tiny awesomeness!

i waste a lot of time sitting on my ass in front of the computer, but once in a while something great pops into the range of my glazed-over eyes.

i give you…  Tiny Sepuku!

adorableness!

advice!

perspective!

it is everything i have ever wanted.

the christian thing

i wasn’t raised christian, and i never really knew all that much about christianity. about a year and a half ago i took a job making jewelery for a friend’s family business, and i met a very special person. let’s call her maggie. maggie was 18, raised in the middle of nowhere by extremely conservative christian folks. we’d sit there at the work table, stringing beads and learning from each other. she taught me about the christian faith that she had found for herself, asked me about my life and experiences, basically made “christians” (a word which had previously seemed pretty synonymous with “backwards fools”) really relatable and human. unfortunately, her parents were the kind of people who didn’t want their kids to know anything about sex. maggie didn’t even know what was happening to her when she got her first period. (yeah, betcha didn’t think that happened anymore, huh?) not knowing this, i brought up the topic of premarital sex one day, and she freaked out. i dropped the subject quickly, and did a lot of thinking.

recently, the topic of my new life plans came up in a conversation with her. basically, i told her that i want to be a sex educator/relationship counselor, and that knowing her had made it apparent to me that accommodating personal (specifically religious) beliefs will be a very important part of that. she wanted to know more about it! oh, such a happy moment for me… i love seeing people open up and look sensitivities and fears right in the eye… anyways, i wrote back to her and thought i’d post that letter on here.

well… conversations with you changed my perspective on christianity. i really felt connected to your beliefs through your words, which you took so much time and care choosing, without writing me off as some pissant nonbeliever. i had never before felt like i understood or felt someone’s faith, especially without being judged for not sharing it or having it sold to me. i think that it is unfortunate that your family has such a hard time with being straightforward when talking about sex, and i guess i think that it’s pretty easy to get really scared of sex within the construct of conservative christianity. the catholic church has certainly been very opinionated on all sorts of things related to sex and sexuality, and preachers of all sorts seem to love sending the message that sex is dirty/shameful/whatever. the personal connection between sex and religion, however, is not something that i think a church should have any hold on. if the bible is the source of your faith, that’s what you should be following, not someone else’s opinion or rambling interpretation. i believe in following your faith and beliefs, with the emphasis on -your-. i also believe in letting others believe what they do freely, without trying to convert of judge them too much. so basically, it comes down to the fact that i want to help people. i think that sex and relationships are very important things, and they’re places in our lives where we can experience a great deal of hurt and damage, but also an incredible amount of revelation and growth. because they’re such delicate, precious, personal things, i think it’s really important to build sexuality and intimate relationships on a supportive framework, with as much respect and personal freedom (to include religious beliefs, personal standards and opinions, etc.) as possible.

i feel so good writing about this stuff. i love the idea that i could actually help somebody with some of the body issues, confusion, fear and embarrassment that so often come along with sex. i want so many more people to be as fulfilled in those areas as i’m becoming.

it’s just so damned cool.

the feminist porn conundrum

[this is a little more heterocentric than i'd like. sorry folks, i'll try harder next time.]
i consider myself a feminist. i wasn’t around in the ’70s, so i’m sure i feel a lot differently about that label than an older woman might. very basically, i believe that a human is a human, and no human has any right to treat another human like shit because of their sex, gender, color, religion, sexual orientation, etc. etc. etc. oh yes, i’m a tremendous idealist. but then again, i’m not saying you have to like what another person is; you don’t even have to censor yourself if you want to talk shit about them in the privacy of your own mind or home. just let them live, and see them as people or minds, not as the less important crap.

but i’m not here to try to define my version of feminism for the world. i’m sure it’s full of contradictions, and it needs a lot of work if i’m going to inflict it, full force, upon the public. nope, today’s the day that i want to talk (and bitch) about “feminist” porn.

Petra Joy wrote a post that skims the surface of this issue, but does very little more than that. here’s an excerpt:

It was interesting to realise that if a woman does a porn film, it is not necessarily directed at women which is where Audicia Ray is coming from. There was also a discussion in which way porn can empower rather than degrade women. Some filmmakers who call their films “feminist” were criticised for extensively featuring blow-jobs and cum-shots in women’s faces.

Our tastes on what we find sexy in the bedroom or on film differ. I believe that any female filmmaker has he right to show whatever she wants in her films but we should be cautious with our content if we claim to make “feminist porn”. I would like to empower women and this is why I choose to focus on women receiving pleasure rather than just giving it, and I also prefer to show orgasms in different ways such as showing the lover’s faces, rather than ending every scene with a male cum-shot over the woman’s body. If we produce films and call them “female friendly” or “feminist” yet the actual sexual content still focuses mainly on male pleasure and copies a commercially successful mainstream porn formula, then the powerful words that should have a very deep meaning are being mocked and hijacked as a marketing gimmick. Feminism is committed to equality of the sexes, so surely “feminist porn” should show women as equals to men rather than as subservient beings. A woman receiving head, a woman fucking a guy with a strap-on, a guy tasting his own cum and also to feature female ejaculation – those techniques that show a woman in control might be “feminist porn”. If you want to show cum on a woman’s face that’s fine but don’t call it feminist.

