Are Unrealistic Expectations Making You Unhappy?
I came to a startling realization today about why so many of us are unhappy.
Expectations.
Oh, sure, there are a gazillion other reasons – illness, debt, seasonal affective disorder, that-time-of-the-month, and lack of coffee being some prime examples. But you know what? There are loads of us who are making ourselves, and other people, miserable because of the stupid way we build up unrealistic expectations about how we think other people are going to – or should – behave.
I realized this today, when I was snuggled in bed at 5am.
Normally, I’d pop out of bed and head to the gym – but today I had a plan.
I put our toddler’s lunch in the oven, got his bag assembled, and snuck back into bed while whispering to my snoozing wife: “Don’t worry, Honey. I’ll get the baby off to daycare and all you need to worry about is getting yourself ready.”
I had, you see, expectations.
Having just freed up half an hour or so of my wife’s morning schedule, I’d expected her to snuggle and nuzzle with me, and reward me with some morning nookie (as had been my cunning plan all along.) However, I’d never informed my wife about this extension of my plan – which is why it unraveled faster than a sweater from Wal-Mart.
Because instead of the snuggling and the nuzzling, my wife popped out of bed and starting getting dressed – thinking “Great! I have some extra time all to myself, so I can get ready and get to work early.”
So I didn’t get any snoodling or canoodling at all. I’d sacrificed going to the gym and done all this extra work and failed to get what I’d expected. As I result, I was in a thoroughly bad mood – banging the pots and pans as I got the baby’s lunch packed up.
This doubtless left my wife utterly mystified. There was her adoring husband, who’d promised to get the baby ready for daycare and give her some free time, acting all snotty and pissed off – as if she was in the wrong for accepting his offer in the first place!
She must have thought: Why offer to do something, and then act like you’re being taken for granted when you do so?
Needless to say, this left her utterly pissed off as well. So there we go – one failed expectation and two utterly miserable people (three, if you count the baby, who was upset that he didn’t get the Nutella sandwich he’d expected that morning.)
It just goes to show what dangerous things expectations can be.
And if you look at life, and at the way other people approach it, you can see that expectations make a lot of them miserable, as well.
Look at your single friend who goes on a date, and then gets upset when he doesn’t call back after three days. Did they agree the to timeframe for a callback? No – but she had expectations of when he’d call, and was upset when he didn’t meet them.
Or what about the guy who lavishes his date with a slap up meal expecting to get more than a goodnight kiss afterward. When he doesn’t, he feels hard done by because his expectations weren’t met.
But the problem with expectations is not that they’re often unrealistic (although they are – especially the guy who thinks a nice meal is currency for sex) but that they’re one sided.
My wife and I got irritable with each other because I’d expected her to behave a certain way – but I hadn’t told her how I’d expected her to behave.
In all likelihood, if I’d curled up next to her and said: “I’ll get the baby ready so it gives us some time for a little nookie” she’d have ducked her head under the covers and had my cock in her mouth before I could blink.
But no – she just took me at my word and assumed I expected nothing in return for my generous offer – and, quite frankly, there was no reason why she should have thought any differently! I was the one being the douchebag – doubly so for acting up about it afterward.
But it made me think of all the other areas in my life, and the lives of my family and friends, in which people get upset because they expected people to react or act in a certain way, and are affronted or disappointed when they don’t.
To a large extent, it’s all a massive communication problem – if you expect somebody to act a certain way, you have to communicate this expectation to them to have any realistic chance of it being met!
But, more significantly, if you allow your happiness to depend on somebody else’s behavior, you’re always setting yourself up for disappointment. Instead, take a deep breath and accept that the only person who’s behavior and actions you can control in this world are your own.
It’s what makes the words of Abraham Lincoln especially pertinent: “People are just about as happy or sad as they make up their minds to be.”
Why I’m obsessed with Christine O’Donnell
A few days before Halloween, Gawker Media ran a story called ‘I Had a One-Night Stand with Christine O’Donnell.’ It was the tale of a 25-year-old Philadelphia douche-bag, who had a sordid night of not-quite sex with the 35-year-old politician.
Since then, I’ve been obsessed with her.
If you’d asked me a few days earlier what I’d thought of this 30-something Sarah Palin knock-off, I’d have shrugged my shoulders. She wasn’t even on my radar, aside from being ‘that crazy tea party chick who used to be a witch.’ But now – knowing that she’d snuggled drunkenly in bed with some schlub from Philly – I thought she sounded kind of cool.
Because she reminded me of a girl I used to be in love with – a beautiful, buttoned-up brunette with conservative pretentions who turned into a naughty little thing as soon as you poured a few drinks down her.
I remember meeting my Christine (name changed to protect the guilty) over a decade ago. She was a prim and proper lady in a tailored business suit – sleek, toned and tanned with immaculate nails and luxurious caramel-colored hair. I was transfixed. She looked like Jackie O crossed with a Barbie doll.
We worked together for a number of weeks and I learned a lot about this brilliant, poised young lady. She’d worked her way through two good east-coast colleges tossing burgers, rather than asking Mom and Dad for a handout. She’d taken internships with government departments in two countries to earn her vocational stripes. She spoke two languages fluently. She ran three miles a day. She never swore, never spoke badly about anybody behind his or her back and was a voting – and vocal – Republican.
I was nuts about her – but had assumed from the day I first met her that she was way out of my league.
