What's Up With Asexuals?

I thought about a clever title, perhaps some play on words to indicate that asexuals do not desire sex, but hey, that would be pithy and inaccurate, and I'm all about accuracy, because it's ASEXUAL AWARENESS WEEK (or it was, at least, as of yesterday)!  Given the large and growing presence of asexual activism online, we here at SoT decided it's high time for a discussion on one of the most interesting, albeit perplexing and sometimes frustrating sexual identities.

For starters, a definition - or rather, host thereof - are in order.  What is asexuality?  The grandaddy of all asexual sites is the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), which defines an asexual as "a person who does not experience sexual attraction to other people."  This definition is simple on the surface, but the wording is important.  Because asexuals tend to define themselves in relation to more established sexual orientations such as "straight" and "gay", the focus is on attraction - or the lack, thereof, as opposed to behavior. Just as a virgin gay teenager is still gay, based on who s/he is attracted to, an asexual can have sex, masturbate, and be in a relationship and still be asexual.  This is something of a difficult concept for many people to wrap their heads around, but it's important not to confuse lack of libido with asexuality.  Some asexuals have a libido, but what separates them from "sexuals" (that's the rather unfortunate term some asexuals call non-asexuals) is the lack of sexual attraction to people (or presumably, anything else, as I don't think they're objectumsexuals either).  They use the shorthand "ace" to refer to themselves.

Still with me?  It gets more complicated, because most asexuals see asexuality as a spectrum encompassing a wide variety of relational orientations and desires.  Many asexuals are interested in romantic relationships, although presumably are happier if sex isn't involved (some don't mind having sex to please a partner, many have no interest whatsoever, and some are repulsed by sex).  These folks identify as romantic asexuals, often putting a signifier in front of romantic to indicate what gender(s) they are attracted to romantically - such as heteroromantic, homoromantic, or bi/panromantic.  A smaller but significant group of asexuals have no romantic desires or attraction to others, and they're called aromantic.

The asexual tent is a big one, however, and allows room for yet more modifiers - 'gray' and demi', as in gray-ace or demisexual.  Gray is the more all-encompassing term, which refers to people who can experience sexual attraction, but in such a capacity that for whatever reason, they identify with asexuality more than non-asexuals.  Demisexual seems to be used specifically to define people who are only capable of experiencing sexual attraction once they know someone well.  Confusing matters a bit further, I've also seen people identify as "demiromantic" which as far as I can ascertain means they aren't generally interested in romantic partnerships, but can be under specific circumstances.

Whew, we've got the definitions out of the way.  I'm trying to be as fair as possible, because when there are discussions critical of some of the concepts within asexuality, I often see people told by asexuals that they don't actually understand what the definitions are.  These are based off reading lots and lots and lots of asexuals describing their identities and orientations in their own words, but if you think I have something wrong, please feel free to let me know.

The demographics of asexuality, at least as far as the Internet goes (I haven't encountered any self-identified asexuals offline), it tends to be a young group.  This isn't surprising.  While Kinsey and other sex researchers have acknowledged the existence of people who appeared to have no sexual attraction or interest for decades, asexuality as an identity politic is a very young movement.  David Jay started AVEN in 2002, and is largely responsible for how a lot of the discourse around asexuality has been shaped.  Given that the leather community is many decades old now, swingers date at least back to the 1960s, and even polyamory as a term was established in the early 1990s, asexuality is young indeed as far as sexual minority movements go.  So it's to be expected that the majority of people who identify online as asexual are going to be people who grew up with the Internet, largely in their early 20s, although obviously older asexuals do exist.  It is fair, however, to say that within the asexual community on the Internet, individuals older than 30 are few and far between.  AVEN is still the largest online community for asexuals, but Tumblr also appears to be a hotbed of asexual activism.  Since only people under 30 can figure out how to use Tumblr (this is a fact) this makes sense.   Based an absolutely nothing but my own late nights reading asexual message boards, it seems that hetero or panromantic asexuals are the most common group within the asexual community, with a fair-sized minority within that group in long-term relationships with non-asexuals.

