The second installment of my project, The Man Series went live on Sexis today. This time I am talking to prolific writer, photographer and sexual activist David Steinberg who was recently named Erotic Photographer of the Year.

Being one of the visible and outspoken guys working in the realm of feminism and sex, he’s got a lot to say on the topics of masculinity and sexuality. Here are some unpublished excerpts about men and feminism, peppered with some of his (NSFW) photography.

RW: So why does it seem the majority of sex writers are women?

DS:  I think the critique and developing analysis of women’s sexuality came out of the feminist movement to a large extent. So, that would explain the critique of traditional thinking about women’s sexuality in general– who women are, what women’s gender roles are related to sexuality. I was very much involved in the what we called “men’s pro-feminist movement”, a movement of men examining traditional gender roles. This goes back 25 years.

RW: Did the male feminism groups explore male sexuality?

DS: There was some discussion on sexuality…though not the major focus. That movement being much much smaller than the feminist movement among women, it really did not generate the same kind of analytical thinking about male sexuality. Absent the women’s movement there might be a whole less writing about women’s sexuality too. It’s too bad because I think traditional gender roles in sexuality are just as limiting as damaging for men.

RW: What was the focus in the dialogue about men and feminism?

DS: What we felt we had to offer men was better relationships with their partners and particularly with their children. And the other thing we felt we had to offer was a much richer sexuality. If you are working a high stress 60 hour a week job that takes you out of town and puts family behind, having a meaningful sex life is not in your interest. That meant getting men to look at  sex differently than what the mainstream culture teaches them to do. If you re-organize what it means to be a man, a proper man, around your values, then your emotional, family and sex life all improve. There is so much that men deny themselves. If achieving the goals you’ve set for yourself aren’t making you happy then you’ve got to ask yourself if you have set the wrong goals.

RW: Do you think there are more men questioning their gender roles?

DS: There is a significant number of men, even if it’s not most, that are aware of and working on these issues. They are shifting  how they see themselves as men and what masculinity means to them. I certainly feel that my own life has been enlarged and made  happier when I learned I could make conscious choices about what aspects of socially defined masculinity I wanted to hold onto and what I wanted to move away from.

RW: How does this effect sex?

DS: My guess would be that men who make a point of focusing on being more aware and expressive of a full range of emotions will be able to move into sex in a deeper way. I think it happens in that direction more often then discovering themselves in sex and  spreading to the rest of their emotional life. My sense is that men who have rejected traditional roles are the guys that get to experience sex in a more intimate and satisfying way. Women often think all guys wanna do is get off,  but often that is not the case.

RW: What else have you found that women assume about men’s sexuality?

DS: I used to run a workshop on male sexuality for women. One of the most common things that women would ask is, “So I’m with this guy, we have amazing sex and then in the morning, he is like gone.”

I think guys think they are just gonna have a fun time.  Because sex is as powerful as it is, sometimes a big door opens up inside you. Suddenly, your emotional guts are all over the table. I think sex, touch, it is powerful in that way. Suddenly, you are dealing with the fact that you never got touched as a child, suddenly you are dealing with the time something happened and you were embarrassed. Suddenly, all sorts of larger issues, even existential ones leap up, and there you are in the middle of them.

I think women are more prepared for this, less frightened. For some guys in this deeply intimate, exposed place with a person they hardly know, they wake up in the morning and just start putting a wall up, really fast.

RW: It’s interesting because we kind of ignore that this goes on, with one night stands.

DS: I am an advocate of people being free and sexual but one of the things that can happen in jumping into sex without knowing each other is that you end up in a situation where you are exposed, kind of prematurely, to somebody that you are really not prepared to allow into  your soul. And oops you just did. Sex is a tricky business.

RW: I love this observation about sex.

One of the wonders of sex and one of the things that interests me so much is that it’s this part of life that opens so many doors and can give you an opportunity to look at childhood joys and traumas. One of the sad things about sex, particularly for men, is that the culture shoves a version of sex down your throat that is just poor, pale version of what is really possible.

A bong is being passed around the art school dorm. Brett, a DJ, is talking. “It’s good to not eat for like three days. Then on the fourth day have a little meal. Then little meals from there.” Alex, a film major, listens. He stamps out a cigarette and lights another. “Sometimes I won’t eat for over a week, I lose count of the days.” he begins to pace.