But that all changed one night after work, when a group of us headed out for drinks. It all started conservatively enough, but soon got a little rowdy as we hopped from restaurant to bar.
At some point in the evening, she and I teamed up. I don’t remember how it happened – we just got talking and didn’t stop. From that point on, we sat together, strolled together and joked together. She laughed at my jokes, touched my arm to get my attention and stared deep into my eyes. I was still transfixed by this gorgeous, glamorous girl and it never occurred to me that she was actually flirting with me.
But when the end of the evening rolled around, and we quite logically decided to share a cab home together, it happened.
In the leather seats of a Lincoln limo, my Christine straddled my lap, took my face in her hands and started kissing me passionately.
It was, even to this day, one of the most amazing moments of my life. It was like Angelina Jolie, or Megan Fox, or some other insanely out-of-reach film star, had just turned up in your life and started making out with you. I’d never expected a girl as simply perfect as this to be interested in a guy like me – but here she was, writhing in my lap like a stripper.
At my hotel, we kissed each other passionately and tore at each other’s clothes. Her expensive tailored suit fell to the floor and I found five hundred dollar’s worth of made-to-measure La Senza lingerie underneath. As I stripped that off, I discovered (to my delight) that her honey-brown tan ended where the bikini was meant to start, and her breasts and bottom were as pale and perfect as hard-boiled eggs.
We never had sex (just like the real O’Donnell) but we did just about everything else that night (and my colleague, sharing the joined suite, apparently heard every moan and groan.) The next morning, when we woke up tangled in each other’s arms, it was difficult for me to believe that it hadn’t all been a dream.
This girl? The one as gorgeous as a Victoria’s Secret model? Naked and in bed with me? Inconceivable!
A few hours later, she was back in her buttoned-up suit and giving a presentation like nothing had ever happened. But for the rest of the day, I would catch her eyes looking in my direction and I felt my stomach fill with butterflies.
My Christine O’Donnell was, for the longest time, the love of my life. Our relationship never quite clicked, but we were entwined in each other’s lives for half a decade and across three continents. In some alternative reality, I’m sure she and I ended up together – but in mine, I still can’t look at pictures of her without wondering: Did those amazing experiences even happen in the first place?
And that’s what I look at when I see the real Christine O’Donnell now.
That story in Gawker wasn’t very well written, nor particularly scandalous (or it wouldn’t have been, if it had involved anybody by O’Donnell)
What it was, however, was evidence that girls like her – and my Christine, living all those many miles away from me now – are just as lustful and sexual beneath the surface as the rest of us.
The sad thing about the O’Donnell debacle is that the real Christine O’Donnell touted herself as a devout, born-against Christian who led a lifestyle of sexual chastity in the service of the Lord. Those pretentions were incongruous with her decision to climb drunkenly into bed with a guy she’d only met a few hours earlier. When my Christine led me upstairs with hungry, wet kisses – she was just revealing a side to herself she very rarely let the rest of the world see.
A lot of newspapers and websites, including the humorless guys over at Jezebel, attacked Gawker for publishing the Christine O’Donnell story – calling it ‘slut shaming’ and making accusations of sexism and misogyny (plus ca change, non?)
The fact is, though, that Gawker wasn’t exposing O’Donnell because they thought it was ‘wrong’ for an attractive, single woman to romp naked with a virtual stranger (in fact, the editors seemed largely in favor of girls doing that.) They named and shamed O’Donnell because she was behaving in a manner totally contradictory to the way she and her tea-party sycophants demanded that the rest of us live.
“Virgins who are into pornography or who are “doing everything but” with their boyfriends are not sexually pure,” she wrote in 1998. “But as Christians, purity and holiness are our calling in Christ – to live beautiful, holy, pure lives through the power of Christ’s blood.”
The only person doing any ‘slut shaming’ is Christine O’Donnell – and in doing so, she’s simultaneously shaming herself. What’s worse, it’s for behavior that’s not just entirely natural, but also entirely beautiful.
I’ve been obsessed with Christine O’Donnell these last few days because she’s reminded me of a closed chapter of my life – one of the most exciting and erotic I can remember – but also because she represents the absolutely antithesis of that buttoned-up, Republican beauty I once lost my heart to.
James Bond: Chauvinist or Savant?
As far as most people are concerned, the Martini-swilling James Bond is the ultimate symbol of chauvinism and misogyny.
A rampant womanizer, who leaves broken hearts and broken promises littered behind him like rose petals, his name is synonymous with the image of a condescending cad who has utterly no respect for women – dismissing them as silly creatures who should “stay at home and mind their pots and pans and stick to their frocks and gossip and leave men’s work to the men.” (Casino Royale.)
He certainly seems that way in the movies – perhaps most so when played by Roger Moore in the 1970s, who even sunk so low as to use one willing woman as a human shield in 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me.
But true Bond scholars – in other worlds, people who’ve read the books – often claim differently. The character of Bond might be a sexist pig, they’ll admit – but the books are surprisingly ahead of their time in the way they portray women – especially their sexuality.
The literary James Bond was never going to be the poster-child for sexual equality. In his first adventure, Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel Casino Royale, the news that he’s being partnered with a female secret agent leaves him angrily spluttering: “What the hell do they want to send me a woman for? Do they think this is a bloody picnic?’”
