Occam's Razor

Out and Equal and I’m confused

A couple weeks back I received some LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) diversity training. Frankly, I figured the seminar would be a skate. While I am your typical heterosexual white male, it’s not like I have not known people in the LGBT community. As a Unitarian Universalist, I have also helped our church become a welcoming congregation for LGBTs. I was even Standing on the Side of Love at their annual assembly in Salt Lake City last year. Still, I was not quite prepared when I walked into the classroom, and left more than a little confused.

That’s probably partly by design, and partly because I have some trouble when an issue has too many permutations. Two instructors showed up from Out and Equal, a San Francisco based non-profit that is helping integrate the LGBT community into the workplace. Of course, the LGBT community has always been in the workplace. For the most part, they stayed silent about their natures at work. During the last couple of decades, more from the community have come out at work. In San Francisco, you expect LGBT to be out in the workplace. In other parts of the country, like many places in the Deep South, if you know what is good for you, you remain closeted at work, and maybe in your community as well. In Washington, D.C., being LGBT not that big a deal, as like most major cities we have a rather large LGBT community. For the most part the LGBT community just blends in. In general, there is an unofficial “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the workplace. You disclose as much about your personal life as you feel comfortable disclosing. However, it is also perfectly okay to come to work, do your job, act pleasantly and then go home with your colleagues not much the wiser. Miss Manners does not approve of prying questions anyhow. So we generally don’t pry.

One of the instructors was a fifty something lesbian dressed as a man, right down to the blue suit and pinstripe tie. I first mistook her for a man until I heard the pitch of her voice. She spent most of her career in the military, but left the day the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy went into affect. She was eligible to retire anyhow, but said she could not live with an official policy where she had to remain closeted. The gentleman was much younger, gay and frankly gorgeous. He was skinner than Fabio but otherwise looked a lot like him, but with long dark locks mixed with blond streaks that flowed down his back.

Men dress up for work all the time, however, most of us just dress for success, which means that while we may look good in a suit, we are indistinguishable. When we get home, we revert to blue jeans. This man was as beautiful and any woman I’ve ever seen exiting out of a beauty salon. Frankly, he had me a bit mesmerized. Obviously, I need to get out more because I had no idea my sex could look so good. By the end of the day, I realized what my problem was: I found him attractive. I had no desire to put the moves on him nor I could not imagine myself intimate with him but the same is true with the many attractive women I run into everyday as well. I realized I found him attractive because he took exquisite pride in how he looked and in many ways, this made him seem effeminate to me, and this was the source of my attraction. Finding a man attractive has happened to me before, but only rarely, and generally about every five years or so. Generally, I don’t see my fellow men. I know them as people, but I don’t see them the way heterosexual women do. During the seminar, we were encouraged to challenge our assumptions, and I must say I was challenged.

I have always said I was heterosexual, yet few of us who call ourselves heterosexuals really are entirely heterosexual. Whether we wish to acknowledge it our not, we fall somewhere between the extremes of heterosexuality and homosexuality. Most of us tilt rather markedly toward one side or the other but at the same time, many of us have had homosexual experiences, generally when we were younger. Many like me assume we are completely heterosexual because even if occasionally we do find a man attractive, we don’t act on it.

From the seminar, I learned there is much more to someone from the LGBT community than just their sexual orientation. There are in fact at least four aspects to sexuality to consider about any person. The first aspect is our birth sex, which is straightforward enough. However, there are exceptional cases where someone is born with both obvious male and female genitalia. The second aspect is our sexual orientation, or the sex to which we are attracted. For most of us straights, this is all we think about when we consider someone from the LGBT community. The third is the gender we identify with. A transgender person, for example, has a conflict between their birth sex and the gender they feel inside. For example, if they have male genitalia, they may find it disgusting and unnatural. This often leads to stress because they are inhabiting the wrong kind of body. Lastly, there is the aspect of gender expression, or how someone chooses to express their sexuality. Transvestites, for example Eddie Izzard, like to dress in the clothing of the opposite sex, even while most remain extremely heterosexual. If you think about it, this means that a person might fit into any one of 24 possible categories. Moreover, categories are simply conveniences for us to try to organize aspects of someone in our own mind. A person’s actual sexuality includes all sorts of other possible variants.

By the end of the class my head was spinning. For example, I could be a biological man who so strongly feels I am a woman to the point that I might consider sex change surgery and hormone replacement therapy to look like a woman. Yet, even though I feel inside like a woman, even after all that surgery to make me a woman, I might prefer to dress like a man. Moreover, I might prefer men to women, which suggests I am not homosexual, but a heterosexual woman in a man’s body who prefers a “butch” look. Most would label this person as a homosexual simply because they are attracted to men and be done with it. We were asked to ponder how we would make the workplace an accommodating and friendly environment for people like this so they don’t have the stress of living a closeted identity. Indeed, they will probably be most productive in a work environment where they can truly be out and equal. Before taking the seminar, this all was so less confusing. Of course, I just chose to remain largely ignorant of the many variations of humanity out there.

As confusing as the LGBT world is, it is relatively straightforward stuff, compared it with the kinks many of us straights have but choose to keep in the closet. Since my wife has many friends from the LGBT community and well the kink community, about a decade back I purchased the book Come Hither, A Commonsense Guide to Kinky Sex by Dr. Gloria G. Grame. It sits next to my bed. I am a reasonably sexually curious person, but curiously in the nearly ten years, I have owned the book, I still have not finished it, although I genuinely mean to finish it. Frankly, I find the numbing variations of kink too confusing to fully get my mind around. Although I’ve gone through the definitions many times, I still cannot quite get the difference between a “top” and a dominant, and submissive and a “bottom”. To my wife it all makes complete sense and is intuitive, but to me it is a confusing muddle. Moreover, power play is just one aspect of the whole world of kink that seems to me to be an endlessly confusing hall of mirrors.

So I figure that if once every five years or so I run across a guy that I find attractive, then overall I must be a very vanilla heterosexual. Because of the seminar, I certainly will be more respectful of those in the LGBT community and mindful of the diversity inside it. In fact, I may be less “don’t ask, don’t tell” than I am now, simply because I don’t want them to feel they have to shutter some part of their life when they come to work.

Frankly, I don’t care if someone at work is or is not part of the LGBT community. If they want to have a picture of their same sex spouse in their office, that’s fine with me. I am glad to hear about their weekend activities with their lover or same sex spouse. I hope they would voluntarily open their lives to my gentle inquiries, because so much of their world still confuses me. My philosophy is people are just people, and these sort of variations should not matter at all as long as in the workplace there is no harassment. Which of the 24 squares a person falls into perhaps helps in understanding where they are coming from and how to manage them. I hope that I can set a standard with my employees that these variations do not matter and we should welcome anyone in the LGBT community we happen to work with for the complex person they happen to be.

I hope I will eventually understand all these permutations. Right now, I just wish my head would stop spinning. Once again, my black and white world seems to be mixed with too many colors to wholly comprehend.

February 20th, 2010 at 01:58pm Posted by Mark | Sociology | no comments

Real Life 101, Lesson 13: Great sex is not pornography come to life

This is the thirteenth in an indeterminate series of entries that provides my “real world” lessons to young adults. It is my conviction that these lessons are rarely taught either at home or in the schools. For those who did not get them growing up you can get them from me for free. This is part of my way of giving back to the universe on the occasion of my 50th birthday.

