Was it, or was it not?

I may, or may not have been asked out on a date yesterday.

At the end of class, one of my classmates walked over to me as I was gathering my bag and jacket and asked
"Do you have lunch plans"
I was more than a little surprised, which I will further explain in a moment, and replied.
"I have therapy pretty much right now" (which was the truth.) "Let's do it some other time, though."
She said 'ok' and essentially ran away.

It was really only afterwards that I began to wonder if this was her asking for a date and not just a friendly lunch.
She is absolutely brilliant, and were I not otherwise involved, I would certainly go on a date with her.
Given that I am, I would definitely have a friendly lunch with her and want to be friends.

I am having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that someone like her would be interested in someone like me, for really stupid and superficial reasons (besides the fact that I'm really unaccustomed to being asked out), for example, that she has a higher number and more prominent facial piercings than I do, and I believe is at least 5-10 years older than me. Stupid, right? But I am kind of... preppy or something if we are still using those ideas of aestetics, at least in comparison to many of friends and colleagues in grad school, or for that matter the city at large. Never mind that I'm almost certain that she would have heard me mention having a partner.

So: was this asking for a date? Was it not? Did I respond properly?

papillion

This is what I was talking about:
The papillion
"Come for a cause with the Papillon vibrator! Part of the proceeds from this sweet vibe goes directly to the Living Beyond Breast Cancer® organization. The discreet, waterproof, purple vibrator swoops to match the contours of your body, and the satiny, hard plastic shell thrums strongly in both speeds. As if your own pleasure weren’t enough, you’ll be gratified to know you’re also supporting women affected by breast cancer."

So there you go, give orgasms and breast health, to yourself or someone you care about. Brilliant.

Cuming for the Cure

I was all set to write a post about the vibrator I recently gave a friend of mine, which was at the check-out, impulse purchase section at Fascinations.
The packaging proclaimed that this product was to benefit breast cancer research.
It was purple, not pink. It did not say 'hope' anywhere on the vibrator.
It was a multi-speed, I think about 4 inches long, with a slight g-spot curve. Two double-A batteries not included.

I have been scouring the internet in attempts to find out more information about this sex toy to benefit cancer research but have found absolutely no information with which to try to compose witty prose.

So let's just say : HEY, go to your local sex store and see if they have them. Buy many. Cum for the cure and give them to everyone you know who might also enjoy a vibrator for the cause.

For that tingly fresh feeling!

I never thought I would hear myself say this, but:

Why does everything vibrate these days? Seriously.
The vibrating razor business really just strikes me as dangerous. I far prefer a steady sharp blade against my skin. Doesn’t a sharp thing that moves on its own seem more likely to cause cuts than one that does not.

Once a trend like that hits the market it will of course spread like wildfire:

The Neutrogena vibrating face scrubber
It even looks like a vibrator! I realize that young people – I’m sure the target market here is young women, will do damn near anything and try any crazy thing that’s thrown at them to get rid of acne. I’ve been there. This however I’m sure is little more than a thiny veiled way for a skin-care company to sell discreet vibrators to teenage girls. Even if it isn’t there plan, I guarantee you that the Wave is being used to stimulate just as many clitori as it is skin cells. I knew more than one girl at boarding school who was especially attached to her electric toothbrush.

Given that, I need to say that I’m entirely in favor of younger women being able to access sex toys. Masturbation after is, as they say, the safest sex there is. In a world where sex is getting scarier and more dangerous and an understanding of it is being increasingly limited by the powers that soon will not be, teenage girls being told not to have sex should have a little help getting off. I think it’s a little stupid and short sited that one needs to be 18 in order to enter a sex store or purchase sex toys. There’s no age floor to purchasing safer sex aids and such in pharmacies and grocery stores, nor should there be.

TEENAGERS HAVE SEX.
They have conventional intercourse, which we have been told is the only kind of sex there is. They engage in other activities that contain the word sex. They do things that I certainly think qualify as sex that aren’t generally labeled as such. Most of them also masturbate, and giving them a little encouragement and assistance in doing so might do wonders for them and society at large.* I don’t think that selling younger people sex toys is going to stop them from having sex, but I do think that it just might increase sexual control and personal agency for them, and could be part of a larger project of safer and informed sexuality for young people.

I’m reminded of the ‘Relaxeciser’ on Mad Men.** A young secretary discovers that a weight-loss belt that her firm is marketing to women has the effect of being rather “stimulating in a certain area.” Those marketing the product are never clear whether or not this side effect is intended, but take it as a point in the product’s favor and try subtly to integrate it into the campaign.