Yet Vesper Lynd, the beautiful SIS operative who teams up with him in Royale Les Eaux, turns out to be a tough and capable spy who is every bit the romantic and sexual equal of Bond. They might not appear to make love on equal terms (Bond lasciviously describes their encounters as having “the sweet tang of rape”) but she is definitely topping from the bottom when it comes to their relationship.
007 even goes so far as planning his resignation from the service in order to be with this willful woman – who reveals herself as a double-agent for the Russians in the last few pages of the book.
Another female foil to Fleming’s Bond appears in 1955’s Moonraker.
Going undercover at a rocket research facility on the British coast, the woman he initially dismisses as nothing but a pretty secretary soon reveals herself to be a cool, calculating police officer.
The officer, Gala Brand, is working deep undercover and exposes the villain’s plot to detonate a nuclear warhead in the center of London. She’s then instrumental in helping Bond save the day.
What’s even more surprising? This is one of the rare occasions in which 007 doesn’t ‘get the girl’ afterward. Gala has a fiancé – and despite their undeniable attraction for each other, the novel ends with them sharing a chaste kiss and “turning away from each other and walking off into their different lives.”
The following year, Ian Fleming dreamed up another woman who was every bit the equal of Bond. Diamond-smuggler Tiffany Case was as cold as the precious cargo she smuggled.
“I don’t often date a good-looking Englishman and the dinner’s going to live up to the occasion,” she warns Bond on their first evening together – adding: “It’ll take more than Crabmeat Ravigotte to get me into bed.”
Tiffany’s icy demeanor stemmed from her childhood, when mobsters fishing for protection money dragged her into the back room of her mother’s brothel and brutally gang-raped her. That horrific experience colored her outlook on life and men, but made her a cynical match for the equally ‘broken’ Bond.
Despite warning him that “relationships don’t add two people together; they subtract one from the other” the book ends with Bond airing out his spare room and inviting her to live with him in London. “You can’t be complete by yourself.”
And despite the popular impression that Bond’s the one who ‘loves them and leaves them,’ it’s Tiffany who leaves Bond broken-hearted by the beginning of the next novel, 1957’s From Russia With Love. She even goes so far as to cuckold Britain’s most legendary secret agent – entering into a love affair with a U.S. Marine she meets at the embassy in Grosvenor Square.
Although a distraught Bond initially sets out to “shoot the man” when her affair comes to light, when he finally meets Tiffany’s lover, he realizes that she can offer him what he can’t and leaves “wanting to buy the man a drink.”
One of the more controversial female characters Bond runs into is the infamous Pussy Galore. A black-haired, trench-coated mobster who enters into a contract with the titular bad guy of 1959’s Goldfinger, Pussy Galore is so named because she heads up an all-lesbian gang in New York City called The Cement Mixers.
She’s so much the equal of James Bond that she even steals Bond’s girl, Tilly Masterson, away from him – although real-life lesbians will probably wail in anguish when James Bond ‘cures her’ of her lesbianism in the final chapter.
The most famous woman in Bond’s life, however, was the one he’d end up marrying – Contessa Teresa ‘Tracy’ di Vicenzo. A truly wild women, she’d left behind her a string of scandalous love-affairs and entered into Bond’s life whizzing past him on the road to Deauville in an open-topped Lancia.
“If there was one thing that set James Bond really moving, it was being passed at speed by a pretty girl.”
After surviving a deadly plot to poison Britain’s agricultural infrastructure, James Bond finally realized he’d met the woman he hoped to spend the rest of his life with – as independent and willful as he was.
Bond admitted: “I’ll never find another girl like this one. She’s got everything I’ve looked for in a woman. She’s beautiful, in bed and out. She’s adventurous, brave, resourceful. She’s exciting always. She seems to love me. She’d let me go on with my life. She’s a lone girl, not cluttered up with friends, relations, belongings…”
Of course, like all of Bond’s love affairs, that one doesn’t end so well…
Regardless of the outcome, Tracy was just the most significant in a long line of strong, smart and sexually independent women that Bond encountered in his adventures. While Bond himself was conservative and condescending, Ian Fleming seemed to have a genuine interest in creating female characters that were more than just the prerequisite arm-candy of action heroes, as was the norm in the 1950s and 1960s.
What was perhaps most progressive was the fact that none of the Bond girls (with the exception of Solitaire, from 1954’s Live and Let Die) were virginal and innocent – each had established sexual histories even during a time in which most women were expected to be virgins on their wedding nights. What’s more, Fleming didn’t judge these women for having a past – in fact; it was an important part of making them come to life on the page. They were, for want of a better description, real – and instantly relatable to real women back then, and even today.
It’s ironic that the name James Bond has become synonymous with sexism and misogyny, when the source material upon which the franchise is based was perhaps the exact opposite of that.
Abstinence Makes the Mind Get Freakier
I’m pretty highly sexed. Before I was in a relationship, I’d masturbate three times a day and when my wife and I got together, we’d have sex four times a night, without the benefit of the Pfizer Corporation.
But the rigors of married life mean that’s fallen by the wayside these days; we find the opportunity (if not the desire) to be intimate becoming alarmingly irregular.
For me, this means I get horny – and I fantasize.
In the days between encounters, my mind is in an increasingly erotic fugue. I lie awake while erotic porn movies play over and over on the inside of my eyelids. And I’ve noticed something… The longer I go without sex, the more wild and uninhibited these fantasies get.
