The Blowfish Blog

Running Along the Cliff: The Plateau Phase

This is about finding a silver lining in a cloud.

Actually, it’s about finding a big, fat vein of silver in a cloud.

In recent years, as I’ve gotten older and my body has changed, I’ve been having a harder time coming. I sometimes get stuck in the pre-orgasmic “plateau” phase of sexual arousal, and it’s harder than it used to be to push out of that and push my body over the cliff and into freefall. It always happens eventually — with the help of my trusty vibrator if nothing else — but it often takes longer than it used to, and it’s rather less reliable. I never know when it’s going to come easily, and when it’s going to kick up a fuss.

This has been, as you might expect, a source of some irritation. For many years, coming was easy as pie for me. Given a reasonably attentive partner, I could generally come within a few minutes of feeling it on the horizon. And when I was my own partner, “a few minutes” was more like “a few seconds.” If I wanted to draw a sexual experience out (alone or accompanied) and delay my orgasm to make it more intense, I had to make a conscious effort. So over the years, I got very used to being able to come more or less on demand. And when orgasms started becoming more elusive, it was a little frustrating: partly because I liked thinking of myself as easy to please, and partly for the obvious reasons.

I’ve come up with a number of strategies for dealing with this. Among other things, I’ve been exploring different kinds of sensation, re-discovering what my changing body does and doesn’t like. But there’s one strategy in particular that I’m finding especially compelling. And since I know I’m not the only person — especially the only woman — who’s dealing with this situation, I thought I’d share it with the rest of the class.

It’s the strategy of not worrying about it.

If I’m having a hard time coming, I’ll sometimes just let go of that particular goal for a while. I’ll let myself enjoy the pre-orgasmic “plateau” phase. Savor it. If I feel like I’m stuck on the edge of the cliff, I’ll let myself run alongside it for a while, and experience it for what it is.

There’s sometimes a very annoying paradox with orgasms: the harder you strain to have them, the more elusive they can become. So if I’m stuck in that loop, where trying to bring on the orgasm is just chasing it away and the effort is becoming more frustrating than pleasant, I’m learning to cut the Gordian knot. I stop tensing up and striving, and just relax; I take long, deep breaths instead of short panting ones; I stop moaning and squirming, and stay more quiet and still. I quit trying to come, and just let myself savor that “intensely turned on but not yet coming” plateau thing.

And in doing so, I’ve been finding a whole new realm of sexual pleasure.

The plateau phase is awesome. If I really sink into it, if I really let it be and lose myself in it, staying in plateau for a long time is almost like a whole other kind of climax. Like a climax in a parallel universe. It’s overwhelming in a different way: less like being hit by a wave, and more like sinking into a hot bath. Or getting a first-rate massage. Or lingering over a long, lavish, exquisitely- prepared meal. It’s a state of heightened awareness that is at once intensely focused and thoroughly relaxed.

Letting myself stay in the plateau phase also dovetails nicely into this thing I’ve been working on lately: a quasi-Zen practice of being more present in the world, being in the moment and letting things be what they are, noticing the world and loving it and letting it flow through me, instead of tuning it all out and living in the bubble of my plans and anxieties and fantasies and memories. Lingering in the plateau phase is very much a part of all this. It can create an intense and unique sense of connection, both with my partner and with myself. Instead of struggling to get from Point A to Point B, we’re letting each moment rise and fall, and thoroughly experiencing it . . . and then letting it go, to make room for the next one.

And the thing about the plateau phase? It can last for freaking ever. I don’t know how long — it’s not like I have a stopwatch in my bedside table — but it sure is longer than an orgasm. And because it can last so long, I can explore the emotions and sensations of it much more patiently, and much more thoroughly, than I can with an orgasm. Which contributes both to the “be here now” quasi-Zen thing and to the “overwhelming in a different way” thing. The drawn-out quality lets me be patient and present with what I’m experiencing . . . and it gives me time to sink into the experience, richly and deeply and all-consumingly.

And the funny thing? Doing this is actually a pretty good technique for bringing on an orgasm. The reverse of the Annoying Orgasm Paradox is also true: yes, trying to force an orgasm will often chase it away, but if you relax and stop trying to make yourself come, it’s more likely to sneak up on you. And if I’ve lingered in the plateau phase for a really long time, the orgasms I eventually have are usually way more intense.

But I can’t make that the point. Making that the point would defeat the purpose, and would catapult me straight back into the Annoying Orgasm Paradox. And anyway, I don’t want to make that the point. I want to let the plateau be its own point. The point is that the cliff is beautiful, and I want to spend some time exploring that beauty, instead of just looking for ways to hurl myself off of it.

Greta Christina, copyright © 2010. Be sure to check out Greta’s blog.

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When Porn Goes Bad: “Girls Gone Wild”

I am hereby changing my mind.

I am officially and publicly declaring that I was mistaken, and am shifting my position.

Not about porn in general. But about one particular brand of porn.

Specifically, the “Girls Gone Wild” videos.

And the way I’m changing my mind is illustrating one of the most important points I’ve been making about it.

You may have already heard: A woman who appeared in a “Girls Gone Wild” video recently sued the producers. In the incident, the woman, identified only as Jane Doe, was dancing at a bar where “GGW” was being filmed: someone else pulled down her top and showed her breasts, and the footage was put into a video. In the original footage, Doe was heard saying “no” when asked to show her breasts, shortly before another woman suddenly pulled her top down. But the GGW producers argued that, simply by being in the bar and dancing where the video was being filmed, she was giving consent: not just to appear in the video, but to appear bare-breasted. Inexplicably, a jury ruled in GGW’s favor. As jury foreman Patrick O’Brien said, “Through her actions, she gave implied consent. She was really playing to the camera. She knew what she was doing.”

Sluts just have it coming to them, I guess.

Now, on top of being evil on GGW’s part, this was just plain dumb. I mean, how hard would it have been to simply not use the footage of this one woman? They must have thousands of hours of footage of women pulling up their shirts and showing their boobs. Why on earth didn’t they avoid the bad publicity and the ugly court case, and just leave the few minutes of the girl who said “No” on the cutting room floor?

