Sex Sex Sex Masturbation Sex
I was originally going to title this week's column “In Defense of Straight Men” and write about the ways in which misogyny, homophobia, and sex negativity damage the straight men who ostensibly benefit from these systems of oppression by consistently portraying them as – and encouraging them to act like – violent, irrational animals who can't do anything except throw their dicks around. Let's be clear: Those in Wendy “all rapists are men” Shalit's camp want to protect the rest of us from these pigs who lose the capacity for thought at the mere glimmer of a female nipple; I want everyone to protect themselves (and each other) from the insidious effects of our rape culture and work collectively to dismantle it altogether.
I was all set to lay out a brilliant argument by the end of which my straight male readers would realize (if they haven't already) why it's in their best interest to work to end gender and sexual oppression. Then I remembered that this is not meant to be a column about feminism and its discontents – it's a column about sex. Hence this week's title, so that no one gets confused (least of all myself) and so no one clicks on it by accident expecting something different.
I had that first part about what I'm not going to write about this week open on my desktop for weeks, past when I was supposed to submit this column, past papers and presentations, past excuses to the people who actually noticed that I usually post every other week, because I didn't know what to write about and because – confession – I've had sex, like, three times in the past two weeks. Don't get me wrong, I have no complaints about those three times. Sometimes, though, I have this nagging fear that I'm a failure of a kinkyqueersexpozcrusader when I don't have enough sex, when I have mediocre sex, when I don't pursue sex with other people even though my partner doesn't mind, when we try something new and exciting and then finish by jacking each other off to orgasm.
I know – rationally, fundamentally, with conviction – that all those things are just fine, but the fear is still there, and I don't think that's unusual; deprogramming all the bullshit built up around sex in every direction (so that you feel bad no matter what you do or don't do) is hard work. One of the things I have the hardest time with myself is fighting to let go of everything I've ever been taught about monogamy and how it's the best thing ever and how one day someone will drop into my life and be the best person ever and we'll get along emotionally and intellectually and sexually without even trying and then I'll be complete. Here's the thing: I'm already complete. Not perfect, certainly, but I'm a whole person and I prefer to date other whole people, people who don't try to fill in my gaps and don't demand that I fill theirs.
My partner and I are in an open relationship, in spite of the fact that we are unsure and apprehensive of what sleeping with someone else might feel like or mean for our relationship. We talk and talk and talk (and then talk some more) about all of this, about how we're comfortable with making out with other people at parties but going home even just for more making out is scary, about how we want to have a threesome/foursome/moresome but don't really know how to go about it, about how the conception we share of what would make an open relationship awesome might not exist for us at Swarthmore.
It's hard because the programming is so thorough that beyond the fact that you're supposed to feel like shit when the person you love is with someone else, you do feel like shit. I feel like shit. But I've cheated in the past and that felt shittier, because it wasn't honest and it wasn't respectful and it was pretty selfish.
For me, being in an open relationship is not about getting lots of ass (I don't) and it's not about jerking people around (I try not to), it's about recognizing that relationships are personal things that work very differently for different people at different times. Whether I actually hook up with anyone else at any given point, or even whether I want to, is mostly irrelevant because the point of the endeavor is to step out of the monogamy-is-the-Way mind set so that my partner and I can shape our relationship in ways that work for us – by hand rather than out of the cracked mold that every book, movie, TV show, advertisement I've ever seen keeps trying to push on us. That also means that there are as many ways to do nonmonogamy as there are ways to have an orgasm (that is, more than you think).
I'm not advocating nonmonogamy, because it's not right for everyone and I haven't even decided if it's right for me. I am advocating critical thought and putting some effort into figuring out what works for you. Characterizing any one particular way of doing things as the best and only way that works is a weak cover-up for the fact that there is never only one way to do anything nor is there a way that works for every person in every situation.
For further reading on the topic by people far more qualified than I, people will tell you to read The Ethical Slut. Apparently it's foundational. However, it's incredibly poorly written and, to my mind, has an awful way of talking about non-primary partners as if they are walking sex toys rather than real human beings. Also, it has an unmistakable whiff of California about it. If you, like me, prefer your sex reporting with more of a New York feel, Tristan Taormino (who some of you may remember from the anal sex workshop she gave at Sager two years ago) is coming out with a new book about open relationships. If her other work is any indication, it should be worth checking out.
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#1: 4/23/2008 at 11:45 p.m.
Looks like you and Dan Savage are on the same wavelength:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=562664&hpr
— Liana | Unregistered, Swarthmore
#2: 4/24/2008 at 1:13 a.m.
Thank you for writing this column.
— grateful | Unregistered, Swarthmore
#3: 4/24/2008 at 4:03 a.m.
Good read, M. Just a few comments about monogamy/love.
You've heard that monogamy is great and works something like this:
"one day someone will drop into my life and be the best person ever and we'll get along emotionally and intellectually and sexually without even trying and then I'll be complete."
Even though I'm not sure if you're really talking about monogamy here (sounds more like an idealization of true love), I have a few thoughts.
