Sugasm #68

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

What's a Flower?

Dear February,

Thank you for being an unusually short month, because I'm pretty sure I couldn't take much more of you.

Love,
Amanda

Quickie: on Gaydar and Likin' the Ladies

So I'm sitting in a coffee shop writing cover letters and distracting myself with the internets, and the subject of my queerness came up in virtual-conversation with a straight male friend who's not so much with the gaydar. Referring to the cute law student studying next to me, I said "I'm pretty sure she's straight. Either that or she's like me and doesn't "vibe" the right way."

"What do you mean, you don't vibe the right way?" my friend asked. "Even I could tell that you were queer."

"Really?" I asked incredulously. "You mean it?" Most people think I'm straight unless I specifically mention ladyfriends. I've considered getting a rainbow (or perhaps a blue star) tattooed somewhere obvious (like, oh, my forehead) to help people figure me out.

"Yeah," he responded, "you look at girls. It's kind of hard to miss."

"I mean, you don't blip as bigdyke," he added as an afterthought, "but you do blip as likin'theladies."

The Deep Desired, Long Awaited Spring

Hello and welcome to my inaugural usage of peek-a-boo expandable posts, brought to you by Hackosphere! I've decided to put some of the more NSFW posts, as well as the personal stuff which people who actually know me don't necessarily want to read, "below the fold". Just click the link below to expand the post and read on!

Ah, springtime. It’s my favorite season, even though it only lasts about three days where I’m from. There’s the smell of regrowth in the air, and people actually look at each other instead of the ground when passing on the street. You might think it’s a little early to start talking about spring – after all, it’s still February – but I know it’s nearly spring when I dream about a certain ex, and last night I did.

I’m not sure why he’s so closely associated with spring in my mind. I’ve analyzed it to death – it’s because my attraction to him is chemical, and spring triggers my desire to “mate”; it’s because spring is about new growth, and he was always pushing my boundaries; it’s because that’s when a certain storyline developed on a certain show (I was always a P/J-er, not a D/J-er), and that storyline reminded me of us. But today I realized that it may simply be because my very first moment of attraction to him happened on a beautiful early June day, almost 8 years ago. We were between final exams, sitting with classmates on the back hill outside our high school. I don’t know what he said or did, but I remember thinking how strange it was to find myself so attracted to someone so quickly.

It was something like four years (or five? Maybe five.) before we actually finally dated, and in the years that intervened I found my mind (and yeah, my hormones) drifting back to him each spring. It would begin with a sex dream, and then, completely regardless of the state of my love life at the time, I would find myself preoccupied with thoughts of him, talking to him more often, and wondering to myself if he was always going to be the one that got away.

He wasn’t, as it turned out. Eventually we dated. It was nice, although the timing was bad. I was crazy, and he was emotionally unavailable, and I was left feeling unsatisfied and sad, but ready to move on. Still, in the years since then, the beginning of every spring has been marked by dreams of him.

Last night’s dream was different, though, because for the first time it wasn’t sexual. We were at a dinner party, and he was there with his current significant other. She was charming and he was himself, wrong about politics and planning to take over the world. At the end of the evening we hugged and said goodbye. I woke up happier than I have all week, and very much excited that spring is almost here.

10 points, by the way, to anyone who understands the reference in the post title. Another 10 to anyone who knows the connection between myself and the reference!

More on the Wilson Case

Sick of it yet? I know I am. But somehow as long as people are making Wilson out to be a victim I can't seem to let it go. Anyway, I came across this transcript of a segment from (you might want to sit down) The O'Reilly Factor from February 19th:

[Speaking to attorney B.J. Bernstein & attorney Sunny Hostin]
"We're going to show you a very disturbing piece of tape. It concerns a convicted sexual offender having sex with a 17-year old woman. She says it was rape, but a jury didn't convict Genarlow Wilson of that crime. Instead, the jury convicted him of another crime, the sexual abuse of a 15-year old girl. Wilson got ten years in a Georgia prison for that, and many in the liberal press objected to the sentence. Editorials in the New York Times, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other papers condemned the prison term, implying Wilson was the victim. A report on CNN called him 'a good son, a good athlete, a high school student with a 3.2 GPA.' Wilson is an object of sympathy in some quarters, but should he be? The 17-year old girl says she believed she was drugged, and by most accounts she seemed to be intoxicated. The reason we're reporting this story is sometimes the media glorifies people who don't deserve to be glorified. Mr. Wilson and his supporters want you to believe he's a victim; the girl wants you to believe she's a victim. Talking Points believes that once again the media has not reported the full story."

