Teenage Panic.

"But if you do happen to unzip your fly, then, uh... uh...
enjoy your new life as a cautionary example?"

Look at any forum or question site frequented by sexually active teenagers, and you'll see the same theme come up over and over:

"I had sex. I'm terrified I'm pregnant and have every STD ever."

"A guy fingered me.  I'm terrified I'm pregnant and have every STD ever."

"I touched a girl's breasts and then touched my penis. I'm terrified she's pregnant and we both have every STD ever."

I'm paraphrasing a little sardonically, but I remember being there.  The first time I touched a boy's penis, he demanded I wash my hands immediately, because maybe they had some sperm on them and maybe I would masturbate and then I would get pregnant for sure.  And when I started having intercourse, although we always used condoms, I was absolutely convinced I was pregnant and infected.  It got to the point where I would have stomach rumblings and think that I was feeling a baby kicking.

Despite (or because of) this belief, I never took any tests.  I was so scared of seeing a positive result, I couldn't bear to.  I'm damn lucky that I was worried over nothing, because it was more than nine months before I screwed up the courage to actually use a pregnancy test, and years before I went to a clinic for an STI test.

I was a pretty savvy teenager, intellectually.  My school sex ed wasn't much, but I'd been through every page of Scarleteen and the sex chapter of every "you and your health" book I could get my hands on.  I'd read up on the correct methods for every kind of contraception and the symptoms of every infection.  My problem wasn't lack of education, not exactly.  My problem was an all-consuming terror of punishment.  I'd been able to unlearn misconceptions about the biological details, but I hadn't unlearned the idea that having sex was a very wrong and forbidden act.

The morning after I had sex for the first time, I woke up with a crushing feeing that I'd done something evil and I was going to be caught and punished.  The next time I saw my parents, I was terrified.  I thought they were going to catch some nuance in my speech or gestures and go "Wait a second... you're acting like a sex-haver!  You are in so much trouble."  This didn't happen, but the feeling of guilty terror lingered.

And I think it was that guilty terror that led me to my paranoia.  I was so convinced that I had been bad and would be punished, I believed biology itself would punish me.  It didn't help that I'd grown up hearing about how pregnancy and STIs were "consequences" for sex.  Health class, parents, teachers, media, and peers had always talked about these things not as risks that adults have to manage, but as dire fates (or worse, humiliatingly comical fates) for sluts.  At age 15, I took a certain toxic-girl-hate pride in being Responsible and Pure.  At age 16, I'd had a penis inside me.

This nasty mess of emotions did nothing to stop me from having sex, of course.  There was a whole other mess of emotions telling me that you're undesirable and you're not growing up and you're not in a real relationship if you don't have sex, and those won out in the end.  (Plus I was really horny.)  And by "in the end," I mean "within two hours"--I had sex almost immediately the first time I found out a guy wanted to have sex with me.  So much for convincing kids to wait.  All I was convinced to do was have sex, but feel absolutely terrible about it.

But you can't say there was no deterrent effect, because I was powerfully deterred from seeking any kind of medical advice or testing.  That would be humiliating beyond measure, I was convinced.  It wouldn't feel like asking for help; it would feel like turning myself in.  Saying "I need an STD test" felt to me like saying "I'm a disobedient slut who probably got what she deserves," and I couldn't face that shame.  I'd rather just take my chances.  Even though I was terrified of my chances.

God we fuck up teenagers' heads.  We tell them that biological conditions are moral punishments and then we get all shocked when they don't practice rational risk management of biological conditions.  We teach them "sex is super desirable and all the cool kids do it, and it's hideously shameful and will destroy your life" and we wonder why they act an eensy bit neurotic about it.  If you tried to design a system for making sexually active kids confused and unsafe, you couldn't do much better than the American media and school system.

And for once, the answer is relatively simple.  Just talk about sex like it's a part of life.  Some people have sex and some people don't, because people are different. STIs aren't bad because they're Dirty Crotch Rot; they're bad because they're contagious illnesses like strep throat or whooping cough, and you can ask a doctor to check for and treat them just like you would with strep throat.  Unwanted pregnancy isn't a scarlet A; it's a mostly-preventable accident that sometimes occurs when people are going about their normal business of having sex. You can ask the school counselor about a variety of topics, including career planning, problems at home, questions about sex, or conflicts with teachers.

If we could just get the goddamn stick out of our collective ass and accept that sex is a human activity and teenagers are humans, maybe there wouldn't be quite so many plaintive "I don't understand my body and I'm confused and scared and I don't know anyone I can ask in person" messages flying out into the world.

Orientation speech.

[Oh God it's been too long since I last posted.  I meant to!  But then I moved into a new house!  It's not far from the old one but it's much nicer and it's also a kink-friendly space.

Which is something I didn't want to be important to me--hey, I'm not "a kinkster," I'm just a person who is kinky!--but it turns out to be huge.  The feeling of having nothing to hide, of being able to tell my roommate honestly about my weekend, of not needing to censor the contents of my room before opening the door, of not needing to constrain the way I interact with my boyfriend in the house... turns out that's not a silly whim.  It's something that takes a gigantic weight off my shoulders.  I feel safe in my home, and I'm just now realizing I didn't before.

...I also didn't feel safe in the old home because apparently my roommate was letting random people shoot up in the house.  I found that out as I was leaving.  Lovely. But not my problem anymore.

Anyway. I only just now got Internet in the new house.  So I've got some posting to do this week!]

This started as a joke.

"Welcome to Holly's vagina!  Please stay seated for this important briefing.

"Very little foreplay is required, but in the event that insufficient moisture is available, artificial lubrication is available in your seat pocket or beneath the seat ahead of you. Make ample use of this lubrication, as it greatly enhances the experience and reflects in no way on your performance or her enthusiasm, and can be used as a floatation device. 

"Roughly one inch above your seat you'll note the clitoris, illuminated with red and white indicator lights.  Tampering with the clitoris is a federal offense and may result in a fine or jail time.  Unauthorized clitoral stimulation will result in delay of our trip, and continuing to manhandle the clitoris and claiming 'but girls like this' may result in cancellation of your ticket. 

