Talk about privilege.

Something just struck me as incredibly funny about that last post.

Here is a writer blogging about a legal change that will provide family planning to impoverished women around the world... and she's angry because the wording wasn't nice enough.

Good Lord, you wanna talk about "privileged?" You want some fucking PRIVILEGE?

I can't think of anything more comfy and rich and privileged than this "ooh, I don't even care about substantive international aid unless it's couched in my preferred rhetoric" shit. I mean, what better way to tip your hand that you don't really care about the women affected by this?

Funding women's healthcare? Pah, you PATRIARCH, it means NOTHING if I don't get a pony!

Man, Twisty Faster is the freakin' queen of hating people who are on her side.

Sure we have the most liberal president in decades or possibly ever, but waaaahhh, he's not liberal enouuuuugh. He only rescinded the Gag Rule, he didn't reverse all of world culture and history in his first two weeks, wahhh.

I get that he didn’t want to stir up a big partisan whoop-dee-doo, but he either believes women are human or he doesn’t. If he does believe women are human, I wouldn’t mind if he called a press conference during drive time and declared it openly.

Uh... I think that actually kinda goes without saying, lady. And calling a press conference to declare this might come off just a teensy bit crazypants?

So it is perpetuated, this national myth that “we” — meaning “we dudes” — “protect” women by meting out little bits of empowerment here and there as we see fit. You know what? Fuck “protection.” And fuck “empowerment,” too.

You know what, Twisty? I'd rather be protected and have power than wail about semantics all day.

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m as super-pro-birth control as the next spinster aunt, but this rhetoric about “reducing unwanted pregnancies” continues to allow the argument — nay, even promotes the argument — that abortion is bad.

Well, it is. Abortion is painful, expensive, is liable to screw with your head emotionally, and no matter what the law says your family and partner may try or succeed in stopping you from getting one or punishing you for having one. None of this means it should be illegal--but it's not good. It's better than having an unwanted child--but much worse than just not getting pregnant in the first place.



The comments are, as usual, right off the deep end.

Posting from work via iPod, very naughty!

I have huuuge bruises on my inner thighs. (Pics later maybe.) Date with Surgery this weekend. I wonder if I can sneak them past Surgery or if I should postpone him or make up some kind of wacky "I fell on a rock... with my crotch" story. I know honesty is the correct answer but we're hardly close and I think it would spook him. Especially if I mentioned the crying.

Honesty.

Too much goddamn honesty on this blog, that's my problem!

I'm a hot slinky 110-pound double-D cup who's "known," if you know what I mean, in the Manhattan social scene, but in my other life I'm a high-priced callgirl. I pick my clients--they have to be rich, hot, suave and genuinely caring if they want the privilege of paying $1000/hour. Often they don't even fuck me but just pay my rate to have me on their arm for a haute social function. Sometimes they take me to Bermuda. I use the money to buy perfectly-chosen designer outfits and get schmancy spa treatments and decorate my huge private apartment with tasteful art that doesn't have wolves or Bruce Campbell on it.

I have manageable hair.

Every time I fuck I blow men's minds with skills you don't even know the name of. I can take it in every hole all the time with ease and class. If he wants to hit me I take it like a champ, and if he wants me to hit him I'm not awkward and fumbling at all. I know exactly what all my limits are and I always express them perfectly honestly upfront. Men always respect them and never try to play any headgames with me, because they know me better than that.

The sex always goes perfectly; I'm always wet, he's always hard, we both always come and we both always love every minute of it. Afterwards we drink fancy wine and talk about those things that really smart sophisticated people talk about. Then he offers to let me sleep over, but I tell him that would cost extra and I'm on my way; I'm an emotional rock who can take or leave anyone.

This is my sex blog, and it's about all the awesome sex I have when I deign to make men's fantasies come true.

I never get any weird ingrown pubes.

Tears.

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

I was playing with a hittybuddy friend I've played with quite a few times in the past, and we were having a grand old time--me tied kneeling with a chest harness anchored over my head and my hands tied to the bed, him slapping me around with his hands and a nastymean little metal toy, lots of smiling and giggling and sexiness, and suddenly I started crying. Not bawling, not roleplay-y "ooh you mean man you made me cwy", just tears silently coming out of my eyes and I couldn't stop them.

