Epilator.

On the advice of a reader, I got an epilator. The good part is that it makes me totally, amazingly smooth without stubble, in a way shaving never did. The bad part is that it hurts like a red-hot cheese grater dipped in acid. I can only stand to use it for a minute or two before taking a Pain Break. This is worse than some minor surgeries. This is worse than the dentist.

But if it's easier in the future (I've never even waxed, so I'm attacking totally virgin follicles here), and it makes me super-smooth all the time, that's worth it. I really love the feeling of smooth. Even if I'm not totally keen on the feeling of AUGH IT BURNS.

Home!

I'm back in Mass! In my very own apartment!

NAKED TIME!

Going Home.

Very early tomorrow morning, I get on a plane for Boston. (Well, actually I get on a plane for Brussels, and then I get on a plane for London, and then I pace around the airport in London for five hours, and then I get on a plane for Boston. I don't understand why it's cheaper for the airline to fly me further and on more flights, but I'm no airplanologist.)

I have to admit, I'm looking forward to it. It's been fun here and I'm awfully lucky to be able to just run off to Europe like this, but I'm also lucky to live in a place where I have a car and time to myself and I can speak the language. It's been cool though. Europe is like going to another planet and finding a civilization parallel to Earth's, where everything kind of looks the same but everything's kind of different. Also everyone speaks Martian. And there's culture and stuff (although not that much in Hamburg because most of the culture got blasted to shards in WWII), and a lot of nice places to just walk around or hang out in.

I can hardly say "well, back to the same old boring routine," when I've been in Massachusetts less time than I've been in Germany. Back to trying to find a routine, really.

The Beta Male.

NOTE TO PEOPLE READING THIS POST:
1) Yes, it's sarcastic. The things below?  Not actually true. I thought this was apparent to anyone who had spent time on Earth.
2) If you post a bitter trolly comment, I won't let it through moderation unless I have a funny comeback.
3) Go out and make some friends. You might or might not get laid. Either way you'll be happier and know more about how humans actually work.
-Holly Pervocracy, 5/1/2012


There is a frighteningly large population of heterosexual men for whom not getting laid has become a lifestyle and an identity. They're "love shy," they're "beta males," they're "average frustrated chumps," they're "incel," they're "nice guys."

These are the tenets of their belief system:

* The word "woman" refers exclusively to slender, outgoing, fashionable, conventionally beautiful heterosexual white women under 30 who aren't too slutty. Other types of woman aren't undesirable so much as nonexistent.

*With this extreme restriction on female existence, there are far fewer women than there are men, so competition is fierce. Only the rare lucky or skilled man is able to get a woman.

*Women are not, inherently, attracted to men. A woman would certainly never pursue a man or initiate contact with him; at best she accepts applicants and judges them harshly.

*Women get an enormous thrill out of rejecting men. It's like having an orgasm while winning an Oscar and eating chocolate-covered bacon. God it's good. When a man submits his Application To Get Laid to a woman, she looks for any excuse to reject him, because she's just itching for that thrill. A woman's ideal evening is rejecting fifteen men and going home alone, and it's up to a man's luck or skill to break that streak.

*Friendship with a woman is an extremely drawn-out form of rejection, in which every time you meet and she doesn't fuck you is its own little mini-rejection. The only reason some men remain friends with women is that they continue to hold out foolish hope.

*"I love women!" Women are like sports cars you can stick your dick into. They're good to be seen with, good to use privately, and just plain fun to own. Of course these guys "love women"--who wouldn't love an awesome toy like that?

*Some men are alpha males, and everyone likes them and they can get lots of women while acting like total assholes and it's no fair. These men are chosen by random lottery at birth and did nothing to deserve their status.

*The vast majority of men are beta males, and can never ever have sex because the alphas are taking all of the women. Women meet in secret to trade lists of known beta males; this is why a totally unfamiliar man can walk into a totally new venue and all the women will just know they're supposed to ignore him. It's certainly not anything he does.

*As women are not attracted to men, a man's attempts to be traditionally "attractive"--being well-groomed, smelling good, appearing healthy and active, dressing presentably, acting good-natured and sociable--are completely pointless and no effort whatsoever should be made in these areas.

*Talking to women is a totally different skill than just talking to people, which is how someone can have an education and a job and not be a hermit and yet truthfully say he can't talk to women.

*The only hope for a beta male is an intensive course of schooling that will enable him to mimic the stereotyped behavior patterns of the alpha. These behaviors are so diverse and bizarre they merit their own post, or series of posts, or series of posts that I promise to do and then forget about because there was a shiny thing.



Fun fact: wolves in nature do not have "alpha/beta/omega" social systems! This only occurs when unrelated individuals are confined together in a way that never happens in the real world. Wolf packs are actually more like nuclear family units, in which the younger males don't mate because the females are their mother and sisters, not because they're "betas." When the males get older they'll go off on their own and a lot of them will find females and mate.

And presumably the ones who don't spend a lot of time hanging out and telling each other that it's not their fault, it's just those damn bitches.

Rights vs. Right.

There seems to be a lot of confusion in Internet arguments between things you have a right to do, and things you ought to do. It may be true that your right to swing your fist ends at my face--but come on, do you really want to be the kind of fucknut who walks around swinging his fist everywhere?

In other words, our only obligation is to avoid harming others' person or property, but that alone doesn't make you a good person. You do that bare minimum and I won't harm your person or property--but I won't like you. Just because someone is within their rights doesn't mean I have to approve or shut up.

I was reading a discussion about a woman with Nazi tattoos, and one of the moderators of the forum said:

If someone is a sexist, racist, every other -ist they are still a person and especially if these are only the person's THOUGHTS and the person isn't actually acting on them (ie raping and attacking people because they are female, or black, or white, etc). It's perfectly legal for her to believe in her white supremacist crap. As much as I disagree with her beliefs (ie IF they even are her beliefs since none of us actually know her) I'm still not going to put her down.

What the hell is that crap? Because something is legal, you aren't allowed to even say anything bad about it? Yes, she's still a person, but she's a really bad person. I agree that the woman shouldn't be arrested or anything for being an asshole, but you're allowed to--in fact I think you should--freaking talk bad about her, Jesus.



In a free society, you have the right to be a tremendous jerk. It's merely my strong recommendation that you do not exercise this right.

Hairy.

Since I left the US, I haven't shaved anything. I didn't bother bringing razors, and I didn't bother getting them here. I'm not getting laid anyway, and while I usually shave just for comfort, I figured I'd try a brief experiment.

(I would post photos, but my camera died! The actual image sensor is busted, there's no saving it. Woe.)

The funny thing is that all I've learned is that I'm not hairy at all. My body hair gets long pretty fast, but it's just not dense; my hairy crotch looks less like fur and more like... well, a shaved crotch, if you're more than a couple feet away. The fur is pale and sparse. And you'd only know my legs and armpits were unshaved if you actually felt them; I can't even see the hair.

So if shaving makes me look prepubescent, well, shit, I was never going to hit puberty.

Then again, if shaving makes me feminine, I guess I'm already pretty feminine naturally. It's one of those feedback-effect things where most women are naturally less hairy than most men, so the beauty standard becomes that women should have no hair at all, lest they be even slightly masculine and thereby hideous.

But I'm still going to shave when I get home, because what shaving really does is make me soft. It makes it possible to glide a hand up the whole length of my leg without a hitch, to stroke my pussy and find it velvety and smooth. It means when I fuck a man who shaves, we can glide together, skin on skin. Shaving is ultimately not a vanity but a tactile luxury, a way for my skin to feel nicer and to feel more.


Also I itch pretty bad right now.

Fat Acceptance A La Carte.

I've mentioned the fat acceptance movement in passing many times--I'm kinda fat, they say nice things about people like me, sounds great--but I don't think I've ever really dedicated a post to it. There's some things they say that I agree with, and some I don't.