"Directly inside the vagina, on the front side, you will find our exclusive The Happy Place™ facility.  Feel free to enjoy The Happy Place™ throughout your trip, but please bear in mind that this facility is designated primarily for rubbing and massaging, and extensive or forceful thrusting in this area may not produce the desired effect.  If at any time during your trip you wish to thrust forcefully, please activate your call light for assistance and we will direct you to the most comfortable positions to do so. 

"In the event of an emergency orgasm, please assist those around you with their orgasms before securing your own, bearing in mind that the plastic bag may not inflate. 

"Enjoy your trip!  You may use approved electronic devices at this time."

Truth is, though, having an orientation spiel for my vagina is damn useful.  Simply sitting down and writing that, airplane jokes and all, clarified things.  To have good sex, it helps to know what you like--and to know what you like, it helps a whole lot to actually put it down in words.

Giving a little speech on The Care And Feeding Of My Vagina is one of those things that seems awkward, until you realize how awkward the alternative is.  Getting someone up to speed on my physical quirks makes the difference between constantly interrupting sex with "whoa no not that" (or worse, politely enduring "whoa no not that" things) and having things just flow.  It's not just about catering to my own needs, either; letting my partner know what's up with my body gives them an idea of where to start and relieves some of their performance anxiety, and it gives them an opening to tell me what's up with their body.

Obviously I wouldn't really do it flight-attendant style?  (Or I might.  Mixing "sexy" and "hilarious" is underrated.  This weekend I watched a couple have a pillowfight while having sex.  It was adorabawesomesexy.)  But I really would make a little speech out of it.  A breathy speech right in my partner's ear, given between deep kisses, with my hand running through their hair, maybe.  Or a cheery, matter-of-fact one over dinner.

...Or one posted on my blog, under the clever guise of talking about how to clarify sexual needs.



Sex for me is a three-step process.
1. Find out what you want.
2. Make sure your partner knows what you want, and you know what they want.
3. Dirty sweaty monkey love.

Step 3 gets all the glamor.  But it's rare chemistry indeed that makes Step 3 just work out without any planning.  The awkward, talky, using-the-word-clitoris-without-giggling process of the first two steps is where the real magic happens.

Five Things You Might Not Know About Contraception.

Contraception's been in the news lately.  Which is so weird.  I mean, it's the 21st century!  We have iPhones and robotic surgery and Roombas and Segways!  How is this even a thing?

In a sense, it's not.  The real issue is "will religious organizations be required to include free contraception in their healthcare plans?" which while still an important issue, isn't at all the same thing as "should contraception even exist?"  And yet it seems to have drawn all the creeps who want to yell "contraception shouldn't exist because SLUTS!" out of the woodwork anyway.

I don't want to expound too much on how I feel about this, because I think it's pretty obvious where I stand.  You think I'm going to spring the anti-birth-control stance on you here?  Seriously.

So instead, I'm going to expound on some relatively little-known, and hopefully useful, facts about birth control.



1. You can use regular birth control pills as an emergency contraceptive.
If you have access to birth control pills but not Plan B, you can take extra pills to prevent pregnancy after having unprotected sex.  Here's a table of the correct dosages.  This is not an abortion method and won't stop an implanted pregnancy, but it's effective for more than just the "morning after"--although sooner is better, emergency contraception can work up to five days after unprotected sex.  (It also doesn't appear to cause any birth defects, so if it doesn't work, keeping the pregnancy and having a healthy child is still an option.)

2. You're probably paying too much for condoms.
Drugstore prices are highway robbery.  (Or at least highway rubbery.)  $15 for a package of 12?  Maybe $10 for the crappy brand?  Yep, still cheaper than diapers, but you can do way better than that.

If you have a credit card and a mailing address, you can buy a giant bag of 100 for less than $19 here.  I can personally vouch for that brand being reliable and comfortable on the vagina side, and I've gotten good reports on the comfort for the penis side.  I can't vouch for these, but they're even cheaper--under $14 for 100.  At that price, you can afford to have sex and make ballon animals.

3. "Pulling out" works better than you think.
Withdrawal has a bad reputation; most people think it's more of a bad joke than a birth control method.  But actually, if it's done correctly, it works better than a sponge or a diaphragm.  Interruptusing your coitus is 96% effective over the course of a year--if you do it right.

That's the catch, though.  Pulling out is trustworthy; penises often are not.  And if you have an "oh oh OHHHHH oh shit" moment, or if there's residual sperm in the urethra, your risk of pregnancy goes up to 27% over the course of a year.  (You can remove residual sperm from your urethra by always peeing before sex and after any time you ejaculate.)  So I don't really recommend this method--except that it is by far the most effective method that requires no money, no drugs, no trips to the doctor or drugstore, no pre-planning.  All you need is your bodies (and some trust and ejaculatory control).  It's not the best birth control method, but it's the best one that you can do entirely on your own.

Note: I am not advising you to rely on withdrawal for contraception.  It is not a very good idea.  It provides no protection from STIs and 27% is not great odds. Condoms can be gotten for free or dirt cheap and they protect you from infection as well as being much more effective protection against pregnancy.

4. Spermicide is way, way, worse than you think.
The pregnancy rate (over a year) with typical use of spermicidal foam/jelly/film is 29%.  That's not great odds.  It's certainly better than nothing (85% risk), but it's worse than condoms (15% typical risk), worse than the pill (8% typical risk), worse than the rhythm method (25% typical risk), even slightly worse than pulling out!

Also, if you have a vagina, using spermicide can put your health at risk.  The most common spermicide is nonoxynol-9, which has been found to increase the risk of HIV, HPV, trichomonas, and vaginosis infections.  Sex workers are 50% more likely to contract HIV if they use nonoxynol-9.  And the reason is nasty--because it can cause ulcers to form in your vagina, which creates open wounds for infection to enter.

As pregnancy prevention, spermicide is crappy, but better than nothing; as infection prevention, spermicide is actually worse than nothing.