"Are... are you okay?"
"I'm fine."

The weird part is, I meant it. I didn't feel upset about anything, I wasn't having any crazy-chick thoughts, I like him but just as a sexy friend, I was enjoying the play. The only emotion troubling me was intense embarrassment that I couldn't control my tearducts.

It ended the scene on a horrible awkward note. He untied me and I slunk home in shame. We probably should've talked about something but I didn't have anything to say besides "gosh, I hope I didn't totally ruin your night... I'm pretty sure I did though," and that doesn't seem helpful. I just don't know what the fuck.

Ugh.

I Loke You.

We have a serious problem with "I love you." We've over-bundled it. "I love you" really means the following things:

1) I love you.
2) I want our relationship to be more serious.
3) I want you to say you love me. Now.
4) If I said this too early, I might be a crazy person.

What started out as a simple, sweet statement of feelings has turned into a demand, an event, a gamble, and a clusterfuck. That's not always a bad thing; sometimes you need a gauntlet to throw down to move a relationship along. But other times you just wanted to convey your affection and instead accidentally said "I'm obsessed with you, marry me." We need a word or phrase that expresses the feeling of love and nothing else, with no uncomfortable expectations laid on the other person.

"I like you" is good, but you can say that on the day you meet, and it's tough to intensify to express how your "like" has grown and deepened over months of shared experiences. "I really like you, I mean I really really like you" is inadequate for people over the age of sixteen.

"I love you, but I'm not in love with you" is terrible. Sounds like a breakup and frequently is.

"I loke you." There. Fixed it. That means it's okay if you don't love (or even loke) me back, and it's okay if we don't move in together next week. I just wanted to let you know, I care about you and you give me the warmfuzzies. That's all.




God damn, even my fake word sounds passive-aggressive as hell.

What do women want?

The sexy blogosphere is dogpiling on this NYT article so I figure I'll join the party.

This article is about scientists. (Well, psychologists...) Being less scientific, or possibly just poor and lazy, I only use study groups of one. So I can tell you that what women want is to drive an ambulance at top speed on an off-roading track with lights and siren going and "Livin' On A Prayer" blasting. OHHH, WE'RE HALFWAY THERE! WAAAA-OHHHHH, LIVIN' ON A PRAYER!

Oh, what do women want sexually? I want to do that naked.

But according to the researcher Marta Meana in this article, what women want is to be desired. She believes that our sexual desire is triggered by being desired.
“Really,” she said, “women’s desire is not relational, it’s narcissistic” — it is dominated by the yearnings of “self-love,” by the wish to be the object of erotic admiration and sexual need.
I feel that this is utter stinkin' bullshit. I propose an alternate hypothesis: that women get horny the same way human beings do.

Most of the evidence Meana uses to support this theory seems to consist of generalizations with a heapin' helping of forced interpretation.

Porn and other "sexy" art displays more women than men? This must mean that women are turned on by thinking of themselves as the sexy naked woman!
Alternate possibility: Porn is made by straight men for straight men.

Women fantasize about receiving pleasure more than giving pleasure? This must mean that women are sexually narcissistic!
Alternate possibility: Receiving pleasure kicks ass. (Also, we do? I fantasize about giving pleasure lots!)

Women fantasize about rape? This must mean that we imagine the rapist is overcome with lust for us!
Alternate possibility: We want it to be rough and painful and wrong because we are dirty, dirty girls. (Also, this sort of goes completely against the previous point there.)

Women don't get as aroused after a long time in a relationship? This must mean that they don't feel their partner is actively choosing them each time!
Alternate possibility: He makes the same weird snuffly noise every damn time.

But what really offends me is this portion, and the suspicion I have that deep down she really believes this:
“What women want is a real dilemma,” she said. Earlier, she showed me, as a joke, a photograph of two control panels, one representing the workings of male desire, the second, female, the first with only a simple on-off switch, the second with countless knobs.

Goddamnit, this "Woman is a mystery" bullshit has got to cut the fuck out. Woman is human. Oh, and male desire isn't "hurr show 'im half a tit and 'es off to the races" either; ask any woman who's been married twenty years, not to mention countless younger people going through all sorts of sexual ups and downs and hangups. The idea that men are literally up for sex at any opportunity is a hoary joke, not something a sexual researcher should take literally. We're all complicated and neurotic and contradictory, man and woman alike. Fuck "what women want"; the real unanswered question is what the hell anybody wants.




