October 12, 2012 · 6:45 am

Writing, reading and speaking

Hullo there! I haven’t posted much for a while, so it looks as though I haven’t been writing anything. In actual fact I have been writing furiously indeed, as well as having various related investigative adventures. You can read one of the fruits of my recent labours – a (hilariously illustrated)  seven-step guide to becoming a sex researcher -  in the October edition of the King’s Tribune. If you have a subscription, that is!* Otherwise you’ll be rudely cut off at step three, which is sad since that’s exactly the point at which both penises and sampling come in. The solution to this problem is of course to support independent and not-boring media and subscribe!

Also up in that there October issue is a typically hilarious Helen Razer piece on Naomi Wolf’s (book) Vagina. And speaking of Naomi Wolf and her vag:

It’s kind of embarrassing, and not a little ironic, that a woman who now rails indiscriminately against hook-ups and porn, who claims to have met Jesus and who uses phrases like “goddess array”, had an enormous effect on the development of my sexual, uhm, philosophies? When I was about 15 my mother gave me Promiscuities, one of Wolf’s lesser-known books. It’s mostly an autobiographical account of Wolf’s own sexual coming-of-age, and despite the generational difference, her stories and her message really resonated with me as a teenager in the 1990s. I read it several times before passing it around to some of my Catholic school girlfriends. I no longer remember exactly what its argument was, and nor am I certain that I grasped all of its nuances at the time. If I read it again, I’m doubt I’d still like it, but I can hardly overstate the influence it had on me right at that critical moment. It might have just been one big reading comprehension error, but the message I picked up and ran with was that I could enjoy and own my sexuality and a big fuck off to anyone who didn’t like it, or who was “concerned” about me. Hence all those hook-ups Naomi is now so down on! It’s a funny old world.

PS. If you’re interested and didn’t make it along, here’s a podcast of me, Felix Scholz, Lisa-Skye and Karen Pickering discussing sex and feminism at Cherchez La Femme last month: http://lavoix.com.au/cherchez-la-femme/podcasts/

PPS. I’m posting from an internet cafe and the guy next to me just placed a very loud Skype call to the Australian Sex Party, looking for a preference list for the Melbourne City Council election. It is a confluence of deviancy in here!

* Or are fucking me

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August 29, 2012 · 3:13 am

GIRLS LIVE ON STAGE

So, have you ever been reading a post here and thought that what you actually wanted was to have me live on stage, speaking phrases like “gagging on cock”, out loud, in sweet yet throaty tones? WELL, I actually have a high-pitched and vaguely irritating voice! But anyway I will be talking about sex & feminism, publicly, probably from a raised platform of some sort, next week, at Cherchez la Femme – Feminism and Sex. Also there you will find my sex-educating, watch-fancying pal Felix Scholz, the reputedly very comical comic Lisa-Skye Goodes, and hosting the whole thing, writer, Melbourne Slutwalk organiser, #loveattack launcher, writer and activist extraordinaire Karen Pickering.

WHEN! Tuesday 4 September 7-9pm
WHERE! Gasometer Hotel, Collingwood
HOW MUCH! $10 waged $5 unwaged/good story

More details on the Cherchez la Femme Facebook page

I can’t wait! See you there maybe!

 

 

 

 

 

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August 16, 2012 · 4:26 am

Ultrahedonist, personal shopper

This week I moved into a sweet new apartment, all by myself. Friends, my new bedroom features both a bay window and a light switch in the form of a tasseled rope hanging over the bed. I envisage many happy hours of sexual exploration in this space. But fancy new boudoirs don’t come cheap, and I’ve been thinking about what I might do to bring in some extra cash. Yesterday, inspiration struck…

Generally speaking, I don’t have much time for the kind of person who uses the word ‘sexualised’. We already had ‘sexual,’ a perfectly functional and economical adjective for describing people, objects and activities related in some way to sex. So why, all of a sudden, do we have this glut of commentators who insist instead on describing everything as ‘sexualised’?

I think it’s because that little ‘ised’at the end suggests that the sexual nature of a thing is external; imposed onto some person or into some domain where it has no business being. When I hear someone using the word ‘sexualised’ in relation to teenage girls or grown women, it’s a little red flag telling me they most likely fall into one of two camps with very wonky ideas about female sexuality. The first camp, the conservative one, believes that adult and certainly teen female sexuality doesn’t or shouldn’t exist hardly at all. The second camp is made up of self-identified progressives who grant female adults and possibly teens the right to be sexual, but only if that sexuality springs forth wholly from within, magically pure and, unlike anything else, untouched by the culture in which it formed.

Now I’m here to help

But there’s really nothing like the smell of money to encourage a girl to be a little more, you know, flexible with her principles. I’ve seen the Facebook post with its 60,000 odd ‘likes’, and I’ve read the Fairfax article with its 350 often frothing comments. Looks to me like there’s a vast, untapped market of parents who, flailing about in a nightmarish soup of fishnets and short shorts, find themselves unable to independently procure ‘age-appropriate’ clothing for their female children. They need assistance.

