"She could suck the paint off the side of a car."
Aw shit, you mean you guys talk about how we are in the sack? Man that makes my fuckin day.
"it's because other things have become more important in men's sexual satisfaction"
"have become!!!"
Apparently, this is a recent development!
my experience was probably not representative of the male race.
but what you're saying doesn't match up very well with my experience.
All of the factors you are describing as important to you in a male lover used to be equally important to me in female lovers.
My interest in female physical appearance has never entailed a lack of interest in what women do in bed. Nor is the satisfaction of sex much related to the long-range indicia of attractiveness. (i.e., there are the things that are eye-catching at the length of a block. Do those guarantee a great sexual experience in bed? By no means. What does? well, how about things like whether she's fun, sympatico, self-confident, completely excited herself, etc.).
and the reason why I have never talked with other guys about what lovers are like in bed is because the guys who were willing to talk about their exploits were uncouth louts with whom I was unwilling to share anything that mattered.
In my generation, part of being well-brought up was that you simply would not talk about that sort of thing with another man. Gentlemen don't strike women; gentlemen don't discuss particular women and their behavior in bed.
I have had more and deeper conversations with women about other women and sex than I have with men--it's not like I cannot talk about it at all, it's just that with men it degenerates pretty quickly into meaningless and ugly boasting or exploitation.
and remember that my experience was probably not representative of anyone you are likely to sleep with in this day and age.
Sadly, wrong. When you have sex with a woman more than once and instance x is better than instance y, it's not because she's more teh hott that day, it's better for the same reasons a woman might find sex better: enthusiasm, duration, attention, affection, variety, costumes, lighting, props, special effects, location, location, location.
5--
I like what othniel said better than what I said, esp. the part about location location location.
A few points, just my impressions:
1. I think guys care a lot about what kind of lovers women are. Less experienced/confident guys want someone who makes them feel competent and virile, more experienced/confident guys want someone who's surprising and a little dirty, and as they mature, most guys want someone they actually like and with whom the sex is good.
2. I've never been party to a conversation, either as the sharer or listener, where guys talked about what a woman was like in bed. But I think I have been around, at a pool hall or some such, where other guys were having such conversations. I think I and my friends typically figure that those guys have no class and are not people one becomes close with.
3. There's an implication in leblanc's post that guys don't talk about what their partners are like in bed, but do talk about what they look like. Again, this has not been my experience. I and my friends don't talk about how the people we're seeing look--except to give each other a description if it's someone the friend hasn't met, in which case we might share a vague "she's cute/totally hot/not bad looking, but I really like her." But again, I know there are guys who do talk about this stuff, and discuss people they're seeing in the way I and my friends discuss celebrities and strangers; those are bad guys.
I don't think this is right. Even among men who are constantly competing to bag airheaded hotties, the very presence of a hot woman is not enough for them to claim it was great sex.
The only men who want the woman to just lay there and not move are total misogynists. And by total, I mean like rapists from an invading army. Otherwise, a woman who just carries out the "passive role" is not really a turn on.
However, in my experience, men don't talk as often as women about how their partners perform in bed. I think this is because
A) it's harder to explain what's good or bad
B) we are afraid that our interlocutors will become jealous and attempt to steal our high-quality sex partners.
One more thought: in addition to being well brought-up, another reason men don't discuss what their partners are like in bed is that in order to do so, they'd have to reveal something about what they themselves feel and desire and need, which is to say, they'd have to make themselves vulnerable, and most guys don't want to do that, nor do their friends want them to.
4 and 7 pretty much say it all for me. Indeed, 7 surprised me because I wondered, per 4, if this was a generational difference.
I didn't want to say "A gentleman is brought up not to talk about such things" because the post sort of implies that 100% of ladies do, in fact, talk about such things, and assume that gentlemen do as well. But now that it's been said, yeah, that too.
I've theorized about this before here, so I'm almost certainly repeating myself, but I think the fact that decent women have specific, detailed conversations about sex with other women (well, and with men) without worrying that they are doing an injustice to their partners, but decent men don't (that is, men who do are perceived as having no class) is a hangover from the general double standard: it's degrading and insulting to a woman to say anything implying that she enjoys or has had sex -- decent women are frigid virgins -- but it's not an insult to a man to say that he's had sex.
I really think this is something that men and women both need to get over.
On Leblanc's point, I wouldn't be surprised this does have some effect toward the disproportionate overvaluation of appearance rather than potential as a lover in their partners that a lot of men seem to suffer from. Specific thoughts of "I bet she'd be really fun to do X, Y, and Z with" feel wrong and insulting to the potential partner, so they get tamped down, and arousal gets focused into inarticulate "Mmmm. Pretty." But I don't actually know that this happens; I'm just speculating.
they'd have to make themselves vulnerable, and most guys don't want to do that
You don't think things might be different if they weren't always secretly plotting to explode each other's nuts?
8: I believe it was for exactly that reason that the derogatory term "mattress back" was created, no?
Another factor is that although your douchebaglier male does, in fact, perpetuate gossip and hearsay about women's sexual abilities/proclivities, he would react with distaste to an actual description from somebody who has first-hand experience with the woman. Generally the reaction is "Okay dude, you just forced me to imagine your wang doing something. Not necessary."
The closest I've come to discussing actual performance of partners with anybody except those partners was some passing remarks about how insanely flexible the crazy blonde ballet dancer was, but that was all insinuation. She was insanely flexible, though the novelty of that fades quickly and doesn't actually translate into any added sexual experience (however, see the following paragraph).
That, and the thing about sex-with-crazy-people being teh hott, which I suppose gives the game away to people who have known me through the past many relationships.
16: "I wasn't imagining your wang. I was imagining around your wang."
Generally the reaction is "Okay dude, you just forced me to imagine your wang doing something. Not necessary."
Ooo, I hadn't even thought about the homophobia aspect. Yeah, you guys really need to get over this stuff and lighten up a little.
It's not homophobia, it's an instinctive revulsion.
One of the funnier sex conversations I've been party to in a group of guys involved one of them going on about his wife liking analingus. He was under the impression everyone was doing that, and naturally, he was the only one.
It's not homophobia, it's an instinctive revulsion.
Potato, potahto.
gswift's post reminds me that I and my friends are 24. Perhaps we will lighten up as we get older.
gswift's post reminds me that I and my friends are 24.
I'm only 30, but the guy in question is actually 24. Not the kind of thing I'd bring up. He's just one of those guys who's not being crass, he's just genuinely open about everything.
everyone was doing that, and naturally, he was the only one
"Yeah, she's asked every one of us and we all turned her down."
Homophobia is a prejudice against homosexuals. This is not the same as a man's desire not to see another man naked.
I tend to think that the decreased homophobia among women stems from their being more comfortable observing other women's bodies than men are with other men's bodies. Not the other way around.
In other words, men are more predisposed to homophobia because they are more likely to think "Wow, that guy actually has the capacity to enjoy looking at other men. He's truly abnormal." Straight women see nothing wrong with having the capacity to enjoy looking at other women.
Ned, where do you think your aversion to seeing another man naked comes from? I'm not saying you're a bad person, just that pressure not to be considered gay is really, really pervasive.
10--
yeah, I agree that the bar on male-male discussions also involves some fear of intimacy/vulnerability. IOW, men being emotional weenies again.
This is not incompatible with saying "and it violates the Code of the Woosters"--indeed, many parts of the code of being a tolerably decent gentlemen are probably related in exactly this way to avoidance of vulnerabilities.
and LB, I hate to disagree with you (this is really sick: I'm agreeing with ogged and disagreeing with LB), but there's no point telling *individual* men to "get over" their discretion about women because that discretion is linked to pervasive male attitudes that sex is degrading to women.
Of course the code is related to that pervasive attitude. But given how pervasive that attitude is, it would be ridiculous for me to think I can change it single-handedly by talking more explicitly about my own sexual partners. It would not change the attitudes of my auditors (they would simply despise both me *and* my partners) and it would make a hell for the women involved.
A study done at Duke recently showed that it is still the case among undergrads that the more partners a man has or is perceived to have, the more his status rises among his peers; the more partners a women has or is perceived to have, the more her status falls. Stud; slut.
I hate it. I hope it will change someday. But telling the male commenters on unfogged to "get over this stuff" is about as useful as John McCain telling the shiites and sunnis to "cut the crap". It's just clueless.
26: I don't have evidence to argue rather than just contradict here, but I'm certain that you're just wrong about this. There is no innate desire not to see another man naked or in a sexual context that is separable from a social fear of being, or being percieved as, homosexual.
I think 10 pretty much nails it.
Ooo, I hadn't even thought about the homophobia aspect.
Looking at another dude's wang is like looking at the welder's torch. Sure you can do it, but it'll burn out your retina.
Isn't Ned just kidding? Aren't you just kidding, Ned?
there's no point telling *individual* men to "get over" their discretion about women because that discretion is linked to pervasive male attitudes that sex is degrading to women.
I disagree with the first clause of this and think it does not follow from the second.
29--
I don't have any evidence either, but I'm pretty sure that there *is* an innate desire not to see one person crap in another's mouth which is not related to any fear of being, or being perceived as, a coprophage.
Not all revulsions are innate, and some of them are certainly conditioned by social attitudes. But there are also innate revulsions, some of which give rises to social attitudes.
It's not homophobia, it's an instinctive revulsion.
It might not be either. I always felt that the reason that guys don't discuss this is because of competition. There's a kind of detente where I won't question your skills if you question mine. (of course, there's the jokey-I'm/you're-a-lousy-lover, but I've never seen that done outside of the context of a clearly joking situation.)
and per 29: I think that's wrong. I think it's a useful avoidance mechanism so that we don't actually have to get out the rulers.
Specific thoughts of "I bet she'd be really fun to do X, Y, and Z with" feel wrong and insulting to the potential partner, so they get tamped down, and arousal gets focused into inarticulate "Mmmm. Pretty."
This fits pleasantly with the standard feminist assumption that men are inarticulate and brutish; it does not fit with my experience. Saying that men are socialized not to talk about the specifics of their sexual activities with their partners is not the same thing as saying that men are taught that is wrong or insulting to think about potential partners in specific sexual ways.
I don't have any evidence either, but I'm pretty sure that there *is* an innate desire not to see one person crap in another's mouth which is not related to any fear of being, or being perceived as, a coprophage.
Analogy.
LB, I think there is more than one kind of sex talk one could engage in and men may demure from each for different reasons.
Sex Talk the First: "She did X and it felt really good." 13 may be applicable here. I.e., "My partner has picked up some whorish tricks."
Sex Talk the Second: "She did not do X and it really got on my nerves." This is where 7 and 10 come in, especially if X is "cuddle with me afterwards" or "play with my a**hole."
Sex Talk the Third: "I think her is/are a really nice size." This is just plain uncouth. And I will say, I think that if women discuss things like penis size casually, that is something that they shouldn't do. But guys being all weird and hung up about penis size is probably something we should all work on, ala 13.
There must be other kinds of teh Sex Talk, but I'm blanking out here.
"it's degrading and insulting to a woman to say anything implying that she enjoys or has had sex"
This may be what's going on at some level, but what I am consciously thinking is, if the woman knew that I was talking about this, she would be really upset. So I don't. And I don't think it would be a better world if I changed course and started up such conversations whenever I could.
I hate it. I hope it will change someday. But telling the male commenters on unfogged to "get over this stuff" is about as useful as John McCain telling the shiites and sunnis to "cut the crap". It's just clueless.
First, I didn't tell 'the male commenters on unfogged' to get over the double standard, I said that men generally and women generally needed to get over it. (I did address the homophobia comment to 'you guys', but that's a different, although related, issue.)
And I'm not suggesting that all of you need to start expounding on your wives' and girlfriends' virtuousity in the sack out of context, you're right, it would get misinterpreted. But still, someone like gswift's hapless asslicker didn't do anything wrong -- he wasn't intending to degrade or insult anyone -- and being conscious about recognizing that fact gets you somewhere. Just being conscious that there is no reason for a woman to be ashamed of or degraded by the fact that she's had and enjoyed sex, and so that a conversation that acknowledges that fact isn't an injury to her unless it's conducted with spite or contempt, is a big step.
People think the double standard is over, but it's still got a lot of force behind it, and it's not going to get knocked down unless that gets recognized. (And of course, women feel this way too -- this double standard gets enforced by women as much or more as by men. We all need to quit it.)
38: "her is/are" s/b "her BODY PART OR PARTS is/are"
27 is the gayest thing on this whole blog.
gentlemen don't discuss particular women and their behavior in bed.
It should go without saying that Ogged is completely right about this. But if it needed more support, I would explain the aversion not in terms of not wanting to think about some dude's wang, but in terms of an aversion to prompting some other dude to think about having sex with my date.
if the woman knew that I was talking about this, she would be really upset
Bravo! But the laydeez are obviously not showing any kind of similar forbearance.
Sex Talk the Third: "I think her is/are a really nice size." This is just plain uncouth. think that if women discuss things like penis size casually, that is something that they shouldn't do.
Nothing wrong with appreciation. And what if a dude has some kind of boomerang thing going on? That's funny stuff.
fwiw, I think men have gotten significantly less homophobic over the past ten years or so. but then I've got an odd group of friends.
"Hapless asslicker." Heh.
This is a different topic, but is this true?
women stems from their being more comfortable observing other women's bodies than men are with other men's bodies.
I have a couple of data points suggesting that while dudes are pretty comfortable in the locker room, many women are not; they don't like being naked in front of other women.
(Am I remembering correctly that the asshole narrator of Something Happened made a point of talking about what the prostitutes he slept with were like in bed, especially when he perceived that it would make his interlocutor uncomfortable?)
42--
look, FL, if you're going to quote me from 4 saying this:
gentlemen don't discuss particular women and their behavior in bed.
then don't follow up by saying this:
It should go without saying that Ogged is completely right about this.
otherwise I'll feel like you're either a) intentionally not mentioning my name in order to slight me or b) confusing me with ogged, which is worse.
many women are not; they don't like being naked in front of other women.
That's not revulsion, they're just being practical. Avoiding it so they can get on with their day. Women's locker rooms tend to break out into lesbian orgies.
My friends and I may all be frigid cows, but we really don't talk about the sexual prowess of our partners. Too Sex and the City.
women stems from their being more comfortable observing other women's bodies than men are with other men's bodies.
I said before that the female-female gaze has a peculiar scrutiny unfamiliar to the male gaze, but I got shouted down.
46: More comfortable seeing, less comfortable being seen. Women are much more likely to be wildly self-conscious about how revolting their bodies are, so that can make locker-rooms uncomfortable, and if you're really neurotic about it, somone else's being obviously comfortable hanging around naked can come off as arrogant: "You need to be self-conscious about your repulsive body. Me? I'm fine with no clothes on."
