In Bed With Married Women

Curse You, O Tepid Sex

2012-01-26T14:15:00.000-08:00

From out there among you comes this tragic missive from dear reader Just Jack in response to Nicole Daedone's steamy-ass essay For Purposes of Example, This is the Best Fuck of My Life.*

Best post ever. And ultimately the most depressing to read and realize... my best years, where only a few precious moments were like Nicole's description (only from a dude's POV) were before age 21. 20+ yrs later, it's galling and terminally depressing to know, I will never again experience such a thing. Rather than wonder WTH I did wrong to marry a woman who has utterly no concept of any of this stuff... I'll just go back to work and be another walking dead 40-something dude. *puts bag on head and shambles off*

Ugh, so completely sad and horrible! And so... just... true. There's a certain particular hideousness to sexual loneliness within a marriage that is its own private torture. I mean, it's not really the kind of thing that people talk to each other about, despite it being, I think, quite common.

Witness this Twitter response--I won't identify the writer so as to not get him in trouble with the wife--to My Wife's Body by Anonymous Husband: "Sad post for me because I adore my wife but we have never had sexual chemistry and I feel that way about her being but not her body."

So.

The problem here is a partner who is nice enough, a loving parent and all that, but they just don't...well...get sex. Or there is no chemistry. Mainly, and most depressingly, there is a completely upsetting lack of the kind of soul-shaking, hot mind/body fuckery that makes life worth living and whatnot.

Hmmm..... Well, when I am right in the middle of a good bitch session, my friend Leah is fond of saying pointedly, "Okay, we have identified the problem. Now let's work on solutions!" This sort of makes me want to punch her, because I do so enjoy complaining, but the girl has a point. So solutions. Anyone?

I mean, what's Jack to do? I somehow think that putting a bag on his head and shambling off--while being convenient as well as inexpensive--probably isn't the best solution here.

But can you teach someone passion? Can you create chemistry where none lives? Is it wrong to yearn for the kind of transcendent, universe pulsing sex that makes your whole body shake?

I have no clear solutions today--sorry Miss Leah--but I will offer you two routes that readers have taken. I neither endorse nor condemn either. Anyone who's making an honest, clear-headed effort to find workable solutions is okay in my book.

The first is from reader Noelle (not even close to her real name) who, faced with a sexless marriage and an uninterested husband, finally gave up and started having anonymous affairs during business trips. You can read about it here in Noelle: Finding Sex Outside Her (Practically) Sexless Marriage.

The second is from reader Liza who somehow managed to break a 10 year fuck-less marital stretch so definitively that her blog Always Each Other is pretty much a lovingly pornish detailing of the various and sundry ways she and her husband have their sweet sweet way with each other.**

Anyway, you there! You clearly have it all together, do you not? What say you to Jack and everyone else in this situation?

Place bag on head and forge ahead? Light sexual fire under reluctant spouse's ass? (Caution: use metaphorical fire only.) Say "fuck it" to social mores and possibly a fine-enough marriage by banging someone hot on the side? Go it alone with a willing hand and good memories? Channel unfulfilled lust into excessive interest in scrapbooking?

I thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.

xoxox
jill

*In the essay, Daedone--the gorgeous teacher/practitioner of Orgasmic Meditation (a practice which sounds about a thousand times more fun than focusing on your breath)--describes a really really good fuck. There were hugely swollen body parts, soaking wetness, something about a honey blanket orgasm. Whatever. The #$%$ was good.

** What the hell happened? According to Liza, "I don't know exactly when the buildup began, but sometime early last year I started to have...feelings. And then I felt like reading sexy stuff. And then I wanted to touch myself again." Liza also makes passing mention of a "medical procedure" that helped with things. More info on that if she answers the rudely nosy email I sent her.

(photo source)

The Princess Who Couldn't Come

2012-01-19T13:38:00.000-08:00

Hi there, sweet thing. Would you like to hear a fairy tale today? Okay, I'll tell you one, but beware, like all fairy tales, there is something relatively horrific in it.

It's not as bad as dear little Hansel and Gretel violently shoving a witch into a hot oven or the Three Little Pigs boiling the Big Bad Wolf alive. ("And as the wolf felt his flesh sear, he howled in the throes of the very deepest agony, while the pigs did a happy little dance and shouted 'Hooray!' Good night kids, sweet dreams....").

But it does involve--and please know that I can barely stand to type this--surgery to move the clitoris. Surgery to move the clitoris two times, after a first unsuccessful surgery. Primitive early 1900s surgery, which I suspect probably involved an ice pick, a rusty hook and unlicensed mesmerism.

Anyway, let us begin with our tale, shall we?

There was once a beautiful (enough) princess named Marie Bonaparte. Even though she was a great-niece of Napoleon and a princess and all, she wasn't happy because well, my friends, poor Marie couldn't have an orgasm.

Part of this probably had to do with the unfortunate (for her, at least) fact that her husband, Prince George of Greece, was a latent homosexual. According to Mary Roach in her completely delightful book Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, the bad marital sex kicked off on their wedding night. In Marie's diary, she wrote that George mounted her "in a short brutal gesture, as if forcing [himself]...and apologized "I hate it as much as you do. But we must do it if we want children."

But Marie was a plucky sort and was determined to come. She decided she would solve her problem by taking other lovers. Several of them. But they too left her cold. Finally, she tried the most decidedly non-Princess-like move of putting her delicate fingers between her own legs, and found that lo! she could come!

Our plucky princess was also scientifically-minded and, though most of her blood by now busy throbbing desperately through her unfulfilled loins, she still had enough brain power to come up with a hypothesis. Perhaps, she thought, her problem was that her clitoris was too far from her vagina.

A royal experiment was in order. The princess found 243 willing subjects, asked them about their sex lives and somehow convinced them to let her measure the distance between their clitoris and vagina, or C-V distance. In 1924 she published her findings under the pseudonym A.E. Narjani because then, as it probably still is, Princesses don't go around sticking rulers between other women's legs and talking about it. According to this "Narjani":

--21% of women had a C-V distance of more than an inch (that translates to 2.5 centimeters for those of you in progressive countries that have somehow managed to grasp the intricacies of the metric system.). These women couldn't have an orgasm via vaginal intercourse, or did only rarely. The Princess termed them teleclitoridiennes. As Roach writes: "Teleclitoridienne means simply 'female of the distant clitoris,' but it had a lovely, aristocratic ring to it--calling to mind a career women in heels and a sweater set, cabling reports from her home in Biarritz. At the very least, it had a nicer ring to it than 'frigid.'"

--69% were paraclitoridiennes, with a C-V distance of less than an inch. These lucky-ass women were much more likely to have orgasms with vaginal intercourse.

--10% were mesoclitoridiennes, with a C-V distance of exactly an inch. These women might come...or might not, depending on a variety of factors (gay husband using "short, brutal gesture" VS. delightfully hot lover using torturously languid gestures + memories of recently seen Rudolph Valentio movie.)

The Princess's research gibes with modern data that finds that there is indeed a correlation between C-V distance and ease of orgasm during the deed. BUT, despite what porn films show and show and show, no way are 69% of modern women coming via regular ol' P in V sex. According to ABC News (and I must say it is pleasing to me to see ABC News using the phrase "sex toys, hands or tongue"):

About 75 percent of all women never reach orgasm from intercourse alone -- that is without the extra help of sex toys, hands or tongue. And 10 to 15 percent never climax under any circumstances.

But back to our story. Marie, perhaps her thinking clouded by unresolved lust, decided that the best cure for her condition was to have her clitoris surgically moved.

And when this didn't work, she tried surgery a-fucking-gain! Which also didn't work.

BUT this tale has a happy ending (and can for you as well, if you're a sweater set-wearing teleclitoridiennes.) Marie finally figured out some twisty Kama Sutra-ish positions, unfortunately lost to the ages, that did indeed get her off.

And our little Princess came and came and lived happily ever after.

P.S. There is a trick to discovering your C-V distance. An inch just happens to be the distance between the tip of your thumb and your first knuckle. So, if you measure using this "rule of thumb"... Oh...you left already?

xoxo
jill

(photo: Albert Arthur Allen, 1929, source) Note: This is actually not a photo of Marie Bonaparte, but c'mon, the chick looks unsatisfied and she's wearing a friggin' crown. I HAD to use it.

The Little Penis Inside You. Not what you think.

2012-01-12T12:44:00.000-08:00

Ask me about my penis!

Janet and I were talking about the last post on how freaking huge a woman's clitoris actually is and she says, "Oh right, the little penis inside you."

I loved this phrase because it sounds so girls-only 7th grade health class. Like, after an uncomfortable and uninformative talk about fallopian tubes and such, the girls would file past the gym teacher, averting their eyes as she hands them each a pamphlet with the words "The Little Penis Inside You" written in swirly tampon ad font. Said brochure would be quickly shoved to the bottom of one's backpack, only to be retrieved for furtive study once in the privacy of one's own room.

Since you probably haven't yet received your pamphlet, I feel compelled to show you this "Clitoral cross section" photo from Wikipedia because it looks exactly like a little penis. So much so that, to be quite honest, it sort of freaks me out. Behold:

Umm, should it be bending down like that?

(I especially like that that one part is unhelpfully labeled "skin." Like the labeler got tired of being so damn specific all the time and thought, "Fuck it. I'm just putting 'skin' and going home.")

If you're feeling brave and want to see a video of this, this...little penis inside turning into what I can only describe as a lady boner, click here for Ed-Sim's sexy sexy video on "clitoral vascularization." (note: The video keeps going after you think it's over.)

"According to the sexual response cycle, during the excitement stage, the body (shaft) of the clitoris begins to fill with blood and increase in size," it reads. Whew! Is it hot in here?

I'm not yet sure how I am going to deal with this new information. I kind of don't like the idea that I have a little penis inside of me, although it does explain some past decisions I made. You know, thinking with my little penis and all that.

Also feeling slightly less ladylike than usual and hoping my boob-hugging shirt will negate the effects of this post. Look, boobs! I'm a girl!

xoxoxo
jill

(photo: wicked knickers)

Okay, then, Smartypants, name this body part

2012-01-10T12:11:00.000-08:00

Go on, take a guess.... I'll wait.

That, my friends, is the full structure of the female clitoris*--including the extensive internal parts. Yes, the clitoris has internal parts! Extensive ones! Am I the only one who didn't know this? I thought a clit was a tiny button there on the outside--the end. For 46-friggin'-years (many of them, to be fair, non-friggin' years), I've been walking around ignorant of my own damn anatomy.

I could choose to wallow in shame over this, but I'm not gonna be too hard on myself because a) I generally cut myself ~~way too much~~ a lot of slack and b) practically no one knows this stuff.

We should have been learning about our extensive clititude way back in 1844 when Georg Ludwig Kobelt published his seminal (though that is undoubtedly the wrong word) clit research in Die männlichen und weiblichen Wollust-Organe des Menschen und einiger Säugetiere (The Male and Female Organs of Sexual Arousal in Man and some other Mammals).

Kobelt discovered a bunch of highly useful info--that, ahem, science, would have been NICE TO KNOW--like: clitorises (the whole extensive lot) become erect when aroused, and have all sorts of parts that you (and by "you," I mean "me") never even heard of like crura, bulbs and other clitorally-related new words I will probably not be incorporating into my sexy talk. "Oh my God! My clitoral vestibule is sooo hot for you."

Although maybe I should be talking vestibules and such. If you're a guy and plan to be sliding your manhood into her sweet feminine folds, you actually do want her clitoral vestibule, as well as her two corpora cavernosa, to be hot for you. When these parts are erect, they'll tighten quite nicely around you.

According to the anatomical explanation in this article on the Museum of Sex blog which I could barely understand without consulting the drawing frequently:

Most of the clitoris is subterranean. The glans is connected to the body or shaft of the internal clitoris, which is made up of two corpora cavernosa. When erect, the corpora cavernosa encompass the vagina on either side, as if they were wrapping around it giving it a big hug! Near each of the crura on either side of the vaginal opening are the clitoral vestibules. These are internally under the labia majora. When they become engorged with blood they actually cuff the vaginal opening causing the vulva to expand outward. Get these puppies excited, and you’ve got a hungrier, tighter-feeling vaginal opening in which to explore!

If you're feeling sciencey, I highly recommend you have a look at Helen E. O'Connell's Anatomy of the Clitoris in the Journal of Urology. (Important caveat: article contains photos with such labels as "Fig. 2. Lateral view of dissected clitoris in fresh cadaver of 57 year-old post menopausal woman." Which, as a sentence, contains a surprisingly high amount of unpleasant imagery.)