Anyway, I can tell you what I want, other than the ambulance thing:

I want nerdy boys, I want pretty boys, I want boys with muscles and I want boys with spiky hair. I want gawky teenagers (eighteen! eighteen!) and I want Silver Foxes. I want boys with tattoos and I want boys with glasses. I want kinky boys and I want shy boys and I want romantic boys and more than anything I want horny boys.

And yes, I do want them to want me, but only so I can fuck the shit out of them.

Why you will not get pregnant from swallowing cum: A brief Primer.

I originally wrote a post that was kind of snarky and condescending here.  I regret that, because it's gotten a lot of Google traffic, and I really shouldn't be a jerk to people who are trying to learn.

So the short version is:



Pregnancy can only happen when sperm contacts the egg in the fallopian tubes or the uterus.  The only part of the body that connects these organs to the outside world is the vagina.  There is no pathway from the mouth or stomach to the fallopian tubes; any sperm there will just get destroyed by stomach acid.  So there is absolutely zero chance that sperm that didn't touch you in or around your vagina could get you pregnant.

(There is a very, very slight chance of sperm from anal sex getting in your vagina.  But you really should be using condoms for anal sex anyway because buttsex has the highest risk for transmitting diseases, and even if neither of you has a disease, your partner can get an infection from getting your butt-germs in and on his penis.)


There is a possibility of getting STDs by giving blowjobs and swallowing cum, and using a condom for blowjobs will protect you from this.  (Get unlubricated, if you get the chance. The lube tastes a little funky.  Still less funky than cum, though.)

It's also okay to say "no" to giving a blowjob, even though it can't get you pregnant, if you simply don't want to give one.  Any guy who gives you a hard time over not giving him a blowjob or demands you give him a reason is so extremely not worth your affections.


For a lot more accurate and detailed information on cum, pregnancy, sex, STDs, and related issues, go here; it's an excellent site for basic (and beyond-basic) sex ed.

Search Term Bonanza!

When I don't feel like writing an entry, I have Google Analytics there to write it for me! Well, Google Analytics and a surprising number of anonymous crazy people.

what happens if you swallow cum
There were roughly a gazillion searches on this so I just want to say:
NOTHING!
Absolutely nothing happens if you swallow come except that whoop, you swallowed some come. You're not going to gain weight (duh), you're not going to get pregnant (duhhhh), you're probably not going to get an STD but you could, although the swallowing isn't much higher risk than the unprotected blowjob was to begin with.

Oh, unless you mean what happens to your relationship, in which case, cripes, I dunno. Depends on the dude I guess; if he's a dumbfuck he'll think you're some sort of gross slut and if he's a normal guy he'll tell you whether he enjoyed it and ask if you did and you can go forward from there.

I think I've covered all the possibilities of this complex issue.

nose cum
You think that's a new idea, but it's snot.

"coccygeal nerve" or "coccygeal plexus" furry
This is... highly specific. I'd kind of like to meet this person.

drew hates the cum swallow
No he doesn't.

eating cum will make you become a goddess
Although probably not Artemis.

i don't tell you to swallow shit, i won't swallow cum
Your logic fails to impress.

if you swallow cum do you gain pounds
If you swallow pounds of it, I guess.

why you call someone "lame"?
1) Because they totally are.
2) Because they started it.
3) Because they started it with a friend of mine, and although I don't actually have anything personally against them, my Petty Online Pitbull services were engaged.
4) Because I thought it would be funny.
5) Because I wasn't popular enough in high school.
6) Because sometimes I drink and blog.

i can't cum even after hours
Gosh, I don't usually start trying until after hours. It's called professionalism, people!

i don't know the emoticon for "i don't swallow"
:p

what does a silver bullet sexual toy do
It goes like zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

can you get pregnant by swallowing a little bit of cum
Of course not! That's silly! You can only get pregnant if you swallow a significant amount of come!

You know, through the uterus in your mouth.

Surgical Tech.

(You see an emergency room. I see a man farm.)

Well, after the disappointment of the munch I went out and spent some quality time with a friend and it made me feel much better. He's not kinky, so if he can't be perverted that might impair the long-term potential, but good Lord is he cute. Entirely out of my league. He's very Seattle, if you know what I mean--pale skin, spiky hair, indie-band sideburns, puppylike earnestness. All he's missing is the goatee.

