorry) the art of the onahole, which I think is Japanese for "vaginiaey stuff in a cup that you can fuck." Kind of like Cup O' Noodles, but with vagina. Japan has perfected the art of self-expression via onacup.  The Tenga Flip Holefor example, is white and sleek like something that should connect wirelessly to your iPhone.  According to the Amazon description, it "lets you blanket yourself in the gently bliss of delicate internal details!"  It also comes with three lotions, mild, wild and real (?) which, awesomely, are called Hole Lotion.

I told you.

For those who want some back story with their wank toy, there are holes featuring brides, virgins (hymen included) and even an "Unpopulated Island Survival" version with three different holes. There's "starter hole" for onahole first-timers, featuring the semi-depressing ad copy "a huge step forward for your single sex life" and a Fellatio Hole with...dear God...something called "Saliva Lotion."

What's strange about these is that, for some reason, they are sold as parody products "only" and all have the following note for anyone who mistakes a masturbation device as being for, you know, masturbation:

NOTE: This is a new novelty onahole from Japan for stress relief. It is intended for use as a joke gift item only.

But then they contain extensive way-too-detailed-for-a-joke specifications as well as semi-horrifying renderings as this:

Ack!

If you know Japanese, please PLEASE tell me what these little blurbs say! Although I am actually more curious about the contents of the speech bubble in the photo below:

What does the Onahole say?

2. Extreme Onahole

I am uncomfortable with the amount of wires here

The A10 Cyclone "has a series of brushes that rotate back and forth over the item in question. Think of it as a shoe cleaner for you weenus," wrote John Biggs in TechCrunch, who called the Cyclone "overwhelming" and, less importantly, called his cock a "weenus." The Cyclone sounds pretty hardcore, like the boy equivalent to the jackhammer intensity of the Magic Wand, so use caution putting anything in there, including one's weenus. Although you would of course never do that, because these--even the top-of-the-line $150 A10 Piston-- are also *wink* only a joke gift.

3. Love Doll Brothels

Finally, if you need not just the three holes, but a whole fake body to fuck, there are brothels in Japan offering the company of love dolls. It's disease- and sex trafficking-free which is good. But when I saw this photo:

Awkward silence. Permanently.

I became concerned about, of all things, their sound system. Not only would it have to cover up the sound of dudes grunting away over their ladies, but also mask the unsettling silence of the dolls, sitting there like eerily mute mannequins/cadavers/something-else-creepy.

I also became oddly riveted by this video in which three guys from VICE visit a low-end brothel and schtup the dolls.  I'm not entirely sure if I was offended or entertained. It was fascinating to see this sort of vérité version of a brothel visit. The dolls are poorly made (new hole for each customer, if you were wondering), the guys find it difficult to get hard and can't figure out a comfortable doll coitus position. At one point, a doll's head falls off.

The VICE editor is kind of a douche, and picks a way young-looking schoolgirl doll. (V. popular, btw). On one hand it's creepy as fuck that everyone wants to have sex with a girl, but on the other hand, it's a doll, not a girl. So perhaps one more doll-girl fucker equals one less real-girl fucker? There's weird anthropomorphizing element here that confuses things. Even though it's just a bit of plasticky stuff that getting fucked, it's girl-shaped plasticky stuff getting fucked -- girl-shaped plasticky stuff getting fucked in a bedroom decorated with pink, princesses and stuffed animals.

So...I don't know. At this point, I've offended child-welfare advocates, the nation of Japan (hey, my best friend is Japanese), as well as ensured that I'll never write for VICE. My work here is done.

Oh yeah, and if you get a chance, go on over and visit/share my new article in Cosmo on the 8 Worst Sexy Inventions for Women. 

xoxox
jill

*As you may recall, Japan has long been a leader in sexual aids, except back then they just flat out admitted it was not about novelty but rather for the real, deep stuff, specifically, the "Key to the Sex Question."  Have a look at this 1930 Japanese marital aid catalog "Women Happy Medicine", to discover that the Key had something to do with lots of pointy things:

ow.