"The tale of the clitoris is a parable of culture, of how the body is forged into a shape valuable to civilization despite and not because of itself," writes O'Connell.

In the oddly enjoyable article (Journal of Urology, who knew you were such a good read?), O'Donnell rails against the medical establishment for not providing decent diagrams and accurate info on clits--a "blinkered approach," she writes. (A blinkered approach that still exists.) She also describes the history of clitorical research with its ever-changing ideas about what goes on between a woman's legs, and the comical regularly that men throughout history have claimed to "discover" the clit, each one giving it names, culumella (little pillar), sedes libidinis (seat of lust) and landica (shhh, Latin profanity!)

In the 1500's, Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius disagreed with Falloppia (yes, he of the tubes) that "healthy women" had a clitoris and wrote: "It is unreasonable to blame others for incompetence on the basics of some sport of nature you have observed in some women and you can hardly ascribe this new and useless part, as if it were an organ, to healthy women." (On a related note: I can find no mention of a Mrs. Vesalius.)

So why isn't anyone bothering to tell us this stuff? It sure would explain a whole fuck of a lot and clear up the vaginal vs. clitoral orgasm debates, what a G-spot is, etc... I mean, it seems like it's all just stimulation of various parts of the clitoris. Right? That said, I do think that orgasms feel different depending on what spot is being stimulated. An orgasm from the G-spot area, or cruca or whatever the fuck we're calling it today, really does seem deeper and richer to me than the more tinny, shallow feel of a clit only orgasm.

And...I can't believe I just wrote that sentence. I am writing to complete strangers (and worse, people I know) and describing the color and tenor of my orgasms. That, my friends, means it is so time for me to go today.

However, if you want to weigh in on matters orgasmic, bring it on. You know I like it when you talk like that to me.

xoxo
jill

* Is it CLIToris or CliTORis? According to Wikipedia, which offers audio pronunciations so you can hear the words, each is correct. So use them both as you please! Wikipedia also offers a pronunciation guide for the UK version, /ˈklaɪtɒrɨs/, which is completely non-helpful gibberish to me, and sadly, does not come with a corresponding audio version. Because my inner 5th grader would really really like to hear a crisp British voice intoning patiently, /ˈklaɪtɒrɨs/.

For more IBWMW info on orgasms (or, in light of new developments, possible misinformation):

How to Have A G-Spot Orgasm

Did You Know There Are Three Types of Orgasms? Yes, Three.

In Search of the Elusive Third Type of Orgasm

(images)

"For purposes of example, this is the best fuck of my life"--Nicole Daedone in "On Fucking"

2012-01-03T09:58:00.000-08:00

"Rule number one. You are not going to enter her until her pussy is dripping, until the walls have caved in because they are so swollen and fat. Until you can no longer hold your body away, where it feels like there is this undertow so strong that you cannot resist."

So advises Nicole Daedone in On Fucking, a piece on how, exactly, to enflame a woman's desire. (Note: "pussy is dripping" = you're probably doin' okay.)

Daedone, author of Slow Sex: The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm, is a proponent, instigator and teacher of OM, or Orgasmic Meditation. Here's the Wikipedia entry, but basically, OM is a practice in which clarity, mindfulness, in-touchness with the universe and all that is reached through extremely focused touch. Specifically, the touch of a partner's hand slowly and rhythmically stroking a woman's clitoris in a particular way. Sessions last 15 minutes and the goal is not orgasm, but rather heightened sexual awareness. And, as it turns out, having someone lavish attention on this particular body part for 15 minutes is extremely effective at heightening sexual awareness.

Daedone seeks to whip up the kind of desire that's not just "Sure, a quickie sounds good," but rather, "I want you so bad I can't see straight and if you don't fuck me this very instant I might possibly die."

OM practitioners can experience intense, deeper, more fuckier fucks, with fat, swollen body parts (see above) coupled with equally fat, swollen desire, a finely tuned awareness of...oh...god...how damn good it all is, plus your general transcendence and whatnot.

"I can fuck and have it feel like not only is his cock moving inside of me, but something deeper, like this magnetic cock is fucking me. Ultimately that is what I am looking for. Anything less is disappointing," writes Daedone.

Magnetic cock, eh? That sounds pretty good....I think. If nothing else, it would certainly come in handy were I to be vacuuming in the nude, trip and accidentally lose something metal up the wang.

But perhaps we should hear some more. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Ms. Nicole Daedone and this excerpt from "On Fucking":

I am going to tell you a story about a perfect storm of sex.

Remember I am a crazy immersive kind of person, you do not need to try this at home, but my teachers suggested that I just om. No sucking, fucking or stroking cock.

There grew to be this attraction with this guy that was like iron shards to a magnet. When he entered a room my body just moved to him. It had reached the level where it was chemical. He was actually fairly what at the time I considered cruel. He would do things like sit down to stroke my genitals and then say, nope you aren’t turned on enough. What? Yep. Just not feeling it. First I wanted to kill him. Then I wanted to eat him.

At the same time when I really was turned on he would walk up to me and say now, lie down. And he would stroke me into the deepest places I had ever been in my life.

He had this kind of attention that was so attuned that – whereas I normally would be yelling at a guy, no a little to the left, to the right! – with him I would think it and he would move there, or exceed my expectations and go to a place I hadn’t even realized existed. And all he did were these little strokes and I was like a ducking, are you my boyfriend.

For two and a half of those three and a half years I was dying for it. I needed to have sex. He’d say, I am sure we will…but only when you have made it irresistible. Irresistable? Irresistable? So I would beg and plead and demand and cry and every time he would say…almost. I’d threaten to have sex with someone else and he would say I wish you the best.

I hated him. I wanted him.

At the same time, it was funny, there was this background chatter. It’s embarrassing to admit. He was not the right guy. I was totally ambivalent when I would be rational.

And so my mind screamed no, my head screamed yes.

And there was this element of power. I was always accustomed to being in control. I would put out the “sex is in” sign and they would line up. Not him. I felt oddly at his mercy. I would find myself actually begging him.

I would lie in bed and yearn for him.

And then one day, something overtook me. It overthrew my rational mind. I didn’t care how tall he was, I didn’t care that I would be breaking the rules, I didn’t fear that it might not be as good as I dreamed, I didn’t care that I felt like a desperate animal.

This thing inside me was going to fuck him and that was that.

At the moment I realized it he entered the room. I simply said “now” and he took off his pants.

My body was a live wire. His hand brushed my stomach it I felt like 10,000 nerve endings fired. When he kissed me, it felt like the end of two wires came together and sparked. Everything was heightened. I could smell the detergent on the sheets, the Casablanca lilies, his saliva had this sweet salty taste, the sound of his breath sounded like an ocean.

And then he entered me and it was like he was entering every single cell of my body. I could feel him in the tips of my fingers, in my hair follicles there was no part of me that was not being penetrated by him.

Prior to oming, to having all this blood rush down to my pussy, my pussy had been sort of concave. It was like this. But having this much blood pushing down on the walls made it convex. The walls were rubbing up against themselves. Where it had felt quite honestly like a man was kind of batting around in there beating up against this cave it now felt like my pussy had become this velvet glove that wrapped around his cock. My clit had also dropped down from the weight, so that however he stroked, wherever he stroked with his cock, my clit rubbed up against it. It felt like there was no part of me that was not being fucked. And because of this, this feeling of what I can only call orgasm wrapped around both of us like we were in this honey blanket. Like I could lick this feeling off his face like nectar. It was that thick.

That was my first totally surrendered fuck. After that there was a line permanently drawn in the sand between what I had thought fucking was and what I discovered what sex really is.

Well, gentle reader, have you have lickable honey blanket sex like this? Whole mind/body fuckery, magnetic cocks and so forth? Any other general thoughts? (And for further learnin', you can check out Daedone's TED video, Orgasm, the Cure for Hunger in the Western Woman.)

xoxoxo
jill

* p.s. It gives me undue pleasure that my computer has a file labeled "On Fucking."

In Non-Sexual News

2011-12-28T11:23:00.000-08:00

What? You're still reading? Did you misread the headline? It says NON-sexual. Okay, then, you fucking diehard. You're here now. You may as well listen to the rest.

So this morning, I awoke to discover that a delightful reader, T.P. of Putney, Vermont, donated money to the blog. T.P. had never written, commented or in any way made it known that he read and/or liked the blog. But yesterday, T.P. took 4 minutes out of his day (or perhaps 4 minutes out of his evening of drunken Internet donating), pressed buttons, filled out a quick form, and donated some of his own money.

And, damn, it if hasn't made my fucking day.

Outright donations like that of dear T.P. of Putney, Vermont, are exceedingly rare. (I know! Total shock, right? For such top-of-the-line content delivered right to your fucking door. To your fucking door!) Such random donations are so rare that when it does happen, I get filled with love for humanity and life and writing, and I wish to honor the donor somehow. To let them know that their act made a huge difference, gave me the will to live, and whatnot.

My question to you, dear reader, is how should I do that? When a few people donated last month after the post on Google dropping my ass because of my supposed "adult content" (damn, just thinking about it makes me mad AGAIN. We are adults talking about adult things! Not frickin' perverts raping kids behind the school. Fuck! Can't grown people discuss something as innate to being human as.... Crap. I'm sorry, what were we talking about?)

Oh yes, so when those people donated, I wrote them each an email thank you note, but then afterwards, I wondered if that seemed a little skeevy*. After all, the internet is largely an anonymous medium. You don't want someone you've been arguing with over at the Huffington Post showing up at your door to finish the debate. So the whole thank you note thing--I don't know. (If you are one of the people who received such a note, please feel free to let me know--skeevy or not.)

I was also thinking of creating a permanent Supporters of In Bed With Married Women wall of fame/sidebar thing for the blog, but, I'm unsure about this too. After all, donating to a smutty** blog is not the same as bequeathing your estate to the local children's library. Do people really want to be listed publicly as a supporter of IBWMW? Fuck, maybe they do. A lot of people read this thing and you all might be heartened to know that you're not the only sick fuck sweatily entering the IBWMW URL when no one else is home. No, you're part of a community of sick fucks sweatily entering the.... Actually, from what I've seen of the lot of you, you are with a few notable exceptions, smart, funny, lively, perceptive and delightful citizens of the world.

So my question is this: How should I honor/thank donors? Wall of Fame, skeevy thank you note, or some other, much better solution I haven't yet thought of? I bow to your collective wisdom.

*Not actually sure if "skeevy" is a word. If it's not, invent a definition for it as you see fit.
**Or worse, PORNOGRAPHIC blog, as judged (ever so harshly) by Google.

(photo source)

On the Benefits of Someone Who Can Kiss The Hell Out of You

2011-12-24T13:35:00.000-08:00

The other day at the grocery store, a man came up to me and said, "You must know that you smell incredible." "Uh, thanks," I murmured because, in truth, it was all I could do to tamp down my geeky impulse to add, in a manner reminiscent of a female Mister Peabody: "Ah, you are responding to biological clues in my scent. Most likely you are detecting a favorable genetic similarity between us--although not too much similarity, as that would encourage genetic mutations in our young. All this sensory information is telling you we are probably well-suited to bear healthy, symmetrical young with a balanced assortment of genes."

It is impulses like these that make me glad I am already married. As Dorothy Parker said, "Men seldom make passes at girls who say nerdy &%$# like that."

So it was with trepidation that I started studying the biochemistry of kissing. Because as any formerly religious person can tell you, there's nothing like a little science to ruin a wondrous, magical thing.

"Soul meets soul on lovers' lips," said Percy Bysshe Shelley in Prometheus Unbound. A truly good kiss does feel like the meeting of souls -- maybe it's because so much is happening in a kiss. Helen Fisher, author of Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love, calls kissing a "mate assessment tool" and says, "When you kiss, you can touch, see, feel, taste somebody. A huge part of our brain lights up." Feeling someone's breath upon us or inhaling the scent of their neck is lovely in its own right, but also provides us clues as to each other's health, diet, and genetic make-up. In other words, it makes good biological sense to mate with the one whose kisses make you weak in the knees.