(He's about one million hundred times cuter than the least objectionable person at the munch.)

So we had normal but quite passionate sex quite a few times in a row, and wow do I feel good right now. I needed that. It was respectful and emotionally uncomplicated and he was so freakin' cute.

He's got one of those weird sub-fetishes everyone has--things that aren't on the official Fetish List and aren't truly freaky but just very individual--for whatever reason, all his Happy Places are above the shoulders. He kept saying things like "I want your tongue in my mouth," "touch my neck," "play with my ear." Well all righty then. Tell me where your buttons are, and I will press the fuck out of them.

He's good with his hands. And his mouth; I don't usually like cunnilingus that much, but some men just know what they're doing and he was one of them. He had me on the edge of the bed with my back to the wall and almost crawling up it as he worked on me with his lips and tongue and just a bit of teeth.

We've agreed that we are totally going to do this again sometime.

Why I won't be going back to my local munch.

Welp, tonight I went to the munch in my town and I was not happy.

I walked in the door and the first thing that happened was that a woman I didn't know ran up and hugged me. She didn't ask, she didn't pause a little and do the body-language thing, just glommed on full-body. NO. BAD TOUCH. I'm sure she saw it as just a happy playful "glomp", but I am really not okay with that sort of thing. Strangers don't get to touch me like that without my goddamn permission.

And then the crowd basically consisted of two types of people:

1) Large women in bright purple dresses revealing three miles of cleavage and a gigantic pentagram; hairstyle choice of "loose and frizzy down to ass", "Ren Faire braids," or "disturbingly inappropriate pigtails"; with names like "PixieChild"; and personalities consisting of one part hippie-flaky innocence, one part aggressive sexual frankness (and that's even by my standards), and one part passive-aggressive cliquish bitchiness.

2) Highly technical men, in glasses and black t-shirts with programming-language jokes, who are extremely uncomfortable admitting that they are engaged in a sexual activity so they prefer to discuss BDSM in terms of an engineering problem in which the construction of the implements and furniture is the really interesting part. Failing that, they'll just talk about engineering in general, since they are all engineers.


It just wasn't my scene.

Grain of truth after all.

You know, with all the people out there claiming that there are no physical signs of virginity, that nonvirgins can have intact hymens that just stretch and most virgins lose it on horses or bike seats or something and "the ol' bloody sheet" is just a ludicrous patriarchal myth...

I was downright surprised when I lost my virginity and my hymen tore and I bled. How politically incorrect of my vagina!

(As always, I really do understand that Holly ≠ The World and your hymen-mileage will vary. I'm sure that the first twenty comments on this post will be "my hymen didn't do anything like that!" and I'm not doubting you. I just think it's funny when a myth gets debunked so vociferously that people forget that it's not always wrong.)


Note: These thoughts came out of reading discussion on this article, which is soooo fake. For starters, I want some explanation on how a woman who looks like that (although the pose and photoshop do sorta suggest that she doesn't) and doesn't feel prostitution goes against her morals got to age 22 without losin' it. Also I want to know where these mysterious billionaires always come from, and how someone gets to have $3.8 million without having any common sense.

Wankability Paradox.

There's a fundamental problem with reading or writing sex stories: two separate and almost exclusive standards of quality. There's good writing and then there's wankable writing. One has effective characterization, a creative premise, lush sensual detail, and high technical standards. The other pushes the right buttons in rapid sequence with wild abandon. Good writing is something people can often agree upon; wankable writing depends on your individual buttons. And wankable writing generally can only be identified mid-wank; it turns to sand in your fingers (or incoherent rambling on your screen) at the moment of orgasm.

Printed "erotica" (I don't like that word, it's like they think they're better than plain ol' porn) anthologies tend to be nothing but good writing. Absolutely useless for wank. I'd rather read pages 936-944 of my anatomy textbook.

To be honest I almost never read good sex fiction. When my pants are zipped, I tend to realize that sex just isn't that rich a topic for a short story; there's really only so many variations on the ol' in-and-out, and the writing gets caught in an awkward spot where it's too committed to sex to work as full-fledged fiction. It's like reading about someone eating--I'm not getting bored of eating itself anytime soon, but do I really get much intellectual stimulation out of "once again he lifted the fork to his dripping piehole"?