Pornhub Comments on Valentines

awww.....

If you are feeling pitiably single today, like my 12- and 14-year old daughters are (thanks a lot Valentine Industrial Complex. You fuckers) please take solace in that fact that even if you are with someone, V-day isn't a guaranteed win.

I am thinking of the poor girl who will be receiving the teddy bear + off-brand drug store chocolate combo the man in front of me was buying yesterday at Rite Aid. In the part of my brain that enjoys judging everyone, I minused him further points because he--without being asked--told me it was for his "Lady Friend." (Don't worry, dear reader, you and I are still good.)

If that doesn't make you feel better about your lot, perhaps you need something a little stronger, like Pornhub Comments on Valentines, featuring real porn-lust-inspired comments scrolled prettily on candy hearts.

Here are some particularly touching ones:

 and my favorite:

In other news, I am not wearing pants. Proven fact.

xoxoxo
jill

(photos via Pornhub Comments on Candy Hearts)

"Tastes Like Your Worst Nightmare"

Edible underwear: Early prototype

I really really should be doing other work right now, but I want to thank the readers who bought stuff from Good Vibrations* via the GV link there on the right last month (what they bought only they shall know...) and the hardy group of dedicated Kindle subscribers who keep ponying up their 99 cents a month, even during months when I get all depressive and only post twice (most months). I love you hard, man.

Also getting love are the people used the Amazon link at right to buy an unholy array of weird and cool stuff.

--A 3pk of GLYDE Flavored Dental Dams

Dental dams, yes! I have never heard anyone, ever, saying they were using, buying, or even thinking about dental dams so--I must know, Anonymous Purchaser!--are people around you generally using them? When you whip 'em out do people easily accept them, or is there some explaining/cajoling to do? Are they reusable? Is the cola flavor tasty, or not so much?  Do tell!

****

Also, during a Google search gone wrong, I learned some new things about Edible Underwear for Him.

 1.  They are the consistency of a thin, very off-brand fruit roll-up.

2.  They don't look like underwear--at all.  They look like a garbage bag. And when donned, continue to look like a garbage bag, as though the wearer found himself suddenly naked in public and had to fashion pants out of the nearest material.

3.  A pair "tastes like your worst nightmare," according to Shop in Private.  And that's before a sweaty, aroused, possibly pube-shedding man nestles them up tight against his most very private crevices. I know this because the boss at Shop in Private apparently had an edible underwear taste-test with his employees.

Writes this dude, who is a really awesome boss, or quite the opposite:

Anticipation was high: Before we conducted the taste test (which was very eagerly awaited by our employees and friends) everyone had heard of edible underwear. The announcement that we would taste-test them was electric. Everyone wanted to try a piece of what lies inside that slender box. Are they delicious? Are they sweet? If we happened to get trapped in the warehouse by a winter storm could we eat them to survive?

Is Edible Underwear Just Like a Fruit Rollup? The Answer: Nope. When we opened the box, everyone looked on with amazement. "That's it?!" they cried. "That's all there is?!" The underwear is folded into an object about the size of a playing card. When unfolded it is a strip of material no wider than a playing card and no thicker than a sheet of paper. It is a thong, with spaghetti straps made of the same thin material. It probably weighs less than a post-it note. Calling edible underwear flimsy is a vast understatement.

Upon tasting the edible underwear the mood only became worse "This is terrible.", "Yuck", and "Gross" were all heard. I was suddenly ashamed to have offered this to our employees. Could I be used under the current labor laws? The tirade of product insults continued "this stuff sticks to your teeth!" "My whole mouth is red!" "If you thought the pink straps were terrible, you need to try the black part. Yuck!" The insults kept coming. 

 In conclusion: Edible underwear is the world's biggest disappointment. They are small and flimsy. They tastes terrible. They stick to your teeth. They turn your mouth red. There is also no discernible difference between the men's "brief" and the women's "undie".