There are a lot of us who are outspoken about unrealistic beauty standards. But there’s not a lot of talk about male beauty standards. But it’s there, staring at these guys from their computer screens: “add inches to your cock”, “6 pack abs fast”, “Lose weight now”.

Studies from the 80′s concluded that anorexia in males stems from issues in “gender identity”. From conflicted homosexuality. While it’s obvious there is a cultural pressure in the gay community for guys to be fit and hot, labeling male anorexia as a queer issue is naive, out of touch.

The guys I talked to weren’t gay, but not typical alphas either. They talk about art films, own record collections, fit into that loose label of “hipster.”

They also seem in touch with their sexuality. Though Alex has fainted at parties and blacks out easily, he and Brett casually drop dozens of women they’ve slept with.

Alex scrolls through his Ipod. “Bright Eyes has songs about eating disorders” he says. My eyebrows raise, hoping that’s not what he’s going to play. He misunderstands, backing up. “I really have been eating, though. Like, 2, 3 days a week.”  I sigh, not wanting to argue that that is not okay. He’s talking from the eating disorder part, a part impossible to reason with.

He paces again, talking in circles. Alex is sharp. He is savvy. As he paces I feel I can almost see the brain space he is burning off, obsessing and starving.

Later in repose, smoking a cigarette, he says, “when you reach a point where you are purposely starving yourself or actually throwing up your food, it has gone past simple vanity, it is a mental and emotional problem as well as a physical one.”

According to the Eating Disorders Association (EDA) about 10% of people being treated for anorexia and bulimia are males.  Another study in 2007 by the Harvard University Medical School suggested that  25% of adults with eating disorders were male. Eating disorders in guys often go unrecognized, untreated according to the EDA.

But it didn‘t take long for Alex‘s girlfriend, Melanie to catch on. “One day when we just started dating we were at lunch in the dorm, and she said ‘what, are you going to go throw that up‘”.

Melanie is in her car, eating a taco. Her voice raises, talking about Alex’s eating disorder.  “All we ever did was get high and eat, I started gaining weight, and he kept getting skinnier. I felt deceived. I tell him he is beautiful… but I don’t know what to do.” She pauses for a moment. “When your boyfriend is skinnier than you it starts to get to you. But more than anything it just pisses me off.”

Alex says Melanie was anorexic in high school. It might seem an ex-anorexic would be especially empathetic and helpful, but as they say in treatment, you are always in recovery. Here, caught in a destructive dance of trigger and resentment.

As a teen, Alex was depressed and overweight.“I don’t really have an ideal weight because I‘m never happy with my weight, no matter what, when I eat I feel 100 pounds heavier,“ he says.

According to Dr. Kavita Ajmere, a Psychologist who specializes in eating disorders, there is a pressure on males to be thin and attractive now more than ever. “Thin has become trendy, just like with women the media influences men with it’s unrealistic standards,” she says.

“The socialization pattern is different with men too. When women get together they talk and express their feelings, men tend to not communicate as much, so it is much harder for them to admit they have a problem. We raise little boys to be tough, we teach them that boys don’t cry that they should grin and bear it. Unfortunately this makes it much harder to get through to males with eating disorders,” she says.

While the guys I talked to were actively pushing away or challenging a lot of gender roles, it seems that this male socialization is what makes it feel so impossible.

“It was so embarrassing when my roommate caught me purging  dinner.” Alex winces. “He walked in the bathroom to ask me a question, then realized I was puking and just walked out. It was so emasculating, I had to sit on the bathroom floor knowing that when I walked out he would be sitting in the small dorm room we shared.”

Alex emerged, unapologetic. “I told him not to say anything about it, that he wasn’t going to change my mind. I’m going to do what I want to do,” he says, a glass of wine loosely in one hand , the gold liquid spinning. “No one can help you but yourself.”

photo by alison scarpulla

I’m sitting on the edge of the bed. The room is dark, filled with the sound of flesh smacking flesh and throaty “ahhhhhs.” Next to me are huddles of middle aged men, standing, pants-off, half-hard. I’m sitting upright, purse in lap feeling a bit overdressed.

In front of me is a triple set of couples, all in the doggy-style position, fucking in front of a mirror. Guy on girl, guy on guy, guy on girl. The earthy smell of anal sex filters the air.

It’s a swinger party. Or “lifestyle party” if you prefer. But something here is different. This party is Chicago’s first and only all bisexual lifestyle party. Usually, guy on guy sex is sort of not allowed.

I’m here undercover, doing a story for Gapers Block (click for entire story) In the lifestyle, I’ve learned, male bisexuality is taboo. Just like on TV or in small towns or high-schools.

I admire bisexual men. Not only do I find them strong and courageous and cool but I have a thing for them. They’re my “type.” Or, everyone is secretly bi and I just pull it out of the guys I date. Okay, I don’t *really* believe that, but because I’m bi, I tend to assume everyone else is too.

With swingers, female-bisexuality isn’t just encouraged, it’s expected. But why is male bisexuality feared? Is it because we associate homosexuality with taking on a female role? A silent patriarchal ban on men acting like women? In ancient Greece, homosexuality was permissible–only when the man was in the “top” role.

At the party, one woman said what set the bi party apart from the regular parties was that it’s a bit more aggressive. At most parties, women have control and men are less active in initiating. But in this space where men hit on other men, testosterone flourishes. I didn’t feel unsafe, but I did feel this vibe. The guys were there to play, and it felt like a celebration of male sexuality. Is that why we are so scared of their bisexuality? I wondered Is it because we condemn and dismiss male sexuality as a whole?

This woman’s husband was the bottom-half in the guy-on-guy scene. I asked him, why the taboo? “Honestly, I think it is leftover from AIDS and the big scare that caused in the ’80s. I think since then we’ve had this fear of male bisexuality, not female bisexuality.”

As homosexuality is no longer erased, it seems bisexuality would adjacently become acceptable. But I think that homophobia hasn’t gone anywhere, it’s instead pushed inside. Even the squarest, straightest people know it’s not cool to gay-bash. Instead of “you’re a fag” it’s become “well that’s okay for you, I guess, but I’M NOT gay.”

This makes exploring bisexuality kinda impossible. It takes a lot of self-awareness and courage to probe the fact that you might be bisexual and much more to come out (and play.)

creatures by donna wilson

Ned and I were in the middle of dinner. We were at Handlebar, a vegetarian restaurant we used to go to a lot. He probably ordered 3 sides: vegan mashed potatoes, smoked Gouda mac and cheese and collard greens. I probably got the “green meanie” a sandwich with sprouts and avocado. Plantains on the side. We would drink tall glasses of beer that made us feel a little too drunk before dinner. This place isn’t very romantic but in this memory, we are laughing and his face is warm, as though bathed by candlelight.

At a nearby table, a visibly young girl held a baby. We made eye contact with the baby. We made silly faces. “Can you imagine?” I asked. He shook his head. “I mean you…could’ve had one” I said, my jaw feeling loose.

That night Ned dreamt that he and I were on a date. The ceiling peeled back like a sunroof and we dined under a huge starry sky. Later in the dream there was a pickup truck and two kids tried to hitch a ride. The driver purposefully crashed into an industrial flatbed. He says: “see, that’s what it feels like.” This scene loops two more times.

I was spread like a starfish on my bed. Heidi flipped through a magazine. “Well I haven’t got my period completely, but I’m spotting”" she said after a few moments. She was a couple weeks late. I looked at her, calm. “Okay. I am buying you a pregnancy test and you are taking it.”

I drove to WalMart. I took back roads so I didn’t have to go through town. It was a small town, the kind where the thing to do on a Friday night is drive around in a loop, windows down, then park and stand in front of your car. I zoned out, Heidi talked about him. He was her teacher from the previous year, when we were in high school. It was a one night stand and she was obsessed with him. She always seemed to be obsessed with someone.

“First Response, you get two for one price.” I grabbed a test from the shelf. Heidi bit her thumbnail then faced me,  “Should we get some snacks?“ she asked, her face serious.

Ned and I were in the car when he told me. It was a summer night and we were exploring North Chicago, under a clear suburban sky. He told me that he recently had an abortion. The girl he was seeing before me. They weren’t serious. But when she got pregnant they became closer. Ned said “I always trust women to know if they are ready or not, they just intuitively know.” I think of the animals who eat their newborns when there isn’t enough food for them to survive.

Heidi read the instructions while I sat on the sink, legs dangling. She squatted over the toilet, hair hanging in her face as she peed on the stick. “Let’s not wait in the bathroom.” We went to my bedroom and felt better. We waited probably 20 minutes. “You check it” Heidi’s eyes were large with water. As I walked to the bathroom I thought when I picked up the test there would only be one pink line, not two. I picked up the test  “Two lines“, “Pregnant.” Heidi’s face looked waxy, then pink as she burst into laughter. I started sobbing.

It was rainy and cold. It was Mother’s Day. The protesters were pumped. “It’s Mothers Day! You’re a mother! How could you do this?!” But I knew that Heidi made the right choice. I got why she did it. And it was out of respect for life, reverence for children.

When Ned told me, he was distant from it.  When she had the abortion, he was  in Puerto Rico for work, where he didn’t speak the language. He was visiting the Ortho Tri Cyclen factory. The concrete city was swamp-hot. Outside of his hotel window he could see a cock-fighting pit. Just beyond was a jungle.

Sometime after we got engaged, I found him in bed, early in the evening. He gripped a pillow, curled in fetal position, the overhead lighting dimmed. I stoked his hair. “I’m grieving.”

We were in the car when we made the decision. It was bright and snowy. “I think we need to make the decision ahead of time” said Ned. “Because if you get pregnant, with new hormones and emotions it’s hard. Now that we’re married it will be even harder.” I winced.

“So we’ll make this decision once a year, whatever we decide sticks all year, no matter what.” It was harder. But I knew I wasn’t ready. And if you think you are not ready, it can’t be right to bring a human being into the world. “We’d get an abortion” I said, thinking of where I’d want to be and am not. Because I value human life way too much.

A woman gives birth to a baby and afterward, the doctor comes into the room and says in a formal tone, “I have something to tell you, Mrs. Smith.”

Instantly, the new mother knows that something is amiss. “What’s the matter, Doctor?” she asks worriedly. “Is my baby all right?”

The doctor replies, “There’s nothing really wrong, but your baby intersexed.”

“Intersexed?” Mrs. Smith asks. “What’s that?”

“Your baby has features of both a male and a female,” the doctor explains.

Relieved, Mrs. Smith says, “What? You mean it has a penis and a brain?”

In mainstream society, male sexuality is often dismissed as the punch line to a bad joke. The media’s continuing portrayal of the average guy as a beer-swilling one-dimensional horndog certainly doesn’t promote enlightenment, and as the majority of sex writers are female, the issues relating to the XY-chromosome’d portion of the population get short shrift.

So, just what the hell does it mean to be a man, anyway? And what do the guys who are out there teaching, talking and writing about sex think about it?

This is what I will be tackling in my new series for Sexis, The Man Project. I’ll talk with premier male sex writers, educators, artists and activists to get their take. The first installment went live yesterday, a conversation with writer & host of HBO’s sex inspectors, Michael Alvear. Check out Sexis for the article and here is a supplementary, previously unreleased bit about men and their emotions and how sex is different for men and women.

RW: So what about the stereotype of guys being less in touch with their emotions?

MA: I think it is true. It’s sometimes like, men don’t know where their emotions are and women are fondling them. Here you fall into a trap of saying all men are cavemen, I think it would be more honest to say that men don’t express emotions the way women do and we are not as comfortable talking. That doesn’t mean that our interior life is barren. The inability to express your feelings does not mean you don’t have feelings.

RW: Do you think it nature or nurture?

MA: I think like anything else it is a little bit of both. There is a great need to shut off your emotions, say if you are a caveman and there is a bear. The nurture part is boys don’t cry and girls are expected to. If you think about it, boys are trained not to express their emotions or express them in certain ways, like sports. It’s “you are angry, now get out there and block or kick or hit.”  The expression of our feelings and emotions is channeled into doing something.

RW: What about the internal experiences? The emotional, psychological stuff how is that different?

ML: Women are more complicated.

RW: From what I’ve read, if you look at biology our sexual responses we aren’t that different though.

ML: I think that its true to say that physiologically an erection is as complicated. But I think women’s sexual attraction switches are involved with non sexual characteristics– far more than men. Emotion, attachment, self esteem, self perception, body perception. Those things have a huge impact on their sexual response. That is not to say that men don’t have those things. It’s just that it is much more consequential for women and therefore more complicated.

RW: What this also reminds me of are the statistics about how boys masturbate much earlier than girls. And I think in part that is because  it is actually more simple for boys.

ML: Boys are Macs, girls are PC’s. Right, if you cant figure stuff out on a Mac, you just kinda figure out where to go. With women its like, well, you’ve got so many options!

RW: What is missing in the discussion of male sexuality?

ML: I think that men are far more multi-dimensional than women give them credit.  Even in the bad decisions we make there is an idea that we are black and white. Take Tiger Woods. There is always a sense with males that you are either good or bad. And truthfully it’s the same with women. But for men, it’s the struggle to attain security through marriage, relationships, kids and then excitement, particularly sexual excitement. We think men have to be one or the other when in fact we are both. There is an inner conflict brewing in almost every man about how to do that.

RW: Oh, I am so into this, like a male madonna/whore complex.

ML: With that it’s either you are chaste or you’re just a whore who never met a sausage you didn’t wanna sit on. With men it is more like you are robot, you just want a hole to fuck and if you do that you cant possibly love or experience true intimacy. And it is just not true. Its unfair to both men and women.

I grew my arm put hair.  When I’d find myself alone in a rest room, I’d look in the mirror and lift my shirt see the fuzz, a shock of hair that felt luxuriously soft and foreign.

Arm-pit hair serves an evolutionary purpose, so I have read, that is why we have it. It helps waft our scent to the noses of would-be lovers, helping us sniff out compatible men, or for men, ladies who are ovulating. New research shows couples even smell each other’s emotions.

When I wasn’t shaving I can attest that there was more of a smell. Not B.O. as I usually knew it, but something human, and uniquely mine. And something about all of this was sexy.

I don’t expect au natural armpits to ever catch on in mainstream America, where we like our teeth white as picket fences, breasts majestically mountainous and our lady pits waxed as apples.But just once, I’d like to see an American Apparel billboard showcasing the usual lithe model, her arms dangled above her head to reveal furry pits.

In America, shaving underarms has been a fad since around 1915 with the ubiquity of the safety razor.

A marketing campaign spread, suggesting that women shave their pits. This campaign warned that underarm hair was “unhygienic” and “unfeminine.” Strangely, that hygiene thing didn’t hold up for men. In the next two years, razor sales doubled.

Shaving my underarms has been around since about 1996, when I was 12. The moment light hair appeared under my arms, I began a shaving regime, almost robotically. But I find it interesting that women don’t even grow full armpit hair until about age 18.

This year, Amanda Palmer and Mo ‘nique attended the Golden Globes with, respectively, armpit and leg hair. A collective “ewwwww” spread ’round the Internet. It reminds me of this friend in highschool who once recounted “I was at McDonalds, in line, when the woman in front of me raised her arms to pay or whatever…and she had hairy pits.“  His face contorted with disgust. My response then was an “ew” too. Aside from the icky phrasing of “hairy pits”, why was that so gross?

There was a moment, when I decided to grow my pit hair. I stood in the shower, letting the warm water wash over my face and thought “it’s weird that I’ve never actually seen my own pit hair.” When I didn’t pick up my razor,  I also thought “it’s worth questioning”.

It wasn’t exactly a feminist calculation, or a “statement”. It was a self-exploration, more “I wonder what this is like.” And it was interesting, sexy and a little sweaty.

When we don’t feel beautiful inside, we often tell ourselves we aren’t beautiful outside either. While growing out pit hair adds nothing to actual substance or beauty, for me, it was loving myself as a whole, another way of negating self attack. But it can also be an attack on the conformance machine of media and peers.

A few months later, I was getting ready for a Christmas party. I stood in front of the mirror in a black satin cocktail dress;  face and hair carefully made-up. I lifted my arms to secure my up-do and was greeted with the dichotomy of starlet face/boyish pits. I thought, “tonight is a night to shave.”