What's really funny is that the things I enjoy reading about aren't entirely connected to what I enjoy in reality. I love being spanked and giving blowjobs, but they do nothing for me in writing. On the other hand I'm not that into the buttlove in reality, but it's practically a prerequisite for a story to pass the Left Hand Test.

So you can keep your Best American Erotica; I'll be on the Internet looking for the Most Frothingly Analcentric Probably-Not-American-Judging-By-The-Grammar Erotica.

Content farming.

Sometimes--way too often--I think "I should go have sex with someone, so I'll have some juicy content for the blog."

Unfortunately for you, about a minute after that the common sense kicks in.
(I guess I could just read articles or something, but eh. Articles.)

EDIT: Here's some content, courtesy of Eurosabra on this post, and I'm not saying anything mean-spirited, I'm just quoting, so don't go rashly assuming I don't agree with him:

I am going to go with the snark and say that the average straight vanilla man *already* experiences femdom, with the woman deciding when, and where, and under what prior conditions of relationship expectations (or not), dating expectations (or not), etc. etc. I don't know if I'm seeing a gendered power relationship that ONLY reflects the educated Euro-American middle classes, but in my reality women are always negotiating only exactly the type of sex they want, with the men they want, utopia is already here, and I stop before this gets into the TMI zone.

When they're around/they make me feel like I'm the only guy in town.

It's funny, the older I get, the less tolerant I feel about older people having sex with teenagers. When I was a teenager, I was all for it--hey, I'm a grownup, I can make my own decisions Mom, it ain't rape if I say yes, if I want to bang a twenty-two-year-old or a forty-three-year-old then I damn well will! From fifteen to seventeen, I was all about the overage boys, and online I even pulled the Reverse Chris Hansen: "wanna cyber, im ninteen!"

Then I crossed the magical Eighteen Line, and there was a funny incident: I was flirting with a guy at a party and someone pulled me aside and said "you do know he's fourteen." (He was like six foot with a full beard, I had no idea.) And I was disgusted. I was comfortable with breaking the age barrier with myself on the lower side, but not in the other direction. I could be statutory-raped and go "hehe, technically you're raping me!", but "hehe, technically I'm raping you!" just wasn't as funny.

Then a couple years later my sister (five years younger than me) got into all sorts of trouble with boys, and I started to realize; viewed from the outside, she really wasn't making good and free decisions. Like any teenager, she was pulled every which way by peer pressure and impulsivity and defiance-for-the-sake-of-defiance. And for an adult to step in on that sort of confusion and use it for sex wasn't just icky but evil.

I used to have some sympathy for the guys trapped by Chris Hansen: they never did anything with a real child, after all, and they were practically entrapped! Now I really don't. (Well, I do think some of the specific crimes they're charged with are inaccurate in the absence of real harm to a minor, but I still think they're totally horrible people.) Any adult who responds to "I'm fifteen" by continuing to even talk about sex doesn't deserve sympathy.




All this comes from an incident last night where I told a guy I was thirteen (just for shits and giggles because he came out of nowhere to agrammatically "a/s/l hunny?" me) and his response was "well do you wanna talk to a 22 year old guy?" Urgggh.

Then I got him banned and he called me a "bith." That's right honey, I'm an evil bith.

Power.

I got a pretty.


I don't know why, but gun shops and ranges seem to be roughly as gender-balanced as the Marine Corps. It's not like you need a ton of physical strength; if anything, knowing how to shoot is more important if you're not strong. I guess it's a little that some women are less comfortable thinking about violence, and mostly one of those self-perpetuating things where a woman sees a store full of big hairy guys and bikini posters and feels like she might not be so welcome there.

(It stops at appearances, though; every gun place I've ever been to has ranged in attitude from "hey, any adult with good money is welcome here" to "we're downright happy to see women learning to shoot.")

I don't want to shoot a person, obviously, and I don't ever expect to. But in the very low likelihood that I ever do get into a "them or me" scenario, it's kind of nice to be able to choose them. In the meantime, shooting is just fun.

It frustrates me sometimes that "guns are bad" is so often part of the political package deal with feminism. Personally, I think that women should be powerful--deadly powerful.

I want when I can't have.

