Safe Sex in Three Easy Steps

When you talk about having sex for pleasure, people like it if you also talk about sexual safety.  Like, they really like it, and they’d prefer if you did it right away. I have been hesitant to blog about sexual safety because I want to illustrate the point that we are allowed to say that sex is fun without immediately tacking on a precautionary statement. Just like I can say “cookies are delicious!” without following it up with “when consumed in moderation by people who are at low risk for diabetes!” Sex is fun, it’s a wonderful adventure, it makes me feel awesome, and I recommend it to most people. End of statement.

With that said, I would like to take a moment to talk about safe sex. I think American-style sex education tends to promote a false dichotomy about sexual safety, which then gets passed around guiltily for years like an inedible fruitcake. It goes something like this:

·      Option 1: don’t have sex.

·      Option 2: have crazy stupid thoughtless drunken unprotected rapey sex with someone you don’t know who will give you AIDS and syphilis and an unwanted baby and then skip town and post photos of your vag on the internet and never pay child support.

Luckily, here in reality there are more options than that. It is possible to have sex and also be reasonably safe. Here’s how, in three easy steps.

Step 1: Consent

Consent is the invisible fairy dust that turns scary things into sexy things. It’s the difference between hot rough sex and rape. It’s the difference between polyamory and cheating. It’s the difference between sex that makes people feel icky and shameful, and sex that makes people feel turned on and empowered.

It’s also the reason the Stubenville rapists are rapists, and deserve to be treated as such, regardless of how drunken or foolish or scantily clad their victim was.

Consent is not a lack of “no”, it’s an “absolutely yes”. It happens verbally and physically, and it keeps happening throughout every part of every kind of sex. Consent is an acknowledgement from your sex partner that they are a willing and enthusiastic participant in the encounter you’re having, or about to have. It’s an accepted proposition. It’s dirty talk. It’s a whispered direction readily followed.

Consent is the foremost ingredient not just to safe sex, but to great sex. Consent is sexy, it’s ballsy, it’s thrilling, and we could all use more of it. Go out and get yours today.

Step 2: Care

This comes up often in discussions of casual sex, and I’m excited to make it crystal clear: a person who doesn’t care for or empathize with their sex partner is not being “casual”, they are being a sociopath.

There is nothing sexy or charming or mysterious about people who don’t offer emotional resonance to their sex partners. In any relationship where someone is being vulnerable with you, the way to be deserving of that vulnerability is to treat them with consideration. Any other response is callous and disrespectful. Do unto others, etcetera.  

This doesn’t mean you have to LOVE everyone you have sex with, or even know them well. It means you should relate to your sex partner like you are both human beings, not inanimate objects. Consider their feelings and desires and try your best to respond to them. If you sense that they want something, offer it. If you sense that they don’t like something, stop and check in. If you want something from them, ask. It’s not rocket science, it’s the laws of human decency: they still apply when you’re turned on. 

If you are considering having sex with a person, and you don’t feel resonance/empathy/care for them, or from them, there’s a really simple solution: don’t have sex with them. Also probably don’t date them, or be friends with them, or spend any time with them at all, because that shit is creepy.

Step 3: Condoms & Contraception (okay, that was four Cs)

Condoms and birth control are the technology that makes safe sex-for-pleasure possible. Thank you, science! 

If you're having straight sex, you need to think about not one but two kinds of risk: STD prevention, and birth control. 

• STD Prevention

The best way to avoid STDs is to not have penetrative sex (in which case you can still make out, masturbate together, use your hands to get each other off, and/or experiment with the myriad of other creative solutions that the unmarried youth and cautious adulterers of the world have been perfecting for untold centuries).

If you’ve decided to have penetrative sex (wherein a penis is penetrating a vagina, butt, or mouth (the risk of contracting an STD from giving or receiving oral sex is small, but it's still there. Eg: high-risk HPV, which can be contracted from any kind of genital contact, increases the risk of some kinds of cancer, and for which there is now a handy vaccine!)), you are accepting the risk of potentially contracting an STD. As such, condoms are your friend. Use them every time, all the time, don't bitch about using them, and use them properly (click the link and an attractive Latin man will teach you how to put on a condom.) 

If you’re in a situation where you can confirm beyond reasonable suspicion that your sex partner is STD-free (ie: you have been dating them for a while, neither of you has been having sex with anyone else, you just went with them to get tested, and they are clean), and you are using a reliable method of birth control (gay sex counts, “withdrawal” does not), or you are hoping to get pregnant, that’s the only time it’s okay to have sex without a condom.