So why is kissing the right person so damn good? Well, darling, those sweet kisses are making you crazy with a triple hormone combo that increases your sex drive (testosterone), makes you think pair bonding with this person is a fine idea (oxytocin) and causes you to be all sappy and prone to the excessive playing of Iron and Wine CDs (serotonin). In a 2007 study, researcher Wendy Hill compared the hormone levels of college students who had spent 15 minutes kissing with those who merely held hands and listened to music in the student center. For some reason, I love the detail that they were in the student center. The results of the study--stress levels in the kissing couples decreased, blah blah blah... wasn't as interesting as this bit of student center-related info:

Hill thought that the setting might have been too clinical for the women to get turned on, so she tried in her latest study to up the ambience by locating the couples in a secluded room of an academic building, outfitted with a couch, flowers, jazz music and electric candles.

Alas, the article did not include a picture of this academic love nest with its "electric candles." Not that I think that setting is really all that important. I base this sweeping assessment on the fact that I received my best, most sublime kisses ever in an attic bedroom in Ann Arbor, Michigan, atop a set of bed sheets festooned with pictures of The Flintstones. (There was also a giant tapestry over his bed featuring Aries the ram, but in my memory, I choose to edit that detail out.) I didn't care about any of the decor though because, god, that guy could kiss. Sweet, melty, insanely wonderful kisses. I would live inside his kisses if I could. As the night grew later and later, I told him I should probably go home. "You could," he whispered, while placing the most delightfully soft kisses on my chin and nose, "Or you could stay here and kiss me all night." In a typically bad decision of that era (I was drunk, natch, as was my wont in those days), I inexplicably chose to go home. Dumb moves such as that, plus--okay, fine--my delightful habit of drunkenly calling him at all hours, ended things quickly thereafter.

Which was too bad, because, damn, our young would have been symmetrical as hell.

Getting Buzz Lightyear Stuck in Your Butt and Other Hazards of Naked Vacuuming

2011-12-15T11:58:00.000-08:00

Mayday! Mayday!

Please excuse the interruption, but this just in from major media outlet ABC News as part of their "health" coverage, Patients Get Bottles, Cell Phones, Buzz Lightyear Stuck Inside:

One winter night, Dr. Melissa Barton was the attending physician in the emergency department of the Detroit Medical Center. Making her rounds, she picked up a chart for a new patient and read the woman's chief complaint: "eye in the vagina."

The patient told Barton she had been expecting a fight with some neighbors outside her house. Wearing only a sweatshirt and spandex pants, she needed somewhere to stow her prosthetic eye for safe-keeping.

"Those things are pretty expensive and hard to replace," Barton said. "So that's where it went, along with her driver's license."

Unfortunately, it got stuck.

In case you were just skimming or have already blocked it all out, here are the salient facts: some lady put a prosthetic eye AND her driver's license up her vag. For safekeeping.

Okay, I get that this chick was in a hurry due to the pending fight with her neighbors. But, in my estimation, if she had time to stick her driver's license inside herself, she probably had time to just run it in the house instead. All things considered, running it into the house would probably actually be more efficient. I think no matter how good you are with your hands, it's probably never a speedy process to insert a big, rectangular, plasticky unfoldable thing into your womanly folds. Yes, even if you were super super aroused and really wanted to fuck the hell out of that driver's license.

Although perhaps I am not giving this lady enough credit. Maybe she had a plan. If she did get into the fight with the neighbors, at the crucial moment, she could stare right at her neighbors (with the other eye, of course), squat menacingly, push the eyeball out in a dramatic, birthing fashion, then start running toward her neighbors, yelling "Aaaaaaaaaaaahhh!" and brandishing the eyeball. I guessing she would win the fight right then and there.

Here's another one:

Dr. Gary Vilke, a professor of clinical emergency medicine at the University of California San Diego Medical Center, saw a patient who had four Barbie doll heads stuck in his rectum.

"When you looked at his x-ray, they were looking at you, like a totem pole," Vilke said.

Can't you so picture those four Barbie heads, stacked in a totem pole fashion, looking at Dr. Vilke as though silently pleading, "Help us. Please, help us."?

But, fear not, lest you are concerned that some dude was getting off by beheading Barbies and ramming their heads up his butt, there is actually a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this.

"My favorite excuses all involve someone who was doing something in the nude," reports Dr. Rich Dreben, author of the book Stuck Up! 100 Objects Inserted and Ingested in Places They Shouldn't Be. "'I was vacuuming in the nude, when I fell.' Usually, it's some naked activity and a resulting accident."

Exactly. So this guy was vacuuming in the nude, which is the very best way to vacuum, as we all know. He tripped and fell right on top of a Barbie head! And damned if it didn't happen three more times. I think we've all been there, right?

Other objects that have found their way inside someone's personal orifice after such careless naked housework include many salads worth of vegetables, Buzz Lightyear (see photo above), nail clippers, and reading glasses.

I can see the appeal of putting something inside oneself, but I guess I'm kind of picky about which household objects I'd wish to fuck. Like certain vegetables--a particularly handsome carrot, perhaps--might have a chance to have its way with me. But c'mon, nail clippers? Too pokey! And friggin' reading glasses? Even the most stylish pair of reading glasses, to my mind, are not the least bit fuckable. Hear that, reading glasses? Don't even try.

Still, people fuck what they want to fuck. As the commenter Sutureman1 wrote, "After over 30 years in surgery, I am awed at what people will do to themselves. I have so far seen: a candle, lightbulbs, batteries, spaghetti prongs, a mattress coil, and even a can of Edge Shaving Cream (the 33% more sized can )."

I love that he noted that the shaving cream was the "33% more sized can" because I think it makes the whole episode 33% worse.

But....I'm sorry....what were we talking about? I lost track because I just had a sudden thought on the man with the Barbie heads: Do you think he was talking to them as he had his way with them?

"Hey, Barbie, see my sweet ass? You want some of that, don't you?" (Pointing Barbie's vapid eyes toward his eager butt. Barbie continues to smile vacantly, as is her wont.) "C'mon Barbie, beg for it!" *using his high Barbie voice* "Oh, please, I want to be in your ass so bad. Please, do it now!"

Right, that scenario is entirely too upsetting. So I am going to have cling to the fragile tendril of hope that maybe, just maybe, it really was the nude vacuuming scenario. It's about all I can handle today.

Bad Sex Week: What Have We Learned?

2011-12-13T11:43:00.000-08:00

I learned what an "incubus" is. (By Googling the word,
not by being visited by an evil spirit who had his way
with me while I slept. Now unsure if I am happy or sad
about my lack of evil spirit sex.)

Did we learn anything from trudging through the dimly lit backwaters of Bad Sex Week? Or did we just unnecessarily gross each other out, resulting in a statistically significant reduction in lasagna consumption per capita? (Sorry 'bout that...)

Let's sift through the debris, shall we?

1. The winner of the Bad Sex Contest and the fabulous vibrating panties is Cagey-C. Barely. It was sooooo friggin' close. So, other entrants, if you're bemoaning your completely upsetting lack of vibrating panties, please know that it could have just as easily been you emitting a low buzzing noise from your nether regions.

2. Bad literary sex spans all genres. Bear witness to these selections from Paul Goat Allen's Huffington Post article on bad paranormal sex:

• "While I stood stock-still, paralyzed by conflicting waves of emotion, Eric took the soap out of my hands and lathered up his own, set the soap back in its little niche, and began to wash my arms, raising each in turn to stroke my armpit, down my side, never touching my breasts, which were practically quivering like puppies who wanted to be petted." –Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris

• "My nipples waved hello at him as he pulled down the cups of my bra." – Tracking the Tempest by Nicole Peeler

• “His man lance prepared for duty.” – Naked Dragon by Annette Blair

• "I let my hand stroke boldly downward, my fingers aching to set him free, to grasp his turgid magnificence." – A Brush of Darkness by Allison Pang

• “Fuck me,” I said. “Fuck me, God, fuck me, just fuck me. Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, please, please, please, just fuck me.” – Incubus Dreams by Laurell K. Hamilton

• "...I had my very own orgasm, a moment so explosive it was like I'd been saving up for a holiday." – Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris

• "He was a velvet rock in my hand." – A Brush of Darkness by Allison Pang

• "She has seaweed pubes." – Tempest Rising by Nicole Peeler

• “His body knew only one goal, to bury itself into the snug fist of her femininity and let it milk him dry.” – Demon Rumm by Sandra Brown

• “Her pubes was a field of wheat after the harvest, a field neatly furrowed; it was a nest, a pomegranate, an arrowhead, a rune. It was a shadow. It was moss on a smooth white stone. There was an orchid within the moss. There was a drop of dew upon the orchid. It had the breath of moss-beds, of the deep seas, of the abyss, of scrimshaw and blue glass, of cold iron; she had the sex of rain forests, the ibis and the scarab; she had the sex of mirrors and candles, of the hot, careful winds that stroke the veldt, the winds that taste of clay and seed and blood; the winds that dreamed of tawny, lean animals.” – Bronwyn: Silk & Steel (Bronwyn, 2) by Ron Miller

Mmm, ain't nothin' like a fresh can of vagina!

3. And finally, and most importantly, there exists in our world...Canned Vagina! Vagina in a Can! Oh, fuck, I never get tired of saying it! And I am not alone in this. A mother at my kids' school--a lovely, kind, very very religious lady--became similarly enchanted by the idea of Canned Vag and came up to me the other day and said quietly, "They should make Canned Ass, too." The weird thing was...I was thinking the very same thing. It made me feel kind of We are the World-ish because I realized, that day in front of the school, that the very best ideas transcend our different belief systems/religious ideals. The necessity of Canned Ass was something we could both agree on.
Canned Ass®-- a convenient, shelf-stable solution to all your ass needs.
Canned Ass®--When you want some ass, but don't have time for fresh.
Canned Ass®--It's what's for (after) dinner.

Right, I should probably stop now.

I will instead work on seeing if I can make my nipples wave hello, ala Tracking the Tempest above. Might come in handy when I'm walking the dog and need to greet a neighbor and whatnot.

xoxo
jill

Bad Sex Week, Day 5: Bad Sex All Over the Damn Place

2011-12-09T16:25:00.000-08:00

Well, it's Friday, the day I'm supposed to pick the winner of the Bad Sex Contest (prize: fabulous vibrating panties courtesy of Good Vibrations) and--crap!--I just can't decide. Instead, I'm gonna ~~shirk my duties~~ empower the readers by letting you decide. That's right, you try to pick one of them, leaving the rest of the non-winning entries to shuffle away from the blog, sobbing and vibrating panty-less. Go ahead. I fucking dare you.

I've narrowed them down to five so this wouldn't be a 12,000 word post, but I've left out some really good ones, so you're welcome to go back to the original post and vote for someone I didn't include. You can vote in the comment section or via email. The tyranny of the majority will rule. You can rig the game--just like corporate America!--by cheating and having your friends and family vote for your entry. The drawback to this approach, of course, is admitting to friends and family the exact nature of your Bad Sex. I guess it all depends on how much you want those panties now, doesn't it?

I'll announce your choice Tuesday, December 13. (Er, probably, if you can learn to trust me again.)

Here they are:

1. I like this one by Cagey-C, not because the sex is so bad, really (it could've happened to anyone) but because it gives me a peek into the mindset of someone so completely different than me--a Conservative Evangelical dude having his first sex ever with his brand new wife. Also, the vibrating panties would be a sort of belated payback to said wife. Behold:

I went through a period in my teens and early twenties where I attempted (rather successfully) to be a theologically conservative, evangelical Christian. As such, I made it all the way until I got married (thankfully, at 23--but still, 23!) before having sex for the first time. Thus, the indelible memory of our wedding night. A summer evening, a lakeside cabin in Maine. A 23-year-old super excited about the first honest-to-God sex he was about to have. That super excited 23-year-olds bizarre insistence on sharing a pre-undressing prayer, because, you know, there's nothing quite as romantic as asking Jesus to watch your very first time. The couple tenderly undresses each other, kisses, allows hands to roam. Lies down on the bed in--what else?--the missionary position. I couldn't believe the sensation as I entered, like nothing my hand had ever managed before. I managed approximately two thrusts before shuddering, exploding, collapsing. In my endorphin haze, I looked into her eyes, smiled, and said, 'So that's what all the hype is about.' Only to realize that she was crying, and that it all actually sucked.

2. Can't keep anything to myself inspired Bad Sex Week in the first place with this story. Also I love her faith in the "toughness" of her vag, "NOT tough like beef jerky is tough," she hastens to add, lest we get the wrong idea:

Apparently Trojan also thought Ben Gay/Icy Hot + sex = great idea. Fire and Ice condoms anyone?

