The Friday Sex Blog [Talkin' about Sex]

Hola Everybody,
Today it’s all about sex.

Talkin' about Fuckin'

Sacred and Profane, Alex London

I find people normally don’t enjoy talking about sex. I mean talking about sex in a meaningful way. Most find it clichéd, offensive, insensitive. I will say that I’m somewhat sympathetic though I spend at least some time doing just that -- talking and writing about sex. But I have to say there problems with sex talk: the vocabulary is inept and the sex is, well, not so clear.

If you want to know the state of any issue, all you have to do is look at its nomenclature -- a fancy word that describes a system or set of terms (vocabulary) especially in a particular science, discipline, or art. When it comes to sex, we have a lousy vocabulary. We have a small set of words that offend somebody or other, even though they’re as old as the English language itself and actually convey important meanings. We have a sort of Jim Crow-era style mentality when it comes to certain sex words -- a linguistic segregation. We have the ones we can say in front of children. one for the “ladies,” others for the old geezers, the ones for the upper classes, the ones for lower classes -- god forbid if I were to try to all this in my sex blog! I wouldn’t be able to write anything! Our language, our nomenclature, for sex -- the medicalized, the four-lettered, and the romanticized -- is indicative of our anxieties about sex.

Take a good old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon word like fuck, as an example. In our current movie ratings system, if you use fuck to mean actually having sex, then the film is deemed unfit for younger viewers and must be rated for mature audiences. However, If you use fuck as a swear word to express psychological violence such as anger or outrage, you can still advertise the film to children. It’s the hypocrisy of middle class values that they there is more concerned with appearances, and the act of fucking isn’t an “appearance,” it’s the dirty deed. We’re conditioned to use sex words for hostility but anxious to use them for the warmth or sex.

Fuck got a new lease on linguistic life during the counter-culture of the sixties, along with the rest of the underground language for the body. Fuck embraced free love and snubbed its nose at the Vietnam War all at the same time. Sociologists like to describe the so-called sexual revolution in the context of The Pill, but it was just as much a revolt of language -- sexual language. Artists of the time wanted to speak their minds with the entirety of public language at their disposal. Some, such as Lenny Bruce, were censored by the state and social norms. But in the end, the state lost. The words were emancipated -- at least for men. Blacks had been on the forefront of sexual language for decades, with artists such as Redd Foxx and those before him, exploring and pushing the sexual language envelope, but that was underneath the radar. Later black comics, such as Richard Pryor, did all kinds of shit to let loose all kinds of words.

Eventually, feminism -- the non-puritanical, cutting-edge side anyway -- emancipated women to use all the “unladylike” words, reclaiming bold language such as dyke and pussy and claim them as women’s turf, not merely men’s labels.

People are sometimes afraid to use sex words because they fear they will be perceived as sexual. If we keep our lips sealed, we can maintain the illusion that we are not sexual creatures. Fuck became a word that so-called “well-bred” women could use and it also defined a generation gap. Popular music turned it into a lyric. But saying the word stills says more about your political stance than about your sexuality.

Think about it: words describing other controversial or problematic aspects of our lives don’t get people so upset. No one ever says, “I can’t stand the word war,” or no one goes off on a rant that “the word torture is too cruel to use,” or screams, “I won’t allow anyone to say taxes in my home!” We manage to discuss all kinds of horrible and psychologically conflicted issues privately and publicly without choking up. Even words that insult and stereotype, such as spic and nigger, get more public debate and defense than George Carlin’s seven words you can’t say on television. Sex is the only topic where we blame language for holding us back. We suffer from a collective sexual tongue-tiedness. Almost any sexual expression we come up with bothers someone either because it isn’t sensitive enough, or it’s too Disneyfied.