Surfing YouTube last night, I spent most of my time enjoying the excellent TED channel. There I stumbled across this video by Cindy Gallop, a “lady of a certain age” as they like to be called who is fortunate enough to bed many men half her age or more. One thing she has noted is that young adults today confuse pornographic sex with real sex. The sad truth that many young adults cannot discern is that pornographic sex has about as much in common with real sex as a Formula One racer has in common with the Honda Civic that you drive. To help you out, Gallop created this site. Gallop, however, just scratches the surface of this topic.

The confusion is understandable. Like it or not young adults have probably been exposed to hundreds of hours of pornography on the Internet, often before they have sex with someone other than their own right hand. Lord knows that in most cases their parents cannot be bothered to clue them in on how real adults have sex. They are more likely to completely hide their sexuality from their children and make sure they are asleep or being very quiet while having sex.

It may surprise you to learn that your parents probably are still having sex. They are probably not coupling every night anymore as middle age takes a toll on many things, including their sex drives. There is no one size fits all when it comes to sexuality. There are couples in their middle years still going at it like bunnies. Others can go months without having sex and it is fine with both of them. Most likely, when they do get around to making love it bears no resemblance to a pornographic movie. Most likely, neither will your sex life.

This is because pornography is about fantasy, not real life. Moreover, the vast majority of videotaped pornography is for the male, not the female. Since women these days watch a lot of pornography too, you may be under the impression that they are being trained to enjoy the male-oriented version of pornography. Perhaps some of it is rubbing off (no pun intended) but likely not very much. However, pornography might carry with it the implication that modern women should enjoy or at least accommodate men by engaging in sexual acts rife in modern pornography.

Ask any porn actress how much they enjoy being in porn. A certain amount will lie for the trade presses, but when interviewed most will candidly admit (gasp!) they are in it for the money and get little or no pleasure from participating in sexual acts in front of the camera. Any great sex they have likely happens off camera. For one thing, they are being tightly directed. Second, they are expected to act so of course for the most part they will be faking lust they do not genuinely feel. They are following a script for a few quick bucks so you (generally a guy) can get off. Their directors know what you want because they analyze their sales and follow trends. So if you see a lot of videos about something like anal sex, they are there to meet your market demand. Satisfying your lust is simply a business. Pornography attempts to render idealized sexual fantasy, nothing more. It is particularly unhelpful in educating you on how ordinary people make love.

So while you may think a sex act like anal sex might be very arousing, chances are any female you have a real life sexual encounter will not. Now, as in most things in life, there are some women who are into anal sex, and if that is also your passion, you two will have a lot of fun in bed together. Most likely though she will be into anal sex about as much as you would be if she were doing it to you. Most men don’t want to go down that road because it kills the fantasy and has homosexual implications. In any event, rest assured that those couples that do have anal sex are doing it slowly with lots of artificial lubrication and probably using a condom, something you are unlikely to see in a pornographic video.

The same can be said about almost any sexual act portrayed in pornography. If you are a male and can find a woman who is genuinely into your kinks, you are likely going to be a happy man in the bedroom. Most but certainly not all women may be into a couple of your kinks. Oral sex, for example, is now fairly out of the closet mainly because the tongue is much more expressive than a penis or a vagina. It is not too hard to find a woman who is willing to satisfy you orally, particularly if you are willing to return the favor. However, most women see oral sex as foreplay (although for many it is the only way they can get off with a man, providing he knows how to do it to them right). Relatively few women see mutual oral sex as the primary way to have orgasms. Do not expect your partner to be Linda Lovelace for she is no more likely to have mastered the gag reflex than you.

The majority of women cannot have an orgasm from intercourse alone. In fact, you may not be able to even give them an orgasm. Some women never achieve orgasm, but those that do often need a lot of foreplay and need you to exercise a lot of patience. You may need to slow down when nature says go faster because they may need to also use their fingers or a vibrator to get off.

The truth is that having a great sex life with your partner takes a lot of time and energy. Your first experience with someone new is likely to be memorable, but only so-so as far as actual sex is concerned. That is because we are all different and no matter how much experience you have between the sheets, the first time two people couple they are really just getting to know each other sexually. If you are a guy and your pattern is to move from woman to woman, aside from the dangerous aspects unless you practice very safe sex, you are likely to be disappointed.

In most cases, the best sex between two people happens months or years later after they really know each other, both as sexual creatures and as people. In short, sex becomes better the more trust and understanding there is between two people. Most likely, you will find that sex is best not when you are engaging in the latest bizarre position you saw in some pornographic Internet video but when in the sex act you become one passionate creature with your partner, each feeding off the signals from each other. When you do X to your lover in a certain way that creates a passionate response tailored to their sexual buttons and she responds similarly, that’s when sex really becomes great and transcendent. You feed off her signals and she feeds off yours and, if you are both lucky, for a few special moments you will experience transcendent pleasure, although the time before and afterward will be great fun too. You should feel connected sexually, emotionally and spiritually to your partner when this happens. Your orgasm, when it happens, will be so much more than an orgasm. Rather than be kinky as you see in pornography, it should feel wholesome, godlike and spiritually uplifting. What positions you are in do not really matter, nor does it matter how kinky or pedestrian the act is when it happens. What is important is the overwhelming sense of pleasure and intimacy between two people.

Trust me, it is way better than anything you are going to see in a pornographic video. No video can capture these feelings that happen inside you during these short but exquisite moments. The high comes from the feeling of mutual connection, not because you also had an orgasm. The orgasm is the frosting on the cake. The mutual connection is the cake itself. This is the difference between making love and having sex.

My suggestion is to go into sex in a spirit of mutual playfulness. Sex can have many meanings, both for good and ill. At its best, it is warm and playful intimate adventure between two people who are just really into each other, not just as sexual creatures, but also as people and with all the dimensions that this encompasses. That is way better than anything you are going to find in some pornographic video.

December 28th, 2009 at 10:33am Posted by Mark | Sociology | no comments

Craigslist Casual Encounters: now officially a complete waste of time

(Warning: This post is rated R.)

Every couple of weeks I log into Google Analytics and check out my blog’s web statistics. A fuller report will come in 2010 but I have noticed a few trends. Visits are down by about a quarter and page views are down by about a fifth. This is not necessarily bad. In the past, my page views were artificially inflated by the less than one percent of my blog entries that discuss pornography, particularly this one and that one. Thankfully, page views for those posts are receding at last.

What is increasing? A simple eulogy I wrote and published when my mother died back in 2005 has received twice as much traffic as the year before (over 4300 page views, averaging twelve page views a day). However, my fastest growing blog entry is one in wrote in late 2005 on the Casual Encounters section of Craigslist. Interest in this topic is up 127% from a year ago and averages more than fifteen page views a day. While I have nothing more to say about pornography, in the interest of getting more traffic I could find something more to say about Craigslist.

So over the long Thanksgiving weekend, I put on my dark glasses and revisited Washington D.C. Craigslist Casual Encounters to see what was new. When I reviewed it in 2005 it was a pretty crass place. I am sad to say that four years later the situation is much worse, which I did not think was possible. If I were Craig Newmark, who founded Craiglist way back in 1995, I would be too embarrassed to host it anymore.

At least Craigslist will take the time to warn you that most of the postings in this area are fraudulent.

SCAM ALERT – scammers posing as potential romantic partners are directing CL users to age and identity verification sites, dating/adult/cam sites (where you can see their “pics” or chat with them), even sites designed to deliver malware — all in hopes of earning affiliate marketing commissions at your expense.

In response to the high volume of spam, Craigslist has taken some steps. It has made it harder to post ads, in that you have to go through the open source reCaptcha system first. (I am using it too to filter comments.) The good news is that this means that whoever posts to Craigslist is a human, rather than a robot. The bad news is that it does not appear to be deterring spammers in the least. There must be enough money to be made trying to sell sex as a “casual encounter” on Craigslist to go through the bother anyhow.

Also in response to the high volume of spammers lurking in the Casual Encounters weeds, Craigslist has provided tools to “vote a poster off the island”. If enough people say that an ad is spam, it is marked as spam and shortly prohibited from display. Craigslist then sends the poster an email, which apparently contains a convenient link which if you click on it lets you repost the message. The result is that it appears that Craigslist Casual Encounters is now largely a flame war between people pissed off by the spam and the spammers.

What is getting lost? Well, casual sex connections on the site, which were probably largely an illusion anyhow. However, there a number of ads that appear to my untrained eye to be wholly legitimate. At least I assume that is true of the many ads posted by “BBWs” (Big Beautiful Women, or judging from their pictures when they post them, morbidly obese women) looking for a good time. Whatever, they are likely to be quickly voted off the island as well. Maybe the BBWers are in reality spammers. Or maybe the Craigslist men just hate fat women. The result appears to be a toxic mess of spam and vindictive people willing to flag everything.

Perhaps you read about the murder that happened in Boston in May to a woman who advertised in Craigslist Erotic Services. Since then Craigslist has tightened up its Erotic Services board, apparently charging anyone a fee to post, and prohibiting ads that suggest you will receive actual sex. The result of this policy seems to be to move the whores into the Casual Encounters area instead. As was true in 2005, there appear to be plenty of “women” whoring over there. Certain words though must be getting flagged because these “women” have developed a whole new vocabulary for asking for money. Mostly they want “roses”. Men are not beyond asking for “roses” either, particularly when they are advertising for their own gender. The typical ad is like this one:

I could use your help with bills. If you could use a good bj, let’s help each other. 100 roses for bj. I can host. Must be clean/ddf.

There are even people out there selling manufactured group sex. If I were interested in group sex, I suspect I would find a local swingers group where, presumably, you can swing safely and with people who are not psychos. I sure would not expect to pay for the privilege, particularly when multi-partner sex with complete strangers can kill you. Moreover, who is to know if you go to some stranger’s apartment you will not end up robbed or worse?

hot gangbang 2nite only!!!! 46DDD, big nipples, wet pussy. horny. TIGHT ASS HOLE 5′8 black I CAN HOST TONIGHT ONLY. $

Even if you can find a legitimate poster for a gangbang, do they want you? No, apparently they are into fantasy, which means you must be very well endowed, not Mr. Six Incher. With our African American president, black must be the new “in” color. Well-endowed black men seem to be in great demand, particularly for group sex.

Seeking 4 to 5 more Black males to join our GB grp.. Requirements is as follows.. Must be clean and dd free. Able to perform in a grp setting. 8′ or better. Must be in shape. Must not be camera shy.

8 feet or better? Good luck with that. Okay, well, Craigslist posters are not exactly known for their spelling skills and can’t seem to be bothered to reread the posts before the make them.

In short, if you want to waste your time, want to catch some sort of deadly social disease, want to get robbed, are into hugely obese but possibly horny women, want to have an encounter with a woman who turns out to be a transvestite or love flagging spammers then Craigslist Casual Encounters is your perfect destination.

To the many horny men out there, I am sorry, but if you want to get laid, it’s time to start frequenting bars and clubs again. At least you can see what you are getting in a bar. Good news: most are non-smoking these days, so it’s easier to discern the good looking women from the not so. I cannot see how you can possibly find what you are looking for on Craigslist.

Back in 2005, I said that surfing Craigslist Casual Encounters was like rubbernecking past an awful accident. In 2009, I can say it does not even have the appeal of rubbernecking. It is the definition of a complete waste of time.

December 5th, 2009 at 05:02pm Posted by Mark | Sociology | one comment

If you love your kids, give them a real sex education

Four years ago, I wrote about the folly of teaching substandard or abstinence-only sex education. Now we have proof, or at least a darn convincing clinical study.

Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.

The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a “virginity pledge,” but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.

For most teenagers taking a pledge to remain a virgin until marriage is an exercise in satisfying their parents’ anxieties rather than a sincere conviction. It is hard to know just how sincere teenagers were when they took the pledge. In many cases, they make pledges like this long before they have the maturity to do so. Whether sincere or not, the lure of Mother Nature seems to trump Mom and Dad’s counsel. All that abstinence sex education, sermons in church and lectures from Mom and Dad seem to have no effect on whether and when you decide to have premarital sex. The study started tracking teenagers who took the pledge in 1995. Curiously:

By 2001, Rosenbaum found, 82 percent of those who had taken a pledge had retracted their promises …

Apparently, if you take the virginity pledge and become sexually active, you are also more reticent to take precautions. Did taking the pledge at least delay the onset of sexual activity? Apparently not:

… and there was no significant difference in the proportion of students in both groups who had engaged in any type of sexual activity, including giving or receiving oral sex, vaginal intercourse, the age at which they first had sex, or their number of sexual partners. More than half of both groups had engaged in various types of sexual activity, had an average of about three sexual partners and had had sex for the first time by age 21 even if they were unmarried.

So there was no benefit for taking an abstinence pledge except falsely assuaging Mom and Dad’s anxieties. However, by taking the abstinence pledge when your child does decide to have sex they are more likely to get pregnant or pick up a disease. They could even pick up AIDS, which is currently incurable and will eventually kill them. This could be the price you and your child pay for trying to assuage your anxieties about premarital sex.

How about trying something different? How about insisting that your children get a comprehensive sexual education rather than one that leaves them woefully ignorant on vital information they need to know? If you are pro-abstinence, it is perfectly correct to point out that, unless your child is raped, it is the only way to guarantee they will not become a parent or pick up a social disease. Of course, abstaining until marriage is no guarantee that they will never pick up a social disease. They may marry a philanderer for a spouse. I know you think your wonderful son or daughter would never do this, but just in case they do, wouldn’t you want your son or daughter to at least be aware of what might await them?

Ignorance is always stupid. To some extent, when it comes to sex education the inclination toward ignorance is understandable, since it is typically an uncomfortable topic for both parent and child. Yet, this inclination must be resisted. If you love your son or daughter you have to make sure they have a comprehensive sex education and that they are prepared to handle the emotional and physical consequences of their choice. For it will be their choice. Even if they do “just say no”, this does not really help them resolve the difficult transition from sexually inactive child to sexually active adult. You can preach as much virtue as you want, but statistically by the time your son or daughter is 21 they will have had on average three sexual partners. Since people are marrying at later ages, they are almost certain to have premarital sex. It is better to get them prepared for that reality.