So in brief:  I am grateful as fuck for every one of you, we are awaiting news from the dental dam front and, edible underwear does not = a good snack. If you are hungry, I suggest going for something cola-flavored and/or containing fewer pubes.

xoxo
jill

*BTW, I get to pick out something to give away from Good Vibrations.  What would be a good prize?

(photo: wicked knickers)

Need Your Advice: How's Porn Affecting Your Sex Life? Plus, How Do You Take a Decent Cooter Shot?

I was so pleased by how you all came to the aid of a reader whose menopausal wife was no longer interested in sex. Several people wrote long and heartfelt messages to the guy and, well, it was just swell, real swell.

So, like a nonprofit that hounds you for years after you gave $20 that one time outside Trader Joe's, I return seeking even more from you.  In this case, it's not $20 (well, not necessarily) but your wisdom and experience.  Of which you have plenty. Which isn't a sentence.  And neither was that.

Anyway, wisdom.

1.  I am writing a story for DAME on how porn is affecting our sex lives.  And I need to interview some people who are out there dating. I'm looking for youngish people who could speak to what's going on in that demographic and older people dating again who have noticed differences between dating then and now. Anyone who works in sex counseling or research is welcome as well.

Is easy access to porn good for real sex or not? Are people fucking differently? Grooming differently? Expecting different/more things than lovers of yore? Is anyone experiencing trouble and/or disconnection when having sex with a real person there in real time? Are you needing to look at more extreme things to get turned on? Do you flip through a bunch of images or watch an entire scenario?

Let me know what's on your mind and whether you (or someone you know who might be a good candidate) would be willing to be interviewed. You can be anonymous or not.

2.  On the "Critique My Dick Pic" post, Little Queen Fish commented:
  
I would love to read some guidance for the female equivalent of the dick pic. We are at a bit of a disadvantage, with bits that are harder to photograph. Also, we need a catchy name for our pics. It's bad enough that men have a near monopoly on funny euphemisms for masturbation...we need a term for our up close and exceedingly personal shots! 

To appease LQF, I'm pitching a story called "How to Take a Decent Cooter Shot."

The thing is, I told the editor I was asking you all for some tips and I hadn't actually done that yet, so here, maybe you can give me some tips fast and we'll pretend like they were here all along.

I will tell you this:  I nerdishly Googled the topic ("how to take a good pussy pic," if you must know) and was completely horrified by the results. Not due to bad pussy pic overload--although that was true as well--but by the general response given to women asking for some basic How To tips.  It was mostly people shaming anyone considering it ("Don't do it! Show some respect for yourself!"), telling stupid jokes ("Send a picture of a cat."), or tired anti-feminist crap ("All vaginas are ugly!")

So...the Art of the Cooter shot. Have you mastered it? Received any that you deemed good or bad? Have any tips/advice? And don't tell me to take a picture of a cat because I will come up there and punch you.

We good then?

xoxox
jill

(photo)

Reader Mail Week: Give This Guy Some Advice

Today's reader mail comes from "J" who is in a newly sexless marriage and so upset about it, he's willing to take advice from random strangers on the internet. That is, you. So go to town.

Bear in mind that when people ask for advice they want good ideas that sound pretty much like what they already wanted to do in the first place. Oh yeah, and don't be mean.

Here's J:

My wife has been depressed and is menopausal. She's 56 and has lost all sexual desire. Before we were pretty active. I'm 61 and going insane right now. I will not have an affair. Any ideas?

I have tried kissing, hugging, and just loving her and being there for her. I've tried giving a her sensual massage--not going anywhere else--and trying to build something up.

I'm ready to jump out of my skin. So tired of doing myself.

*****

Well? What do you have for him?

xoxox
jill

(photo)

What happened that day Mrs. Dolphin was away...

Sex is good. Nature is good.  The sea, marine life--good as well.  But something about this particular combination of those elements (below) totally skeeves me out.