Given their history of legal problems and bad publicity, wouldn’t they be a little more careful about consent?

Which brings me to the part where I’m changing my mind.

In the past, I’ve defended the “Girls Gone Wild” videos. I said I could see the appeal in them; I said it was legitimately exciting to see people take sexual risks and push their own sexual boundaries, doing dirty things they never imagined themselves doing. I argued that, whatever you might think of the company producing the videos, the patronizing, pitying attitude towards the women performing in them that’s so common is absolutely unwarranted. I said that the women in them were clearly aware of the cameras, indeed happy to have the cameras on them; and that while many of them certainly seemed, shall we say, tipsy, none of them seemed intoxicated to the point of obliterating consent. And I pointed out that the GGW producers were — they claimed — very careful to get consent from the women in their videos . . . and in the videos I saw, this claim seemed entirely plausible.

But this case is making it clear that this claim is bogus. It’s become clear that the producers of the “Girls Gone Wild” videos are sloppy at best about obtaining consent from the women who appear in them. Clearly lots of women are willing and even eager to be in these videos . . . but it’s becoming clear that the producers are careless, to say the least, about making sure that this number is 100%.

So I’m retracting even the ambivalent support I gave them in the past. New evidence had made my previous position unsupportable, and I am therefore changing it. The “Girls Gone Wild” producers are sleazebags. They are not a trustworthy source of consensually- participated- in porn. Don’t buy their videos.

So what’s the important larger point about porn that this case illustrates?

•

One of the most common critiques of the video porn industry is that the women who perform in them aren’t consenting. (Concern about male porn performers seems, for some reason, to be largely absent.) The more moderate versions of this critique assert that female porn performers go into it for bad reasons, out of economic necessity or poor self-esteem or desperation for attention. The more hysterical versions of it claim that the mainstream video porn industry is inexorably tied to human trafficking, and that women are literally threatened and forced into having sex on camera.

And I don’t dismiss these critiques out of hand. I think it’s very possible, likely even, that some porn performers aren’t entirely self-actualized, that some of them go into it for unhealthy emotional reasons or because they need a paycheck. I think people go into a lot of industries for unhealthy emotional reasons (acting and modeling leap to mind), or because they need a paycheck (pretty much everyone who works for a living leaps to mind). And while I think the more hysterical critiques are, well, hysterical — at least as far as the mainstream American video porn industry is concerned — I’m open to being persuaded otherwise. If there really are problems with consent in the video porn industry — as there obviously are with the “Girls Gone Wild” videos — I want to know about it.

I just differ with these critics about what the appropriate response is.

If there’s evidence that a video porn company is being careless at best and callous at worst about the consent of its performers, then shouldn’t our objections be aimed at that company — not at the very concept of video porn?

Here’s an analogy. Labor abuses in the cocoa farming industry are very well documented, including extensive use of child labor. It’s not just an isolated incident here or there — it’s endemic to the industry. And it has been for years.

So what is an appropriate response to this? Should we be selective about what kind of chocolate we eat, only buying fair-trade chocolate that we know is not supporting child labor, and boycotting any chocolate companies that won’t abide by those standards? Should we be encouraging restaurants and bakeries and other consumers to do the same? Should we be publicizing this issue until non- fair- trade chocolate is sufficiently unpopular that it’s no longer profitable, and fair trade becomes the industry standard?

Or should we be condemning the very idea of eating chocolate? Should we be treating the entire chocolate industry, and indeed the very substance of chocolate itself, as irrevocably tainted? Should we be treating anyone who enjoys chocolate with moral repugnance, as callous, child-hating villains, more concerned with the gratification of their sybaritic hungers than they are with abused children? Should we be tying in people’s specific concerns about abuses in the chocolate industry with their general shame about food, using that shame to make them feel guilty about their physical desire for chocolate and the pleasure they take in it?

And if we think the former approach is both more effective and more just . . . why should we be applying the latter strategy to video porn?

If there’s evidence that a video porn company is being careless at best and callous at worst about the consent of its performers, then shouldn’t our objections be aimed at that company — not at the very concept of video porn?

And I’ll point out again: In the chocolate industry, these abuses are endemic. They’re not exceptions. They are the industry standard. They’re very well-documented. And the victims are, I will say yet again, children.

Which is patently not true of the video porn industry. I’ve seen some individual, anecdotal accounts from people in the porn industry who say that they went into it for bad reasons, that drug abuse in the industry is common (unlike, oh, say, the music industry), that they felt pressured to perform sex acts they didn’t want to, or that they were pressured into it by abusive men in their lives. (Linda Lovelace is the most famous example of this last one.) I’ve also seen individual, anecdotal accounts from people in the porn industry who say that they freely chose it, that they love it, that they feel empowered by it, that they feel perfectly capable of accepting or rejecting roles and sex acts, that in fact video porn is one of the few industries where women have more status and earning power than men. I’ve seen porn videos where the performers were clearly bored and phoning it in at best, detached and unhappy at worst. I’ve also seen porn videos where the performers were clearly inspired, excited, joyful, and wanting nothing more than to be doing exactly what they were doing. (As a porn critic, I have consistently endorsed the latter and excoriated the former.)

What I have not seen is good, careful, independent documentation of endemic or even common labor abuses across the industry.

And until I do, I’m not going to stop watching video porn.

If there’s strong, well-documented evidence from independent sources that a particular video porn company is being lax or callous about the consent of their performers — as the “Girls Gone Wild” producers have shown themselves to be — I want to know about it. I don’t want to support companies like that; I want to encourage other porn consumers to remove their support. And if there’s strong, well-documented evidence from independent sources that the video porn industry as a whole is being lax or callous about the consent of their performers, I want to know about that, too. If that’s true, then I will readily denounce the industry, and stick to the equivalent of fair-trade porn: amateur and indie porn, from small, labor- of- love porn producers, whose performers are clearly in it for something other than the money.