You can do it by insisting that your school system provide complete and unbiased sex education and by making sure your child takes the course. Abstinence can certainly be mentioned, but it needs to point out that for most teenagers it will be ineffective. Mother Nature fills them with hormones and sexual curiosity. The need to be sexually active is not unlike a hatchling needing to learn how to fly. It is innate and entirely natural. Since most of our precious children are going to be sexually active before marriage, if you really love your children, you must arm them with the information needed to succeed in this transition.

If your school district, like most of them, gives sex education short shrift, there are alternatives. You likely are not a Unitarian Universalist, but you can inquire with a local church to find out when their program, Our Whole Lives, will next be taught. It is one of the few programs out there that is unbiased and covers not only the physical aspects of sexuality but the emotional aspects too. Most UU churches do not require you or your child become a member of the church to take the course.

There is also a lot of online information, with the most reputable information on the Planned Parenthood or the SIECUS web sites. In my humble opinion, these are a poor substitute for classroom teaching but it is better than nothing. If your children are not too squeamish, they probably would be helped hearing your experiences, how you dealt with them and how you felt about each sexual relationship.

Your child must absolutely know how to protect themselves from premature parenthood and social diseases. You must step up to the plate. You could bring home a sample of over the counter birth control products. You can show your son or daughter what a condom looks like and feels like and how it is used, using your fingers as an example.

If you have an excellent relationship with your child, they may even feel free enough to come to you when they feel close to being sexually active. If you have a daughter, you can take her to a gynecologist. Planned Parenthood clinics are in most communities of a certain size. You could show them where the local clinic is and make sure they know that they can get birth control products and STD information confidentially, cheaply and safely.

You may be aghast at some of my suggestions. Let me assure you though that after the initial shock wears off, your child will have a higher opinion of you. Many parents, including mine, skipped most of these steps. I like many ignorant young adults made many preventable mistakes in my journey toward being a sexually active adult. Providing comprehensive tools and information for your children to make the choices they will have to make is a sign of deep love. Your children deserve nothing less.

January 3rd, 2009 at 12:36pm Posted by Mark | Sociology | no comments

Taking pleasure in hand

(Warning: This blog entry is rated R.)

We are told that if something is too good to be true, it is. There is no such thing as a calorie free brownie. We wanted to believe we could eat potato chips made with Olestra and never get fat. Even if the fat passes through you, you still absorb the carbohydrate calories. Moreover, this manufactured non-absorbent fat gives many people abdominal cramping and loose stools.

We court our spouses anticipating that they are our perfect mental, emotional and sexual match. Typically we do not discover until sometime after we are married that they have as many faults and foibles as we do. We men want to have sex on demand with them, but quickly learn that except for a freakish few of them and certainly no one you would happen to marry (although during courtship you may be misled), women don’t work that way. Moreover, women have this inconvenient time of the month when they are sexually out of commission. Should our wives or girlfriends turn into sexual ice cubes, we must weigh the potential consequences on being non-monogamous like sexually transmitted diseases and frying pans flying at us from across the kitchen. Use a condom and sex is suddenly 30% as pleasurable as it could be. Regardless of the pitch, we have learned through bitter experience that somewhere in the fine print is a gotcha. If we knew about it going in, we might have avoided the pleasurable activity altogether.

Not any more, I am happy to say, at least if you are a man. There is definitely at least one activity in life where you can truly have your cake and eat it too. This is absolutely true if I am to believe this article and since I found it on Yahoo News then it must be true. This activity that is both exquisitely fun and pleasurable. The more you do it, the healthier you are likely to be. It is not only completely harmless but also is good for your health. One small side effect is that it does have a tendency to be a bit messy. We are talking about that often lifetime habit of men married and single which can be as addictive as cocaine and just as fun: masturbation.

Frequent masturbation may help men cut their risk of contracting prostate cancer, Australian researchers have found. It is believed that carcinogens may build up in the prostate if men do not ejaculate regularly, BBC News reported on Wednesday. The researchers surveyed more than 1,000 men who had developed prostate cancer, and 1,250 men who had not. They found that men who had ejaculated the most between the ages of 20 and 50 were the least likely to get cancer. Men who ejaculated more than five times each week were a third less likely to develop prostate cancer.

This is exciting news for both men and pimply faced boys across the world. No longer do you need to feel that your secret vice is sinful. Now it is healthy. When I was growing up, if you could muster the courage, you would confess your masturbation habit to your local parish priest. I never did, of course, but I strongly suspect saying three Hail Marys would not absolve me of my sin. I am confident that my priest would have prayed to Jesus so that I would avoid the near occurrence of this dreadful sin. Perhaps times have changed in the last forty years. However, I also know that there are few things that the Catholic Church is more obsessed over that the sanctity of life. We are supposed to prolong our lives as much as humanly possible. Since prostate cancer is almost universal in men that reach a certain age, we now have a safe way to significantly lower our risks and it is completely drug free! Yes, it is time to get out the Penthouse, head to the bathroom five or more times a week and beat off. By doing so, we cut our risk of prostate cancer by up to a third.

Our wives might prefer that we make love to them five or more times a week rather than masturbate. That suits me fine, but I confess at age 51 I am not entirely sure I could partake in such an intimately pleasurable act five or more times a week for weeks on end. Actually, I am not sure even that with lots of glossy Playboys, Penthouses and even saucy Penthouse Forum Variations whether I could feel quite that sexual over the course of the week. Yet it sounds like I should try this therapy. If my wife is not in the mood, well, excuse me dear while I head to the bathroom or shut the bedroom door while I get off. Doctor’s orders.

I have no idea how much it costs to treat prostate cancer, but I bet it is expensive and scary as hell. I know prostate cancer is a very slow growing cancer. I know we all have to die of something. I also know one of the frequent side effects of removal of the prostate is impotence, although frequent loss of urinary control that also occurs does not sound appealing either. So why take the chance? Better to find some ready pornography and maybe prevent this cancer from occurring altogether.

There may even be some taxable benefits. If the dirty magazines weren’t cutting it, maybe my doctor would prescribe the Real Doll™. According to their web site, I can select from ten bodies, my choice of eye color and even select my doll’s preferred pubic hair style. Moreover, I can guarantee you that I never knew a woman in the biblical sense who came anywhere close to being attractive as these dolls. If I get sick of the same face, well apparently you can order extra faces with your Real Doll™. The standard female is only $6,499 plus shipping and handling, but at least it would be tax deductible. It has to be less costly than prostate surgery.

Somehow, I suspect the Catholic Church would find something sinful in my suggestions. By blogging about this I am probably sinning because I am inspiring lust. Perhaps if I saved my lust for marriage rather than masturbated during my teenage years like every other boy with hands was doing it would have made my wife that much hornier for my body. Consequently, we could procreate more children and bring more souls to God. Even my priest might have to concede the validity of this latest medical research.

No matter. While I was raised a Catholic, that was then. Now I am a free agent spiritually. I am generally cautious by nature but if my doctor tells me that masturbation is safe and news reports like this one tell me it is not only safe, but healthy, I’m in.

Now excuse me, I need a little privacy.