So now, if you’re the kind of person who utters phrases like  ”trampy and cheap” in relation to children, I’m here to help. If you think parents are “turning their little girls into obese, lazy, selfish brats who dress like tramps”, I am extending to you my knowledge and expertise. I hereby offer you my services as a personal shopping assistant, specializing in non-whorish girls’ clothing. I can shop at two levels of modesty (modest and extra-modest), and am able to cater to your particular flavor of hysteria. For leftists, I will screen clothing for excessive pink as well as – bonus! – printed or embroidered embellishments that promote irresponsible, environmentally destructive consumerism and narrowly gendered interests, such as “I heart fashion” slogans or images of shoes and handbags. For conservatives, I can select attire that emphasises your little girl’s sweetness and purity and makes it difficult for her to climb trees or engage in the kind of rough and tumble play that is so obviously more appropriate for boys. I can craft ensembles that are stylish yet tasteful, or, if you’re intent on damaging your child’s social standing, utterly unflattering.

Why choose me as your specialised  personal shopper?

I have the skills. I wear clothes every day, and I also go shopping a lot. You might be thinking, but this woman is both childless and a total slut! What would she know about dressing a child in a way that doesn’t suggest she spends the school hols pulling in $250 an hour at the Daily Planet?

Well, I certainly can’t deny that I’m a slut, nor that I deliberately dress in way that I hope will result in a good pounding. But it is precisely this that equips me so well for the task of dressing children in a manner that will have as a happy by-product reducing my competition for the male sexual gaze. You see, having devoted so much time and attention to developing a sexually suggestive wardrobe, I have developed a finely-tuned knowledge of the sexxxx levels of various fabrics, colours, cuts and design features. This knowledge can be put to work for either good or evil! Moreover, as a seamstress, if required and for an additional fee, I can also select your daughter’s inappropriate-for-sex-work clothes for natural fibre content, fabric quality and workmanship, thereby ensuring not only her continued innocence but also her comfort and durability!

I wouldn’t expect you to entrust me with the critical mission of protecting your girl from a life of streetwalking  if I hadn’t already demonstrated my abilities. Hence, yesterday I spent an hour browsing the aisles of Target and Big W, covertly photographing clothing items that I think your precious daughter could slip into without stepping over the line from ‘adorable’ into ‘selling sexual services’.

Please note, this is just a tiny sample of the affordable and perfectly innocent clothing I saw during my brief reconnaissance mission.

Item 1: Cream blouse with lace detail and peter pan collar, $20, Target

Named for the boy who never grew up, no other design feature screams ‘child and not employed in the sex industry’ quite like a Peter Pan collar. Such is the curious power of the Peter Pan collar that it can even render a grown woman utterly infantile.

This adorable, on-trend blouse leaves arms bare and features lace which, while backed with other fabric, might be considered provocative by, I don’t know, a person with some particular kind of brain injury?

Rating: modest

Will suit: age-appropriately stylish children of middle-class leftists

Item 2: Caftan pant set, $30, Target

Perhaps you (or your child) prefer modest clothing of the downright ugly variety? This caftan pant suit features long sleeves, a low hem on the caftan, heavier, more opaque fabric over the breast region and long pants in an unappealing brown-green. Trust me, no-one will find this sexy.

Rating: extra modest

Will suit: parents and children with poor taste, long-legged offspring

Item 3: Elmo t-shirt, Big W, $14.88

Now, I can acknowledge this one is borderline. On the one hand, it has sleeves and a mid-level neckline and features infant t.v. show character Elmo. On the other hand, Elmo holds in his extended arms a banner reading ‘love’, and for all we know he might mean the sexual kind.

Rating: borderline-modest

Will suit: Tweens with an ironic appreciation for Sesame Street

Item 4: Knee length shorts, $20, Target

Longer black shorts in a poly-cotton blend, perfect for outdoor activities. Similar style in blue denim also available.      

Rating: modest

Will suit: Active, tomboyish girls

Item 5: Mod-style colour block dress, Target, $28

Another on-trend piece, this time in a resurgent mod-influenced style. A hallmark of this style is the lack of definition at the waist, which creates an illusion of shapelessness – just the opposite of a hooker! This dress also features a decidedly childish bow and heart-shaped buttons, and comes with a pair of tights to cover up seductive little legs. I mean what’s next Target? Buy one get one free burkhas?

Rating: extra modest

Will suit: Girls with attitude

Item 6: Ugly grey-brown pants, Big W, $9

These pants extend to the ankle, can be worn loosely fitted, and feature a reasonably high and adjustable waist. While this adjustability could, theoretically, come in handy in the case of teen pregnancy, I don’t think that was the manufacturer’s intention.

Rating: extra modest

Will suit: Tomboys, cool weather

—

So, there you have it! If you’re oddly incapable of locating any of the hundreds of items of non-hooker kids’ clothes in Target or similar stores, I can do it for you – please contact me to discuss rates and your particular requirements. Of course, if you find children’s bare forearms unbearably provocative or see sex in every scrap of lace, I’m not sure what I can do for you. And if maybe your real problem is that you don’t want anyone to be able to buy short shorts from Target, I’m afraid you’re all out of luck.

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August 5, 2012 · 9:26 am

Some thoughts on the aesthetics & politics of hair removal

I’m writing this post as the proud owner of a newly hairless pussy. Professionally hairless. One lunchtime last week I popped out of the office and into a city salon for my first-ever Brazilian. And now I’m like, I’m 28, how did this take me so long!? Considering the state of my sexual skills and knowledge more generally, I have been oddly clueless on the the matter of what the hell to do (or not) with my hair down there. Anyhow! This is what happened:

My first Brazilian

A much younger and professionally cheerful woman introduced herself and led me into a small, white room. A portable heater – how thoughtful! – was keeping the space at a comfortable 23 degrees, while mid-volume music played from a speaker mounted in the ceiling. Oddly, it was rock, not the slow, soothing, instrumental stuff that’s usually played in such places. The room’s central feature was a bed,  like the ones you see in doctors’ offices, a large plastic box of wipes and a small papery towel atop it. Along one wall was a table with two small vats – they looked like rice cookers – of creamy green wax, and next to that, a large bin. I’d been expecting the place to be spotlessly clean but the bin’s plastic lid was dirty and stained with spatters of hair colour. Against the other wall there was a small table for my clothes.