• Birth Control

Pregnancy is another issue. If you’re having penis-in-vagina sex, you should not rely on condoms to keep you from getting pregnant. They just don’t work that well. Here are some more reliable forms of birth control, to be used in conjunction with condoms, in order of effectiveness: the Progestin implant (Implanon or Jadelle), the ‘combined injectable’ (Lunelle), the IUD, the shot, the cervical cap, the Nuvaring, and the pill.

For people who are sure they aren’t going to want offspring of their own at any time in the future, vasectomies and tubal ligation (ie: male and female sterilization) are both highly effective and readily available.

Birth control is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Know yourself, do your research, and figure out what kind of birth control would be easiest to use and most effective for you.

Finally: if you fucked up, and you had some sex that wasn’t totally safe, you still have options. There’s the “morning after” pill, which will disrupt fertilization (ie: make you less likely to get pregnant) when taken up to 72 hours after unprotected sex. And after that, there’s everybody’s favorite Sunday dinner topic: abortion. It’s legal and available in this great nation, and it is an option to be considered (and a decision to be made) by the pregnant woman herself, not her boyfriend or her parents or her priest.

Want to know more about contraception? Start with this handy birth control effectiveness table from Wikipedia. Learn more about various birth control methods on the Planned Parenthood website.

And, voila.

That’s it. If you want to have safe sex, you’ll need consent, care, and condoms/contraception. Some notable absences from the list include: love, marriage, monogamous commitment, and approval from your parents, friends or church. You can use those, too, but only if you feel like it.

Have safe sex, but don’t stop there. Have pleasurable, playful, joyful sex. Have kinky sex. Have silly sex. It’s not just dangerous, it’s fun. Watch this video, and enjoy yourself.

This video is so great I had to post it here. I didn't make it, but I couldn't agree with it more. More on how sex is like music, from Karen B. K. Chan:

Why I’m Not Done Writing About Sex

(or, If You Thought That Last Video Was Too Risque You Better Brace Yourself)

I wrote my first blog about sex back in August. I made the decision, with that post, not to be private or coy about my sexuality, my interest in sex, or the sexual content of my work. I made the decision to “come out” as a woman who likes sex.

The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. I got a bunch of fan mail in response to that post (only a very small percentage of it inappropriate or creepy). I got to have dinner with Dan Savage and Chris Ryan. I had women of all ages come up to me in person and thank me for writing about female sexuality. I got hit on a lot more often at my shows, and more directly (which is, of course, fine with me.)

Occasionally, I get a different reaction. A few people have told me that they’re “bored” of this topic, that I ought to write about something else. A friend told me that I should show less cleavage in my promotional pictures, or people might “get the wrong idea”. People have said that they “fear for my safety”, that I should probably “tone down the sex stuff”.

Well, I’m about to release an EP. It includes one song about sex, one song about sex and murder, and one song about sex and bravery. That last one is accompanied by a music video which features two burlesque dancers in their underwear, two very tall men in suits, and yours truly, dancing lasciviously and looking like I’m about to make some mischief. NPR just told me they wouldn’t post it to their website because it’s “too risque”.

So, for clarification purposes, I’d like to tell you why I won’t tone down the sex stuff.

Just Exactly What I Stand For

It’s not my job to sing pretty songs. It’s not my job to be cute, or to make people feel comfortable, or nice, or happy. My job, as I’ve chosen to define it, is to live vibrantly, and tell everyone about it.

I stand for aliveness. I stand for joy and pleasure and inspiration. I stand for human beings having a vibrant experience of their own lives. I stand for sex and desire and passion and lust because those things make me, and most other people, feel alive. For the same reason, I also stand for music, love, honesty, silliness, poetry, bravery, chocolate, parades, and painting things pink.

I will stop writing about sex, and music and love and honesty, when those things stop making people feel alive. So don’t hold your breath.

“I Fear for Your Safety”

Aliveness is inefficient, messy, and hard to control. It’s difficult to monetize, difficult to quantify, difficult to compete at. Aliveness does not increase GDP. What’s worse: everybody wants it more than money. In a society like ours, aliveness is automatically threatening to the status quo.

Sexual pleasure, being one of the most potent bearers of aliveness, is surrounded by a sort of gloppy, tarry, whiny puritan shame. That shame is society’s way of protecting itself – think of it like porcupine quills, or the fake blood that some lizards cry. Shame, and its attendant propaganda, floats around in the ether and pours out of other people’s mouths before they realize what they’re saying.