I’d have thought it would be the opposite. Surely if it’s been just hours since the last time I’d had sex, I’d need wild and weird fantasies to fuel my erotic imagination?
Instead, mere hours after intercourse, my most frequent fantasy is just to spoon behind my wife and share another simple, sensual act of intimacy.
But flash forward six or seven days and suddenly I start concocting erotic fantasies that my wife would probably be horrified to know she was starring in!
Curious about this, I idly started jotting down my sexual fantasies, and how they evolved over the course of extended abstinence. Here’s how it worked out:
Day 1:
Saturday
The last time we’d have sex that week. My wife and I woke up, warm and sleepy, and all she had to do was wiggle her rump to give me the message to ‘come aboard.’ A moment later, I was inside her and undulating in delicious, sleepy morning sex.
Saturday Night
Days since last having sex: 0.5
Horniness Rating: 5 (out of 10.)
By the time I crept into bed that night, she was asleep. So not to disturb her, I tried drifting off to sleep.
Fantasy: As I drifted off to sleep, my fantasy was replaying our sex from that morning – the soft heat of her backside, the warm wetness of her pussy and the delicious sensation of exploding inside her.
Fantasy Kinkiness: 1 (out of 10)
Day 2:
Sunday
Days since last having sex: 1
Horniness Rating: 6 (out of 10)
Leaving me to lie in, my wife went to church – no morning sex for me!
Fantasy: My fantasy was simple – lazing back in our big, soft bed while my wife wrapped her lips around my raging erection; giving me a sloppy, sensual blowjob until I exploded into her.
Fantasy Kinkiness: 2 (out of 10)
Day 3:
Monday
Days since last having sex: 2
Horniness Rating: 7 (out of 10)
Monday morning. My wife is still sleeping soundly. I have an erection that could pry open safe doors, but I don’t want to disturb her when she’s only got an hour or so before having to start her week of drudgery. Instead I go to the gym.
Fantasy: While I’m lifting weights, I imagine my wife and her attractive coworker barrel in after a night of cocktails. I’ve already gone to bed, and awake to the amazing sensation of a soft, sucking mouth coaxing me to climax. I immediately think it’s my wife, but lifting the covers I find her friend instead – naked and on her hands and knees, giving me the blow job of my life. Face buried in her upturned buttocks, my wife is licking her friend to orgasm.
Fantasy Kinkiness: 5 (out of 10)
Day 4:
Tuesday
Days since last having sex: 3
Horniness Rating 8 (out of 10)
Tuesday’s the first morning it gets tough. I’d been sporting an erection as hard as algebra all night. My wife is already up – and reminds me that I have to go into work early.
Fantasy: Bundled into the cold shower (which I sorely need) I soap my straining cock while conjuring a fantasy in which my wife’s ex-boyfriend is coming into town. She agrees to let him stay at our place – ‘just as friends’. But after a few drinks, her naughty side comes out. Over the course of one wild night, he and I make sure we try every way two cocks can fit into one girl. She’s left sticky, sweaty and utterly satisfied.
Fantasy Kinkiness: 5 (out of 10)
Day 5:
Wednesday
Days since last having sex: 4
Horniness Rating 8 (out of 10)
I won’t lie. By now, sleep is hard. Everything is ‘hard,’ in fact. I wake up in the morning and I’ve got a cock straining like it’s about to burst. My wife is slumbering soundly, though – and rather than disturb her in those few hours she gets to rest, I go to the gym again.
Fantasy: As I’m on the treadmill, I imagine arranging for my wife to have a full-body massage. Lying naked on a table, a muscled, taut Swedish guy rubs and then kneads her down until she’s getting seriously hot and bothered. As she eventually puddles into a pool of slut, this Swedish masseuse drops his sweat pants, spreads her thighs and gives her a final ‘hard massage’ with his straining cock; fucking her tenderized body until she gasps in orgasm and he explodes inside her.
Fantasy Kinkiness: 6 (out of 10)
Day 6:
Thursday
Days since last having sex: 5
Horniness Rating 9 (out of 10)
I didn’t sleep a wink. I was lying in bed all night and when my wife wakes up, she has to get to work early. She’s out the door before I can jump on her and screw her brains out.
Fantasy: I imagine coming home from work early, only to find my wife on the living room floor – the Cable guy’s erection bulging in her mouth and the UPS guy buried balls-deep inside her ass. I watch, horrified and aroused, as my wife sluttily winks at me and greedily fucks and sucks these strangers until the cover her in cum.
Fantasy Kinkiness: 7 (out of 10)
Day 7:
Friday
Days since last having sex: 6
Horniness Rating 10 (out of 10)
So by now, I’m about ready to flip. I’m horny all the time – even at work I can’t stop my imagination drifting back to these fantasies I’ve concocted. I can’t even roll over in bed because of my erection.
Fantasy: Friday is when both my wife and I are able to be late into work – so half asleep, I let my mind wander.
I concoct an elaborate fantasy in which we’ve won the lottery. I imagine talking my wife into indulging my most exotic fantasies – and she agrees. So with lottery winnings, I arrange for us to be flown out to the San Fernando Valley to meet with my favorite porn star. This foxy chick has provided a dozen muscled, well-hung porn stars to gang-bang my wanton wife to within an inch of her life. Captured by camera, my wife is slathered with kisses, squeezed and groped by countless hands, fingered and fucked to multiple orgasms and then screwed, sodomized and double-penetrated until she’s come a dozen times and all twelve well-hung strangers have shot their load into and onto her. That’s when I finally drop my pants to take my own enjoyment with her.