My chirpy waxer asked me how I was feeling. I told her it was my first time and I was a bit nervous. Wax Lady said not to worry  and that it usually wasn’t as bad as people were expecting. She explained that she would leave the room and I was to remove the clothes from my bottom half,  give myself a wipe (should I so wish) and lie down on the bed, covering myself  – quite pointlessy given what was to come – with the little towel.

She left and I took off my skirt, shoes and stockings, wiped myself down, and lay on the bed as directed. That position left me looking directly at a poster on the wall – a close-up photo of a beautiful woman wearing heavy, colourful eye make-up. They should have a poster of some hot, ripped dude, to remind me of why I’m here. That would be motivating!, I thought. At that moment, perfectly timed Wax Lady knocked and re-entered. I considered making conversation by sharing my poster opinions with her but thought better of it.

Wax Lady removed the towel and told me to draw my knees slightly up and very much apart. While I wasn’t exactly embarrassed, it felt weird to be fully displaying my spread pussy to another woman, and I kind of had to keep fighting the urge to bring my knees just a little closer together. I tried not to think about stories I’d heard of torn (off?) labia, and was grateful for Wax-Lady’s highly effective client distraction-and-relaxation strategy, which was to prattle without pause at high speed while going about her business. She also worked quickly, and almost before I knew it she had trimmed my hair with an electric razor, spread warm wax on my labia and pubic mound (pressing the wax down with her palm as it cooled), and was grasping an edge to go in for the rip.

It hurt, obviously, but not so very much. Within perhaps five minutes she’d finished the front and sides, and asked me whether I wanted behind done as well. I did, so she told me to hold my knees up together at my chest. Honestly, the warm wax going on around my anus felt almost pleasurable, and barely hurt at all when removed. After that came the worst part of the whole process: Wax Lady coming at a few remaining strays with a pair of tweezers.

Overall, though, not so traumatic.  I spent the rest of the afternoon feeling like I was hiding some sexy secret, which made me distractedly horny.

Politics

My upbringing meant that I have always been conscious of the politics of hair removal. My earliest hair removal experiences were, I think, a bit unusual for a woman of my generation. In the nineties, removing your pubic hair wasn’t yet a ‘thing,’ at least not for teens, but shaving your legs was more or less compulsory. Complicating things for me, however, was my mother. Unlike almost all of my peers’ mothers, mine had dark if sparse hair on her legs, plus a healthy crop under each arm. She had discovered feminism as a university student in the late 70s, and I presume it was then that she decided to stop shaving. I grew up hearing stories of anti-hair intolerance, about how, for example, other women had told my mother that her hair was unhygienic and disgusting. I was convinced (and I remain so) that the view my mother passed on to me was correct: body hair is perfectly healthy and normal, and no woman should be obliged to remove it, or derided for failing to do so.

All the same, I wanted to remove my own. As an adolescent I was very deeply jealous of my peers’ shiny-smooth legs and the apparently uncomplicated home lives that allowed for them. By about 13, even the awkward and unpopular girls in my year were removing their leg hair, with me the only holdout. Most of them shaved, often only to the knee, but a couple of the more glamorous girls waxed. In most respects, my memories of high school are scattered and vague – sometimes I even forget which town I grew up in (!) – but I must have spent a lot of year 8 looking longingly at my friends’ legs because I can call up crystal-clear images of them: Kylie’s heavy dancer’s calves, Kyla’s thin, honey-coloured limbs, Catherine’s shiny blond hairs visible only in the couple of centrimetres between the tops of her knees to the hem of her dress. I desperately wanted to join their ranks, but I was scared of disappointing my mother.

Soon enough, of course, the desire to be like my girlfriends got the better of me. One afternoon I picked out one of my father’s old razors from the back of a bathroom cabinet drawer. Leaning awkwardly against the bathroom door so that I wouldn’t be sprung, and using only water, I inexpertly shaved my legs for the first time.

Aesthetics

Henceforth, I was hooked. Obviously, I would never have thought to shave my legs had I not lived in a society where this was standard and all of my peers were doing it. Social norms and pressures blah blah, yes, OF COURSE. All the same, when I shaved my legs that first time I was taken with the sensation of smoothness – the way my legs felt rubbed against sheets, or each other.

And as it turns out, smoothness can be a pretty neat sensation in other places, too. I’ve known this for quite a while, and from time to time I’ve shaved. Sadly, pubic hair is coarse and thick, so when you shave the stuff it’s only smooth for a few hours, after which it becomes, in the (playful) words of one bed-friend of mine, ‘vicious.’ Not really a quality one wants associated with her pussy.

More politics

I’ve spent enough time around hard- and medium-core feminists to know how the debate about pubic hair removal usually goes. Someone suggests that it’s paedophilic and creepy. Someone else points out that adult women don’t look at all like children, whether they’re hairless or not (I certainly don’t. BREASTS AND HIPS FTW). Another says that they do it and they like how it looks or feels  SO THERE and why can’t we all just support each other’s personal choices? A fourth chimes in accusing the third of naivete and obliviousness w/r/t social structures and cultural dynamics. Ugh. It’s really boring.