I had a woman friend who hated the word cunt. I happen to like it because it because for me the word cunt crosses boundaries. It’s subversive, profane -- like me. I have met people who can’t even bring themselves to say cunt. The point is that perhaps we do need more words that are sexual. As an English/ Spanish bilingual, I can tell you English misses the sexual mark totally, when it comes to matters of sex. We’re afraid of the words we do have at our disposal. In a way, we’re afraid that if we let the dangerous words out, sex will be more dangerous, life will be uglier, we won’t know what to expect.

I personally believe we need that surprise. There’s nothing uglier than silence and denial. We’re choking on our own sex words, drawing a line between this word and that. I have a cock, and I have balls, intelligence, and an active imagination and sometimes I have a range of experiences that begs for as many names as I can conceive.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

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The Friday Sex Blog [Cheating]

Hola Everybody,
I’ve been doing a little research for a blog I’m writing on virtual reality and the porn industry and… I’ll just say that the future is here and it’s both scary and fascinating. More to come.

Can’t We Just be Friends?

One of my best friends is a married woman. We’ve known each for years. While we certainly don’t hang with each as we used to before her marriage, we do keep in touch regularly and sometimes we even go out for brunch or a movie with her husband’s blessing. Sometimes, when I call on them, he’ll yell out, “It’s your boyfriend, honey.” However, I will readily admit that ours is a rare and beautiful relationship based on mutual respect and love. I would never want to do anything that would result in the betrayal of her (and her husband’s) implicit trust. I think we all get off on the fact that we’re close like that.

I’m sure there are others that have managed to pull it off, but for some it can be risky, and the cynical among us might as, “Why take the risk?”

And there is reason for concern here. Research shows that the vast majority of both men and women cheat on their partners. In a 1991 study, sex researcher Shere Hite found that 70 percent of married women have cheated on their partners; a 1993 follow-up study found that 72 percent of married men have as well. According to a 2004 University of Chicago study, 25 percent of married men have had at least one extramarital affair.

Still, nothing is wrong with people in committed relationships wanting opposite-sex friends. Actually, I believe it is abnormal to have only same-sex friends. I guess the important question here is if you’re able to handle the responsibility that comes with the relationship. We always believe we can handle a temptation until we discover that we cannot.

I don’t believe that having an opposite-sex friend while in a committed relationship puts you in danger of emotional and sexual infidelity. The friendship doesn’t cause the action, if you’re having thoughts of infidelity, they will occur whether you have opposite sex friends or not. What an opposite-sex friendship will do is make you confront that issue at some point or another. 

If spending “quality time” becomes a way of relying on a friend in the way that you should rely on your husband or wife, then that can be a problem. Having that emotional closeness to another person at the exclusion of your mate could result in you feeling emotionally closer to your friend than to your spouse, paving the way to an intimacy that might lead to a physical affair. Again, if this is happening, it’s not the friendship that is the cause. Rather, it might be a sign that you’re making certain unhealthy choices for some unknown (or known) reason. Of course, there’s always the chance of becoming physically attracted to a friend. Only one of the two of you needs to initiate the physical contact, and once started, you may not want to--or think you are able to--stop.

I have to add, however, that most people don’t cheat because they have fallen out of love. This is perhaps one of the most tragic misconceptions about cheating. Research shows, for example, that young men don’t cheat because they have fallen out of love with their partners. Rather, they cheat simply because they desire sex with someone else, even if they want to preserve their relationship.

When I was in a committed relationship and attending university, I was surrounded by very young, very attractive women who were beginning to explore the boundaries of their sexuality. I have a rule of thumb with certain situations, it’s called “people, places, and things.” If I want to avoid drinking, for example, I avoid, people, places, and things that might tempt me to drink. One big mistake with infidelity is that we think we can resist the temptation until we realize (often too late) that we can’t. Sometimes we aren’t as strong as we believe, which is how infidelity starts. If you feel that you may be tempted by a relationship outside your marriage, or that you have an ego that you need to constantly feed with attention from the opposite sex, then you can probably guess that if your “friend” is there -- willing and able -- you might not resist.