For more on the case, The Factor was joined by former prosecutor Sunny Hostin, who saw the tape showing Genarlow Wilson with the 17-year old. "It was vulgar and reprehensible," Hostin declared. "This woman was knocked out, there was no way she could have consented. She was dragged into a bathroom." But Wilson's lawyer B.J. Bernstein stressed that her client was acquitted of raping the woman. "The jurors spoke out that he was not guilty of rape, and the only thing they convicted him of was consensually receiving oral sex from a 15-year old. I don't say that Genarlow Wilson didn't do anything wrong. Was it right? No. Was it rape? No!" The Factor argued that Wilson is where he belongs, behind bars. "From what we can see on this tape, it doesn't look like this woman wanted it to happen. The media jumped out and said Wilson should be set free, but the tape shows that maybe this guy got what he deserved."

I can't emphasize enough how rare it is for me to agree with this man, or to reference Fox News as a credible source, but this time I'm glad to see someone in mainstream media pointing out that maybe Wilson isn't the victim/hero he's been made out to be.

Linkage: Bad Vibes, Sex Ed, Veggie Love and More

Tristan Taormino's Pucker Up column has tackled the subject of phthalates in Dangerous Dildos (Part 1, Part 2). I like that she makes the distinction between "adult novelty" manufacturers and those who proudly craft and sell sexual aides:

When you look at the phthalate issue in a larger context, what you see is the current split within the sex toy industry between old-school adult novelty makers and new age sex-positive toy companies. The former are stuck in a model of "get it as cheap as you can from China, make it look like a penis (that's what women want, right?), and spend as little as you can on packaging." Toys from these companies scream, "Who cares if this looks good or actually works? No one's going to return it or complain, they'll be too embarrassed. Besides, it's just a dildo," reinforcing people's low expectations and shame.

In the article she mentions the Coalition Against Toxic Toys (badvibes.org). Their shopping guide gives fabulous advice for how to spot potentially hazardous toys -- take it with you on your next trip to the toy store!

At Mother Talkers, a group blog of "Rants and Raves on Modern Motherhood", Amy has written about her nephew's experience with public school sex education. Recounting a conversation between mother and son:

"What have you learned?" my sister asked.
"I learned about AIDS. That if you have unprotected sex, you get AIDS and die. But Mom, I don't even know what unprotected sex is. What is protected sex?"

Meanwhile, Oakland teens got so sick of cheesy sex-ed videos that they made their own:

The 15-minute movie was written, acted, filmed and edited almost entirely by students from East Oakland's Fremont Federation, a campus with four small high schools. With a hip-hop soundtrack and multidimensional characters — such as a peer educator who makes some poor decisions at a party — it was clearly made with its audience in mind.

The Condom Project has received support from the school district and had its premiere on Valentine's Day.

A Guardian piece discusses why rape charges so seldom lead to rape convictions in great detail, including the way stereotypes about women, previous sexual activity, and alcohol consumption on the part of the victim all contribute to the dismissal of the vast majority of rape cases. The whole thing goes right back to the Wilson case: why is the media championing this young man who was captured on film having sex with a semi-conscious woman? I'd really like to see some REAL journalism on the subject -- what evidence led to his acquittal on the rape charge? Did the alleged-victim recant, or was it simply a case of his word against hers? The whole thing makes me feel sick to my stomach.