I like how it feels, and simultaneously, I know that I live in a cultural context that helps to shape my aesthetic preferences. Since what I do with my down-there-hair doesn’t materially affect anyone much, though, I tend not to give a fuck. If I had my way and didn’t have to worry about what anyone else thought, I’d probably get lasered or something.

But things aren’t quite  that simple for me. I’m in the odd position of having a boyfriend who prefers a woman with pubic hair. (He also, by the way, likes a little  armpit hair. He’s quite the individual!) Most of my other lovers, in contrast, have a mild or strong preference for hair that is at least tamed, if not removed entirely.  Since my boyfriend is, like, the love of my life and stuff, I’ve mostly let his preferences be the deciding factor.

I know that my situation isn’t the usual one, and that it’s likely to become less and less common for men to like (or even tolerate), pubic hair on a woman. That leaves me a little confused. I don’t think aesthetic preferences are right or wrong. I don’t condemn any man for preferring hairlessness. But if that becomes the preference of the vast majority, this will inevitably create a pressure on women – including women who like their hair, or who can’t afford or bother to have it removed- to get rid of it. I don’t really like that idea, but I’m not sure there’s anything to be done about it.

On the other hand, there’s a certain kind of freedom in being able to do things, even things that are cultural norms or that other people want you to do, without worrying about having to resist them. I feel kind of sorry for people who find themselves stuck within a reactive opposition either to their own deep-if-possibly-culturally-determined-desires and/or those of a partner. I’m of the view that I’m going to live once and not for so long, and so I must get my pleasures where and when I may, rather than attempting the impossible task of extricating my desires from my environment. And within reasonable limits and an overall dynamic of give-and-take, I’m happy to cater to partners’ preferences and do things to please them, without feeling that I lose anything of myself.

POSTSCRIPT!

After months of wearing jeans and tucking my legs up underneath me when I sat, my mother finally noticed I’d shaved my legs. ‘Have you shaved your legs?” she asked, surprised. I can’t remember her reaction when I told her I had, but it wasn’t such a big deal. In fact, soon afterwards she began shaving her own.  Huh.

POSTSCRIPT 2!!

A sexual health friend tells me that she’s heard that up to 50% of people waxing have folliculitis, and vulvodynia is increasing, but that correlation may or may not be causal. I don’t know what either of these conditions is, but they don’t sound exactly fun so I thought I should let you know!

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July 6, 2012 · 2:10 am

An illustrated update

HELLOOO there! I’m back! Today I have for you an update on My Life, some pictures, a linky-link to another thing I just wrote, and a request. They are numbered, for efficiency!

1. I went to Spain, I walked across it, and I mostly failed to get laid, even though I think I looked reasonably alluring tomando el sol on this here ancient bridge:

NO?

2. At one point I was having a smutty conversation with, and being led astray by, a multi-national and multi-lingual group of rather attractive young men:

NOT ACTUALLY A SMOKER

… but nada.

3. At another point I stepped over a magazine, discarded on the side of the road, which depicted sexual acts:

o_O

4. And at yet another, I was *about* to have sex but couldn’t because the man in question had a swollen dick. I’m talking, like, a hiking-induced medical condition. WTF. (Didn’t take any snaps, I’m afraid.)

5. A few weeks after getting back home I was just heading off to a meeting when BAM!! I spied Steve Peacocke, for whom I have the. most. rigid ladyboner, you have no idea. He was just hangin’ by the corner of Flinders & Swanston:

SADLY NOT SHIRTLESS

And then, the next day, I saw him *again* on the street. He was between me and my office so I was in fact required to walked right past him, scarcely a meter distant, clutching a coffee in my trembling paw. It really was quite the thrill.

6. Also in June, sex educator and all-around awesome lady Kate McCombs started Sex Geekdom – community for ‘sex geeks’ in Melbourne. It involves cocktails, dumplings and inappropriate conversations in public spaces. Also a lot of people there seem to have a crossover interest in Star Trek? Anyhow, if you’re into that kind of thing you should come along!

7. Holy wow, Katherine Feeney (whose image, incidentally, extremely observant readers may remember me scientifically categorising as ‘attractive’ in this post from last June) of Fairfax’s City Kat blog (I totes get that Brisbane joke BTW. Queenslander4LYFE!) very kindly invited me to write a guest post for her while she jaunts in China. You can read my slightly shouty thoughts on casual sex and the meaning levels thereof here. By the by, if you’ve arrived at my blog-thingy by way of City Kat and you’re neither my grandmother nor my employer, hello! Perhaps you’d like to read a few of my bestest posts? I’d suggest:

OMG TEEN SEXTING!!! Parts 1 and 2

Childhood masturbation and the origins of sexual shame

Always with the gagging: a response to Cordelia Fine Parts 1 & 2

8. And finally, I can’t believe I’m writing a sentence on a blog about my Facebook account, and I kind of hate myself for it, but anyhow: If you are my friend IRL & on Facebook, please know that this pastor chap I have written about in above-linked post is *also* my friend on Facebook. And he’s a very lovely,  very good guy, and while I told him something about this part of myself, the whole unvarnished bit would probably be a bit confronting. So please to not make any crude jokes or humorous references on my wall or anything! Thanks!