There is no excuse to be uncivil or discriminatory against someone because they are fat.
Completely, 100% agree, and the main reason I read Shapely Prose. The level of schoolyard bullying that fat people are subject to, from grown adults who should seriously know better, is insane. And the media is fully in the "ha ha, fatty" dogpile--when they're not leading it. Professional news sources that bite their nails about using the proper "-American" for every other group post articles about obesity with hilarious "a rapidly expanding problem" puns and undisguised disgust. Even if you disagree with every other thing on this list, even if you think every fat person can and should diet down to a BMI of 20, at least don't be a dick.

Fat people are people and deserve respect, ditto fat people who don't diet or exercise, ditto really super-fat people, et cetera.

Fat hatred is a feminist issue.
Yes. Women are held to far more stringent skinniness standards and subject to far more shit when they don't meet them. Hell, women who aren't even fat are still expected to be obsessed with their weight! And it's all because of the idea that a woman's attractiveness to men is her worth, because what else are broads good for?

The BMI standards are screwed up.
Reserved agree. BMI itself is just a way of generating a number, but the "25 is overweight, 30 is obese" rule is too simplified and too stringent. The ideal weight is way too low for tall people--6' and 185 is considered overweight!--and for muscular people. That said, when I'm 5'1" and *cough* pounds and not a champion bodybuilder, the fact that my BMI is over 30 is a pretty good indicator that I really am fat. BMI is screwy, but that doesn't mean that overweight simply doesn't exist. You can't draw the "this is okay, this is too fat" line with a single equation for everyone--but wide and fuzzy though it may be, there is a line.

Weight loss shouldn't be a moral issue.
Completely agree. Talk about good and bad foods, about being sinful or naughty when you eat, about how exercise is a virtue and cake a vice, is bullshit and makes weight loss way too much of a crazy-making emotional issue. (As does the idea that virtuous food has to taste bad--I realize that I've dropped out of a lot of diets because they demanded I eat bland health foods or horrible food replacement substances. I would rather eat smaller amounts of delicious food.) Nor is being fat a sign that you've committed the Sin of Gluttony--or the related Sin of Needing Healthcare--and should be subject to guilt and shame.

Weight loss isn't easy.
Completely agree. Saying "calories in, calories out, it's simple!" ignores the fact that some people's bodies really screw them over with a tremendous hunger for calories in and a tremendous miserliness about letting calories out. It'll work at extremes, if you starve yourself and run all day you'll lose weight, but you'll also hate your life and possibly end up in the hospital. Figuring out a lifestyle that leads to a healthy rate of loss, doesn't make you intolerably uncomfortable, and that you can maintain for years--not simple.

And saying "just stop eating so many donuts"--dude, you have no idea how few donuts (or cake, or cheeseburgers, or bacon, or whatever) I eat. Like most fat people, I have a problem with chronically eating a little more ordinary food than I burn, not with indulging myself with super-rich reward foods all the time.

Weight loss is impossible.
This is where I start disagreeing. It seems to be an article of faith in the fat acceptance community that it's not possible to lose weight, that your set point is genetically coded and that practically no one loses weight and keeps it off. But I personally know people who've done just that. I think most people do.

Saying "diets don't work" also smacks of an excuse, when not-dieting ought to be, in a fat acceptance framework, something that requires no excuse.

Eating disorders are a serious risk of weight loss attempts.
No. Eating disorders are a risk of self-hating and perfectionist attempts at weight loss, and of pressuring children or teens to lose weight before they're fully developed. But I don't think that an emotionally stable adult following a reasonable diet and exercise plan is likely to accidentally slip into anorexia or bulimia.

Being fat isn't unhealthy.
This is the big one. And I disagree. I agree that being a little fat isn't a big deal and the research is inconclusive, but I think that significant fat--even the amount I have--can lead to health problems. I don't think I'm guaranteed to get diabetes and a heart attack at fifty, but I'm convinced it's a higher risk than if I were at my ideal weight.

And I think the fat acceptance movement really drops the ball when it comes to people who are at very high weights. There's a lot of people out there claiming that "health at every size" encompasses literally every size, and it really doesn't. In my job I saw people who were very overweight and had severe joint, cardiovascular, and blood-sugar problems at very young ages.

It shouldn't matter on the decent-person level, there is no weight that makes a person fair game for mockery, and a 200-pound person going "well, at least I'm not one of those 400-pound freaks" is being a jerk. But physically it does matter how fat you are.

Fat isn't a disease.
I wish fat was treated like a disease. No one hates people with diseases or rubs their nose in how unsexy the disease makes them. Very few people yell "sicky!" at coughing strangers or write articles on how the flu epidemic is all the fault of those fucking stupid flu sufferers who were too lazy to wash their damn hands. Doctors try to help people with diseases, they don't resignedly tsk at them to "be less sick and you wouldn't have all these problems." It's not a good idea to go around with an untreated (noncontagious) disease, but it's not a selfish or antisocial thing to do.

There's no good reason to lose weight.
Disagree. I know that even within the relatively modest weight fluctuations I've been through, I just felt worse at 190 pounds than I do at 170. I tired out faster and I was physically uncomfortable. I like to sleep on my stomach and that's hard to do with a big belly; I like to hike and that's hard to do with extra weight. The sex was worse and--accursed Society and all that--I felt embarrassed of my body more often.

These are all valid reasons, but there's a bigger one: I want to. I want to do something with my body and it's my decision. End of discussion.

Elbe / Hookup Culture.

Lovely day today. Dad and I walked out on a dike by the Elbe, still in the city of Hamburg but surrounded by farmland on one side and tall reeds on the other. A big herd of sheep was grazing on the dike, with adorable little lambs frisking about.

We had lunch by the entrance to Hamburg's port, watching the big ships come in. An announcer at the little tourist-trap house announced, very importantly, the name and nationality of every ship that came in and played the appropriate national anthem each time.



And the link of the day is Tiger Beatdown, on hookup culture. The gist is that the real question isn't "is casual sex wrong?" but "how can casual sex be done right?" Hookups are fun, but hookups used as a pretext for a screwjob suck.

Money quote: Not just “sex” or “not sex,” when you’ve heard that “sex” consist of “giving a guy who refuses to be your boyfriend a million blow jobs that are never reciprocated.”

It's not really that hard to have non-screwjob casual sex. Just be... friendly. Be generous in bed like you'd be generous with a friend, and be nice to them the way you'd be nice to a friend. Ask what they're into and (within your own comfort zone etc.) do it for them. Unless they explicitly ask you not to, do your damnedest to give them an orgasm. Be honest before and after about the relationship potential you are or aren't considering. If they turn out to be expecting more than you were afterwards, let them down explicitly and politely; if it turns out you feel like seeing more of them, discuss it with them once and then let it go if it's clear they don't feel the same way.



Public service announcement for the guys: you all should start a little cooperative project where whenever you have casual sex, you try really hard to leave your partner happy with the experience. I'm surprised how many guys put a lot of effort into picking up chicks, then put no effort at all into pleasing the ones they succeeded with--even making it a point of pride to burn bridges. Every guy who turns into a clingy creeper or a callous douchebag the instant he comes is drastically reducing the number of women who will be up for casual sex in the future.

There's no point complaining that women won't sleep with you if you don't make the ones who do glad that they did.

Everything's gotta be good or bad for you these days.

iPhone app measures calories burned during sex

I dunno, man. I don't have sex to burn calories. I eat calories so I'll have the energy to have sex.

Also he seems pretty skinny in the photo, so while he might benefit from strength or cardio, he really doesn't have a desperate need to burn more calories.

Also this silly thing obviously wouldn't be very accurate and I'm taking it way too seriously. I guess I'm just annoyed by the idea that everything you do in your life has to be in service of your health and thereby worth. Some things are just ways to enjoy being alive, you know? It's like eating a delicious salad with really crisp fresh vegetables, then having some jerk come up and go "Good for you, that's so healthy!"