If you dedicate your life to aliveness, or anything that inspires it; be it sex or music or humor or painting-things-pink; people will tell you to get a job. They will ask you about your fallback plan. They will say, “I could never do that”. They will tell you they fear for your safety. They will tell you to show less cleavage and write about something else and focus and get serious and grow up and tone it down.

In essence, they will tell you that there are better things to do than run around feeling alive.

I’m here to tell you that there aren’t.

how to improve your sex life and save America

I was at a Halloween party on Saturday, sitting between two men whose entire bodies (including their heads) were covered in green spandex, when I reached this conclusion: all of us, in the company of our friends, families, lovers and co-workers, ought to spend much more time talking about sex.

I propose that talking about sex will help us to feel less shame, have better sex, and even weaken the influence of politics (and worse, politicians) on our personal lives.

Here’s how it works.

Waste less of your life feeling ashamed.

We feel ashamed when we think that we are doing or feeling something uniquely awful. You can’t feel ashamed of doing something that everybody you know and love is also doing. At least, in theory you can’t, but in practice you do: everyone you know and love picks their nose, poops, does not look like an airbrushed supermodel when naked, and has all kinds of dirty, dark, and deviant sexual desires. Just. Like. You.

Keeping the shameful stuff to ourselves keeps us isolated from each other. We are so afraid of each other’s judgment that we clam up, and forfeit the possibility of connection. The irony is that connection is the only thing that can alleviate our shame - when we realize that we are not uniquely dirty-minded, just plain old run-of-the-mill dirty-minded, the shame begins to evaporate. Of course, it may not be the case that your best friend shares your fantasy about being tied up. But guess what: there is only one way to find out.

Personally, I am sick of shame. I’ve spent enough time with it to recognize the depth of its uselessness. If you could also do with a little less shame, follow these simple instructions: 

1. Invite some friends over. 
2. Make a pot of tea. 
3. Pose this question: "What turns you on?"

Have better sex.

One thing I’ve often found perplexing is why competent, intelligent, fully-grown members of society so often turn into simpering weenies when things get sexual. They lose the ability to ask for things they want, and to say NO to things they don’t want. As anyone who has ever hung out with a toddler knows, these are not advanced skills – every one of us mastered them completely by the age of 2.

So what gives? It seems to me that our vast reserves of shame cloud our judgment and thicken our tongues. Whatever the reason, the fact is that most of us suck at communication when we’re turned on. Luckily there’s a really easy and reliable way to get better at things: practice.

Start talking about sex before you get into bed with somebody. Like, WAY before. At the party, on the date, in mixed company. Right after “what do you do?” and “where are you from?”, ask “what turns you on?” 

If you’re honest with yourself and the ones you covet, here’s what I predict: you may have fewer sex partners (having filtered out the incompatible and easily-offended ones right off the bat), but you’ll have much better sex. Your sex partners will know what you like before they have the chance to try all the things you don’t like. You’ll know what they like, too, so you can spend less time worrying about your performance. Even better: the more you practice talking about sex, the better you'll be at it; so when your desires inevitably change and develop, you’ll be more likely to get those satisfied, too.

And here’s the revolutionary part: when you talk about sex, the people around you will also have better sex. Talking about sex is contagious (that’s why I wasn’t allowed to hang out with my Christian homeschooler friends after I was about 13). It jumps from host to host, devouring their shame, connecting them to each other, and making their sex lives hotter. It’s a miracle drug. If I could make it into a pill I’d be a billionaire.

Kick politicians out of your sex life 

(unless you're having sex with one).

Part of the reason politicians and voters support stupid, counterproductive, dangerous legislation about sex is because they are under the influence of sexual shame. Remember how being open about sex and sexuality brings people closer together? It also weakens people’s opposition to no-brainer civil rights issues like marriage equality. In short: shame makes us stupid.

Sexual shame gives politicians and voters the selective-blindness required to support policies that are bad for them and their families. Shame allows closeted gay politicians to endorse anti-gay legislation. Shame allows parents of gay kids to keep mum about their support for marriage equality. Shame allows otherwise rational people to suggest that abstinence-only education is a good idea. Shame allows people with uteri (or daughters) to support a Presidential candidate who wants to de-fund planned parenthood and overturn Roe v. Wade - a lethal combination for women, regardless of your religious or moral position on those issues (HELLO SCIENCE: making abortion illegal does not mean that fewer women get abortions, it means that more of them die in the process.)