Now, when I stand in the shower, rinsing in hot water, I raise my arms with a conscious choice. Do I want to shave today?

Photo: Ryan McGinley

I wrote this profile on  male sex-workers 4 years ago. Re-reading, I realized, it sorta fits my thread on enthusiastic consent. Consent, I had concluded, is not the opposite of rape, enthusiastic consent is.  But, still it was tricky.  What about times when you just have sex for your partner? 

And what about sex work?

Kaleb is facing the large living room window in his Chicago house, skillfully playing Dvorak on his flute for a small group of houseguests. As he plays, lips pursed, I see the distant relation to Elvis he claims to have.  At 23, Kaleb spends his days playing music, listening to opera and frequenting art museums and wineries.

Trilling, Kaleb stops abruptly to answer the jewelry-box ring from his phone, he chats comfortably, making plans. “That was my Uncle”, he said with an eyebrow raise,” I’m meeting him at a restaurant to get money later.” Uncle is the codeword for the men who are booking his services, the restaurant is just a cheap hotel room and the money is exactly $150 an hour for an “erotic massage”.

I feel it would be cliche and just tacky to point to Kaleb’s childhood, highlighting abuse or rough patches. But as we talk about it, it is part of his story. His mom being a meth addict is part of him. “I just really focused on music and that’s how I got through it”, Kaleb said with large brown eyes. He won some significant music awards and was accepted to Oberlin, a music conservatory in Ohio that ranks among the top 8 in the country. But didn’t attend because of the expense.

He bounced around from family member to family member but eventually found himself home-less.

Kaleb heard about online escorting sites from “high class women hookers” he knew in L.A.  “I found websites and posted ads”, Kaleb said. “The one I chose charges $30 a month for a profile–it is worth it”. He pulls out his laptop. The website has an extensive member list, and breaks up the boys by city. The headlines exclaim that “these boys are eager to please you” with an “erotic massage” What does that even mean?

“It is just a both-partners naked, sensual massage that a lot of times becomes a hand job,” Kaleb says. “If the guy wants me to do oral then I will for $200. But I always use a condom . I have had sex a few times but I don’t like to. There was one man I did enjoy having sex with” he says. “He was a married Puerto Rican Doctor on travel. So hot. He was obviously in the closet and that’s how a lot of clients are.”

Kaleb’s roommate John is a skinny college student. He identifies as a straight man, but adds that he is “just very sexual”. When his search for a job was unsuccessful, the independent 19-year-old decided, why not try what Kaleb was cashing in on?

John had never been with a man but dove right in, placing a provocative ad online for a “four hand massage” alongside Kaleb charging $400.

“He was so down“ Kaleb exclaimed. “I was surprised, he treated it just like it was his everyday job.” John says he isn’t scared of the profession because he can get a good sense of the client’s personality by talking to them online and over the phone. “Though, the profession itself is not safe. No one knows where you are when you are in a hotel room with a client” he says.

We talk about how the illegality makes it dangerous. “If it weren’t (illegal) businesses could track where the workers are and run background checks to eliminate rapes and murders” he says. Not to mention, there would be no worry for arrest.

When both Kaleb and John talk about their gigs, they get this energy, giddy, eyes asparkle. There is a sense of enthusiasm about the the mysterious clients, the taboos and a sense of accomplishment in getting them off.

But it is apparent the enthusiasm is not for the sex. “I did an overnight once. I charged $500 and he even bought me stuff and took me out. But this isn’t romance. It is straight up sex. I had one guy who wanted it to be sweet and he was disappointed when it wasn’t” Kaleb says. “But it is a service, they are paying me” he explains.

Currently, a bill is passing in Illinois that would severely penalize buying and selling sex. The argument used by many groups  is that “all prostitution is violence of men against women.”

Logically, no one can decide your consent besides you. Especially not the State.

My body floated into the bedroom in a cream baby-doll nightie. I  found it hanging in a thrift store. It was Oscar De la Renta and still had the tags on. After buying it, I stood in front of a mirror, admiring the billowy layers of fabric that curved my back in a heart shape.