5. If you're on birth control pills, you don't get a period.
It certainly seems like you do, at least if you're on the 28-day-cycle kind of pill.  But the "period" you get between pill cycles is not a period at all--it's withdrawal bleeding from the change in hormone levels.  Unlike a true period, there's no uterine lining buildup and no egg in it.  It doesn't perform any cleaning or renewing function. It's just bleeding.

So why do pretty much all conventional (and the most affordable) birth control pills make you bleed every month, if it doesn't serve any purpose?  The answer pretty much comes down to "tradition."  "Normalcy."  I've heard claims it gives users "a sense of well-being," which is slightly hilarious.   Confirmation you're not pregnant--I guess that's nice-ish, but is it really worth a week's worth of cramps and stained underpants?  Ultimately, I might have to chalk this one up to "male doctors."

So calling Lybrel "the birth control where you don't have periods" isn't quite right.  Hormonal methods all stop you from getting a period.  Lybrel is really "the birth control where they don't make you bleed for no reason."

Guest Post: What it's like to go to an STD clinic.

[I'm busy studying for finals. In the meantime, enjoy this guest post by Jack. I think it's important information for people who've learned testing is important but are unsure what to expect when they actually go through the process. -Holly]

A good friend of mine recently had an STD scare. I figured I might as well get a physical/emotional clean slate myself, and more importantly, go through the experience to support my friend, who has been distraught and has a horror of needles that rivals yours.

[Jack once stuck me with a play piercing needle because we were curious if I would like it. My reaction was a calm and level-headed "GET IT OUT GET OUT OH GOD GET IT OUT AUUUUGH." -Holly]

She did the basic research over the internet and phone; two places in Boston, Boston Medical Center and Mass General Hospital, offer free STD clinics. If you work normal day hours like me, expect to take a day off to get in to be tested – the late Wednesday hours are generally packed, they said. You have to give your name, address, and date of birth to book an appointment.

[I edited out some Boston-specific details here; after finals I'll put together a "Boston sexual health resources" page to accompany the kink resources. -Holly]

They take almost every insurance plan. They also do testing free if you have no insurance (and they’re a public health clinic, so they ask if you have insurance but don’t look into it – and don’t much care – if you say you don’t), but only if you are symptom-free. This struck me as kinda odd, and I wasn’t able to ascertain the reason behind it. They test for gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, and HIV; they'll also test for hepatitis C if you request. They also offer the three-shot hepatitis A and B vaccines for free if you want them. This is a separate appointment from your STD testing.

So you walk in and take the elevator up to the clinic; when you walk up to the desk, the desk workers are rather apathetic. “You’re here for what? Huh? Oh. Fill out the form.” They have you fill out a basic form with name/address/phone number/do you have insurance/how did you hear about us, then call you in when it’s your turn.

You have to go in alone; it’s completely private – they wouldn’t let me go in with my friend, despite her and I asking if I could. The actual person who does the testing is polite, warm, and professional, very matter-of-fact but not cold. They explain that the HIV screening is a rapid reaction test with results in 20 minutes, and that the other results take a week or so to come back from the state lab – they do a pretty good job of calmly, simply walking you through everything, showing you lists of information and such, and answering your questions.

One big catch: If you come back positive for anything, you have to come back in to the clinic within a week of that call for more information and (free) treatment, or they turn your information over to the state, which will track you down as a public health risk. Aside from the threat-to-the-public good aspect, everything is 100% confidential regardless of age/status/etc. – apparently even if they have to track you down with the police it’s a private deal; the police bring you to a state doctor who works with you in private.

[Don't get too scared by this--it's actually pretty extraordinary for the cops to hunt someone down for medical treatment--but do be aware you take this risk if you get tested for anything you're not willing to be treated for. -Holly]


The physical part of the procedure is fairly simple: they do the standard spring-loaded finger prick for the HIV test; they put a very small needle (21 gauge) into your arm and draw two small tubes of blood (the needle’s in your arm for less than two minutes, I never even felt it); then they walk you down to the bathroom and hand you the urine cup (“half full, please”) and wait for you, then take it from you when you walk out. The whole thing is very private, very professional, standard doctor’s-office, alcohol-swab-and-stick routine. Your name is not written on the specimens; you're identified only by a number and barcode.

After that they send you back to the lobby (and give you juice and cookies, if you’re like my friend and look chalky-white and like you’re going to die after the needle stick). Within 20 minutes they call you in and tell you that your HIV test was negative (I’m not sure what they do if you’re positive – Bells and whistles? Herd of lemmings? Dunno), and that that roughly means that you aren’t positive, although if you were infected in the last few weeks it may not show up. The other tests take 48-72 hours; if they don't call you, after a few days you can call the phone number and and hear your results over the phone--but if you test positive, they will call you.

[What actually happens if you test positive for HIV is a lengthy meeting with a counselor to tell you "this does not mean you're dying, you can be healthy for many years after this, but we need to get you started on treatment ASAP and here's how that's going to work." They also retest you with a slower but more accurate method to make sure. -Holly]

They reiterate the we’ll-call-you-if-bad, you’ll-hear-a-few-days-later-if-it’s-good, feel-free-to-call-after-a-few-days-if-you-want-to routine, and then they wish you a good day. Other than the apathetic desk attendants it was professional and friendly friendly, anonymous, non-judgmental, and pretty low-key.

Test tubes.

I know I promised a buttsex post, but there's something you should know about me: I am a liar.  Also something more outrageous happened.

I'm in nursing school.  I'm an "adult learner," since I'm 25 and already have a bachelor's (in film and rhetoric, seemed like a good idea at the time), as are about half the people in my class--some are in their 50s and are grandparents.  Which made Tuesday's lab even more inappropriate.

It's a microbiology lab, and usually we do things like isolating and culturing bacteria, doing stains, preparing and viewing microscope slides, and the like.  Not real politically charged.  So I was taken aback when Tuesday's lab was straight out of an abstinence-only horror story.

The lab procedure, in brief: each of thirty students was given a test tube with a few milliliters of nutrient broth.  One of the test tubes contained a sample of harmless bacteria; the other twenty-nine were sterile.  We had to randomly partner up and transfer fluid between our test tubes, then find another partner and do the same, for four rounds.  At the end we swabbed our broth onto agar plates, and next week we'll see which ones grow bacteria.  All this was supposed to represent the spread of an STD.