I actually thought these seemed like fun. Especially after the super cheesy commercials. "Burning and freezing sensations in my vagina?! Sign me up!" I was reluctant after reading reviews from people who said they were too fiery and too icy, but my curiosity got the better of me. And faith in the toughness of my vagina. (What can't she do?!)

Lo and behold, my vagina is in fact too tough (and by tough I mean insensitive, NOT tough like beef jerky is tough). I didn't feel a thing. My partner on the other hand had to run to the bathroom to wash his fiery-icy genitals in the sink.

I felt kind of bad. And yet, I'm still kind of jealous I didn't get to feel ANYTHING.

3. Gia also wrote about Fire and Ice condoms, but I so love how she shares her panicky thought process upon feeling the burn: "Does Boyfriend have an STD? Is he giving it to me right now?"

Re: Fire and Ice condoms. Well. Boyfriend bought some variety pack of trojan condoms, and we never really paid attention to which ones we used because they all pretty much felt the same. So when he grabbed a fire and ice one, I had no idea. And then it got kinda burny down there. Not like, painful burny. Just like me thinking "Something's wrong, this doesn't feel normal"and "Why would it be burny? Razor burn?" and "Does Boyfriend have an std? Is he giving it to me right now? What's happening?!?" Needless to say, I lost focus. Boyfriend did not. But later, when we were cuddling, he was like "So...did that feel kinda weird to you?" and only then did we realize we used those condoms. So, that's my story about that.

4. Jenerosity wrote of a truly epic queef, which deserves something, doesn't it? Plus extra points for giving her story a title.

Bad sex, entitled "Queef for a day"

It started out as any other raucous romp. He was definitely an overzealous partner and I didn't mind, at first. Let's just say he had a way with his hands; just would.not.stop. with the fingers. Eventually, I had to switch things up so I roll over on all fours for some good old-fashioned humping. And it began...the air deposited by overzealous fingers had.to.go.somewhere....would.not.stop!! Thankfully, I was in the position where no facial expressions had to be read and my utter embarrassment could be hidden. I know, I know, a tiny little queef happens to the best of us but OMG it just went on and on!

This is one of those memories I wish I could erase forever. Perhaps some fun times with the no-insertion-required panty buzzer would help me forget. :D

5. And then there's this by Jen C. which is just so fucking smart and well-written, and it even has a moral, like a Bad Sex Aesop's Fable:

There's such a spectrum of bad sex. You can have bad sex with someone you normally have incredibly hot, oh-God-that-was-GREAT sex with. You can have bad sex that's good at first, then turns bad. Or sex that seems pretty damn fine until you're done with it and then you're like, "Oh. Actually, that sucked."

I've experienced all of these, but when I read your post, the bad sex memory that first came (CAME!) to mind was a classic third-date scenario that was in retrospect a sign of more cringe-worthy awful sex to come (COME!).

I met this guy in an AOL chat room, back in the days when people did such things. We hit it off online, then over the phone, and when we met in person, we still hit it off despite the fact that I was in no way attracted to him. Which should always be a sign, yes? But I was lonely and liked him, and deluded myself with that "Maybe I could GROW into hotness for him" notion.

After two fun movie outings, he took me to The Inn of the Seventh Ray in L.A.'s Topanga Canyon for dinner, which is really romantic if you can get past the New Age bullshit factor. Lots of wine combined with appreciation for an expensive meal to make him 8% more attractive to me on the drive home. We ended up at his place. I still have this vision of him naked, putting on the condom, and me looking up at the ceiling because, OMG, he had a weird body and I couldn't believe I was about to screw it but, you know. The wine.

Some foreplay, yada yada. Penetration. Ho hum. I guess I wasn't NOT enjoying it. I was beginning to psyche myself into the experience using one of my tried-and-true fantasy scenarios (I'm the teenage babysitter and he's the single dad! Yes! Take me!) when suddenly, it stopped. He stopped. He didn't say anything, didn't make so much as a grunt. Pulled out, limp.

I thought, okay. That's fine. We've been drinking and he's probably nervous. Whatever. I don't want to make him feel bad with one of the cliche comments you make at a time like that. So I got up to use the bathroom and when I sat on the toilet, a sad little bit of something dripped out of me.

Come. He actually came, and I didn't even know it! How can a guy come without making a peep? I felt this overwhelming rush of horror and regret and just plain yuckiness.

I don't remember much about what happened after, but I will admit that I continued to see this person. We enjoyed each other's company and he had money and took me to fancy places and okay, I was shallow. Eventually, that did not make up for the fact that his cock tasted horrible and he always came too quickly. (When my husband and I talk about my sexual past, we refer to him as Premature Ejaculation Guy -- not to be confused with Curved Penis Guy and Friends With Benefits Guy.)

The moral of my Bad Sex story is that sometimes, you need to trust your instincts. If you're not attracted to someone, that could be your body sending a message that THIS IS NOT YOUR MATE. THIS PERSON DOES NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH A NAKED BODY IN ITS BED. RUN AWAY!

It's not true that sex is like pizza -- "even when it's bad, it's good." I'll take bad pizza over bad sex any day, because you can't just puke up bad sex and take a Zantac. It haunts you for years, and only if you're lucky can you turn it into a funny story on someone's awesome blog.

So can you handle this one for me? Thanks!

photo: Julien Mandel, Nus Fantastique, 1930

Bad Sex Week, Day 4: Bad Literary Sex

2011-12-08T16:36:00.000-08:00

Anyone who thinks that America is no longer #1 needs look no further than True American Hero, David Guterson (Snow Falling on Cedars) who just won the 2011 Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award. USA! US...er, oh bad sex. Right then. That's not good.

Guterson said he "couldn't attend" the award ceremony at London's In & Out Club (those Brits, so cheeky!), and I can't say I blame him. Would any of us be all that eager to attend a large, media-filled ceremony held for the sole purpose of mocking your sexual writing? It surely didn't help that it was announced with coy headlines like "David Guterson Comes First in..." and "'Ed King' Beats Off Competition to Win..."

On his win for his fifth novel, Ed King, Guterson said: "Oedipus practically invented bad sex, so I'm not in the least bit surprised." He sounds all crisp and British--"I'm not in the least bit surprised"--but is clearly trying to pretend that he, like, wanted to win. Later, however, I suspect he dissolved into a pile of tears and spent the rest of the day masturbating joylessly to his unappreciated sex scenes. Which, it is my duty to inform you, included some icky mother-son gettin' it on, aka "mother fucking," in such passages as:

"She took him by the wrist and moved the base of his hand into her pubic hair until his middle fingertip settled on the no-man's-land between her 'front parlour' and 'back door' (those were the quaint, prudish terms of her girlhood)".

and this:

"In the shower, Ed stood with his hands at the back of his head, like someone just arrested, while she abused him with a bar of soap. After a while he shut his eyes, and Diane, wielding her fingernails now and staring at his face, helped him out with two practiced hands, one squeezing the family jewels, the other vigorous with the soap-and-warm-water treatment. It didn't take long for the beautiful and perfect Ed King to ejaculate for the fifth time in twelve hours, while looking like Roman public-bath statuary. Then they rinsed, dried, dressed, and went to an expensive restaurant for lunch."

The last passage crams so much badness into such a small space that it's masterly in its own way. Not only does it lack sexiness, but it's littered with phrases that seem actively sex-repellent. I mean "abused him with a bar of soap," "wielding her fingernails," "family jewels"? Then that last sentence, about the drying and lunch eating, WTF is that?

Award-winning American writing is what the fuck it is. And don't let anyone tell you any different.

In the meantime, anyone who utters the phrase "family jewels" to me is So Not Getting Any, so don't even try.

(photo source)

Bad Sex Week, Day 3: Sex Toys

2011-12-07T15:34:00.000-08:00

Wondering what this is? You will never guess.
Don't even try, because you'll never, EVER get it.
(But don't worry, I'll tell you at the end of the post.)

Still trying to think of something for the Bad Sex contest? (fabulous prize: a pair of vibrating panties--squeee!)

May I submit For Your Consideration... something with sex toys?

Sex toys are fraught with opportunities for error, awkwardness and injury. That is, the basic elements of bad sex.

And Sex Toy Bad Sex can happen to any of us. Like, oh, me, for example. At one of those in-home sex toy parties, a bunch of friends and I, lured by tantalizing prospect of driving our respective mates to ecstasy, all bought sleeve-like male masturbation devices called something like The Pearl Power Piston. It was like this blue thing in the photo:

But it was clear and had marble-sized pearls embedded up and down its (her?) sides.

Anyhoo, as we all soon discovered, if one were to, say, put the sleeve over a certain husband's shaft, and use one's mouth for stimulation of the head, one would soon notice a foreign substance in one's very surprised mouth. Said substance was not, upon inspection, ejaculate or anything, you know, expected, but rather, a marble-sized pearl. Then later, another. And another. And so on, until a little stack of inadequately attached pearls had collected on the nightstand.

I suppose in certain circles, it would be a perfect blow job-giving incentive for a woman to receive random dispensation of jewelry during the act, but for the rest of us, not so much.

It that case it was shoddy workmanship, so I hold us entirely blameless. However, other times, I do blame user due to their choice of sex toy. I mean, you only need to take a quick look at a device like the V-String Masturbator (see also: Boxers, Briefs or...Mangina?) to know that some really Bad Sex is gonna be going down. (And that #$%$ is $224!)

(Um, no offense if you love your Mangina. I'm sure when you wear one, it's very very sexy. Very sexy indeed!)

I thought I had already discovered all the sex toys with Bad Sex potential. I mean, we've already covered your genuine horse hair anal plugs, your Slave Driver Fucking Machines and your Ultimate Ass Lock (the chastity belt for your ass with the Best Slogan Ever: "Sometimes, you want others to know your ass is off-limits.")

But yesterday, while having a what-the-fuck-it's-only-day-3-of-Bad-Sex-Week-and-I-already-got-nothin', I stumbled upon 18 More of the World's Most Disturbing Sex Toys on Cracked.com.

Yes, I took a certain pride in seeing that the V-String Masturbator was #1, but I was also pleased to see that there was a whole host of scary-ass sex toys that I'd never seen (And, believe me, it's not like I haven't looked.)

If you're too lazy to click over to read it yourself--don't feel ashamed, I've been there too--I'll give you the highlights. Like this, the Pogo Stick for 2:

This different kind of pogo stick has springs and dildos so you can jump up and down with it inside of you. Suggests Cracked's Ian Fortey, "Why, they even added an attachment for a friend so you can stare into each other's eyes as you both come to the realization you're suffering massive genital trauma..."

Or perhaps you prefer something in a snappy pair of Enema Piss Rubber Pants:

Writes Fortey: "What's the best way to combine as many godawful fetishes into one place, preferably a pair of pants, as quickly and efficiently as possible?" Exactly. I like how the rubber pants are so sleek and aerodynamic as though the big ol' pee bag on the side won't be slowing you down. (Again, pee and poo lovahs, I'm not saying your excrement isn't the hottest damn thing around. You keep at it!)

Go check out the rest of the article if you want to see more scary-ass stuff like the Drilldo (ack!), a Granny Blow-Up Doll or the Extreme Ass-Spreader (no thanks, I'm good right now!) but I will leave you today with my very favorite, this....Disposable Canned Vagina!

I'm not even going to bother making a joke here, because it's a fucking CANNED VAGINA! Vagina...in...a....Can! This my friends, is proof positive that the Future Is Now. Vagina in a fucking can!

*Wandering off while muttering and shaking head in wonder*

Remember you can still enter the Bad Sex Contest. Click the link for rules and junk.

Bad Sex Week, Day 2: Dan Savage Tries It Hetero Style

2011-12-06T12:18:00.000-08:00

It's Bad Sex Week around here and, damn, do I have some bad sex for you today. It's the best kind of bad sex, that is, someone else's. I found it in the book Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me , a compilation of essays from folks like David Wain, AJ Jacobs, and Bob Odenkirk (love that dude in "Breaking Bad").

These "things learned..." include "You Too Will Get Crushed," "Sex Is The Most Stressful Thing in the History of the Universe" and "Don't Come On Your Cat." But my favorite is by the delightfully wise and funny sex columnist, Dan Savage, who learned the lesson "I Am A Gay Man."