Fantasy Kinkiness: 9 (out of 10)
End of the Experiment
While that fantasy was still playing inside my head, I suddenly felt the familiar warmth and softness of my wife’s round bottom nuzzling into my crotch. Even without thinking about it, I wiggled my hips and found myself sinking inside her. It was amazing.
It had been a week without orgasm; and I’d have come quickly just with a wiggle of her hips. However, even as I drifted between the dream world and reality, she upped the ante by talking dirty to me. Maybe she’d been reading my mind – describing a breathless fantasy in which she brought home a well-hung coworker to suck and fuck her while I watched. I was so turned on; I exploded inside of her in less time than Lindsay Lohan stayed in jail.
My wife didn’t come – but she did admit later that she’d gotten off (mentally, at least) from ‘stealing’ an orgasm from me. She got off knowing she had that power over me.
So that was the end of my week of abstinence – but not to my erotic fantasies.
In fact, just a few hours later I was idly dreaming of my wife’s sexy body again. Yet despite my most recent gang bang fantasy, this time my imagination required nothing more elaborate than a mental replay of that morning’s short, satisfying encounter. The really dirty stuff, I realized, wouldn’t come till later.
I guess that ultimately proves my hypothesis: The longer you leave sex on the brain, the wilder it gets.
The Top 5 Reasons why Older Women are Sexier
But I think things are changing. Just recently, I’ve noticed that society’s become more accepting of sexy older women than it ever was before. Just turn on the TV, or rent some porn – Cougartown, Desperate Housewives and Sarah Palin-themed pornography have all helped put well-seasoned sexiness back on the cultural agenda.
It’s also no coincidence that three of the most recent Playboy cover ‘girls’ have all been in their mid forties. In fact just look at Eden’s own icon of erotica – SexIs contributor Nina Hartley – and you’ll see that age and experience are definitely viewed as enviable erotic attributes.
To champion the sexiness of older women, I’ve decided to compile my own top five reasons why men ‘in the know’ know that seasoned sirens are sexier:
- Older women know what they like. Most older women know what makes them feel good, and that means they’re more likely to make the most of it to enjoy sex more (and as a result, so will their partners.)
- Older women are more confident. Society puts a ton of pressure on young women to conform to a specific standard of beauty – and reinforces crippling insecurity and low self-esteem. As an imperfect rule of thumb, most older women are more secure in their attractiveness; or at least have the emotional maturity to not give a fuck what Cosmopolitan tells them ‘beauty’ should look like.
- Older women are more interesting. I’ve met plenty of fascinating 20-year-old women; but I’ve never met one as interesting as a 40-year-old woman. Whether they’re sharing personal anecdotes, seasoned opinions or just shooting the breeze, older women almost always contribute more to the conversation. Since the brain is the largest erogenous zone, it should come as no surprise that most of us men find that sexy.
- Older women are more beautiful. A taut, teenage tush and perky breasts are all very mouthwatering – but the curse of youth is conformity. That’s why so many girls have to stake their uniqueness with tattoos and piercings. Older women, on the other hand, have bodies that tell the sexy stories of their lives without requiring cosmetic alteration. Stretch marks, freckles, scars and wrinkles; while Cosmopolitan might view them as flaws, most men agree that these unique marks are as unique and beautiful as the woman they’re attached to.
- Older women are more open minded. I couldn’t tell you how many times a pretty young thing has turned her nose up at my amorous suggestions. Anal. Oral. Even just leaving the lights on – I’ve bedded girls who told me all three were verboten. Older women, on the other hand, have often turned the tables on me – I’ll suggest one erotic antic and then they’ll fire back with an erotic eye-opener that’s even kinkier. I don’t mind admitting that my personal ‘spank bank’ of masturbation memories is almost entirely stocked with sexual adventures I had with women over thirty.
Okay, I’ll admit a lot of this is fueled by personal opinion and experience – it’s no coincidence that I married an older woman. However, in an impromptu survey I conducted the last time I was at the bar, most of my friends 18-30 agreed with some, if not all, of what I wrote above.
I even took my Sam Adams-fueled a step further – and asked who my pals would rather be stuck in an elevator with, Susan Sarandon or Megan Fox. Given the single disclaimer that she not mention politics, more than half of my friends picked seasoned sexpot Susan over the younger, perkier Meg.
It might not have been a strictly scientific survey, but as far as I was concerned, the results were conclusive!
Is the Ass the new Vagina?
Since when did Anal Sex become mainstream?
In response, her pal joked that there was another ‘virginity’ she could give up that night – until the bride herself admitted cheekily “too late for that!”
Not that I’m complaining – but what fueled this gradual acceptance of anal? The obvious answer would be the proliferation of pornography – now more available than ever thanks to DVDs and the Internet.
How Big were George Washington’s Balls?
If you were going to pick the most iconic American male in history, you’d have a tough time choosing anybody other than George Washington.
Commonly described as ‘the Father of our Country,’ Washington served not just as the Commander of our Continental Army, but also our nation’s first president. He was commonly revered by revolutionary-era Americans as the very living embodiment of the American revolution.