But when I see poorly- supported accusations of labor abuses in the commercial video porn industry getting tied in with standard sex-negative hostility towards porn in general — scorn and trivialization of the desire for porn, shaming of people for wanting it, the stubbornly willful failure to distinguish between the basic idea of porn and the specific ways it sometimes plays out in our culture, the patronizing assumption that no woman could possibly really want to perform in porn and therefore any woman who does must be self-loathing at best and coerced at worst — it renders these accusations considerably less credible. It makes them look less like genuine concern for the well-being of performers in the video porn industry, and more like . . . well, more like standard sex-negative hostility towards porn in general. It makes me take these accusations with a large grain of salt.

A handful of salt, in fact.

But give me some better evidence, minus the sex-negative axe-grinding, and I’ll change my mind.

After all, I changed my mind about “Girls Gone Wild.”

Thanks to Bacchus at ErosBlog, for his classic piece Evil Porn Werewolf Enslavers Debunked, to which I am indebted for this line of thought.

Greta Christina, copyright © 2010. Be sure to check out Greta’s blog.

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Sex Addiction or Sexual Compulsion?

Let’s start with something we can all agree on. Some people have a hard time controlling their sexual behavior. Some people have sex in ways that damage themselves, and damage others . . . and they keep doing it anyway. Some people pursue sex — specific sexual activities, or just any kind of sexual pleasure generally — in ways that seriously interfere with their lives: ways that screw up their relationships, or create financial hardship, or even injure their health. And despite this harm, despite the fact that their behavior is making them unhappy, they don’t seem to be able to control themselves, and they keep doing it anyway.

I don’t think anyone would disagree with that.

Does this mean these people are “sex addicts”?

My immediate answer is No.

And my non-immediate answer, my answer after long and careful consideration, is also No.

No, no, no, no, no.

Abso-fucking-lutely not.

The right word for this behavior is “compulsive.” Or “obsessive.” Or “fixated.” Or “self-destructive.” Or “harmful.”

Why?

Why am I so passionately opposed to the very concept of “sex addiction”?

Why am I being such a stickler about this language?

Part of my problem is that the word “addiction” has a particular pharmacological meaning. It’s a specific relationship to a particular set of drugs, such as heroin or cocaine or alcohol: needing higher doses to get the same effect, withdrawal symptoms when the drug use stops, etc. It’s a fairly specific concept. And it’s a different concept from compulsive behavior, or self-destructive behavior, or having a hard time stopping a certain behavior. To say that people are “addicted” when they’re being compulsive about exercise, or working, or collecting things — or sex — is just not accurate.

But I’m not usually this much of a stickler about definitions. Quite the opposite. In fact, regular readers may be getting very confused at this point: I’m usually an ardent usagist when it comes to language, a descriptivist rather than a prescriptivist, and I’ve defended this non-stickler position with great passion and waving about of hands. I think words mean what they’re generally understood to mean by most of the people using the language, and I think it’s nonsensical to complain that a word “really” means X when most people speaking and hearing it think it means Y. I understand that the meanings of words change over time. And I’m generally fine when words with specific, technical meanings acquire different meanings in casual, colloquial conversation.

So why am I being a stickler about this one?

Why do I get my panties in a twist about the phrase “sex addiction”?

Partly it’s because, although I am usually a happy- go- lucky usagist when word meanings change, I’m more of a stickler when a word’s original meaning is useful — and there isn’t another word to replace it. (I object to the word “literally” being used as an intensifier, for instance, not because “that’s not what the word really means,” but because we don’t have another word to express the concept that “literally” used to express.)

And this is definitely true about the word “addiction.” The concept of “a specific pharmacological relationship to certain drugs, characterized by withdrawal symptoms, needing increasingly higher doses, etc.” is a useful one. It’s a very different concept from “any sort of obsessive or compulsive behavior that people have difficulty stopping.” And while these two concepts are obviously related, the distinction between them is worth preserving.

But in the case of the word “addiction” — and especially in the case of “sex addiction” or “porn addiction” — there’s another reason I’m being a stickler. And it’s a far more important one.

The word “addiction” has, I think, certain implications. They’re implications inherent in the original technical definition of the word, and they carry over into the colloquial, casual, non-technical use.

And they’re implications I think are grossly inaccurate, wildly misleading, and seriously harmful when they get applied to sex.

The word “addiction” refers to a specific kind of relationship: not just with drugs, but with specific drugs. Some drugs are addictive — others are not. Heroin and cocaine and alcohol, for instance, are addictive: marijuana is not. People can certainly form unhealthy relationships with weed — but those unhealthy relationships don’t include withdrawal symptoms, needing increasingly higher doses to get the same effect, etc. People can and do get those symptoms with heroin and cocaine and alcohol. That’s what addiction means.

So as a result, we tend to see addiction as being a problem that’s rooted in the substance itself. We tend to see addiction as a problem, not with the quirks of the human brain, not with the way certain human brains deal with certain drugs, but with the drugs. We’re obviously not very consistent about this — we happily demonize heroin and cocaine, while we have a much more accepting attitude towards alcohol — but we still tend to see the harmful potential of addictive drugs as somehow inherent in the drugs themselves. Maybe we shouldn’t — okay, we definitely shouldn’t — but we do. And while this isn’t the most useful attitude towards drugs humanity has ever come up with, there is a grain of truth to it. Our relationships with addictive drugs are different from our relationships with non-addictive drugs. Or they often are. I certainly don’t think it makes sense to demonize addictive drugs . . . but I do think it’s reasonable to acknowledge that they often have a different effect on us, and to set them apart in some ways.

But this is a very, very bad approach to take when we’re talking about sex.

And it’s an approach that feeds into our culture’s existing demonization of sex. The concept of “sex addiction” treats sex as an experience that is inherently harmful: an experience that has financial disaster and screwed-up relationships and ruined health somehow inherent in the experience itself.

When we’re talking about people having a hard time controlling their sexual behavior, “compulsive” or “obsessive” are much better words. Because when we talk about compulsive or obsessive behavior, we understand that the problem doesn’t lie in the specific thing being obsessed about. We understand that people can get compulsive about anything: work, exercise, eating, falling in love, collecting Simpsons memorabilia. In fact, we understand that people tend to get compulsive about positive, pleasurable experiences, experiences that are central to human existence. We don’t blame work or exercise, food or love, for the fact that some people get compulsive about them.