Let me set it up for you. In it, a 15 year old Dan Savage has had sex once with Wendy, his older brother's 21 year old ex-girlfriend. The first time went, well, okay, considering the whole I Am A Gay Man thing. This was primarily because Wendy invited a hunky 23 year old guy, Alex, to come along, to show Dan how it was done. Alex went first. Dan watched Alex "like a dog watches steak."

Despite that, when it was Dan's turn to mount the accommodating Wendy, he felt his erection flagging as he haplessly pumped away. That is, until Alex took it upon himself to cup Dan's balls. "It helped," writes Savage.

But the second time around with Wendy, Alex and his helpful ball-cupping ways weren't around. This was a problem. But let's let Dan tell it:

Today third base is--what? Double penetration? Pegging? Sucking off a she-male in the backseat of your dad's Hummer? In 1980 third base was finger banging--it was a more innocent time--and I knew what I was supposed to do when Wendy placed my hand over her vagina. I slipped a finger in.

Then two. Then three.

It's hard to describe the sensation, but I'll try: It felt like I'd slipped my hand into a large, lukewarm piece of lasagna that had been stood on its side. Only this lasagna had a pulse.

And hair, this lasagna was covered in hair.

I kept my fingers in Wendy's vagina long enough, I hoped, to give her the impression that I liked hairy lasagna as much as the next guy. Then I executed what I, at age fifteen, thought was an exceedingly smooth move. I removed my fingers from Wendy's vagina and pulled her into an embrace. I brought my hand up her back slowly. I caressed her--but just with the palm of my hand and my thumb and my pinky, the fingers that hadn't been in Wendy's vagina. I brought my hand up to her shoulder. I leaned way in to kiss her neck, positioning my nose so it was angled over her shoulder. I brought my wet index, ring, and middle fingers up to my nose.

You see, back in the tent I hadn't really got a change to smell Wendy. By the time I got in there, Wendy already smelled like Alex's sweat and spunk. Not that I'm complaining, but the whole point of my adventures with Wendy was, well, learning to like pussy.

Wendy's vagina smelled awful. Really awful. Like no hairy lasagna I'd ever eaten.

Here Dan goes off on a tangent about how he's not maligning Wendy's particular vag and that she might have had a yeast infection, blah blah blah, and different people's responses to pheromones and how gay men might prefer different smells, etc... But back to Wendy, third base and Dan now-wet fingers.

After quickly pulling my fingers away from my nose I began to caress Wendy's back again. But this time I used all my fingers. I was pretending that I was passionately caressing her when I was, in fact, vigorously wiping her juices off of my fingers. I thought this sequence of moves--strip, finger-bang, caress, position nose, bring fingers to nose, smell fingers, wipe fingers while pretending to caress--was pretty slick.

"Did you just wipe your hand on me?"

"No," I lied.

Despite this, perhaps the most awkward moment in the history of sex, Dan and Wendy did manage to get it on that day. And several times after that as well. But the next person Dan had sex with was a guy. And, to Dan, he smelled just fine.

Don't forget, in honor of Bad Sex Week, we're giving away a pair of vibrating panties ($64 vibrating panties, no less). To enter, head over to the awkwardly-titled post Bad Sex, Gratitude, and a Contest to Win a Pair of Vibrating Panties and tell us about either:
--Bad sex you have had or,
--Some bad literary sex you've enjoyed and/or been horrified by.
Or just pop over there to read the comments and enjoy a bit of Schadenfreude over the bad sex--whew, that was a close one!--you managed to avoid.

Winner announced this Friday.

(photo source)

Bad Sex, Gratitude, and a Contest to Win a Pair of Vibrating Panties. (And don't worry your pretty little head, I'll tie it all together)

2011-12-05T11:14:00.000-08:00

Wouldn't you like to know?

Okay, I lied. I am actually not sure how I'm going to tie this all together but let's give it a go, shall we?

Item #1: Gratitude. After my little rant about Google pulling their ads from In Bed With Married Women due to my supposedly "pornographic" ways (see also: Yes, There's Adult Content. That Would Be Because I'm An ADULT), several gentle readers came through to Fight the Power by springing for a Kindle subscription (only 99¢ a month!), going through the blog links to buy something from Amazon or Good Vibrations, or flat out donating money. I don't even know how to say thank you without sounding like an ass, but please know that I am beyond thrilled and humbled. So. Much. So.

Item #2: A Contest to Win Vibrating Panties. Because I am so hideously inept at expressing my gratitude in words, I'm going to Plan B: giving away a pair vibrating panties! Here's the Good Vibes description of said panties (insert game show music here and read the following passage aloud using an announcer voice. Unless you're at work, in which case don't. And get the fuck back to work.):

Frisky fun is just a click away with the Remote Pleasure Panty! These flirty black lace briefs feature a hidden pocket sewn into the inner lining specially designed to hold the curvy-shaped bullet vibe close to the body for a superior external stimulation experience. Plus, the included wireless remote allows your or your partner to take control of the sensations from up to 20 feet (6m) away, with 10 different functions of vibration, escalation, and pulsation to choose from.These sexy skivvies adjust to a variety of sizes with satin ribbon side ties that lend these lacy lovelies sass and sophistication. Whether part of your intimate play or to add excitement to every day, the Remote Pleasure Panty is a discreet and titillating treat.

Nice, right? I like the whole aspect of someone else being able to control them from up to 20 feet away (or 6 meters if you're sharing the love with a Canadian or Brit* or something). And I like that the volume ranking is only a 2, meaning the vibe is not very loud. It would probably ruin the effect if every time your lover (I'm going to imagine mine being British and thus standing 6 meters away) fires up the panties and they roar to life like an old gas-powered lawnmower. Anyway, they are a $64 value, meaning you will get at least $64 of "superior external stimulation experience." Which sounds good to me, if not a bit space alien-sounding. "Please spread your leg modules to commence external stimulation experience." (If you don't wish to publicly state your sordid desire to win such panties, you can just order them directly.)

Item #3: Bad Sex.The Literary Review has announced this year's Bad Sex in Fiction nominees. The bad sex doesn't seem nearly as delightfully bad as usual but have a look if you'd like. I did, and I probably shouldn't be admitting this in public (The Internet--it's FOREVER!), but this nominee from The Great Night by Chris Adrian didn't sound bad, but, well, kind of hot to me:
"His lady lifted to the stars on his impossibly stiff, impossibly elegant cock"

Impossibly stiff, impossibly elegant cock? What is the bad part, exactly? (Anyway, if you have time/inclination, you might also like this smart funny essay by contest judge Jonathan Beckman. Who, I think, might be, hmmmm...British.)

Item #4: Hey Jill, Quit Dreaming of Remote-Wielding Brits and Get Back to the Damn Contest! Right. In honor of the Bad Sex awards, I am hereby decreeing it to be BAD SEX WEEK here at In Bed With Married Women. Thus, to enter to win those sexy sexy panties, you must provide us with some bad sex. You may either:
1. tell us about some bad sex you experienced (sorry 'bout that, darlin') OR
2. share some literary bad sex.

You can either fork over the bad sex via comment below, or if you're feeling shy, via email. I'll announce the winner Friday, December 9, 2011.

To get you started, here's a sample of real life bad sex sent in by the always delightful Can't keep anything to myself as a comment on the last post 7 Things I Learned At Homemade-Sex-Toys.

Apparently Trojan also thought Ben Gay/Icy Hot + sex = great idea. Fire and Ice condoms anyone? I actually thought these seemed like fun. Especially after the super cheesy commercials. "Burning and freezing sensations in my vagina?! Sign me up!" I was reluctant after reading reviews from people who said they were too fiery and too icy, but my curiosity got the better of me. And faith in the toughness of my vagina. (What can't she do?!)
Lo and behold, my vagina is in fact too tough (and by tough I mean insensitive, NOT tough like beef jerky is tough). I didn't feel a thing. My partner on the other hand had to run to the bathroom to wash his fiery-icy genitals in the sink.
I felt kind of bad. And yet, I'm still kind of jealous I didn't get to feel ANYTHING.

Want a little more bad sex, do you? Don't worry, I'll be providing you with bad sex every single day this week. (Wait a minute, that doesn't sound too good, does it?)

*This is incorrect. See also: Sandra, a Brit, pointing out my ignorance of global measurement standards in comments below.

7 Things I Learned at Homemade-Sex-Toys

2011-12-01T11:16:00.000-08:00

Homemade Sex Toys is a site for people who like DIY projects. But what sets these folks apart from regular old Squaresville do-it-yourself-ers is that, instead of thinking, "Can I fix the broken breadmaker?" they think, "Can I have sex with the broken breadmaker?"

Now, I am utterly arts and crafts deficient, so I have a healthy fear having sex with anything I made. And near as I can tell, none of my 6th grade-era macramed plant hangers or bicentennial rug hook projects seem the least bit fuckable.

Still, I admire a can-do attitude, so I wandered around the site awhile instead of doing any number of more productive things. The site wasn't nearly as entertaining as I'd hoped, but I did learn a few things. To wit:

1. People of both genders can have sexual relations with a cucumber. (New slogan for Association of Cucumber Growers? Send memo.) I think we all know what women can do with a particularly fetching cucumber, but men, if so inclined, can hollow out the insides of a cuke (not one of those long skinny kinds) then make sweet sweet love to it. Important: Do not fall in love with your cucumber because this is a relationship that must remain brief (see also: composting).

2. Men can also have sex with a whole host of household objects including a heated melon, balloons, a doctored-up toilet paper roll and a bean bag chair. (Note to self: avoid bean bag chair). Women can have sex with a blanket, a cell phone (There is indeed an app for that), and a toothbrush.

3. To my surprise, there's a whole section on fucking toothbrushes. When I got to the heading labeled simply, "Toothbrush in ass," I had to click away because I was too busy running to get my toothbrush--No! NOT to put "in ass"!--but to grab it to make sure it never leaves my side. I am going to insist that my toothbrush take an immediate vow of chastity.

4. The holes on blow-up sex toys are sealed with pull tab-like bits of plastic "for hygienic and safety reasons." (Warning: removed tabs may alert the blow-up doll's strict parents that you two did more than just "hang out at the mall.")

5. You can make your own solar powered vibrator. I like solar power and *mumbling a bit here* yes, fine, I like vibrators, but when it got to talk of "soldering" and diagrams like this...

...I knew I'd rather just pony up the cash and get a vibrator made by vibrator-making professional. Besides part of the whole "solar" thing is that it uses the sun, meaning, you'd be gettin' down with your jimmy-rigged, questionably-soldered solar vibe out in the damn yard.

6. There are people who enjoy inserting a banana into their loved one's personal sexual orifice, then eating said banana. I am not one of those people. Again, I like bananas, I like my loved ones, and yet...

7. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, this information: "Jerking off with Icy Hot or Ben Gay will put you in a world of hurt." Which--although I now strangely intrigued by the idea--I will probably just take their word on.

(photo by Dennis Hopper. Image source: http://lacontessa.tumblr.com/post/3253789357/dennis-hopper-photo-photography-bikini-1960s)

"I saw this and thought of you."

2011-11-28T13:16:00.000-08:00

Whenever someone tells me, "I saw this and thought of you," it's never about helping orphans or something--I don't know--reputable. No, it's always about some weird-ass horse fetish gear or a big honking dildo or something. Or, like this letter today, a big honking wooden dildo.

Writes dear reader Tara, who cheekly titled her email "Family Wood":

So, I saw a story on "Paul Merton in Europe" last night on Discovery World HD & thought of you. [editor's note: SEE!!!] The story was about the Trury family in Germany & they make wooden sex toys. As a family. The mother & daughter literally sit across the table from each other sanding, staining & varnishing dildos. It was fascinating & I had to share! Hopefully you can snag a clip somewhere on the internets. I didn't have any luck. Below is an excerpt from the episode description:
"For his last German experience, Paul journeys south to the picturesque woods that inspired the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Here he meets the Trury family. While making ornamental mushrooms in his woodwork shop, father Elmar noticed he had created what looked more like a dildo. Thus began a unique family business making wooden sex toys. While Elmar looks after production, eldest son Stefan runs the website and matriarch Maria handles the varnishing."
Here is an article http://www.thelocal.de/society/20080305-10507.html and their website http://www.shop.waldmichlsholdi.de/
Love your blog!
Tara, who will never look at a spruce the same way again.

I didn't find any video, but I quite enjoyed their web site, if only for this picture of the mom, Maria. She doesn't look horribly pleased about Elmar's mushroom/dildo epiphany, although perhaps I'm reading too much into it.