See this cute dolphin?  Know why he's so happy?  And yes, I know he's a "he" because he is masturbating.  Which is fine.  Right?  Masturbating is healthy.

So, yes, I guess it's good and natural that the dolphin feels free enough in his sexuality to not have to hide behind some kelp or something to jerk off.

But in a way I kind of wish he would.  Because you know what he's jerking off to and/or in?

A decapitated fish.

I don't know what it is that gets me about this:  the sexual frankness, the fucking of the headless, dead fish (could there be any greater fish humiliation?) or that fact that the dolphin looks so damn happy about it, like he's just living the life.

I feel like I'm missing out somehow.

xoxox
jill

ps Thanks to the dear, longtime reader who sent this in.  I'm guessing you don't want me to name you, but you're welcome to out yourself if you'd like.

Reader Mail Week, Day 1: Maurice on Infidelity.

Ahoy!  It's Reader Mail Week, which...well, you're pretty bright--I don't think I have to explain it to you.

First off, is this response from Maurice in which I asked readers where they were lately on the topic of infidelity: 

Infidelity?

Even the word sounds, I don't know, like it has to be spoken by someone in his/her 80s with a rasp and a heaping helping of holy indignation in his/her voice.
We called it a marriage, even without the ceremony, cake and small appliance gifts. It went over 25 years.

If she had cheated? I would have been majorly pissed, not because she cheated, but because she told me over and over again and in many different words and ways over the course of 25 years that cheating is the black side of a black-and-white situation — the purely wrong side. That such a thing was unforgivable. That it would be a betrayal of her, of her love, her dedication and commitment. Et cetera, et cetera. I didn't agree, but (for once) was smart enough not to say it.

I would have stayed with her. To me, sex with another person — "infidelity" — is not the end of a relationship. It is sex with another person. The reasons behind it are the key. Did she cheat because she was bored? Looking for an adventure? Because she saw an incredibly hot guy, had an opportunity and went for it? Or was it because she resented me in every conceivable way? Despised the way I thought? Hated the sound of my voice?

Oops. Okay, I sort of take it back. Towards the end, her cheating would have been a demonstration that she wanted out, or wanted me out. But early on, when we were solid and also young and horny? Her cheating would have just been sex with another person. It's sort of like when I went on motorcycle trips with the guys. Those were not demonstrations that I didn't want to be with her, just that I liked being with the guys sometimes, too. You know, not mutually exclusive.

I think too many people still think sex = love, that they're mutually inclusive (is that even a term?). I'm one of those guys who thinks love = love, and that sex should be a part of it, but that there can be sex without love and, unfortunately, love without sex.

Okay. Today? If my present partner banged someone else, I'd need to know why. Was it a caprice, or was it a sign of something deeper and more ominous? And if it turned out it was just a walk on the wild side and that she still loved me and only me and wanted our relationship to continue and grow, well, then, she's going to have to tell me everything. Slowly. And don't leave anything out ...

*****

So there you go.  Feel free to chime in as well.

In other business, if you can use the word "business" regarding a blog that generates a three figure annual income:

--There is a new "Refer a friend" button on the IBWMW Facebook page. Feel free to make use of it.

--IBWMW was named one of the Top 14 Sex Blogs and Websites to Follow in 2014 by A Good Woman's Dirty Mind. If you are practice infidelity in your sex blog reading choices (how could you?), pop on over.

--I have still not discovered what I meant when I emailed myself this now-mysterious note: "vaginal decor."

I most decidedly did not mean this, sent in by Janet, in which an Australian artist makes a statement about informed parenting (???) by knitting a long scarf-ish thing from yarn that she stuck up her wang. Besides the parenting statement (again, I say "?????"), she is also trying to show that one not feel "fear and revulsion" about the vulva.  Which, perhaps, is best not mended by pulling out seemingly endless mystery steins of yard from where none should live, but perhaps that is just my fear and revulsion talking.



xoxoxo
jill

Coming tomorrow:  Reader needs your advice regarding the marital bed...