It made me very uncomfortable, because it's a demonstration that works on two levels.  On one level, it's modeling an epidemic, which is appropriate subject matter for a microbiology class for nurses.  On another level, however, it's all about how people who have sex are dirty.  We're going to have sixteen (or slightly fewer) people turn up with the "infection," and then we're all going to shake our heads and reflect upon how dirty and dangerous sex with four people (so slutty!) is.  It's spherical racehorses--it's intended to be--but it's racehorses made spherical in a way that grossly magnifies the riskiness of sex and "simplifies" away the existence of safer sex and STD testing and treatment.



The frustrating part is that it's almost impossible to argue with this, because the attitude I'm facing isn't opposition; it's impatience and apathy.  I asked if we could do a round with condoms on our test tubes, and the professor laughed and brushed me off not with "we're trying to show how sex has consequences, don't interfere" but with "we're trying to get this done on time, don't slow us down."  When I talked to other students about the lab, most of them expressed the same sentiment--whatever, let's just go through the motions and get this done with--although one of them said to me "It's a good thing I've only slept with one person!"

I don't think this apathy makes the lab okay.  I think it makes it insidious.  "Yeah yeah, sex is dirty, sluts have diseases, just copy the answers off the board and we'll get out of here before ten" is a much nastier and more dangerous thing than if we'd had an overtly ideological discussion of the subject.  It makes it a given thing, a thing not needing discussion, that sex is dirty and nothing can be done about it.

It also makes me seem like a bit of a sex-obsessed weirdo for getting all fluffed up about it.  But this is an attitude with consequences.  "She's probably got STDs" is a synonym for "ewww, slut" that I've heard many, many times.  And equally bad: "He wanted to use a condom with me? I'm not the sort of person who has diseases!"  (Yes, I've heard that.  It was in college, in fact, during my first go-round.)  Linking sex to inevitable STDs--and STDs to dirtiness--is not merely obnoxious, it's dangerous.  It stands in the way of condom use, STD testing, and honest disclosure with partners, and it reinforces the idea of sexually active people as tainted and less valuable.

I'll try to bring these issues up when we get our results in the next class.  I'm also considering talking to the professor about it although I'm not quite sure what to say or what constructive suggestions to make.

Mostly I'm just flabbergasted that the professor had the nerve to walk into a college class with grown adults in attendance and host one of the old "you have to keep your scotch tape sticky for your future husband!" shenanigans.

Squirt.

I've started squirting during sex.  The last two times Rowdy and I have gone at it, I've soaked the bed.  I don't know what changed, since we weren't doing any activities we hadn't done before; maybe my body just decided it was squirtin' time. Maybe it's like riding a squirty bike, and now that I've done it once I'll always be able to.

The disappointing news is: it's not a mega ultra orgasm.  I wish I could describe for you about how it's an intensely spiritual and powerfully erotic whatever whatever, but at least for me, it's really not.  It's like a regular orgasm and then there's a puddle.  The sex afterwards can be extra fun because it's super wet and slippery and messy, but the squirting itself doesn't feel like anything different.

The one thing that bothers me is that I find myself having tremendous anxiety over whether it's pee.  It can't be pee, I keep saying. There have been studies and stuff, right?  No way did I just uncontrollably pee on his dick during sex.

The problem is... even if it's not all pee, I can't really convince myself that it's 100% pee-free.  It's coming out of my urethra, presumably out of my bladder, and, let's face it, that's a pretty pee-intensive area.  What I can believe is: so what if it's pee?

Bodies are messy things.  We're sixty percent water, and zero percent of that is water in its nice cool clear form; it's blood and lymph, chyme and mucus.  People are made of goo, and to express love of the physical human body is to glory in goo.  We don't just tolerate but take joy in the ooze and gush of saliva, of sweat, of semen, of vaginal fluids.  What's one more flavor of goo?  Why is it acceptable to me that I produce this gooey human fluid and not that one?

It'd be interesting, in a sort of "huh, did you know opossums had forked penises" way, to know whether my squirts are pee or not.  But I'm not pinning my ego on the answer.  I can take pride in "I came so hard that I peed!" as well.

Condom Failure.

Here's another interesting statistic from my medical textbooks: the failure rate of condoms in preventing pregnancy is 2% (over a year) with perfect use. It's 10-18% with typical use.

Holy shit! Condoms fail up to 18% of the time! That's pretty bad! I wouldn't get in a car that crashed 18% of the time! Condoms must be pretty crappy birth control!

Well, no. Condoms are 98% effective. The catch lies in the concept of "typical use" as opposed to "perfect use." It makes it sound like "perfect use" is some theoretical expert condom application, where the condom is applied with absolute precision by a team of professional condomifiers in a way that mere "typical" civilians could never replicate.

Nope. All "perfect use" means in the case of condoms is using them every time, and using them for the entire duration of PIV sex. There's a few more catches--you shouldn't reuse condoms, you should throw them away instead of turning them inside out if you put them on wrong the first time, you should use lube but nothing oil-based, and you shouldn't double-bag--but honestly, most of those are statistically minor. The biggest factor in "perfect use" of condoms is actually using them.

So what's "typical use"? Well, if someone says that condoms are their primary method of birth control, but only uses them sometimes, they're counted as a "typical" user. When they get pregnant, they go in that 18%. The number one cause of condom "failure" is not using a condom.

It's sort of amazing to me that people would use condoms only sometimes and expect that to work, but I know from work (we talk about condom use with STI and Pelvic Inflammatory Disease patients) that it's not uncommon. People don't have a condom handy and they go "aw fuck it," boyfriends complain that it doesn't feel as good for them, women try to do a kind of half-baked rhythm method only using condoms when they think they're fertile, people have sex drunk or high and forget about condoms, and some people really just seem to only use them when they feel like it.