And sex should be in that category. It’s not a substance, like heroin or alcohol, that people can form pharmacological dependencies on. It’s a fundamental human behavior, like eating or working or falling in love: a behavior that, tragically but understandably, some people get destructively compulsive about.

But when we talk about “sex addiction” — as opposed to “sexual compulsion” — it places the blame on sex itself. It treats sex, not as a positive and necessary part of human life that can sometimes go wrong, but as a dangerous and harmful substance: best avoided entirely if at all possible, to be treated like a minefield if you absolutely have to engage with it.

And that’s both denigrating to sex, and flat-out mistaken.

I would never deny that sex can be harmful. Anything can be harmful. And I think it’s quite possible that sex has more potential to cause harm than many other human behaviors. Sex is a powerful drive, an irrational, deeply ingrained, lizard-hindbrain urge: it has hundreds of millions of years of evolution powering it, and our fears and desires and feelings about it run deep and hard. We’re not going to be as smart or as self-controlled about it as we are about, say, collecting Simpsons memorabilia. Strong drives have more potential to go wrong, and to go wrong more badly. That’s true of hunger, and fear, and pleasure, and competition, and family loyalty, and love: these experiences are powerful — which means they have more power to screw us up.

But these experiences are also our most fundamental ones. They have the power to harm us, of course — but they also have the power to give us joy, to inspire us towards greatness, to take us out of ourselves, to connect us with our future, to keep us alive, to engage us with the world.

We’re not going to cope with the problems they create by treating them like poison . . . as if evil and destruction were woven into their very core.

Greta Christina, copyright © 2010. Be sure to check out Greta’s blog.

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How Sexism Hurts Men, Part 2: Why Do I Care?

So why do I care?

I devoted last week’s column to a silly pop-culture book, Undateable, which gives straight men snarky- but- sincere advice on how to make themselves attractive — no, strike that, tolerable — to women. I devoted the column to all the ways this book reinforces a rigid, narrow, absurdly unattainable vision of acceptable manhood, instilling men with anxiety and self-consciousness about their masculinity while at the same time exhorting them to be confident.

Today I want to answer the question: Why do I care?

Why do I care about sexism and gender normativity in ephemeral bits of pop culture fluff?

And why do I care about how sexism hurts men at all? With all the grotesque ways that sexism and gender normativity hurts women, why would I spend my time worrying about how it hurts men?

Let’s take care of the “pop culture fluff’ part first. I care about how pop culture fluff reinforces sexism because . . . well, that’s one of the primary ways that sexism gets reinforced. Pop culture is the sea we’re all swimming in. Seeing how women and men are depicted on TV, in movies, in pop songs, in advertising, in video games, yada yada yada . . . this is a huge part of how we get our messages about what it means to be a woman, and what it means to be a man, and what’s expected of us as one or the other. Sexism is diffused throughout our culture. It’s not like there’s a Central Office of Gender Propaganda we can picket. If we have problems with how gender norms enforced, we have to respond to it one piece at a time.

But why do I care at all?

Sexism, and the enforcement of gender roles, hurts women way more than it does men: from economic inequity to literal, physical abuse. Why would I devote a whole two-week mini-series to how sexism hurts men?

My first reason is my most personal, and my most visceral: I have men in my life. I have male friends. Colleagues. Family members. Members of my assorted communities. People I know on the Internet.

I care about these people. I feel compassion for them. I don’t want them to suffer. I see how this gender- normative stuff hurts the men in my life: how it makes them crazy, how it undermines their confidence, how it makes them anxious and self-conscious, how it makes their relationships harder. I don’t like it. I want it to stop. Now, please.

What’s more, I have male children in my life — and it kills me to think of them growing up with this bullshit. It kills me to think of Charlie and Tanner and Teague growing up with the barrage of rigid, nitpicky, absurdly narrow, bizarrely irrelevant, schizophrenically mixed messages about Being A Man. It’s a stupid, pointless burden, and I don’t want the male children in my life getting it piled onto their shoulders — or having to do unnecessary work unloading it. Learning to be a good person is hard enough without all that crap.

There’s an ideological reason, too. I see a tremendous amount of gender inequality and injustice in the world; I oppose it passionately, and work hard to overturn it. But I don’t want it “fixed” by making things worse for men. I don’t want to make the world more equal by making things suck as badly for men as they do for women. Yes, we live in a world where women are besieged with a ridiculously narrow, frequently contradictory vision of idealized womanhood. I don’t want to “fix” that by turning the lens on men, and forcing them into a vision of idealized manhood that’s just as unattainable. That’s not the equality and justice I’m fighting for. Fuck that noise.

And finally, I have my hard-nosed, self-centered, Machiavellian reasons for caring how sexism hurts men, and for fighting against it:

It helps women.

Partly it helps women because it makes men easier to be involved with. Not just romantically and sexually, but as friends and colleagues, family members and community partners. Men are a lot easier to get along with when they’re not constantly trying to prove how manly they are. Men are a lot easier to get along with when they don’t feel a constant need to be competitive and macho, when they’re not storing up a load of resentful silence about what they need and want, when they don’t feel threatened by powerful and intelligent women, when they don’t always feel like they have to take the lead in sex and love, when they can express their emotions, when they can ask for help. Men are a lot easier to get along with when they stop worrying so much about being men, and spend more time paying attention to just being good people.

Besides . . . well, as a friend once put on a bumper sticker on her truck, “Feminists Fuck Better.” And that’s true of both feminist women and feminist men. Men who aren’t locked into rigid gender roles are a whole lot more fun in the sack. They’re more inventive, more willing to experiment, less performance-oriented, less goal-oriented, less self-conscious, less threatened by women who are sexually knowledgeable and experienced, more playful, more expressive, more relaxed, more emotionally present, more genuinely confident (as opposed to fake, macho confident), more open to a wider range of sexual possibilities. And I hope I don’t have to explain how all of that is good for women.

And caring how sexism hurts men is good for women . . . because it advances the cause of feminism.

I passionately believe that feminism will do a whole lot better if we can get more men on board. There is a limit to how far feminism can go if we can’t convince men that there’s something in it for them. People are self-interested; our empathy and altruism and concerns for justice will only take us so far, and for most of us, there’s only so much we’re willing to sacrifice to make the world a better place.