Man, I wish I was half as horny on Saturday nights as I am Wednesday mornings.

Arguments that are not good enough.

Man, I hate it when people answer "homosexuality is wrong" with "homosexuality isn't a choice." I believe that that's true--hell, if it were a choice, there are millions of people who could make their lives a whole lot easier and safer by simply choosing the opposite sex--but on another level, I believe it shouldn't matter. I want to be able to answer, "if being gay was a choice, it still wouldn't be wrong."

Likewise, I hate it when people answer "Plan B is wrong" with "but what about rape or broken condoms?" I want to be able to answer "No, no it's not. Even if I was sober and consenting and just plum decided to have unprotected sex, it wasn't wrong. I may be stupid, but I'm not wrong."

Don't make excuses for something you don't need to apologize for.

Emo post.

Sometimes I'm really, really lonely.

Just another lazy Sunday afternoon.

Dear diary,

Today I shaved a very hairy man's entire body (excepting obviously head and forearms). I'm not sure if it was exactly sexy but it was terribly satisfying. He looked much better after.

He's gonna itch so bad in a couple days.

Also we had weird sex.

XOXOXO,
Holly

Cosmocking: February '09!

The new Cosmo is out! I bought it as soon as I saw it and I can't wait to read the whole thing oh boy... I mean, boo! Boo. We don't like Cosmo. It's very bad. Boo.

Man, there must be a lot of perfume samples in this one, it's really smelly.

Guys don't want you to be one of those overly giggly chicks, but they do want you to think they're funny. Laughing at a man's jokes makes him feel good and proves you're carefree.
If he's funny, I won't be able to help laughing. If he's not, I won't be able to fool him. And I don't think it would be a good idea to try.

["Cosmo's advice for your man"]
Believe it or not, picking up the dry cleaning and changing the oil could get you laid.
I guess. You know what else could get you laid? Showing up to my place

Well, yeah. But also:

Showing up to my place in a leather jacket and tight white t-shirt and greeting me with a kiss that's a hell of a lot more than a "honey-I'm-home," asking permission with your eyes before pushing me to the wall right there in the hallway and pressing your body against mine with little gasps from both our lips as your hands run up under my shirt and you kiss like you'd swallow me whole and grab a fistful of my hair and arch my neck back and whisper in my ear exactly what you're going to do...

You'll get a lot more and better sex for being sexy than you will for acting like it's your allowance for doing the chores.

When your guy isn't home, stash an especially racy pair of panties in his underwear drawer (claim later that it was the result of an innocent laundry mix-up). The next time he opens it to pick out boxers, he'll be greeted by your suggestive underthings... and no doubt want to locate their owner immediately.
If we're sharing laundry, doesn't that mean he sees my undies all the time anyway? Oh right, this is 1953, so he never troubles himself with the laundry, he's too busy killing mastadons for the family.

Moaning or taking a deep, lusty breath as soon as you feel him inside you--or letting him know how good he feels--will enhance the moment for him tenfold.
That's great, except for one thing: being penetrated really does make me gasp. I'm not enhancing things for him, I'm actually feeling it. I mean, I'm not an actor creating an experience for him, I'm having sex too here! It's one thing to enjoy all the little noises and squirms that good sex produces in me, it's another for me to coldly and deliberately produce them. That's just... whorish. It's the kind of thing you do if you're being paid to make the experience all about him. It's not what you do when you're doing it for both of you.

I guess if you're the kind of person who enjoys it but has to consciously let themselves moan, then it's a good idea to remember to? That's a lot more reasonable, but it's not really what the article said; it's not saying to loosen your inhibitions, it's saying to script yourself to sound like you have. Feh to that.

Q: My boyfriend is usually sweet, but every so often, he acts like a jerk. He also has the smallest penis I've ever seen. I often wonder if that's what gets him so mad. Could something like that affect a guy's personality?
Girlfriend Of The Year contender? "Aww honey, I know you're only mad because you have a tiny cock!" (Also, I wonder if the unedited version of this letter included the phrase "my boyfriend BOB SMITH has the smallest penis I've ever seen.")

There's an article about how your man's choice of hotdog toppings shows you his true personality. Wow. (Ketchup and mustard: laid-back. Sauerkraut: traditional. Chili: extroverted. The works: curious. So, uh, now you know.)