In large part, this is an educational problem. We're sending two very dangerous messages in regards to condoms:

1) "Condoms are for dirty sluts." Hell, there's places where condom possession can be used as evidence of prostitution. There's long arguments about whether making condoms available in high schools--or even colleges!--will cause kids to have sex, which would be terrible because sex is dirty. Women's magazines run articles on how a guy will think you're a slut if you open up your bedstand and there's a lot of condoms. Many drugstores keep condoms behind locked doors to add even more awkwardness and embarrassment to the purchase. (I know this is often because of shoplifting, but in practice, it does increase the shame factor.)

When everyone is shamed for using condoms, and women are extra-shamed, then people are less likely to have them around when they have sex, and more likely to go ahead with it anyway.

2) "Condoms fail all the time." This one is enshrined and exaggerated in abstinence-only education, but not limited to it. I've had a doctor tell me that condoms alone aren't "really" birth control. Hell, until I did more reading, I believed this one myself. And of course condoms aren't perfect--but they're a lot better than I thought.

The problem with this one is that it encourages fatalism. If a condom doesn't really help, why bother? Might as well have unprotected sex and take your chances, since you're taking them anyway. Abstinence-only education has been repeatedly shown to discourage condom use, and this is one of the reasons--when they say "condoms don't work," they aren't telling kids "don't have sex, even with a condom." They're telling them "don't have sex with a condom."

In this way (and it affects adults too), the 18% statistic is feeding itself. The more people believe condoms don't work, the more often people who use condoms for birth control won't really use them. The more people feel like condoms are a crapshoot, the more comfortable they'll feel taking real crapshoots.



Condoms are great! They're cheap, completely confidential and anonymous, involve no hormones or other funny chemicals, require no prescription, and they work really really well. All you have to do is use them.

My boobs want to be free.

It's getting to be hot out these days. Swimming weather, sunbathing weather, Frisbee weather. Lots of guys running around shirtless. They look so carefree, their burns and tans, abs and guts, open to the sun and the wind.

Me? I gotta wear a shirt. I got shame on my chest.

The frustrating thing is that this isn't even a legal issue, not really. Female toplessness is legal in a lot of places in the US (although not where I live), and I'd be meeting the letter of the law with a couple of Band-aids. But I have a gut feeling that if I go anywhere that there are people--and particularly anywhere there are children--nobody's going to be too happy about my Band-aids. The enforcement is social; women just don't go around topless in the US.

It bothers me because it's unequal, but it also bothers me in its implications: that my body is inherently sexual, and a man's body isn't. It feels like men are being viewed through the first-person lens of "it's nice to feel the sun on my skin, and I don't mean anything by it" and women are being viewed through the distinctly third-person lens of "it's inappropriate for me, a heterosexual man, to see her sexy parts." It ignores the experiences of people who are turned on by male chests and somehow manage to contain themselves when they see one.

And hell yes, it does bother me that it's unequal. I don't want to gloss over that. I don't know how we can act like gender equality is a big deal in this country, then turn around and claim that the same body part that's innocuous on men is obscene on women. That's glaring discrimination in the plainest form: treating one group differently from another for no reason but custom.

Like many taboos, the boobie taboo is self-perpetuating. You never see breasts in public, so it really is shocking and attention-grabbing when someone walks by you on the sidewalk and WHOA DOES SHE HAVE HER BAZOOMS OUT? Whereas someone walks by you on the sidewalk and she's got her hair out, and you don't register this at all, not because hair isn't sexy but because you see a bazillion bareheaded women a day.

This is a sex blog, but this isn't really a sex issue. Or shouldn't be. I don't want to do stripteases in public, to caress my breasts or twirl tassels on my nipples. I just want to be able to go "whoof, it's hot out" and peel off my shirt. This isn't about my breasts; it's about my chest.

Short hair.

I cut off all but a couple inches of my hair. It's way comfier and easier to maintain now.

But I didn't realize, when I did it, how much I would be running head-on into a minefield of gender and sexual anxieties. It wasn't a deliberate act of gender fuckery; I went in for a woman's haircut and showed the hairdresser a picture of a woman.

Within a day, I was getting called "he" and "sir."

Which I don't mind, when it's an honest mistake. If someone wants to believe I'm a man and treat me in good faith like a man, that's fine. In fact, if I were a little more passable I'd almost be curious how far it would go. What I do mind is when someone recognizes me as a woman, but as a woman who's presenting wrong, and gets either nasty or excessively "so, since you have short hair, tell me about your genitals" intrusive about it.

And it gets to me. I wish I were a Gender Warrior. I wish I had the strength to answer every "are you a boy or a girl?" with "really, would it affect you?" But I have an ego, I have sensitive spots about being called ugly and unsexy, and frankly, I have me some tender widdle feewings. At the same time as I want to be a Gender Warrior, I also want to be attractive and be liked.

It scares me that my first thought was "I could wear makeup and dresses and that would even it out!" Because it would. But it wouldn't be a matter of making myself happier, or even really prettier; it would be a matter of getting people off my back. It would be letting strangers--and the very meanest and dumbest strangers at that--tell me how to get dressed in the morning.

And my second thought is outright fear that, with something as simple and silly as a haircut, I might have bought myself a ticket into some really dangerous bigotry. I look like a lesbian or a trans man, and although I'm not, good luck explaining that to the sort of people who can't be decent to lesbians and trans men in public. (Then again, it's kind of a grossly privileged thing to say "don't call me that, I'm not a lesbian!" instead of "don't call me that, you shouldn't call anyone that.")

And my third thought is "oh no, it's going to be much harder to get laid now!" Rowdy likes androgyny, but it seems like most straight men like femininity, and I do feel a bit bummed that I might've blown my chances with them. Even some of the guys I've dated before liked me to be feminine, and in a weird way I almost feel like I'm betraying them--making them retroactively gay or something.

But I have all these nervous little thoughts, and then I look in the mirror, and all I can think is that I look good to me. I look like I'd like to look. Whatever the risks of being unfeminine, there's a great reward in feeling comfortable in my own skin. If my appearance were a mask, something that existed to show to others, it would be a failure at its task; but as a face, something that is also a part of my self, it has value.

I like my short hair. It scares me, but it also challenges me. It doesn't allow me to hide behind "don't worry, I may be an ally to weirdos, but I'm normal" quite as easily. And I can get a goddamn comb through it. I'm going to keep it for a bit.