That’s why I used to practice articulating and maintaining healthy boundaries with college women. My ex and I would laugh at some of the things that would occur -- the attempts at seduction, the propositions, etc. and yes, I would share these things with my lover at the time because I wanted it all to be transparent.

For me, any relationship should be predicated on implicit trust. I like to think that my ex never thought for a moment that I would cheat on her. Our relationship evolved to the point where we took different roads, but there was never any betrayal of trust. And I have many women friends, something my ex handled quite well. In fact, some of my women friends became her friends and I would accuse her of stealing my friends!

Honestly, yes, we (men and women) can be friends, but only if the persons involved are secure in their emotional needs and sufficiently evolved.

On the other hand, so many affairs start with two people who thought they were just going to be friends, thinking that all they were going to do is have innocent interactions -- that as long as they’re not having sex, everything is fine. It is... until it’s not. Or, although society cherishes monogamy, the expectation of exclusive sexual activity is unsustainable for many people. We may need to investigate other relationship models: open arrangements in which couples have flings, affairs, or threesomes. These ways of loving, along with polyamorous relationships and even singlehood, should be as equally valued in our culture as monogamy. Only when men and women are able to make sexual choices free of stigma will people be honest with their partners about their desires.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

The Friday Sex Blog [The Sense of Smell]

Hola mi Gente,
I wear cologne everyday. In the summer, I favor citrus scents and my favorite for a while was Jo Malone’s LimeBasil & Mandarin. I also loved their Verbenasof Provence. The drawback with the Malone line (and as with all citrus-based scents) is that they don’t last. The Fresh line has a great line of citrus scents which last only slightly longer. My favorite Fresh scent is Herispides. It’s to die for. I love fresh, subtle scents. Recently, I’ve taken to wearing Verbena by L’Occitane. Go to your nearest Sephora today and smell it while thinking of me.

Over the years, I have made several different scents my scent, and women always comment. There’s a method to my madness… LOL

Sex & the Sense of Smell

The sense of smell plays a huge role in kissing

 Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary, and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains.

-- Diane Ackerman

The best smell in the world is that man that you love.
-- Jennifer Aniston

I’ll never forget the time I received a panicked telephone call from a former lover. I hadn’t heard from her for years. In fact, I had heard she married and was doing the suburban thing. We had an affair totally based on sex and she was almost as much of a freak as I was. Anyway, when she calmed down enough to explain, I discovered the source of her anxiety. Apparently, her husband (who, she assured me, she loved, like, forever) went out and bought a cologne that was my signature scent while I was dating her. The scent (a Chanel for men no longer manufactured) evoked images and memories of yours truly at the most inappropriate time and it freaked her out. Why she then called me is beyond my understanding, so… Anyway… There’s more to this story, but that part will suffice for today.

The sense of smell is probably the oldest of our senses. It is the only sense directly connected to the brain. The reason why my ex-lover was thinking of me after so many years is because the sense of smell is highly involved in sexual function and pleasure. It’s also closely related to memory. Scientists speak of the concept of a “smell print” wherein memories are associated with certain smells. As with my anxious ex-lover (who feared she was having marital doubts), a certain scent will cause a person to vividly recall a memory associated with it. Smells are like fingerprints, highly individualized.

To further illustrate, the sense of smell is involved with the deeply embedded limbic brain -- what neuroscientists call the “emotional brain” or what has been identified as the emotional center of the brain. The limbic brain and the sense of smell go hand-in-hand when it comes to sex. For me there is no headier smell than the scent of a woman’s freshly washed vagina. There’s no greater aphrodisiac, at least for me, than the intoxicating mixture of soap and musk of a freshly washed woman. It literally makes me drool.

On the flip side, an artificially scented vagina is a huge turn-off. It communicates to me that the woman is not comfortable with her own scent. There’s a huge problem if I have to wade through the stink of something Proctor &Gamble produced to get at it. According to recent research, the region in the brain that is responsive to sexual-interest hormones is more than two times larger in men than women. According to other research, the smell of cooked cinnamon is a natural aphrodisiac for men.