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April 17, 2012 · 10:23 am

Away!

Dear friends,

Just a note to let you know that if you don’t see me around here for the next six weeks, it’s 90% because I’m on an international holiday, and only 10% because I fail at blogging regularly. Thursday I am going to Spain! I’m walking the Camino de Santiago, an exceedingly long hike from the French border across Spain to the city of Santiago de Compostela, and then on to the Atlantic Ocean at Finisterre – “the end of the earth.”

Codex Calixtinus

People have been walking this path for more than a thousand years! In fact, it is the subject of what is considered to be the world’s oldest travel guidebook, the Codex Calixtinus.

THEY JUST DON'T MAKE THEM LIKE THEY USED TO

Because this is some kind of a sex blog, I’m going to quote for you the dirtiest/my favourite bit. It’s from Chapter VII, The Lands and Peoples along the Camino de Santiago:

In some places, like Vizcaya and Alava, when they get warmed up, the men and women show off their private parts to each other. The Navarrese also have sex with their farm animals. And it’s said that they put a lock on the backsides of their mules and horses so that nobody except themselves can have at them. Moreover, they kiss lasciviously the vaginas of women and of mules.

I think they meant ‘vulvas’? In any case, I will definitely report back with any observations that confirm these allegations.

Meditation, revelation, religion, contraception

However, it may even be that I never return to my depraved internet corner! Apparently, when one is walking all day through endless countryside, then eating, and sleeping, and then walking again, one does a lot of thinking. I had planned for this eventuality by preparing a list of things to ponder, and at the top of the list I had written, somewhat dramatically and prompted by spending too much time on the internet reading acrimonious arguments about sex work, porn, etc.:

“1. Am I a turncoat/collaborator? Am I suffering from false consciousness re sex/gender issues?”

Needless to say, should my meditative walking prompt revelations about being a dupe of the patriarchy I will probably need to shut down and retract.

Since writing my list, though, something happened that put my mind somewhat to rest. I went to see the super-inspiring feminist pornographer, writer, sex educator and Anal Fiend Tristan Taormino speaking about her career at a Pleasure Salon Melbourne event. It was all very entertaining (I think my favourite moment was a story about a threesome with a stranger who turned out to have an incredibly large dick:  “It was so enormous it actually stopped my heart… I could take it in my ass but no way could I take it in my pussy. Thank God we have so much room in our asses! I think that every day.”)… but more than that, for me, it was reassuring. I mean, if this woman here can direct a film in which she is the subject of a 13-person anal gangbang *and* care about genuine female pleasure *and* treat her performers ethically *and* be smart, strong, hilarious and apparently very happy, then surely I can manage to enjoy the things I enjoy without worrying too much that my penchant for a good, hard and preferably group fuck is all in my head or a betrayal of the sisterhood.

Speaking of sisterhood! It was also great to be at the lecture with a bunch of really wonderful sex-ed/sex research types that I’ve come to know a little recently, thanks to the wonders of social media. My female friends from high school and university are great – all of them know at least something about my proclivities and none has ever been less than totally accepting of me. All the same it’s pretty awesome to be having dinner with a bunch of women and find you’re not the only one continually steering the conversation onto female ejaculation and what happens if your kegel balls fall out while you’re crossing the road and suchlike.

But yeah, back to my walk. Catholicism is another lurking danger, as this walk is, for most, actually a ‘pilgrimage.’ I may turn a Catholic or two, or the Catholics may turn me. We shall see. I am, at least, prepared for the former. Defying all the recommended packing lists, I have included in my mochila two condoms. Weighing in at just three grams each, they are contributing only 0.0527% of my total load, which I think makes them a justifiable luxury.

Anyhow, wish me bon voyage, won’t you?

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March 4, 2012 · 6:17 am

An untimely and fairly detailed account of my visit to Melbourne Sexpo

Last Sunday year I went to the 2011 Club X Sexpo, a “sexuality lifestyle expo” held at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. I would like to claim that it has taken me this long to finalise my post about it because I’ve been busy doing the kind of FILTHY THINGS YOU ONLY DREAM ABOUT, but the truth is only that I am incredibly lazy. I still want to share though, and I wrote notes, so you can please be assured that what you are about to read is rigorously evidence-based.

I believe I was the only one taking copious notes among the racks of polyester lingerie (XS-4XL) and the dildo-strewn novelty golf course.

DEDICATED IS ALL I'M SAYING

In addition, I believe I am also the only person who interviewed both the Fleshlight salesman and the elderly Christian bookstore proprieter.

I did it for you, dear internet friends! Please now let me tell you the story of my recent geologically speaking but many-moons-ago-internet-wise afternoon at Sexpo…

Approach and arrival

Approaching from a couple of hundred metres away I began to see people leaving the Exhibition Centre, laden with packages: nondescript white paper bags; opaque plastic gift boxes; and for the unashamed, glossy yellow bags branded ‘HUSTLER’. Reaching the entrance, I learned that Sexpo was through door number seven, right down the other end of the Convention Centre. I walked past “First Trimester Screening Australian Annual Update,” the cult-feel “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind Intensive” and “Australian Quilt Market 2011″ before seeing a woman whose diamante-script top suggested that I was close to reaching my destination. Sitting down next to Diamante Lady, I observed the arrivals for a few minutes. A group of two young straight couples. A middle aged couple. An older guy. A pair of male twenty-something friends all white shirts and gold chains. Lebanese perhaps? A young Asian couple. Another white pair in their thirties, comfortably plump. An aging biker whose leather jacket proclaimed “Harley Heaven”.