But there's not all that much of either of those -- most women I know aren't bothered by locker rooms.
45--
totally true about men getting less homophobic over the course of my life. (Though that may also be because over the course of my life I have changed cultural milieu to some extent, moving upwards).
also--getting back to m. leblanc's original quotation in the original post:
it seems sad to think that she has taken away the impression that men are not interested in the same stuff in bed that women are. If she has concluded that men are only looking for 3-d pinups that don't move around much, then this just confirms my poor opinion of the young men of this age.
50: Oh, and this conversation exaggerates the extent to which I do, which is really not all that often. But what keeps it down is more like general discretion/tackiness avoidance, rather than any particular feeling that it would be an injury to the man involved.
48. KB, I'm so sorry. I thought that it was an oggedian sentiment, and I mistyped. No offense intended, and I apologize for the error.
52: Most I know aren't bothered, exactly, but will be unsettled by someone (it's always the old ladies, for some reason) who is naked too long, or longer than necessary.
this just confirms my poor opinion of the young men of this age.
That's not what you told me last night, kid.
My friends and I may all be frigid cows
I can fix that.
56: In Austin, they section off one part of the river for the old Earth mothers so they can be as naked as the day is long.
old men are also generally naked longer than necessity requires. it's their revenge against the young.
55--
oh, sure, FL, but which error are you apologizing for?
57--
I'm only disappointed in how the young men treat the young women. you treat the old men pretty well.
57 would be funny with the commenter's real name attached to it. Take a risk and implicate yourself. It's not even that big a risk, since everyone here is cool with the gay. Right?
This has been another impromptu comments workshop.
you treat the old men pretty well.
Only as well as they tip, bitzer.
an injury to the man involved.
I find this sort of conversation problematic because it disregards the boundaries that should come with intimate relationships. We've formed a "kingdom of two," in Christine Korsgaard's phrase, and what goes on there is between us, not between us and your friends at the coffee shop. Sharing details with outsiders is telling tales out of school, and it's an injury not only to the partner but to the couple.
We don't discuss our sexual partners because eventually somebody goes all Jason Patric in the sauna scene in Your Friends and Neighbors.
I do it out or respect for my clients, not out of any sense of risk to myself.
hapless asslicker
Good name for a... something. Pynchon character?
63--
look, I thought we settled this last night. Extending the bargaining into the next day is not going to get you repeat business.
Plus, it violates the Code of the Woosters.
(And 62--standpipe, I thought it was funnier with "young man" as the handle, since that made a better tie-in to the original comment. not that it's me writing it; I don't know who ym is.)
find this sort of conversation problematic because it disregards the boundaries that should come with intimate relationships. We've formed a "kingdom of two," in Christine Korsgaard's phrase, and what goes on there is between us, not between us and your friends at the coffee shop.
Further evidence that no one is gayer than a heterosexual guy.
I thought it was funnier with "young man" as the handle, since that made a better tie-in to the original comment.
Fair enough.
No one is gayer than a heterosexual guay.
I would have phrased 64 as 'none of your damn business', but 'kingdom of two' is nicer.
Also, for 62 to be correct, the commenter would have to actually be one of the "young men of this age" for the joke to work.
64 is onto something. And this goes beyond sex. From the loose talk I've heard from my wife via her female friends, there are many intimacies that are casually betrayed in conversations among females that would make the male partner sick to his stomach. (See, again, 10.) The same way that marriages/long-term relationships have an implicit "if you tell one, you told us both" arrangement wrt other people's secrets, I think a lot of women have an implicit "if you tell me, you told my girlfriends" arrangement that the men in their lives do not fully appreciate.
And why you gotta be so bossy anyway, sb?
The ambiguity of "gay" is not helping to produce Understanding in this commenter. Some more precise, less loaded language would be nice.
I find this sort of conversation problematic because it disregards the boundaries that should come with intimate relationships. We've formed a "kingdom of two," in Christine Korsgaard's phrase, and what goes on there is between us, not between us and your friends at the coffee shop.
This is true, but doesn't describe all sex, and all relationships. There are sexual relationships that aren't particularly emotionally intimate -- many people here have had one- or few-night stands, right, or even relationships that turned sexual before they blossomed into teh True Love.
29: Citation?
In our society people grow up with the idea that the woman's body is a potential work of art, and the man's body is not a potential work of art, functional rather than decorative, whatever. We've had a thread about this before, and how it leads to average-looking women being cruelly criticized for their looks, and Jim Belushi being married to Courtney Thorne-Smith, and whatnot.
I think that this contributes to homophobia by making it seem extra-weird for a man to appreciate another man's attractiveness.
Or more specifically, the "man's body is functional rather than decorative" idea reinforces homophobia, and homophobia reinforces the MBIFRTD idea by encouraging men not to take pride in their appearance because that's what women and gays do. But they're two different things.
75: I actually don't like it at all when someone else reveals to me something that I think is in the realm of just between them and their partner. Sure there's something to be said about being able to vent to someone, but to do so too casually or as a matter of course always strikes me as a kind of betrayal of intimacy, or lack of proper sympathy, or things like that.
75: I've had this experience too. I'm currently looking for a way to say that feminism demands keeping quiet about these things, but I haven't found the right angle. Respect the epistemological agency of women!
And why you gotta be so bossy anyway, sb?
The fact that you work for me? Just a guess.
I think basically this thread suggests that 80 is more likely to be the male attitude than the female attitude.
78: I think there's a big distinction as to whether the details being talked about are from a present versus a past relationship.
It also suggests that I regularly use the word "basically" in sentences where it is completely meaningless.
78: LB, I would think that a proper understanding of sexual intimacy carries obligations to keep details private even in non-committed encounters. It's just poor form to share, says me, but if I cloak it in the language of virtue ethics, you might be fooled into thinking it's more highminded.
75, 80, 81: I'd agree in terms of hostile revelations of intimate matters -- that's wrong unless you're really desperate for help on something. Outside of hostility, though, don't the people involved in the relationship get to decide for themselves what's private enough that it has to be secret?
Sharing details with outsiders is telling tales out of school, and it's an injury not only to the partner but to the couple.
This is exactly right. Part of what's tricky about this discussion is that while we might want to discourage some of the reasons men now have for not talking, we don't want to discourage the not talking itself.
88: "Stop not talking because of homophobia! Start not talking because of respect for women!"
The fact that you work for me? Just a guess.
Fair point. Sorry, madame/sir.
In my experience, guys never talk specifics about their current or recent partners. Further, I think a lot of guys think it's kind of icky that their female partners talk to their friends in this way. I am sort of with that view -- I'd really rather my partner wasn't telling her friends I have a $foo inch cock or that I am really good at $x and really crappy at $y, etc.
*I've* been in the position in the past where I've known stuff I'd really rather I didn't know about a male friend because their girlfriend told my girlfriend, and she told me. I really don't want to know that X has a tiny penis or that Y is amazing at whatever.
I'm pretty emotionally open with my male friends, I'm happy to tell (some but not all of) them when I'm feeling weak or vulnerable. But I just don't want to share certain information with them nor do I want to hear it from then in return.
Vague, non-personal information, on the other hand, is fine.
'One time, in high school, I went out with this girl who was totally into X' is OK. 'My current partner, P, whom you know, is totally into X' is not.
Furthermore, some women totally have a double standard about this. Many, although admittedly not all, of my ex-partners would have been pretty fuckin' unhappy if I'd told my male friends, in detail, about their body or what they liked in bed.
This has all been stated already in this thread, I believe. Ogged is right in 7 and 10 and FL in 64.
There's something else going on. Holding back implies an inner strength, or worth, or implies rather strongly that there is something to preserve. Basically, imagine a very strong male figure who we like--Clive Owen, why not--he doesn't talk about his sexual experiences because he doesn't need to. Whereas telling everyone these secrets implies that you need their approval of them, that others must pour over these details and justify them for you. It, in effect, reifies weakness.
So the feminist thing, natch, is to keep quiet.
Is FL saying that people can't use real-life examples when talking about sexual technique with their platonic same-sex best buddies / girlfriends?
don't the people involved in the relationship get to decide for themselves what's private enough that it has to be secret?
Decide individually? Or as a couple?
83: Isn't this a default preference for openness vs closedness in emotions which makes passing along information about other people's feelings seem morally neutral to women and reprehensible to men? And maybe the whole essence of this post is that men somehow (paradoxically?) equate matters of fact wrt sexual intimacy with feelings?
86: I would surmise that the existence of a strong sexual dichotomy in what is percieved as appropriate (and again, it's not that men and women think different levels of sharing are appropriate, but that men and women uniformly tend to think that it is wrong for men to talk sexually about women, but less wrong for women to talk sexually about men) suggests that this isn't entirely a matter of different understandings of the privacy appropriate to sexual intimacy, but that the double standard plays into it as well.
"It also suggests that I regularly use the word 'basically' in sentences where it is completely meaningless."
me too.
I'd agree in terms of hostile revelations of intimate matters -- that's wrong unless you're really desperate for help on something.
In my experience the only time my friends would share experience was when we were all relatively inexperienced and were still trying to figure out what was normal and what wasn't. Or, to take a more recent example, the sort of thing that would be likely to come up is like AWB's s.o.'s allergy problem, not general comments on sex life.
I could have used 'experience' more in that first sentence, but I just couldn't shoehorn it in.
1. Fontana is the king for bringing Korsgaard into this, and he's right.
2. When women do something men don't do, one possible explanation is that it is a manifestation of the hurtful double standard that oppresses us all. And no doubt that's part of it, as it is part of all gender relations. Another possible explanation is that this is a rare case where men have been better socialized to have good manners, and that women who compare notes about the intimate details of their partners are behaving badly. As much as it strains credulity to suggest that men ever have better manners then women, I would argue this is one such case.
92:
"So the feminist thing, natch, is to keep quiet."
Are you serious? If so, insofar as the reason weakness is taboo between males is that it's seen as feminine and not macho, then the feminist thing to do would be to try to get over one's compunctions against showing weakness.
94: Decide however they like, but in a manner that's not the listener's business. "I don't want to hear that because it's dull or unpleasant" is one thing, "I don't want to hear that because by my own standards for how an intimate relationship should properly operate I think it's wrong, despite the fact that I know you think it's appropriate to say, and I don't know that your partner objects," seems to me to be another.
There can also be a pretty nasty type of bonding that takes place in discussions where that kind of 'intimate' sexual information is shared -- both in the sort of pool-hall conversation described by ogged in 7 and in intimate conversations between female friends. Some of the conversations I've heard are exactly the same as high-school-level conversations where a group bonds over their shared hatred/disdain of some outsider or weakling. It's not the same, but there are aspects of that.
64: Sharing details with outsiders is telling tales out of school, and it's an injury not only to the partner but to the couple.
Good luck with that!
79: In our society people grow up with the idea that the woman's body is a potential work of art, and the man's body is not a potential work of art, functional rather than decorative, whatever.
Counter-argument: the entire sport of professional bodybuilding. For starters.
As baa points out, this is a case where LizarDBreath cites the double standard in a situation where men rather than women can be thought of as oppressed. I think she's right and he's wrong, though.
(assuming that baa is a "he".
64 expresses my bottom line about this, but the reservations others have expressed are valid as well. I'm a little put off by the blitheness both of LeBlanc's original question, and the crudeness of its suggested psychology, and LB's notion that this is a holdover from earlier that we should get over. I really can't see why or how abandoning this reticence represents any kind of progress. I would have though that this is one area where men's practice and acculturation was worth commending, and might in fact be worth emulating.
Counter-argument: the entire sport of professional bodybuilding. For starters.
Those aren't real people.
But telling the male commenters on unfogged to "get over this stuff" is about as useful as John McCain telling the shiites and sunnis to "cut the crap". It's just clueless.
that's a bit of a shame because my contribution to this thread was going to be "aw fucking diddums" and I suppose that isn't helpful either.
by the way, chaps, if you think that women only share these details with their female friends, try getting some female friends and asking. yo ho ho ho.
"by the way, chaps, if you think that women only share these details with their female friends, try getting some female friends and asking. yo ho ho ho."
Yeah, I used to share a flat with 4 girls. I'm aware it's not just with close female friends.
101: Fair point. But "I don't know that your partner objects" can be fairly easy to surmise given the context of a particular conversation.
the man's body is not a potential work of art
I thought that this too was a joke. Don't disappoint me, people. The David, the ancient Greeks? Come on.
don't the people involved in the relationship get to decide
No, I favor a state-based approach. As M/tch points out, the problem is unilateralism. If couples decide to be completely open across the board, I think it's a mistake, but it's not my place to enforce it, just to ridicule.
Sharing details with outsiders is telling tales out of school, and it's an injury not only to the partner but to the couple.
This is completely wrong, or all of your friends are dicks and you need new friends.
The David, the ancient Greeks? Come on.
That's not our society. That society seems very bizarre to us.
Is it too early in the day for a Euro-recap post?
Another possible explanation is that this is a rare case where men have been better socialized to have good manners, and that women who compare notes about the intimate details of their partners are behaving badly. As much as it strains credulity to suggest that men ever have better manners then women, I would argue this is one such case.
The point is that men and women both expect different manners from men and women. If different classes of people have different expectations of what constitutes good behavior generally, then sure, one class's standards may be better than the others. Where both classes hold the two classes to different standards, though, that is a double standard.
(I realize that there is an argumentative movement being made toward the claim that men have a uniform standard -- that they think just as ill of women who talk specifically about sex as they do about men. I don't think this is true: while men appear to me to be moderately uncomfortable with women's conversations about sex, they don't think less of the women involved for having them, while they think of men having similar conversations as crass and classless.)
I don't think the fact that reticence often implies strength is particularly gendered. It's simply a part of human interaction.
Strength is perhaps the wrong word here. I don't mean "macho" I mean actual strength, or advantage. I was trying to make an argument against such conversations for all people, not just men.
But you said the revulsion was "innate," Ned.
101: Wouldn't 'I don't know that your partner objects' itself be enough of a reason not to err on the side of caution and prefer not to listen? But the rest of your post puzzles me, as it just seems to me that part of basic manners is somewhat arbitrarily deciding what is appropriate to say and to hear and to endorse.
I don't mean to caricature your view, but it seems that if Couple A is comfortable and liberated and open, then Person B just has to deal with A1 talking about A2 in graphic detail. That could be the case, but that doesn't seem to be the norm for decorum elsewhere.
You can't make posts, J-Dry. You can only make comments.
So the feminist thing, natch, is to keep quiet.
The feminist thing would be to have a threesome, but only with two women, and then not talk about it.
LB, I'd prefer doing away with the double standard by having women talk less about this stuff rather than having men talk about it more.
Which means I think I agree with Labs, except without the metaphors and the citations.
while they think of men having similar conversations as crass and classless
Not uniformly. I actually can't believe this thread at all.