I've been reading Kate Harding's blog a lot recently, and while I don't agree with everything she says (she rejects deliberate weight loss entirely and has no problem with indefinite weight gain; I think weight loss is a valid--but not mandatory--choice and gaining weight is more concerning than just being stably fat), I like her and the community on that blog. In a world where I'm constantly being told I'm both the victim and perpetrator of a horrible epidemic, it's a place to hear that I'm really okay.

Man, I'm like a hippie vampire. I don't have nearly the niceness or the loopiness to be "accepting" of everyone, I just like to hang out with hippies so they'll accept me. It's terrible.

Butt Sex Thoughts.

Okay. Too many dour, thinky, unsexy entries. Let's talk assfucking. Let's even do it with bullet points. On second thought, let's use asterisks.

*I have a huge fetish for theoretical assfucking. The only porn site I pay for is Everything Butt and when I read erotica I look for stories with butt. If it's a story with other stuff then anal, I often come just as the characters get to the butt, just thinking about it. I'd say that 90% of the porn I've gotten off to in the last year is anal.

*This fetish doesn't seamlessly translate to reality. I like the idea of being assfucked, but the actual experience? Fun, but kind of awkward and not transcendent. The "oh God I'm getting my specific fetish buttons pushed SO GOOD" feeling doesn't come up the same way it does when I watch anal porn.

*I do get that "specific fetish buttons" feeling more when I'm having my butt fingered or penetrated with relatively unchallenging toys, or just stroked on the outside. I've only had full-on buttsex a single-digit number of times, so maybe I'm just not used to it, or haven't had practice relaxing for it--I think I just get distracted by the physical challenge and the intensity of the sensations.

*I hate it when guys are jerks about anal. If you go around acting like it's the ultimate conquest of a woman, instead of just another way for us to enjoy our time together, of course I'm not going to let you into my butt. Or anywhere else.

*I think the poop issue is way overstated by people who haven't tried it. I've never given myself an enema for sex and yet I've never had any ickiness. Your butt isn't constantly full of poo; poo only appears when it's time to have a bowel movement and you can feel it when that happens. If you don't have an urge to poop right now, you probably don't have any poop within penis-reach.

*My first ever anal experience was with a guy who thought he was fingering my vagina. I liked it just fine and was making happy noises, and he asked "hmm, what is that?" I was embarrassed (and kind of amazed that someone could not know, seriously) and said something along the lines of "think about it, genius," and he caught on. And stopped! The entire rest of the time I dated him he wouldn't touch my butt again. Jerk.

*My butt always feels weird for a while afterwards. Not painful, just... weird.

*I always wanted to pound a guy in the ass. Benny let me play with his butt sometimes, but he was pretty ginger about it; I couldn't let loose and pound. One of these days I want to find a guy who's experienced and gung-ho enough to let me do that.

*I don't think ass sex is going the "furthest" on some imaginary scale-o-sex that begins at holding hands and heads outward from there. It requires more trust and communication than oral or vaginal, it's not a first-date thing for that reason, but I don't think it's somehow the naughtiest pinnacle of all. It's just a fun alternative activity.

*I was once required by my work to go to a lecture on HIV/AIDS that was taught by, of all people, a nun. She went on at some length about the dangers of "rectal sex." Ewww.

*I also hate it when anal porn stories refer to the "colon," "rectum," "bowels," "intestines," anything to do with poop, or anything supposedly humorous like "Hershey Highway." Ass, butt, and anus will do just fine for my erotic vocabulary, thanks.

*I've always secretly thought the "ass-to-ass" scene in Requiem for a Dream is super hot.

So the whole Holocaust thing.

Maybe once a day my dad will point out something to do with the Holocaust. There are small reminders around the city: little plaques on the sidewalk outside buildings Jews used to live in, a memorial wall in a shopping mall built over a demolished Jewish cemetery, a hulking Nazi bunker right next to the fairground. I always get awkwardly quiet at these moments; I don't know what to say.

It's a lot more personal for him; his parents were Holocaust survivors (as were my mother's), and a lot of their siblings and family and friends were killed. My knowledge is third-hand, and sketchy; my father's parents didn't like to talk about their experiences and they died a while ago. I suppose my father knows but it's not information he volunteers. I was 20 before I even knew that Yiddish was his first language.

I'm the first generation of my family to grow up white. My cultural heritage is a factoid, somewhere up there with my blood type on things that people only learn after knowing me a while and never really care about. I've never had anyone insult or attack me for being Jewish or non-jokingly use a slur against me. Although I'm fairly well educated about it, I don't follow the Jewish religion much. I make no special effort to befriend or date other Jews. My Hebrew and Yiddish end at the swear words. I straighten my hair and dye it red.

So I'm uncomfortable talking about the Holocaust because I'm neither an insider who can feel anger or grief, nor an outsider who can offer sympathy and sorrow. This isn't exactly "look what happened to my people," but it certainly isn't "I'm so sorry what happened to your people." Maybe what I'm feeling is that after what my family went through, I should be a Jew. I feel uncomfortably guilty that people so recently would hold on to their faith in the face of death, and I'm giving it up just because it's kind of old-fashioned and inconvenient.

I suppose family guilt is the Jewishest emotion of them all.

Ugly Acceptance.

I've joked about it before, but this time I'm serious: we need an ugly acceptance movement. I'm not really qualified to be the standard-bearer, for obvious reasons, but I see the societal need.

Some principles of this movement:

-There's no such thing as ugly. No one has "ugly molecules" physically in their skin; it's all in the eye of the beholders and beholders vary a lot more than you guessed. All those weird porn sites with 600-pound women, 80-year-old women, hairy women, bodybuilder women, ad nauseum? They exist because someone is paying money for them, and they're not forking out $30/month ($99/6 months, BEST VALUE) just for laughs. So to call a person "ugly" really only means "ugly to me;" it's nothing intrinsic to them. This isn't a value judgement but a philosophical statement; ugliness can never be an intrinsic quality.

-The fact that perceptions of beauty are not evenly distributed among all possible traits does not prove that beauty is objective. Everyone on Earth could agree that Alyson Hannigan is more beautiful than Carrot Top, and she still wouldn't be more beautiful.

-Most people (self included) need to get a serious human-decency adjustment in the way they deal with people who are ugly to them.

-Note from the examples that came to me that ugly-hatred is bound up with a lot of other, less acceptable hatreds: ageism, sizeism, ableism, often racism. Thinking that a person is ugly because they're old is ageist; thinking that they're ugly because they're old and therefore it's okay to be a jerk to them is what ugly acceptance aims to fight.

-Sexism is also an ENORMOUS factor here; the idea that a woman's beauty is her worth is tremendously sexist and tremendously pervasive. A woman's beauty (to you) may be her fuckability (to you), but there's a whole lot women can do besides get fucked. Ugly women are so often treated like less valuable women, without anyone even asking how good they are at baking or hockey or civil engineering.

-No, you don't have to fuck uglies. Really. That's not what it's about. Your sexual choice is absolutely inviolate, a pure example of "management reserves the right to refuse service" no matter how petty or non-PC or silly or cruel your reasoning--I would never tell anyone they had to fuck anyone and certainly not a person they weren't attracted to. You don't have to look at ugly porn either and you don't even have to proclaim sexual attraction for uglies.

-But you can accept people in a lot of non-fucking ways that still matter. Give ugly people an even shot at being your friend, your employee, your political representative, your service professional. Treat ugly people in social situations with respect and uglyblindness. Don't tolerate appearance-based joking or bullying in kids or adults. Don't use "ugly" as an insult, and call out people who rag on the ugliness of people they weren't going to fuck anyway. Don't talk or think about attractiveness as an intrinsic, objective quality; don't participate in the constant rating of everyone's attractiveness.