All of this is not to mention that oral sex is currently illegal in eighteen states.

In short, sexual shame is what a lot of people are smoking when they vote against there own interests. And what have we learned is the sobering antidote to sexual shame, friends? Or at least the morning-after, hangover-easing french toast and OJ? Talking about sex.

So turn to your neighbor, open your mouth, and say something sexy. For the good of humanity.

A couple things I forgot to mention about sex.

1) Sex is not that big of a deal.

Despite the fact that I love it, and I love to write about it, I firmly believe that sex, between consenting adults, is not that big of a deal*. I don't think it's worth falling in love, falling out of love, ending a friendship, breaking up a marriage, impeaching a president, or maiming or killing anybody over. 

I’ve been watching a lot of movies lately, and I'm starting to think that this sentiment is unusual. Somehow I keep coming across the type of movie where two people fall in love, have a giant conflict involving sex, hate each other's guts for a while, and then realize that love conquers all and get married. Or, in the tragic version: realize that said conflict has revealed their insurmountable incompatibility, and go their separate ways.

In other words, pretty much every American movie that isn’t about war, or a heist.

I can’t help but wonder whether these movies would be so poignant and popular if we all stood up, en masse, and said, WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL ABOUT SEX?

How about a movie where the boyfriend casually mentions to the girlfriend that once, before they were together, he had sex with her best friend/sister/nemesis, and she says “that makes sense, she’s a cutie”, and that’s the last we hear of it? How about a movie where the wife cheats on her husband, and then confesses tearfully, and her husband says “Well, that’s a real bummer, but I love you and I think we’re great together and we have all these great kids, so I’ll get over it.”? How about a movie where the heroine has unprotected sex with the dopey-but-lovable guy at the party, and then wakes up the next day and says to herself, “I don’t know this guy at all and this is a terrible time for me to have a baby”, so she takes the fucking morning after pill? Even better, how about a movie where the heroine has drunken sex with the dopey-but-lovable guy at the party, but she doesn’t get pregnant, because she uses birth control like any sane woman who has drunken sex with guys she meets at parties? 

I would love for sex to exist in pop culture, but not be central to the plot line. I would love to see characters who have other shit to think about. Perhaps if we all start living that way, Hollywood will follow suit.

So here's my advice: have some sex, or don't. Be safe, be honest. Above all: don't freak out about it.

*Quick addendum: for the record, I also don't think music is that big of a deal. Despite the fact that I've dedicated my life to it, and owe some of my most thrilling, devastating and life-changing experiences to it. There are few things that I consider BFDs... two actually: birth, death. I guess that's it. 

2) There is no normal.

People, as a species, tend to be pretty concerned with whether we are "normal". Which is really too bad, because "normal" is not only impossible to achieve, in many areas it's impossible to identify. Normalcy is determined by your perspective. Louis CK brilliantly illustrates this point in the opening lines of his stand-up act: 

"Hello everybody. Actually, I shouldn't say everybody, because most people are not here. By a pretty huge majority, most people are not here tonight. In fact, most people are in China.
Actually, most people are dead. Out of all the people that ever were, almost all of them are dead."

So next time you ask yourself, "Do most people dress/eat/fuck/think this way?" Remember: most people are dead.

For example: is it normal to drink cow’s milk? If you live in North America or most of Europe, you might think ‘yes’. But the answer is: only if you don’t live in Asia or Africa. Considering the fact that most people (that's living people; about 5.2 billion of them) do live in Asia and Africa: no, it is definitely not normal. If you drink milk, you are a freak.

As Christopher Ryan observes in his brain-busting book on the topic, Sex at Dawn (I've mentioned it before and I will again - read the damned thing): cultural attitudes about sex vary at least as widely as cultural attitudes about food. Plus, our personal sexual desires seem to be affected not only by our culture but by our genetics, our epigenetics, our family dynamics, our formative experiences, and probably other things that we don’t even know about. Even our species' evolved sexual behaviors are not as you might expect. What’s more: the way all of these things affect our sexual interests and behaviors is complex, unpredictable, and extremely difficult to study.

In short, if there is such a thing as “normal” sexuality, we probably don’t know what it is.