Good on you Neutrogena. The wave retails for about $14.00. Not bad for a vibrator. For the time being I’ll ignore the fact that the disposable pads that are used to clean the skin are incredibly wasteful and make the gadget a costly and environmentally unsound way to refresh one’s ‘skin’. Heck maybe my ‘skin’ needs some refreshing – the wave even comes in my favorite color.

*I’m picturing malls and streets without roving hoards of teenagers, because they’re all at home jerking off.

** A truly brilliant show

I might not go down in history, but I will go down on your sister

Quote courtesy of Hank Moody, 'Californication' episode 102.

With bathing-suit season upon us, and whilst enjoying the aforementioned brilliant Shotime program, I've had plenty of occasion to consider the ever-pressing question of pubic hair.

I have long maintained the sentiment echoed by Hank that bare down there just isn't appealing. It's weird. I'm sorry, it just is. In all of my sordid adventures, I have only encountered one partner who consistently kept their business shaved. I did not like it. It looked weird, and it scratched my face all to hell. I don't think anyone is honestly invested enough in the supposed cleanliness of totally shaved genitalia to suffer stubble burn and the resultant breakouts.

Granted, there are limits. This is one of the few arenas in life in which I both practice and preach moderation. None is too little, un-tended is too much. I think it's matter of courtesy. If you have any desire to have someone down there, make their experience a little easier, and a little less like flossing. Neatly trimmed and maintain pubes are just more pleasant for everyone involved. Let it go wild, and you hold in a lot more sweat, fluids, and subsequent odors than with a somewhat neater jungle.

I happen to have performed the piece 'Hair' in the VDay Boulder production of 'The Vagina Monologues' this year. My one and only attempt at removing all of my bush was exactly like that of the woman in the monologue.
"I felt little when my hair was gone down there. The skin got irritated, and even calamine lotion didn't help. There were screaming red bumps, I refused to shave it again."
It was awful. It hurt, it itched, there were ingrown hairs, it made sex uncomfortable, and took just about forever to grow back to a point at which it no longer felt prickly.

During the show, I also saw many, many more vaginas in one time and place than in my entire life prior to that point put together. I was shocked to discover how few of them had hair! I had long held the belief that be-nuded vaginas were almost exclusively the domain of celebrities, models, strippers, and others who essentially could not have much by the way of pubis due to their profession, with a few high-maintainance elite thrown in. In the cast of 20, I can only say for certain that four, including me, had any real semblance of pubic hair. There were a few with band-aid sized landing strips, and the rest were completely bare.
When did this begin to happen as a social phenomenon?!

Again, to quote Hank Moody,
"It would be nice to find some pubis down there, not full-on 70's playboy bush, but just something to remind me that I am performing cunnilingus on an adult."

Things that had not occurred to me about the internet: That the person to whom one lost one's virginity on the beach at summer camp* might track one down on facebook, after not having seen or spoken to said person in five years.

*we were counselors, not campers and of an age reasonably to be able to consent. It might also be worth mentioning that, although I am not a person of faith, it was a Church Camp, where I know for a fact lots of other people also had their first sexual experience.

in praise of the world wide web

I know this is a bit 'johnny -come -lately,' but I've been thinking about just what a valuable resource the internet is in terms of sexuality.
1) sex toys
I can't imagine how many more people feel comfortable purchasing their sex accouterments this way than would have felt able to walk into a sex store to browse and purchase. I got my first vibrator this way when I was still shy of doing so in person, which is hard to imagine now. This is also how I procured my harness, which technically I found at Oh My! but which they didn't have in my size at the time.
2) communities
How on earth did people with less than common fetishes find each other, or talk about their kinks before? Personal ads? Those horrible phone dating connection things for which there are far too many television ads? Phone sex services? There are so many resources for finding out about one's kink and other people who might share it via the web.
3) general dating
Seriously. So many people seem to find or nourish their relationships with the help of the internet nowadays. Mine didn't start there exactly, but it certainly was a useful tool in keeping it strong during nearly a year of long-distance. Again I think this is particularly relevant for special-needs/special interest/minority groups. Granted, my attempt at internet personals yielded only creepy old men and emo teen-aged girls, but I've heard many tales of it being quite effective, for everything from the most casual of sex to the most serious of relationships.
4) information
Obviously. When kids aren't allowed to learn about sex in any real way in their schools, and there are so many questions about what kind of care/safer sex/birth control/sti testing methods in so many places, people are given the ability to find them. Of course, there's a lot of misinformation to be had there as well. A friend and I once commiserated about a site reassuring us that we did not, in fact, have herpes following a case of ingrown hairs for one, and pimples for the other.*
5)communication
With significant or less-significant others, sex advice/therapy, and needless to say but said anyway, blogging.

*I'm really so super-responsible about testing, communicating, and being safe(r) but we all get a little paranoid now and again. I am happy to report that said friend is the same way.