First, let me say that I personally believe monogamy is the best way to build and sustain a loving relationship (at least in the long-run) though I recognize that for this may not be the case for some people. Regardless, I think it's a mistake to conceive of an ideal monogamous relationship or a coupling based on true love as one in which the lovers are perfectly matched emotionally, intellectually and sexually without even trying. I mean, it sounds boring to be in a relationship with someone with whom you are PERFECTLY matched. More importantly, I think that this kind love is shallow, in the following respect. When two people who are not perfectly matched are devoted to each other, the work they put into becoming perfect matches requires (and engenders) a kind of love that is unrealizable to the perfectly matched couple.
The way I see it, being in a relationship is about becoming a better person both individually and within the relationship. In my experience, the relationships in which I have grown and matured most have been those that involved conflict and required a lot of work.
And when I say growth, I do not mean that I was incomplete before being in a relationship. Just like you, I am complete as an individual and want to be in relationships with other complete individuals. Nonetheless, being complete doesn't mean that I've fulfilled all of my potential. Nor does it mean that I cannot be complete in a completely different (higher?) sense.
At its highest form, monogamy/love is the synthesis of two complete individuals into a single unit. No matter how perfectly matched two people could be, this synthesis takes work and care, and it seems to me that the work an imperfectly matched couple has to put in to becoming better fits for each other is an essential part of achieving this higher form of completeness.
According to certain Jewish philosophers (Talmud commentators and such), the purpose of being in a relationship is to achieve the highest form of peace. There are three levels of peace. The first is symbolized by the river--the idea is that two cities that share a river must share it in a certain way. They both come to the river to use it, and in that sense they are connected, but they are still totally seperate. The second level of peace is symbolized by the tea kettle at full boil. There are three elements at play: the water, the fire and the kettle. Naturally, water and fire don't mix so well, but with the kettle acting as an intermediary water and fire can combine to make something that neither could alone. This is where most loving and well-functioning relationships are. The highest level of peace is symbolized by a dove (gets kinda tricky here). Basically, the dove lives on land, so it is a creature of the land, but it also lives in the air. In the dove (in its physical form and its way of life) two elements that are naturally opposed (this is somewhat mystical) are contained within one single creature.
In all of the Jewish scholars and mystics who have commented on this idea of the purpose of the relationship, there hasn't been even one who has said that two people could naturally achieve the highest level of peace. Rather, it is a lifelong process that involves two imperfect people who are imperfectly matched.
Anyway, no real point to all this rambling except that monogamy/true love doesn't have to be all-or-nothing (as you already know). Even the best relationships take work, and it's precisely that work which is what makes those relationships best.
— morning | Unregistered, Swarthmore
#4: 4/24/2008 at 6:49 a.m.
:)
I like your columns a lot. You are very brave!
— JC | Unregistered, Swarthmore
#5: 4/24/2008 at 7:37 a.m.
Hm.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding your critique of monogamy, m, or maybe there really are a few pitfalls in your claims.
Why should people who are in monogamous relationships be any less "complete," as pre-relationship individuals, than those who are in open relationships? I am a strong advocate of monogamy, and I can tell you that I do not ever expect my partner/significant other to "complete me." Such unrealistic expectations will only be a setup for disappointment and failure, on both ends of the relationship.
But, on the other hand, if you don't have any expectations, needs, and desires from your partner, and him/her of you, and if you both cannot communicate clearly about what your needs and desires for each other are, then why even bother with a relationship? This, for me, is part of the excitement of getting to know another person intimately, one person at a time.
(Clearly, this thought is underdeveloped and I could go into a lot more detail. I will if possible, at a time which is not right before class!)
— ms. monogamy | Unregistered, Swarthmore
#6: 4/24/2008 at 9:45 a.m.
The '60s are comin' back a bit, are they?
— haha | Unregistered, Swarthmore
#7: 4/24/2008 at 3:22 p.m.
ms. monogomy seems to have said that side really well.
I've been in open relationships that have went bad--my last one went bad because my partner liked going to bathhouses/sex-clubs/bookstores/rest-stops on a very regular basis (he'd come home 3 nights a week announcing that he just sucked off 20 guys as if it was a marathon or something) and we never worked on what we liked enough to even have sex anymore (also because I was turned off completely by the idea of essentially being with the thousands of people he has been with) and it became a completely platonic relationship that eventually fell apart when an abusive 3rd person was brought into the relationship.
I was an open-minded fool when it came to my last relationship, and I won't repeat something like that again.
If people are really able to work something out, and talk about it, I think an open relationship can work. I was burned so much by my last relationship that it will be a while before I'd be accepting of an open relationship again.
— Kizzume | Registered, Non-Swarthmore
#8: 4/24/2008 at 5:53 p.m.
Hi --
Janet Hardy here, aka "Catherine A. Liszt," co-author of The Ethical Slut.
Dossie and I are at work on a second edition which will be published by Ten Speed Press next year. I agree with you to some degree about the writing in the first edition; there's a lot I intend to change. Toward that end, it would be very helpful to us if you wouldn't mind dropping me a line to let me know what aspects of the writing you found particularly grating, so that we can polish them a bit in the second edition.
jhardy@greenerypress.com will reach me. Thanks!
— Janet | Unregistered, Non-Swarthmore
#9: 4/26/2008 at 1:05 a.m.
This is a great article! I love your train of thought because you hit on a lot of interesting things and they all come together well. What's with Shalit's wierd interlocutor? It's like the battle of the (dare I say angry?) anti-feminists...
— Jessa | Unregistered, Swarthmore