So what I noticed was that all of these people looked casual and oddly comfortable. None of the young women were tittering. The groups of young guys weren’t nervously ribbing one other. If any member of these couples was embarrassed, or was dreading their partner’s next attempt to reinvigorate a flagging sex life or ‘spice things up’, it’s wasn’t obvious on their faces. Maybe we’re not so stupid about sex after all?

Entry

I got up to pay, opting for a regular $22 pass rather than the heavily-spruiked $37 VIP ticket. As well as a free condom, a lube sample, a magazine, a shoulder bag and a non-specific ‘adult toy,’ a VIP ticket bought you ‘Priority Entry’ through a special gate just next to the regular gate. Hinting at the not-quite-right combination of sex and motorsports that I was to find inside, the VIP gate was somehow reminiscent of Formula 1. After all, as the website reminds us, “SEXPO is not just about SEX, it is about sexuality and adult lifestyles.” (That is not, technically, a lie. It’s just that edible glitter bodypaint sellers and vibrator-repair stalls outnumber alcohol and t-shirt vendors to such an extent that the latter’s presence just feels awkward.)

Being as I was a non-VIP, entry required me to walk past red-shirted security guards and two map-dispensing male greeters through this kind of semi-walled-off passage around 20 metres long. Large banners along the barrier showcased topless women and ads for paintball, and as I walked through I could hear the competing sounds of pounding ‘classic rock’, shuffling crowds and loudspeaker announcements inside. Ejected out of the passageway into the low-lit maze of stalls, just about the first thing I saw were the ripped abdominals of three exceedingly attractive and obviously shirtless men – ‘Hunkmania‘ strippers. I broke out into an enormous grin and started walking in their general direction, but found myself too embarrassed and shy to approach them, or even to look at them. So I walked right on past, stopping only when I reached the considerably-less-arousing stall of a man who paints portraits with his dick and calls himself ‘Pricasso.’

I accidentally the whole fleshlight

Fleshlights! They are masturbatory devices for men. I shall admit that even I find them a wee bit disconcerting because they look like disembodied vulvas embedded in a torch, making my own vulva blanch in terror. Obviously, however, that is unfair, because I do not find disembodied flesh-coloured dick-shaped things disconcerting in the least. To the contrary! QUITE to the contrary!

LADY OPENING!

Without approaching the ubiquity of vibrators, fleshlights were certainly abundant at Sexpo, which had a dedicated fleshlight stall and a special fleshlight corner inside Sexpo’s beating heart and the only shop with a ceiling – the central Club X World store. The fleshlight corner was manned by an ever-so-slightly weedy man who looked to be in his early twenties, and who answered my questions knowledgably and with a distinct and admirable lack of self-consciousness.

From Fleshlight Boy I learned that:

  • the celebrity-endorsed fleshlights, moulded from the pussies and assholes of porn stars, are the most expensive;
  • one can purchase various interchangable fleshlight ‘sleeves’ in a range of textures;
  • the blue fleshlights are because some men would like to fuck a Na’vi; and
  • women whose partners go away to work in mining towns often buy them fleshlights as a kind of consolation and a precaution against infidelity.

I was also treated to a demonstration of how easy it is to clean one’s fleshlight: simply rinse with tap water and, if you like, (this is when I really felt vulnerable in my pants) flip the vaginal sleeve “inside-out like so” and sprinkle with a little corn starch to keep the fleshy material in tip-top condition. Hiding my disembodied-vulva-discomfort and focusing on the positives, I told Fleshlight Boy, honestly, that it was good to see some quality sex toys being made for men.

The Five Languages of Love

It was just around the corner from the Melbourne BDSM Community space that I met Stella, an old woman with short white hair who was tending a small stall of books with titles like “Staying Pure,” “Becoming a Man of Integrity” and “No Sex in the City.” She also had pamphlets for an Australian branch of the Pink Cross, a controversial Christian organisation in the USA that ‘rescues’ women from the sex industry.

Stella was, frankly, lovely, and many of the things she said (in contrast to some of the batshit-crazy looking books she had) to me sounded eminently reasonable: some women in the industry hate it and want to leave, and her group was there to offer non-judgemental support to those women. She also talked to me at great, great length about The Five Languages of Love, a series of self-help books she was selling.

I had not been expecting to see a stall of this kind at Sexpo, and said as much to Stella. What she told me was pretty surprising: she’s being coming to Sexpo for years and the organisers love her. They ring her every year to see whether she’ll be coming and this year they helped her to move all her things. As I left she pressed into my hand a heart-shaped chocolate and a tiny coloured pamphlet about god loving me.

Ride me

As well as all the stores, Sexpo has rides and games which give it a vaguely incongruent carnivalesque vibe. One middle-aged spruiker in camo get-up  didn’t seem to be attracting any customers to his Throbbin’ Hood game, although he was really trying, yelling “Whooooooo’s gonna be our next lucky winner?! Gotta be in it to win it! Don’t walk on by, walk on in!! Whoooooo’s gonna be our next…” over and over in an endless loop.