Now, what really challenges my self-identity is the fact that with all the dyed parts cut out, I'm blonde now. I'm a goddamn natural blonde. This, I don't think I can integrate into my self-image.

Sex anyway.

2005: I have sex with a guy, and it's miserably futile; try as I might, I just can't get him off. I keep going, sinking into desperation as my vagina gets sore so I use my mouth, and I start gagging so I use my hand, and my hand makes him sore so eventually he just tells me to give it a goddamn rest already. I sit around awkwardly, feeling like a useless failure, as he jerks himself off. He doesn't particularly enjoy it but just does it for relief. I wonder if I'll ever have the sexual skills to get a guy off properly, inside me and under my power.

2011: I have sex with a guy, and he doesn't come during the penis-in-vagina part of the sex. We separate when we get to a good ending point and I hold him and make out with him while he jerks himself off. I whisper in his ear how hot it is to feel his muscles tense as he pleasures himself. And I'm not kidding; I start masturbating along with him and then slip the fingers of his free hand into my pussy. The feeling of my muscles clenching around his fingers sends him over the edge and he comes explosively. We fall asleep entwined, satisfied.



Having mechanically perfect sex with your bodies in perfect unison is overrated. Knowing how to have good sex anyway, how to create an experience that's sexy and sweet even when someone has a limp dick or dry pussy or trick hip, is tragically underrated.

Face beyond beauty.

Rowdy got a new camera (this was a more involved process than most house purchases) and last night he was taking pictures of me and showing me the super-duper high-quality results.

At first, I was a little bit appalled. I'm aware that I don't look like the ladies in the magazines, but the photos made it so painfully obvious how little I look like them. If angular faces with big eyes and graceful expressions and coiffed hair are beautiful, I'm round-faced and narrow-eyed and guffawing and frizzy.

But you know, so I am. Is that why I'm not beautiful, or is it why I look like me and not somebody else? Is a linear scale from "good" to "bad" really a way to fairly describe anything in the world, much less a human being? When you go to the grocery store, you don't shop for "the best food"--you put carrots and potatoes and milk and chicken in your cart, because they're different things. Because the very best carrots are really shitty milk.

So I looked at the photos again, and made an effort to stop seeing them as not-Jessica-Alba for ten seconds and instead see what is there. It's me. It's a combination of genetics and luck and history and choices that exists nowhere else on Earth. I don't look like other people because I'm not other people.

We took some pictures of Rowdy too. One of them came out really nice; the focus is crisp, the pose is cool, and there's a lot of personality showing in his face. But Rowdy also has a weird discoloration in one eye, and this is very visible in the photo. "I'll retouch that out," he said. And I questioned: why would he? That's what his eye looks like. It's kind of cool. (It gives him eyes that are different colors! How awesome is that?) Is it more important to have a picture of the Theoretical Perfect Eye than of his eye?

I mean, there's a reason I took that photo of him and not of somebody else. If I just wanted the "best" possible photo, I would've put a picture of John Barrowman in the album. So is the best photo of Rowdy one that makes him look the most like John Barrowman while still being sort of recognizable--or is it a photo that shows what he looks like?

None of this is a protest that I'm beautiful, or that Rowdy is. (Although he so is.) Instead, it's about looking beyond beauty, as seeing appearances as conveying things in entirely different dimensions than "prettier" or "uglier." Not everything in my life is about who wants to bang me, so not everything in my face is about how bangable it is. (Not that bangability requires perfection anyway, considering what else happened last night.) I've posted about how I'm more than that, but even my appearance itself is more than that.

Am I hot or not? I'm Holly.

Why I didn't have an abortion.

Because I never got pregnant in the first place.

I lost my virginity, and entered into a pretty regular sexual relationship, at age 15.

I knew about condoms, well, first because I was a smart kid and also horny as fuck and had researched all this stuff on my own, but also because when I was 13, Planned Parenthood came to my high school and did a presentation on safe sex and birth control. The teachers wouldn't, for whatever ridiculous reason, talk about condoms themselves, but they let the educators from Planned Parenthood do it. They told us about all the options for birth control and they showed us exactly how to put on a condom.

I couldn't possibly afford to have a baby at 15. I was in college, I was rather lost and confused, I didn't have a lot of family or community support, I was living in a dorm, I really had no idea about the basics of surviving on my own, and my financial means were pocket change. So I knew how to use a condom when I lost my virginity, and did not get pregnant, and did not have an abortion.

A couple years later, I wanted to get on backup birth control beyond condoms. I was working part-time and didn't have health insurance. I didn't have a primary care physician. I was also living at home, and had to fly way under the radar with anything that could indicate I was having sex.

I went to Planned Parenthood. They didn't charge me much. They were kind and supportive and told me what my options were but not what to do. They kept everything confidential and didn't call my home or mail me anything that could have gotten me in trouble. (I know, evading parental authority! Yeah, well, you want me obedient or you want me happy, healthy, and not pregnant?) They encouraged me to get a Pap Smear while I was there, did STI tests and a general GYN checkup, and gave me a prescription for the Pill. So I took the Pill, and did not get pregnant, and did not have an abortion.

I'm a goddamn Pro-Life success story.

Thanks to Planned Parenthood.




(The good news is that the bill to defund Planned Parenthood and other family planning organizations probably won't pass the Senate, or won't be signed by Obama if it does. The bad news is that the House is made up of people who--or pander thoughtlessly to people who--are more interested in thundering how they can't possibly tolerate even one abortion, than in actually reducing the number of abortions.)

Breeder!

Back in the day, we picked up a very drunk guy in the ambulance. (Actually, this was back in nearly all the days. Ambulancing is a drunktastic field.) I was driving and my partner was in back, when the drunk guy suddenly yelled very loudly at my partner: "You're a breeder! BREEDER! I bet you have twenty babies! BREEDER! B...R...E...E...E...DUR!"

Then he fell silent, leaving me and my (childless, as if it even matters) partner to contemplate the strange ways of the world.

---

Anyway. I was idly (idly! IDLY!!) pondering the concept, as we talked in the ER today about seeing a pregnant 15-year-old and a pregnant 50-year-old on the same day, of what breeding would be like.

