Sexy Marriage

Philly sexperts offer advice for keeping this hot in the bedroom after the wedding...

If only there were some kind of Sex Registry. You know, some online or in-store service where marrieds-to-be could ensure — just as they do with, say, their place settings — that their married sex lives would be new, exciting and open to discussion. But, weirdly enough, sex is the one ingredient that isn’t out in the wedding-planning open. It’s the last taboo. The elephant in the (bed)room. The only to-do not listed on any planning spreadsheets or within any cutesy kits.

But, c’mon: Sex is way more important to marriage than that porcelain gravy boat you’ll use maybe once every six years. So, to keep your married sex life spicy, we turned to Philly sexperts to find out how to keep things smokin’ hot — long after the honeymoon is over...

-Jessica Remo
Read more here: http://www.phillymag.com/weddings/articles/wedding_sex_hot_hot_hot/

Sex in a Bad Economy

By Bonnie Zylbergold

With the stock market in peril, big brother style bailouts, and thousands upon thousands of Americans losing their jobs and homes, finding a silver lining in this dismal situation is less probable than your yearly bonus.
But a crazy thing happened when the entire world’s economy came tumbling down last month; people got their love thang on. Turns out sex is a lot cheaper than dinner and a movie, divorce or therapy, which who could afford now anyway?

While not exactly rocket science, economic downturns have a decided effect on people’s sense of selves, and more interestingly perhaps, their sense of sexual pleasure. Historically speaking, hard times fan our romantic flames, bringing couples closer together, or back together, much like was seen after the attacks of 9/11.

That said, it’s should come as no surprise then that with the influx of layoffs, many people are (re)turning to their partners for physical comfort and familiarity. Long heralded as one of the best anxiety reducers out there, the physical benefits of sex are staggering. From boosting your immune system to maintaining a healthy weight to the apropos advantages of lower blood pressure and overall stress reduction, there’s no time like the crummy present to knock boots. But this, according to sex educator Dr. Ruth, presents a conundrum of sorts.

In a Forbes.com commentary entitled “Sexual Recession,” Dr. Ruth warned that people anxious about diminishing investments or “looming pink slips should turn their attention to a side effect of the present economic tsunami: the way it's washing away the love lives of couples caught up in the rushing waters. Stress, depression and anxiety all wreak havoc on the libido.”

Aquatic allegory aside, some people are so tense over layoffs that they can’t even get aroused enough to have the sex that might actually de-stress them. Ahh, nothing like a catch-22 to get the blood pumping to nowhere in particular.
---

Read the whole article here on American Sexuality Magazine.

Things I Learned About Love This Year

By Audacia Ray

Last summer and fall, I went through an epic heartbreak. The kind that had me crying randomly in public. The kind that made it impossible for me to get out of bed some days. The kind that often made me feel like there was something heavy sitting on my chest, making it impossible for me to breathe. The kind that made me see how cruel and unfair the world is when I knew the relationship had to end but our mutual love was still (and stretches on) alive. At the end of this powerful and defining relationship, as I let go and then dipped back in and let go again, I was stricken with the fear that I would never again know a love so big and understanding and accepting. I still feel heaviness in my chest as I write that.

I am not a person who has frequently been single, especially since I launched myself into the world of non-monogamy six years ago (wow, has it been that long?). I’ve probably only been unentangled sexually and romantically for a few collective months (added up altogether) since I was a teenager; the last five months have been more aloneness than I’ve ever had. I *like* being partnered, and in recent years it’s also become important to my sense of self and self-value. Essentially, I felt that if I could be an outlandish woman in oh so many ways, but also be loved, I had success and meaning. I needed to be loved by a partner (or partners) in order to prove to myself and the world that I have value, that I hadn’t fucked up all my chances by being an outspoken ex-ho, blogger, woman of the world. Typing that out now it seems kind of embarrassing, but still also very real to me.

With my last relationship, I thought I knew what I wanted. I fought really hard for it. And it crashed and burned and made me weep. I emerged feeling like I just have no idea what I want, what love should look like for me, just that I was missing it and felt a big hole in my heart and soul. I felt alone and panicky. I felt the skin-hunger something awful, felt like I just needed to be touched (in a non-sexual way, even) and that would help make me feel real and more whole. I felt pained thinking about our bodies, mine and my ex’s I mean, and how well we just fit in bed, in life - and how lying alone at night, my weight rolling on a big empty mattress, I felt like I was swimming in a big empty nothing. Since last fall, I’ve shared a bed overnight exactly twice, both in non-sexual contexts.