Certain smells are associated with sexual interest in both men and women, however, the brain works through association and within a cultural context. In the U.S., we are obsessed by sterilization. We don’t take to smells well as a society. We spend a tremendous amount of money and exert a lot of energy and time in masking natural smells, and sterilizing surfaces (those soaps, BTW, actually increase bacteria ladies). I still remember my post on hair and vaginas and how so many women fiercely defended the practice of shaving their vags bald. The major reason? Hygiene! In fact, shavingis less hygienic and can lead to infections and disease.

Whatever, I find a little hair aesthetically pleasing. For me, hair adds a little “spice” -- something I enjoy.

Since ancient times, there has been a search for the scent that elicits sexual desire. Many ancient societies believed perfumes were aphrodisiacs and some new research suggests they may have been right. The Romans and Egyptians used copious amounts of musk. The musk used was derived from the anal glands of the Ethiopian civet cat. Researchsuggests that the scent of musk closely resembles that of testosterone, the hormone responsible for enhancing the sex drive in both men and women.

Other studies have demonstrated theimpact of floral and herbal essential oils on the nervous system. Sexual arousal and response is controlled by the two parts of the nervous system: the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), which is responsible for preparing us for physical action and emergencies (i.e., the fight or flight syndrome); and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), which stimulates relaxation. For those who need to relax in order to get in the mood, the PNS should be used, while those who need to be stimulated would do better by enhancing the SNS. According to the research, sandalwood, marjoram, lemon, chamomile, and bergamot stimulated the PNS. The SNS was stimulated by the scents of jasmine, ylang-ylang, rose, patchouli, peppermint, clove, and bois de rose.

I guess the take away from this is that the sense of smell is integral to the sexual experience and you should exploit this fact so as to make your sexing more pleasurable and meaningful. Go out and find the scents that are appealing to you. Scents (as with other aphrodisiacs) need to be tailored to individuals, not large groups. Experiment with different essential oils and use them in carrier oils to prepare massage oils (as a prelude to sex), for example.

I often smell women as a way of committing them to memory. It’s almost a primal relic -- something passed down by my hunter/ warrior ancestors. I do it in a way that they don’t notice, but it’s one of the first things I do when I meet a woman. What an individual smells like tells you a lot about that individual. I may not remember your birthday, but I will always remember what your ass smells like! LOL

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

The Friday Sex Blog [Childhood Sexuality]

Hola mi Gente,

It's supposed to be a great weekend. Personally, I've spending he bulk of my free time looking for a place to live. Again, if you know of anyone renting a studio or room, please let me know.

Have a great weekend!

Raising Children as Sexual Beings

And I made a rural pen, And I stained the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs Every Child may joy to hear.

-- William Blake (1757–1827) Songs of Innocence

Throughout most of Western history, children have been brought up as innocent, asexual beings. But the fact is that children are most certainly not asexual. All the sexual organs capable of providing pleasure are present and children are sexual creatures from birth. Of course, I’m not proposing that theirs is the same sexuality we know as adults, but it is nonetheless a form of sexuality.

Freud was almost burned at the stake for essentially saying the same thing. 

The baby playing with your breast is at least sensual if not sexual. The two-year-old who crawls into bed between Mommy and Daddy is sexual, albeit not in the same capacity, nor the explicit sexual intent of an adult. The five year-old girl who dresses up and sits on her father’s lap kissing him and asking him if he will marry her when she grows up, is sexual. The seven-year-old, who is masturbating, probably to orgasm, is sexual. The eight year-old prancing around in blissful innocent nakedness is sexual. These are all examples of children passing through learning stages on the way to evolving into adult sexual beings. Many would find what I just wrote disturbing and I would refer those to my previous postings on sexual repression. The fact remains that some of the above behavior is a mimicking of Mommy and Daddy and some from natural bodily curiosity. Whatever the case, it is all sexual though not necessarily with the adult’s awareness or emotional capacity of what sexuality means.