So, we're now we're educated as to what asexuality is and who asexuals are.  But what do they want?  Many people new to the concept of asexuality seem confused as to why there's a movement around not doing something.  While there's no asexual Borg hivemind, there does seem to be a few key points of focus within asexual activism.  Asexuals are interested in visibility.  Think about television and film - can you think of many characters who have no sexual attraction to other people?  It's a fair point.  Many asexuals complain that nobody knows they exist, and when they identify themselves as asexual, people assume they are celibate for religious reasons, scared of sex, or suffering from a medical or psychological issue that can be "fixed" which brings us to another major issue.  Asexuals, by their own definition, do not see asexuality as a problem to be cured.  Borrowing a line from the mainstream gay rights movement, asexuals claim they were "born this way" and reject being pathologized.

These are two important and valuable goals, for asexuals and any sexual minority group, really.  Provided it doesn't cause you any distress (other than the shit society will fling at you) there's nothing wrong with not wanting sex, just as there's nothing wrong with wanting kinky sex, or sex with multiple partners.  Asexuality is the flipside of that old sex-positive mantra, "Your kink is not my kink (and that's OK)".  It's clear that human sexuality is an incredibly, amazingly diverse spectrum that encompasses all kinds of weirdness, so why is it so hard to understand a lack of interest?

There seems to be varying opinions about fluidity within asexuality, but it seems somewhat common for some to identify as strongly asexual at first, and then demisexual later.  Understandably, asexuals really hate being told they'll "grow out of it" or they "haven't met the right person" although quite clearly some people do in fact change their self-identification and it's usually in the direction of identifying as more sexual, not less.  This is a similar conundrum young people in the childfree community tend to face.  While certainly most people who don't want children enough to actual take on a childfree identity aren't going to have kids, it's also not surprising that older adults are skeptical that they won't feel differently later.

And yet asexuals today generally aren't defining themselves as a misunderstood sexual or lifestyle minority, such as kinksters, swingers, and the childfree, but as rather as a sexual orientation akin to homosexuality, often borrowing heavily from the language of the social justice movements.  And this is where things get a bit tricky, as this has created an ongoing major internet kerfuffle between some GLBT activists and asexuals, and also thrown some asexuals into conflict with sex-positive feminists.   Next time on Sex or Television: when a bunch of groups with similar interests in stickin' it to the man decide to stick it to each other, instead!  Ah, identity politics.  Aren't they fun?

When Sex is NOT Fun: Gin & Tears Edition

GirlAboutOaktown has had her say on the ongoing SiF meltdown. I was affected by it, but in a different way.

The first 20 minutes of episode #278 was really heavy. It was the most gripping, brutal 20 minutes of podcasting I've ever heard. It actually hurt to listen to, especially as someone who's gone through the torrent of emotions that starting an open relationship can bring. Seriously, if there's ever an open relationship/polyamory archive, this section of the podcast should have a permanent spot.

In that first 20 minutes, one hears a tremendous amount of pain in Kidder's voice. It sounds as if Jade was really trying to push his buttons. How else could she keep going on with it, aware of how much it was hurting him?

At about 20:20, though, the podcast took a dark, narcissistic turn. Up until this point, it was the hardest to listen to podcast I've ever heard, and I've listened to numerous German language podcasts. Once the mood turned, though, it was all about Kidder's rage and my sympathy dissolved. I started to wonder if he was just chumming up the waters for the sake of it. So he hasn't fucked anyone else because Jade didn't allow it. So he backed off his relationship with another member of the SiF podcast. That doesn't mean that Jade didn't let him have sex and emotional connection with someone else. She's been through a lot of the angst he was going through, but it didn't end up on Facebook.

As I said above, I went through a storm of emotions when my partner finally consummated her nearly 5 year long flirtation (and a little more) with a friend of hers. The night she called me to ask if it was okay to go ahead, I was 400 miles away. Immediately, I felt helpless, as if my world was drifting away and I was powerful to stop the changes. I pictured many ridiculous scenes, like the two of them sitting up in bed together, enjoying a post-coital cigarette after a mind-blowing fuck, talking about how it was the best thing either of them had ever done.

Then a funny thing happened. She started chatting online with me. It had been many hours since I last heard from her, but here she was. I asked her questions, and started to feel better that the same woman I loved was chatting with me now, and things were really the same.