Read the rest of this piece on Audacia's fantastic blog: Waking Vixen

---

Penis Passion

By bell hooks

bell hooks argues that our erotic lives are enhanced when men and women can celebrate the penis in ways that don't uphold macho stereotypes.

Working on a poem inspired by the joys of having sex in the world’s smallest study seated on an old-fashioned straight back chair painted red where I spend much of my time writing, I seek for words to describe the sensation of sitting in the lap of sweet lust moving my body back and forth against the deliciously hot moist penis of my off-and-on-again lover A. Among the penises I have looked upon and touched in this world, his gives me the greatest sense of delight. Yet finding words to describe the pleasure I feel, words that do not perpetuate conventional sexist thinking about the penis, are hard to come by.

Females finding and expressing delight in the male body was for such a long time utterly taboo. Before the contemporary feminist movement and sexual liberation, women did not say much in print about our feelings about the penis. No wonder, then, that when we finally gave ourselves permission to say whatever we wanted to say about the male body—about male sexuality—we were either silent or merely echoed narratives that were already in place.

In the late sixties and early seventies, heterosexual women active in the feminist movement often talked boldly and boastfully about the penis, using the same language of conquest sexist men used when talking about sexual pursuits. In those days in feminist consciousness-raising groups, we not only talked about how women had to become more comfortable with words like pussy and cunt. So that men could not terrify or shame us by wielding these words as weapons, we also had to be able to talk about cock and dick with the same ease. Sexual liberation had already told us that if we wanted to please a man we had to become comfortable with blow jobs, with going down, with the dick in our throat so far down it hurt. Surrendering our sexual agency, we had to swallow the pain and pretend it was really pleasure.

Feminist interventions on the issue of sexuality, along with sophisticated birth control, changed that; it said to women who wanted to be with men that we had a right to define the place of pleasure for us and the will to claim our sexual rights. It let us know we did not have to consent to force or pretend to like pain. It let us know that the penis was not "a one-eyed trouser snake" in the garden of sexual bliss, threatening to turn our bodies into a place where pain defines, penetrates and punishes. We did not need to see it as the enemy.

Read the rest of this essay on Shambhala Sun...

---

Redefining What Counts as Sex...

And what's "normal" as far as number of partners goes.

What's your number? There seems to be an obsession in our society with the number of people we have slept with. Some of us keep a list of names, or just notches on a belt...others have long ago lost track. But actually counts as sex? There's a heterosexist standard that it counts when a penis enters a vagina, but luckily a lot of folks are working on redefining this definition.

In "Redefining What Counts as Sex" Jenny Paradise writes:

What makes sex count? It may seem like a silly question, but I’ve heard many answers ranging from oral sex to vaginal penetration to the ejaculation of the male specifically. Personally, I think that sex shouldn’t be counted until both partners orgasm. That way, guys would need to try harder than a few drunken pumps to earn their bragging rights, and I would practically be a virgin!

She continues, relating this to the subject of one's "number" with a little advice:

Also, when your new sex partner casually asks you how many guys you’ve slept with, I strongly recommend not answering with “does it count if he doesn’t finish?” Apparently, that is some sort of insinuation that you’d drop your panties for every boy in IV and not count one as a legitimate sex partner if he is too drunk to finish. Unless you want to spend the rest of that night trying to convince your now standoffish boyfriend to still sleep with you, I would stay away from that conversation.

Of course, the best essay on this topic is "Are We Having Sex Now or What?" by Greta Christina which I highly recommend. Greta writes:

But for me, living in a question naturally leads to searching for an answer. I can't simply shrug, throw up my hands, and say, "Damned if I know." I have to explore the unknown frontiers, even if I don't bring back any secret treasure. So even if it's incomplete or provisional, I do want to find some sort of definition of what is and isn't sex.

I know when I'm feeling sexual. I'm feeling sexual if my pussy's wet, my nipples are hard, my palms are clammy, my brain is fogged, my skin is tingly and super-sensitive, my butt muscles clench, my heartbeat speeds up, I have an orgasm (that's the real giveaway), and so on. But feeling sexual with someone isn't the same as having sex with them. Good Lord, if I called it sex every time I was attracted to someone who returned the favor I'd be even more bewildered than I am now. Even being sexual with someone isn't the same as having sex with them. I've danced and flirted with too many people, given and received too many sexy would-be-seductive backrubs, to believe otherwise.

On the topic of number of sexual partners check out this post on Feminste debunking the attempt to collect statistics on the "average" number for men and women.

Let's keep this conversation evolving...

Why Atheists Have Great Sex

By Greta Christina

For some reason, the sex- positive community is also, very often, a spiritual community. (At least in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live.) It’s not often a conventionally religious community; but many varieties of Wicca, Goddess worship, shamanism, Tantra, astrology, chi, chakras, belief in a collective metaphysical consciousness, and other forms of New Age belief and magical thinking permeate it, both privately and publicly.

This troubles me. I am a hard- core atheist/ materialist/ naturalist/ humanist/ skeptic/ whatever you want to call someone who doesn’t believe in any supernatural entities or substances. And I’m just as unconvinced — and almost as troubled — by the ideas of the Goddess and chi energy and immortal consciousness and so on, as I am by the ideas of God and angels and Hell.

Now, I’m not writing this piece to argue against religion. I may yet write a piece criticizing spiritual beliefs and practices in the sex- positive community . . . but it’s not what I’m doing here. (If you want to see my reasons and arguments for my lack of spiritual belief, you can do so here, and here, and here and here and here.)

What I want to do here is offer an alternative.

I want to offer a positive way of looking at sexuality and sexual transcendence that doesn’t involve any sort of belief in the supernatural. I want to offer a sex- positive philosophy that is entirely materialist. The materialist view of life in general and sex in particular is often viewed as cold, bleak, narrow, mechanical, reductionist, and generally a downer. I don’t think it is. And I want to talk about why...

Read the rest of the essay on Alternet.

---

Against Love: An Interview with author Laura Kipnis

There are a thousand books out there telling us what it means to be a woman today. Unfortunately, most of the books focus on what’s wrong with being a woman today: not enough eligible men, our necks look funny when we age, there’s still a lack of gender equity, husbands aren’t helping with the housework, we’re either smothering our children or we’re not devoting enough time to them, and, of course, we’re not eating enough like the French/Japanese/whomever. But if you buy this hardback book for $25.95, the author is happy enough to tell you how to overcome all of that.

Laura Kipnis, who examined the state of modern monogamy in her book Against Love: A Polemic, now focuses on the state of modern femininity in The Female Thing. The book is divided into four sections focusing on what Kipnis sees as being the four problem areas for women: dirt (housekeeping), sex (the “orgasm gap” and the failure of the sexual revolution), envy (the self-help industry) and vulnerability (the fear of rape and physical harm from men). She offers anecdotes such as a power struggle between a husband and wife over the cutting of the dessert at a dinner party and then deconstructs the observations with some serious theory, namedropping Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud.

Which is not to say the book is impenetrable. At a little under 200 pages, Kipnis manages to be funny and irreverent, never afraid to position her more complicated ideas beside pithy and funny terms like the “feminine industrial complex.” She does not, however, sugarcoat the book with advice on how to overcome these issues. Her final sentence suggests she’ll leave it to the reader to figure out, stating, “A full accounting of the female situation at the moment would need to start roughly here.”

I sat down with Kipnis over a couple glasses of red wine to discuss her work.

Interview by Jessica Crispin

The last sentence I thought was very provocative. It seems like a challenge. Was it to other writers or to the individual reader?

To women more than to writers, I guess. I thought of the whole book as a challenge or intervention or course correction. I don’t mean to be grandiose about it. I have a hard time with conclusions because I don’t want to advise people on things. I don’t want to be overly conclusive. I think in both the last two books I tried to end on a questioning note.

Although that’s a common complaint about your books, that you don’t instruct people on what to do now that they’re questioning this large thing in their life.

That was the hilarious thing with Against Love. It turns out if you write a book with “love” in the title everybody wants to read it as an advice book. I was endlessly asked for advice. It was kind of hilarious. The thing I’d want to say to them is, and I’m supposed to solve the problem? There’s this problem with femininity, there’s this problem with love, and I’m supposed to? Any answer would be sort of glib. People ask for these things...

Read the rest of this interview on Bookslut.com

---

Living Openly at PolyCamp

Written by Mandy Van Deven on Bitch's blog

I feel like everywhere I turn someone else is saying something about polyamory. Perhaps the recent upset over Proposition 8 in California provided somewhat of a platform for poly communities to openly speak about the legitimation of alternative family structures—not just beyond that of one man and one woman, but beyond gay and lesbian couples as well. Open relationships have emerged as a hot topic on television shows like Tyra, WEtv’s Secret Lives of Women, and of course, Big Love, and multiple feminist-oriented books have been published in the past year that explore open relationships. So it didn’t surprise me to stumble upon PolyCamp Ontario.

Pretty much as its name implies, PolyCamp Ontario is a weekend-long summer camp for poly families. It was founded in 2007 by science and technology journalist Danaeris to provide "an affordable event to serve the needs of members of the polyamorous communities." This year’s camp will be held August 14th–16th at the Mansfield Outdoor Centre in Toronto. Polyamory Weekly host Cunning Minx will be the Guest of Honour, and the weekend will be full of workshops and activities that will be both fun and educational. Though the program for 2009 isn’t available just yet, last year’s guests had the chance to learn "10 Rules for Happy Non-Monogamy" and "Jealousy 101" during the daytime workshops and then partake in a clothing-optional (but PG-13) hot tub or watch poly films at night. Fun times for the whole extended and multiplicitous fam!

Oh, and for those of you in the US Pacific Northwest, there’s a similar camp in Washington State.

** Spice! comic by Julie Jacob

Sex Addiction or Demonization of Pleasure?

The term "sex addiction" seems to have entered the popular lexicon in only recent years. Sex Addict Anonymous groups can be found all over the country and psychologists study addiction to sex in serious way.

But what if this is a social construction? A myth? Perhaps it is just an extension of puritan morality. Dr. Susan Block asks these questions in her new article, exerpted below. She believes that "sex addiction has emerged as the 21st century version of sin -- the latest way to guilt people about sex..."

---

The newly revised Seven Deadly Sins, the deadliest, most demonized and glamorized sin of the pack: Sex Addiction.

Just about every horny person who calls me for sex therapy these days -- male or female -- asks me if I think they’re a “sex addict.” Often they come up with the notion they suffer from “sex addiction” while researching their favorite fetish online. All roads lead to Rome, and almost all sexual or fetishistic search words eventually take the seeker to articles deploring an interest in that fetish as a form of sex addiction. Then again, perhaps someone they know has called them a “sex addict” in a fit of righteous exasperation. Or maybe they identify with certain sexy but star-crossed superstars like David Duchovny, Charlie Sheen, Amy Winehouse or Kanye West, or powerful former Presidents like Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, all of whom have been branded by the media and various “experts” with this most exciting, perverse, shame-riddled and downright sinful of labels. Then again, they might just be intoxicated by the idea of being utterly out of control, ruled by their libidinous desires, or by a seductress who takes advantage of their vulnerable, addictive sensibilities. Yes, the modern Scarlet Letter doesn’t stand for simple Adultery anymore, but for Addiction -- Sex Addiction.

But what exactly is sex addiction? Is it even possible to come up with a definition that all the so-called experts can agree on? Probably not. According to some sex addiction specialists, an interest in any type of sex other than married-monogamous-missionary-position-sex-with-the-lights-off could qualify you. So, if you masturbate regularly, enjoy pornography, have an affair, go to swing parties, dance in strip clubs, like phone sex, see a dominatrix, work as a dominatrix, wear panties under your clothes (if you're a guy) or over your clothes (if you're a gal), own more than three pairs of stiletto heels (if you're a guy or a gal) or if you fantasize about anyone or anything other than your beloved, you are at risk of being branded a sex addict. I guess if you host a show about sex in a bed wearing lingerie surrounded by dildos under a giant photo of a bonobo chimpanzee, you might as well have "Sex Addict" tattooed across your cleavage.

---

Read the entire article on Alternet.org

...

What is Radical Love?

What does it mean to love radically? Natty Seidenverg is a writer and activist that does workshops on radical love. Check out this interview with Natty conducted by Mickey Z. on CounterCurrents.org

Here is an exerpt...

What do you mean by the term "radical love"? Does it automatically imply polyamory? Does it automatically exclude monogamy?

Radical love does not have a concrete definition, and that is purposeful. I came to my understandings of radical love and radical environmentalism at the same time, so for me, radical love is literally against concrete. Rather than offering a single, universal definition for “radical love,” I think we need to pay more attention to the heterogeneity of love in varying circumstances, and we need to become attuned to the fact that just as most living things change across time and from one bioregion and one person to another, so do ideas about love. Love is not manufactured, and it defies stasis or universality. That said, radical love as a term does have some broad and important currents. Unlike monogamy or polyamory, radical love is about quality, not quantity. For me, radical love simply means applying my politics to my way of loving.

More info: http://loveradical.wordpress.com/

No "Denial of Life and Joy"

Today I want to celebrate the ideas of Emma Goldman. One of the leading anarchist and feminist thinkers of her time, Goldman was a tireless advocate for sexual freedom, pioneering the cause of birth control and free love. Although she never actually made the statement about the emptiness of a dance-less revolution that is famously attributed to her, she did express the following in her autobiography Living My Life:

"At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha [Alexander Berkman], a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause.

"I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business, I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement should not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. 'I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everyboy's right to beautiful, radiant things.' Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world--prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own comrades I would live my beautiful ideal." [Living My Life (New York: Knopf, 1934), p. 56]

For more on Emma Goldman's pioneering philosophy of sexual freedom see her landmark essays "The Hypocrisy of Puritanism," "The Traffic in Women," and "Marriage and Love."