The annoying bummer about throwing a party is paying for it--alcohol is expensive! Here's a trick that allows you to save. Make a batch of punch, so you control how much liquor you put in.
I guess I'm just going to have to drink more of it. (Seriously, if you're poor go BYOB, go to the liquor store with a friend and split the cost, or put out a "booze contributions" kitty. The shame of admitting your poverty is far less than the shame of watered-down drinks.)

"When random dudes at bars see you clearly taking a photo, why do they stand there looking dumb instead of walking away? I don't want to see you when I look at my pics later!"
I don't know, perhaps he didn't understand that the entire establishment was your private studio, Princess.

If we were friends, I'd warn you: don't sleep with a guy on the first date. It tells him you're not top-shelf. And we want top-shelf.
Well, then I'm glad we're not friends, because I don't live on a fucking shelf.

Anything's wankable when you're thirteen.

Back in the era of my puberty, we didn't have these fancy Internets. (Actually, we kinda did, but I didn't have one in my room.) And I was both a Good Girl and a somewhat unpopular one. I didn't have any access to porn in any form. I had a couple novels with steamy scenes, but they were of the annoyingly vague "she felt a white-hot light radiating from his body as her head soared through exploding stars" variety--no details, man.

But, my mom being a nurse and my family generally scientifically inclined, we had lots of textbooks. Biology textbooks. You see what I'm getting at here.


"Among both sexes, the excitement phase results in an increase in heart rate (tachycardia), an increase in breathing rate, and a rise in blood pressure. An erection of the nipples, especially upon direct stimulation, will occur in nearly all females and approximately 60% of males."
Mmmm
"During the plateau phase, the male urinary bladder closes (so as to prevent urine from mixing with semen, and guard against retrograde ejaculation) and muscles at the base of the penis begin a steady rhythmic contraction. Males may start to secrete seminal fluid and the testicles rise closer to the body."
OH BABY OH WOW
"Orgasm is the conclusion of the plateau phase of the sexual response cycle, and is experienced by both males and females. It is accompanied by quick cycles of muscle contraction in the lower pelvic muscles, which surround both the anus and the primary sexual organs. Women also experience uterine and vaginal contractions. "
OH YEAH OH YEAH OHMYGODOHMYGODDDD


Yeah.


The upshot is that I accidentally became very well educated on sexual anatomy and physiology at a very young age. Not just the obvious parts; being a very thorough reader and rereading the same three pages for months, I learned all the little internal bits with Latin names as well. I'm taking an anatomy class right now and I'll have to study the liver, I'll have to study the lungs; I've got the penis down cold.

Roommate Sex Mystery.

My roommate's bedroom shares a wall with mine, and when she clunks stuff around I can hear it. She and her boyfriend will often spend large amounts of time in there with the door closed, frequently ending in him sleeping over. She's got a jumbo bottle of Astroglide sitting out in the open.

And yet... I never hear sex noises. Ever. Now, despite how this post probably sounds, I don't exactly stand there with my ear to the door. But gosh, sometimes I hear the neighbors in other buildings having sex; the soundproofing's not that awesome here. While I'd probably be disturbed if I had to constantly hear my roommate screaming like a champ, I think I'm more disturbed that I've never heard so much as a sigh.

I guess they just always have silent sex? Is that common? I'm physically incapable of operating at a level lower than "sexy Saturn V launch" and it disheartens me tremendously when my partner doesn't vocalize a little. But maybe if you're both silent that makes it okay?

It's things like this that make me understand why I'll never be a "sexpert."

Awkward purchase.

I don't know which was worse: the first time I bought condoms and felt the clerk's disapproving eyes burning right through me, or the first time I realized the clerk doesn't even care.



I think we'd cut teenage pregnancies dramatically if we had more condom vending machines. They wouldn't even need to be located in high schools---no need to get into the politics of that--they could be in drugstores, but facing toward a corner so you could plausibly pretend like you just were buying a Kit Kat.

The absolute worst are the stores that put condoms behind glass. They might as well just put up a giant sign saying DIRTY SLUTS NOT WELCOME HERE. I'm twenty-three years old and I write a freakin' sex blog and I still can't bring myself to ask the drugstore lady "I'd like the 'Her Pleasure' ones please--no, no, the kind with the nubs, not the ribs."