When I woke up the next morning, I still had plenty of anxiety, so I put my mind to work to find someone to hook up with. It wasn't punitive. It was just that I wanted to remind myself that open relationships have benefits as well as difficulties. Sure, she was probably back to fucking him that morning (and she was), but that I could go have fun and it was okay.

The next time she hooked up with him, I was still anxious, but less so. The next time after that, even less so. One of the things I had realized early on that made it get better, was being able to spot the jealousy and weirdness creep in, and trying to remind myself that, while they were valid feelings, they were my own to deal with.

Kidder is free to own those feelings, but he has to learn to own them completely and honestly. She did some things that hurt him and his hurt was reasonable, but his reaction wasn't.

In his shoes, I would have been hurt by the New Orleans trip issue. He suggested that they go to New Orleans together for a little romantic getaway, since he had to travel there for work. She declined, citing money issues and needing to find a sitter. When she realized that the other guy would be nearby, she started making travel plans. That was pretty clueless on her part.

Jade also sexted the other guy about illicit office sex right after rejecting Kidder's advances in his office. This one is a bit different. While I can see how he'd feel hurt, if he looked at it honestly, he'd realize that much of what is sexy is built on fantasy. One may be really put off by the act of having anal sex, but in dirty talk, finds nothing hotter than going on about a spit-lubed double anal fuckfest. If our fantasies mirrored what we really do, they'd lose their power. Anyone who thinks I'm full of shit about this one, I defy you to be honest about whether you'd be willing to show your partner every bit of porn you've ever masturbated to.

I thought so.

To wrap this up for now, I'd like to suggest that maybe Kidder and Jade were not ready for this now, if ever. They went to a swingers' resort and did a full swap, started calling it an open relationship, and collapsed into poly drama in a record amount of time. It's like deciding to visit the zoo and then taking up bullfighting all in the same afternoon. Kidder is no sexual Hemingway. Maybe a bush league Bukowski, but only for the intoxicated rage.

Sex is NOT Fun: Nor is This Super-Long Post

Kidder Kaper and Krew (this K thing is fun) found my last post and have responded!  12 comments on one post may actually be a record for us here at Sex or Television!  I was all set - a week ago - to write a scathing post detailing all the weird relationship stuff Kidder has put out there, but the most recent episode of Sex Is Fun has made me rethink this, because despite the fundamental problem that it's yet another  show entirely about Kidder and his life, actual self-awareness was demonstrated in the episode, as was genuine, heartfelt sadness that makes it very hard to continue in this vein of snark.

Fact is, my own personal issues with how Kidder runs his podcast and responds to people on the Internet aside, opening up your relationship is a fraught, terrifying thing to do.  If you have some time, and you're a personal relationship drama voyeur like me, I'd recommend listening to episodes #276 and #278 of Sex Is Fun. You'll be missing a lot of backstory, of course, some of which I'm still missing too, but it should give you a decent idea of the stuff I want to talk about.  And since I'm not going to get into the details of rehashing the history of their relationship troubles here, you'll have to listen to see how what I'm saying applies to their situation.

As I've written before, I don't subscribe to the theory, popular amongst Polaymory activists, that open relationships have to be 100% "fair" to be "good."  I am all for individuals and couples setting their boundaries and then communicating them to each other and renegotiating them.  I think that "irrational" or "unfair" boundaries are fine, provided the other partner is totally OK with abiding by them.  Where you run into a problem is when an irrational/unfair boundary conflicts with what the other partner wants.

Kidder, by his own admission, is really insecure, and has a need to "feel special."  I think right there that is a personality trait that is going to make moving forward with a seriously open relationship pretty tricky.  People with those needs, right or wrong, are often going to feel neglected even in a relatively happy long-term monogamous relationship, just because without "NRE" (poly-speak for "new relationship energy" which is a ridiculous term that normal people call "infatuation") it is human nature to fall into ruts, take your partner for granted, and so forth and so on.  When you open up your relationship to the possibility of your partner experiencing NRE with another person, that's like murder on someone who is already insecure and has a need to always feel like they are the most important person in their partner's life.

That said, I am not a huge fan of the idea that all beliefs and feelings are automatically "valid" just because someone feels them.  Having been in a relationship with someone who was seriously mentally ill and thus held completely ridiculous and inaccurate cognition as a result of his mental illness, I think it's ludicrous to say we have to honor everyone's feelings at all times.  Crazy feelings are crazy, and while we can feel sympathy to the person having the crazy feelings, it doesn't mean we have to validate the false cognition said crazy feeling is based on.