The major problem in childhood sexuality has always been the adult’s own hang-ups, discomfort, and embarrassment with sex. There is the tendency to ignore children’s sexual questions and behaviors, a tendency to believe that we don’t have to answer children’s sexual questions because they couldn’t possibly know what they are asking. This serves to deny the child’s sexuality because of the adult’s own uneasiness. The consequence, of course, is that the child gets the message that she is asking an improper question that her parent disapproves of, therefore the child will stop risking her parent’s rejection or anger, keep quiet, and wonder silently to herself.

Meanwhile, the child feels embarrassment, shame, and, worst of all, remains ignorant of sex, many even reaching adulthood experiencing excessive sexual inhibitions, the inability to orgasm, or the experience of an unwanted pregnancy.

Modern neurological research has shown that our physiology is like a feedback loop. In other words, our bodies are wired for touch and relationships. This is why Eastern philosophies stressing that we are not at all separate sacks of flesh, but part of a web of reality are so on point. Cuddling, demonstrations of affection, kissing, etc., all actually have a direct impact on a child’s brain structure. For any interested in learning more about this I recommend the elegantly written A General Theory of Love.

Physical contact is essential for children. In many ways it’s even more important than food. Studies have long shown that children in orphanages, for example, who received adequate nourishment but were not held, cuddled, kissed, and caressed, could not thrive and often became ill. But in our culture, it is common to discontinue physical contact as the child grows older, especially with sons. Then, after marriage, we’re supposed to miraculously respond emotionally and physically without inhibitions. This is true of both men and women raised in household in which contact was taboo and emotional unavailability was the norm. What was initially natural for them as children was conditioned out of them as they grew older.

Many of us were raised in families in which touching was expressly forbidden and so we pass this down to our children. Others may be terrified of any sexual fantasies causing them to maintain an emotional and physical distance in an effort to repress unacceptable sexual feelings. Believe it or not, sexual feelings for our children are normal and begin early. Many mothers, for example, report having such fantasies at least occasionally.

There’s a considerable difference between sexual fantasies and obsessive ideation or acting out on them. That’s not what I’m talking about here. Acting them out will be extremely detrimental to the child, to say the least, while having fantasies is harmless. It has been my observation that repressing such thoughts often result in increasing the likelihood of acting out. This is why I always say that repression is not morality. Once we push aspects of our sexuality into the shadows, they emerge later as overwhelming and largely subconscious compulsions.

There is no reason to keep children from knowing that sex is an enjoyable, pleasurable activity; that sex is for fun first and for babies second. It is ridiculous (not to mention developmentally detrimental) to deny the physical side of a loving relationship. It is important for children to see their parents embrace, kiss, cuddle, and act affectionately toward one another. In our culture, however, this does not mean making love in front of the children, though if you’re a parent you’re probably aware of the fantastic ability young children have at opening up doors at the most inopportune moments. It might be good to let your child know that you make love in the privacy of your bedroom; that during that time you would rather not be disturbed and any questions or problems can wait until afterward. 

To treat sex with dignity and love rather than shrouding it in mystery and shame is an excellent way of instilling a child with a healthy sexual attitude. Children’s sexual exploration is like all other areas of exploration. For the child it is the primary way of learning about her environment and how to make a place for herself within it. Exploration can include a girl urinating while standing up like a boy, wearing make-up like mother, playing doctor with other boys and girls down the street, and later on even exploring sexual feelings with a girlfriend.

Physical and playful relationships with two or more girls or two or more boys is a more common than we like to admit and a natural part of the growing up process. It does not mean that the child is heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. Each child will have the chance to grow into its sexual orientation later in life. This experimentation is a part of the developmental process for many children and not a cause for alarm or worry. One should work hard not to have the child feel ashamed about the expression of budding sexual feelings.

As adults, we do the most harm when we bring our own guilt, shame, and sexually dysfunctional baggage to bear on our children’s’ upbringing.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…