But if we can convince more men that sexism hurts them, too — that patriarchy and rigid gender expectations are making their lives harder, that it’s screwing with their heads, that it’s screwing with their relationships, that it’s placing a burden on their shoulders that’s unfair and unnecessary, that both men and women who aren’t locked into rigid gender roles tend to be happier and more satisfied, that feminists fuck better — feminism is going to get a whole lot further.

And that’s good for all of us.

Greta Christina, copyright © 2010. Be sure to check out Greta’s blog.

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How Sexism Hurts Men: “Undateable”

If you were to read a book, written by men, giving straight women advice on how to turn themselves into acceptable romantic partners — a book consistently advising women to adhere to a rigid, narrow window of traditional gender roles if they hope to find and keep a man — what would be your reaction?

Would your feminist sensibilities be horrified? Would you be writing angry letters to the publisher, or posting angry rants about it on the Internet? Would you mock it as a hilariously campy example of ’50s and ’60s social propaganda . . . and be shocked to realize it had actually been published this year?

So what would you think of a book written by women, giving straight men advice on how to turn themselves into acceptable romantic partners . . . which consistently advises men to adhere to a rigid, narrow window of traditional gender roles if they hope to find and keep a woman?

If you’re a feminist — and I’m going to assume that if you’re a regular reader of the Blowfish Blog, you’re probably a feminist — you’re familiar with how social programming guilt-trips and fear-mongers women into rigid and sexist gender roles. It’s not like it’s hard to find examples of it. It’s freaking everywhere. But I think we’re less familiar with how social programming guilt-trips and fear-mongers men into rigid and sexist gender roles. Our feminist sensibilities aren’t on as much of a hair trigger for male gender-role propaganda. And when this propaganda is subtle, I think we often overlook it.

But we have a magnificently un-subtle version of it in a new book: Undateable: 311 Things Guys Do That Guarantee They Won’t Be Dating or Having Sex. Based on the website of the same name, Undateable is an advice book, funny and snarky but with a sincere intent, about common failings straight men have in the dating department: things men wear and say and do that, without realizing it, make them entirely unacceptable to the opposite sex.

Now, I will admit: Parts of this book are superficially funny, and a fair amount of its advice I agree with. Or rather, since one of my main objections to the book is “Who the hell cares what these women or anyone else thinks, who died and made them the arbiter of manhood?”, it might be more accurate to say: A fair number of these authors’ preferences are ones I share. (I don’t like sandals with socks, either.) But I find a huge amount of this book utterly baffling. Many of its “Don’ts” seem entirely neutral, random to the point of being surreal. Don’t own a van? Don’t play video games? Don’t be lactose intolerant? It’s as if the authors were advising men, for the sweet love of Jesus, whatever else they do, if they want women to date them and have sex with them, don’t eat green beans. And for me, many of the “Don’ts” in this book are actually positive “Do’s.” Making the whole exercise even more perplexing. (I like colored sheets, and body piercings, and guys who go to Star Trek conventions. So sue me.)

Much more to the point, though: Taken together, these 311 pieces of advice on how to forge yourself into a dateable guy paint a picture of acceptable manhood — not idealized manhood, not even desirable manhood, just base-level tolerable manhood — that is so rigid, and so narrow, it rivals anything any woman has ever read in any stupid, shallow, “20 Tips On Catching a Man” women’s magazine. It’s so narrow, Odysseus himself couldn’t navigate through it. It’s so rigid, it’d make the manufacturers of Viagra jealous.

The primary thrust of this book is that men ought to be manly — but not too manly. They can’t be girly or sissy . . . but they can’t be macho gorillas, either. They have to find a perfect, razor-thin window of perfect masculinity. And they somehow have to not be self-conscious or anxious while doing it . . .since that’s not very manly.

This narrow window of masculinity crops up most obviously with the advice about appearance. Men have to not look like they care too much what they look like — but they can’t look like they’ve let themselves go, either, or like they’re entirely unconcerned with how they look. (And they obviously have to care enough about how they look to follow the advice in this book.) Signifiers that we typically think of as female are right out: no jewelry, gelled hair, dyed hair, “man-purses,” “girlie” sunglasses, (the phrase “girlie” crops up in this book with astonishing frequency), etc. In fact, injunctions against femininity are probably the most common in this book — and they’re easily among the most venomous. But signifiers that are too obviously masculine are also nixed: sports jerseys are out, camouflage jackets are out, excessive body hair has to be trimmed, shaved, or waxed. (Except eyebrows and chest. You can’t wax your eyebrows or shave your chest. Just back, neck, nose, and ears.) Jeans can’t be too slobby . . . but they can’t be too tailored or embellished. And no colorful flash — not even Hawaiian shirts. (Quote: “Instead, go with a polo shirt or a long-sleeved, lightweight cotton oxford shirt in white, pale blue, or a mild stripe.” In other words: Boring, boring, boring, boring, boring.)

But the sliver-thin window between “macho gorilla” and “girlie man” applies to behavior as well. Men can’t be bad dancers . . . but they can’t be too good of a dancer, either. They can’t be heavy drinkers . . . but they can’t be lightweights. (And they can’t order “girlie drinks.”) They can’t be aggressive drivers . . . or sissy drivers. They have to exercise . . . but not too much. And they can’t diet. Dieting is girly. I am not fucking kidding you. Quote: “Men are supposed to lose weight by exercising, not by acting like a woman.” Who cares whether it works or not. Although the authors obviously do care whether it works. Being fat is high on their Don’t list. Men can’t be fat. They just can’t manage it by diet. That’s girly. And they have to be assertive and dominant — it’s news to me, but apparently women like men who “TAKE CHARGE” (all-caps theirs) and make all the plans for the date — but not too dominant. And again, not so assertive that they ignore the advice in this book and make their own damn decisions about this stuff.