I honestly feel that in order to do any serious amount of openness seriously, both partners need to feel absolutely secure in how "special" they are to their partner without necessarily needing a huge amount of reassurance about it.  Because opening up is challenging even for the most secure people, really.  To this end, I'm not convinced that Kidder and Jade are really good candidates for having a more open relationship (apart from what they've been doing all these years that didn't challenge their relationship as much).  And it sucks for them, because they both obviously want a higher degree of openness but are unable to agree with each other's boundaries on how to handle that.  They both want an emotional and sexual relationship with other people that threatens the other person.

It's almost like the SiF people are at one end of the spectrum and the PolyWeekly folks are at the other.  The latter discusses jealousy in open relationships by refusing to deal with it or making pat remarks about how bubble baths and "taking care of yourself" is the cure to jealousy.  The SiF point of view seems to be that twinges of jealousy are to be responded with by demands on your partner and endless "processing" as opposed to any sort of introspection or willingness to try to work on and move past the insecurities that are causing said jealousy.  I will say, as someone in a committed relationship, that I am overall more sympathetic to the SiF approach because at least it is more likely to ensure the survival of the primary relationship, whereas the PolyWeekly folks are incensed by the very idea of a primary relationship, because it's not egalitarian enough.

I think there's a line in-between that isn't particularly popular and doesn't have some sort of cute catchphrase, but involves both respecting your partner's boundaries but a willingness to advocate for your wants; communicating when you're feeling insecure or upset with your partners actions but also being willing to endure feeling shitty at times and owning your own shit.

Here's an example.  The Boy and I started our path to what is now a pretty open relationship by having threesomes with other men.  None of them went terribly well, and I was frustrated after the last one and tired of the effort and the awkward sex.  I told the Boy that I'd actually be OK with him, in the future, having sex with men without me present, although we'd have to discuss the terms in more detail at another time. I also told him that I wouldn't be comfortable with him having sex with the guy we'd just finished having sex with, though.  (Hey!  Semi-irrational boundary!) 

The next day I checked the joint e-mail account the Boy and I had set up for arranging said threesomes, and saw that the Boy had e-mailed the guy we'd just had sex with about hooking up one-on-one.  I was shocked and furious.  I called him from work and demanded to know why he'd do that when I'd just brought up the possibility of him seeing other guys without me and specifically said I didn't want either one of us to have anything to do with that guy.  What did the Boy do?  He lied.  He claimed he hadn't sent that e-mail.  When he realized I had proof, he copped to it.  I was livid, sick to my stomach, threatened to break up with him, told him he'd just ruined any chance he'd had of being able to have sex outside our relationship if our relationship even survived.  At the time I felt righteously furious, now I realize I was being a little melodramatic.

This mirrors a lot of the kind of things that led to Kidder's current troubles.  He caught his wife chatting with her paramour and didn't disclose it when he asked.  My partner lied to my face about making a sex date with another person.  How did we get through this huge betrayal of trust?

We talked about it.  Not for days or weeks, but for like, a couple hours.  I realized the Boy and I had a miscommunication - he thought I'd essentially given him permission to fuck other guys, full stop, and was really excited by this new freedom. When I called him to confront him, he realized that he'd triggered all my fears and insecurities about having a cheating bisexual partner (as my ex cheated on me repeatedly with men) and panicked.  And because he didn't want to appear to be just like my ex, he lied.

Like Kidder, I wasn't mad that my partner wanted to have sex with someone else - I was upset that I'd been lied to.  And I felt like I'd granted him this gift, something that wasn't easy for me and in the very first instance he could, he fucked it up and proved himself untrustworthy.  Actually so far, I'd say based on the podcasts, that what I was feeling and what Kidder was feeling intially - why did you lie to me after I'd just granted you something awesome? - were very similar.  So dudebro, I feel ya there.

But instead of making a podcast where I got my friends to passive-aggressively rehash the wrongs my partner had done to me, I talked with the Boy and sat with my feelings, and was able to realize that his intention was not to betray me or hurt me.  And that my reaction - overreaction - to the Boy's e-mail put him in a place where he was terrified to admit to it because of my insecurities and past. It didn't take "three years" to work past, it took about a week or two before I was cool with him going off and fucking someone else.  And he did.  Crazy!