-Saying "but X is beautiful!" about unpopular physical features misses the point. The point is that maybe it's really not beautiful to certain people, but so what? If they're not screwing or photographing/painting the unbeautiful, these certain people have no right to care.

-As far as media representations: art and marketing both have justifications for featuring statistically-beautiful people more often, and I can accept that. However I cannot accept implications in the media that the statistically-beautiful are better people, or that beauty is a massively important quality in all walks of life.



The language usage here is super-awkward, because unlike with other acceptance movements, I don't recommend anyone self-identify as ugly. There is such a thing as "generally uglier to most people than most people are," (and that's what I meant when I casually said "ugly" above) but it's a fuzzy category, often severely mis-perceived by the subject, and not really a helpful designation.



Ugly acceptance is a tough, tough thing to conceptualize; the distinction between "ugly" and "pretty" enters our consciousness about the same time the distinction between "up" and "down" does, and we come to think of it as just as fundamental. Saying that pretty doesn't exist thus feels, viscerally, as wrong as saying "down" is a matter of opinion. But, you know... ask someone in Australia.

No one's ugly. No one's pretty. Fuck who you like, but everyone's a person. That's ugly acceptance in a nutshell.

Critter-Centric Day.

We went to the zoo and it was awesome. Mostly because:

A) They let you feed the elephants! We brought a big bag of carrots and handed them to the elephants, who had amazing dexterity with their trunks; it's awe-inspiring to have a 5-ton prehistoric-looking beast delicately pluck vegetables out of your hand. They never dropped one.

B) There's a GUINEA PIG TOWN! An entire miniature town with houses and a church and a little watermill and it's all full of zillions of guinea pigs! There's even a separate kindergarten with a little school for the baby guinea pigs! They all go squeeky and run around and you can give them carrots too! It's the best zoo exhibit ever.

And then for dinner we visited my dad's friend whose friend had shot a wild boar (they're a nuisance animal in Germany) and we ate boar stew, which was the most delicious thing ever. It's kind of like pork, but much leaner and with a lot more flavor. Yum.



And the following story was told at dinner: "I vas taking meine kinder to der kindergarten, ja, and vun of de little girl's mama vanted to kiss her goodbye. But de little girl started yellink in front of everyone, 'Nein, mama, I don't vant you kissink me any more, not after you had Papa's peepee in your mouth!'"

GERMAN COSMO!

I have in my hands a copy of German Cosmo! I'm very excited. It's not a translation of the American one, it's locally written content.

I can't do a full Cosmocking today, because it's going to be super time-intensive with translation factored in, and I don't have the time right now. I'll try very hard to get around to it, though.

Observations I can make without understanding much of the text:

-It seems a bit less boy-crazy and sex-obsessed than the US version. There's only one article on sex and one on relationships, and about five on beauty products.

-It's textier than in the US. There's more complete articles, fewer blurbs and factoids. A lot of the dippy "features" of the US version--quizzes, the "Man Manual," the "Cosmo Gyno," aren't here.

-There are titties. Like with nipples and everything. And man-ass! No wiener, but every other part of the male body is well represented. Remind me to post scans when I get home.

-There's a ton of skin lotion samples stuck in here. Three lotion packets--one large enough for several doses--and one of foundation! It's all schmancy brands too! I wish US Cosmo had this much swag!

-Out of probably 200 people pictured in the ads and editorial, 2 are non-white (and they're in a "United Colors of Benetton" ad). US Cosmo is no rainbow coalition, but German Cosmo is whitetastic. There's plenty of non-white people walking around in Hamburg; it's not like they don't exist in Germany.

-Yeah, it's all mega-skinny people. No diet or weight-loss articles though.

-Their "sexy" photos are way genuinely sexier than the US version's inevitable tepid pictures of a man and woman in generic sexual positions with underwear on. I really must post scans.

Hamburg / Intentional Vanilla

(Experimenting with dual post format. Unsure of wisdom of approach.)

Today was ordinary. I went with my dad to work, we had lunch with one of his friends (he's a paramedic and we were trading call stories in "neither of us knows medical terms in the other language"-ese, which was fun) and afterwards we went for a long walk and went shopping. Which I enjoyed; I'd rather have a slice of life in a different place than do the Official Designated Tourist Activities. We're going to go to the zoo and do a boat ride and all that, but it's not "doing Hamburg" so much as just living in it for a little while.

This trip is a little like being a kid again, in a weird way. I don't have any real responsibilities of my own, I follow my dad around because I'd get lost in five minutes alone, I let him do all the talking, and (me not having Euros) I have to ask him for anything I want. It's not a bad thing, but it's strange; I'm so used to setting my own agenda.

For some horrible IP-confusion reason Google is now speaking to me in Finnish. At least with the German I had a chance at guessing my way around. Finnish just looks like Martian.

---------

Anyway:
You know who I really respect? I have a couple friends who are strictly-heterosexual, monogamous, and vanilla as the day is long--but not by default. They're aware of other options, they've either tried or seriously considered them, and they've realized it's not how they're wired.

I think it's cool when people are in touch enough with their own needs that they don't take for granted that they're vanilla, but they're willing to accept it and assert it even when well acquainted with the pansexual/poly/kinky world.

(And the pan/poly/kinky world can be kind of jerks about "vanillas," if you couldn't tell by the name. The versions of "whatsamatta baby, you uptight?" that I've heard used to accost people--generally women--who declare they respect you very much but it's not for them, are positively shameful. Clearly if you don't want to get spanked by somebody else's girlfriend you just have a narrow view of sexuality and are probably some kind of *ptooey* Christian.)

Holly.de

I'm in Germany! Crazy. Some websites see my IP here and automatically make everything Deutsch, which is a little confusing. I couldn't "log in" to Blogger, I had to "Anmeldung."

I miss my little guinea pigs.

But other than that I'm pretty good; I'm staying with my dad, but I have my own room and it's comfy.

Mostly I just flew today. Or yesterday? However days work. I don't really fit in plane seats. I guess I'm lucky that I'm short, so at least my legs fit the legroom, but my shoulders are broader than the seats. I'm not sure it's even a fatness issue, my belly and ass fit in the seat fine, but I have some seriously wide shoulders and I had to spend the entire flight with my arms awkwardly tucked in. Not comfy.

They gave me socks on the flight. There was a little toiletry kit with mostly sensible items--toothbrush, toothpaste, sleep mask--and goofy little red socks. I'm wearing them now. They're comfy.

I was really hungry and thirsty for most of the day because food costs money on flights now, the airport terminals had no water fountains, and everyone wanted pounds or Euros and until I got to Hamburg I only had dollars.

Ironically the hamburgers are terrible here.

Gone to .de, here's a comic.

Porn for women

Don't Fuck Me Gently.

Life lesson learned: gentle sex can leave me painfully sore. The problem is that roughness turns me on. Call me ruined for life by my perverted ways, but roughness is the only thing that turns me on. It doesn't have to be brutality, I don't have to be grabbed by the hair and thrown on the floor (although, God, I wouldn't mind that) but you gotta handle me like you know I'm not gonna break. I'm a chew toy, not an eggshell, yanno?

When a guy is ridiculously gentle, when he just sort of skims his hands over me with tremendous delicacy and reserve, I don't get turned on. I don't get wet and my vagina doesn't relax. My pussy is a wondrously changeable thing, and when I'm having a good time you can get the Edmonton Oilers in there; when I'm not having a good time a pencil is way too much.

So if you treat me like some sort of delicate tissue-paper woman, then try to penetrate me, it's going to hurt. In the bad way. It's a weird thing, pain from being overstretched never strikes me exactly as pain, but more as a strong unpleasant sensation, like tasting something too sour. With my vagina. It's not super fun.



I think there's some crypto-sexism in handling women like they're delicate china toys. Certainly not all women want it painfully rough, but when you're touching a woman super mega tentatively, I think you're failing on some level to think of her as a human being like yourself. Do you jerk off with dainty little butterfly tickles? I'm not some delicate creature, man. What a person can take, I can take.