I like to picture that moment when Elmar picked up the carved ornamental mushroom and announced to Maria, "Hey...you know what this looks like?" (Credit where credit is due: Pretty much everyone in the entire history of time who's seen a mushroom thinks, "Hmmm, looks like a penis," but Elmar is the rare person who actually Did Something About It.)

Maria, who knows how Elmar is, frantically searches her brain looking for some sort of non-penis answer, but comes up with nothing. Maria briefly wonders if she, Elmar, and the ornamental mushroom have an intimate encounter in their future and is undecided whether she is pleased or not at the prospect.

I'm guessing something went down with the couple and that particularly fetching mushroom, because you don't just unleash a sex toy on the public without some product testing. And in light of that, I am re-looking at the picture of Maria and have just decided that she's not, in fact, making the face of a long-suffering spouse, but rather has a little bit of a sly smirk happening. Like, "I am going to fuck the shit out of this bad boy once you photographers are gone." The excessively long wooden dildo (damn, girl!) she is polishing so carefully is, I'm guessing, Just For Mama.

Anyway, besides the worries you're probably having about such a big-ass dildo and Maria's delicate internal organs, you're also probably wondering about splinters. Fear not, the family uses a special non-toxic coating and non-splintering spruce wood. (There is no truth to the rumor, which I am starting right now, about Elmar's first wife Inga and a horrible accident with an unstable knotty pine prototype.)

Actually, I love this whole thing. The DIY-ness, the groovy Euro-family living in their rustic cottage (which I am picturing being inside a hollow tree like the Keebler Elves or Berenstain Bears), and the German product names like Barenzunge "tongue of a bear" or Einhorn "unicorn." I even love the delightfully translated web page with such proclamations as, "Wooden toy are feeling warm and lovely."

I grew up in an open-minded liberal family in the 1970s. I can't imagine a more appropriate homage to that era than expressing my sexually open, eco-friendly, handcrafted, shop local, one planet-lovin' values than making love to a beautiful wooden dildo named after a fucking...UNICORN. It could only be more perfect if I were also wearing homemade macrame panties while simultaneously reciting Love Is... comics. In Esperanto.

And if you're still back on the splinter idea, remember than no sex toy is 100% safe. Or at least not according to this totally gross article, Women Sues Over Wild Vibrator Ride That Sent Her to Hospital, sent in by reader Wendy, who saw it, and *sigh* thought of me.

Yes, There's Adult Content. That Would Be Because I'm An ADULT.

2011-11-23T13:55:00.000-08:00

Google (misleading company slogan: "don't be evil") is making me take their ads off In Bed With Married Women because of my "violations." Which are, according to them: "adult/pornography" and "adult/explicit text."

It was the last post "big tide nipple fuck sliping in bathroom" that alerted them to my wantonness and adult ways. (Apparently my other posts about fucking inflatable sheep, anal bleaching and whatnot were A-OK.) It's kind of strange because the particular post they objected to was about Misguided Googlers®, and the "explicit text" was directly quoted from searchers that Google had sent me.

In my mind, there is a big-ass difference between pornography and an adult talking about adult things. I mean, fuck, I've birthed two babies, presumably I'm old enough to type the word fuck and post a picture of boobs once in a while. (Strangely, I did hesitate before posting the boob picture with that particular post because it seemed a little too sexy, if something can indeed be too sexy. But in the end, that chick's boobs were just so damn hot -- I had to post the picture.)

To me, pornography is not boobs or butts (Guess what, those are standard issue on humans.) Pornography is local news, the insane amount of murder and torture that is loving fetishized in movies, TV shows and video games, US Weekly ("Stars with cellulite!"), reality programming that demonstrates a woeful misunderstanding of the definition of the word "reality," corporate citizenry, airbrushing, Monsanto's business practices, and such. But I live in the United States in 2011, and here, pornography means sex.

Yes, SEX, as in how everyone reading this got here (except you test tube babies there in the back rows. Uh, no offense.) That's right. Someone did "IT" with someone else. They made love, they stuck cock in cunt, they had tepid sex because the ovulation thermometer said it was time, they co-mingled souls and saw God, they slam-fucked next to the dumpsters behind the Hardee's.

How are we STILL so ashamed of something so natural, human and basic?

*Shrug* Eh, dunno.

Anyway, the revenue stream of the Google ads (though perhaps "stream" is a bit strong a word. The revenue "slightly drippy faucet" perhaps?) is now gone, so I'm wondering what kind of monetizing strategies seem less odious to you, dear Gentle Reader? I, of course, am happy to write for you for free just because I love you so much, but my shareholders are total dicks and are always talking about stuff like "monetization" and "paying the electric bill."

I'm posting a poll over in the margin there on the right. Please weigh in with with your vote. The question is this:
How would you be willing to support IBWMW?

1. By making your regular purchases through the Amazon search box there at right?
2. Buying something via blog link from sex toy company Good Vibrations?
3. Making a direct donation using the Donate button in the right margin?
4. Getting a Kindle subscription to In Bed With Married Women (only 99¢ a month!)
5. Reading it for damn free like always.

Mull it over and let me know.

(photo source)

"big tide nipple fuck sliping in bedroom"

2011-11-18T12:50:00.000-08:00

I, too, often stand topless
next to my lava lamp.

"Big tide nipple fuck sliping in bedroom."

Ah yes, faithful IBWMW readers will recognize this, not as the beginning of a provocative haiku, but rather as the unmistakably tortured syntax, poor spelling and unclear desires of a Misguided Googler®.

So I have an idea. In the interest of trying to run a good business around here (suddenly thought of new blog motto: "Where the Customer Counts," replacing former blog motto "A Cry for Help"), let's have a look at this month's trends in Misguided Googlers®, shall we? Please get out your folders and direct your attention to the screen in front of the room.

As I see it, the keyword trends directing people to this corner of the Internet are as follows:

1. Sexy time with bedposts: "Women fucking bed poles." "Free videos of women coming on the bed post."

2. Excessively specialized requests: "Big tits women7" (not sure why big tits women6 was not acceptable to this searcher, but I'm not here to judge.) "Naked female mail carriers." (rrraowwr!) "Jill St. John Lost World camel toe," "cunnilingus in World War I."

3. Not even asking a question, just bragging: "I fucked the older woman down the street."

4. Various and sundry requests for married women doing assorted sexual things: Including married women... "loving cock," "fucking a stranger," "who like to suck any cock they can"...you get the idea. That's why it was so refreshing to find "married women driving naked." (post idea, cashing in on two trends at once: married women mail carriers driving naked.)

5. Just funny, though I can't really say why: "Can I put fat sex toy in woman virgina." Hell, why not? "Mmm old woman sex," "gay water," "how to catch married woman for fuck." And my favorite, "homemade fuck."

6. Flattering (certainly, this had to have been my husband): "Blow job marriage divine jill hamilton."

7. Insulting: "Long and sagging titties." Not me, darlin'. You have come to the wrong place. (Try again in a few years though!)

8. Racist old Southern woman hitting the sherry and drunk Googling: "Wife in bed with a black."

9. Kind of ick: "Fuck horse cervix," "elderly fuck toy," "dog fuck wife in a bedroom." (the bedroom specified because dog fucking wife in kitchen = unacceptable, I guess.)

10. What the hell?!?: "Vagisil porn," "tentacle eroticism," "sexy chipmunk costume," "dildo masturbation ikea," "vagina cupcakes," "inner dildo-y part plus so-called 'rabbit ears' for outer stimulation," "fuckable household objects," "Snuggle bear gets fucked." Oh wait... *blush*...those are all legit.

So, anyone have any business insights? Ways to cash in and whatnot?

If not, I'll leave you with one more search term, "Woman slow hip rolling in bed to orgasm" which I might have to search myself because it sounds kind of hot. I can only hope that wherever I land, they will treat me kindly.

****This just in!: Due to this post, IBWMW is now the #2 choice for the search term "married woman fuking dogs." New new blog motto: "Lots of married woman and dog fuking."

(photo source: Space Ghost Depressed)

Note: For more frequent Misguided Googler updates, "like" the In Bed With Married Women Facebook page.

This is Kind of A Strange Question, But Does Your Teddy Bear Have A Boner?

2011-11-15T11:48:00.000-08:00

There are two types of inventors -- the Steve Jobs type, coming up with brilliant, useful products replete with zen-like beauty and then there is...everyone else.

Like whoever the fuck invented this thing, shown there on the left.

This product, as near as I can tell, is called This Teddy Bear Hides Your Sex Toys in a Secret Pouch. Which I guess is a good enough name since that's exactly what it is.

This poor Teddy is upsetting to me because I picture the dude who invented it (Yes, I know it's sexist, but in my mind, this inventor's a guy. And don't be trying to change my mind. I'm pretty firm on this one). Anyway I think of him coming home and telling his wife, "Baby, call your boss and quit your job at the cannery because right here, I've got our ticket out of this rat hole!" Then he proudly whips out the plans for This Teddy Bear Hides Your Sex Toys in a Secret Pouch.

The wife sighs quietly to herself. One gets the feeling that it's just the latest in a long line of sighs that have come with marrying this guy.

I mean, did he not think this through at all? There are so very many ways this is a bad idea.

--First and most importantly, a stuffed animal prominently displayed on the bed is not a guaranteed Mate Attracter. Many, I among them, would argue that it would be more accurately categorized as Mate Repellent.

--If you have kids and want to keep them away from something, a stuffed animal is most assuredly not your best bet. The vegetable drawer in the fridge might be a better choice, or hey, how 'bout trying the night stand drawer like everyone else in the world?

--Except for Plushies, bless those dear, dear stuffed animal fuckers (see also: I Am Going To Fuck You So Hard, Snuggle), stuffed animals and sex just don't go together. Can you imagine rolling about in bed with someone, they get a mischievous look in their eyes and say, "Would you like to try something new?" Then they seductively bring out... their Teddy Bear? No, no, no. And, btw, that sound you hear is genitals shriveling up and scurrying to find a safe place to hide under the bed.

--Pavlovian conditioning. You grab your Teddy Bear, you get out your toy, you have an orgasm. Repeat repeat repeat until, in your mind, Teddy Bear = orgasm. (see above, Plushies)

--$39.99! No way, mister, for that kind of money, I'll rip a sex toy hole in my own damn Teddy Bear.

--But main objection to the idea is, well, this:

Right.

xoxoxo

jill

P.S. I found this Back Boner-Having Teddy Bear at Shop In Private, a site featuring all manner of embarrassing products. Loved it as sort of an anthropological study about what sorts of things our society deems to be embarrassing. There were adult diapers, butt lifting lingerie, pubic wigs, lice shampoo, Journey cds, anal douches, back shavers, small sized condoms, cream to keep your balls smelling "fresh" and "The Big Boy Package Appearance Enhancer" (sold out).

Have a look, but be forewarned, when I was there, I inadvertently activated an informational video on the site, and some dude started talking about "coochie shaving cream" in a Really Loud Voice.

Dopamine Withdrawal and Litost

2011-11-11T17:57:00.000-08:00

Litost is a nearly untranslatable Czech word, a state of feeling miserable and humiliated. "Litost is a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery," writes Mulan Kundera in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.

Anyone who has experienced the end of a love affair and/or unrequited passion is well aware of litost, translatable or not, because there it is, living in your head, all fucking day and night.

There are already plenty of good reasons why the death of passion is so unbearable. I mean, hmm, there's the personal rejection of everything you are, the shame ("Why the fuck did I think it was wise to text him that picture of my butt?"), the anger/incredulousness at the other's person inability/fear/general fucktardedness at not seeing how flippin' incredible you are, and the sadness over that very same thing. I mean, well, it all sucks. Hard.

But in one of the crueler aspects of neurochemistry, just when you're hitting this personal low happens to be the exact second that dopamine decides to flee the scene. Dopamine, as you will recall, from Dopamine, The Cruel Bitch Mistress is a chemical that floods your brain in the first throes of love. (Oh, god, remember how good it was? I'll pause a moment here for anyone who needs to take a sobbing break...)

A dopamine high is great--there might be nothing better--but it's a harsh, difficult-to-manage kind of high. Someone giddy on the dopamine may be very creative, in love with the world, happy and open to the many glorious wonders of the world and their fellow human beings. Dopamine just hammers on your reward system in your brain and you feel good, man. Really good. This, however, is accompanied by less delightful effects like lack of sleep, loss of appetite and a need to keep the good chemicals coming through increasing intensification of the affair. But you kinda don't care because everything else is just so...amazing.