HIV vaccine testing made the AP newswire this week. The article discusses how the test is being done on sex workers in the Dominican Republic. Since Phase 2 of the vaccine trial requires that it be tested on high as well as low risk groups, sex workers and injection drug users are obvious subjects. The tests are also being conducted in Haiti, the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Jamaica and Peru. Merck, the company running the tests, is walking a thin public relations tightrope: If the trials are successful with no extreme adverse effects, they'll be heaped with praise. If something goes wrong, though, the papers (and eventually the history books) will be filled with scorn for the exploitative nature of the testing. HIV vaccine testing is a double-edged sword, but the impression that I get is that researchers are being as scrupulous as they can be in this inherently exploitative situation. Probably more to come on this soon.

The inaugural post is up on Veggie Love, the brand-new blog of my ever beautiful and brilliant roommate! Go check it out, and be jealous -- she cooks for me. Yeah, it's awesome.

Great Moments in Sex Education

I’m a sex educator, but that hasn’t always meant that I’m as careful as I should be. Just like pretty much every other young person I know, my high school self was convinced that she was invincible. As the following story demonstrates, though, by the time I was a sophomore in college the sex-ed message had taken hold.

“Your tits look amazing in that dress,” Virginia said breathlessly, leaning in to me. It sounded so vulgar; coming out of her mouth, that only made it hotter. She had shown up to the party in a black silk slip with a black ribbon around her neck, next to which her skin was that perfect shade of creamy white you always hear described in smutty stories. Her flask was tucked into the lace at the top of her thigh-high stockings. She looked amazing, and she was paying attention to me. My cheeks felt hot. “Your tits look amazing.” How was I supposed to respond to that? “Thanks! Want to go upstairs and do it?” No, no. I didn’t want to scare her away. Everyone said Virginia scared easily when it came to relationships.

I waited until she turned back to the entertainment – drunken college a Capella – before resting my hand on the base of her neck. I traced a pattern there with my fingernail. She shivered. I stopped, just in case I was annoying her, but she pulled my hand back to her neck without even looking at me.

By the time the party moved upstairs to my bedroom I was drunk and desperate to get her out of that little black slip. On my bed, in front of a room full of people, she was taking off my borrowed stilettos and kissing and biting her way up my leg. The rest of the room was oblivious until Virginia reached the back of my knee – and sucked on it. Hard. Let me tell you, if you’ve never had the back of your knee sucked on, you’re missing out. I gasped and cried out, and the entire room turned to look – and then left. Quickly.

I flipped Virginia onto her back, kissed her mouth – hard – and her neck, pulled the straps of her slip down over her shoulders and touched and kissed as much of that creamy white skin of hers as I could manage. She was breathing hard. I was in heaven. I couldn’t believe my luck in having this beautiful, brilliant creature underneath me. I kissed her thighs, slid my hand over her underwear, moved my mouth higher and started to pull the damp material away from her body. My heart was pounding. I’d been looking forward to this moment for months, ever since she’d pushed me up against a door and left me with a hickey that no amount of makeup would cover.

“Wait,” she said, reaching a hand down to stop me. “I have my period.”

I think I laughed. Of course she had her period. “Me too,” I said, letting out a deep breath. I felt like someone had popped my balloon. There’s always a risk of STI transmission during oral sex on a woman, but when there’s blood present that risk is much higher. And did I have any dental dams? Or even a non-lubricated condom for turning into a dental dam? Oh no, that would just have been too convenient. But I was well past feeling invincible at this point – an STI scare or two had ended my days of unnecessary risk, and apparently this thing with Virginia wasn’t supposed to happen after all.

In the long run, it’s okay with me that she and I didn’t end up having the kind of sex I’d imagined that night. It wasn’t okay with me at the time, of course, but I know I made the right decision, because finally – in college – I had gotten the kind of sex education that I should have gotten years before.

Scarleteen, a website devoted to promoting sexual health among young people, provides the exact kind of sex education that young people should be getting. The fact that it’s run independently means that it isn’t subject to the kinds of restrictions that many other youth sex ed sites are (although still subject federal “decency” regulations), but it also means that the entire site is completely donor-funded. So, if science-based, realistic, respectful and intelligent sex education is important to you, please consider making a donation!