But I can tell you what it's not: it is not normal for two completely heterosexual people to meet in high school, fall in love, get married at 20, lose their virginity to each other, and have mutually orgasmic missionary-position sex once a week, exclusively with each other, until they both croak. 

So if that doesn't describe you, congratulations: you're normal.

And if you're not married, but you're still having sex, congratulations to you, too. And if you're gay and married, gay and partnered, or gay and single. And if you're a transgendered bisexual sex worker who's into threesomes, or a super-femme housewife who's dominant in bed. If you need a lot of time to have an orgasm, or you need to use your hand to have an orgasm, or if you have orgasms at 'inappropriate' times, or if you don't have orgasms at all. If you need to be in love to feel aroused or if you can't get it up unless you're with somebody new. If you had sex when you were twelve or if you've never had sex at all. If you love giving head or hate getting head or love porn or hate porn or like being slapped or hanging from the ceiling or fantasize about animals or high heels or, actually, if you're only into missionary position once a week with your high school sweetheart:

Congratulations to all of you. You are just as normal as anybody else. Which is to say perfectly, blessedly, magnificently abnormal.

the first-sippers

The Pepsi Challenge is a marketing stunt wherein volunteers are asked to choose between Pepsi and Coke in a blind taste test. The results skew heavily in favor of Pepsi. In Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, a new set of taste tests (some single-sip, some whole-can) suggest that although Pepsi (being sweeter) is preferred upon first sip, Coke (with its more complex “flavor profile”) is preferred in full-can form.

Lately, I’ve had a creeping suspicion that American culture (which unfortunately seems to be rapidly devouring most other cultures) has become first-sip obsessed. In many areas of life, we’re trading in quality for convenience, and experiential complexity for candy-coated immediacy.

Take music, for example. 

On my recent trip through Europe, I was plagued at every turn by the sort of hyper-emotive, autotuned, electro-dance-pop that much of the world is so enamored with.  I’m not saying “Somebody That I Used to Know” and “We Are Young” are bad songs, but I’ll tell you what: the dance remixes, which are being played not just in the clubs but in grocery stores, restaurants and radio stations internationally and at alarming rates, have been robbed of any element of soulfulness they once possessed.

What do I mean by soulfulness? Well, as Ray Charles said, soul is “when you become part of your song… so that the people really believe every word you’re singing”. A soulful song reaches out and grabs your attention, like a stranger talking directly to you about their personal, emotional life. I think Gotye was on to something when he originally recorded “Somebody That I Used to Know”, but whatever kernel of truth made it believeable has since been remixed, multi-tracked and autotuned right into oblivion.

So why do we love these shells of songs? I would venture to say that we don’t. We take pleasure in them, especially upon first listen, because they are sweet to the ears. They are emphatically, overwhelmingly in tune. They are devoid of all non-musical sounds, like breath, movement, or catches in the throat. They are agreeably inhuman, like airbrushed supermodels . They are so pleasant, so unobtrusive, that they can play in the background while we drive and text and drink Pepsi, and they do not demand our attention.

But I’ll tell you what does demand your attention: every song Ray Charles ever recorded. Ditto The Beatles, in spite of all the ear-candy. And how many great artists have demanded our attention in a way that wasn’t pleasant at all - at least not at first? Billie Holiday. Bob Dylan. Tom Waits. The more pressing question is, how many great artists did strike you as pleasant, within the first ten seconds of the first song of theirs you heard? I’d wager that pleasantness is a common feature of mediocrity, and an uncommon feature of genius.

Imagine you’re in your car, driving and texting and drinking a Pepsi, simmering in a not-unpleasant fog of caffeine and Facebook-induced narcissism, and Tom Waits’ “Picture in a Frame” comes on the radio. You’ve never heard him, or anything like him. The piano is out of tune. You hear breathing, a creaking piano bench, squeaky fingers on bass strings. His voice is like a thousand years of cigarettes and whiskey and unrequited love. How long does it take you to turn the dial?

Unfortunately for the first-sippers - the Blackberry dads,  the Real Housewives of Atlanta, and the whole eat-on-the-run, sleep-when-you’re-dead, one-stop-shop, party-in-the-USA generation – soulfulness, with all of its inherent sorrow and strangeness and black magic,  demands our full attention.

Upon posting this, I plan to turn off my computer, throw my phone in a lake, and allow the soulfulness of life to grab me by the hair and shake me, yawning spit and sound into my face. I suggest you do the same.

backseat video

Wow! People sure had a lot of feelings about that last post. Let's see how y'all feel about the video: