Tired and Haggard

First, I must apologize for my long absence from this blog. The Tickle Trunk store has kept me a long way away from the sex advice of others for quite some time. But I vow to do my best to keep watching for those sex things of interest. I've found a few of them this past week, and although only one of these posts really has to do with sex advice, they all have to do with sex and they piqued my interest.

I haven't watched Oprah in forever but I watched it in it's entirety yesterday because Ted Haggard was on it. I just had to find out what this man could possibly have to say for himself. For the few people out there in the universe who don't know who Haggard is, he was the founder and pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado and one of the most powerful Evangelical leaders in the US. Haggard and the New Life Church were very public about their position that homosexuality is a sin and dedicated opponents of same sex marriage. In 2006, Haggard was exposed as having an ongoing secret relationship with a male prostitute, among other things. He made an agreement with New Life to leave his leadership position and Colorado.

Haggard was a key figure in the right-wing religious opposition to homosexuality. He was very vocal in his opinion that homosexuality was deviant and not of God. And yet, clearly, Haggard was attracted to men himself. I wondered what he would have to say about this obvious conflict and if he now, after being exposed as having had sex with men, would change his position on the matter and apologize to the millions of gay Americans who were shamed and deeply hurt by him and his Church's teachings.

Not so much.

During the first part of the show, I thought he was being quite open about his history and the fact that he had lied and deceived people and was deeply conflicted. But after the dust settled on how sorry he was for covering up his behavior, it appeared that this is, in fact, all he is sorry for. He stated several times that he is not gay and that although he still has thoughts about men, he doesn't act on them. This gave him and his wife the platform from which to express that worn-out idea that homosexuality is not wrong, it's only the expression of it that's wrong. That argument has been used by homophobes for decades to try to make themselves appear loving and accepting while allowing them to continue to exclude and judge people. The message is - "I don't care if you're gay, just make sure I don't see any evidence of it". Which, I guess, explains why Haggard thinks his only sin was in lying about his homosexual affair - although one wonders if the sin was in lying about it or in getting caught. After all, it was only getting caught that brought shame on his family and his church.

So after all of this, Haggard continues to hold to his beliefs that homosexuality is deviant and can be controlled by simply not acting on one's feelings. I wonder how conflicted he really is still - not being able to fully acknowledge who he is. I don't know if Ted Haggard is gay or bisexual or just happens to like having sex with men on occasion, but I do know that he's clearly not being honest with himself or anyone else. He explained the extensive therapy that he's been through but it was clear that this therapy was with other evangelical leaders and counselors who have the same view of homosexuality - how likely is it that they will truly help him come to grips with the fact that he might actually be gay, rather than work on helping him rationalize his behavior?

The worst part of the whole thing is that the real apology that needed to made, the apology to the millions of gay people who are stigmatized, traumatized, judged, abused, and discriminated against every day, was never made. He was clearly in it for himself. It was obvious that we were meant to feel sorry for him and I for one, do not.

Let's clear up the silicone lube question once and for all!

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Marriage Uncensored?

I don't know why we even bothered to get cable TV. Over 80 channels and there's nothing good on. On Sundays mornings, there's even less on. Which explains why, now that Ru Paul's Drag Race is over, I've taken to watching a show called 'Marriage Uncensored' on Sunday mornings. The hosts, Dave and Christie, are mercilessly perky and smiley as they interview guests 'experts' about the many aspects of staying happily married. Clearly, these people mean well so it's hard to take offense to them. In fact, they are obviously working very hard to make sure that no one can take offense to them, so watered-down and generalized is every piece of advice and information given. It's also pretty clear that it's a Christian show but they don't beat anyone over the head with that so I will give them credit for that.

Last Sunday they were talking about sex - so of course I had to watch the whole thing. It was fun to watch them delight in how 'salacious' and 'uncensored' they were being. It was about as salacious as the Sears catalogue underwear section. But for that show, it was quite risque. Their quest speaker, who's written several books on marriage and sex, was very funny and did get just a little bit graphic a couple of times - to the hosts' evident horror. But it was mostly pretty tame and seemingly harmless. 'Men are physical, women are relational.' 'Men want to feel needed, women want to feel loved'. 'Men need sex, women need romance.' We hear this stuff all the time. So often, I think, that most of us believe it. And though it seems pretty benign I do think there is real danger in this kind of 'Men and from Mars, Women are from Venus' , John Grey view of relationships.

The value, to me, is that this method of understanding relationships encourages individuals to view their interactions from the other person's perspective rather than interpreting their actions based on their own needs and feelings. For example, when I leave a room in the middle of an argument, it may be because I am pissed beyond words and I am ready to rip my partner apart. If my partner does it, it may be because he's very deeply hurt by something I said and can't face me. I need to learn to interpret his behavior based on his needs, feelings, and behavior patterns, not mine. That's a valuable concept with practical applications. I do think that Dave and Christie are proponents of this kind of examination of behavior within a relationship. The 'men are like this, women are like this' model takes it too far though. So usually, instead of being encouraged to look at the person our partner actually is and what his/her behavior means based on who s/he is, we're encouraged to intrepret it only as a typically male or female reaction. Based on that model, my partner is walking out because he's pissed because that's what men do. Men aren't in touch with their feelings, so he can't be hurt. It encourages me to miss the point and misintrepret my partners' actions.

But there's something much more insidious about the Mars/Venus approach that really worries me particularly when it comes to sex. Whenever you hear these Mars/Venus people talk about sex, they always say that men need sex more than women, women need love and romance in order to have sex, women need lots of foreplay, women have to feel satisfied in their relationship in order to have satisfying sex. Dave and Christie and their guest said them all, just as we've always heard them. So what's the message? I think the message is that women are not truly sexual beings. These platitudes are telling us that women only have sex as an act of love for their partner and that they don't enjoy sex for pleasure alone. What does that mean for women (the legions of them) who do enjoy sex for pleasure alone, who couldn't care a wit about romance, and who don't need to feel loved and cared for in order to have great sex? It means that they are acting like men. It means that they are not real women. It's a subtle way to tone down, dampen, and dismiss female sexuality.

This model also gives men license to ignore and dismiss women's pleasure. If you just love and care for her, the pleasure will be all taken care of. But that's just not true. Loving, caring men can still be clueless about how to pleasure their female partners. But this model is telling them they're already doing everything right - that he doesn't need to be concerned and that she doesn't have a right to complain.

We think with the feminist movement and the sexual revolution that we've moved so far from the old views of female sexuality, but the abundance of this mars/venus advice proves that we haven't. Newsflash Dave and Christie and all of you other John Grey enthusiasts, most women like sex just as much as men and they care much less whether you gave them a rose before than whether they had an awesome orgasm.

What the Hell is a Hymen?

Here's another post that's not specifically related to sex advice, but in a way, sort of is. In response to a comment/question here, I snooped around to see if I could find out what people are saying about hymens these days. It seems that while everyone loves to talk about them, there are very few people who really know anything about them. So after a search which was, admittedly, not at all exhaustive, here's what I've found and what I think about hymens.

First of all, not everybody agrees that they exist in the first place. While it would seem that the hymen is a simple, biological fact, there is some controversy. A nurse and doctor in Sweden studied the evidence and anecdotes about the hymen in 2005 and concluded that there has never been any accurate medical descriptions of what the hymen is and what it consists of. They believe that the hymen is simply a part of the vaginal opening, is not distinct in and of itself, and that the use of the term should be discontinued. Hmmmm.......who knew? I tried to find this study but so far I can only locate the Swedish version. Sadly, my Swedish is not good enough to understand a medical study.

Second, depending on who you talk to and which 'statistics' you read, between 30% and 43% of women report bleeding the first time they have penetrative sex. That's not all that high. So it seems to me that the idea that every woman has a hymen and that it stays intact and then 'breaks' when she has sex, cannot possibly be true. I often hear that a hymen can be 'broken' during horseback riding or exercise but I don't really buy that. I've been horseback riding and I've done vigorous exercise and neither of those involved anything pushing into my vagina. I understand the idea but it doesn't make sense to me. The concept that you can 'break' your hymen by using tampons, does make sense because at least that involves putting something inside the vagina. I think the whole point behind these oft-stated 'facts' is to protect women who may be found to be hymen-less and thus assumed to be non-virgins. And to me, that's just sad.

What I did not know is that, according to some of the medical literature I read, in babies and very young girls, the hymen is quite thick and, due to hormonal changes, it thins considerably as women age. It may disappear almost completely. There is also the theory that the hymen is very elastic and may stretch a lot during sex which would account for the lack of pain and bleeding.

To me, what is important is what the hymen represents. The concept of virginity has been used to control women and their sexuality for millenia. The hymen is a symbol of that control. To this day, women are subjected to virginity tests to prove their suitability for marriage or their fidelity. Now women are undergoing hymenoplasty to artificially restore their hymens and re-virginize themselves. Why? Underlying this hymen-hysteria are two very clear messages. First, women's sexual 'purity' is much more valuable than her own sexual experience or freedom and must be preserved. Second, women cannot be trusted to tell the truth about their sexual past and must provide proof.

Why do some women experience pain and bleeding during their first penetrative sexual experience and others don't? Here's a radical thought. Perhaps it's not because they've broken their hymen. Perhaps it's because the women that don't experience pain are having good sex! Perhaps it's because they are relaxed, fully consenting, prepared, fully aroused, and fully wanting and ready to be penetrated. Maybe, just maybe the reason why so many women have pain and bleeding the first time they have sex is because it's rushed into too quickly without any sort of knowledge about the value of foreplay. If we're not ready to be penetrated, it flat out hurts when we are. And it's not unusual to cause abrasions during sex that one is not prepared for. It's just a thought.

As far as advice about this goes, I did find a few gems of advice for women who were having pain during sex, or were worried about their first time. One woman felt that her partner could not break her hymen because it was still painful. Advice to her (from the public, not from a an advice columnist) was to take some pain medication and have her partner push harder.

Laura Berman's advice to a woman who was worried that sex for the first time would be painful was that she needn't worry because she'd almost certainly already broken her hymen during exercise or horseback riding. She also recommended she use lube. That's not a bad peice of advice. But there is a key part here that she's missing. What I've never seen anybody talk about in these discussions is that when a woman is very aroused, her vagina widens and her cervix and uterus pull upwards. Her vagina is getting ready to be penetrated. Being aroused is not just about getting wet, it's also about this process called 'ballooning', which makes it so much more comfortable, and pleasurable. When you rush into sex before this happens, the vagina is too tight and too short to accomodate and it hurts!

No one has ever been able to show a medical reason why the hymen exists or why it's physically important. I think it's high-time for the concept of the hymen to stop tryannizing women and die a quiet death.

And for a laugh, check out this awesome video that lampoons the idea of preserving your virginity for God. It's called Saving My Hymen for Jesus.

Do's and Dont's, Mostly Dont's on going Down

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