 

i have to admit, i’m not all that experienced with porn. up until very recently, i was tremendously anti-porn, because all i’d ever seen was the mass-marketed stuff with fake boobs, reduced labia and completely shaven genitalia. and yes, my feminist sensibilities were about half the reason that i wasn’t into it. fake tits and vulvas made to look like they belong on little girls are pretty fucking offensive to me. and there’s just no way that i can suspend my disbelief for long enough to imagine that the actors are actually getting much pleasure out of the experience.

on the other hand, sex is sex and romance is romance, and using romance to sell porn to women is a little ridiculous and annoying as well. the two can blend, but please don’t call it “women’s porn” or “feminist porn” just because you toss in a little disneyfied lurrve.

how does it solve anything to focus on women’s pleasure? we’d be building an inequality just as harmful as if we focused on men’s pleasure (which has been done for years).

if i’m going to consider any porn to be “feminist,” here’s my list of requirements:

-all actors involved have to really enjoy having good sex for lots and lots of people to watch. it’s insulting to your viewer’s intelligence and sexuality to fake it for the camera.

-focus on what the actors themselves really want to be doing. she wants to suck his dick? she wants his cum on her? then those things should be happening. how on earth is it degrading to women if a woman wants, asks, and gets to be ejaculated on? at the same time, any man should damned well want to taste his own cum if he’s expected to for a film.

-be genital-positive. hair or no hair, everybody’s bits should be real (although i don’t condone male circumcision, i don’t think it’s right to discriminate against the unfortunate cut guys). i personally prefer having a reasonable amount of pubic hair, and therefore i’m a bit prejudiced against the radically waxed, shiny crotches of most performers.

-be body-positive. fake tits really aren’t awesome, and everybody has weird little body quirks. so what if somebody’s got a few stretch marks on their ass? that’s what being human is all about.

-let the actors look the way they want to look. if they feel sexy they’ll look sexier.

i guess what it comes down to for me is that i don’t think any sort of fakeness is positive for anyone. if the bodies or pleasure are faked to fit some sort of idealized mold that comes from who-knows-where, it’s really not appealing. i want authenticity, people. i want to see people wanting to fuck, and fucking the way they want to. there’s nothing hotter than that, and nothing more affirming to any gender.

Goodness

I had a baby three years ago. I had a healthy, libidinous pregnancy, a natural home birth, and just over two years of breastfeeding. It’s all been great, except the sleep deprivation. I’ve found myself needing to get closer and closer to 9 hours a night, while it’s getting less and less likely that I can or will.

Now, I don’t agree with the people who say having kids ruins your sex life. Then again, I don’t agree with the people who say that it doesn’t. Let’s just say that it certainly can, but it doesn’t have to.

My husband and I have been together for just over four years. That’s four total, not four married. Around six months into our relationship, we found out that we had done something incredibly stupid. Despite my guy’s stress levels (young pregnant girlfriend, three jobs, etc.) landing him in premature ejaculation territory, we were having sex all the time. Much to my midwife’s amusement, we kept at it even when it started sending me into false labor. Oh, youth. Then there was a baby, and we weren’t sleeping much at all, and suddenly sex was not so frequent. We’d go four days, a week, two weeks… Recurring yeast infections certainly didn’t help. It felt wrong to not be having sex. We felt like we were turning into one of those couples that tells everyone how kids/cohabitation/marriage ruined their sex lives. We felt like we were supposed to be having sex, and so we had perfunctory, exhausted, brief sex. Not so fun. Now, though… We’ve got this thing down. The trick is to wait until you’re both ready – not too tired, unbathed or stressed out. It might feel like a long time between sex sessions, but in my experience the quality of the sex entirely makes up for the wait. Sex isn’t a job! You don’t have to have a schedule, or stress about it if you really just need to go to sleep instead. If you need to get off quick, masturbate alone or with your partner. Vibrators are Great for this. Just take the performance pressure off for a while, until both of you are ready to give your all.

Now that our little one is older we’re learning new tricks to distract him while we sneak off for daytime romps in the bed (while we’re still both energetic and enthusiastic). We’ve found the time of day that works best for us (between our opposite work shifts), and we’re comfortable letting each other know just what we want. I’d much rather have the type of sex we’re having once a week than the empty crap we could be putting ourselves through nightly.