And more specifically, how was the sex in Europe?
they don't think less of the women involved for having them
Yes, they do, but they're trying to be polite.
I'm going to disown the word "innate" and let 79 stand on its own.
It certainly feels innate to me, but I am a product of my society, as they said in "Angels With Dirty Faces".
Ok, give me a sec. I'll give you the Rules of Attraction 5-minute highlight reel.
re: 115 "while men appear to me to be moderately uncomfortable with women's conversations about sex, they don't think less of the women involved for having them"
No, I do. There's worse things that could be going on, obviously. It's not something totally heinous -- venial sin rather than mortal sin or whatever. But I still think it's pretty fucking crass, and I've been party to quite a lot of those conversations.
125 is correct. Also, there's a "But waddya gonna do? Girls will be girls" aspect to it.
"The point is that men and women both expect different manners from men and women."
What I think is, this is wrong. It's bad manners all around, but we know that women talk about it, so we deal.
It's a little ridiculous that there are two avowed women active in the thread, and something like 12 men hashing out for themselves what it is that women do.
Many, although admittedly not all, of my ex-partners would have been pretty fuckin' unhappy if I'd told my male friends, in detail, about their body or what they liked in bed.
I don't think that really constitutes a double standard. I think there's an intuitive sense that the context is different; that men sharing that information with each other are doing something qualitavily different than women are, or would tend to be. Note the stud vs. slut dynamic discussed above.
"while men appear to me to be moderately uncomfortable with women's conversations about sex, they don't think less of the women involved for having them"
This may be true in the immediate vicinity of the conversation, because of the feeling of "OMG Women are talking about their sexual experiences - So Awesome". But it does lower our actual level of respect for the women if she seems to be telling secrets.
I think 116 is wrong in this: I'd feel betrayed by the fact that a partner talked about our lovemaking. If I thought a woman was talking as you seem to feel is normal, I'd be devastated and it would end the relationship as far as I'd be concerned.
re: 132
Yeah, but that's bollocks. Frankly.
they don't think less of the women involved for having them
I might be in the minority, but, as a feminist, I'm compelled to be contemptuous of women who do this. This comment is mostly but not entirely in earnest.
119: Cala, you've moved from "I don't want to hear this out of respect for your partner's privacy" to "I don't want to hear this out of respect for my own delicate ears." Which is fine, as far as I'm concerned, but brings us back to square one, thread-wise.
ogged 125 is a less nice version of what I was going to say. Most men I know think the standard should be the same for men and women, but that the correct default is male behavior. Here's a question: is there a pervasive norm in homosexual-male or homosexual-female culture about what one says?
"It's a little ridiculous that there are two avowed women active in the thread, and something like 12 men hashing out for themselves what it is that women do."
That would be ridiculous, if that's what we were doing.
What if you need to talk about something that's going on in your life sexually? What if something upsets you? Can you talk about it then?
For a real life example, Clementine once told me she was upset because her already then ex boyfriend "checked her lube" in order to commence fucking her in a way just as mechanical as if he were checking a car's oil. To describe what she'd experienced as degrading, she had to describe the action.
Jeebus. I'm throwing in with LB. I can sort of understand the young guys having the "we don't talk about it" attitude, and the old guys, but the rest of us should have grown out of it.
I'm glad that we have a level of maturity around here that lets us have a thread about heterosexual relationships without someone barging in and saying "WTF I think there is something missing --- Please don't assume that everyone is straight --- You should all feel bad about yourselves".
Here's a question: is there a pervasive norm in homosexual-male or homosexual-female culture about what one says?
I have never had as much information available as from from my gay male friends.
122 and generally: Why? (I'm somewhat embarrassed by this conversation, in that in person I do observe normal social boundaries, etc.) But seriously, sex is an interesting subject. Note the speed at which comments come in on a sex post as opposed to a post on something that people are less likely to have opinions on. This is, in fact, a topic which people enjoy and are interested in talking about.
I understand that people, and couples, need to have some sort of secrets to maintain intimacy between them. But why does talking about sex have to globally be in that category, rather than on a case by case basis as decided by the speaker (who is responsible for deciding (a) whether there is any relationship requiring privacy at all, and (b) what the terms of their relationship with their partner is)? I am very, very suspicious (not accusing anyone of malice; suggesting that the outcome of the impulse is a bad one) of the impulse to defend the 'no specific sexual discussions' rule for men and for women, when it seems clearly to me to have the effect of preserving the rule that 'it's an injury to associate a decent woman with sexual pleasure, because if she's ever had any she's a dirty slut.'
140: The ex sounds like a dipstick.
I think Tia makes a good point. I was trying to think of a way to make a carve-out for those types of conversations.
What if you need to talk about something that's going on in your life sexually? What if something upsets you? Can you talk about it then?
Similarly, I think we could talk about it if it is not about a current relationship.
Tim, it's nice to see you come to terms with your womanish ways.
It's a little ridiculous that there are two avowed women active in the thread, and something like 12 men hashing out for themselves what it is that women do.
Maybe this is why a lot of us men feel reticent about the sex talk. Because we have no actual perceptions of women or experiences with them and thus feel (or should feel) unworthy of even talking about it. Best leave that sort of stuff to the avowed women.
140: How about addressing this situation with the partner and, if the partner is not willing to change the behavior, dumping him? If the partner had already been dumped, then this conversation could take place under the "talking shit about bad former relationships" exception of the Discretion Rule.
I wouldn't disapprove of the example in 140, but I not that an ex is being described, and the relationship is over because of the behavior complained of, or at least that's it's typical of. Sort of the exception that proves the rule.
143: Dude, good example. My sense of gay men (that is, the ones I know) is that they'll (largely) talk about anything -- I've had conversations over brunch about what it's like getting fucked in a sling with an old friend of Buck's who I hardly knew. That's the kind of thing that makes me feel it's not about global discretion, but about gender roles.
Note the speed at which comments come in on a sex post as opposed to a post on something that people are less likely to have opinions on.
Aren't sex threads popular in part because they serve as a forum for Kinseyan conversation that would otherwise be, or be deemed, inappropriate for RL situations?
Would the men here find it horrifying to think of women sharing sexual details from the point of view of "we have this thing we do that we really like -- you could try it"?
I wonder if some of the difference in willingness to share unflattering sexual details is a result of women's sense of the power differential between the sexes: Men may have the upper hand in a myriad of other ways, but at least we can laugh at their tiny, inept dicks!
I think "manners" are less important than talking about ways I might be hurt by someone, or from figuring out, through discussion with third parties, how I feel about certain sexual acts.
153 gets it right. I can talk about hilaripus Youtube threads or Barack Obama in the wetmeatworld, but not this stuff.
Wait a minute...that's a male attitude!
148: Do you really not have a single male that you can talk about sex with--maybe not in the intimate detail that women do--without feeling guilty and as if you've somehow degraded your partner?
Because we have no actual perceptions of women or experiences with them and thus feel (or should feel) unworthy of even talking about it.
Oh, come on.
text, M/lls, I was reacting to the surplus of men seemingly making universal distinctions between men and women, distinctions that turn out to be not so universal. (Thank you Cala, Tim.) I'll cop to having put it badly, fine.
without feeling guilty and as if you've somehow degraded your partner?
It's not about degradation, but about privacy. If you find sex intimate, it makes sense to be reticent about it.
Similarly, I don't talk about our household finances, except in the very vaguest terms.
158, since the post was a woman making a universal distinction between men and women, and asking men to respond with their own opinions, I don't see a problem with that.
What upsets me isn't talking about sex in some detail, which I agree is interesting and useful. It's talking about a current relationship. I have to repeat: my finding that a current relationship I was in had been talked about in this way would destroy intimacy the moment I became aware of it, and there'd be no recovery.
"to have the effect of preserving the rule that 'it's an injury to associate a decent woman with sexual pleasure, because if she's ever had any she's a dirty slut.'"
I think what's going on here is, many of us are saying, no, it's an injury to men to talk about us in this way. Because we're sluts or misogynists or for whatever reason.
I'm over it, but I don't feel compelled to adopt the behavior, or think I'd be doing anyone any favors if I did.
134: If I thought a woman was talking as you seem to feel is normal, I'd be devastated and it would end the relationship as far as I'd be concerned.
I don't see what the big deal is, myself. Or moreover, I suspect the ability to talk freely about this sort of thing is very important to a lot of women and has different implications than it does for men, and that's okay.
135: But why? I think the stud vs. slut dynamic is pretty self-evident and still very much in force, and I think it understandably influences how people see these interactions.
re: 155
That's all very well, and if that's what's going on, cool.
However, in my experience, that's often not what's going on. These conversations aren't always about dealing with 'problems' or issues, they're often about have a really good laugh together in a group, or bonding at the 'expense'* of someone who isn't there.
* depending on whether or not you view the sharing of that information as a violation [however minor]
Doesn't some of this come down to the fact that even if the woman in a heterosexual pairing is mediocre in bed, the guy still comes? The woman's skills, technique and application are important, to be sure, particularly in a long-term relationship, but they probably don't have as much effect on the guy as the guy's skills, technique and application have on the woman (in a typical hetero pairing). I mean, how many men spend sex thinking the ceiling needs painting while they wait for the woman to blow her load and roll off?
Which isn't to say that men aren't very very appreciate of the ladies who know what they're doing.
167: Assumes facts not in evidence
If you find sex intimate, it makes sense to be reticent about it.
Right. So don't put it up on your MySpace page? Check. There are lots of intimate parts of life--sex strikes me as one of the less important ones, frankly--and while we might shrink from frequently discussing it with friends, in my experience, guys talk about those areas with close friends. I'm thinking here of divorce, prior family history, etc.
I think there's a huge difference between the type of conversation Tia's talking about in 140 or SCMT in 157 or the first paragraph of rfts' 154 and the kind of talk I object to.
It's not that one should never talk about sex with one's partner to an outsider, it's that one should do so in a way that respects the relationship. Casual gossipy conversation falls into the second category, I think.
Doesn't some of this come down to the fact that even if the woman in a heterosexual pairing is mediocre in bed, the guy still comes?
Ummm, no.
SB, that makes sense. I don't mean to have made any such distinctions.
On further consideration, women can talk or not talk. But I don't want to talk because Clive Owen would not talk. Give me that.
I think we should all recognize a Tia carve-out for discussions that are remedial or therapeutic or involve a serious need for information. You've got a problem, something isn't right, then of course you should talk about it. If a guy friend had come to me with that sort of issue (back when I had some), I would not have had any trouble dealing, even if I knew the girl involved.
The standard default male prohibition, on the other hand, is the result of the fact that most guy-guy sex talk, when it does evolve, winds up more like verbal gang-rape. Just look at how the threads go on particular celebrities--"that jessica biel, I'd totally do her--yeah, I'd do her twice on sunday--yeah, on a chocolate sunday--yeah har har har."
now imagine that this is a group of high school boys discussing a particular high school girl who is a classmate.
This stuff gets ugly very fast. As hilzoy was mentioning about hate-speech on an ObWi thread, the progressions from fantasy to general intent to specific intent can be hard to delineated. At some point, though, you have a group of kids riling themselves up for gang-rape.
Look, I didn't spend my whole life with the Code of the Woosters, okay? I spent a couple of summers working with roofing-contractors, and it's very nasty pick-up labor that does not draw the cream of the work force. I've heard lots of really despicable talk.
There is an element of violence, in particular gang-rape, to much un-monitored male discussions of sex with women. I think the failure to take that into account is one cause of what I find a hopelessly naive tone to some of the proposals for social change here.
And the failure to take that into account is also making people ask "why is it deemed okay for women to talk about sex but not men?" as though this was just unfathomable or was itself an undesirable fact of oppression. it's not. It's because the sex and the city gals may be slandering some poor guy pretty bad, but they are not egging each other on to an act of gang-rape, nor does that possibility color the undertone of their discussion.
161: Oh, Jeebus. That's a good one. I think I'm much more reticent about finances than sex, and I'm not that talkative about sex.
169: Exactly right -- there's a difference that I think is getting elided between 'intimate' and 'taboo'. Discretion around intimate subjects is perfectly normal and commendable (and ttaM, in 166, the fact that it's possible to have a cruel conversation on a subject doesn't make the subject a wrongful one to discuss, surely), but talking specifically about sex is treated as taboo in a manner that goes beyond that normal discretion, which I think is a problem.
re: 165
Well, in the specific context of those conversations, I'm not talking about some unspecified general 'male' conversation which may well have some sort of unsavoury dynamic.
I'm talking about me, and people I know, and the ex-partners I am talking about were in a position to know that's not the context in which these discussions would be happening. And, even in the knowledge that that's not the context they'd be happening in,* I am certain they would still have been unhappy.
Not because of some degrading 'slut-shaming' dynamic to the conversation, but for the same reasons that have been raised already in this thread -- because they'd feel it was an invasion of privacy.
That's not universal -- this is crude generalisation, obviously, some ex g/friends I know for a fact wouldn't have minded, and some would have minded a lot** -- however, even the ones who minded a lot, with the odd exception, would have felt that it wasn't inappropriate for *them* to have that conversation with their friends.
* we can stipulate it as some hypothetical if you don't believe that they knew that ...
** and, for that matter, I have a couple of male friends who are chronic 'sharers'.
It's not that one should never talk about sex with one's partner to an outsider, it's that one should do so in a way that respects the relationship. Casual gossipy conversation falls into the second category, I think.
I'm not sure I agree even with this. It seems to me that what's important is to *respect the relationship*. The friends with whom I would talk about sex are close friends, and I've got much more information than sex conversations about whether they are respectful of the relationship, of the specific woman involved, or of women generally. I don't care so much if the "conversations about sex" part has a different shape than the whole.
131 would be useful with the something like 12 men's names attached to it. Take a risk and implicate them specifically. It's not even that big a risk, since everyone here is cool with the stridency. Right?
173: I can't really agree or disagree with this, because I haven't (for obvious reasons) participated in all-male misogynistic conversations, and I simply don't know what they're like. But I do have the strong impression from guy friends that the reason they avoid specific conversation about sex is pretty much what kid is talking about -- that they feel that it naturally and inevitably leads to something hostile and dangerously misogynistic. To the extent that that's what's going on, it's messed up, and people should be consciously working on getting past it.
She did eventually talk about it with him. He was already her ex, but she still slept with him. But she, like a lot of people, not just women, needed to talk to someone else about it before she talked to him. I actually don't know quite why any member of a couple, male or female, should get to decide unilaterally what the other can or can't say, or what's good manners or not. Surely that's something for the couple to work out together. But I'd certainly not date someone who wanted to erect a prohibition against me talking to my friends about sex. Luckily, I haven't had to, and I'm totally sure people I date understand just how gabby I am. For that matter, some of them have talked to male friends about sex with me, and as long as that's stayed out of "look what my hot slutty g/f will do for me" territory, that's fine. When I've had reason to believe it's veered close to that, I've complained.
re: 175
Sure re: "the fact that it's possible to have a cruel conversation on a subject doesn't make the subject a wrongful one to discuss"
My point was more that the tone of most of the 'pro-sharing' people on this thread has been to suggest that these conversations are all about information sharing and dealing with problems.
In my experience, that's pretty much totally not the case. It's not the case that male sharing takes places in an environment akin to 'verbal gang-rape' [as has been described above] while female sharing takes place in an environment of shared concern. Female sharing can be just as much about ridiculing/degrading the 'other' as male sharing.
131 would be useful with the something like 12 men's names attached to it. Take a risk and implicate them specifically. It's not even that big a risk, since everyone here is cool with the stridency. Right?
"names" s/b "cocks"
I really, really hope our misunderstanding here is mostly due to terminology, and that when assessing actual situations or examples, like the one Tia provided in 140, we'd be able to get on the same page. But the casual sharing the post began with would surprise and offend me.
Or, of course, maybe Scottish women are the one raucously laughing about their friend's male partner's bent cock, while in the US it's all about openness and shit.
[I'd add a smiley here if they weren't banned]
Has anybody done an investigation into what proportion of Penthouse "Letters"-style pornography is written from a female viewpoint? Would there be any tie-in possible to the topic of this thread? (The only person I ever knew who wrote that stuff was a woman, but I don't really know whether she wrote from a male or female viewpoint, or both.)
- that they feel that it naturally and inevitably leads to something hostile and dangerously misogynistic. To the extent that that's what's going on, it's messed up, and people should be consciously working on getting past it.
It happens. A fair bit. But that's why you limit such conversations to specific individuals. Don't we make these sorts of discriminations among our sets of friends all of the time, with regard to all manner of characteristics?
The friends with whom I would talk about sex are close friends, and I've got much more information than sex conversations about whether they are respectful of the relationship, of the specific woman involved, or of women generally.
Yeah, me too. But when someone, even someone I share such a close friendship with, starts dishing to me about his or her current partner's sexual performance, body parts, etc. in what seems a disrespectful way, I view it as bad behavior.
Cala, you've moved from "I don't want to hear this out of respect for your partner's privacy" to "I don't want to hear this out of respect for my own delicate ears."
No, no, not at all, or at least not in the way you're implying. LB was suggesting, it seemed, that the only thing that governed whether talking about sex was appropriate was how comfortable and open the couple was. I don't think that's right, given that there's the expectations of the listener that do matter. e.g., when my roommate asks cheekily what my plans with my s.o. are over break, I can say breezily, oh, you know, constant sex, but if my mom asks, I'll talk about all the fun non-sex plans we have (i.e., lie.) It can be about having respect for the other person's boundaries, too, as well as respect for the s.o., and it's just not the case that a couple together gets to set conversational norms for everyone they know.
Anyhow: one reason it may seem more appropriate for women to dish. Generally, women are perceived to be the less experienced ones, where the men go out and sow their wild oats with the ho(e)s. Less experience equals more questions, equals pooling the collective resources. The guy that has to dish or share probably isn't getting any, says the narrative, otherwise he wouldn't have such questions.
M/tch, I have absolutely no desire to continue to tick you off. Can we skip to the make-up sex?
179--
"it's messed up, and people should be consciously working on getting past it"
look, the code of the Woosters is a wonderful mechanism for getting past it. why do you think some new-fangled mechanism will work better?
I promise I won't tell anyone about it.
"Generally, women are perceived to be the less experienced ones, where the men go out and sow their wild oats with the ho(e)s. Less experience equals more questions, equals pooling the collective resources."
Yeah, but that's generally untrue too, I'd have thought. I'd be surprised, out of all the people I know, if (on average) the women had had less partners than the guys. In fact, I'd be surprised if it didn't average out in quite the opposite direction.
c'mon, standpipe: what's M/tch *really* like in virtual bed?
you can tell us--we're your *friends*!
and he wouldn't mind, either--guys talk about this stuff together all the time.
181: I don't mean to say that all men are mean and women are nice: what you say about the possibility of cruelty is completely true. All I'm saying is that as a descriptive rather than a normative matter, this double standard exists: men are judged more harshly than women for talking specifically about sex with their friends. And that my sense of the explanation for the double standard here is that it's strongly related to gender roles: that while either gender may have privacy or intimacy issues that mandate discretion about sex, talking about a woman sexually is conventionally understood as an injury to her in a way that talking about a man sexually isn't. And that gender distinction is the one that bothers me.
179: This is still off the mark. Guys who worry about the misogynistic drift of an all-male conversation are not going to hang out with guys who perpetuate that drift. Guys are reticent to talk about sex even with other right-thinking respectful non-misogynistic friends because it seems somehow inappropriate.
First of all, I'm surprised no one yet has pointed out that men do talk about sex--and I don't mean in the joking/competitive way, but earnestly. It's just that they do it with women, rather than with other men.
I think it's not about misogyny (sorry, LB) but rather about men's own vulnerability. Male culture is absolutely allergic to vulnerability (which may be why guys sticking bottle rockets in their asses is hilarious, by the by). Boys learn pretty early that being open about their feelings leads to merciless mockery or worse.
Which isn't to say that the modesty/privacy argument is invalid: there's some of that, too, and it's not like there aren't women who feel the same way. I think, though, that the male vulnerability thing is part of why guys (generally) get squicked when women talk about stuff with girlfriends. The talking-with-girlfriends thing is a totally huge subject, though, all by itself.
I wasn't endorsing it, just pointing out the general cultural narrative.
191: Hey, the pretending to be ticked-off strategy really works!
(I wasn't particularly upset, sb. Sorry to be over-strident. Just don't discuss the details of our make-up too casually.)
Damn. pwnd by 193.
Now I'm ticked off.
We landed in Amsterdam on Saturday morning and took the tram to our room, which was a 2-bedroom furnished hovel right upstairs from a hash bar called Smokey's, where we went immediately. We tried the White Widow, which is the Amsterdam local favorite, and thought it was pretty good indeed; certainly enough to make our wanderings that first day around the canals extraordinary. Amsterdam was wealthy and only the tourists do drugs, we discovered, but since we were tourists we decided to get the best mushrooms we could buy and have a real experience that night (a first for my two companions). Our plan was to start tripping and then go wander, but we never left our hotel room, which was fine, because the three of us had an unbelievable emotional breakthrough in our friendship and we all openly wept in each other's arms. While the walls melted.
Sunday, after going to the big museum that wasn't the Van Gogh museum (which we missed out on, sadly), we met up with Eric's American ex-pat friend Rob, who took us to dinner at a terrific place that served Dutch pancakes, which are a real meal here. Rob then took us to the red light district, which was far more touristy than I would have guessed but in retrospect makes sense. Amsterdam was beautiful, a low key city; not too much to do, though. That night Rob took us to an underground party at a terrific mixed club where Ryan tried to go home with a 15-year-old and I made out with a girl who later showed me pictures of her boyfriend and her kids. Then Ryan and I wandered back to the red light district, as you do when you're drunk in Amsterdam, and entertained the thought of sleeping with a prostitute just for the experience of it, but fortunately at 4:30 am most of them are in for the night.
The next day we flew to Berlin, ate Turkish food, went to a Christmasy market where we had hot mulled German wine and walked as far east as we could go on foot. That night, Ryan wanted to hit the young male brothels, which were terrible by any description, but included what's known in the gay underworld as a "dark room" where I wandered and almost got molested in. Ryan and I were both propositioned by older men who thought we were for sale, and we were leaving, until a boy walked in who was friends with Ryan from years ago and is now living in Jerusalem but was in Berlin for one night. Ryan came home hookerless, but our room was a bit nicer, a bit cheaper and a lot larger than our Amsterdam place, so we slept well.
The next day, we took a real tour of the East side and saw the remains of the wall, where Wings of Desire was filmed. We wandered to Alexanderplatz and then found a Marrakesh restaurant frequented only by locals, where Ryan still ordered a Tex Mex plate, which the waiter presented to him as "the so-called Tex Mex plate". We found our way back to our neighborhood and saw three lovely girls walking in our neighborhood, so we asked them if there were a bar around that we should go to. They pointed us to a private bar that required us to type a code on a keypad. Once inside, we met a German pop star named Jeanette, along with her manager and her two producers, who all bought us a round of drinks, and who usually live about 3 blocks away from my former apartment in SoHo.
The next day we did some more sightseeing and exploring, went to see a German musical which had been adapted for Broadway some years ago called Dance of the Vampires, all in German of course, and went to Kreuzberg that night to see some dirty German punk. We then wandered into a gay-ish bar called Roses, decorated with pink fur on the walls, where we met Gary and Laura, two Brits. The five of us went back to one of the gay hooker bars with hopes of finding drugs, and were completely successful at that -- this bar, decorated like a German Applebee's, was full of nothing but male hookers who were sometimes fucking each other in the bathroom when they weren't molesting Laura or selling us hash. Mission accomplished, we started heading home (it was 7 a.m. at this point, so the sun was rising) we all went back to our hotel room where Ryan hooked up with Gary at about 9 in the morning while the rest of us passed out.
The next day we all five went to the cafe across the street from our hotel (at Audenauerplatz), and it was already dark outside by the time we got there (about 4 pm). We agreed to meet later that night at Roses again, which we finally did at about 1:30. I made out with Laura in the bathroom of the club and they tried to get us to come to another club, but we were out of money so we just headed home.
The next day, we drove on the autobahn to Dresden, which was depressing as fuck and where my debit card suddenly stopped working. I thought I was having a serious financial crisis until I called my bank and was told there was a hold on my card because of "unusual activity". Once that was cleared up, we hopped on a train to Prague. We were met at the train station by a shadowy Czech who drove us to the offices of the apartment rental agency, which were in a building that looked like it was built by the Catholic church in 1750 and used as KGB headquarters in 1972. We booked our apartment, which was in Prague 2 on Legerova. That night we headed to the Prague boy bar for Ryan (he was serious about sleeping with a hooker on this vacation). Called Pinocchio, it was full of beautiful boys who were all straight and doing it for the money. Ryan met Julian, who also sold us some drugs before we took him back to our apartment. Ryan did his business, then Julian offered to take us to a 5-story club that was supposedly the biggest in central Europe, and which allows kids as young as 16 years old, a feature that created the type of dynamics you'd expect. We headed home after hanging with Julian for a bit (Julian is a fake name, of course; he named himself after Julian Casablancas of The Strokes), and hopped in a cab home where we got a slice of pizza at a pizza stand full of Americans.
The next day, we got tickets for the opera and walked the major sites of the Velvet Revolution, which was extraordinary. Wandering the streets of Prague, we came up with three separate project ideas for the new year, again drinking mulled wine as we crossed the Charles Bridge. We sat in the opera house (where the opera scenes were all filmed in Amadeus, I discovered) in our $5 seats and watched a Czech company perform a French opera written about Spaniards, called Carmen. That night we wandered around Old Town Square and found another bar entirely populated by Americans, and Ryan persuaded us to go to a sex club to see what all the fuss was about. When inside, we were the only men in the audience -- the room was full of women trying to bargain with us to pay them for sex. We did end up talking to one of them for quite a bit about the Czech Revolution, and she told us that the city was split over it; her parents were still pro-Communist, but she adored Havel. We then headed back to Pinocchio where Ryan bought another young straight boy who was from the Ukraine but apparently wanted to keep it a secret publicly. He showed us pictures of his kid that he was supporting, we all got stoned, then Ryan took him in the bedroom. Business done, he left, and we passed out listening to Czech radio.
The next day, we left, flew Lufthansa, and made it back to Brooklyn. All in all, one of the most extraordinary ten days I've ever spent.
Anyhow: one reason it may seem more appropriate for women to dish. Generally, women are perceived to be the less experienced ones, where the men go out and sow their wild oats with the ho(e)s. Less experience equals more questions, equals pooling the collective resources. The guy that has to dish or share probably isn't getting any, says the narrative, otherwise he wouldn't have such questions.
I realize you're not endorsing this narrative, in fact spelling it out to show its absurdity, but I wonder how many women in fact do think some such thing by way of justification?
On preview, 194 and 199 are ahead of me.
These conversations aren't always about dealing with 'problems' or issues, they're often about have a really good laugh together in a group, or bonding at the 'expense'* of someone who isn't there.
Yes, that's *exactly* why it's so great!
Doesn't Freud say somewhere that there's no need for a taboo against putting your hand in the fire? I suspect -- digging a bit deeper, that one reason there is the expectation that gentlemen don't talk is that globally, there is a very strong tendecy for men to objectify women.
Many people who consider it ill-bred to disclose details of intimate behavior of former partners would likely also consider it exceptionally poor manners to compare the physical attributes of female acquaintances. Now, this could be the playing out of a virgin/whore dichotomy, of course. But I think it more likely that it is a *reaction* to a male tendency towards exceptionally crude, objectifying behavior, and an attempt to restrain these behaviors through custom. Perhaps then this is not a habit of mind it would be so unambiguously good to "get over."
197--
"Guys are reticent to talk about sex even with other right-thinking respectful non-misogynistic friends"
yeah, but that's because
a) one of the ways that you continue to maintain your reputation for being right-thinking etc. is by being reticent, and
b) most of us know that the guys who are right-thinking and respectful don't form a completely different race and species from the guys who are nasty misogynists. I am myself indifferent honest, and yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better that my mother had not born me.
I protect my friends from being worse than they are; they protect me from being worse than I am.
I agree with 198. Fear of vulnerability is palpable, whereas fear of being thought to be homosexual is more or less an irrelevant background murmur given that I don't want the respect of homophobic people anyway.
185: "maybe Scottish women are the one raucously laughing about their friend's male partner's bent cock"
That condition only exists in the UK, of course. In the US, we straighten them out with braces during junior high school.
And of course, that cultural narrative is the same as the general sexual double standard: normal men are experienced because of lots of casual fucking around with disposable women; normal women only have sex in the context of a very few meaningful and loving relationships. Men know everything they need to about sex, while women are delicate flowers who need instruction.
206--
"this is not a habit of mind it would be so unambiguously good to "get over." "
thank you, baa. i agree.
210 to 204.
To 206: Yeah, that's pretty much what I was talking about in 179. I think that's a terribly anti-male attitude, and one that also has misogynistic results.
Haven't the other guys here been in the situation of being passed around a group of women friends, and knowing that they were comparing notes about you? I have...four women. I am trying to remember how it felt. I do remember being prompted to talk about the other women by each, and refusing. I also remember recognizing the competitiveness and aggression disguised in openness.
Distance can be created in revelation as much as in reticence.
It would be wrong of me to tell a funny bent cock story now, I suppose.