There are some fascinating exhortations about class in this book as well — exhortations that make the link between class and masculinity vividly clear. In order to be dateable, men have to not give off signifiers that they’re blue-collar or working class. No jacked-up cars; no clothing with skulls or tattoo art; no going to shooting ranges. But at the same time, they can’t be too intellectual or urbane. And no nerdiness at all: no Star Trek conventions; no Dungeons & Dragons or World of Warcraft; no Renaissance Faires. (In other words — nix to practically my entire circle of friends. Most of whom, I might point out, are in relationships. With other Trekkies/ D&D freaks/ Renfaire nerds.) Apparently, ideal manhood — no, strike that, even just barely acceptable manhood — means being comfortably middle-class . . . and staying firmly within that class. No mobility for you, pal. Upward or downward.

Plus the authors of this book are obsessed with money and maleness to an almost comical degree. Men have to pay. Period. They have to pay on the first date; they have to pay on every other date; they can’t use half-off coupons on dinner dates; they have to pay for valet parking. It’s like reading Emily Post from the 1950s. If I might offer my own “Don’t” to the ladies who authored this book: Don’t be freaking hypocrites. Women cannot demand equality and liberation, and then demand that men pay our way. At full price.

And, of course, expressions of sex and sexuality have to be carefully monitored. Men definitely can’t look too sexless. Roughly half the book consists of advice on not seeming sexless. But at the same time, they can’t express their sexuality too overtly. No body piercings; no leather pants; no use of slang terms for masturbation. (Dead giveaway as to the authors’ attitude towards sex: “Not that the word masturbation is so delightful . . .”) And no “prepping for sex.” You know what? I don’t like mirrored ceilings or satin sheets, either. I sure as hell do like men — and women — with dildos, buttplugs, lube, whips, ropes, nipple clamps, bondage cuffs, massage oil, and so on. For me, or for them. Or for both of us. I like men — and women — who care enough about sex to make it a priority in their life. I like men — and women — who honor sex enough to consciously prepare for it, instead of pretending that it sprang on them by accident.

But here was the kicker for me. Here was the “Don’t” that kicked this book up from Mildly Annoying But Sort Of Funny to Prime Example Of Everything That’s Wrong With Gender In Our Society.

If you want to be a dateable man — if you want to be manly enough to deserve a woman (although not too manly!) — you can’t have a cat.

I repeat: You can’t have a cat. Well, you can if it belonged to your dead grandmother, or if you found it on the street and felt sorry for it. But deliberate cat ownership — going to a pet store or a shelter and acquiring a cat on purpose — is verboten.

You can’t have a cat.

You can’t have a CAT?!?!?

What. The. Hell. Is wrong with these people?

What makes them think that masculinity is so delicate, so easily disturbed, that owning a cat will undermine it? What makes them think modern masculinity is so fragile that the entirely normal, even fundamental human activity of loving animals — and the entirely reasonable decision that you like cats better than dogs — puts it into peril? What makes them see this obvious signpost of “nurturing and willing to make a commitment” — qualities that modern straight women are famously looking for in men — as so repulsively feminine it renders men completely unfuckable?

What. The. Hell?

•

Now. I will freely acknowledge: I, and my social circle, are probably not the audience for this book. There’s probably not a big market for books on How To Get Nerdy, Kinky, Non-Monogamously Married Bi-Dyke Sex Freaks To Date You. There is almost certainly a significant population of women — fairly mainstream, fairly conventional, middle-class urban and suburban women — who will read this book, laugh uproariously, and nod in vigorous agreement with everything in it. And there are almost certainly other women who will vigorously agree with parts of this book and vehemently disagree with others . . . agreements and disagreements that will be the complete opposite of my own.

But . . . well, actually, that’s exactly my point. Here’s what my wife Ingrid said when I was ranting to her about this book: “There are a million different ways to be a man, and there are a million different ways to be a woman.” And we each need to find out for ourselves what being a woman or being a man means for us . . . and how we want to express that. Yes, fashion is a language, with a common vocabulary; and yes, we should have a basic familiarity with that language so we can be sure we’re saying what we want to. We don’t want to say the sartorial equivalent of “My hovercraft is full of eels” when we’re trying to say, “Please direct me to the railway station.” Ditto manners. But if we’re going to make contact with people who we, personally, will connect with — people whose feelings about masculinity and femininity are simpatico with our own — we need to have the courage and confidence to say, “Here is who I am” . . . and not, “Here is another sheep in a blue polo shirt who’s insecure about his masculinity and is terrified of being abnormal.”

And you know the weird thing? In theory, the authors of the book actually agree with me. Sort of. In the introduction, before they get to the Litany of Bad Manhood, they say this:

There may be a few of you who read this book and think, Who the hell do these women think they are, telling us what to wear, what to say, and how to act? I’ll do whatever the f*** I want. To that we say, GOOD FOR YOU. Seriously. As one of our guy friends said, “Everyone’s got the right to develop their own swagger.” And we couldn’t agree more. If you love your bowling shirts and think your pinkie rings are hot, then keep wearing them and tell us to go jam it. Because in the end, what women really love is a guy who knows what he likes and has the balls to stick to it. So guys, listen closely, because this is what you really need to know:

THERE IS NOTHING SEXIER THAN A MAN WITH CONFIDENCE.

Okay. Fine.

So why the hell did they write this book?

Why do they tell men to develop their own swagger . . . and then spend 184 pages describing the exceedingly narrow window in which that swagger can take place?

Why do they tell men to be themselves, do what they like, and tell the world to stuff it . . . and then write a 184-page how-to manual for anxious self-consciousness, describing in detail how the things men like are appalling?

Why do they tell men to have confidence . . . which they then spend 184 pages undermining?

I have no idea.

But then, I’m obviously an idiot.

After all, I like men with cats.

Greta Christina, copyright © 2010. Be sure to check out Greta’s blog.

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On Intimacy

What does intimacy mean?

And how can it be reached?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about sexual intimacy. I wrote about it in my recent exegesis on masochism; I wrote about it in my review of the Japanese movie about the blow-up sex doll. I’ve been thinking about what sexual intimacy is, and how it’s different from sex. And I’ve been thinking about why it’s often so elusive . . . and what we can do to create it.