I crawled over Ned to get into bed, he groaned, punctured by a knee or elbow. I wasn’t feeling particularly turned on. His hands felt my neck and chest, lukewarm. But, it was awhile since we had sex. At least a week. And it had been a long time since he’d come onto me. I wanted him to know that I was available, it was okay. I pulled him on top of me. I moaned when his cock entered me.

A few months ago, I wrote a  post about having sex when you don’t want to, because you can’t say no, are too drunk to make a decision or  “it seems easier.” I didn’t call this rape, but said these were gray-areas of consent. “Consent is not the opposite of rape” I said, “enthusiastic consent is.”

I urged the sex along, waving my hips and saying I wanted him to cum, I wasn’t ” into” the sex, but it felt okay. I had made an executive decision. I’d evaluated my feelings.

I set my alarm for 7:00–when Ned (who gets up at 6:00) does the dishes.  Usually I come in and say “hey”  and if  we had sex the night before, one of us will casually mention it.

This morning, I still felt good about the sex, but weird about saying something. I recounted it my head. I decided the sex was okay but I didn’t want Ned to guess I’d had sex just to make him feel nice.

I had been reading Why Women Have Sex, which contained interviews with women over a range of ages. Many women in the book reported having sex when they didn’t want to. Some said they’d had sex with their husbands in order to get them to do chores. Another said she’d had sex with a man because he bought her a car. Some women said they felt like it was their “duty”.

The book drew a line between these instances and gray-rapes, which others reported and often felt bad about.

I felt uncomfortable reading some of  the accounts. I thought of my high-school boyfriend. He wasn’t in high-school, he was 22. We went out for 3 1/2 years and in the beginning had sex non stop. Sometimes I’d bring costumes and he’d snap Polaroids of me: on all-fours in cat ears and a fluffy tailed pinned to my G-string; smiling in a  school girl skirt and tie. Those Polaroids still exist somewhere. Probably.

Later, there were no costumes but still sex. We’d hang out, watching a DVD at his apartment. I remember, facing the light of the television, sometimes not even watching, but waiting for a hip thrust in my ass. I wouldn’t turn around, but I would lift my body, to make it easier for him. I don’t remember enthusiasm in my yes.

But sometimes, we would have sex, not turned on at first then catch up in a panting breath later.

In sex there is not a “point of no return.” With Ned, I understand that stopping at any point is okay. But I also know doing this, takes strength in communication with yourself and your partner.

On a new morning, I wake up before my alarm. The curtains are still drawn, lighting the room in red. I go to find Ned at the sink and envelope myself around his waist. “The sex we had last night was kind of weird” he says, a playful-concerned look on his face.

As we crawled into bed the night before, he rolled over to sleep. I caressed the curve of his ass. He gave a sleepy-sigh and muttered that it felt nice. His eyes stayed closed, his body limp and tired as he turned over, visibly hard. I slid onto his body and put my hands over his closed eyelids as he drifted, blurred between soft moans and half sleep.

I put a hand,  concerned, on the sink. Ned laughed.

I trusted his responsibility for communicating a lack of consent. But as his partner, knew I should be aware of his enthusiasm too. But in this space, able to talk about it over toast, we were safe. Safe to explore our emotions in the moment, and if it felt raw, to go over them again.

Enthusiastic sex each time is not a given. “Purposeful sexuality” I thought. That was it.

You know you are watching a commercial for tampons when the soft lighting blurs to reveal some complacent looking woman, joyfully kicking her white-spandex-coated legs.

Recently, Kotex came out with an ad that cramps this usual style. “The ads on TV are really helpful, because they show that blue liquid” says the woman on screen, deadpan, as something that looks like laundry detergent spills into a pad. “And I’m like ‘Oh, that’s what’s supposed to happen.”

It takes some ovaries to pull-off and Kotex even pushed to get the word “vagina” used in the ad, which was never gonna happen on American television. It’s not a bad start, but with Kotex being a repeat offender of the very advertising they are mocking, this could also be chalked up as too little, too late.

With this in mind I set out to rifle through vintage menstrual product ads for an article for Alternet. The goal was to find the most eye-roll inducing ads but what I also found along the way was downright weird and at times, a  lack of basic understanding about periods.