April 23rd, 2008 at 08:49pm Posted by Mark | Sociology | no comments

What’s a horny politician to do?

Ack! Another politician is caught with his pants down! Just what we needed: a little jolt of scandalous cappuccino to wake us up. After all, the presidential campaign has gotten a bit boring of late. Even political junkies like me are beginning to nod off. What we needed was a distraction. Fortunately, New York Governor Elliot Spitzer provided just what we needed. We learned recently that on Valentines Day of all days he hoofed it down to the Mayflower Hotel in Washington D.C. and had an extremely expensive sexual experience with a very high priced 25-year-old prostitute with the doubtlessly assumed name of Kristen.

Sexual tourists of the nation’s capital will now have to add room 871 of the Mayflower Hotel to their list of destinations. It is about equidistant anyhow from the Tidal Basin (where stripper Fanne Fox and Arkansas Congressman Wilbur Mills were found drinking and driving in 1974) and the Capitol steps (where Rita Jenrette and Congressman husband reputedly made whoopee back in the 1980s). The Mayflower Hotel is also not that far from the Vista Hotel, where back in 1990 former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, married at the time, was famously caught smoking crack cocaine while his “long time female friend” observed. Doubtless, if D.C. hotel rooms could talk, they would be deafening.

I had no inkling that Elliot Spitzer was dealing with a few personal demons. However, I am not surprised. Someone as popular and successful as Spitzer probably deserved a comeuppance of some sort. This man after all was such a phenomenal Attorney General of New York State that to many Americans he was a household name. Unlike some recent U.S. Attorney Generals, he was obsessed with ensuring that the law was vigorously enforced, especially against the powerful. He took on price fixers, securities firms, insurance companies, the record companies and even police corruption in the town of Watkill in upstate New York. If he appeared on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, he need not worry about the thunderous applause, just a chorus of boos. No wonder he was elected governor with almost 70% of the vote.

His record as governor thus far has been a disappointment. With these scandalous revelations, it is an open question whether he will remain in office. Still, Bill Clinton had a rocky start as president too. He eventually won a second term. In spite of his own moral failings, he retired with near record high approval ratings. Perhaps Spitzer’s hesitancy to leave office is that he hopes that some of Bill’s luck will rub off on him. Republicans in Albany who want to impeach him might want to review the political implications of Bill Clinton’s impeachment first. Most Americans feel that moral failings while in office that are not illegal are politically excusable. Thus far, Spitzer has not been charged with any crime.

Why did Spitzer do it? I cannot read his mind but as a man a few years older than he is, I think that I have a good idea. I believe that he did it because like many married men he was not quite satisfied with what he was getting at home. Obviously, I have no idea what his sex life is like. His wife is quite attractive. I think in Spitzer’s mind, once you have made the dubious decision to step out on your wife, having sex with a prostitute seemed the lesser of many evils.

Ironically, if Spitzer were a Shi’ite Muslim in Iraq, he could come to an agreement with a local woman to be his wife for a day, get his rocks off and the clerics would bless it. Alas, he lives in America where unless you are polyamorous or have an open marriage, such options are closed to married people. Having sex with a prostitute can have some advantages. First, you cannot be accused of having an emotional affair. Some women will overlook a sexual affair but will string you up by your heels for having an emotional one. If, like Elliot Spitzer, you spend $4300 for an encounter with a down payment on a second one, you can be accused of being a cheater and wasting a lot of money, but you can at least escape the emotional affair rap.

The sad reality is that if you are a horny married politician your options are very limited. You could come on to that buxom secretary or filing clerk but such dalliances usually turn into steamy emotional affairs that go toxic and then public. That will not do for an ambitious politician, particularly one that looked like presidential material in 2012 or 2016. Besides, you have an image to maintain in the workplace so showing this side of yourself is very risky. You can have an affair with your right hand but that feels like second-class sex. A high-class hooker may cost a ton of money, but they tend to be discrete. That is in part how they command such extraordinary fees.

I hope Elliot Spitzer at least had a trusted partner in crime. I hope he was not dialing for escort services on his cell phone or finding them on Craigslist. I hope he had a way of funneling the money through a third party. Even so, there are risks in these contractual affairs and for a change, he got stung.

I will probably draw the wrath of wives everywhere (and many husbands too) by wishing New Yorkers would cut him a little slack. I felt sorry for Hillary Clinton when her husband’s tawdry oral affair with Monica Lewinski made the light of day a decade ago. At the same time, I did not feel that it diminished Clinton’s competency as president. Like most Americans, I saw his impeachment as a manufactured hullabaloo. If Spitzer ends his political career over this scandal, New Yorkers and Americans will probably be the poorer. His hypocrisy is evident, but we are all hypocrites, just generally in different matters and in different degrees. All of us make mistakes. I think this is a forgivable political mistake. His wife will have to figure out whether it is a forgivable marital mistake.

As I once outlined, there are many reasons for infidelity. This transgression has the hallmark of being one of the more forgivable transgressions. It appears that Spitzer had powerful sexual needs that his wife would either not accommodate or he was too embarrassed to express. I remain skeptical that either sex is naturally inclined toward monogamy. Wives who expect monogamy from their husbands had best recognize that they are fighting Mother Nature. They can reduce the odds by exceeding expectations in the bedroom. If you are a once a week type and he is a once a day type, you might want to find a way to be a twice a week type. If you refuse to do X, Y and Z because you think they are kinky you might want to do your best to do X, Y and Z at least occasionally. Otherwise, particularly if he has a very high sex drive, he may go find X, Y and Z somewhere else. Sexual kinks can have this sort of power and if press reports are correct Spitzer had a few.

As for politicians and sex, while it seems that they go together like bread and butter, I am willing to bet they are no more inclined toward infidelity than the rest of us. Sexual sins seem to be non-discriminatory. If infidelity made people deathly ill, you could not get a room in a hospital due to the shortage of hospital beds. Men like Spitzer who avail themselves of a call girl are bucking the odds. The truth is that while prominent men caught with their pants down make the papers regularly, for a man to cheat, he generally needs a woman. Since most men avoid prostitutes, roughly as many women are having lapsed periods of virtue as men.

Spitzer deserves a political slap on the wrist, perhaps a censure by the State Assembly, and then, like with the Larry Craig scandal, everyone should move on. This is a matter between the Mr. and Mrs. Spitzer. Politicians who actually work for the benefit of the people they serve are rare enough creatures. Spitzer was one of these public servants. There is no point in making them an endangered species for these truly minor kafuffles.

March 11th, 2008 at 08:07pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2008, Sociology | 2 comments

You Porn: A Traveler’s New Best Friend?

A couple weeks back I read somewhere, probably on Craiglist, about a web site called youporn.com. Hmm, YouTube, YouPorn. I think I had a good idea what sort of content would be found on this site. Being of prurient mind, well over 18 as well as a blogger who is always looking for something novel to write about, I checked out the site.

As I expected, it was a site modeled somewhat after YouTube.com. Here you can upload your personal pornographic videos to share with others not offended by sexually explicit content. Moreover, just like on YouTube, you can rate the various videos. This may give you an idea of what’s hot and what’s not. Naturally, before you can get into this digital red light zone you first have to assert that you are at least 18 years old. This takes only a single mouse click.