I think there’s a paradox in creating sexual intimacy. Or maybe just a balance. On the one hand, intimacy can’t be forced. You can’t make someone open up to you; I’m not sure you can even make yourself open up. Moments of connection — moments of feeling present with someone else, and feeling them present with you; moments of feeling the world fall away leaving only the two of you (or the three of you, or six, or whatever); moments where the chattering in your brain quiets down and your anxieties about the future and regrets about the past fade into the mist and all you’re aware of is the time and place you’re experiencing together right now; moments of looking up from whatever pleasures you’re engaged in and making eye contact and feeling yourself shining out through your eyes, and feeling your partner shining out through theirs; moments of knowing with an almost telepathic certainty exactly where and how your partner wants to be stroked/ licked/ hit/ whatever — these don’t happen because you will them to. In fact, in an important (albeit irritating) paradox, trying to force these moments usually has the exact opposite effect. Trying to force them will chase them away. One of the whole points of intimacy is that it means letting things be what they are: letting your partner be who they are, letting yourself be who you are, being present with each other as you are. Trying to force intimacy is the exact opposite of that.

But at the same time, intimacy doesn’t happen without work. It takes work to listen carefully to what your partner wants . . . whether they’re saying it in words, or without words. It takes work to let go of expectations, and to let experiences and people be what they are. It takes work to let go of anxieties and regrets, and let the present moment be what it is. It takes work to let go of self-consciousness and overthinking; to put a gag and a blindfold on the detached observer in your head who’s constantly sitting back offering running commentary on your life, and to just let yourself fucking well experience your life already. (She said bitterly, knowing way the hell too much about this one.)

And while a huge part of intimacy is letting things be, that isn’t the same as being passive. Part of letting things be is letting yourself be — and part of letting yourself be is being willing to put yourself out into the world. Asking for what you want; being honest about what your partner wants and how you feel about that; letting yourself not only feel what you feel but express those feelings . . . all of that’s a huge part of intimacy. It isn’t just about being open to your partner. It’s about being someone your partner can be open to. If you don’t put your sexual self into the world, there won’t be anyone there for your partner to connect with. Like I wrote in my review of “Air Doll”: With nothing to give but a constant flow of “After you, my dear Alphonse,” there’s no possibility for intimacy. There’s nobody to be inside; nobody to go inside the other. Intimacy requires both selfishness and selflessness. It requires the willingness to be one’s self . . . and the willingness to let the other person’s self be.

So where is that balance between control and laziness? Where is the balance between trying to force sexual intimacy, and passively lying back waiting for it to happen?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. (I’m still thinking about it, by the way, so if you have ideas about this, please speak up in the comments!) And the concept that keeps coming to mind is readiness.

I don’t think we can make intimate sexual moments happen. As my Facebook friend Elin said when we were talking about last week’s masochism piece: “That’s one of the really exciting (and maddening) things about sex, isn’t it . . . getting completely in the moment and then one second later realizing you’re completely in the moment . . . at which point, of course, you’re not anymore. ” That’s what I was getting at a few paragraphs ago when I said that intimacy can’t be forced, or captured and preserved. Trying to force it chases it away; trying to capture it makes it slip through our fingers.

I don’t think we can make intimate moments happen. But I think we can make ourselves ready for them to happen. And I think we can work to make ourselves open to them when they do happen. I think we can work to be better at both speaking and listening, laying the foundation of knowledge that makes those “seems like telepathy” experiences possible. I think we can work at talking about our fantasies . . . and we can work at letting the reality of acted-out fantasies be different from the fantasies themselves. I think we can work to accept the rhythm of consciousness and un-self-consciousness; the rhythm of being in the moment, and being aware of being in the moment which takes us out of the moment . . . and then being in the moment again. I think we can work to educate ourselves about basic sexual anatomy, and male/ female/ human sexual response. I think we can work to educate ourselves about the varieties of human sexual desires and experiences: not just so we can be ready when our partner proposes one, but so we can be more relaxed and at-ease with sex generally. I think we can work on being willing to take risks, and being willing to accept the hurt and disappointment that sometimes come with taking risks. I think we can work to take care of our health, to eat well and exercise and get enough sleep and so on, so our bodies are ready to do the sexual things we want them to. I think we can work to take care of our mental health, to reduce stress and make sure we get enough time to ourselves and so on, so our minds and hearts are excited at the prospect of intimate sexual connection, and not just exhausted or overwhelmed by it. I think we can work to keep our promises about sex, laying a foundation of trust. I think we can do work on ourselves that helps get us out of our fucking heads for five minutes already. Etc.

And I think we can work to make ourselves ready for intimacy — even when we don’t expect it. Sexual intimacy can happen in all sorts of circumstances. It can happen in hours-long sessions of lovemaking; it can happen in ten-minute quickies. It can happen when your body is thrust deep inside your partner’s, or vice versa: it can happen over the phone, or in letters or emails, when you’re miles apart. It doesn’t even have to happen in long-term relationships. It is certainly the case — at least in my experience — that sexual intimacy is often a lot easier in long-term relationships. Good ones, anyway, ones with a solid foundation of closeness and trust, ones where the sex isn’t just about the sex but is about the life you share together. But I’ve had sex in long-term relationships that was essentially an exchange of sexual favors, a “You do me and I’ll do you” tit for tat of physical sensation. And I’ve been bent over the lap of someone I barely knew, and felt them stop spanking me and put their hand on my back, and felt the sudden, slap-me-awake shock of real human connection. A connection that, for whatever reason, we were both ready for.

And finally — well, finally for today anyway, these ideas are definitely a work in progress and none of this is my final conclusion — I think we can work to accept and embrace yet another paradox of sexual intimacy . . . and be okay when it doesn’t happen.

Sometimes sex is just sex: pleasurable, delightful, orgasmic, and just plain old good clean dirty fun. And that’s wonderful. That, just by itself, is entirely worthwhile and valuable. Being disappointed in yourself and in each other when sex isn’t an intense intimate connection . . . that’s an almost ironclad guarantee that the intense intimate connection isn’t going to happen. Being willing to enjoy the pure, animal pleasures of sex — and being willing to share that pleasure and experience it together — is one of the ways we can make ourselves ready for those moments of intense connection to sneak up on us without warning.

Greta Christina, copyright © 2010. Be sure to check out Greta’s blog.