Standing 6’2”– a veritable behemoth during a time in which the average man was less than 5’ 7” – Washington was noted for his imposing figure. He had thick red hair, piercing gray-blue eyes and a “massive” face. His hands and feet were described as “tremendous” and James Thomas Flexner, in his biography Washington: The Indispensible Man, wrote that George “exuded such masculine power as frightens young women just wakening to the opposite sex.”
This is the great man who crossed the Delaware and took victory at Yorktown. This is the legendary figure whom the defeated King George III reluctantly described as “the greatest man in the world.” Washington was arguably the quintessential American – “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
Even today, more than two centuries after his death, historians consistently rank him as the finest president the United States has ever had.
So, from all that information, it would seem fair to assume (with the high-school mentality most of us men are cursed with) that George Washington’s balls were simply immense.
Big, brass and the size of cannonballs.
But ironically enough, scientists and historians today suspect that the exact opposite was true – and that George Washington might even have suffered from microorchidism (i.e. unusually small testicles.)
An examination of Washington’s medical history has led some to believe that he was likely born with a common genetic condition known as Klinefelter’s syndrome –a double X chromosome. Although the condition affects as many as 1 in 500 males born in America, only half of them ever show symptoms. One of the more common ones is microorchidism.
Admittedly, nobody’s got a first-hand description of Washington’s balls on hand (Martha Washington sadly failed to document her sex life) but many of the other common symptoms of Klinefelter’s syndrome seem to match the known physical and medical characteristics of Washington.
For a start, there was his appearance. Boys with Klinefelter’s syndrome typically grow much taller than their peers and Washington’s height was well documented (he was considerably taller than his brother.)
Men with Klinefelter’s are also commonly described as ‘lanky’ or ‘out of proportion’ and that matches contemporary descriptions of George – his shoulders were reported to be especially “narrow” and his disproportionately large face, hands and feet are consistent with the symptoms of XXY.
Men with an extra X chromosome are also sterile – and despite a long and happy marriage to Martha Washington, George never fathered an heir (a source of great disappointment to him.) There was no question of Martha’s fertility, either – she had given birth to four children during her first marriage. Sterility on George’s part would seem to be the only logical conclusion.
What’s astonishing, though, isn’t that George Washington had Klinefelter’s Syndrome – that’s common enough. It’s that nobody even suspected it at the time. In fact, the condition wasn’t even classified until 1948.
These days, parents can tell if their children have any chromosomal abnormalities even before birth, thanks to amniocentesis (70% of parents choose to abort XXY fetuses.)
Better understanding of this condition has also led to more boys being diagnosed with it – but that hasn’t necessarily been beneficial.
Because while XXY boys typically do have developmental issues, the severity varies enormously and it’s more common than not for those with Klinefelter’s Syndrome to live entirely normal lives (or, as in George Washington’s case, entirely extraordinary lives.)
Issues generally manifest during childhood – with XXY boys lagging several years behind their peers in speech and language. The condition can also affect the way they interpret social cues and body language, commonly resulting in a certain amount of social awkwardness (indeed, Washington’s dour personality matches that profile.)
However, by the time XXY kids reach their teens, their development evens out with their peers. Many parents with XXY kids are now starting to suspect that the ‘help’ their children receive in their early years – being taught as part of ‘special ed’ classes with genuinely challenged kids – ultimately holds them back instead of helping them get ahead.
Others point out that that the current trend of aborting fetuses diagnosed with XXY is ethically troubling. Kids with Klinefelter’s Syndrome aren’t so much disabled as merely different – so aborting 70% of them is surely nothing short of eugenics.
(Or, as one pro-choice parent argued, imagine what would have happened to America if Augustine and Mary Bell Washington had the option to abort their first child?)
I tend not to think about those more troubling aspects of George Washington’s genetic singularity. Instead, I take two things away from this discovery.
First, the fact that those we 21st century types are quick to label as ‘different’ or ‘challenged’ hold just as much potential as us ‘normal’ people (or, in George Washington’s case, considerably more.)
And secondly, George Washington is ample proof that the size of your balls has nothing to do with your masculine prowess.
Like many of those with Klinefelter’s Syndrome, Washington probably was afflicted with microorchidism. That meant physically he had very small testicles. Yet metaphorically, you can argue there’s never been a man before or since with larger cajones.
And his condition probably meant that George was evolved enough to realize what most women do: That having a pair of balls isn’t an advantage if you’re constantly reduced to thinking with them.
Happy Independence Day!
Read moreThe Uncensored Realm of Internet Erotica
By Champagne and Benzedrine
We sex bloggers might think we’re an uninhibited bunch; but it’s a lie. We all self-censor ourselves, just in case one reader takes ‘offense’ at something we say, or accuses us of being ‘insensitive’ regarding another.
We hide behind the supposed anonymity of our Internet pseudonyms (my driver’s license doesn’t say ‘Champagne and Benzedrine’ in real life, for example) but end up defending the reputation of our online identities almost as vehemently as our real ones.
It’s only when you step beyond this virtual society we’ve manufactured for ourselves that we’re able to peer into the uncensored abyss of the human imagination; and it’s a pretty scary place to be.
I discovered that research online erotica. The Internet has allowed the posting and proliferation of sexually-explicit stories on a scale previously unheard of and it’s like a window into a world we might not want to admit exists.
The Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository is probably the best known story site on the ‘net, and has over 1,000 authors contributing to it. That adds up to a collection of stories that run every gamut of sexual perversity you can think of.
And not all of that diversity is good.