The folks at YouTube go out of their way to ensure there is no sexually explicit content on its web site. However, on YouPorn, you expect the graphic and the lurid. Instead of YouTube’s white backgrounds, you get a dark black background. You feel like donning a raincoat when you enter the site. On its main screen, you can see what was recently uploaded, with the highest rated videos of the day appearing first. By placing your mouse over one of the preview images, you can see a number of snapshots from the video. You have to click on the image to bring up a page with the video on it. Once there you then click on the larger embedded image to start the movie. As best I can tell, there are no gay movies to be found on youporn.com. However, lesbian flicks, at least those where buffed up women pretend to be turned on by other women, are plentiful.

The video quality is often not that great. Like YouTube, it appears that uploaded videos are in a Flash video format. If you go to YouTube regularly, you know what that means: the videos load relatively quickly, but lack a little something in resolution. Some of the videos are so fuzzy and grainy that you will need to substitute imagination for explicitness. However, at least they load quickly and stream. (Stream means you do not have to wait for the whole thing to download before you can start watching it.)

Nor as best I can tell, are most of these videos actually amateur videos. Most of them appear to be blatant rip-offs of vignettes from “professional” or semiprofessional pornographic web sites. The videos appear primarily oriented toward horny men, although I imagine there are many women who also like their video sex raw. In short, expect more of what you would see elsewhere on the web or on Usenet in the alt.binaries.erotica newsgroups, just with less resolution.

There is another and perhaps crucial difference between YouPorn and most other adult oriented web sites. On YouPorn, you do not have to buy a pass in order to view its content. You do not even get annoying pop up ads. You do get advertising, of course, but the ads appear to the right of the embedded videos. The ads are what you would expect: generally adult sex personals and girls with web cams, all of whom presumably will want to start their meter running when you pay them a visit.

In short, YouPorn is free porn for the masses. The video quality may lack something. Given the hordes of horny Internet users out there, its servers may sometimes slow down. But it appears that YouPorn will always be there for you. It is your new trusty if somewhat dirty digital friend, always ready to transport you into a much hotter and more perverse world than you likely encounter in real life. But then, when has pornography ever modeled real life?

I am currently in a hotel in Tallahassee, Florida. It, like most hotels these days, comes complete with high-speed Internet service. I take this for granted now but until I learned about YouPorn, I had no idea exactly what this meant for the frequent traveler. It is now possible to have safe sex on the road, as long as you lug your laptop and do not mind having sex with yourself or your trusty battery powered device. I hope that though you will try to muffle your orgasmic screams rather than rouse the curiosity of your hotel neighbors.

It used to be that Leisure Suit Larrys would congregate in front of the hotel bar hoping to score there, but usually without much success. Those with deeper pockets could call an on-call massage service and hope they provided more than a massage. Given how hard it is for travelers to find sex on the road, and how dangerous it would be if it were found, YouPorn is providing a valuable service to the traveling public. You get much better, or at least much more explicit porn on YouPorn than you can get from the soft-core stuff on your hotel’s private TV channel. Nor will you acquire a social disease. Except for any friction generated by your fingers, hand or vibrator, your sex will be virtual rather than real. Perhaps you will have a new sin to whisper to your priest at your next confession, but otherwise there seems to be no downside.

Therefore, I predict a decline in hotel bars. Massage parlors and escort services may also be taking a financial hit. For better or worse, YouPorn will be changing the dynamics of both online pornography and local sex businesses. It is far from pornographic perfection. Yet it is the 80% pornographic solution that travelers can turn to in need. It is also a possible solution for the many millions of sexually frustrated people out there who would like to have sex but for whatever reason cannot acquire it.

I once wrote a very popular entry wherein I compared ex porn star Sharon Mitchell with sainthood, because of her tireless work within the adult industry to ensure that porn stars do not transmit STDs. YouPorn is also providing a public health service, by giving those who need it a safe outlet for their sexual urges. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

October 17th, 2007 at 08:17pm Posted by Mark | Sociology, Travel | 4 comments

My Widened Stance

It is not often that I am bothered by the downfall of a Republican politician. Yet I am troubled by the on again, off again (currently on again) resignation of Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho. Craig pled guilty to a disorderly conduct charge that occurred in a men’s room at the Minneapolis airport on June 11th. Allegedly, he was making signals to an occupant of an adjacent stall that he was interested in engaging in homosexual conduct. For tapping his feet, moving his feet partly into an adjacent stall (the “widened stance”) and allegedly peaking into a neighboring stall, he pled guilty to a misdemeanor. (Craig is now trying to retract his plea.) For this minor transgression, he was arm-twisted by his fellow Republicans and asked to resign from the Senate.

If Craig is a closeted homosexual, of course he is also a hypocrite. He has plenty of company on Capitol Hill. It is virtually impossible not to be a hypocrite and be a politician. Even the most ideological Republican though is not stupid. They know murkiness exists in all human beings. The hastiness by which the Senate Republican leadership are hustling Craig out of the Senate is far more unseemly than any alleged conduct that Craig may have conducted in Minneapolis. Fairness dictates waiting for an impartial review of the facts at a Senate ethics committee hearing. Yet the Senate Republican leadership could not wait. The Republican brand may be a fading brand, but it is a brand nonetheless. Homophobia remains one of its key values, subsumed under their alleged commitment to “family values”. Such a hasty action merely reinforces the opinion of most Americans that Republicans have no sense of fair play.

I do know one thing from fifty years of living. Humans are complex and multifaceted creatures on all levels, including sexually. Kinsey documented half a century ago that virtually none of us are exclusively heterosexual or homosexual. We may have strong preferences in either direction. Many of us may choose not to act on these pulls but that does not mean they are wholly absent. Yet sexual preference is just one tiny aspect of our sexuality. Some of us have strong sex drives. Others have non-existent sex drives. Some of us are not attracted to any gender; we are effectively asexual. Some of us are dominant, others are submissive, and many of us like to switch roles. Some prefer anal sex and others do not. Some take erotic pleasure wearing diapers or dressing as the opposite sex. Some older men prefer younger women. Some older women prefer younger men. Some of us will probably always be attracted to illegal expressions of sexuality like pedophilia.

We are all sexually multihued. If our sexuality were a painting, most of us would have strange patterns consisting of many overlapping and mixed colors. Larry Craig’s failing was apparently for being exposed for not having a black and white canvas. If his alleged behavior actually describes his own sexual preferences, he likely finds some attraction to his own gender. On the Kinsey scale, he is utterly ordinary.

You would be very unusual if you never had even one incident where you did not find someone of your gender attractive. I know I have. Having an occasional tug does not mean I feel compelled to act on it. When it happens I acknowledge it and go on with life. Larry Craig may be wholly accurate when he says that he is not a gay. Like most of us, he is probably bisexual. We are all sexually expressive creatures. Most of us are content to dine at our favorite restaurants. Eating at a different restaurant on occasion does not necessarily make us food deviants. Neither does an occasional incident where we partner with someone of our non-preferred gender. Given the prevalence of infidelity in American, occasionally mating with someone other than our own spouse is more normal than not too. The issue is not the inclination, which is wholly natural, but dealing with the angst, guilt and dysfunction that results when our natural impulses move us in one direction but society requires us to choose a different direction.