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Harder

Do other masochists run into this conundrum?

If so — how do you deal with it?

There’s a kinky paradox I run into sometimes. It’s entertaining, but it’s also a little frustrating at times, and I’m wondering how other people deal with it.

Here’s what it is.

Sometimes when I bottom, I just want it to feel good. I physically enjoy pain — certain kinds of pain under certain circumstances, anyway — and the sensations and endorphins and whatnot are just pure sexual fun. It’s like eating very spicy food: it’s a complicated pleasure, but it is a pleasure, and my body processes it as such.

But sometimes, when I bottom, I want it to hurt.

I mean, really hurt.

I want it to hurt harder than I want.

Real pain — pain that’s genuinely hard to take, pain that hurts harder than I like — is what makes me feel helpless, and out of control. It’s what gets me tapped into my fantasies of non-consent; it’s what gets me feeling like what’s happening is being forced on me against my will. Or, at other times (actually, sometimes at the same time, which is weird and contradictory but I’m not going to worry about that too much), pain that hurts harder than I like is what makes me feel submissive. It’s what gets me feeling like I’ve put myself into my partner’s hands: like I don’t belong to myself any more, and have given myself away as a gift, to be used and played with at my partner’s whim.

All of which is awesome. All of which I like very much, in a way that’s very different, and in many ways more intense, than the relatively simple, easy- to- take, endorphin-y fun stuff.

But here’s the paradox.

Because I like being hurt harder than I like . . . do you see where I’m going with this?

Because I like being hurt harder than I like, that means that I like it. And when I like it, it isn’t harder than I like any more.

There are a couple of ways that this paradox plays out. One is largely physical. If my partner is hurting me harder than I like, and I ride it out — if, instead of struggling with it or safewording or giving off my “this is too hard” body language, I sink into that submissive “do with me what you will” state and just go with it — then I can (often) get to a place where the “harder than I like” level of pain actually feels good. Maybe it’s just the endorphins kicking into high gear or something . . . but I can get to a place where a difficult, seriously painful, “this is fucking hard” level of pain gets transformed into “pure sexual fun.” Albeit on a more intense level.

But then, as soon as the “harder than I want” level of pain becomes “pure sexual fun,” it stops being harder than I want.

And I want it to be harder than I want.

Hence, the paradox.

The other way this paradox plays out is almost purely mental. Again: A lot of the reason I want to be hurt harder than I want is that it gets me into a particular emotional state: a state where I feel helpless, out of control, like my desires don’t matter and I’m just a toy in my partner’s hands. I like these emotional states. I get off on them.

But as soon as I start letting myself experience the erotic pleasure of force and submission and being a helpless fuck toy . . . then, paradoxically, it gets harder to lose myself in the fantasy that it’s against my will. It becomes harder to forget that I negotiated it, orchestrated it, possibly even begged for it. Pain that’s harder than I want it to be catapults me into this experience that I very much want.

And I want it to be harder than I want.

And once again — paradox.

There’s an infinite regress quality to this paradox as well. Once I’ve adjusted to the higher, harder level of pain, once the pain that was harder than I like has become pain that I just like . . . the obvious way out of the paradox, at least temporarily, is to go even harder. But there’s an obvious law of diminishing returns to that. Just like there’s some spicy food that’s just too fucking spicy, so spicy it’s actively unpleasant and even inedible, there’s a level of pain that I really and truly do not like and cannot tolerate. I’m obviously not going to let my arm get broken or something just so I can keep dialing up the heat.

So I’m thinking about what it is that I’m looking for here — what the actual crux of the “harder than I like” experience is.

Some of this conundrum, of course, has to do with the difference between fantasy and reality. Real pain in your body feels rather different from pretend pain imagined or re-created in your brain. In my masochistic whack-off fantasies, when I’m somebody’s helpless fuck toy being hurt harder than I think I can take and having to take it anyway . . . it doesn’t actually, physically hurt. Actual pain does actually hurt. It’s complicated, it’s challenging. It’s, you know, painful. And when actual pain is harder than I like, it’s . . . well, it’s harder than I like. Fantasy pain, even “harder than I want it” fantasy pain, always feels exactly how I want it to feel. Both physically and emotionally.

But there’s more to it than that. If this were just about the difference between the reality of erotic pain and the fantasy of it, then erotic pain would be strictly in my “like to fantasize about it/ don’t actually like to do it” category. And that’s clearly not the case. There’s real pleasure here, and real connection, and real, deep satisfaction, in the actual, physical, real-world pain. Including, and in some ways especially, pain that’s harder than I like.

I’m still thinking this one through, and if people have thoughts or insights about it from their own experience, I’d very much like to hear them. But I have a partial, provisional theory.

I think at least part of this phenomenon has to do with that moment of dropping.

I think the “liking it harder than I like it” experience I’m talking about is the moment of dropping from struggle to surrender. It’s the moment when I stop hanging on to control, and let myself drop into my partner’s hands. It’s the moment when my body drops into the endorphin bath my brain is generating. It’s the moment when I let go of trying to make the world go the way I want it to, and let myself drop into experiencing the world as it is. It’s the moment when I go over the top of the rollercoaster, and drop into the long, fast fall.

But that moment of dropping is just that: a moment. It’s almost impossible to create on purpose: all we can do is put ourselves, and one another, into a state where we’re open to it. And kind of by definition, a moment of dropping can’t be sustained. What with it being a moment and all.

Again, I think part of the conundrum here has to do with the difference between fantasy and reality. In my fantasies, I can experience that moment of dropping, that soaring rise up over the top of the rollercoaster . . . whenever I want, and as often as I want. And I can stretch that moment out for as long as I want.

In reality, though, these moments are more elusive. They’re a whole fucking lot more intense than they are in fantasy, what with them being real and all. But they can’t be forced. We can create conditions where they’re more likely to happen, but trying to force them will actually chase them away, and trying to capture and keep them will make them slip through our fingers. Moments when we feel alive, conscious, present in the world and in the moment and with one another . . . those are rare, hard to create and harder to sustain.

But it sure is fun to try.

Greta Christina, copyright © 2010. Be sure to check out Greta’s blog.

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