(photo: Lady Cheeky, another of the 14 Sex Blogs to Follow. If you're gonna cheat on me with another blog, choose her.  Totally hot.)

"For purposes of example, this is the best fuck of my life"--Nicole Daedone in "On Fucking"

"Rule number one. You are not going to enter her until her pussy is dripping, until the walls have caved in because they are so swollen and fat. Until you can no longer hold your body away, where it feels like there is this undertow so strong that you cannot resist."

So advises Nicole Daedone in On Fucking, a piece on how, exactly, to enflame a woman's desire. (Note: "pussy is dripping" = you're probably doin' okay.)

Daedone, author of Slow Sex: The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm, is a proponent, instigator and teacher of OM, or Orgasmic Meditation. Here's the Wikipedia entry, but basically, OM is a practice in which clarity, mindfulness, in-touchness with the universe and all that is reached through extremely focused touch. Specifically, the touch of a partner's hand slowly and rhythmically stroking a woman's clitoris in a particular way. Sessions last 15 minutes and the goal is not orgasm, but rather heightened sexual awareness. And, as it turns out, having someone lavish attention on this particular body part for 15 minutes is extremely effective at heightening sexual awareness.

Daedone seeks to whip up the kind of desire that's not just "Sure, a quickie sounds good," but rather, "I want you so bad I can't see straight and if you don't fuck me this very instant I might possibly die."

OM practitioners can experience intense, deeper, more fuckier fucks, with fat, swollen body parts (see above) coupled with equally fat, swollen desire, a finely tuned awareness of...oh...god...how damn good it all is, plus your general transcendence and whatnot.

"I can fuck and have it feel like not only is his cock moving inside of me, but something deeper, like this magnetic cock is fucking me. Ultimately that is what I am looking for. Anything less is disappointing," writes Daedone.

Magnetic cock, eh? That sounds pretty good....I think. If nothing else, it would certainly come in handy were I to be vacuuming in the nude, trip and accidentally lose something metal up the wang.

But perhaps we should hear some more. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Ms. Nicole Daedone and this excerpt from "On Fucking":

I am going to tell you a story about a perfect storm of sex.

Remember I am a crazy immersive kind of person, you do not need to try this at home, but my teachers suggested that I just om. No sucking, fucking or stroking cock.

There grew to be this attraction with this guy that was like iron shards to a magnet. When he entered a room my body just moved to him. It had reached the level where it was chemical. He was actually fairly what at the time I considered cruel. He would do things like sit down to stroke my genitals and then say, nope you aren’t turned on enough. What? Yep. Just not feeling it. First I wanted to kill him. Then I wanted to eat him.

At the same time when I really was turned on he would walk up to me and say now, lie down.  And he would stroke me into the deepest places I had ever been in my life.

He had this kind of attention that was so attuned that – whereas I normally would be yelling at a guy, no a little to the left, to the right! – with him I would think it and he would move there, or exceed my expectations and go to a place I hadn’t even realized existed. And all he did were these little strokes and I was like a ducking, are you my boyfriend.

For two and a half of those three and a half years I was dying for it. I needed to have sex.  He’d say, I am sure we will…but only when you have made it irresistible. Irresistable? Irresistable? So I would beg and plead and demand and cry and every time he would say…almost. I’d threaten to have sex with someone else and he would say I wish you the best.

I hated him. I wanted him.

At the same time, it was funny, there was this background chatter. It’s embarrassing to admit. He was not the right guy. I was totally ambivalent when I would be rational.

And so my mind screamed no, my head screamed yes.

And there was this element of power. I was always accustomed to being in control. I would put out the “sex is in” sign and they would line up. Not him. I felt oddly at his mercy. I would find myself actually begging him.

I would lie in bed and yearn for him.