Nein! Ja! ...Guten Tag?

I'm going to Hamburg, Germany for the next two weeks to visit my dad. Leaving Monday, back on the 29th. Which is awesome, albeit sort of crazy because there was really short notice and I'm still not settled in to the first unfamiliar city where they speak an unfamiliar language. It's a little frightening that I don't speak any German; my dad assures me that a lot of Germans know English, so... thank God for cultural hegemony, I guess.

Well, that's two weeks I won't have to be worried about getting laid, I guess. Phooey. I mean, anything's possible when you're a wide-eyed American abroad going "oh ja, I always wanted to learn a foreign tongue", but there's the Dad Factor. I'm going to be staying in his apartment and pretty much with him the whole time, which is a fairly major cockblock.

I guess that means I should totally try and get laid today. It might be my last chance! Why am I still sitting here in my pajamas? (Because pajamas are comfy! Why can't comfort be sexy? I want to go out to a sleazy bar in my jammies and have guys say "well, looks like you're ready for bed.")

Anyway, I'll take my laptop and probably post from Deutschland, but I don't know if there will be impediments.

It's too bad it'll be cold there, I understand in the summer you can run around parks and beaches in the nakey in Europe. And they have naked advertisements! Especially boobs, maybe not so much crotch, but I understand they're very relaxed about boobs over there.

Europe! Exciting! Kind of insane right now! But I think it'll be awesome! Maybe I can wear my pajamas there!

Ich will Sex wie ein verrückter Affe haben...



P.S.: Oh my. I just read a webpage on cultural advice for Americans in Germany and it specifically mentioned "don't make any Nazi jokes." Yeah... I kinda figured. (It's double funny because I'm Jewish. Awkward...)

Christian Radio.

A good portion of the way driving across the country, I listened to Christian radio. I did this because I like seeking out things that make me angry. Also because talk radio keeps me awake better than music, and the only options in a lot of places are Christian talk or NPR. I listened to a lot of NPR too, but it wasn't as entertaining.

The thing that amazed me: it's all about sex! I listened to about 24 hours of Christian radio and probably 20 of those hours were about "family issues." Sex occupied a far, far greater timeslot than did prayer or charity or community news. And when I say "sex," I mean "orders about how to have sex." Or orders about how to act your gender, I'll lump that in here. It's all fucking orders, that's for sure.

(Something I want to clarify before I go further: my beef is with contemporary American Christian fundamentalist culture, not with Christianity. People's belief in Jesus and in the Bible is not the problem here and I don't want to denigrate the religion itself here. This is a cultural argument, not a theological one, and I have no more respect for "lol invisible sky man" than I do for "turn or burn, sinners!")

How To Have Sex According To Christian Radio:
-Obviously, don't have any before you're married. This is usually phrased in terms of high school kids, which makes it sound sort of reasonable, but then I realize--I'm still not married! Of course, if I were determined to be abstinent until marriage, I probably would have married Kevin back when I was a teenager, and wouldn't that be lovely, he'd be playing WoW in my basement instead of his mom's right now.

-Once married, you're stuck with it. Divorce is ungodly (Deuteronomy 24:1-4 was just a joke, God didn't really mean that). If you just can't get along, the solution is to get along, duhhh. The really unnerving part is the loop: "Well, what if he hits me?" "He shouldn't hit you, that's wrong." "But what if he does?" "He shouldn't!" As long as you can control people's behavior on every level, there's no need to make exceptions.

It's the same logic as staunch opposition to sex education and condoms--as long as everyone was perfect (by our standards) we wouldn't need these things! If someone wants to go ahead and be imperfect anyway... fuck 'em.

-Seriously, fuck 'em, because there's nothing that Christian radio hates more than "the world." "The world" is a terrible and debased place and the goal of life is to be better than "the world." If you were wondering where pornography and homosexuality and promiscuity and spaghetti-strap tops come from, the answer is "the world," which is Satan's domain.

-Oxytocin and vasopressin are God's Hormones. Any skin-to-skin contact with a member of the opposite sex releases God's Hormones, after which you are bound for life and leaving this person will make you miserable forever. For example (they really said this), if a woman hugs a man for more than twenty seconds, they will become bonded. This is why it's crucially important not to hug before marriage.

-You can prove anything via batshit-insane analogy. Masturbating is wrong because when you touch yourself, that's like pouring oil on the roof and setting a rabbit on fire. Trufax.

-Women and men are equal, they just have different roles to play. And men's role is to be in charge.

There's a very weird screwjob buried in the idea of traditional gender roles, and that is that women are expected to be subservient because their husband is supporting them--even when they're getting no such support. In a modern economy, it's a woman's role to keep house, raise the children, and joyfully submit to her husband--after she gets home from work! I have no desire to be a Happy Housewife under any circumstances, but being expected to act the Happy Housewife without even the luxury of being a housewife... goddamn.

-Marriage is between one man and one woman. The "one" is always in there, as if the polyamorists were beating down the gate of American society just as fast as the gays. (I wouldn't mind if they did, but that's another story.) Homosexuals ("ho-mah-seeehx-you-allls")have an agenda, and that agenda is to "promote the acceptance of homosexuality." Which, to be fair, is probably true.

At least in my random sampling of Christian radio stations, there wasn't much talk about why being gay is wrong--it mostly goes without saying. Because, ew, right? Not a lot of heavy analysis. Being gay is also very sexual--two men chastely holding hands with all their clothes on is basically public sex--so even if we have to tolerate it, at least please don't do it in front of the children.

Lesbians definitely do not exist. For women to desire women, they'd have to have sexual desire in the first place, and that's crazy talk. Women don't want sex, women want security.

The last quote I heard (and please, rack your brain for what on Earth this has to do with Christianity) before giving up and listening to NPR's fascinating three-hour coverage of the traditional knitting techniques of Estonia--"A woman's need for security is the closest thing she has to a man's sex drive."

Pigmergency over.

Guinea pigs are arranged for. Phew. Ignore previous hysterical posting.

I support vajazzling and I vote!

So the latest ridiculous thing that the Internet seems to be coming down awfully hard on is "vajazzling"--the adornment of the crotchal region with goofy little crystals. (They call it the "vagina," because apparently everything between a woman's navel and her knees is "vagina" these days.)

I really don't have a problem with this. It's silly, but is it moronic, wasteful, self-hating, patriarchal, all men's fault, all women's fault, a conspiracy of Big Business? Nah. It's one of those t-shirt transfers, I think. Although I hope they're not using the iron-on glue.

There are two main differences between this, and things like labia dye and plastic surgery that do give me the heebie jeebies:

1) It's optional. No one is going around implying that women with unbedazzling crotches are ugly old man-haters. Women are clearly doing this on a giggly lark, not constantly keeping up with the bedazzling in a desperate attempt to still feel desirable. I have great, great difficulty envisioning vajazzling becoming the new normal.

2) It's artificial. No one is implying that a good vagina should grow its own dazzle. Labia dye is marketed to "correct discoloration" ('scuse me, I'd just call it "coloration"...) and surgery to "restore a youthful look and feel"--bedazzling is clearly an extra. Even shaving seems to be seen as a "correction" of "extra" hair sometimes; bedazzling obviously corrects nothing... except an insufficiently fabulous crotch.

Some people were even making the "why not give the money to Haiti" argument, to which my only answer is that I just bought a medium coffee, and I could have gotten a small coffee and given the 25 cents to Haiti, but I didn't because I am a terrible person.

But what really gets to me is that all these people harshing on groindazzling are telling women what to do with their own bodies and their own money. They're going out there claiming to be anti-patriarchy, anti-dominance, pro-woman, and then they're issuing orders to women! On a very personal and very inconsequential-for-society topic! And then calling women stupid and frivolous and brainwashed for not falling in line with their demands! WAY TO BE FEMINIST, PEOPLE.