214: Only if it's about someone we know or someone you're currently seeing.
214: You must, if you want to keep calling yourself a feminist.
214: Knew a guy who had his half cut off, and surgically re-attached. Happened to him in Vietnam.
Never saw it.
Baa, my good man, I will reply to your excellent comment just as soon as I'm finished sodomizing my Ukrainian houseboy.
The circumspection of Drymala's recounting of his European sex romp in the middle of this thread is terrific.
212--
avoiding the misogynistic results is worth striving for, I agree.
but the terribly anti-male attitude is just the result of decades of living as a male. there's plenty to be anti-male about.
I think you're running your own virgin-whore fantasies about some men being immune from the nastiness, enlightened, "over it".
I'll believe when I see it. I'll believe it after they've had a chance to relax a bit, let their hair down, blow off some steam.
I've lost track of which particular conversation is going on where in this thread, but re: women being more comfortable observing other women than men are observing other men --
I've often remarked that (to crudely simplify things) men look at a woman and think "I want to fuck her," while women look at a woman and think "I want to be her."
This doesn't seem to be true in reverse -- men still seem to keep that sexual tone to observation, and thus feel repulsed by even a suggestion of looking at another man naked, or the thought of what he does in bed, etc. But women, thinking/talking about/looking at/etc. other women, take an almost academic approach -- trying to learn how they "should" look, what they "should" do, how they "should" be.
Thus, women's locker rooms are uncomfortable mostly because one has to expose oneself: if a woman could sit around fully clothed and observe all the other women in the room naked, it wouldn't be so bad; in fact, it'd be a learning experience as to exactly what is an average body shape and etc. etc. But having to be naked oneself exposes oneself to exactly that form of observation, which also means exposing oneself to potential criticism. Which is the (imagined) problem.
I'm probably making a lot of incorrect assumptions here, but this is pretty much just IME.
219 - I quite enjoy it also.
214--
oh, c'mon, LB: I think you pretty much *have* to tell it now.
at least to the other women on the thread.
So a college roommate's boyfriend had a distinct hook to the left. When she asked about it, apparently it had used to be straight, until his first girlfriend gave him a hand job. This was her first time, and she had no idea how much force was necessary or appropriate, and was yanking on it with all her might. It swelled up and turned purple, and even after the swelling went down, developed a permanent hook.
My roommate asked, "But that must have hurt terribly. Why didn't you tell her to stop?"
"I was afraid she'd stop doing it at all."
There is a man who was overly reluctant to talk about sex.
221 is what I was trying to get at in 20, 26, and 79. Amanda wins the internet.
176: I'm talking about me, and people I know, and the ex-partners I am talking about were in a position to know that's not the context in which these discussions would be happening. And, even in the knowledge that that's not the context they'd be happening in,* I am certain they would still have been unhappy . . . for the same reasons that have been raised already in this thread -- because they'd feel it was an invasion of privacy.
Well, you anticipated my objection in that I think it's a lot harder for women to know what context these sorts of discussions are going to be taking place in, no matter how agreeable and progressive the men they're dealing with may seem to be. But even if we grant such knowledge hypothetically, I think the stud vs. slut status dynamic is potentially operative even without explicit "slut-shaming" and that they have reason to think so. So "invasion of privacy" has a different meaning.
181: My point was more that the tone of most of the 'pro-sharing' people on this thread has been to suggest that these conversations are all about information sharing and dealing with problems.
I'd suggest these conversations are about bonding and camaraderie in a general social environment that's still suffused with pretty retrograde attitudes about sex and women. "Ridiculing" can be totally involved, information-sharing can be involved, there can be a whole range of tones and approaches -- but all of them will tend to signify differently because of that.
I will grant you that the whole "verbal gang-rape" thing is a little over-the-top, though.
All respect to j/dr/ymala and all but his friend Ryan sounds like a wanker.
"It swelled up and turned purple"
unheard of.
not sure I believe the story, but thanks for sharing.
now, what was his name again?
I'll believe when I see it. I'll believe it after they've had a chance to relax a bit, let their hair down, blow off some steam.
Right. Except you've made it a rule of good breeding that gentlemen keep their eyes closed.
213's Distance can be created in revelation as much as in reticence is a good point, OTOH.
229: A lady never tells. (Although, given that any confidence was already breached when my roommate told me, and the guy was a twerp generally.... but no.)
Nah, he's great. Ryan made the trip a thousand percent more exciting than it would have been. Ryan made the point that when visiting a city, he wants to see about 50% culture and 50% underworld.
This doesn't seem to be true in reverse -- men still seem to keep that sexual tone to observation, and thus feel repulsed by even a suggestion of looking at another man naked, or the thought of what he does in bed, etc. But women, thinking/talking about/looking at/etc. other women, take an almost academic approach -- trying to learn how they "should" look, what they "should" do, how they "should" be.
This is particularly true, and I hadn't seen it expressed before.
Back when I was trying to figure out how to please a theoretical woman, I looked for guides online. Reading something written by a man saying "I like to do this and it drives her wild" filled me with distaste, whereas reading something by a woman saying "When a man does this it drives me wild" seemed quite helpful. The idea of emulating a particular man (Clive Owen, or in this case, the guy who wrote the guide) sexually is kind of emasculating.
231--
no, not keep their eyes closed.
It's not a matter of not being aware of the situation you're in. it's a matter of staying out of certain situations. because situations have a great effect on behavior.
(back in the middle ages, we used to call this avoiding occasions of sin. but that was all silly, wasn't it? Don't have to worry about nice american boys and girls finding themselves torturing prisoners, do we? we're all far too civilized for that--it could never happen).
173, I think, is making a really good point. As is 170, and I think that of course there are ways that women talk about sex that are sexist, or backlash to sexism--the kind of "put the guy in his place" stuff. And while there *is* a real pleasure in that kind of thing, I won't deny it, it probably isn't really admirable or defensible, either. (Unless the guy's a jerk, in which case, go for it.)
re: 233
Heh, fair enough. It's just as well I didn't recommend any places in Prague, it seems like you found places quite a bit further out there than I'd personally have gone!
219 is, I think, just Ogged expressing relief that he finally knows "what all the fuss is about."
Yeah, I'm sort of on 227's side, not to be a jerk about it.
Also, great, story, Joe.
watched a Czech company perform a French opera written about Spaniards, called Carmen.
I have in fact seen a Latvian company perform this particular French opera about Spaniards, with Lithuanian supertitles.
Eh, all you kids would love him if you met him.
236--
re: 173, thanks, bphd.
you are usually more careful to avoid agreeing with me, but i'm glad you read the content before seeing the handle.
The case of the Ukranian houseboy is a good test for baa, who will be tempted to 1) condemn it for licentiousness, but 2) defend it on economic grounds.
"The idea of emulating a particular man (Clive Owen, or in this case, the guy who wrote the guide) sexually is kind of emasculating."
what one would expect from a total non-Clive Owen.
re: 242
I'm not generally down with the whole 'paying the impoverished illegal immigrant trying to earn money for their family for sex' thing ... just sayin'.
209: In theory, would that be possible?
Let's have the discussion about whether we're helping or harming sex workers by employing them some other time, when somone's friend isn't implicated.
Yes, this is an interesting conversational moment pitting my desire to manifest discomfort with contract sex with my desire not to be disruptive and sanctimonious.
Oh, no, I'm late!
I remember I was sitting in my college student center with an older gay male friend and a straight male classmate my age talking about sex. The OGMF was talking about forearm hair and beards and hott daddy-bears. I was talking about super-hard pounding sex. The SMC piped up and said, "Yeah, my girlfriend's been digging into my ass with her finger and massaging my prostate. It is my new favorite thing of all time."
The OGMF and I were totally stunned. Somehow, this gleeful actual-sex-act description from a straight male was truly enlightening and especially wonderful.
My ex used to say that he really liked talking about sex with friends, but that it's very hard to find straight male friends who want to talk about technique. But he's 45. I don't know if age has something to do with it. Younger men seem more comfortable with the possibly-homoerotic situation created by talking about the interaction of another body with one's wang.
The problem with 206 is that it assumes that the objectifying tone is the natural one, whereas the discretion is learned. Which I realize is partly reflected by the thread as a whole--we do seem to be assuming that discretion is learned. But I don't think that even if this is true (and I'm not sure it is), that it follows that the objectifying thing is natural. I think guys do that out of competitiveness and a learned desire to reflect any focus of sex talk outward, as far away from the guy doing the talking as possible.
247--
adam, adam--you mean you used too much force, and now you need a brace?
I'm glad you can talk about this with all of us. It's important to be able to communicate about important issues.
you should go see a specialist. Either a urologist or a wankologist, not sure which.
231:I guess it isn't really news to anyone who watched Sex & the City. The competitiveness and cruelty and all the little games were patently obvious during the lunch conversations. Being reticent to the point of near catatonia, I think I have had an advantage, in that my acquaintances knew I wouldn't repeat much of what I heard, simply because I never talked much.
So I got to hear a lot. (Of course, this had disadvantages.)
Grew up in a woman-only household, listened to many female conversations. The differences in subject matter and style always seemed more a matter of of roles and socialization than basic drives and attitudes. The intimacy and sharing did not impress.
It was something like watching shrinks or psychologists in conversation, which I also have done. The games are the same as construction workers or housewives; only the tools differ.
I think we're all missing the important part here, which is that Jody and his friend are *writers*. It's their *job* to collect experience and material.
It's not a matter of not being aware of the situation you're in. it's a matter of staying out of certain situations. because situations have a great effect on behavior.
I wholeheartedly agree with a rule that says you shouldn't introduce yourself to people by saying, "Hi, my name is kid and my wife gives unbelievable head." But one of the benefits of friendship is that you have a rough idea about who is trustworthy in what areas, at a fairly fine level of detail. I have people close to me with whom I will not discuss the Israel-Palestine issue, because I'm afraid they'll say something anti-semitic. There are others who will be anti-Arab. There are people with whom I don't discuss race, generally. Or teh gays, etc. I would have thought this was a near universal experience for people. I'm unclear what makes sex-related misogyny so special.
On reflection, what bothers me isn't talking about sex in some detail, which I've been willing to do with men and women both, although B is certainly right that for the likes of me, it's easier, on line and rl, with women. What I think is wrong is talking about a known other person, a person with whom both parties to the conversation will have further social interaction. The memory of an encounter in a different time and place, with someone not easy to identify, seems very different from this to me.
I don't know if this has been addressed in this vast thread, but "homophobia" isn't just "bias against homosexuals" -- it includes fear of being in homoerotic situations or being perceived as homosexual. Let's take me as an example. I have many gay friends and acquaintances. My politics on gay rights are impeccable. I have a research assistantship with a new program at seminary called the LGBTQ Religious Studies Center. Yet at the same time, I am easily the most homophobic person I know (in senses aside from "bias against homosexuals"). In fact, that was the reason I turned down Ogged when he asked if I wanted to fight -- I was afraid it would turn gay.
But at the same time, I'm not afraid of vulnerability. No, sir.
Y'all realize that Sex and the City is fiction, right? I'm beginning to feel as though I've dropped down the rabbit hole here, or that I should expect the next discussion to be about the best methods of dispatching Ringwraiths because as we know, young men have to face them all the time just like in Lord of the Rings.
I think I have a pretty normal relationship with my female friensd, and it's not as though sexuality is taboo: birth control, hormones, other stuff, even horniness are fair game. But while SatC is a pretty entertaining show in small doses, it's clearly not normal in my experience. Problem sharing is one thing, but the general 'oh, let's call him Mr. Big' kinds of conversations seem to be pretty rare.
I've got friends among whom those conversations aren't terribly unusual. Despite the vehemence I've been arguing this point with, I tend to be more of a listener than a speaker, but I've certainly participated in SaTC-class conversations in RL.
258: I am facing this problem with my current boyfriend. I am used to dating guys who don't know my friends from any context, so I can describe the sex as if it's the mating behavior of another species. But my current happens to be friends with almost all my friends. If I talk about what he's like on dates or in bed, beyond very vague ("He's great!") descriptions, I worry that I'm setting him up for some future awkward encounter with our buddies.
the best methods of dispatching Ringwraiths
Prostate massage.
re: 258
That gets a big part of how I feel about it. General discussion is cool, and even welcome. But when it gets to be about someone I know and they aren't there to be party to the conversation, it's not right (for me). I've had conversations with both members of a couple where that stuff is discussed, and that's different.
re: 260
I've been party to conversations pretty much like that. Perhaps that was a particular set of social circles, back when I was an undergrad and immediately after, but that sort of thing wasn't unusual. Funny, often, but ultimately, sometimes a bit nasty.
261,262: Maybe that's it. Most of my friends, when we were all dating, tended to be dating other friends, following the typical pattern of 'all be friends for a year then pair off because our lives didn't have enough drama.'
263: Must be in the extended edition.
Man, I sleep in and you guys have 265 comments on this shit? Damn.
260,261: I have heard these conversations in RL quite often
No, and comparing SaTC to LOTR does a real disservice to actors, writer, and production staff, who I presume had minimum stds or verisimilitude. In fact is quite insulting and contemptible. Anybody here want to say that The Wire or Lolita or most other fiction is fantasy, has no relation to RL, and is not possibly useful or instructive?
I wouldn't even say it about LOTR.
Come on, no need to be huffy. If you don't see something in your own life, asking if it really happens or if it's fantasy is perfectly legit.
In fact is quite insulting and contemptible.
Gimme a break, bob.
I've certainly participated in SaTC-class conversations in RL
Maybe a point of this thread is that one should consider how the partners being discussed might have felt if they knew that one were discussing--perhaps mocking--their sexual performance with ones friends.
262 matches some of my recent experience as well. I used to participate in an online forum - closely connected with a real-life gathering - where there was a fair bit of discussion about sex and people's particular experiences. There were some couples who were both active in that group and tended to share about each other, but I found that when I started dating someone in that group we both quickly clammed up about what we were experiencing - knowing that what we said implicated the other one. I was kind of sad that we defaulted to not-discussing that way, in that mixed group.
267--
"not possibly useful or instructive? I wouldn't even say it about LOTR."
I'd probably say it about prostate massages for Ringwraiths.
Ideal, you should know that I discuss your performance in my dreams with my friends. (More than than adequate for a man your age, by the way.)
Ideal, you should know that I discuss your performance in my dreams with my friends. (More than than adequate for a man your age, by the way.)
I'm flattered, I'm sure. Given my advanced age, anything other than slumber is a creditable performance in my book.
The SaTC problem is not unrelated to my dissertation, which is about the ways that a text in the media starts to rewrite how we describe our own empirical experience. Would that I could now have a conversation about sex in NYC that wasn't mediated by the discourse created in a television program I've never seen! What it does offer us, of course, is a "common experience" that most of us have had vicariously, so we can compare ourselves to it. I just wish television didn't set the terms so thoroughly. How am I like or unlike these characters should be less a source of discussion, I feel, than how I feel about sex-talk.