The Ethical Slut Returns

A cult classic among those curious about and adherents of nonmonogamy, The Ethical Slut has returned. Its new addition was just published with some new additions. One of the book's co-author's was recently interviewed by Mary Beckerman of the Daily Beast about it. Here's an exerpt with a link below. What do you think of this book's success and its implications?

By "slut," you don’t mean someone who detaches sex from emotion, or who selfishly takes advantage of others; instead you urge readers to seek love -- genuine emotional connections -- in "abundance," rejecting the notion that our affection is a pizza with only so many slices.

This idea started way back in the communal era in 1969 when I was in Haight-Ashbury. I said, "If I want to change my world in terms of how relationships are, and be non-monogamous forever in my own personal life, it should be about warmth and affection." One of the very first things I learned was how to be affectionate toward many lovers, which is very hard to do coming from New York where things are very cool and detached.

There was no precedent but it worked; I could love them, be there for them, care for them -- if someone was sick I’d bring them chicken soup -- and be loyal in a new way that fit for a lot of people, including other women and single mothers. We were the love generation, and we were very new to sexual freedom. There was a lot of idealism. Very quickly I had a community of people excited about raising our children. We created the proverbial village long before It Takes a Village.

Read the rest of the interview on Alternet.

Pornocalypse Now and the Price of Pleasure

The issue of pornography seems to be constantly fading in and out of the national (sub)conscious. It has been more at the forefront lately with controversy stemming from a public screening of a hardcore porn flick at the University of Maryland. Adult film giant Digital Playground made their latest feature Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge available for free to college campus across the country. When conservative politicians in Maryland got wind of this they attempted to pull the plug, which only sparked a fight by students on campus over the free speech implications involved. The film was eventually screened, but was preceded by debate over freedom of expression organized by the ACLU.

Porn is complex issue. To go beyond the narrow debate that is usually framed in black and white terms around the first ammendment, the producers of The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality, and Relationships and its distributor, the Media Education Foundation, are countering Digital Playground's campaign by offering free screenings to colleges as well.

“The reason we’re doing this is simple,” said Sut Jhally, the Executive Director of the Media Education Foundation. “What’s needed on this issue is more discussion, not less, and this film is a perfect vehicle for achieving this. If students are serious about their defense of free speech and open debate, they’ll fight to make sure this documentary is shown as well.”

Check out MEF's full press release announcing the deal.

***

The latest issue of Adbusters also weighs in on the contemporary debate around pornography and postmodern culture. Douglas Haddow explains in his piece "Pornocalypse Now:"

"...very little of this sexual media reflects reality in any way. When watching hard-core porn, one is struck by the message it so desperately attempts to communicate: sex is boring. And the more violent the porn, it seems, the more anti-sex its message. But could anything be further from the truth? Isn’t having sex with another living, human being the one thing that provides the most intense connection with the present moment?"

Porn is an excellent example of how the personal is political. From larger structures that profit from the objectification of women's bodies to the effect that porn addiction has on inumerable relationships, it's a complex matter that deserves a rich dialogue. Check back here for more on the politics of porn in the future.

Sexy Spring 6! June 5-7, 2009 Minneapolis

If you are able to get to the Twin Cities in early June, I highly recommend checking Sexy Spring 6. I was able to attend a few years ago and got a lot out of the experience. The people were all really friendly and interesting and the skillshares were informing and stimulating. The title of this blog actually owes itself to a workshop that held that year and I believe will be offered there once again this time around. Here's some more info about Sexy Spring 6, but check out their website for updates as it closer...

Sexy Spring is focused on exploring the ways sex, sexuality, relationships, our bodies, and our choices affect our lives. It's a weekend full of workshops, discussions, play, demonstrations, crafting, art shows, communal meals, telling stories, and sex/body performances and dancing.

http://www.sexyspring.org

Radical Monogamy?

Hello everyone! This is a new blog about sexuality, relationships, and struggle against sexism and gender oppression. "Radical Monogamy" is a nebulous term that is meant to challenge both those invested in the traditional, and often repressive, institution of monogamous coupledom and also sex radicals who are uncritical of the limitations and contradictions inherit to the various forms of nonmonogamy practiced today.

Radical Monogamy seeks to be a resource of sex positivity and liberation from patriarchy and everyday hetero/sexism. From sex worker solidarity and forging a dialogue about confronting street harassment to communicating and actualizing sexual fantasies and highlighting relevant news articles, this blog is dedicated to both intellectual and erotic stimulation for all.

Enjoy and participate!

xoxo