So Larry Craig is probably just another multifaceted sexually complicated person. In other words, he is a lot like you and I. Please raise your hand if you have been completely faithful to your spouse, never even had a stray fantasy about another person during your marriage, are completely content with sexual intercourse only in the missionary position and, since marriage at least, have never masturbated. Also raise your hand if you never went beyond chaste kissing during your dating years. I am sure there are some of you out there and that is fine. It is either your preference or supposed societal norms overrode these impulses. However, you represent just a tiny portion of the public. Your values are fine for you but are not in the least bit mainstream. I hate to tell you this but if you are an ordinary human being you are likely a lot more like Larry Craig than not.

It is hard to put myself inside Larry Craig’s brain. However, I am completely certain that wherever it is at, it is consistent with the person he is as he has evolved. Personally, a restroom would be the last place I would go to solicit for sex, but I am not inclined to find someone of my own gender with whom to have sex. If I were a prominent person like Larry Craig and driven by such demons I would look for safer forms of behavior. (I doubt he is the only senator with such inclinations.) Rather than look for it in a Minneapolis men’s room, perhaps I would solicit it on Craigslist. Maybe part of Craig’s sexuality is to be turned on by anonymous sex. If so, he has plenty of company.

I do not want to be solicited for sex by men in men’s rooms or anywhere else. In restrooms, I simply want to do my business and leave. When I am solicited by my own gender, which does not happen very often, I simply say, “No thanks.” It should not be unlawful for one person to tell another person you want to get it on with them. It is certainly impolite in most contexts, but it should not be unlawful. I do care about being mugged or sexually abused in a men’s room. I hope that we prosecute these lawbreakers. I do think there is an expectation of privacy in a men’s room stall but it would astonish me if this were codified into law. If Craig, as alleged, actually was peeking through the cracks of men’s room stalls then he should be held to account. I would note though that two men urinating at adjacent stalls, even if one of the men checks out the other guy’s package, is not a crime. Having to pay a four-figure fine for such an “offense” seems excessive. It should not amount to more than a parking ticket and should never go to court.

The Craig incident simply illustrates to me that many of us cannot yet accept people for being the complex sexual creatures that we all are. Private conduct between two consenting adults is simply none of our business. I wish that Senator Craig had more spine. Bullies usually remain bullies until someone stands up to them. Senator Craig could do people everywhere a favor by standing up for himself. He should draw a clear distinction about official duties vs. private conduct. The voters can throw him out if they find his personal conduct offensive. His fellow senators should not.

Someone needs to tell the people who run our nanny state when they are out of bounds. As a final act of leadership and courage, Senator Craig could forever change the political dynamics. He could do it by boldly asserting his right to be judged solely based on his job as senator. He did not deserve this shabby treatment.

September 7th, 2007 at 11:28am Posted by Mark | Sociology | one comment

The Illusion of a FWB

So, do you have a FWB? If you are like me (i.e. married), you may not know what a FWB is. I had seen the acronym around though. A simple Wikipedia Search quickly satisfied my curiosity.

A FWB is a “Friend with Benefits”. He or she is a person of the gender you are attracted to whom, in addition to being a “friend” (a rather amorphous term) also puts out for you. I have to admit, at first blush having my own FWB sounded great to this old married dude. Providing my wife went along with it (“It’s just sex dear, it’s not like I am in love with her. We are just good friends.”), it could be very convenient. If my wife is having another one of her interminable migraines and I am feeling a bit randy, I could just call up Judy, or Ashley or Kim, and, good friends that they are, would say, “Sure come on over for a quick roll in the hay.” Afterwards (since I do not smoke) we could play cards or talk about Lindsay Lohan’s latest adventures in rehab. Oh, by the way, shall we pencil in going to the art show a week from Saturday?

I suspect the number of married people with FWBs is tiny. It seems to be the single folks out there, usually recovering from the complications of a failed relationship that are drawn to finding a FWB. After all, a FWB relationship has many of the positive sides of a relationship without any of its downsides, like the emotional wreckage. Just as having sex with a condom (hopefully) protects you from sexually transmitted diseases, having sex with a friend protects you from all those nasty relationship issues. At least that is how the FWB theory goes. It is not like having sex with a bunch of strangers at an orgy. You are having sex with your friend, and since he or she is your friend, well, they would not lie to you about anything like having herpes or AIDS would they? In addition, since they are your friend, and they care for you, well, they will be circumspect and avoid becoming intertwined into a deeper emotional relationship with you.

Meanwhile, while you recover from your latest failed relationship, you are not left high and dry. There is no need to resort to your vibrator, or your right hand or the love doll in the closet to respond to Mother Nature’s urgings. While your emotional wounds heal, you can get the sex you need with your FWB. Since you are just friends, when you do not need him or her anymore and find that next special someone then everything is cool. Their feelings will not be hurt when you drop them as your sexual partner. Moreover, in the event your next relationship implodes, your FWB will be there. Well, maybe.

That, as best I can decipher it, is the lure and logic of a FWB. A casual search of Washington Craiglist personals today shows that women in particularly are looking for FWBs. (Men often say they want a FWB, but from their postings it appears they just want a woman who will act like their whore.) Oddly enough though, they do not have one already, so they have to advertise for one. Just some guy or gal to “chill” with. This seems to involve have a few beers in a sports bar, maybe seeing a movie together and then going back to your pad for some harmless conjugal sex.

Even though I am married, one of the reasons a FWB appeals to me is because I think it would be great to have someone into casual sex who liked me as a person and who (here’s the amazing part) is not struggling with their own personal issues. I do not know about you but here I am, age 50, and I struggle with personal issues every day. So does my wife. So does every person I know beyond a surface level, i.e. my friends. We are all embroiled in a certain amount of toxic crap. But not my FWB. She would be special. She would have her head together. That is why, if I need a FWB, I expect that she will be a psychologist or social worker. In my mind, only psychologists and social workers truly have their stuff together. So I am thinking if I need a FWB I will go around town and leave my card at the office of each female social worker and psychologist in my area between, say, age 40 and 50. Do you want a FWB? Call Mark at 703-555-1212. Let’s meet for drinks at the local sports bar. According to my wife, I give great back scratches. Also, I like blogging, classical music and politics. We can have great sex when we both feel like it and no commitment! And we can keep meeting at a sports bar occasionally just to chat. That should intrigue them!

It is just that the more I think about it the more I suspect that psychologists and social workers are in some crucial aspect of their lives also messed up. In fact, the only human beings who (allegedly) were not messed up were messengers from God. Unfortunately, both Jesus and Mohammad are long dead. Moreover, I seem to be attracted to women. Finding my FWB is going to be tough.

I have not had much casual sex. It is probably just me, but I am not very successful divorcing sex from having human feelings for the person I am making love to. The couple of times I tried casual sex left me feeling empty and a bit dehumanized. For me it was like drinking soda that had gone flat. I was left to conclude that those people who tried casual sex had not gotten the real thing: sex within a caring relationship, which if you can get it is amazing. However, if you are having sex with your friend, isn’t that a caring relationship? Well, maybe. When I think of myself having sex with some of my female friends what I suspect would happen is: (a) even if I were single, there is no way I could convince them to have sex with me in the first place; (b) if we did have sex then our relationship would change fundamentally, and probably not for the better; (c) it would be significantly inferior compared with having sex with someone I love; and (d) both of us would likely end up more screwed up than we were before we became FWBs.