267: LOTR is actually almost the reverse of being useful and instructive about RL -- that's part of its appeal -- and SaTC is not Nabokov.
prostate massages for Ringwraiths.
You have to use your ring finger.
Would that I could now have a conversation about sex in NYC that wasn't mediated by the discourse created in a television program I've never seen!
I've never seen it either, but I'm curious how, without having seen it, you're aware of its mediation. My guess is: explicit references, giving rise to the supposition on your part that the explicit references are the tip of the iceberg of its mediation.
Count me among those who favor discretion -- I don't think it's appropriate to talk in great detail about one's sexual exploits, unless there's some overriding issue (something upsetting happened during, for example).
And it's not that I think sex is shameful or dirty, or that I'm afraid of being thought a slut. It's a privacy issue. I wouldn't want someone to film it and show it to his buddies, either. But I tend to be somewhat disturbed by people's lack of discretion about a lot of topics, not just sex.
And Bob's comment, "I also remember recognizing the competitiveness and aggression disguised in openness" is something I myself have noticed.
278: I have had friends who have played the "which SaTC character are you?" game with each other. Or I'll be describing a boyfriend and a friend will say, "Oh wow, he's just like [some character] that Carrie dated." This bothers me because it is, ironically, a way for my friend not to help me process my romantic life with me, but to respond to what I'm saying with, "Yeah, on the show, this is what happened." BUT I'M NOT ON A SHOW! I scream into the night.
267: I don't think I can say anything that doesn't start with 'Get over yourself.' So, here we go.
Get over yourself. No one's denying that TV might be instructive (god knows that's something to get huffy about) or that the poor, poor writers might have had an STD, though judging from the show none of them know exactly how much money one would need to live in Manhattan, or what it's like to be infertile. I'm sure they're drawing from their experiences. I'm also quite certain that they're exaggerating for comic effect, the show being a comedy and all, and it seems to me that much of this discussion seems to be rooted in saying that such sex talk is wildly common. Especially since a majority of the conversational participants here, you know, aren't women, and therefore it's entirely possible that their idea of what women chat about all the time over coffee could just possibly be a little bit influenced by the television.
If it totally common, then I'm wrong and need to get out more. But it seemed to me that we were perhaps exaggerating the differences or playing up the contrasts when at least in my experience, both genders talk in abstractions ('trust me, we say size doesn't matter, but we're lying', 'men like women with meat on their bones'), unless they're worried about a specific problem (like 'how would I know if a mole I noticed is cancerous?').
So, how many of you gals have actually held up a hot dog and compared it to your man's lack of endowment?
276:Disagree about the first more than the second, but I am more open to the religious than some. There is a post today at The Valve as to the difficulty of Nabokov, including as to whether there is any intended meaning in Lolita at all, or simply an exercise in language.
Pop culture may actually be more useful than High art for certain purpose. One should be able to watch SaTC lunches, and see the actresses and the writers, at least more easily than finding Nabokov within Lolita.
And Bob's comment, "I also remember recognizing the competitiveness and aggression disguised in openness" is something I myself have noticed.
Me too. I've been in settings with women who I thought wanted to have an intimate, caring talk about sex, and it's turned out to be oneupsmanship. It's very hard to prevent this drift.
I wholeheartedly agree with a rule that says you shouldn't introduce yourself to people by saying, "Hi, my name is kid and my wife gives unbelievable head." But one of the benefits of friendship is that you have a rough idea about who is trustworthy in what areas, at a fairly fine level of detail.
See, what's interesting in this thread is that we're willing to say generally that there's a difference between "my wife gives unbelievable head" and "a fairly fine level of detail," but not get into what that difference is, or where it lies. The former is obviously just bragging, hence objectionable, but also vague, hence acceptable (e.g., AWB's "he's great!"). What details are okay, in what tone, how expressed, and to whom? I'll go into some detail, but mostly focused on my response or, as someone said upthread, specific kinda clinical stuff ("you don't have to deepthroat it; try licking just at the frenulum, or where it would be if the guy weren't circumcised"), but not *personal* detail about who, specifically, prefers that.
OTOH, if you need advice about specific problems, then you have to get personal, and I can see that being embarrassing to a partner if he found out. But tone seems to me to be the answer here: it's one thing to complain that your partner's frigid, but another entirely to ask, say, what specific cunnilingus techniques your friends have found successful, no?
281:So, how many of you gals have actually held up a hot dog and compared it to your man's lack of endowment?
I have sat at a table listening to women compare their "tightness" and depth, along with the endowments of various male acquaintances, so as to find the "best fit".
wanted to have an intimate, caring talk about sex, and it's turned out to be oneupsmanship. It's very hard to prevent this drift.
Yeah. But isn't that b/c of nervousness and fear of vulnerability/fear of violating privacy, ironically? You veer away from intimacy by turning the topic into a joke or a contest.
to ask, say, what specific cunnilingus techniques your friends have found successful, no?
I have no problem with that, or with Tia's 140, but think them easily distinguishable from the conversations and explicit personal comparisons and evaluations we've been reacting to here. I could and have described good and bad sex comfortably on these threads because of the distancing of the medium and because it would be very hard to know whom I was describing. I doubt my wife could tell.
284: Yes, I think there is intimate sex-talk that can be really productive and helpful. I have a very close girlfriend who was surprised to learn that I often really enjoy anal sex. She had been rather uncomfortable herself, so we talked about what positions she and her husband were using. I gave her a few that worked well for me, and she came back delighted and grateful. It sparked exactly this conversation, about why it's so hard to talk sex-shop with people and find out useful things. She is even part of a very sex-pos kink community, but even there, people are pretty vague about what goes where when.
Referring back to way upthread, I too have noticed a marked decline in overt homophobia among the straight men I know. Which is kind of annoying, because I'm still conditioned to expect it, and then when it's not there, suddenly I'm the asshole.
As for the original question here, while I am a shallow pig and care plenty about the hotness, the hottest guy I ever slept with was not even nearly the best lover I ever had, and given a choice to do either again, I'd definitely take the latter.
Okay, Jesus, this thread is out of control. I think everyone is assuming "talks about sex" includes "mocking" or "talking in a disparaging way." Look, people. We don't have to have a blanket rule about not talking about something just because we think that it could get ugly. I've talked about sex a lot with friends, and there are many bad or disparaging things I could have said about my partners, but I didn't, and I never mocked someone just for the fuck of it. The only time I say negative things (trust me, it's usually positive) is when there's a genuine problem, like Tia's story above, or say like "Dude, my partner hasn't gone down on me in like 2 months. What the fuck?" And my friend will say "Talk to him, you idiot. What's wrong with you?"
Why are we assuming that it's going to be disparaging talk? Would you guys really feel so insulted if what was being said about you was "X is really good at knowing when I'm not into it" or "X makes me feel really comfortable about telling him how I like it" or "X gives awesome head."
It's like you've so internalized this idea that women are mocking you that you can't envision anything else.
I have a very close girlfriend who was surprised to learn that I often really enjoy anal sex
AWB is Tristan Taormino! (I kid.)
You know part of the reason I don't like the blanket prohibition on dude sex-talk? Is because I like the idea that someone is so affected or impressed by some sexual experience we had that he just had to tell someone else (because, after all, how much can he really gush about it to me? I was there). One time an ex and I did something that was new to him, and he was like "Dude, that was amazing. [later] Would you mind if I told [friend X] about this?" It was incredibly flattering to me, and made me happy. But maybe I'm just crazy about this.
See, what's interesting in this thread is that we're willing to say generally that there's a difference between "my wife gives unbelievable head" and "a fairly fine level of detail," but not get into what that difference is, or where it lies.
I was talking about the difference in the relationships, not the difference in what was said. Basically, my position is #291, though my friends and I have those discussions much less frequently than (I assume) leblanc and hers do.
"X makes me feel really comfortable about telling him how I like it"
That's a conversation we should have here. What do guys do to make that easier? And, while we're at it, what in the world can women do to help guys do those things, whatever they are?
291: I wonder if the problem is that these television conversations are representing women who are often in the (hilarious! comical!) position of liking certain things about a guy (hotness, money, whatever) but not liking other things (short, small penis, bad in bed). I can't imagine getting (or staying) involved with someone I despise in the sack. If I'm talking to a friend about something that's going wrong in bed, it's because I want advice about how to fix it, not to make fun.
I did, one time in my life, mock someone's sex skills indiscreetly. I was 21, set up with an extraordinarily cute guy, disappointed greatly by his ultra-romantic whatnot, and then he broke it off, prematurely, because he was afraid he'd fall in love with me before moving out of the country. I was so disappointed and hurt by the whole experience that I did lash out. I told maybe two or three people about how rotten he was in bed. I think he found out and was mortified. Six years later, we were sat next to each other at a wedding and I got a chance to apologize. We had a wonderful time that night and a huge burden is lifted.
I've seen mocking, but only in the context of either indifference or hostility -- a past one-night stand, or a despised ex. Conversations about a current partner or a liked and respected ex have been respectful. I should say that I've only ever seen an episode and a half of SaTC -- I may be underrating the amount of hostile mockery it involved.
Also, another reason I think discussion with friends is important: early in a relationship, you don't want to gush too much to the person you're sleeping with, especially since a lot of dudes aren't very good at taking compliments in the sexual realm and/or talking about sex outside the actual during sex part. And you've got to have someone to talk to. I wouldn't feel really comfortable telling someone that I'd just started sleeping with something really nice and gushy-sounding about something they did during sex. But I would say something to a friend.
I'm a firm believer that vocalization is a huge part of making something real, and something you remember, and confirming your own reality. So unless you're writing all this shit down somewhere private, who are you going to tell it to?
295: It helps when you're both also able to compliment each other about things you liked, especially early in the relationship. It makes good pillow talk and sets up an environment where it's not such a big blow to the ego when one person says, "Little circles, no jabbing!" or something.
Has anyone ever *complimented* someone's skills in bed deliberately to discountenance someone else? I once was briefly involved with a guy, and all our mutual friends kind of subtly or not-so-subtly implied that I was crazy. So I made a point of saying that he was really amazing in the sack. Which was true, actually.
299: See, I left that there because it was funnier not to point it out.
Jeez, I get no respect around here.
302 was inadvertently the opposite of 301. Why can't you gush to the guy you're sleeping with about his mad skilz? I really like that part, where you're having sex for the first time and you're both interrupting to say, "Damn, you're good at that."
291:"It's like you've so internalized this idea that women are mocking you that you can't envision anything else."
There was a comparison to talk of finances above; we could imagine women talking about their partner's homemaking or handyman skills. I actually in general don't like being an object in other's conversational games. I don't enjoy the lady praising my yardwork or the garage I built to strangers or family. I don't like being talked about, being displayed like a trophy or accomplishment.
Objectification, if indulged one direction, inevitably goes the other.
But I guess that is what people do, and most think it harmless. I slip myself sometimes. Using fictional examples at least has an advantage in not objectifying real people.
303: Yes. I think many of the mutual friends of my bf and I thought he was probably a total goofball in the sack, or nervous or weird or romantic. But they also know that I don't date guys who are bad in bed. I have let just enough details slip to raise him in their estimation considerably.
306: Not all praise is condescension.
305: You're right, I guess. I never thought of that. It's hard, though!
309: Really? Huh. Guys fucking *love* being told they're good at sex stuff.
It's hard, though!
Probably because of all the talking about sex.
What do guys do to make that easier? And, while we're at it, what in the world can women do to help guys do those things, whatever they are?
I'm all for this, but don't see why that conversation needs to be identifiably personal. I'm willing to be convinced, although the evaluation m. assumes is easily kept respectful seems much more hazardous to me. Frankly, because we can communicate as we are in this thread, there seems to be even less justification for personal sharing and evaluation.
m.: suppose someone you'd talked about was mortified? Would that just be his tough luck?
309: Personally, I have treasured up in my mind all the compliments I've gotten during my first times with guys. They're usually ridiculous and vulgar, but ultimately very sweet and earnest. I can think of no other speech act that has this peculiar mix of qualities. Constructive criticism in bed? I make an adjustment, with no wound to my soul. But this can only be within the safe context of feeling explicitly appreciated.
271:
I found that when I started dating someone in that group we both quickly clammed up about what we were experiencing
Way to silence a group; I've experienced something similar. And yes, it's about intimacy and privacy. Back to Labs' (and others') formulation: sexual interaction is between me and thee. I'm not familiar with Korsgaard's "kingdom of two," and virtue ethics gives me a pain, but it's a breach of privacy to discuss an active relationship, certainly, and at times, past ones.
That said, when I have discussed past lovers with friends, it's not with girlfriends (a term I dislike) but with male friends. Of course most of my friends are men, so perhaps not a representative case.
And the discussion is *never* mocking. Anything negative said, by either me or my male friends, is in a spirit of disappointment or sadness -- explaining why he or she simply was not going to work out because: (insert complaint)
I don't know if I can make the connection explicit, but the quality of the experience described in 313 is part of why sharing seems such a violation to me.
Objectification, if indulged one direction, inevitably goes the other.
Yup. It's the same reason saying Jessica Biel's ass is the greatest thing you've ever laid eyes on is widely considered offensive, even though it is purely complimentary.
313 makes me curious -- do those of you who talk about your partners' sexual capabilities also talk about what the partner might have said to you as regards your own? Would a woman saying "X can give awesome head!" be in the same ballpark as saying "X told me I give awesome head!" or are they totally distinct?
315:sharing s/b sharing details or evaluations w/ someone else, in case that's not clear.
310:"Guys fucking *love* being told they're good at sex stuff."
I prefer a rosy glow, a deep smile, other non-verbal indicators, a surprise breakfast, and a return engagement. I have encountered a lot of kindness, and don't trust words much. They are superfluous or inadequate.
Maybe this is only a Bob-thing, and not a guy-thing.
312: No, of course the mortification would matter to me. But my impression is that guys just think this is improper, not that they're mortified by it (although some surely are). If someone told me to keep my mouth shut, I would, although I wouldn't be happy about it.
Constructive criticism in bed? I make an adjustment, with no wound to my soul. But this can only be within the safe context of feeling explicitly appreciated.
Absolutely. Does the guy have to go first, with the compliments, or is this a mutual thing?
317: I have very, very rarely shared any of those compliments with my friends. It would have to be an extremely loving and close friend who I trust not to think I'm tooting my horn. Oddly, I have repeated some of them to subsequent lovers. My past few boyfriends have really gotten off on the fact that my previous partners were so so so into me.
Guys fucking *love* being told they're good at sex stuff.
I have treasured up in my mind all the compliments I've gotten during my first times with guys.