THE DILDO-STREWN NOVELTY GOLF COURSE I MENTIONED EARLIER

I didn’t play any games, but I did partake of both the Sex Train (WARNING! “sexually explicit themes,” “may not be suitable for pregnant women”) and the Sex Maze. The curious thing was, the ride operators just obviously wished they were dead. The rather hot train guy asked me how my day had been as he took my ticket. “Fascinating!” I said flirtatiously, “How about yours?” It must have sounded like a genuine question because his initial cheer gave way and he responded emphatically: “Terrible!”

Similarly, the (less hot) ticket-taker at the Sex Maze was so bored and/or embarrassed that he took my tickets and then handed them straight back to me, saying “That’ll be two tickets thanks you can keep ’em.” I’d been inside the maze scarcely a minute when an arm appeared amid the be-dildoed mirrors, shining a torch in my face. A young male voice said over the maze’s soundtrack of sexual moaning, “this is the exit here if you’re lost.” Uh, I thought that was the point?

Big Richard

One of the last stalls I visited was that of condom seller Big Richard.

IT IS TRUE OF ME AT LEAST

I had assumed, some might say logically, that Big Richard condoms were manufactured specifically for the well-endowed. I asked the facially-pierced woman at the counter if this was the case, but she surprised me by saying no. Moreover, although they’d had some larger ones earlier in the week, they’d sold out and now only had condoms for Regular 5 to 6″ Richards. Why then, I asked, are they called Big Richard condoms? Piercing Lady told me it was “just marketing” and that she supposed a lot of guys just liked to think of themselves that way. But I honestly don’t think I know any men who’d be swayed by such transparently groundless flattery.

My Climax

Sex trains ridden, mazes navigated, condom-sellers interviewed… there was just one thing that I had to do before re-emerging into the workaday world. I felt intimidated and ugly and awkward, but those hard, tan abs were calling to me. I marched determinedly back to where I had began, and I procured for myself a Hunkmania “poster and photo – $15.”

The hunks sprung into action, assembling on their blocks and directing me to take a seat in the middle. To my indescribable delight, Eye-level Navel Hunk and Vaguely Exotic Hunk each took one of my hands and placed it firmly on his snug, soft penis, while Friendly Hunk postioned his knees at my shoulders and offered two thumbs up. I tilted my head and smiled, the camera flashed, and this photo I shall forever cherish – radioactively pale and with-child though I may look:

NO I AM NOT WITH CHILD IT IS ONLY THE GRAPHIC PRINT OF MY DRESS

I left on a post-hunk high.

in closing

I hope none of this sounded too sneering because while the whole thing was a little tacky and confused, I had a pretty good time at Sexpo, and I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically bad about enormous stacks of fluffy handcuffs or adults dressed in giant wobbling genital-dinosaur mascot costumes. The stallholders were friendly, the crowds seemed happy to be there, and overall the vibe was lighthearted and open. It wasn’t a space that showcased the incredible diversity of human sexuality, but then again, I’m just a straight girl with for-the-most-part vanilla tastes and a weakness for conventionally hot men. I felt pretty damn comfortable there in the commercial mainstream, perhaps even more comfortable than I feel at alternative and self-consciously ‘inclusive’ sex-related events. But that’s a post for another day!

GET IT GET IT?!

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March 2, 2012 · 8:17 am

In pleasure and sorrow

The lovely people at the King’s Tribune let me write a thing for their magazine. Here is a picture of me reading that thing:

Image

UNPROFESSIONAL!

 

naked, because of our highly sexualised society I fucking felt like it.

Anyhow, it’s about online dating, the sexy kind, and you can read it here.

I hope you like it!

 

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January 23, 2012 · 9:12 am

Childhood masturbation and the origins of sexual shame

The very first time I had sex, something unusual happened. I came. They say that the fumblings of two 16-year-old virgins do not always result in female orgasm. It happened for me, I think, because I already knew my body.

so many orgasms – you will never catch up to me

In fact, I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t know what it felt like to have an orgasm. Maybe I was one of those randy fetuses who started masturbating in the womb (nothing else to do, after all), or perhaps I discovered it as a toddler. I’m not sure, but I do know that for as long as I can remember, I’ve been getting myself off.

I didn’t do it openly – I was always aware that it was a private activity, and in my innocence, I thought that my parents didn’t know. Looking back on it now with the eyes of an adult, I think they must have noticed at some point – sudden flashes of movement when they opened my bedroom door, the way I hung around jets of water in Queensland pools, that kind of thing… (LOL) If they did notice, though, they never said a word to me about it.

Interestingly, mum has since told me that she too was a childhood masturbator, and that her own mother mocked and punished her for it. Apparently the whole family knew about it, and one of my aunts, my mother’s younger sister, used to threaten to tell on her whenever they had fights. This wounded my (slightly mad) mother deeply, and today she has even bigger mother issues than I do. In contrast, if my parents were aware of my penchant for self-pleasure, they tried to spare me this kind of embarrassment by saying nothing. Actually, they were so liberal that they had told me the facts of life before I could find them embarrassing, and never once suggested that sex was bad or even unusual.

cosmic punishment

And yet, I was embarrassed. Not just embarrassed – I was deeply ashamed. I was terrified of being found out and I tried over and over – actually, for the duration of my childhood was always trying – to give it up. I was scared that I would be punished, not by any person, but cosmically.

The shame and fear was so powerful that it overrode knowledge, logic, and contrary messages. At some point I came to know that in the bad old days, young boys had been told they’d go blind if they masturbated. Even though I learnt this in a ‘and nowadays we know that’s ridiculous’ context, I still worried that perhaps I would go blind, or otherwise fall ill. Like many women, I have somewhat uneven inner labia*, and I was utterly convinced, right up until my late teens, that I had caused this to happen – that I had broken my pussy! – by masturbating.