Pros
-Excuse to participate in kid activities again.
-Sort of cute-ish, at certain stages, if you get a cute one.
-Opportunity to indoctrinate a human mind.
-Theoretically sort of a fun relationship project.
-Passes on amazing genetics for super-intelligence.
-Opportunity to find out what breastmilk tastes like, try ice cream and cheese recipes.
-Parents may enjoy grandparent role; would certainly shut up about it, at least.
-Creates "family," whatever exactly that means.
-Opportunity to practice high-minded notions of childhood autonomy and personhood.
-Would be totally awesome, dude, to do in utopian poly commune context where the kid would totally be raised by a village, dude.
-Some sort of magical joy thing I couldn't possibly understand.
-Enters my legacy into the human race for all time, sort of, maybe, if you want to do it that way.

Cons
-No takey backsies.
-Birthing process unspeakably horrifying.
-Costs infinity dollars.
-Totally unfeasible with current housing and work situations. Also many likely future housing and work situations.
-Odor.
-Finding care for guinea pigs over vacation hassle enough. Apparently children are not supposed to be left at home for even like ten minutes? DEAL. BREAKER.
-Genetics other than super-intelligence not so amazing.
-Child likely to rebel against my righteous indoctrination.
-Poor track record with cacti (RIP Spike), goldfish (RIP John, Paul, George, Ringo), gerbils (RIP Salt, Sugar), geckos (RIP Baby Geck), hermit crabs (RIP... large bucket of dead crabs).
-Major cockblockage.
-During certain stages of socialization, child will be either tormented outcast or horrible little fascist.
-Big mess of patriarchal associations and obligations taken on with "mother" role.
-High-minded notions of childhood autonomy and personhood prone to sudden, catastrophic collapse first time child acts like unreasonable little shithead.
-Difficult to explain poly/BDSM to six-year-old. Impossible to explain to thirteen-year-old.
-No magical feeling of internal, intrinsic desire for children.


On balance, childbearing and rearing seems like an interesting little adventure, but not something I really want to shape my whole life around. If I were more assured that I could have kids on the side and still basically be me, I might consider it, but as things stand, it seems like that's--financially, socially, culturally, practically--just not possible.

Maybe what I really feel is that I might want kids, but I wouldn't want to be a mother. I'm just too damn selfish. I know my own life is limited and I want to just enjoy the hell out of it, and if that's a character flaw--fuck, better that I recognize it before I inflict it on some helpless little kid, right?

Dyspraxia.

I guess I haven't posted about this before. It's sort of a weird topic, because it's something that on the one hand I consider "minor," not worth making any big kerfuffle about, and on the other hand it affects me literally every day. I have Developmental Dyspraxia.

For me, this mostly means that I have tremendous difficulty thinking about spatial relationships, including the ones relating to my own body. I walk into doorframes because I don't know how wide my shoulders are. My handwriting and drawing are terrible because I can't figure out which way my hand should move to make the shapes I'm thinking about, and I have to hold my pen a weird way. I am absolutely useless at any form of sport or dance, and I... kinda walk funny.

Mentally, I can't estimate the size or distance of objects. I mean, I can tell the difference between a skyscraper and a pencil, I'm not The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, but I can't necessarily tell three feet from six feet. And I have some sensory weirdnesses; certain sounds and textures give me an intolerable case of screaming meemies for no good reason. (The worst thing: chewing gum. Ugh. I freaking hate gum.)

All this was a lot worse when I was a kid. Back in elementary school I would freak out or even throw up when I couldn't handle certain situations, and my lack of coordination was to the point where my ability to stay upright was pretty tenuous. If I was startled or upset or even just laughing too hard--hello, floor. I couldn't really handwrite until about fifth grade.

I'm better now. I had some occupational therapy, and a lot of practice just learning to exist in the physical world. I don't have grace--I'll never have grace--but I do fine at work and at most of the activities I want to do, and the impacts on my daily life are more of the "gosh I'm clumsy and quirky" variety than anywhere in "oh crap I'm disabled" territory. (While I was writing this post, I got up to get some milk out of the fridge. I tried to open the wall next to the fridge. Oh well, quick readjust. I probably shouldn't be a surgeon.)

Maybe the only weird thing is how other people perceive me. If someone pays attention, they can tell that I'm a little different, but they don't usually make the "oh, this is an actual disorder" connection. More often they characterize it as a part of my personality--positively that I'm silly, or negatively that I'm careless. Much as people tend to perceive my frizzy hair as some statement that I'm wacky and free-spirited, instead of just being the way it grows, people perceive me walking into stationary objects as some strange form of self-expression. The idea that I'm just, you know, the goofy absent-minded walking-into-tables type seems to characterize me. And I don't usually bring up that no, I really wasn't able to tell that I was going to hit that table. Most of the time I'd rather be a doofus than a special-needs kid.



In terms of sex, it hasn't been that big a deal, since by the time I was old enough to have sex I was compensating pretty well for the major stuff. It would certainly be nice for certain activities to have a better sense of rhythm and coordination, but I do okay. Likewise I might be attractive to more people if I could present my body in a less flailing manner, but there's more than enough people who are indifferent to or charmed by a little flailing.

Also, if you tell me your penis is twelve inches long, I'll have no way of knowing that it isn't.

Crisis averted.

I found a lump in my breast. I panicked for a moment. I have to see a doctor now! No, I have to see a doctor as soon as these gigantic black bruises on my breasts go away, because in my last bout of illness I had enough "that's just a hickey... I guess I bruise easy... YES I FEEL SAFE AT HOME" to last me all year.

(It makes me sad, in a way, that no one ever comes to the ER with identifiable BDSM marks. Or even hickeys! I have noticed, however, though most women don't groom their pubes, a surprisingly large number of men shave their chests. Makes EKGs easier.)

And then the lump went away. Guess it was just a hematoma.

I'm a little bit on the fence about whether I should go get poked at and mammographied anyway, but since I'm only 25 and I can't picture a way to tell the story to my doctor, I think I'll just let it go. I'm pretty sure cancer that size doesn't just heal in a couple days.