I think men and women both treasure such compliments as long as they are genuine. Perfunctory "baby, you were great" compliments are not hot.
Coming to the conclusion that the things your lover has said to you were not true--whether about the depth or quality of her love or about your qualities as a lover--is much more painful than if the complimentary/kind things had never been said in the first place; this is an area where keeping it honest seems to me to be particularly important.
Coming to the conclusion that the things your lover has said to you were not true--whether about the depth or quality of her love or about your qualities as a lover--is much more painful than if the complimentary/kind things had never been said in the first place
God, yes.
Objectification, if indulged one direction, inevitably goes the other.
Well, I think "objectification" is not an Absolute Evil -- it's pretty context- and content-dependent -- but I also find it strange to say that someone praising your yardwork without your consent is objectifying you. That seems to be stretching the definition of the term rather a lot.
Maybe this is only a Bob-thing, and not a guy-thing.
No it's not.
321: He shouldn't have to, but I tend to be pretty untalkative in bed until a guy pipes up. I am usually the more explicit one about wanting to have sex (as I despise that whole awkward hand-holding "what are you up to later this evening?" thing), but in bed, I'm usually talkative after he starts up.
"310:"Guys fucking *love* being told they're good at sex stuff"
"You give really great head"
"I bet you say that to all the guys, even the ones who don't, so they might become motivated to accept direction and confidant."
There is an exchange out of Mailer I always liked:
"Remember the night you came 17 times?"
"Not one of them was any good, but I didn't say anything"
327: Agreed. I *do* think that's about slut-shaming and internalized sexism, and it fucking sucks.
319, 326: See? This is what I'm saying. It's like talking about sex is gauche. It's better to show your enjoyment. Bleh.
I also find it strange to say that someone praising your yardwork without your consent is objectifying you.
Actually, Bob, I understand this, I think. I remember when I was dating Max, who was a 45yo divorcé with a PhD, two kids, and a brownstone, all the women in the neighborhood had raging crushes on him in ways that really disturbed me. They'd come up to me at parties and say, "Max bakes his own bread. Oh my God, is there anything more erotic?" or "Max reads a lot of books. Do you ever get him to read to you in bed? How sexy." It drove me nuts. I wasn't fucking Max because of any one skill he had. He knew how to do a lot of stuff, like develop photographs, speak many languages, cook elaborate meals, and so forth. But none of those skills was a commodity that made him sexy or lovable to me. They were merely emanations of his boundless energy, which was itself why I loved him. Isolating particular things he did made it seem like, if he stopped baking bread (or whatever), he would cease to be attractive.
"It's like you've so internalized this idea that women are mocking you that you can't envision anything else."
This may not be a deliberate misreading of the entire thread, but it's pretty inaccurate.
332: I wasn't saying that everyone thought that was what was going on, but it did factor into nearly everyone's analysis of whether the talk was something we should try to get men to do, or women to stop doing.
Maybe this is only a Bob-thing, and not a guy-thing
Neither "only a Bob-thing", nor "only a guy-thing".
325:Note: Alameida often discuss her cooking, which looks amazing...nah astonishing. I seldom read her mate saying anything. I like that. I welcome correction.
In fact, I really don't quite like what I just wrote. I simply don't like talking about people. It is always partial, misleading, wrong.
Except for people I don't like.
It's the same reason saying Jessica Biel's ass is the greatest thing you've ever laid eyes on is widely considered offensive, even though it is purely complimentary.
All I'll endorse about this comparison is that in both cases there is a widely-shared revulsion from a practice, which revulsion is not being treated respectfully for starters just because it is so strongly felt, and the defense of the practice turns on the protestations of good intentions.
While it's true that it's creepy to contemplate gaggles of people gossiping about what a desirable mate someone must be because of his or her baking, gardening, oratory, interior-decorating, toilet-fixing, or knob-polishing skills, it makes me sad to think that it would be odious for me to mention my partner's various small awesomenesses. I love it when people are moved to recount how some pedestrian but sterling behavior of their signifigant other has charmed them utterly.
It's like talking about sex is gauche. It's better to show your enjoyment.
Without being deputized to speak for the authors of 319 and 326, I think it very much is not about this. It's about trying to understand where things really stand. There is a stereotype about men that we are sexually insecure and, as B.Ph.D. says above, vulnerable. While I reject all stereotypes about men or women, if I had to accept some, this would be near the top of the list. To the extent people accept the stereotype, they will be obliged to compliment their male lover to assuage his insecurity; to the extent the stereotype is true, men seek reassurance they feel they can believe--a genuine reaction--rather than words. This is screwed up, no doubt, but not, I think, for the reasons you state.
I'm not sure how much I brag about Buck's various nifty qualities, but I certainly enjoy hearing him praised by others. I bask and preen at hearing nice things said about him.
There seems to me to be a difference between trumpeting those fondnesses from the rooftops (as if, say, Alameda's husband made lots of weblog posts about her awesome cooking) and mentioning them to your close friends. But maybe not for Bob.
I certainly enjoy hearing him praised by others. I bask and preen at hearing nice things said about him.
Oh yes, this is great.
337: But some of those little tiny things are precious for their intent, their expression of an inner life to you who can recognize it. It means a lot to me that, while I was having a coughing fit in the middle of the night on Wednesday, my gentleman got up (twice!) to get me water in the middle of the night, and in the morning, didn't remember me coughing or him getting up at all. In his sleep, he wanted me to feel better. If I heard someone say, "I'm looking for a guy who doesn't think twice about getting up in the middle of the night to get me water," I'd think that was kind of weird or shallow. Or if a friend was talking about being sick in bed and her partner just lying there, it would not be a good time to say, "My boyfriend takes care of me without even waking up." That is, these little moments are hard to communicate because they are full of private meaning for you that they lack to most other people.
#1 - Sex talk healthy and fun - not necessarily exploitative, misogynistic etc. But it takes trust, if you're really talking and not just cockswinging or telling jokes. There has to be mutual consent to talk in detail about sex - not unlike (you guessed it) sex. There are cues that a friend is/is not into sharing sexual anecdotes. Most of my buddies don't really want to go there. I am considerate of that, but I've got a friend or two who are unique in that we can sit over drinks and not censor ourselves. I have such special, valuable, trusted friends, who are not necessarily in my everyday web of communication.
#2 - In such conversations, the "rights" of the women involved in these anecdotes are not considered as such, but they are respected nonetheless.
#3 - Specificity is the stuff of such conversation. Discussion without detail isn't discussion, making it all the more obscene and empty.
#4 - A real conversation about sex is de facto about intimacy, even if it's just about the absence thereof. Just like sex is defined by the absence or presence & quality of wanting, fear, surprise, comedy, even loathing.
#5 - Talking about sex is caring about sex. Talking about your partners is caring about them, not in a considerate, giving way, but in a taking way, like "this is her role in what I am". In that sense, we are made to taking and eficient human beings without that ability. That's not only fun, it's sexy - and I can't think of a topic that yields more belly laughs.
331: Isolating particular things he did made it seem like, if he stopped baking bread (or whatever), he would cease to be attractive.
Interesting, I hadn't thought about it that way. But it seems fair enough for people to crush on a guy for a particular skill, though I can see why that would be irritating to you, having a fuller knowledge of him.
336: All I'll endorse about this comparison is that in both cases there is a widely-shared revulsion from a practice, which revulsion is not being treated respectfully for starters just because it is so strongly felt, and the defense of the practice turns on the protestations of good intentions.
I missed most of the "Jessica Biel's ass" thread (mercifully), but I don't think revulsion for a thing should be "treated respectfully" because it is "strongly felt." There are any number of revulsions that are irrational and shouldn't be allowed to govern social conventions whether or not they're "strongly felt." And I don't think defense of frank female conversations about sex "turns on protestations of good intentions," it turns on the assumption that the practice (very generally) makes some reasonable and utilitarian sense given its context. Of course this is all rather vague and general, specific instances will vary.
whoa typos. especially at #5: "we are made to take and deficient human beings without that ability."
Regarding the "It's better to show your enjoyment" line of inquiry, I think someone saying words about how great you are in bed is a better indicator of true feeling (often) than groaning or writhing, which are (1) really easily faked, and (2) very different from person to person. Some people just don't make a lot of noise, or they will howl as you do something minor and fall completely silent while you rock their world.
And I'd further say to 336 that within a relationship, anyone who feels strongly about not being discussed with third parties is entitled to have that respected -- all I've been talking about is a blanket taboo, which I think isn't a good thing.
340:I am unusually shy, suspicious, and skeptical.
Be that said, the examples, and there could be others, came from experience. The lady does what she wants, and I cut her the slack. She is considerably more social than I, with well-developed social skills. She was just saying the other night about close friends that her co-workers would disappear from her life with six months of any separation. But that's ok. For now she has friends.
From her perspective it is a quirk she can tolerate. It is my cross to bear. I suffer in silence and solitude. Woe.
:)
339 -- even if the praisers are tall, evil-looking, serpentine seductresses whom you have observed making eyes at him?
Years ago, I was part of a social group whose members tended to have casual sex with each other in a rather round robin way. IMX, many of the women chatted with each other about their interactions with mutual lovers [and, frankly, made recommendations.] We didn't mock anyone; these guys were our friends, after all. It didn't feel like an invasion of privacy. FTM, many of the men talked to women about sex with others in the group; I don't know whether they talked to each other. But these were all casual, friends-with-benefits relationships rather than couples relationships.
OTOH, during a conversation in a bar about the taste of semen, my [male, platonic] roommate fled in embarrassment, leaving the ladies to continue the discussion. Later, he complained that women were just plain *frightening* when they talked sex. And we hadn't even mentioned cock size.
I was, however, taken aback a bit when an acquaintance, after recounting her troubles with her husband's sexuality, asked me for specific details about the Biophysicist. I didn't think they were any of her business. I hadn't known at the time that she'd propositioned him and been turned down, or that she'd become obsessed with him.
346 is correct. Words contain more content than other vocal noises do, and are the only way to point out that somebody is currently doing A when in fact it would be good if he did B.
But as for this:
I think someone saying words about how great you are in bed is a better indicator of true feeling (often) than groaning or writhing, which are (1) really easily faked
If someone is faking their groanwrithing, then they aren't going to be any more honest when talking to their partner with words.
Years ago, I was part of a social group whose members tended to have casual sex with each other in a rather round robin way. IMX, many of the women chatted with each other about their interactions with mutual lovers [and, frankly, made recommendations.] We didn't mock anyone; these guys were our friends, after all. It didn't feel like an invasion of privacy. FTM, many of the men talked to women about sex with others in the group; I don't know whether they talked to each other. But these were all casual, friends-with-benefits relationships rather than couples relationships.
That sounds like an incredibly abnormal social group.
342: Well, indeed those don't strike me as good times to bring it up, but I don't think that's because the example relies on some kind of inexpressible understanding. I think it's because in the first case it's weird and shallow to hope for or demand such a specific kind of solicitousness, and in the second it's an insensitive way to respond to a friend. But anyway, I won't deny that some of the things that delight us about other people don't translate well -- but this strikes me as a different issue from what Bob was saying about disliking the idea of his mate talking about him, basically, at all.
349: It hasn't come up. Back when we were still dating and not yet living together, some girl from Texas moved in next door to him and began bringing over baked goods (pie, etc.) on a regular basis. I ate the pie and mocked the piebringer.
My "blanket" doesn't cover the whole world, nor all of my life. It merely covers known people, who I think are entitled to a presumption that details won't be discussed.
351: I wouldn't say I've "faked" my groanwrithing, but it definitely is amplified (or silenced) in certain settings and under certain conditions, especially when I realize that my natural tendency to fall silent within five minutes of orgasm is misleading.
356: Sorry, that was totally TMI.
Don't worry about it -- there is no TMI in Unfogged comments.
357: What prompted you to say that about 356 as opposed to, say, 289?
natural tendency to fall silent within five minutes of orgasm is misleading
Ha! I don't think it's TMI, if only cause I am laughing, because I totally do that too. I get a lot of "are you ok?!" as I am lying there totally silent and motionless. Yes, man, I'm ok; I'm recovering.
346: I once had a friend who was not particularly verbal in bed. One of his girlfriends had complained that she could never tell when he came. He started yelling "Weehawken" at the moment of orgasm. Personally, I found that somewhat disconcerting, as I prefer not to think about New Jersey at times like that.
Here's another thing I wish, in addition to that men would talk about sex with their friends: that they would be more vocal during sex (and I don't mean talking). There is absolutely nothing hotter that the sounds of an honest and frank orgasm.
Having said all that, I can totally imagine feeling awkward and unhappy about the dynamic Bob described -- there's one way of praising your partner's accomplishments that feels like, oh, I don't know, trotting them out somehow.
The thing I would be sorry to lose out on is when I'm having coffee with a friend and he or she says, "[X] did the best thing last night," or "[Y] has this little habit that I absolutely adore." The other thing that I like is when the skill in question comes up naturally -- say, when there's a potluck coming up and someone asks "What are you guys going to bring?" and the person says, "Well, [Z] is thinking of making his garlic sourdough bread, and I really hope he does because it's just amazingly brilliantly good, he's a bread-baking genius, you'll love it."
362: This reminds me of a problem I had with a friend who gave far too much detail in her descriptions of sex with a mutual friend. Apparently, the guy screamed with laughter every time he had an orgasm, and my friend was not exactly kind in her imitation of him. It became an open topic of conversation among our friends, that this guy had a weird sex habit, and it seemed so out of character for him (a very serious emo kind of guy) that we couldn't stop thinking about it when we were talking to or about him. That was a bad kind of sharing, I think.
352: That sounds like an incredibly abnormal social group.
Why?
365: I'm pretty sure that on act-utilitarian grounds your friend was absolutely obligated to share that.
What's the etiquette on mocking a roommate's boyfriend for making audible funny noises during sex, like, say, cooing exactly like a 6'2" 190lb pigeon?
If someone is faking their groanwrithing, then they aren't going to be any more honest when talking to their partner with words.
Not true, although the general sentiment that talking is a better means of communication than moaning is a good one. But it's quite possible to fake/exaggerate/act a bit during The Act for various reasons and take advantage of the potential for discussion in calmer moments to think of tactful ways to be more honest.
362 -- [Groucho eybrows wagging] "They don't call it the Garden State for nothing!"
Here's another thing I wish, in addition to that men would talk about sex with their friends: that they would be more vocal during sex (and I don't mean talking). There is absolutely nothing hotter that the sounds of an honest and frank orgasm.
Except for honest and frank enjoyment pre- and post-orgasm.
365: Either you and I know some of the same people, or this is not an uncommon thing. Although, apparently, the one in this case was "uncontrollable giggling." But! Apropos of this thread, I didn't find out about this until after the guy in question assholishly and abruptly dumped my friend, and she was like "oh, by the way..." While she was dating him, she was mum about it. You know, out of respect.
cooing exactly like a 6'2" 190lb pigeon
Tee hee.