So that's my 400 words on crotchdazzlement. Boy, I'm making good use of my time these days.

(Actually I am, I passed my EMT certification test today. And I did it with a plain old boring crotch. Which was quite the handicap, let me tell ya.)

Cosmocking: April '10!

White cover! Is it a yearly cycle? I think last April was white too, but sadly (wonderfully) I set my old Cosmos on fire rather than drag them across the country, so I can't check! Lady Gaga! In nude-colored grandma-ish supportive undergarments! That's kind of awesome! Not awesome: she's been airbrushed within an inch of her life, to the point where her torso is a featureless pink blur! Is Lady Gaga's real body that bad? Cosmo thinks so!

An ingenious dating rule of thumb: in the beginning of a relationship, every coupley thing you do is magnified five times. So when you text him twice, it's basically the equivalent of 10 check-ins.
Oh God. If I call him once, I'm a crazy person.

iTrust is a new 99 cent app that tells you if someone snuck a peek at your iPhone. Keep that in mind the next time you're tempted to scour... we mean, glance at your guy's call log. Not that you'd do such a thing.
Tee hee, how silly of me to do an eensy widdle pwivacy viowation! Ain't I the fucking cutest?

The Rise of the Less-Successful Boyfriend
Me, I would have titled this article "The Rise of the More-Successful Girlfriend."

The best statistic in the article: as a result of the 2009 layoffs affecting more men than women, 1 in 4 women now earns more than her husband. OH NO THAT'S WAY TOO MUCH WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ.

When you're out together with friends, casually mention a random thing he does well, like his cocktail-mixing expertise or the way he effortlessly lifts your 2-ton couch. According to a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, couples who put each other on a pedestal are happier in the long run than pairs who don't idealize each other.
Yeah, and if you paint stripes on your face you'll turn into a tiger. Happy couples say nice things about each other, certainly, but I don't think you can work this one backwards.

Really thank him. If he helps you paint your bathroom, leave his favorite salty snack in the pantry.
Gosh, you really went all out there. Buying a bag of chips and not even directly giving them to him, that's gotta be reserved for very special occasions.

(Wait... do you live together or not, here? Because if you do, then it's a shared bathroom; if you don't, then he's not going to find stuff in your pantry. Unless you're supposed to smuggle it into his pantry next time you come over, which is kind of weird and might convince him that his pantry is haunted.)

Slide your hand down the front of his pants and graze his goods when you can tell he's had a hellish day. In those moments, he really doesn't want to answer questions like "Are you okay?" or "What's wrong?" ...but your caress still sends the message that you're picking up his vibe.
I can't even deconstruct this one in words. It's just... look, I'm kind of an awkward hermit, but even I have some social skills, I have a sense of how people are, and my instinct is that people who've had a really bad day do not want to be walked up to and wordlessly grabbed in the junk. It's just a feeling.

When you introduce him to friends or coworkers, highlight any recent impressive accomplishments of his. For example, "This is Steve. He just finished his PhD dissertation in microbiology" or "Tom ran the Ironman marathon last week!"
"This is Rob. He goes potty all by himself!"

The Sex Article We Can't Describe on the Cover
Oral sex. My, how shocking. Hey, Cosmo, I'm doing something right now that you couldn't put on the cover.

A shocking number of women have trouble mentally letting go and enjoying oral. Sound like you? Try keeping the lights off so you can't see him. You'll have fewer distractions and be able to focus.
The awesome part is that Cosmo is always advising you to "spice it up" by turning the lights on. So a full and varied sex life can be had simply by using a light switch. (The Clapper would be downright kinky.)

Man, this article is really frustrating from a Cosmocking point of view, because there are some really bad suggestions but they're repeats. I've already mocked the "stick his penis against the back of your tongue" and "squeeze his balls like they're supermarket fruit" things, I can't do it again. Can't Cosmo come up with something new every once in a while? The magic is gone from this relationship.

To put [a date] at ease, try the 5 in 15 ratio: Casually touch the guy you're talking to 5 times every 15 minutes. [...] Try telling him that you love his watch and gently touch his wrist, or briefly put your hand on top of his as you ask him a question.
Being "casually" touched every three minutes, the first few acceptably casual, then more and more coming until I suspected and then knew she was doing every one of them on purpose, would not put me at ease.

Yeah, sticking to benign topics will ensure that you won't rock the boat. But being a bit fearless by sharing something that's a little out there--for instance, recounting the time you won a karaoke contest with your awesome rendition of "Endless Love" or admitting that you've seen all the "Saw" movies at least twice--shows an attractive amount of balls-out confidence.
Is there something that's more benign than your incredibly mainstream entertainment tastes? If that's "a little out there," what isn't?

"Hi! My name's Holly. I like puppies. But not pitbull puppies. Those are a little out there. Um... I like puppies. Puppies."

Q: Not long after we got married, my husband started seeming less enthusiastic about sex. I was mad at first, but I realized it happens only when he's stressed about work. I'm fine with that, but I feel like now the situation bothers him more than it does me. How can I let him know it's okay if he's not up for sex as often as I am?
A: If you try to tell him that, it won't matter what you say--all he'll hear is "you don't satisfy me."
Yes, honestly communicating that you accept your partner as they are is the worst thing you could do in this situation! Or any situation, really.

Holy shit! This issue contains a sexual connect-the-dots puzzle. Mind status: BLOWN.

A romance novel excerpt:
"He kissed her, pinching her nipples so that each time, blood rushed between her legs."
Ew.

Cosmocking: Rapetastic special feaure!

I started doing a full Cosmocking for April '10, but this article required its own post.

It's described on the cover as "The Rape Danger Zone Most Women Don't Know About." I assumed they meant the home--after all, most rapes are committed by partners, friends, dates, and such, and it's rarely publicized the way stranger rape is. Then I turned to the article.

Read This Before You Drive Alone
Your car can feel like a comfy little cocoon, but driving solo can put you at risk for a violent attack, rape, or worse.
Oh Cosmo. Your timing is hilarious. Your insistence that women--already forbidden from walking alone, obviously--not even fucking drive is positively Saudi Arabian.

And come on. Even if I'm not driving across the country alone like some reckless psychotic, am I really supposed to recruit a Safety Buddy every time I commute to work? Every time I go shopping? Even if I just need one thing from the drug store real quick?

If you are taking a long trip and will need to stop for fuel after dark, go to websites like exxonstations.com/locator to find full-service stations along your route. That way, you can stay in your car with the doors locked.
There are several insane paranoid precautions you should take specifically when doing anything after dark. Apparently rapists are vampires.

When you're shopping at night, or if the lot looks eerily empty, ask store personnel for a security guard to walk you to your car. If there isn't one available, keep a hand free of packages as you walk to your car, and stay in the middle of the parking-lot aisle, away from vehicles, where criminals might be hiding.
Apparently rapists are funhouse vampires, and they operate by jumping out and going "boogy boogy boogy!"

Above all, never text or talk on the phone on the way to your car--it's a sure way to encourage an attacker.
"Your honor, I wasn't planning to rape her, but then she made a phone call, and I realized she was just begging for it. You know what kind of woman makes phone calls."

[If your car breaks down] While you wait for help to arrive, do not under any circumstances get out of your car; roll up your windows, lock the doors,and stay inside.
For fuck's sake. Is air toxic to women? I don't know about rapists; this is how I would act if there were velociraptors outside the car.

And I hope "any circumstances" doesn't include when your car is in a position where it could be struck by traffic, or when the engine is smoking. (Let's just forget the possibility that you might actually be able to fix the car problem yourself, you are just a little lady after all.)

When a long drive is part of your plans, set up a safety net: Have roadside assistance available, and most important, never sleep in your car or take a break in any place that seems isolated. Avoid driving at night, splurge on a safe place to stay, and do all your shopping and gassing up in daylight. If you're careful and prepared, you'll feel at ease behind the wheel... and arrive at your destination unharmed.
Well, the message is clear: if I had been raped on the trip I just took, it would have been my own damn fault. Ladies have an obligation to conduct themselves at all times as if they're in velociraptor territory, because when they don't, they ought to know they've got it coming.