Take stories involving underage characters, for example. That’s probably one of the most shocking, offensive and morally reprehensible aspects of human sexuality to pander to – yet the Internet is replete with stories about adults having sex with minors.
And while the proliferation of child pornography, or even images depicting underage characters in sexual situations, is thankfully illegal, the First Amendment actually protects the written word. Authors who write stories about the abuse of minors cannot be prosecuted for it (Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition.)
The fact that erotic fiction archives feature so many stories about underage characters – written by both men and women – is terrifying. It suggests that there are pedophiles lurking behind the visage of even our most respectable friends and neighbors. It’s enough to make parents like myself vow to lock up our kids until they’re thirty-eight!
Another incredibly popular niche of anonymous erotica is the non-consensual genre; stories involving rape, torture, abuse and worse. Some of these stories are ‘bodice rippers’ or ‘forced seduction’ stories – no worse than you’d find in Mills and Boon. Others, however, run the gamet from disturbing to downright scary.
One of the strangest things about the popularity of non-consensual stories is the fact that a disproportionate number of them seem to be written by women. Ever since Nancy Friday chronicled women’s sexual fantasies back in the seventies, it’s been no secret that rape fantasies are popular – but some of the stories written anonymously by women are just downright disturbing. One involved a woman fantasizing about being shipwrecked on an island and then being first raped, then slowly spit-roasted and devoured by the natives.
Another female writer admitted: “I find the idea of being murdered so that someone can dine on the flesh of my inner thighs exciting.” She explained the appeal thus: “First, objectification; being treated as or made into something less than fully human (i.e. dead, lower in the food chain, used by others regardless of my consent/safety). Second, being appreciated; serving the appetites of others, literally.”
Other popular genres that are considered taboo include bestiality – which, again, seems to have a disproportionately high number of female authors. The most popular single genre for erotica – which seems to even outnumber ‘straight’ sex stories – involve incest and consensual sex between family members. ‘Mind Control’ stories are classified separately to non-consensual ones (which I find ironic, as both involve rape) and are largely written by male authors, in stark contrast to the more physically violent non-consensual tales written by women.
One of the most popular story collections on the Internet – The Kristen Archives – even has a section devoted specifically to ‘Putrid Stories’ which, she warns, are “nasty, horrible and disgusting.”
What’s disturbing to me is not so much that these stories are legal to post and read on the Internet – I am a strong supporter of the First Amendment and can happily tell the difference between fantasy and reality.
No, what really disturbs me is what it means. The popularity of these story begs the question: Just how many regular people are out there with these terrible things going on inside their imagination?
How many think these things, without necessarily writing about them?
They might watch porn, or talk dirty to their partners, but inside the secret compartment inside their head – where nobody else can ever catch you – is it this sick shit that’s getting them off?
But then again, perhaps the legal precedents inspired by the First Amendment should offer me some consolation. If the Internet’s proven that thousands, if not millions of Americans have utterly depraved imaginations, at least their dark desires never leave the confines of their brains (or, if they do, spill no further than a .doc file on a story archive.)
Some people argue that writing such stories is actually cathartic – the process of pouring them out actually helps keep those desires in check. It’s the people who keep such cravings bottled up that became the Jeffery Dahmers and Ted Bundys of our world – turning their sick fantasies into bloody realities.
That concept even became a successful legal defense back in 2003, when Ohio resident Brian Dalton’s 11-year-sentence was overturned in 2003. He’d been arrested and charged after his private diary was discovered, which chronicled a disgusting litany of sexual fantasies involving the abuse of children. However, the Ohio Appeals Court overturned that conviction, stating that despite having and writing about committing these acts, he’d never actually done so.
ACLU of Ohio Legal Director Raymond Vasvari, in his defence, argued: “However disturbing his ideas, in America, every person is entitled to record his thoughts without the fear of prison.”
So how do you feel about that?
I’m not sure. I’m stuck between my liberal beliefs and commitment to free speech and the parts of my mind that just think it’s wrong.
Ultimately, if my forays into Internet erotica have taught me anything, it’s that the human imagination is a much darker and scarier place then I’d ever thought possible – and that the next time you ask somebody ‘what turns you on?’ you’d probably be better off if they didn’t tell you the truth.
Read moreThe Instant Guide to the Foreskin
America is virtually unique amongst the western world, in that almost all infant boys in this country are circumcised at birth – and although that trend is dropping sharply, it still means about 79% of sexually active American men are currently ‘cut.’
This can present an alarming surprise to American girls and guys when they finally find themselves presented with an uncircumcised cock! Whether you’ve hooked up with a foreign exchange student, or just encountered one of the minority of uncut Americans, facing an intact penis for the first time can be genuinely disorientating!
And while it’s true that uncircumcised penises look very different to their cut brethren, and many untruths about uncut cocks remain common (like that they’re less hygienic than a circumcised penises) they’re nothing to be afraid of.
Don’t believe any of the negative rumors; an uncircumcised penis is essentially the same as a circumcised one; although there are a few pointers it might be worth knowing before you ‘tackle’ one:
Get a Grip: One of the advantages of an uncircumcised penis is that the foreskin acts as a built-in masturbation sleeve, so take advantage! Giving a hand-job to a cut cock normally requires some kind of lube to avoid chafing, but the foreskin self-lubricates and can be pulled back and forth over the head to deliver mind-blowing pleasure to the lucky recipient without any prior planning.
