Oh My, Sex

I'm telling this story for Vaginella, my Sex Story Siren and Consultant Extraordinaire. This is a true story, but kinda like Lucy's Canya Believe This? It is utterly shallow but intriguing in the way that supermarket rags catch your eye. I like sex, but in my middle age, or almost-middle age, it just doesn't compel me so utterly as it seems to do for other people. It is quite lovely, but not the center of my universe.

Vaginella's ex from a while back had an erection problem. He - and his brother - were both able to have about 8 orgasms per day (we hope not in the same room, of course). Not just able, but it was something of a necessity. Before I go any further, I must reveal my own bias, upon hearing that news. Gross, Man! That is just too much hard dick for me to fathom. And what did he do in between masturbation sessions? Vaginella had a grand old time with him, but even She of Large Erotic Appetite became a mite fatigued.

After the inevitable break-up, Ella looked back at his profile on the dating site through which they had met. He wrote some less-than-flattering things about women being needy (yawn), and then revealed that he was thinking he might be bisexual. For some reason, this really bothered Ella. She was convinced that he had not been too interested in her at all, and that all of that sex they had was really his poor substitute for sucking a guy's dick. That sounds harsh, I know, but Ella kept repeating this dick-sucking thing. So I was like, get over it. And why should it matter anyway? Gay men do that, and they like it, and geez, we do it too. Every once in a while, when referring back to the Ex/Busy-Penis Guy, she would gripe about the idea that he wanted to suck dick.

Finally, last week end, Ella told me the real story behind her suck-dick issue. Justa few weeks after the break-up, Ella's close pal at work, Labiaretta, questioned Ella fiercely about her sexual habits, and finally told Ella that she was privy to some very personal information about Mr. Suck Dick (aka Busy-Penis Guy). Are ya still with me? Because there really will be a point, or two points if you count the dick - oh, you know what I mean. Or maybe the point is that I will never mature? That sex is actually funny? Back to the totally-convoluted plot: Lab had met a guy on a dating site, and did I mention they all work together? And this guy told her that he had discovered that it was his fondest wish to suck a guy's dick. He also revealed that he had had sex with innumerable groups of people, following his break-up with his last female friend. His favorite experience was to lie beneath a woman while she was having intercourse with someone else. He wanted to explore his submissive side. (I'll ignore the premise that women are submissive because it's so fucking stupid (ha), and irrelevant here.)

More confessing: I am so naive and I am such an adolescent about this stuff. His submissive side? Is that like what sex sophisticates talk about? I must be the female lefty version of the '50s housewife. It's all okay and good when consenting adults express their love, but omigod do people truly tie each other up or eat an ice cream sundae offa someone else's crotch? Yikes! Help! I'm not ready for that. It's so, so, out there. I am not out there. I am in here, with the other nature gals and uptight folks who fuck sans acoutrements. (I hope sans does mean without because that sounded so good.)

But, but, butt(?) - I am getting punchy here - back to the story: neither Labiaretta nor Mr. Dick knew who the other was. That is, until Dick sent along his photo. Behold, it was not a dashing stranger, but instead, her dull co-worker. Lab realized that the dork across the hall was the Dick that doesn't stop and that he is Mr. Suck Dick, all rolled up into one. Lo, he was/is the ex-boyfriend of her pal, our very own Vaginella. Labiaretta naturally told Vaginella everything, and that's when Ella began hounding me with her concern that her ex actually had things in mind when they had sex, but they were not the things one woman could give him.

The tale is instructive because you never know when your most personal sex wish and your anonymity may be torn from you so that an ex's repressed friend can wonder and poke fun at the coincidence of it all on her blog. I am happy for Mr. Suck Dick that he has figured out what he wants to do, but he might fare better if he does more fucking and less emailing. And if you are on the web meeting fantasy-folks, don't send the picture. Ouch.

The Positive Re-frame, Re-framed

Back to work. I was absolutely brilliant (notice me embracing the new resolution), except when I wasn't. No comment on the ratio there. The students were like "Oh God" every time we talked about actually doing something. They seemed to expect us to hand out cigars and flick on the tube. I am very thankful that I don't take shit from people. I told them to shut the hell up or I'd go back to the banging-knuckles routine from the old days. Really, it is amazing how a small group of people can monopolize a situation, if you allow them. Kinda like those right-wing religious people who talk as if they are a mammoth group of righteous churches, all banded together in their zeal to be saved while the rest of us drown. Oh, but I do exaggerate. I'm quite sure the students were simply a mite perkier than usual after their wholesome family time. And many religious zealots are my best friends. Or maybe I just met one once, and I almost sorta thought about liking him?

Another tidbit of strange phenomena: my stats page, which I check to see who's perusing around here, says that no one is reading. Yet I have 4 comments. Obviously there is a glitch. That little gal in the computer may be on holiday. My brain is so busy creating ideas and expressing innovative thoughts that it cannot take on a techno-question. Plus, I'm not quite as adept at figuring out cyber-crap than I might be. What am I doing wrong? Perhaps a reader, or maybe the dog, will let me know what's happened?

Oh my. All of that positive re-framing was an incredible drain on my naturally bitchy ego. Must stick with thinking positive thoughts about my self for a portion of the day, and determine the portion on random whim. Off to "chillax," as one of my students says. I'd call it meditation, or quiet time, but my portion's up, and I gotta go lie on the bed and rest my weary ass.

The Good Stuff In Me

Ta-da! It's a new year. I haven't cared in the past - it seemed a small stretch from the thirty-first to the first - but now it seems significant. This year I am going to consider seriously my many strengths and spend more time thinking about the good stuff in me. Today, for example, I had a jungle party and I decorated the house with bananas, green leftover Christmas crap on discount from the store (vines), and some tropic-esque stuffed animals. We made pina-coladas and put in some actual pineapple. Becca and her kids came over, and my sister stopped by.