And then one day, something overtook me. It overthrew my rational mind. I didn’t care how tall he was, I didn’t care that I would be breaking the rules, I didn’t fear that it might not be as good as I dreamed, I didn’t care that I felt like a desperate animal.

This thing inside me was going to fuck him and that was that.

At the moment I realized it he entered the room. I simply said “now” and he took off his pants.

My body was a live wire. His hand brushed my stomach it I felt like 10,000 nerve endings fired. When he kissed me, it felt like the end of two wires came together and sparked. Everything was heightened. I could smell the detergent on the sheets, the Casablanca lilies, his saliva had this sweet salty taste, the sound of his breath sounded like an ocean.

And then he entered me and it was like he was entering every single cell of my body. I could feel him in the tips of my fingers, in my hair follicles there was no part of me that was not being penetrated by him.

Prior to oming, to having all this blood rush down to my pussy, my pussy had been sort of concave. It was like this. But having this much blood pushing down on the walls made it convex. The walls were rubbing up against themselves. Where it had felt quite honestly like a man was kind of batting around in there beating up against this cave it now felt like my pussy had become this velvet glove that wrapped around his cock. My clit had also dropped down from the weight, so that however he stroked, wherever he stroked with his cock, my clit rubbed up against it. It felt like there was no part of me that was not being fucked. And because of this, this feeling of what I can only call orgasm wrapped around both of us like we were in this honey blanket. Like I could lick this feeling off his face like nectar. It was that thick.

That was my first totally surrendered fuck. After that there was a line permanently drawn in the sand between what I had thought fucking was and what I  discovered what sex really is.

Well, gentle reader, have you have lickable honey blanket sex like this? Whole mind/body fuckery, magnetic cocks and so forth? Any other general thoughts? (And for further learnin', you can check out Daedone's TED video, Orgasm, the Cure for Hunger in the Western Woman.)

xoxoxo
jill

* p.s. It gives me undue pleasure that my computer has a file labeled "On Fucking."

~~yeah, it's a rerun. just cuz. 

Reviews of Stuff People Asked Me to Review

"How 'bout some strip Candy Land then?"

1.  The Butterfly Bliss Silicone Waterproof Vibrator sent to me unbidden by the nice new lady at Good Vibrations.

Here's what I can tell you:

--Don't have it arrive near your daughter's birthday so that she runs inside carrying the package saying, "Is it my birthday present?" (Intercepted this time, thus avoiding a repeat of The Zestra Incident.)
--Note that it doesn't come with the required two AAA batteries, so if you get a sudden yen to try it one night, you might find yourself naked in the kitchen, sifting through the junk drawer, searching for some batteries that do not have corrosion on them.

We're cousins, identical cousins

--Note also that non-corroded batteries do not necessarily = fresh peppy batteries. This leads to a situation in which the vibe is slowly dying, but imperceptibly.  So as you need more, it cruelly gives you less. You know the math concept in which you can keep halving a number infinitely, getting closer to--but never quite arriving at--zero? It's like that but with orgasm.
--New batteries, next day:  all good. Real good. V. quiet, inner knobby thing for G-spot gloriousness, outer butterfly-looking part for external butterfly love.
--Note, the final: I had a good look at the butterfly looking part as I was washing off the traces of our intimate love and, fuck, what's with the butterfly/sex toy trope? Who wants to have sex with a butterfly?  (Just googled it and the answer is...no one. IBWMW Minister of Kooky Schemes: add to list of possible topics for untapped erotica ebook market.) This butterfly looks particularly reminiscent of its caterpillar past, with antennae, beady little eyes and icky ridge things on its thorax. Wouldn't an abstract design be way hotter, and by hotter I mean, completely non-bug-related?


"Please fuck me, bzzzzz."

(Btw, I took the vibrator out to my front yard--the butterfly's natural habitat, I suppose--to get better light for full thorax exposure for the picture. THIS is how much I love you.) 