...Although if it does, shit, I need to get this to the attention of the medical community but STAT.

Beyond body acceptance.

Some days I look in the mirror and I just see fat and awkwardness and totally unmanageable hair. I try and tell myself that I'm beautiful, and that beauty is a totally artificial concept on top of that, and that the social pressures shaping and enforcing beauty and particularly female beauty are positively disgusting, but some days, I'm just not buying. Especially when I've got zits too.

On those days, I remind myself that, well, that person I mentioned doing CPR on a little ways back? They're alive now.

I remind myself that I graduated college at 19 and that at 12 I pulled a man having a seizure out of a swimming pool. I remind myself that I have my name in movie credits and that I once drove an ambulance lights-and-sirens hell-for-leather around a stock car track. I remind myself that I've wetted down a beached dolphin and I've explored an abandoned asylum, been on the national champion debate team (parli) and built trails in trackless wilderness, fucked a Calvin Klein model and broken into the set of "House" during filming. I remind myself that I've helped save more lives than I can even remember. And if there weren't all that going for me, even if I hadn't lived such a dramatic life, I'd still have what anybody has--a huge list of lives I've touched and things I've done, of differences I've made.

Don't you fucking dare tell me all that's nothing unless I'm a hot little hardbody too.

It's good to like your body, but you know, your body isn't the biggest deal about you. (Or rather, your beauty isn't the biggest deal, since few people insulting your body can be dissuaded by hearing how many pounds you can lift or how quickly you recover from injuries.) It's a heartbreaking waste to take a human being, a person rich in history and abilities and relationships and ideas, and judge them on how nice a decoration they make. Maybe that's inevitable when it comes to strangers, but you damn well know better when it comes to yourself. When you're judging your appearance, you're only judging one tiny part of your self.

So I don't tell myself "I'm pretty, really I am" on ugly days. I say "Maybe I am ugly. I'm still fucking awesome."

Squirt?

Rowdy and I had been fucking for a good (oh, a good) while. We'd actually gotten to my can't-talk-can't-think point and come out the other side still playing. In an insatiable mood, but figuring Rowdy was starting to get worn out, I started using the Hitachi Magic Wand on myself. Silly me. Rowdy grabbed it and started fucking me again while grinding the wand into the intersection of our bodies.

In the middle of the rapid-fire, blinding mess of orgasms that came (and came and came and oh God came) after that, I felt something... different. Good but not exactly better, not some amazing explosion, and not some gigantic spurting tidal-wave gush of fluid. Just different. I reached down and the wetness there was thinner and much more copious than usual. "Did I just...?" I asked, and neither of us was sure. Afterwards, there was a little puddle on the bed where I'd been.

Did I squirt, or just get wetter than usual, or, um, pee a little bit? I don't know, and honestly, I don't really care. (I kinda hope it wasn't pee.) Whether I hit some arbitrary milestone or not, I had some fantastic orgasms and that matters a hell of a lot more to me. I know some guys are into squirting because "it's the female orgasm you can see!", but seriously now, nobody's at risk of not noticing my orgasms. (I mean, nobody in Middlesex County, seriously.) If it doesn't feel different than, eh, nice party trick I guess.

But it's cool to see what my body's capable of. And a little brain-breaking to have some of it be things that serious grownups will seriously argue don't exist. It's like having the goddamn Loch Ness Monster in my vagina.

The symbolic and real anus.

I have, after much soul-searching and butt-searching, come to the conclusion that I don't really like anal sex. I've had a couple positive experiences with it, but on the hole I think it's just not for me.

What complicated this realization is the fact that I'm dealing with two anuses here. The symbolic anus represents passionate, kinky, unconventional sex. Symbolic anal sex is an object of fantasy, associated as it is with humiliation and domination and intensity. And being unwilling to have symbolic anal sex makes me seem uptight, prudish, like I'm bound up by narrow-minded cultural preconceptions about the anus being "icky" or that anal sex is just too sexy for me. It's hard for me to give up on symbolic anal sex, because although I don't want to have buttsex, I want to be the sort of person who has buttsex.

However, in between my buttcheeks there is a real anus. And this one doesn't particularly like stuff in it. It's not painful but it's uncomfortable, and to be brutally honest, mostly just feels like being constipated. This isn't a case of "I can't handle the sheer intensity," it's a case of "it's just not much fun."

I love the idea of being a symbolic butt-slut, but my actual butt just isn't in on the deal.

Cramp.

I'm on my hands and knees, getting fucked. It's going great, even by my exacting standards--I've spent probably the last fifteen minutes riding between plateaus of "this is so good I don't even want to spoil it by coming" and peaks of "wait, yes I do." My friend is fucking me hard and deep and a little rough--earlier in the night we did some really sick nasty play and even though now we're just fucking regular, some of the erotic charge of the play is still with us.

Right now I'm at one of those peaks, or maybe a plateau of peaks. I'm just coming and coming. I'm screaming, moaning, sobbing, making these deep guttural noises that are probably intensely embarassing but I'm miles past caring. I don't even feel the fucking in my pussy anymore-it's my whole body that's getting fucked, his cock setting off decious little explosions way deep in my guts. I just keep coming and it's better than anything.

Then my right calf muscle cramps. Not mildly. It spasms into a rock-hard locked-shut knot and I can't move my leg and it's call-an-ambulance painful. Since I'm already in a mindset of enthusiastically verbalizing sensations, I outright scream in pain. Sex is done for the night. I massage out the lump and take Motrin and go home.

Balls.

Lubrication, lubrication, lubrication.

I've always thought of lube as something for handjobs or anal, or for if your vagina isn't wet enough--as a way to compensate for dryness, in one way or another. I figured, my pussy gets plenty wet, so for regular PIV sex or fingering, there's no need for lube.

Well, there's no need, but boy does it make a difference. Lube doesn't just bridge the gap between "ow" and "yum," but between "yum" and "OH YES OH GOD OH FUCK." You can think your sex is totally soaking wet and working fine, then add some lube and realize what you've been missing. I don't even fully understand it, but I'm coming to accept that it's true. Wet sex is good, but lubey wet sex is GREAT.