Of course, ladies who turn their car into a hermetically sealed Panic Room, then go home and get raped by their boyfriends, are just going to feel silly.



(And ha ha, try taking a break anywhere in Montana, Wyoming, or South Dakota that doesn't seem isolated.)

3200 miles.

I'm home.

Classified ad.

Horrible car for sale. Eats money, shits near-death experiences. High mileage, filthy interior, low MPG, full of little surprises. Has been regularly maintained with kitchen utensils and Wikipedia, has had oil changed several times. Only three owners, only two of whom crashed it (the third was crashed into, it wasn't her fault). Minor issues with electrical system, brakes, cooling system, lights, airbags, windshield, horn, wheels, axles, engine. Harbors malevolent indwelling spirit. American engineering.

$4500 OBO.

No brakes.

My car died. Well. It didn't just die. It died in the sense that the lights and brakes died as I was going down a steep downhill in the dark. Augh. I'm okay though. Obviously. Didn't crash. Downshifted and E-braked and found a safe spot and was also fucking lucky and didn't crash.

At a motel now, I'm okay, piggies are okay, will get the car fixed in the morning.

So fucking scary. I'm crying now that everything's okay even though I wasn't while it was going on. I'm not going to get hurt now but oh my god. I was totally in the dark and alone and no one could see me and I couldn't see anything and it was a steep hill and I couldn't stop.

I want to go home. I want my daddy. I want a hug.

It's okay. I'm okay. I'm just completely exhausted and emotional. Probably the lady hormones or something. I'll get the car fixed and I'll go to my new apartment tomorrow and it'll all be okay. But goddamn. This is, as I say, Suck City.

Emo Post.

(Still in Taylor, MI. But moving on soon! ETA in Mass: Tuesday night.)

I want to be a cool chick. I really want to approach sex with perfect naivete. I want to be the sort of person who can say "sex is fun! let's have fun together!" and really mean it and nothing else. But the more times people dick with me, the more times I get my good nature used to make me into a "take it or leave it, use it and ditch it, plastic don't care" sex toy, the harder it is to be that sort of person.

I don't want--couldn't stand--to become conventional and withholding in my sex, to agree only to fucking one guy, only in a relationship with "commitment", only after he sucks up a little. But I'm starting to understand it. Being a happy hippie about sex, but also having all these inconvenient feelings where I react negatively (like a psycho!) when people get my hopes up and then decide that my desire is inconvenient for them, could start to wear me down one day.

There's a difference between a one-night stand and being used once and thrown out, and the more times the latter happens, the worse I get at accepting it with perfect "hey, it happens! no big! I'm a cool chick!" grace. Everyone has the right to say no to me at any time for any reason, but--if you really don't like me well enough to tell me your realistic expectations, and turn me down kindly and openly if things don't work out--maybe you just shouldn't get my hopes up in the first place.

I hope I don't sound like the "cockteasing is like rape" guys or some psycho bunny-boiler girl. I'm really not asking to be fucked any time I get horny, or carried away into a Forever Love every time I get schmoopy. I'm just asking to have these emotions respected a little. There's a difference between just not fucking me, and leaving me fucking hanging, scared to even point out that I'm hanging for fear of looking "psycho," and I think it's actually not that hard for guys to know which they're doing.

I guess the TL;DR is "Holly is a psycho who will sulk if she doesn't get laid," and admittedly history does sometimes bear that out, but... I wouldn't mind being rejected as much if I could at least get properly rejected like a person you're letting down, instead of fucking discarded like a sex toy you decided you didn't want to use. This bullshit--this kicking me out after you come, this keeping me around as an optional extra instead of a legitimate third, this treating me like a psychopath for calling back after you were finished with me, this utter fucking disrespect for my own wants because cool chicks shouldn't want anything because the coolest thing is a chick who's really convenient to use--this could wear the "cool chick" right out of me someday.

Taylor, MI.

Alive. Visiting friends! Staying extra night. Happy. But not in posting mood. Deepest apologies.

Oak Creek, Wisconsin.

423 miles today. I deliberately stopped earlier than I could've so that I could meet some blog people! Hi Strings and Spoon!

I also don't have time to write a travelogue because I was all busy hanging out with Strings and Spoon, so you won't get to hear about my amazing journey through Minnesota and Wisconsin. (They're both flat and snowy. Wisconsin has a lot of trees and Minnesota has fewer. You've now experienced eight hours of my day in about eight seconds.)

Instead I want to share one of my fascinations: blatantly imaginary "reviews" on sex toy sites! Some of these are jokes but I think most of them are wank fantasies. Extreme Restraints has some of the best ones.

(All links are SO NWS it's not even funny. People say "why do you warn NWS, it's already a sex blog," but man, there's NWS that's a few dirty words and a mildly suggestive banner, and then there's NWS that's a giant butthole across your screen.)

I don't think a single one of these are true.
The next day, she introduced me to the neighbor's German Sheppard - O my Gawd, I'd never been done like that before, and when he knotted up, I begged her to take the CB-2000 off - NOW, I understand why people enjoy animals! But she wasn't done, yet! She lubed up her hand, and introduced me to Fisting! [..] As I began to cum, she pushed a full beer can up my ass! [..] She popped the top on the beer, and drank it with a straw, before releasing my hands.

Some items are so insane they deserve insane reviews.
Then he woud take me out to his garage ( live in a houseing davelopment) open the door, and hang me up for anyone to come play with. He would put 9oz. nipple clamps one me and a but plug up my ass. Then leave at first no one played with me during the day, so Master put a sing up that said " Sex slave: play with her for free" then people started comeing. Mostly house wives in the moring, then high schoolers in the afternoon, then bissness men in the eveing.

But even relatively ordinary items get the crazy treatment.
At first, I was restrained in these only around our farm for a couple of hours. They would be padlocked behind my back, and my fur-lined leather collar around my neck with the leash attached. This would be all that I was wearing as my husband led me around outside. The feelings of potential exposure and actual helplessness got my juices flowing and put a buldge in his pants, which led to some hot face, pussy, and ass fucking outdoors. At first, I didn't want to swallow cum or take it up my ass, but I had no choice and I learned to love it.

This one doesn't have funny reviews, I just love the models' attempts at looking smoky and intense while wearing ridiculous devices.


I never understand people who have fantasies about doing something strenuously sexual or being in bondage for all day or multiple days. Maybe I'm just too practical-minded, but I think I want to have sex for a few hours and be vigorously penetrated for a few minutes. It's not that I'm not way horny for those few minutes, but... I know my limitations.

Oh yeah, baby. Pound me with your moderately sized cock for a few minutes. Tie me in a comfortable position for a reasonable amount of time. Oh God, it's so tolerable.

Jackson, Minnesota.

South Dakota is like Hoth: flattish, windswept, covered in snow, the people are friendly and not fond of the government, you know you wouldn't make it through one night outside, and everyone rides around on giant kangaroo-goat things.

376 miles today. I waited to leave Wall in hopes that the fog would let up, and eventually I just gave up and drove anyway. It was 100 solid miles of pea soup before I could see more than a few yards ahead of me.

At Wall Drug I ran into a family moving from Massachusetts to Washington! Crazy.

Today was honestly really boring. There's not much to do in eastern South Dakota, and if there was anything, I didn't do it.

I passed the halfway mark today. The accents went from "yeehaw, pardner" to "oh ya, you betcha" and the radio stations went from K to W.

A recurrent experience on this trip is debating with motel clerks whether my guinea pigs constitute "a dog."

How to have the Big O.

On my post about little and big orgasms, a couple of women said they'd only had little ones and asked me how to do the big ones.