2. Bedded Bliss: A Couple's Guide to Lust Ever After by Kristina Wright.

Even when I was a kid sneaking peeks at sex articles in women's magazines, there was something unbearably depressing about the articles on "reigniting the spark." And today, this kind of stuff still triggers that same existential angst. I mean, playing strip Candy Land to spice it up? Has it really come to this?

However, I will toss kudos to Wright for an innovative spin on the genre, as well as an open-minded approach. Besides some depression-inducing sex tips ("Keep a jar of memories"), there are sections devoted to each stage of married life, i.e. middle age, with accompanying erotica. The best erotica, to me, were the stories that eroticized the continuing strong sexual reaction between a couple--the place of heat that two people can return to--as in "Take it off," by Sommer Marsden or ones that had some boundary-pushing like "Circuit" by Charlotte Stein. On the other hand, when a story pushed a boundary I didn't personally want pushed, well, ick.  That would be you, "Holding Forth," with the pee erotica. Sample line:  "'It must feel so good for her to let it flow,' Melanie observed sensuously, fondling my shaft with increased vigor."

Alas, I too now must pee, but I suspect it will be less eventful, as there is no shaft available for me to fondle with increased vigor.  However it ends up, I will keep it to myself. You don't get to know everything.

 

xoxo

jill 

 

(photo courtesy the ever-lovely Lady Cheeky)

Real Sex Lives: Lucia, "Not all infidelity automatically makes you a jerk."

The following Real Sex Lives* arrived in my inbox with no explanation, save for the subject "Musings for the blog." It was from someone I'll call Lucia.

When I post these, I generally pull a quote from the essay for the title, and when I asked a friend what he thought of the one above, he said, "I think it sounds delusional." Meaning, any and all infidelity did indeed make one a jerk. Period.

But...what if your spouse was...oh, in a coma or something for a long time and mentally and physically unavailable?  Or what if they had no interest in fucking you--and in fact, would not fuck you--for 23 years? Or what if they were a loving spouse, a terrific parent and all that, but just didn't really get sex? Can you create chemistry where none lives? Is it wrong to yearn for the kind of passionate fuckery that makes your whole body hum? Is it all wrong, or is there some sort of continuum of wrongness with some points being...not so wrong.

I am more in the gray area on the subject, but maybe that's because I'm reading Dan Savage's latest book, American Savage: Insights, Slights, and Fights on Faith, Sex, Love, and Politics, particularly the chapter, "It's Never Okay to Cheat (Except When It Is)." In it, Savage argues that we are "monogamish." "I believe we should place a higher value on marital stability than we place on marital monogamy," he writes. That is, tossing out a largely working, good marriage over an infidelity is not always the only and best choice. We pair bond, mostly. And maybe we should figure out a way to work with that. Savage writes "as a society we have a responsibility to adjust people's expectation about marriage."

Tell me where you are on this lately. Not necessarily on Lucia's situation, but the issue in general. If your spouse cheated, would you toss them to the curb? Does infidelity automatically make you a jerk? Is it, indeed, all wrong?

Anyway, here's Lucia:

It sounds funny to say but I don't really remember exactly how we met. I know one of us posted to Craigslist, but I don't remember which of us or whether it was in Strictly Platonic or what... I think it must have been because I knew from the get-go that not only was he married and 20+ years older than I was, but that he was also... not attractive to me.  I had like, zero draw to him in "that way."  But he was smarter than pretty much everyone else I knew, was incredibly interesting, and always picked up the check at lunch.

For years it went on, meeting for lunch, talking about life.  He never, ever did anything inappropriate. Occasionally there would be some innuendo, but it was never overdone.  I got engaged and moved away; his goodbye kiss had more oomph than I was expecting and I flipped out a little.  In retrospect that wasn't fair of me to do... he'd just lingered a little more than I'd wanted.  But, I was moving 1500 miles away and it was hard to say goodbye and maybe being mad made it easier.  I left him behind and we didn't talk for two years.