Of course, moving is easy to do when you have faith in your partner.  Despite the fact that he'd just lied blatantly to me, I still believed that on the whole the Boy was truthful with me.  What strikes me about these podcasts, particularly the latter one, is that Kidder does not believe Jade will be truthful with him.  Which is apparently borne out by the events that follow.  The question is, then, is Jade just a terrible lying liar who lies, or does Kidder's reactions - perhaps, dare I say, overreactions - to Jade's initial "disclosure glitches" help create an environment that almost guarantees she won't fully disclose to him?  That I can't say, because I am not Lorax, their relationship counselor. (Btw, guys, that's kinda fucked up, just sayin'.)

The latest podcast certainly makes it sound like Jade is a terrible lying liar.  But it's also clear that the amount of disclosure needed - full access to all chats, texts, Facebook pages, etc - is a bar that makes having an open relationship kinda tricky.  Kidder is defensive of his need to have full disclosure to be OK with the openness, but the full disclosure also gives him the ability to monitor everything obsessively and stew over real and periceved slights in a way that doesn't come across as totally healthy. I have, in theory, a "right" to know all of the Boy's activities online.  I have almost never taken advantage of that right because I don't feel a need to.  I trust him.  When I have, what I've seen has validated my trust.  I guess it's a different can of worms when what you see does the opposite.  If Jade is as untrustworthy as Kidder describes, then I don't see how they can even consider having any serious degree of openness in their relationship.  But in that case I also don't get why they even have a relationship.  Trust is important for a lot of reasons, not just because you're involving other people in your sex life.

I should note, for the sake of fairness, that I have violated the Boy's boundaries too.  I had (oral) sex with a guy without his permission, told him immediately a fterward, and to be totally fair, his reaction to it was so much more sensible than my response to his indiscretion.  This is the thing that is missing in the discussion of opening up on SiF - WHEN NEGOTIATING OPEN RELATIONSHIPS, PEOPLE WILL FUCK UP.  This needs to be shouted from the rooftops. There is absolutely no way to move forward with open relationships without a certain amount of fucking up, miscommunications, "disclosure glitches" and the like.  It's just the way this goes.  After gazillions of years lurking in Poly and Swinging boards, it seems that people run into the most trouble when they don't expect people to fuck up, and then are blindsided and really upset when it does happen, and then freak the fuck out.

What people don't seem to realize about open relationships, even if they claim to, is that it really does take a lot of internal work.  I don't mean endless discussions with your partner, but internal discussions.  I feel like someone in an open relationship should constantly be thinking about how they're creating their own cognitions, and whether those cognitions are based in reality or their own insecurities.  While it's apparent that Jade fucked up, big time, it also seems like Kidder created a self-fufilling prophecy, based in his own insecurity and fears that he isn't "special" where he was going to, from the get-go, interpet any behavior on Jade's part as proof of what he already believed.  Jade played her role perfectly, as the Boy said when we were discussing it this morning, almost as if she was pushing the buttons that would make him freak out the most.  It's the sad dance of bullshit that I think most of us in long-term relationships will somewhat identify with.  But to do openness successfully, you have to radically alter these sorts of programmed responses.  Sometimes it's more important to shut up and sit with your feelings as opposed to making demands.  Otherwise you're just going to end up in a war for control, which appears to be exactly what happened.

I mean, if either of us had demanded a partner cancel a date because we weren't feeling 100% secure and OK with it at that moment, I don't think we would have ever really opened up our relationship at all.  It takes your partner doing something that perhaps you're scared about, having it happen, and then realizing in the end that your survived and it wasn't that bad to feel cool about it next time.  Or at least, that's how it worked for us.  Our approach may not work for everyone, but we have a remarkably open relationship with few restrictions or need to monitor each other, and we both used to see ourselves as highly monogamous, insecure people.  And I've found that once you realize you can live through something you're terrified of and feel OK about it later, more and more boundaries you used to see as inviolable start to feel unnecessary.  I went from the point where I knew I'd never be OK with the Boy having sex with another woman.  Now I think it's something I could handle, although I know it would still intially cause me some distress and anxiety.