Check out my full article on Alternet, but here are some of the highlights from my research:

This was an early Modess ad campaign from 1929. It “spoke” to teenagers by poking fun at Mother and her laughable old ways and silly washable pads. However there seems to be something lost in translation. I think Daughter is teaching Mother to exercise…in heels? It kinda looks more like she is teaching Mother some new fangled sex position. But this Tampax ad from the 90s which ran in teen mags is a bit, ehm, creepier.

What is with all the dark shadows and shameful hands-in-pockets face-down stuff? And what is that in front of her? Garbage bags? A small child? A ghost? The ad reads “I wanted to use tampons but I heard you had to be, you know, ‘experienced.’”

Then there’s those ubiquitous white- ads, because wearing white on your period is so natural and freeing! Or something. Well, maybe not– is it just me or is this woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown?

She should have taken a cue from this French woman and downed some Valium before the photo-shoot

The European ads were the craziest, lots of nudity and sexual situations. Is that a step up? I’m not sure. But, in Europe it seems people are much more comfortable about menstruation. There was even a Dutch ad series I found with that featured men, talking about periods.

Translates as: “Unbelievable . . .so thin, now I get why I don’t see anything.”

Wait, is that a penis joke?

Back in the day, marketers had a hard time getting women to switch from DIY pads to disposable products. The problem was that even with names like Modess and Kotex those sneaky drug store clerks caught onto what women were buying.  Aware of  embarrassment impacting sales, companies started issuing “silent purchase coupons.” These coupons didn’t save you any money, just the apparent shame that came with uttering “feminine napkin” aloud. To be fair, it is an icky juxtaposition of words. This whole ordeal was fixed when one drug store started leaving the boxes out on the counter with a change jar, so women could take what they needed and pay discreetly.

But as a devout menstrual-cup user, what I found interesting was the failed history of the cup. Since the 1930′s several companies had tried mass-selling cups and until semi-recently all had failed. It was thought that American women were turned off by the idea of having to put their fingers into the vagina to change the cup. There was no having of the all-around closeness and knowledge of your cycle that comes with using a cup.

I spoke with Harry Finlay of the Museum of Menstruation (also where I got the images) for this piece. He reminded me that advertising never changes people’s minds but, rather reflects where we are as as a society.

If the new Kotex ad is any indication that we as American women are sick of being shamed about our periods or having them likened to gifts or something that happens “down there”  it might be enough for me to break out the white yoga pants and jump for joy.

rabbit_write_08 (mp3 download 1.75mb)

A make-up tutorial video done in reverse while I attempt to answer the question: why do women wear makeup?

Overview:

Why do women wear make-up? I wear and enjoy make-up. In one sense, it is a way to express yourself, your mood and your interior life. I love the whole transformation process and I an a fan of the ability we have to change our masks, especially with a key as transient & in the moment as make-up.

Part of the reason that women wear make-up might actually be biological. There was a study done that had men rate how beautiful women were–with and without make-up. The men consistently chose the women with make-up as more beautiful. Except when the women were ovulating–then  men couldn’t tell a difference.

Ovulation is the human equivalent of “going into heat” it is when can get pregnant and our sneaky bodies are doing everything they can to help that happen. So along with a spiked sex drive, we also become more beautiful at ovulation. Our skin gets clearer, lips fuller and eyes more sparkly; kinda like you are wearing make-up. So the theory goes that because human’s don’t go into heat– we can have sex whenever we want– make-up has evolved as women’s way to attract males, making them think that we are in heat. It’s a biological magic trick.

But perhaps the biggest reason is cultural. I found a study online that claimed 8 out of 10 women prefer their female colleagues to wear makeup and the same number of women said they would rather employ a woman who wore makeup than one who didn’t.  This might be about not rocking the boat. Since it is socially accepted that women paint their faces day in and day out, we’re not going to like those who buck against the norm.

Because of these very strong social ideas about make-up, I think most of us don’t naturally have a healthy relationship with our cosmetic cases. I think the majority of us feel like we NEED make-up. And as long as there is not a real feeling of choice there it’s not okay. So I challenge you to explore that relationship with make-up.

The heart of this isn’t just learn ro love yourself without make-up, learn that you are beautiful without it. The core of this is realizing that your real value and what you bring to relationships, to life is not your looks.