By the time I came back, my life had changed: I was still married, but it wasn't a happy marriage, and my husband was living in a different country. I found myself thinking about my friend and missing him, which I hadn't in the years I'd been away.   I reached out with an e-mail, and he responded within minutes.  It wasn't even awkward: when I saw him, I gave him a big hug and we just stood there for a long time, with the hostess waiting to seat us, probably tapping her foot the whole time.

It wasn't awkward but it was different.  I didn't realize it at first, but it was there: we were looking at each other differently. My 20s were over, I was much more comfortable in myself, and I saw him differently too: he wasn't just an amusing way to pass two hours over lunch. I found myself thinking about him and about what it would be like to touch each other. I was pretty sure it wouldn't go very far, he'd been faithful to his wife their entire marriage (despite opportunities) and they'd been married since I was 12--but I was curious what would happen if I hit on him.  So... I sent him a suggestive e-mail, and he responded with a hard-core explicit one.  And we talked like that, via e-mail, about stuff we'd never talked about through all the years that had passed.  And then... I invited him over.

I think we were both shaking when we laid down together.  This was the only time we'd ever really been awkward around each other, ever.  And when he kissed me, that line got crossed.  We both knew that but it felt so good, and it'd been well-considered and accepted.  I asked him to go slow, and he did, and we just kissed and petted for a few weeks.  I don't know how long that would have gone on, probably a long time.  But then something happened, and I got hurt.  And it was him that I called, he came and got me and took me home from the hospital.  And something switched in me, and all the awkwardness was gone, and I wrapped myself around him that night.  

That was two years ago.  Our friendship remains--we rely on each other for advice and honesty, levity and Words With Friends and of course, wonderful, amazing sex like neither of us has had before.  We both work in fields where we can help each other personally with our professional knowledge and resources; we go to endless movies when we can.  We're working through Sons of Anarchy.  We send each other e-mail "status updates" frequently.  But there are places we don't go: I know he is in love with his wife; that doesn't bother me.  Because he loves her, she is just a topic we don't really discuss, except in passing--he feels that it would be an intrusive violation of her privacy to discuss her (I agree).  I even saw her once, at a distance, at an event we were all attending--and I didn't really have a response, it just... was.  Their relationship is a lifelong commitment upon which a family and an entire life has been built.  My role is different--I'm an escape from that, a chance to do something that is only for him, that doesn't benefit them in any way... just his.  And as far as I can tell, I'm the only thing he does for himself.  I make it my goal to appreciate him for who he is, to be a joy to him the way he is for me: again, something just for him, not his wife or kids or coworkers, just him.

And for me?  Well, the sex is truly amazing (yeah he's not the hottest guy ever, but it turns out those 20+ years of additional experience count for something!) not the least of which because he is so turned into me that I don't ever have to ask for anything, he just knows to do it.  But also, I'm single now (marriage ended in there somewhere, for reasons unrelated) and I don't want to be in a full relationship yet.  He gives me the perfect middle ground: a strong, long-term friendship, someone to talk to but with all the space I need for me.  Obviously this is not a long-term thing, eventually I will want more from a guy, but for now, I don't.  

We made an agreement that when it came time to end things, either one of us could do it without drama.  Neither of us are dramatic people, so though I am sure one of us will feel a little stingy for a while, we'll get over it.  Unless something catastrophic happens (read: wife) I think we'll find our way to another type of relationship, without the whole sex component.  I know this is a dangerous game, and I don't take it lightly--but I am so grateful for him, and he for me.  He is truly my friend, and proof that not all infidelity automatically makes you a jerk.  If this guy is a jerk, there are no nice people out there.   

***
There you have it. If you want to share your real sex story--be brave and go deep!--send it to jillhamilton001@gmail.com

xoxox
jill

*The name True Wife's Tales has become too limiting for these real life sex story things. You're smart and clever--what should we start calling them now?

(photo: Lady Cheeky)