Well, step one is to be born in suburban Massachusetts in November to Ashkenazi Jewish parents... I don't know, I've always been like this, I never had to try, it's probably genetic or something.

That said, here are some things that seem to help me have big orgasms on my own, so I present them for your enrichment:

-A lot of times the big O is the second one. I have a little orgasm, rest a few minutes, then go again and have a big one.

-Having something nice and filling in my vagina and/or butt helps a lot.

-Fantasizing, as opposed to porn or just "relaxing," helps a lot. And not gauzy-toned dainty little "my secret garden" fantasies, I'm talking rough wet brutal assfucking fantasies. Might just be me.

-Having phone sex helps a lot. For some fascinating power-of-the-mind reason, good phone sex gives me the same physical reactions as actually being touched by someone else.

-Hold off on the little O's; stop when you feel them coming, take a few seconds, and then restart after you've cooled down.

-Try and get somewhere with enough privacy that you can make noise and squirm around and you won't have to worry what anyone else thinks. I can't even have little O's if I'm trying to hide while I masturbate.

-Accept that it's going to be completely embarrassing, and embrace it. You're going to make icky noises and move in icky ways and emit icky fluids. If you try to suppress any of the ickiness you're going to miss out on the big O.

-Squirting is not mandatory. I've never squirted (although I do produce quite a lot of lady-juice, just not forcefully) and I have big ol' orgasms.

-When all else fails, vaginal intercourse with someone you like will just about always give you a big O.

...Might just be me.

Wall, South Dakota--still.

This fucking fog. Visibility is well less than a block, and overnight the fog froze and coated everything with huge white ice crystals--very pretty, but not ideal driving conditions. I'm going to get to a late start today in hopes that the fog will burn off a little by midmorning.

In the meantime, I went to Wall Drug! You know what it's like? It's almost exactly like the Olde Curiosity Shoppe in Seattle. Same musty air and creaky wood floors, same array of fascinating but utterly disorganized and largely unlabeled objects on display, same merchandise mix of plastic tourist trinkets and true oddities.

The Olde Curiosity Shoppe is better though. It pains me to admit it, but... Wall Drug doesn't have mummies or shrunken heads or a FeeJee Mermaid. They do have dead things on the walls though, even if they're less gruesomely fascinating, so it's not a total loss.

I bought a pocketknife. It says "Wall Drug" on one side and my name on the other. Whoo. I hope this fog lifts soon.

Wall, South Dakota.

WALL DRUG! WALL DRUG! WALL DRUG! Sadly they're closed right now, I'll go in the morning.

510 miles today, about as good as can be expected with the damn trailer. There was a pea-soup fog for the last fifty miles, which scared the crap out of me.

Lots of deer and antelope today. Not really playing. More eating. Or in an unsettling number of cases, being dead. I came across a whole bunch of deer in one spot that had been shot and just left where they fell. Unless there's some legitimate reason that a dumb city kid doesn't know about... someone's an asshole.

I used to divide the country into two parts: the part where billboards have a snazzy slogan, and the part where billboards have directions. I need to add a third part: the part where billboards have directions and they're 200 miles away.

I'm allowing myself one ridiculous roadside-attraction impulse purchase per day. So after three days of travel I am the owner of a pink flocked unicorn, a jackalope, and a Tyrannosaurus bone fragment. Or a rock. It could be that they sold me a rock. I'm kinda going on trust with that one. (The jackalope is real though.)

Today's life lesson: walking around after dark in South Dakota in the winter in a T-shirt is a very bad idea. I was just going about 100 yards, and I'm one of those people who never gets cold and will snowshoe in a tank top, and... HOLD FUCK THAT'S COLD HOLY FUCK. It was like walking on the moon without a spacesuit and about as smart.

This motel room has two beds. I guess that's just what they had? They charged me for a single, so whatever. Every motel so far has put me on the second floor. I think that's standard procedure for women staying alone, because the first floor is more vulnerable or something. And a woman alone, as we all know, is a rarity and a tremendous risk, and has to be treated with much more care than a human alone.

No, no, I shouldn't be bitter about someone trying to help me out, I don't really care which floor I sleep on and I'd rather have my pride offended than have my room broken into. But still.

I don't think I really understood the game "Sam and Max Hit the Road" until now.

Despite filling my iPod for the trip, I've preferred to listen to local radio. It's a much more interesting experience and there's useful road information. And it's culturally enriching! For example, I've learned that people out here really care about high school sports. Seattle radio gives a one-sentence announcement of the state champions each year and that's it; Montana radio contains hours-long in-depth discussions of changes in the Sugar Beeters' coaching staff and how this might affect their octofinals results against the Sheep Herders.

I've also experienced the weird contradiction of Christian radio, which is that it comes off for the most part as being composed of fundamentally sweet and loving people, who are always talking about charitable projects and how God should bless everybody and how much they love their friends and families and neighbors and country. Oh, and they hate gay people. Even when it's couched in "we love gay people, we just want to help them overcome their sin"... it's still really jarring.

There's something really extra-sad about a trailer park with three feet between the trailers when it's in the middle of a gazillion miles of totally empty prairie.

Big Timber, Montana.

The phrase "High Speed Internet" is interpreted somewhat differently here. Although really, there's no way I would've gotten any Internet, especially not for free, a few years ago. My inconvenience is extremely relative.

426 miles today. Feh. I forgot about the time zone! I thought I'd have an hour more sunlight than I did. Also the trailer is, pardon me, a serious drag. On flat land it only knocks about 10 mph off my speed, but I went over about four mountain passes today and I just chugged over each one. The roads are good though. I was very worried about snow and ice but so far there's been only the tiniest patches at the tops of the passes. I suspect things might get trickier as I get further east, although hopefully the Northeast Snowpocalypse will have started to melt by the time I get there.

I bought a jackalope. I couldn't help myself.

Also, wow, it's been a long time since I've driven over a cattle guard. The first time today it kinda surprised me. OH MY GOD THERE ARE HOLES IN THE ROAD. WHERE WILL I PUT MY HOOVES.

I ate elk jerky! It's venison-y. For some reason I always associate road trips with exotic jerky. It's just not a road trip until you eat dried alligator or kangaroo or something.

Montana has weird casino laws. Non-Indian casinos are all over, but they can only have video poker and keno, no table games. I always get weirded out by gambling laws that exclude games with good odds. Way to protect the people, Montana.

Lotsa cows today. Serious cows. I saw this fluff-piece story the other day that said that cows always face magnetic north and no one knows why and it's this big Animal Mystery. I'm now fairly sure that cows face every damn way.

The stars, oh my God, the stars. Even Washington wilderness stars have nothing on Montana stars. I was standing under streetlights and I could still see entire galaxies I never knew existed.

When you close a bottle of liquid at sea level and then open it at Big Timber altitude, fascinating things happen. The "personal items" pocket of my luggage is now thoroughly lubricated. (Also, my tea won't get hot. Stupid physics.)

You'd think that Chinese food cooked by white people in Montana in a town smaller than my high school would be nightmarish. Shockingly, you'd be wrong! It wasn't exactly authentic but it was quite delicious.

Little O, Big O.

When I'm having sex with someone else it's all big O's. But when I masturbate there's two kinds of orgasms I have. One is just an end to the fun; there's a very minor crescendo and then I mostly know that I've come just because I don't feel like masturbating any more. That's probably 90% of the time.

The other 10% is an orgasm so big and powerful that it's downright embarrassing, so big I won't let myself have it unless I'm alone in the house because of all the noise. If I do go through with it I know I'm going to lose control--of my hips pounding so hard the bed shakes, of my voice moaning out loud, and of my pussy just coming and coming and coming.

Man, if I were a Martian I wouldn't understand at all what people find embarrassing. If I cut myself I have no problem screaming "OW" and letting everyone know how I'm feeling, but I'd rather suppress an orgasm than risk anyone knowing I'm feeling good. It's only polite.