See, I love the uncontrollable embarrassing orgasm reactions. Giggling, weeping, cooing. So fabulous, precisely because it's obviously not something anyone would fake.
354--
"I ate the pie and mocked the piebringer."
that is the best variation on "hate the sin, love the sinner" that I have ever read.
I am groaning and writhing in appreciation--and i ain't fakin' it, baby.
372: I have often wondered if you and I do actually know the same people IRL, but in this case, she ended up dumping him because he ate spaghetti in a repulsive way.
Oh, yeah, I would totally rather have bizarre cooing than the whispered, "I'm about to come" that my high-school boyfriend went in for. Somehow that one really put me right off.
376: Seems unlikely that we would know the same people, since we live in different cities and all. Although this guy is an actor, and we recently discovered that for reasons passing understanding, his headshot is in an establishment very near my apartment, and every time I see it I smile. My friend didn't mind the giggling, she minded that he was too "into his career" to date her.
And I probably would have found the cooing endearing had I been the cause of it. Hearing it through the walls, though, was incredibly funny.
376 -- We need a lot more tolerance for the out-of-the-mainstream spaghetti eaters of the world. There is room in this life for slurpers, for suckers, for twirlers, for cutters -- can't we all just get along? At long last, can't we all just get along?
"My friend didn't mind the giggling, she minded that he was too 'into his career' to date her."
It's a shame how, when people try to put things gently, it often ends up sounding kind of ridiculous.
Yeah, there really is no such thing as a gentle way to end a relationship. You are inevitably cruel somehow.
Isn't it kind of funny that this was a discussion about whether it's okay to discuss intimate details that has turned into a discussion of intimate details? In my own defense, I feel like there is a difference between blabbing to friends that I may have in common with my partner (or on my blog, which is read by several of our mutual friends, if not by him too) and blabbing at Unfogged to people who don't (theoretically) know him. This doesn't really hold up, though, since Tia has, in fact, met him, and others of you may, in the future. I guess I assume there's a principle whereby Unfogged people don't say to AWB's bf, "So, did you get that weird groin rash thing cleared up?"
Hearing it through the walls, though, was incredibly funny.
This doesn't bother me at all; "thin-wall" experiences come unbidden and are yours to use as you like.
I assume there's a principle whereby Unfogged people don't say to AWB's bf, "So, did you get that weird groin rash thing cleared up?"
Uh oh.
I get annoyed with my friends who stop dating people for weird random reasons. Sometimes I wonder about the SatC effect here, because I think it's a new-ish trend that women will pretend to fixate on one small thing as a reason to break up with someone (AWB's spaghetti-repulsed friend, and I had a friend who objected to a date's "man-sandals"), instead of just talking about their actual feelings of not liking someone that much, or not feeling chemistry or whatever. I told my friend with the man-sandals objection that you don't have to have some concrete reason for not liking a person that comes along, you can just trust your instincts. Because, of course, if your instincts were the other way, you wouldn't give a shit about sandals or spaghetti.
380--
look, I think it's important for people to be able to talk about their partners' table manners in certain cases. but as a general rule, I just avoid talking with a large group of guys about how one of their partners eats spaghetti.
I assume there's a principle whereby Unfogged people don't say to AWB's bf, "So, did you get that weird groin rash thing cleared up?"
You wish.
Among my grad school friends, the man-sandals thing was known as shoe-booting, after a friend who had an internet date with someone who showed up wearing what she called "shoe boots," on the basis of which she decided no fucking way.
386--
"Because, of course, if your instincts were the other way, you wouldn't give a shit about sandals or spaghetti."
this, my dear, is very true.
and believe it or not, it even applies to sub-optimal performance in bed.
388 brings up something I'm really wondering about, which is if anyone's going to actually pointedly mention things at the DC meetup that we talk about quite openly here.
I, for one, hope so.
386: This is also a Seinfeld trope too, no? I agree that it's always about some other problem. It's exactly those little irritating/weird details about a person that eventually prove to me that I really like someone, because they become endearing.
How bad can one's spaghetti technique be?
391: I am just distraught to be missing it. *@&##@!! family obligations.
I, for one, hope so.
Can your ass cash the check your mouth so casually writes?
if your instincts were the other way, you wouldn't give a shit about sandals or spaghetti.
You know what this doesn't apply to? Chewing with one's mouth open. Automatic no second date, even if you have a magical vagina.
391: I think, exclusively among Unfogged people, there can only be conversation about details shared here, right? But where my social spheres start to intersect, I think my RL friends would feel weird to be addressed with "Oh, you're the one who (e.g.) has a prosthetic testicle!"
Oh, Buck's bizarre t-shirt collection has stayed endearing, and that's twelve years now.
390--
or at any rate, I can vouch for having loved women far too much to care about how they were in bed.
can't say it's ever worked the opposite way, i.e. that anyone has ever found any other feature in me that would reconcile them to my deficiencies.
If BPhd, m. leblanc and I all talk sex at the meetup in LA on Friday, will this cause w-lfs-n to blush uncontrollably?
Leaving spaghetti half uneaten is always rude.
Couldn't you just not have spaghetti? Or did it indicate some horrible personality flaw?
If BPhd, m. leblanc and I all talk sex at the meetup in LA on Friday, will this cause w-lfs-n to blush uncontrollably?
Possibly.
398--
I used to work in a surgical suite that had a whole case of prosthetic testes (nuts to you). in a variety of sizes.
396: You'd be surprised, if all you're going on is Ogged's description of me. I kinda like to fuck with people and make them squirm.
399: Bizarre t-shirts are completely different than, say, inability to ever find one's keys.
403: But spaghetti almost always comes in comically monstrous portions! When you and I hang out at MLA, no way am I ordering pasta now.
And speaking of the LA meetup, have any details been resolved other than "Friday, somewhere in Santa Monica"?
406: Ah. I should probably worry that Buck's patience is running out, then.
404: Is that a bad thing, though, is the real issue. 406.1 should give you a sense of my own personal answer to that question.
406: Really? This surprises me. I do not approve of this!
397 - My "magic vagina" exception is ironclad.
408: No, that's all we've got so far. I told you I would come up with something! But I've been busy writing this paper commenting on Unfogged.
409: Nah, Buck sounds like a much nicer person than me.
411: All in good humor, my friend.
I think of irritating details that cause break-ups, or for someone not being given a chance, are a kind of poetic metaphor for sensed incompatibility. Sometimes they work well for that, somehow comprehending and expressing the incompatibility, but other times they seem obscure.
As most of the attendees are apparently hanging out here right now, should we not hack out some details for Friday?
Isn't it kind of funny that this was a discussion about whether it's okay to discuss intimate details that has turned into a discussion of intimate details?
Yes, and a discussion conducted entirely by women!
If BPhd, m. leblanc and I all sex w-lfs-n on Friday,...?
A tantalizing development!
Well, it doesn't much matter, as there's little you can say to make me uncomfortable (okay, maybe a couple things). But if I sense other people's discomfort, I jump into my diplomat ninja subject-changer suit.
416: Okay, cool. Um. How about a time, for starters. 7?
Telling someone something that you'd like them to keep secret and private is putting a burden on them. They then have to be the guardian of that secret and have to judge what sort of discretion to use.
I have discussed intimate details with female friends, but very few friends, and very few details. When friends have told me stuff about their sex lives, it makes meeting the other person difficult, especially when the stuff discussed related to some problem. (Like my friend whose boyfriend only wanted to have sex with her when she pretended to be asleep: creepy!)
I guess I assume there's a principle whereby Unfogged people don't say to AWB's bf, "So, did you get that weird groin rash thing cleared up?"
ogged and I have talked a bunch about the sanctity of the off-blog communication. There might be something similar going on for on-blog communications, though we might not call "sanctity" whatever it is that applies to material on the public internets. Maybe Spengler's Law, as in, "Don't cross the streams."
418: Ah, the Janet Malcolm of Unfogged...
419--
"my diplomat ninja subject-changer suit"
photos, we want photos.
(dammit--I just realized--she got me to change the subject! how'd she do that without my realizing it...?)
420: 7 works for me; I'm going to bake that day, but be entirely idle by late afternoon.
You'd be surprised, if all you're going on is Ogged's description of me. I kinda like to fuck with people and make them squirm.
"with"?
422: That sounds like the "two worlds/killing independent George" theory from Seinfeld.
425: Okay, second question. Do we want a place with food or without?
422: Yeah, there are things I know off-blog that I would never consider a topic for on-blog conversation. But I have, admittedly, fucked this up a few times. I have much to learn.
At least snacks. In keeping with this thread, there is a Hooters in SM.
Not, of course, a real suggestion.
Mixing on- and off-blog communications directly led to the decline of the west.
ogged and I have talked a bunch about the sanctity of the off-blog communication
Haha. In other news, you're all horrible people.
431 -- I'm pretty sure you mean "led directly".
I'm pretty sure I wrote what I meant and meant what I wrote.
429: I once made a joke which was implicitly at the expense of a pseudonymous commenters real identity, thereby forcing them to reply by email, since they couldn't answer in comments. Actually, that was fun, I should look for opportunities to do it more.
434 -- except what you wrote does not make sense.
I think the only places I've been to in Santa Monica are Barney's Beanery, which has food, and the Arsenal, which was a pretty cool bar, but doesn't.
Have we not?
I was noting the possible violation of the sanctity of the off-blog communication.
434 -- except what you wrote does not make sense.
Yes it does. It makes the very same sense that "... led directly ..." would have made.
437: Clown, you want to mix them indirectly, not directly.
No way dude. In 431, "directly" modifies "mixing".
439: That's the joke, silly man.
I should have written, "ogged and I have talked a bunch in bed about the sanctity of the off-blog communication", to resolve the ambiguity.
Shit. I may as well admit to having, like, thirty dicks now.
Clown, it's a matter of emphasis: "Doing x and y directly led to z" makes perfect sense.
B. and w-lfs-n are doing a pathetically bad job of "working out the details." Come on, people!
439: Shouldn't that be on SB's blog?
422: Killjoy.
There's also supposedly a place called Ye Olde King's Head that is supposedly good, and apparently occasionally visited by Rod Stewart.
I would prefer either a place with food or a place in the vicinity of cheap eats b/c I have to drive there and, more importantly, back, and don't want to imbibe on an empty stomach.
I suppose I could eat beforehand.
I may as well admit to having, like, thirty dicks
Good -- you will be able to satisfy your multiple partners simultaneously, come Friday.
Yeah, with the italics it sounds right. But without using italics, any way you could punctuate 431 to make that reading the most natural one?
I can't imagine going to Hooters with a better group, I have to say. If I'm ever gonna do it....
Other than that, yes, 7 is good. Mr. B. plans on taking that day off work, which means I'll have the car. And now a good incentive for being mostly done with my MLA paper by then, as well.
There's also the King's Head Pub at 116 Santa Monica; I haven't been there for a while, but it was a good place to hang out. And the Broadway Deli at the Promenade.
I've never been to a hooters, either.
Okay 7 is a go. Food is a go. We're making progress.
I really wouldn't mind just meeting somewhere on a foodish pedestrian block and picking something. But alas, I don't know SM well enough to say where that would be.
(I submit that there is not, and that the obvious solution is to change your word order.)
Hmm, jinx-ish. Does this King's Head place have food?
We could meet at the Promenade and just wing it.
I don't know SM well enough to say where that would be.
If you can set aside your snobbishness, this would be the Promenade. Incidentally, I'll be in Santa Monica this weekend, but I'll have no free time. Too bad, suckas.
455: I think there is such a block, and it's called "The Promenade," in fact, and is exclusively pedestrian.
apropos of nothing: don't you just hate being stranded in airports?
I once heard an ad on the radio in Chicago for hooters that was so awfully done that I thought the woman doing the voice work was trying to sabotage it, and no one in charge had noticed.
Hey, the site or this thread is slow. :(
Suggestion: Meet in front of Borders Bookstore on the 3rd Street Promenade, wing it thereafter.
Or inside, if the weather is arctic.
422: Killjoy.
Soon, this world of yours will be as bitter and sullen as my home planet, letting me cast off my protective suit at long last.
I'm going to go Jesuit with ogged, or whatever he does on a Monday.
Promenade works for me. We can meet at the King's Head and move on, if we wish.
Also, Ogged, you totally totally suck.
Or inside, if the weather is arctic. It's got a cafe where we could hang out for half an hour or so, to make sure people can get there.
ogged, are you fucking serious? You tease.
466 works too. Okay, bookstore it is.
DEditrix: by "arctic", do you mean sub-70 degrees? I haven't quite got the hang of your LA argot.
OK - as I understand it, the Plan is Friday, 7pm, at the King's Head Pub [which is not on the Promenade, but near it].
Is this correct?
OOp.s misread - meet at BORDERS
ogged, are you fucking serious?
Well, I'll be there Saturday, but not Friday, so I guess I'm not serious; I won't have any time free, in any case.
476: Actuallly the wind's been pretty cold lately.
Clownæ: I'm a fucking New Englander. And my ancestors were Norsemen. It never gets to "Arctic" in LA; I was just deferring to the natives/quasi-natives like B and B-Wo.
This sloooooowness of teh site response is driving me mad.
479: Rude.
Bitch burps when she comes.
Like you'd know. And at least when I don't come, I make reassuring noises about it.
"This doesn't seem to be true in reverse -- men still seem to keep that sexual tone to observation, and thus feel repulsed by even a suggestion of looking at another man naked, or the thought of what he does in bed, etc. But women, thinking/talking about/looking at/etc. other women, take an almost academic approach -- trying to learn how they "should" look, what they "should" do, how they "should" be.
Thus, women's locker rooms are uncomfortable mostly because one has to expose oneself: if a woman could sit around fully clothed and observe all the other women in the room naked, it wouldn't be so bad; in fact, it'd be a learning experience as to exactly what is an average body shape and etc. etc. But having to be naked oneself exposes oneself to exactly that form of observation, which also means exposing oneself to potential criticism. Which is the (imagined) problem.
I'm probably making a lot of incorrect assumptions here, but this is pretty much just IME."
Can't you see this is exactly parrallel? men are judged on their strength, and so are prone to hide thier emotions. Women are judged on their bodies and so have fear of exposing their bodies.
Lesson learned: apparently it was not too early in the day for a sex post.
It is never too early in the day for a sex post.
I wonder how many sex posts we could handle in a day before the server gave out.
It was too early for me; I was busy photographing children. (Not that I would have had anything to say.)
I tried to have a detailed conversation with teo about sex once. He really didn't have much to say.
A lot of nudge-nudging and wink-winking though.
I bet this thread was really fun. Damn.
This thread's getting creaky. New thread! Move along!