Let me make a terrible analogy: anal sex.  Although a lot of people like to claim that "if you do it right" anal sex won't hurt at all, the reality is that even with tons of foreplay, using small plugs and a ton of lube, and so forth, for most people, intially having anal sex with a penis-sized object will have some discomfort, if not "pain" exactly..  It'll feel uncomfortable and perhaps provoke some anxiety.  If you can slowly work past that, you might end up really digging it.  Or you might be able to do it, but not find it enjoyable and worth the discomfort and effort.  But if you stop at the first sign of discomfort, you're never gonna get that dildo up your butt, period.  Of course, you also have to have trust that your partner isn't going to shove that thing up there before you're ready. 

Or to sum up all this tl;dr: open relationships are not for control freaks and although it's trite, trust is paramount, but so is the willingness to forgive, a genuine desire to move forward, and actively try to give your partner the space to be trustworthy. It's a real leap of faith. The Boy has his own, somewhat different take on this (one that's a lot harsher on Jade, actually), so I'll try to get him to weigh in.  I still have a butt-load of opinions about how Kidder handled this stuff, particularly on his public Facebook, but I wanted to use this post as a way to maybe take some lessons from this volcano of drama that people could use to think about what kind of philosophical and practical approach they take to openness, not to tear Kidder a new one.  But I still might!  Anything can happen at Sex or Television!  I hope some of the people who came here via Kidder's Facebook page will stick around, because we talk a lot about open relationships and non-traditional sexuality in general here.  And I write posts that are way, way, way too long.

When Sex is NOT Fun: A Haterate Mini-series

So much for that promise to update the blog more regularly, huh?  Let's just say that uprooting your entire life and moving around the country is a bit more daunting than one might imagine. But no time for excuses, because I've got some hate to share with y'all.  But because of my tendancy to get long-winded, I'm gonna break it down into a couple of posts.

In the world of sex-positive blogging and podcasting, the "Sex is Fun" podcast is one of the best-known.  It's also a podcast that I should like, because in theory it's a group of diverse, knowledgeable "sex educators" (more on that later) talking about sex, open relationships, toys, health, and all that important stuff, with an inclusive, queer-friendly take on things.  On the surface, it sounds great.  And certainly it has been, and there have been many episodes I've enjoyed.

The problem is that the creator and main host of the podcast, a guy who goes by the disturbingly awful moniker "Kidder Kaper" is a creepy, douchey narcissist.  And I'm only being half-insulting here.  In a particularly apt display of self-awareness, Kidder does in fact identify himself frequently as a narcissist.  Which is good.  Because he is.  The problem is he's quite proud of this, and is happy, lately, to let the podcast revolve around him.

But I don't want this to be all entire petty haterade, so let's give credit where credit is due.  Kidder is a straight married white guy in his late 30's, who is pretty knowledgeable about sex.  He's a big proponent of anal pleasure for men, which is rare and cool enough to be worth noting.  Even more surprising is that lately he's become something of a proponent for greater acceptance of male bisexuality - in the swinging scene, in porn, just in general.  Good for him.  Have I said enough nice things about him yet?

Kidder describes himself as a "sex educator" although as far as I can tell, he defines "education" as being a sex podcaster who has written a sex manual.  He has no academic credentials or certifications to back up this title. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but when it comes to something as serious as educating about sex, I think the resume should be a little more padded.  He apparently got into the business by writing sex games.  Seriously.  The whole "Sex is Fun" podcast is tied in directly with a line of sex games.

Luckily there are co-hosts, including "Gay Rick" who is an actual HIV/AIDS educator, and LauraRad who also has an actual professional background in sex education and is one of the more thoughtful members of the team. "Coochie" is the sound engineer but also chimes in, as does "Lorax" who handles the web aspect of things and also is Kidder's bff/a girl he wants to fuck.

The problem with the podcast can really be boiled down to Kidder, who has a habit of making himself the focus of everything.  Even when interviewing sex-positive superstars like Tristian Taramino, he still manages to turn the focus back on the important part: Kidder.  He's made entire episodes that are simply anecdotes about parties - not sex parties, mind you, just normal parties.  Oh, he's also a douche on the forums.  Let me share some of Kidder's wisdom with you.

On homebirthing:
"Who really cares if people choose to give birth at home? There are too many people on the planet anyway. I guess as long as they don't want society to pay for their oxygen deprived (special in a bad way) children, I say go for it. I really don't care if they have the proper training OR they just have a doula."

On dudes threatened by their partner's masturbation:
"Whenever a partner is jealous, regardless of why, it is usually a good idea to identify what you are doing to make them feel unspecial. If they feel as though your masturbation is leaving them high and dry, it seems reasonable for you to prove to them that it doesn't, in-fact you could even show them how much better your sex is because you masturbate."   
Or their partner might just be a dick who can't deal with women getting off without them.

On Kidder the Caveman:
"I've found that fighting who I am is only moderately successful and destroys all that which makes me, me. A long time ago, the tribe needed my kind, to stay awake, keep the fire burning and protect us all from predators that attacked in the night. Even more important than our nocturnal sentinel abilities was our imagination, that was given free range range free in the wee hours of the night. So as important as dreams are, they pale in comparison to ideas."
This might seem unfair out of context.  But it made no sense in context either.

On boycotting a sex resort for not allowing queer men:
"Boycotting them now isn't boycotting Desire at all. It is boycotting us. Continue as you wish but know that if we fail to get a good showing, you are hurting us and our goal to make them realize that we are a force to be reckoned with...So do what you will, but know that we're the ones holding the bill at the end of the day when this trip fails."

On charges the podcast focuses on him too much:
"It would be incredibly stupid to call the show the "Kidder Caper Show" especially because my name is Kidder Kaper you illiterate twat. I will always rant about religion and I will say whatever the FUCK I wish about tattoos whenever the FUCK I feel like saying it. "Tats are dumb!" See I just did it again."
He really dislikes tattos and body  piercings I guess? But I'm glad he clarified the spelling of his fake last name.

On pussies:
"Laura Rad and Gay Rick are significantly better educators than I am, especially if the students are big pussies. (If you got offended by the word "pussies" in the last sentence, you are definitely in the "pussy camp") Me, I'm better at dealing with big boys and girls that can take the truth without a bunch of sugar to help make the truth more tasty."

On his wife's sexual shortcomings:
"She also has trouble giving me head for very long without experiencing jaw pain and is quite selfish when it comes to letting me play with her ass. The things that she offers me for putting up with these minor annoyances are FUCKING IMMEASURABLE, so much that I feel like a complete douchebag for even contemplating complaining that I don't get to pump ball juice her in the ass as often as I may like."
Despite the supposedly romantic spirit of this quote, calling his wife "selfish" because he can't fuck her ass all the time is a dick move.  Also: ball juice?

On "Pedal-Stools":
"I think it is a terrible loss to the American consciousness that we raise people on pedal-stools that have done absolutely nothing to deserve even a mention in the freaking classifieds, while others who are actually doing amazing things for humanity are rarely getting any mention in the popular press."
I'm just being petty now, but I cannot get over "pedal-stools."

Hopefully these hilarious quotes from the master of sex education (in the same way that I, by having a blog about sex and thinking about sex, am also a "sex educator")  have given you some insight into the irritating showboat that is Kidder Kaper (thank god I know how to spell that!)  This is really just a set up for part 2: When Kidder, open relationship expert, finds himself deeply threatened by the dreaded "full swap" and uses his podcast to bully his wife.  Or we can just call it an educational series in how not to do open relationships.  Because I'm an educator!

The Problem with Sex Rehab

The Red Eye, the Chicago Tribune-subsidized free daily for the Hoi Polloi who find reading a real newspaper too intellectually challenging, had a feature article about sex addiction and rehab today. There seems to be an epidemic of high profile people going into sex rehab lately (Tiger Woods, Jesse James et.al.) For me, it raises the question- is sex addiction real, or a convenient cop-out for getting caught fucking around? More importantly, is the current treatment strategies in place valid, or a reflection of a judgmental, sex negative culture?

The article focused on a local sex addict in treatment whose obsession with internet porn “almost cost him his marriage and his job.” Now he sends his browsing history to his wife and pastor daily to “hold himself accountable.”

I totally get that it’s possible to have an obsession with porn that does cross into harmful addiction territory, such as looking at it at work, neglecting your partner in favor of porn, etc. But what really sticks in my craw about this is the part about sending his browsing history to his pastor and wife. I will bet you money that there’s a zero-tolerance for porn policy happening in his personal life and community. I can’t help but wonder what his relationship with porn would be if instead his wife said something like “hey, it’s cool if you look at porn when you're not at work, as long as you make fucking me your first priority.” It's possible that this dude is so obsessed with porn that there is no middle ground, but there's nothing that makes you want something more than being told you can't have it ever.

I also question the 90-day abstinence sex rehab program at Promises mentioned in the article. 90 days without partner sex, I understand, but this parameter also includes masturbation. A friend challenged me to thirty days without masturbation a few years ago, and I lasted 9 days before I decided it was bullshit. I spent those nine days irritable and constantly obsessed with sex. Is that really productive for someone who is trying to de-emphasize their sexual obsession?

I do believe that sex addiction is real, because the chemicals that sex and new partnerships trigger in the brain are addictive (more so for some people than others, I'm sure)- it creates a DIY meth lab in your brain. I know this first hand, because I've wondered if I'm a sex addict at times. I’ve compulsively had sex with people I knew were bad news because I wanted that high. I've fucked people off the internet the first time I met them. I’ve had sex with several people in a 24-hour period because I got off the sense of power. Ironically I met my current boyfriend shortly after crying to my therapist that I was an untreatable sex addict. But ironically, once I’m in a relationship, I seem to be able to keep those impulses in check, and have a healthy sexual connection. (Yes, I fuck my boyfriend’s brains out on a regular basis, but I don’t see that as a problem). So am I a sex addict, or just human that makes bad choices at times? And does the fact that I’m a woman play into the shamefulness of my past compulsive sexual behavior- ie would these behaviors be considered more “normal” for men?

Sex addiction is clearly a grey area disorder, like food addiction. You can’t get rid of sex or food completely, and it can be harder to manage an addictive disorder when the addictive stimulus is constantly present, and even a necessary aspect of life. I also believe that “sex addiction” can be highly contextual- I think a lot more of us would be sex addicts if we had the option. It’s a given that it’s easy for men with money and power to fuck a lot, I don't know if this really counts as sex addiction or just human nature. OTOH, one of the most successful manwhore/sociopaths I’ve ever met was fat, unemployed, short-dicked, and well into his forties who was an expert at emotionally manipulating women for sex. So what is the ultimate motivating stimulus behind compulsive sexual behavior? The chemical high, emotional insecurities, or in some cases- simply availability?

I am curious how sexual addiction would be “treated” from a sex positive standpoint that didn’t require swearing off masturbation and porn, or if it would even exist in the same way if our society didn’t demonize sexuality and promiscuity.

Nina Hartley's Sexwise

Nina Hartley has had an amazing career as a sex educator, author and adult film actor. It's with some interest that I recently spotted an announcement that she is launching a new web venture called Sexwise, which aims foster discussion about "sex, sexuality, and sexual expression." The discussion/education community is Sexwise.me. Additionally, there's a Web talk show component at Sexwise.tv. This is not to be confused with Susie Bright's book, Sexwise, or the BBC's global sex education project, Sexwise.

 

I'm excited to see sex-positive discussion being fostered. The people of United States are so deeply fucked up about sex that good information and discussion are in critically short supply. We're still arguing over whether we should educate teens about sex or have them pray away temptation and raging hormones.

That said, one has to wonder about the subscription nature of this, in addition to the viability of a web show. The latter issue may be due in part to the fact that I just sat through the whole first season of the polyamory web series, "Family" and spent several days trying to get that theme song out of my head. The content level has to be high from the start to get people to sign up and continue to subscribe. Production values of the show will have to be reasonably high as well. The target audience will have to be pretty sex-positive, especially to keep up with it and pay for the privilege. That's a group that she'll have to keep engaged by not talking down to them, while also avoiding spending too much time on the sexual fringes.

I really hope this works out for her and that site gets more people talking frankly about sex. The site goes live tonight at 7pm PDT.

Edit: The Girl would like to note that she had the opportunity to meet Ms. Hartley on multiple occasions while working for a PO Box store in Berkeley in the early 2000s.  Nina was one of her favorite customers, and always had a great dirty joke to share.