Since I live in a somewhat urban area, my bedroom window faces another house's windows with only about 20 feet in between. Since it is very hot out, I don't like to lower my shades, because that impedes airflow and the room turns into a pressure cooker in minutes. Since I'm me, I always sleep naked and like to lounge around naked as well. My bed is positioned so the neighbors can't see me in it, and I do try not to put on a show, but I'm sure I flash them all the time. And, since they didn't sign up for this, I feel a little bad about it. I constructed this entire neurotic fantasy world where the neighbors always saw me naked and always hated it and thought I was a horrible creep.
Today, I saw my neighbor walking around naked in front of his window. It was a tremendous relief.
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A couple days ago, I was out with a female friend in a public square (because yeah, I now live in the kind of city that has public squares, rather than the kind of city that has "the Taco Bell across from the Wal-Mart") and we were talking about all manner of salacious and scandalous things. A guy came and sat down next to us, kitty-corner so that he was very close to us but angled so we couldn't make eye contact. Something in his demeanor made us think he was listening to our conversation, but he wasn't bothering us and there were lots of people around so it wasn't really a problem.
Somehow the conversation came around to STDs. I expressed my opinion that it's a shame when otherwise sex-positive people stigmatize STDs, like getting the clap is a huge moral failing rather than a medical problem. It seems like sometimes all the shame and judgement that sex-negative people put on sex itself, we put on any negative outcomes of sex--as if getting the clap were proof that you were doing sex-positivity wrong or making it look bad.
"But I don't have the clap," I clarified.
"I don't have the clap either!" my friend said. We high-fived.
At this moment, the guy very abruptly got up and walked away. He seemed a bit disgusted.
It left us baffled. I could understand losing interest if we had the clap, but we just said we didn't! Shouldn't that be a selling point?
Hmm. Clap (i.e., gonorrhea) is one thing, but with HPV, how does one steer between the Scylla of not stigmatizing it and the Charybdis of acknowledging that it's better to not have it than to have it and consequently a specific risk of contracting it is something partners deserve the right to decide whether or not to consent to?
ReplyDeleteHershele - Clap is chlamydia, actually. But with HPV--or with chlamydia, for that matter, since it's not that benign and can lead to PID and infertility--the answer is that you treat it like a disease. Like the flu. You don't cough on people when you have the flu, but you don't make an agonizing dark secret and personal failure out of it either.
ReplyDeleteI bet that guy had the clap, and liked his chances of having sex with you or your friend when he thought maybe one of you had it.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe he thinks it's hypocritical that you were congratulating each other on not having it. Not saying it is, really, but maybe he saw it that way and didn't like you enough to eavesdrop on you any more.
The hypocrisy was the joke, though. We were being all ironical.
ReplyDeleteNow, if he couldn't respect that, well... I can accept that.
This is not the community I have come to know and love. In my town (which is also your town, but clearly not this guy's town) the correct line was "Me either! Clapless threesome, anyone?"
ReplyDeleteYou're right; never had either.
ReplyDeleteThere are fora where you can get jumped on for saying someone with herpes "has a disease." Of course, treating it as a dark secret has the exact same problem.
The fact that the possibility of having the clap was even under discussion indirectly suggests that you might be a slut, and we all know that sluts are eeeeeevil. And eeeeeevil people are to be avoided at aaaaaaall cooooooosts. (Sorry, I seem to be having a sanity failure today.)
ReplyDeleteI think gonorrhea really is the clap. Not to be a pedant or anything. But would Wikipedia and Giant microbes lie? Okay, maybe.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that guy was a bugchaser? The world may never know...
Two minor incidents? That's all you can manage in a week? Where's all the beating, cutting, choking, etc.? what kind of sex blog is this? I'm taking my fap elsewhere, dammit!
ReplyDeleteyesssssss I'm in The Pervocracy!
ReplyDelete