As I got older I heard more and more often that masturbation was normal and harmless, but my shame was impervious to this. I was probably about 12 or so when I read the Judy Blume novel Deenie, whose female teen protagonist touched herself in a ‘special place’. Obviously, I knew precisely what this special place might be, but I was so confronted by the non-judgmental portrayal of masturbation that I actually convinced myself that Deenie was just touching a special place on her wrist. Her wrist! That’s ridiculous!

from whence my shame

Even though I was raised by atheists, I think religion did its little bit. When I was very young I knew that my parents didn’t believe in God, but that other people did. I’d picked up, here and there, the gist of Christianity with its all-seeing God. I distinctly remember laying in bed at night, worrying that if God did exist, he’d be able to see me all the time, even when I was doing that.

I had stopped worrying about a possible God by adolescence, which is about when friends kicked in. If masturbation ever came up in conversation – which didn’t happen that often – it was as a mocking reference to something gross and embarrassing that none of us did. Even at 16 and 17, when many of my friends were having sex, masturbation remained taboo, and while rationality was beginning to creep in, I was still deeply embarrassed.

A god I didn’t even believe in and a few off-handed remarks – it doesn’t seem like enough to create all that fear and shame, and then to sustain it for so long in the face of a liberal parental influence, Judy Blume, and a not-too-crappy sex education. I find the whole thing quite puzzling.

happy ending

Obviously I’m over it now. BOY AM I LIBERATED. AM I EVER HA HA!!!

* I was also very distressed about the appearance of my labia for my entire childhood and well into my adulthood. Again, I don’t have much idea where my concern came from, although I can say with certainty – not porn. It started long, long before I had ever seen or even given any thought to porn. Seeing other women’s pussies in porn has actually, I think, made me much more comfortable with my own. Which is not at all to say that it mightn’t have a different or even opposite effect on other women.)

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December 30, 2011 · 8:25 am

Introducing: ultrahedonist’s alternate advice world

You know how sometimes you are reading the paper or something and there’s a love, sex, and relationships advice column, and you read it because the other option is reading something about war or Julia Gillard’s hair or whatever? And so then you read the advice and you’re all like, that is terrible advice. Yeah that. That happens to me all the time!

So I decided that I will begin a new series of posts where I reproduce such columns and then proffer my own vastly superior advice to the hapless advice-requester! Said advice shall be grounded in the following mish-mash of observations and principles:

1. Autonomy. Don’t tell other people what to do or let other people tell you what to do.  Just. Don’t. Do. It. Adults get to choose their hobbies, their friends, what to wear, what events to attend, when they do stuff, etc. If you want someone to do something, sure, let them know about your wishes. Then leave the decision up to the other person and respect it. Related: Couples don’t have to do everything together. If you want to go and your partner doesn’t, just fucking go already. It will give you something to talk about later.

I think not telling other people what to do applies even when it comes to basic matters of ethics, consideration and respect. Worthwhile adults will act well of their own volition. If you routinely need to compel someone to be a halfway decent person then cut the damn ties and be done with them. If you really, really want to stay with a shitty person for some reason, give them a chance by letting them know that you will leave them if they don’t start being decent. And if they don’t, then leave them.

2. Niceness. Being autonomous human beings doesn’t exempt us from caring about others’ feelings and preferences. If it’s not going kill you and it really matters to them, and they’re not constantly making unreasonable demands, then maybe just do it. Also, just generally, don’t be a cunt.

3. Honesty. Part of respecting others’ autonomy is letting them know what you want and do and think and are planning, when it’s of relevance, so that they can make their own decisions about how they will relate to you based on their own values and preferences.

4. Desires are largely involuntary and are therefore not really moral or immoral in and of themselves. Actions based on desires are more amenable to control and hence have moral significance.

5. Emotions are human and legitimate, but that doesn’t make them a moral trump card. In a situation where one person has stronger feelings than the other, the former isn’t necessarily morally superior. Nor do one’s strong emotions on some matter necessarily mean that another person is morally obligated to respond in a particular way. For example, my mother’s partner once bought her an impromptu present while on a business trip. It was a landscape painting. My mother didn’t like it and she got sad and angry because her partner got her a present she didn’t like when Partner should have asked first or known mum’s art preferences better, and then she expressed this sadness and anger to her partner. NO MUM THAT IS COMPLETELY MAD, GET A GRIP OR JUST WRITE IT UP IN YOUR JOURNAL OR SOMETHING.

6. Sex-positivity, i.e., the recognition that sex and sexual preferences aren’t intrinsically  good or bad. It’s okay, morally, to want or to have lots or a little or no sex at all, of various types.  Mismatched sexual desires are going to require some problem-solving and negotiation and they may even end a relationship, but in and of themselves they aren’t actually anyone’s fault.

7. Monogamy should be a matter of conscious choice. It may or may not suit you or match your preferences, and either way you can be a good person and have good relationships.

8. Nobody’s perfect and even good people fuck up from time to time. Let’s all try to forgive each other, yeah?

9. Stuff is complicated and context is usually important.

That’s mostly all I can think of right now. Oh, also, ultrahedonist’s alternate advice will never, but never, fall back on goddamned gender stereotypes.

Hurrah! I can’t wait to get started (tomorrow).

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