But back to the positive parts of me. I am a good teacher and, on occasion, I have had a positive connection with a student. I am a loyal friend, and a great dog-owner. My dog loves me! It's because I know exactly how to take care of him and be his alpha gal. I have no interest in cats, and I believe that that is also a positive attribute.

My silly songs are rather enjoyable. And I can whip one up for any occasion, be it an awkward moment, or a statement of affection for my family. Also, I sing in the car. Not just anything. I sing along to the music I have been obsessing over at that particular time, and I sound really good. To me, anyway. This cheers me on my way to work, and when I get there, I am all "good morning," and "how are you."

Finally, I don't bullshit. I hate bullshit. I say things directly, and I speak with clarity. I am rarely at a loss for words, even when I need to say "I don't know what to say." This is preferable to saying something disingenuous or untrue. I am a good listener, even though I interrupt a lot when I am excited.

The best thing about me is that I am a very emotional person. My life is filled with millions of small and large pieces of sentiment, and I am fortunate to know overwhelming joy, as we all inevitably encounter devastating loss. The very idea of being a bit less emotional, or a bit less perceptive - somehow they go together for me - is unimaginable. I know at times I wear Ball & Chain out - my talk, my ideas, my laughing on the phone, and crying at night. But I don't do boredom, and life with me - and as me - has few dull moments.

Black & White: I Know I Don't Know

I saw Blood Diamond yesterday, and I just finished reading Makes Me Wanna Holler, by Nathan McCall. The movie is about white greed, manipulation, and the ensuing genocide in Sierra Leone; the book is a black journalist's memoir of street to prison to the white mainstream. Now even writing about this gets me a little anxious: what do I know? Am I supposed to say something about guilt? I don't feel guilty, so there? I might feel guilty, but it's more like confused? One classmate in graduate school told me "that's just white guilt, and I'm over that." She shrank me down, but why? I am certainly ignorant. Personal politics interest me. World politics intimidate me. Racial politics intrigue me, but seem too complex for any but the very well-informed to comment. Still, if I don't say anything about race, that's a bit pathetic. Saying nothing would mean I think every thing's okay. I know it's not.

I think one branch of my ancestors was slave-owners, and I think I have black relatives somewhere. My other grandparents were Eastern European Jews who came here to avoid the Nazis. The Nazis murdered the family members who stayed behind. I grew up in the same town with the immigrant - yiddishe side of the family. We saw some combination of them every week. I was also particularly close to my southern grandparents, despite the distance. My southern grandfather - who converted to Judaism after he married - had ancestors on the Mayflower. My parents have the family tree, which a southern relative created and distributed about thirty years ago. All of my grandparents, those who spoke Yiddish, and those with a southern drawl, died awhile back.

A few hundred years after the Mayflower gig, I was on my couch doing bed rest, watching television. The dreaded Oprah was on (anyone who has ever been on bed rest knows one sinks to the lowest levels just to have something to do). In this particular episode, a young white guy talked about how he had found his black relations. He had researched his family tree, discovered that his ancestors had been "slave owners," and further discovered that he shared ancestry with black people descended from the same place. They shared the same surname, which happens to be my middle name. Hmmm. It is an old name from the southern side of my family. (I do not mean to imply that I had - or have - anything but affection for them, but refer to them as "the southern side" for clarity.)

(Regarding clarity, is 'slave owners' an accurate term? A person cannot really own another. Should we say murderers? Torturers? Mainstream southerners? Slavery is utterly inhumane. One can hardly skip over that for semantic purposes. I do not know that proper nomenclature exists to describe the act of enslaving another person.)

Back to the show: naturally, Oprah trotted out the black relatives, and everyone was happy(?) to see each other. The white man talked about how weird it was to think of his ancestors owning slaves, an idea that was apparently abhorrent and confusing, and the black people seemed far less surprised that he did that they had white relatives. They certainly knew that their ancestors had been slaves.

Following this discovery, I could never figure out if I was related to those people. Other relatives seemed to have little interest. I soon had a new baby. And even if I did have black relatives, what, exactly, would that mean? I dunno. A few years later, I saw my name as caption under a photograph of a black woman. I saw it a couple times after that, as well. I tried googling. Really, nothing came of it. Today I googled again. Many, many people have the name, and they are all black people.

So here I sit, perhaps the quintessential stereotype, but bewildered nonetheless. Nathan McCall wrote about the cruelty and humiliation of white society, and the violence he propagated in response. Eventually, after serving time in prison, he was able to gain perspective and re-gain his soul. In Blood Diamond, white people manipulate black people, and terrible violence ensues. The genocide in Sierra Leone was real, and the movie dramatizes the horror of the situation there. How does the following fit in: a short time ago, my great-great-great auntie may have sipped tea on a porch while a black lady, separated from her children, poured the cream. Or maybe the black woman worked in a field. Sometime later, a white man raped her.

So here I sit. What the hell does a white lady do, really? Try to lead a good life? Check. Study sociology in school, read the works of African-American writers? Check, check. Work with people of color? Check. Live in an integrated neighborhood? No check. Live in a place where my kids can get a good education? Check. Pretend it's all fine with me? No check. Feel that something is very wrong? Check. Notice the irony of having written all of this without more than a passing mention of money? Check.

I was raised to speak up, so I am trying to say something here. I don't know what to advocate for: political organization, human kindness, compassion, informed consumerism, an anti-racist outlook, pacifism. I got all those. Some thing's wrong - a lot of things are wrong - and I know enough to know I don't know.