Twisted Tongues: There are some titillating tricks you can perform on an uncircumcised cock to really blow a guy’s mind. When you’re giving a guy head, for example, try slipping your tongue between his foreskin and glans and swirling it around the head of his cock. That’s guaranteed to elicit a favorable response!
Cover Up: The foreskin evolved for two purposes; to protect the sensitive glans of the penis, and to aid penetration. With vaginal sex, the foreskin rolls back on entry, almost like a ‘penis applicator,’ making penetration much easier; especially without lube. While this is great for unprotected sex, however, it does present some challenges when wearing condoms. It’s important to roll back the foreskin completely before putting on a condom; and applying a layer of water-based lube before the layer of latex. This helps the condom stay secure (and increases overall sensation.)
Lean and Clean: It’s simply not true that an uncircumcised penis is less hygienic than a cut cock. Pulling back the foreskin and washing the head of the penis daily is a ritual most uncircumcised men are used to, and that cleanly removes the oils and shed skin cells that might have otherwise been trapped underneath. Baby wipes are ideal for this; many uncircumcised men keep a box by the toilet tissue.
Aftercare: After unprotected sex, it’s recommended that an uncircumcised man cleans underneath his foreskin with baby wipes or water, as the foreskin can otherwise trap bacteria or bodily fluids, increasing the chances of irritation later on. The same is true for circumcised guys; but it’s definitely more of an issue with intact penises.
When comparing the difference between ‘cut’ or ‘uncut’, many men and women have their own preferences. Some say circumcised cocks are more aesthetic, while many report that an uncircumcised cock feels more pleasurable and natural.
It there’s one thing that almost everybody can agree on, however, it’s that the similarities vastly outweigh the differences. All cocks are hard in the dark.
What’s more important than any of the other points I’ve made is that no man should be defined by his cock. The vast majority of circumcisions are performed at birth; with the recipient having no choice in the matter. Therefore, any sexual responsible adult should avoid making the owner of a cock feel self-conscious about the choice his parents made for him all those years ago.
Read moreTake My Wife, Please
I was doing some ‘research’ on the Internet the other day and came across an interesting factoid. Did you know the second most-searched-for male sexual kink on the ‘net is cuckoldry?
Cuckoldry, for those who don’t speak like a 16th Century playwright, is the term used to describe a husband whose wife has sex with other men. It’s an ancient term derived from the French term for Cuckoo – the villainous bird who kicks other birds’ eggs out of their nests and replaces them with their own (much like a cuckold gets kicked out of the marital bed and replaced with another – or many other – more virile lovers.)
It’s a wildly popular kink. Even Tiger Woods shared his cuckold fantasies with several of his recent lovers; telling one girl that he’d love to watch her getting double-teamed by Derek Jeter and Angel star David Boreanez.
There’s also an enormous cuckold community on the Internet; largely fueled by fantasies of white wives getting reamed by well-hung black ‘bulls’ (tossing in the incidental racism that’s so prevalent in porn.)
What makes cuckoldry such an odd fantasy, however, is how the ‘husband’ role is such a submissive one. The driving element behind most cuckold fantasies is the concept of their wives or girlfriends seeking sexual satisfaction elsewhere because these men are sexually inadequate – their dicks are too small, they come too quickly or they’re simply not dominant and ‘manly’ enough.
It’s a fantasy not based in self-deprecation; more like self immolation (of one’s self esteem, that is.)
Another incredibly common angle is a bisexual one. Many of these popular cuckold fantasies have strong homoerotic elements to them; from a husband being forced to ‘clean’ another man’s cum from his wife’s pussy with his tongue, or even sucking a bull’s dick to ‘prepare’ him for fucking his wife (or slurping him clean afterwards.)
Considering how fiercely heterosexual most American men claim to be, it’s telling that this bisexual element is so popular.
Another twist? Unprotected sex and pregnancy play a common role in cuckold fantasies. Search for amateur erotica online and you’ll find scores of sordid tales in which wives ‘forget’ to take their birth control, or skip the condoms and have unprotected sex with virtual strangers, often during the height of their menstrual cycle. This is where the interracial element becomes so popular; since there’s apparently no greater humiliation for a man than being forced to raise a child that’s clearly not his own.
I will admit that the longer I’ve been married, the more the cuckold fantasy has started to appeal to me. It’s ironic that in just a few years, I went from being fiercely protective – even a little jealous – to fantasizing about sharing my wife with many other men.
I think part of it stems from the classic ‘seven year itch.’ After years of marriage, even the most intimate couple finds their sex life flagging a bit. Fantasizing about your wife fucking other men adds an element of kink, but still keeps her as the object of your lust and desire. Ultimately, that’s much healthier than finding yourself attracted to other women, or chasing secretaries and waitresses.
Another element which makes this fantasy so appealing is the thought of all these other men being turned on by your wife; but her ultimately staying emotionally loyal to you, her devoted ‘cuckold.’
It’s a turn on for most men to see that their wives are considered sexy and desirable; and even though there’s a strong element of humiliation to cuckoldry; it’s ultimately a fantasy rooted in loyalty, commitment and trust.
Considering that most real life cheating resulted in fighting, separation and divorce, it’s somewhat ironic – perhaps even heartwarming – that cuckold fantasies generally have a happy ending; in which humiliated husbands and sticky, well-used wives remain as happily together as they ever were.
Read moreBrighten her Mood!
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