Julie Spencer says:

Wow

amy says:

I’m shocked that this is an issue. (And people totally ask me where I got my -insanely awesome- vibrator, though I must confess that I’ve never met a sex toy as good as the ones we’re born with.)

On the other hand, I remember about ten years ago becoming friendly with a group of undergrads (my bf was an undergrad at the time), and in very short order I became the Sex Expert Lady to go to for advice. Not because I’ve had such a wild and adventuresome sexual career but because I’d actually had sex and knew something about it, and was willing to talk. These undergrads — very smart, nice people — had been brought up with a good deal of church schooling that apparently precluded responsible talk about sex. Their misinformation was not just startling but dangerous.

I do think it’s important to remember that Iowa City’s core is actually quite conservative-Christian, if an unshowy variety. Gentle hippies do not run the university or the City, and the people who do run the joint are aware that the students coming from Iowa and much of Illinois are by and large also socially rather conservative, and no, their culture does not tolerate open, public, level-gaze female sexuality.

I also think that kind of sexuality is frankly threatening to men. I’m a single mom, been divorced for years. Occasionally I get a question along the lines of “but don’t you want to have sex again? (It’s bad for you not to have sex! You need a man!)” I guess it’s a good thing the question makes me grin, because it buys me time to figure out what to say to these people past “Baby, does it look like my hands fell off? I have sex every day.” But it’s a serious question, because it comes with this presumption that women are helpless to have sex without men, which is really just a retread of the old Freudian vaginal/clitoral-orgasm nonsense, which I’m sure is a retread of something else in turn.

The reality is that in midlife, sex on my own is often better than sex with men. Not only is my technique right on time, but men my age and older often have sexual problems and flagging desire, while women are often having the best time of our lives, sexually. This is not a trivial mismatch, psychologically. I can tell you that having sex that revolves around a man’s anxieties about virility (and work, and health, and ex-wives, and children, and mortality, and….) is much less…invigorating than a little afternoon delight with a wand and some lube, or just your basic hand down the pants. Woody Allen said it best.

There’s also the fact that at my advanced age, guess what, I hate condoms too, if for no other reason than that the spermicide leaves me UTI-prone, a common side-effect. (Nonoxynol-9′s a detergent, and it’s unkind to vaginal tissues as well as sperm.) But I also don’t want an STD, and I can still get pregnant. The very last thing I want is to get knocked up. I certainly don’t want and can’t afford another baby now — God, the thought of raising children into my 60s — but an abortion (my likely solution) would mean killing my kid’s potential brother or sister. These are things I worry about every time I have sex with a man, and I’ll tell you, it does hurt the mood. And no, I’m not willing to eat hormones regularly or have surgery just so I can fuck a man without worry. Please.

What it comes down to is that I’m no longer willing to go to the lengths I used to, or expose myself to the risks I used to, just to get some from a man. And why should I, when I have a grade-A DIY kit right here? I’m sure I’d make accommodation if I were in love in some lasting relationship — certainly there are lovely things about being with a man — but my life’s plenty full and busy and complicated already, with plenty of love, and I can’t say I’m driven to find Mr. Right. So, as Maureen asked, Are Men Necessary? With apologies to present company, the answer in practice over here appears to be Not So Much. And in a lot of narratives, that’d make me some kind of whore or witch or Bad Unnatural Woman.

I think it drives a lot of men berserk. It’s bad enough they have to rely on women to have kids, that women make their own money, do better in school, etc. But I think a lot of guys really feel, deep down, that if a woman doesn’t need them — not want, but need — they’re nothing. If women don’t need them for something as basic and masculinity-defining as sex, well, it’s game over. So they’ll attack women’s sexual independence, as well as toys and shops that help get her there, and they’ll be vicious about it. Note that “sexual independence” here doesn’t mean “yeah, get her warmed up,” — which appears to be diggable — but the genuine article, as in “Thanks, no, I’m good.” I imagine that many women who like that…how shall I put it…social fabric that’s based on man-as-provider-and-protector also feel threatened by the presence of a store that says sisters are doin’ it for themselves.

About kids’ exposure to sex: Like I said, I’m a mom; my kid’s pretty young. She knows the mechanics (“Gross!”) and she knows about how babies grow and are born, what menstruation is, what pregnancy and abortion are. From the start, I’ve let her questions lead the conversation, and tried to make sure the atmosphere is frank, low-key, and positive enough that she’s comfortable asking me questions. What I don’t show her intentionally is overtly sexual scenes onscreen. (Nor do I show her action-adventure violent scenes, though as she gets older we begin to watch historical docs together, and violence is sometimes part of them; we talk about that, and if she doesn’t want to watch I turn them off.) It’s not a world she’s curious about yet on her own, which is as it should be, given her age. She’s engaged now in friend play, those intense best-friend romances that young girls have, and I don’t see good reason to drag her into man/woman sexuality early. As she gets older and becomes curious, we’ll watch together and talk, and I’ll see that she has privacy to watch and explore on her own (and talk with me later). But Gypsy has it exactly right: if the mothers don’t guide, the girls’ sex ed is left to their boyfriends, which isn’t generally a great thing.

Anyway, good show, and it’s always good to see Gypsy out/about. I wish the Toolbox every success.