If you are in a FWB relationship feel free to leave me a comment telling me that I am all wet. I would particularly like to hear, not about the FWB you coupled with last week, but the one that you coupled with five years ago. Are you still friends? Or has your friendship been reduced to sending Christmas cards once a year? Do you still feel the same about your friend as you did before you made love with him or her? Overall, was your FWB relationship healthy or hurtful?

I will leap to a conclusion and suggest that for the vast majority of you the answers will be no, no and yes. And I will also bet that for about 10% of you, one of your “friends” left a calling card that, if it can be cured, required a trip to a doctor or health clinic. If they did not, I will bet that another 20% of you are or have worked through this issue with a therapist, or wish you had the money to do so.

I believe that sex and the relationship between two people cannot be divorced, as much as at times we might want to be. If they were, perhaps we could better deal with the wacky stuff life throws at us. We might be able to fool ourselves for a while, just as we can pretend that there are no dusty bunnies in our house even though we have not dusted in a year. I suspect if you have a FWB then you have merely sold yourself on its illusion, rather than acknowledge its less than perfect reality.

Perhaps rather than posting that ad on Craigslist for your FWB, maybe you should be finding a therapist instead and discover why you want a FWB in the first place.

July 27th, 2007 at 05:07pm Posted by Mark | Best of Occam's Razor, Sociology | 3 comments

Idling our Male Engines

(Warning: adult content. Reader discretion is advised, whatever that means.)

When you read the Washington Post Style section, you learn to take what you read with a grain of salt. If I am to take the article Cupid’s Broken Arrow by Laura Sessions Stepp in Sunday’s Washington Post at face value, male impotence is an emerging problem on college campuses. I must say the article certainly got my attention, as well as the attention of I am sure every male Washington Post reader out there. It is almost enough to have us rush to our doctors for an emergency prescription of Viagra. After all, if young men cannot get their wood up, what does that mean to us middle age guys at age 49? Is it time to have a penile implant installed?

Okay, on closer examination the article discusses just a few brave men who are having this problem on campus. In other words, it is anecdotal, not a based on any scientific study. This is probably just as well. Still, I remember being nineteen and on a college campus. My hormone levels could not have been any higher. Even ugly women were looking good. Any available woman would have done. There were of course a few problems. I was shy. In addition, the women were not putting out. That is not to say that no women were putting out. However, those that were did not seem to want to have anything to do with me. I was not enough of an alpha male for their tastes. I still had pimples and even worse, braces. If I had a problem in that department at that tender age, it would have been premature ejaculation.

That was then. While I had hoped the women of my generation were all sexually liberated, the reality was quite different on my campus. The women I wanted in the worst way were of course the most inaccessible. There were two cute single and blondish foxes across the street from me who were getting education degrees. They went to their Methodists church on Sundays and stayed to teach Sunday school. Therefore, it was up to my roommate Howard to show me a good time. This meant taking me into Orlando to a placed called “The Booby Trap”. There attractive but nonetheless dispassionate topless dancers performed lap dances and rubbed their breasts on my chests while I tried to drink the world’s most watered down wine spritzers.

If I am to take Ms. Stepp at her word though, most women on campus today are sexually aggressive. They do not need a Sadie Hawkins Dance in order to take the initiative with a man. If they like you, they are not afraid to show it. If they want to make love to you, they will be doing the unbuttoning. This is apparently a problem for many college men these days. Maybe their resulting impotence comes from all those lectures in high school about the necessity of abstinence before marriage. On the other hand, maybe they are just not that into the women who are pursing them, but have not learned how to say no. For whatever reason, the erotic connection fails them and suddenly they are half the man they thought they were.

The article speculates that men may need to be the pursuers in order for the mind-body connection to manifest itself in an erection. For sex to work, it may be necessary for the woman to play hard to get. For men, the real turn on may not be sliding into that lubricated home plate, but running the bases. It may be that for men to function below the belt, sex has to be hard to get.

Now if you had told me that at age nineteen, I would have been on the floor laughing. However, as I am middle aged now, I am of a more accommodating frame of mind. Because one of the sad passages during middle age for most men are bouts of impotence. Few of us get through middle age without at least one experience with it. Billions have been made selling us erectile dysfunction drugs so that we can still perform with the stamina we felt in our pimply faced youth. (In truth though, just the idea of Bob Dole getting it on at his age leaves us feeling a bit nauseous. So we are thinking maybe at age eighty permanent impotence is a blessing, rather than a curse.)

Still, there is something deeply unnatural about a young man, his blood still pumped up with testosterone, being unable to make the grade in the bedroom for whatever reason. For at that age, as much as we might hesitate to admit it later, being a stud comes more naturally to us than being a human being with these, well, feelings. So naturally other culprits are suspected. Booze. Drugs. Too much late night partying. What else could it possibly be? At age nineteen, had I had the nerve, I would have been a big lady pleaser at Plato’s Retreat.

Now in my extremely late forties, I am finding that sexually I have more in common with young women of nineteen then young men of nineteen. It used to be that sex was like drinking water, and you could not live without water. Now I am more discriminating. Do I feel like having sex today? Maybe and maybe not. The latter can become a problem, since women tend to peak sexually in their early forties. It is likely that this role reversal that has us nervously running to our doctors for Viagra prescriptions. Yet, even erectile dysfunction drugs will not work if the man is not aroused. Increasingly, we men are asking what’s in it for me? Oh yeah, there is the sex part. Moreover, it sure feels good. However, it is not as if we have not slid into home plate many, many times before. It is not as if sex is necessarily a need anymore. It may be a want. We may want to watch Monday Night Football instead.

Maybe that is the part of the problem with older men and sexual dysfunction. If what turns us on is the chase, and we are in a long term, committed and monogamous marriage, there is not much chasing to do. Our wives might have a headache, or be going through an interminable change of life, or have other issues putting them out of commission. However, most of the time they are reasonably available. Since we are experts at pressing their buttons, it is easy for the chase to become perfunctory. Running around the bases is often not necessary and if we do, it can feel perfunctory too. Eventually, unless you and your spouse are quite creative, sex can become both enjoyable yet a bit boring.

Perhaps that is why at some point married couples just give sex up altogether. I would hope I would not do this, but the older I get the easier it is to imagine. Sex is, after all, both pleasurable and complicated at the same time. When you are nineteen, having sex is like being in a car with eight cylinders and an accelerator with a hair trigger. At 49, the car has a few dents, and the engine needs a tune up. If stepping on the accelerator eventually moves the car forward, you feel grateful. If from time to time the engine stalls, well, you have to expect that from an older car.

Therefore, more and more of us pass the Viagra. It is like slipping some STP into the gas tank. We often wonder though if what would really please our midlife engines would be to take our engine for a test drive on some different roads. We are not entirely sure though whether our engines would take us down that road even if we want them too. So maybe it is better to keep idling the engine. Or, since the needle is starting to point to E, maybe it makes sense to just turn off the engine until there is a need drive somewhere.

May 12th, 2006 at 03:50pm Posted by Mark | Best of Occam's Razor, Sociology | 2 comments