Dopamine acts in the same way as pretty much any drug of abuse, according to Helen Fisher in my now-dog-eared copy of Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love:

If the beloved breaks off the relationship, the lover shows all the common signs of withdrawal, including depression, crying spells, anxiety, insomnia, loss of appetite (or binge eating), irritability, and chronic loneliness. Like all addicts, the lover them goes to unhealthy, humiliating, even physically dangerous lengths to procure their narcotic.

That is, litost. (a side note: As one who has well tried the whole "unhealthy, humiliating" etc... route, I can advise you with some authority that that's not gonna work out so well for you.)

So what the fuck are you supposed to do, faced with the one-two punch of psychological trauma coupled with, basically, a really harsh drug withdrawal?

Unfortunately, your options are not terribly exciting, but rest assured, they do work. After a time at least. A very unpleasant, suckfest of a time. For advice, I would steer you to my two gurus in matters of the heart, one modern, Helen Fisher, and one ancient, Roman poet Ovid (43 BC-17AD).

According to Fisher, the cure is basically--do other shit. (Fisher, a respected author and scientist, uses much more genteel language, of course.) Take a walk, go have a coffee, climb a mountain, get a dog. All non-"them" related activities that give you pleasure are fine. Meditate, don't eat sweets or hit the booze, get plenty of sunlight, and plaster a big ol' fake smile on your face to convince yourself and others that you are just fucking fine. (This actually works, according to Fisher, "The nerves of these facial muscles activate nerve pathways in the brain that can give you feelings of pleasure. Even imagining that you are happy can spur pleasurable brain activity.")

Also, you can't go around thinking of your former lover, that hideous, unappreciative, (too fucking sexy, no! wrong train of thought!) emotionally-stunted wreck of a person, because that just makes it worse. You must physically remove reminders of their wretched existence to eliminate chances of backsliding. Suggests Fisher:

You must remove all evidence of the addictive substance: the beloved. Throw out cards and letters or stuff them in a box and put it out of reach. Don't call or write under any circumstance. And depart immediately if you see your former lover in the office or the street. Why? Because as Charles Dickens said, "Love...will thrive for a considerable time on a very slight or sparing food." Even the briefest contact with "him" or "her" can fire up your brain circuits for romantic ardor. If you wish to recover, you must expunge all traces of the thief who stole your heart.

Meanwhile, back 2000 years ago in Remedia Amoris (Remedy of Love), Ovid was pretty much dishing up the same advice--do other shit.

Love is the child of idleness, as slothfulness begets sensuality. It behooves you, therefore, to be active, and you may succeed in breaking the painful shafts of Cupid and putting out his torch.

And Ovid goes further than having you burn letters and such (which he does recommend as well), he advises leaving town entirely. "I believe in drastic treatments only, for there can be no cure without pain," he writes. But the principle is the same, do anything to avoid re-fanning your ardor.

Remember that you must stay away, for it is possible that embers of the fire that consumes you are still smoldering treacherously beneath the ashes of your surface indifference. To return prematurely will undo all the efforts you have wasted on your cure. It will be fatal to come back and find that your absence has merely given you a keener appetite for what is bad for you.

If these sound too grim, there are three more methods that sound a little more fun:

1. Take on a second lover and "let your affection hover uneasily between the two," counsels Ovid. The idea is more lovers = a certain helpful detachment.
2. Overdose on the loved one. "Throw yourself at her night and day; have your fill of her in every way and manner; and she shall prove the means of curing your ills," wrote Ovid. For some reason, our brains refuse to continue getting a dopamine fix from the same person. Eventually, your brain just stops responding to the dopamine flood (see also: "The Coolidge Effect" in "Our Genes Can Be Heartless Puppeteers") unless you....
3. Find some other incredibly bangable mate. Writes Fisher: "Of all the cures for a bad romance, by far the most effective is to find a new lover to fill your heart." And start the whole fucking thing again--Wheeee!

(photo source: Frantisek Drtikol: Nude With Circles, 1928)

*Thank you to Nicole Daedone for reminding me of the lovely word, litost.

Someone Who Actually Used The Female Condom!

2011-11-10T16:19:00.000-08:00

A reader over at Dan Savage's column in The Stranger recently linked to this IBWMW reader letter. Upon re-reading it, I loved it again so much that here is it again, showing up at your doorstep, no worse for the long trip. Take it in and give it a good home will you?

Not only is this letter about the female condom, which as faithful readers will recall, I am unduly obsessed with, but it is also stunningly well-written. (Also, non-irrelevantly, I am home with a sick child today and can't be sitting around writing about wieners all day.)

The reader, let's call him B, was good enough to report back to us on his experience with the female condom. I love it especially because he uses the phrase "from a purely penile perspective." Writes B:

"With a regular condom, men lose all the direct friction on the penis, which is, of course, why so many guys hate using them. With the female condom, all the friction and sensation comes back (for the male), but the feeling is still very different from regular no-condom sex, because of what the penis is actually rubbing against: a urethane sheath. Urethane feels nothing like skin, and is also very different from latex… more Saran Wrappy, really.

Maneuvering the penis through the ring-opening is fun, like an accuracy game, and it requires the help of fingers, which most people will probably find lacking in the romance department. But hey, when there’s a plastic ring dangling out of a person’s vagina, it ain't gonna be a scene outta Jane Austen.

Note: Not a scene from
"Pride and Prejudice"

Once the penis is safely inside, a lot of the things you’ve grown to expect from penetration are the same: the pressure and the warmth are as they should be. But then there’s this strange, unfamiliar texture, like your penis is now gripped by something that’s smoother and more plastic than you're used to. From a purely penile perspective, it’s a bit like having sex with a warm, tight sandwich bag. But that’s just a best guess, of course. I’ve never gotten it on with food wrapping, honestly.

I will admit that the sensation was actually exciting as a novelty. Everything else about my girlfriend was the same, but her vagina felt noticeably different. She was 98% human and 2% love doll, and that was a bit of a turn-on, as if she’d swapped out her sex part for something new… not better, but at least different and maybe a tad futuristic.

Blame it on all those nerve endings that make intercourse so penis-centric for guys, but even with all the other stuff that’s going on during sex, there’s no disguising that what you’re feeling down in the thrusting zone isn’t really an au- natural vagina, but something “other.”

So, yeah. Warm, tight, and plasticky.

It’s not a feeling I’d want every time, and it would definitely get to be a drag if it was the default birth control method. But as a one-off experiment, it was enjoyable and memorable."

The Appeal of the Experienced Lover, Or Why Older Women Are So Very Fuckable

2011-11-02T13:27:00.000-07:00

I am 46 years old and I have never felt hotter. Never. Hotter.

Really.

And I'm not just saying that to dull the pain of some Horrible Truth like when people tell you men only care about a woman's inner beauty or that if you just breathe in a jaunty, can-do manner during childbirth, it won't hurt.

When you're older, sex is just...better. Way better. You notice more, you feel more, you just enjoy it more. In the post, In Search of the Elusive Third Type of Orgasm, dear reader Anonymous had this theory about it:

AS we get older, we are less concerned about how we look when screamin', whoopin', full heartedly ENJOYING mind-blowing sex.

True. Plus once you hit 40, you get a delightfully useful "Fuck it" attitude that makes life much more enjoyable. Things you don't want to do? Don't do them! Fuck it! Boring people in your life? Don't talk to them! Only deal with people who enchant and entertain you. (And if you don't agree, piss off! I've got no time for you!)

Not only do I feel way hotter than my 20 year old self, I think I probably am, in some sort of observable, measurable manner, actually more smokin' hot. But in lieu of a complex and probably cost-prohibitive science experiment involving a time travel machine, a startled (and most likely drunken) version of my 1980s self, and an intrepid team of embarrassed/aroused scientists in lab coats calculating orgasm response times, we will have to test my hypothesis with empirical evidence. That is, observation and experience.

Exhibit A, Experience: A 43 year old friend of mine recently bought a sex toy (It was something like this, with an inner dildo-y part plus so-called "rabbit ears" for outer stimulation) and quickly discovered that she could have g-spot orgasms. She had never known this about herself. For 40-fucking-3 years! This information can be nothing but good, I say. Nothing but good!

Yeah, it's definitely his Inner
Beauty that's got us.

Exhibit B, Observation: Here I will have to go with Benjamin Franklin, favorite of old broads everywhere. Franklin was not a looker, but he had a good brain which is ten times as hot, and was thus quite popular with the ladies. Here in his (once banned!) Old Mistresses Apologue (June 25, 1745), he advises a friend on why older women are clearly better Amours.

I repeat my former Advice, that in all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones. You call this a Paradox, and demand my Reasons. They are these:
1. Because as they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds are better stor’d with Observations, their Conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreable.
2. Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. They learn to do a 1000 Services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all Friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good Woman.
3. Because there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly produc’d may be attended with much Inconvenience.
4. Because thro’ more Experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion. The Commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your Reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the Affair should happen to be known, considerate People might be rather inclin’d to excuse an old Woman who would kindly take care of a young Man, form his Manners by her good Counsels, and prevent his ruining his Health and Fortune among mercenary Prostitutes.
5. Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement.
6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching a Virgin may be her Ruin, and make her for Life unhappy.
7. Because the Compunction is less. The having made a young Girl miserable may give you frequent bitter Reflections; none of which can attend the making an old Woman happy.
8thly and Lastly They are so grateful!!

I'm especially fond of number 5, with its talk of "what is below the Girdle" and Franklin's trying to explain to his friend that below-the-girdle action remains oh-so-good by invoking sciencey phrases like "Animals that walk upright" and "Deficiency of the Fluids."

Franklin wasn't alone in his love of experienced older women. Men throughout history have come to the same conclusion. In this article in The Smoking Jacket (a site from Playboy, Worldwide Headquarters of young nubile boobs), writer Chris Lathrop cites Franklin's letter and his "centuries-ahead-of-its-time awareness of something that's become common knowledge among modern men and anyone who watches Sex and the City or Desperate Housewives: Older women fucking rule."

The Roman poet Ovid* (43 BC- 17AD) also noted that older women fucking rule, albeit more eloquently (i.e. "enjoy the fruits of Love in their full and ripe maturity") in The Art of Love--Ars Amatoria, a sort of instruction manual on Love:

They are well versed in all the mysteries and attitudes of Love, and are thereby able to enhance your pleasure...Their appetites do not need to be provoked by wearisome titillations and they will share their pleasures with you equally...Dutiful embraces repel me, for nothing can be more pleasing to the ear of a lover than a trembling voice of the beloved when she whispers ecstatically of her joy. What can compare to my happiness when my fair one pleads with me to prolong her rapture? Naught can be sweeter than my beloved, inebriate with ecstasy, holding me at arm's length and pleading with swimming eyes that I slacken my pace.

So what do you think of all this? Men, do you agree? Have you known the pleasures of an older women? Women, are you feeling sassier these days? Is your body more responsive? Less so? And does anyone else besides me wish that they were gazing upon the face of their beloved "inebriate with ecstasy" instead of sitting here at the fucking computer?

* p.s. If you want to feel smart and read something pretty sexy at the same time, I urge you to read The Art of Love at once.

Beware: some of Ovid's advice can be:
--practical, yet not currently socially acceptable, i.e. take two mistresses instead of one so you don't get too attached, or,
--comically weird and outdated, i.e. this recipe for a face of "dazzling whiteness" which begins "Pulverize the first horns dropped from a lusty stag." (note: Ovid provides no clues on determining which stag is the lusty one.)

But most of his advice is still perfectly good. Here's Ovid on taking your time in Love, which, more than 2000 years later, is still damned good advice.

If you will listen to me you will not be too hasty in attaining the culmination of your happiness. Learn by skillful maneuvering to reach your climax by degrees. When you are safely ensconced in the sanctuary of bliss, let no timid fear arrest your hand. You will be richly rewarded by the love-light trembling in her eyes, even as the rays of the sun fitfully dance upon the waves. Then will follow gentle murmurs, moans and sighs, laden with ecstasy that will sting and lash desire.

Yes.

photo source

The Swings of Desire, aka, Ovulation = Hormonal Beer Googles*

2011-11-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

Is this chick ovulating? Check out her

clingy clothes, symmetrical boobs, the

manly companion... Signs point to "yes."

"People like to forget that we're animals, tied to the Earth and the tides," says a friend with a penchant for making such delightful proclamations. Yes, we think we're making rational decisions, exercising our free choice, and all that... but half the time--hell, maybe all the time--we're just blindly responding to our hormonal instructions like remote control cars in the hands of a sugared-up kid. To wit: this study showing that women buy sexier, clingier clothes while ovulating. (To those who spent sex ed class giggling in the back of the class: ovulation is the woman's fertile period. And if you don't start paying better attention, well, don't make me break out my diagram of the female reproductive system.)

One of the study's researchers--sounding less like a scientist and more like an evil cyborg villain from a future dystopian universe--noted a way that corporations could cash in this phenomenon by hitting up the ovulation-crazed females ready to shell out cash on push-up bras and the like:

"Our findings suggest marketers for many types of female products are well served to strategically time their mailings, coupons, electronic solicitations, and direct requests to the specific window when women are ovulating."

It's evil, I tell you! (And, following the same logic, presumably the marketing flyers for unsexy clothes would arrive a couple weeks later. Hey, JC Penney's--it's your time to shine!) But ovulating women aren't spending all their time just buying sexy clothes, they're mindlessly obeying their hormones in myriad ways. Women's voices get higher-pitched during ovulation, they walk differently, prefer more masculine faces and are more susceptible to pick-up lines. During this period, they're also more likely to fantasize about someone other than their partner. (For your Fantasy Consideration: Javier Bardem in that scene in Vicky Christina Barcelona where he seduces two women by telling them, "Life is short, life is boring, life is full of pain," thus, they should immediately run off to an island with him for the weekend.)

Um...what was I saying, oh yes, during ovulation, women's bodies change like some mutant Transformer, except instead of becoming robots in disguise, our ears, fingers and breasts get more symmetrical and skin color lightens. (Cue creepy sound effect to signify mutation.) Women actually get observably prettier, and subjects consistently rate ovulating women as more attractive.

And it's not just the ladies going all crazy with the hormones. Men think ovulating women smell better, they get more jealous of dominant males when their partner is ovulating and they give ovulating strippers more tips. ($70 an hour for the ovulating strippers vs. only $35 for the menstruating ones, but I'm guessing that's because the menstruating ones were probably sobbing in the corner, complaining that everyone had become a complete asshole.)

It all seems a little complex. I don't see why humans didn't just adopt the chimpanzee method of the females developing a big swollen pink butt when they're ready to go. It's a simple, obvious and clear signal of willingness. Although, admittedly, the pink butt route has its own drawbacks. Swollen pink butts do in fact make your butt look fat in those jeans, and pink butt makes it much more difficult to play it coy.

Female: Hmmm...I don't know if I'm interested...
Male: Uh, I can see your big ol' pink butt, you know.
Female: Oh, yeah, right....Let's go back to your place then.

Several friends and I have noticed that as we've entered our 40s, our cyclical swings of desire have become much more pronounced. One week we'd rather read a book, the next we're eying the bag boys at the grocery store. (Has the guy who brings the carts in always been so damn smokin'?) It's like when we're into it, we're WAY into it--like Superfreaks--and when we're not, well, eh, whatever. So here are your questions for the day: Are you elderly like us and is this happening to you as well? If so, you always noticed it or are you just becoming more attuned to the rhythms of your body? And you too, men, how is your desire changing as you age? Comment below, or drop me an email.

xoxoxox

jill

The Blow Job as Path to the Divine

2011-10-25T11:39:00.000-07:00

I am not a religious person. I don't even know that I want to be. I have sort of tried, a little, but for better or worse, I don't seem to have the God gene. The closest I ever get to the sublime feeling of connection with the universe that religious people describe is generally through music. Walking at night, the wet smell of the evening mist, a full moon hanging overripe in the sky, and Pandora radio seducing me with exactly what I want to hear before I know myself (Damn, Pandora, I will tell you again, I would so fuck you if I could) is the closest I get to experiencing the Divine.

Except for sex. I think what's appealing to me about sex is not the actual friction between body parts-- although that's pretty damn good, too--but the out-of-body, out-of-your-fucking-mind, brain/body explosion that happens during the best sex. Good sex is just somehow...beyond. You're extremely focused on the Now, the line between you and other is blurred, and, in the best moments, you feel like you and the Universe are sort of throbbing together as one. Which sounds a lot like religious ecstasy. (Other times it's just you and your partner, or your hand, or your vibrator--you get off, then go about your day. Which is fine as well.)

In an article in the January 2011 issue of Playboy, Samantha Gillison wrote a wonderful essay "The Platonic Ideal" on this idea of sex as route to the Divine. I would link to it, but--incredibly in this day and age--it is not available on-line! Well, unless you pay. This is why this month, I am a member of iPlayboy.com. For my $8 (paid happily because I care for YOU, dear reader), I get to go into the link that says "Members Only," like I'm Hef's friggin' best friend. I can also look at every issue ever made, which would be great except my computer is so old that every issue ever made is slightly blurry, rendering the copy barely readable and the voluminous boobs semi-impressionistic swipes of pink and white.

In Gillison's piece, she describes the moment she became illuminated on the joys of giving head. It was after a Bad Brains concert, and in the darkness of the parking lot, she knelt before her date.

We could have been strangers--we almost were--and somehow the darkness, the anonymity of the situation liberated me from worrying about doing something wrong or feeling self-conscious. I allowed myself to sink deep into the fantasy of what it must feel like for him--the pressure, the warmth, the wetness. All of a sudden the only thing in the world was that cock and my connection to it.

Previously, Gillison had thought of blow jobs as something you gave, like a gift, or something you did as a favor. Plus there was some fear and uncertainty.

It was just that I was unsure of cock when I got up close to one; it contained unreadable male mysteries. I might hurt it or maybe just do nothing right. Maybe I looked ridiculous. I didn’t really know which parts of it wanted to be touched, or how. It seemed to be its own creature, almost uncannily separate from the man who owned it. Perhaps simpleminded but authoritarian and judgemental.

This time, however, she had a revelation.

But starting that night in the parking lot, I began to understand the profound, dirty pleasure of giving blow jobs. It isn’t just that I discovered how much I like being in control, how much I like giving the kind of pleasure that makes someone helpless, and how intoxicating it is to be on the recieving end of hurricane-levels of desire. But, that night, it was also the revelation of the particular male smell you get up close with a cock and balls that turned me on in ways that are almost beyond description. It was like being inside sex.

Which is so completely hot. Are you still with me here?

Plato said that human beings can only truly access the divine through sexual ectasy, Eros. This has always made so much sense to me. When else are humans as rapt by feeling as when they come and when they touch God? That feeling of connection to the universal, the feeling of having exited my own body as I orgasm is nothing other than touching the infinite.

Yet I have never been able to get close to that Platonic, out-of-my-mind kind of sexual esctasy unless I can satisfy a primal hunger: Whether in fantasy or reality, I need a connection to another equally rauncy human being. It has always been the case with me, since I was a teenager, that I have to see someone else’s horniness in order to feel horny. What I happily realized on my knees in the parking lot is that an erect cock in my face is among the most blatant ways of experiencing the realness of someone else’s desire I’d ever encountered. And every time, it spurs a repsonse in me, hot and dark and if I’m doing something transgressive in the best possible way.

Blow jobs! Philosophical talk! The phrase "erect cock"! Gah, I am a goner! LOVE this $%$&!

I'll add a little bit more of her essay, because I want to make sure I don't stray from "fair use" territory to "stealing" and "copyright infringement." Here's Gillison on the experience of blowing a long time friend and feeling, then overcoming, the awkwardness inherent in that particular situation.

But then a supple communication started between me and his penis as I began to suck, a communication beyond words and much deeper than any we had ever had before.

His cock felt so sexy in my mouth, hard and hot and aching with desire. But I could also feel how much of this man was being revealed to me: his sexuality, his vulnerabilty, his musky smell.

Soon the connection started to feel like a merging, as though I was experiencing that blow job too. It felt crazy, off-the-charts raunchy, to fantasize that I was not only giving head but getting it. All of a sudden I was overwhelmed by pure animal pleasure. I was so turned on that I came.

Since that night’s discovery I always revel in the double fantasy of giving and receiving. And I honor the wisdom of the old Greek philosophers who pointed out that although the Divine is inscrutable, it is easy to find while sucking on a dick.

And there is no better way to end a post than what Gillison ended with right there, so I will leave you to your day.

xoxoxo
jill

* Afterword: Do NOT do a Google image search for "penis public domain." Hideous medical photos! "Lesion on the glans"! Holy crap! Look away! Look away!

photo: William M. Rattase

Someone Wins...um, Something! Plus Comment Passion

2011-10-22T11:49:00.000-07:00

The winner of the Love is... contest is the ever-insightful commenter Mongo, At the Moment. For his efforts, he wins a cock ring. What? You can't hear me? Okay, FINE! He wins a COCK RING! That's right, a big ol' candy colored, waterproof, vibrating cock ring, with girth adjustment, "extra nubs," a "baller" (which could probably use a more appealing name) and hell, probably a bacon-cooking attachment. There, I said it, COOOOOOCK RIIIING, happy now? (btw, if you want your own damn cock ring and the joy that is the baller, gather up your courage, and order one here.)

Mongo, who, presumably, is woefully un-cock-ring-festooned at present, answered my exchange rate question about the money Kim Casali made for drawing the inexplicably popular comic "Love Is..." (or, as Cagey-C gorgeously put it, "'love is...' oddly uninhibited Precious Moments") during their 70s heyday. (Short answer: it was a fuck of a lot of money.)

Actually I loved ALL your comments and wish I could drive my parade limo through town like Mr. Monopoly, tossing cock rings to you all.

But it wasn't Mongo's £ to $ exchange rate wisdom that got me. It was the comment he left a few minutes later on the post Help This Reader Out--Girl's Got the Dopamine Sickness! that sealed the deal.

Actually, if you have time, go back to that post and read what everyone had to say on monogamy, chemicals and what the fuck to do about it. Everyone was so honest and insightful and smart, I could have wept. I especially loved mjs's comment, which contained such wisdom as:

The eternal struggle between novelty and secure intimacy - it is a classic. You are experiencing the power of novelty and chemistry. It is why when we start dating someone there is so much energy. It comes from the mystery, the tension, the surprises. It is the opposite of secure intimacy.
Now we also love secure intimacy as well - the knowns, the stability, the familiarity...but there is no tension or excitement there and hence sexual tension can often diminish or vanish. It gives us great comfort to know everything and share everything with our partners but it more often than not kills desire because that full sharing on every level including mundane details makes lovers into family - and who wants to fuck their family?

Indeed.

Anyway, on to Mongo's tale of dopamine, lust and excruciating restraint. Here, go get a cup of coffee or something, settle in for a few moments, and read what he had to say:

A similar situation happened with me, about a year ago: A friend, with kids; I'm single. Her husband is more an acquaintance of mine than a friend.

She: Simmering long-standing issues with husband. Me: Always wanted to duct-tape her to the back of a Zip Sharecar and drive to Carmel for the weekend. Husband: Would not see the humor in the situation.

This kind of contact can become the functional equivalent of bungee-jumping -- The juice, tension, the frisson of an unspoken agreement to skirt the edge of forbidden contact. Hormones; endorphins; secretly flaunting convention and feeling more alive; both of us were thinking: Yeah, sign me up for more of that...

It was clear that if either of us had made even a modest physical move, the escalation from flirting to fucking would have been a rapid progression. It hurt so Bad it was almost blissful. After a while, it was clear all this was getting in the way of our relating to each other the way we always had -- so we talked. A lot.

I was clear that the relationship between my friend and her husband was something they would have to work out -- and if their relationship took a nose dive, it would not be because of me. There were issues between them, and having an affair wouldn't make a real resolution (or, not) any easier or clearer.

We also agreed that her children didn't deserve to have their sense of security sacrificed to our barely-in-control curiosity and desires.

We decided not to see each other for a while. When we did, after a few months, she made it a point to include her husband, and I simply followed her lead. And I remembered the pleasure of her company was what I was really there for. Her relationship with her husband isn't perfect, but it feels more solid, now.

In the end, she and I wanted our friendship preserved. That was the Reality. People who know you well over time are nearly impossible to replace. It meant holding my desire for sex, intimacy and romance, along with my experience of her as a friend, in my hands at the same time. It'll always feel that way, and I can live with that.

*****

And Mongo, send me your mailing address, and your prize will be on its way.

(photo source: http://liliumregale.blogspot.com/2008/09/vintage-erotica.html)