This weekend is my birthday. Also, I will be on my period during my birthday. But that is not what this post is about. This is about another birthday, my twelfth birthday, when I did not get my period.

Entering the fifth grade, I knew I would have sex-education class in the Spring. I heard about this from the kids on the bus, for the last two years.

One girl showed me the puberty pamphlet with photos of various “stages”– at first little hairs grew, then oddly shaped, puffy breasts and more hair–until you reached step fie with a patch of fur underwear and pendulous breasts. When will that happen again?

The boys had their own pamphlet, which was also passed around the bus: “I’m a five” a gingery boy called out.

I loathed talk of sex as a kid. When I was 4 and my sister asked our Mom where babies came from, I covered my ears and screamed, “noooo!’ At 6, when I found crude drawings of sex, I felt guilty inside for years. And at age 9 when my friends started shaving their legs and wearing training bras, I chose  to be an outsider. Sex was embarrassing. I hated the way adults talked about it.

In fifth grade I had insomnia. I would lay awake until 1, 2 or 3 a.m, worrying about grades or boys or… sex-ed. It was going to come and I couldn’t stop it.

On a rainy gray day, our fifth grade teacher passed out notes, to give to your parents–your child is going to receive a sex education class next Wednesday. I hid mine in a sock-drawer.

Wednesday came. They broke up the girls and boys. There would be boasting boys who claimed to watch the girl’s film in secret, or vice versa. I now realize, the films were probably the same. They starred Dr. T, a talking letter T, the significance of this was never explained. The film was about “crossing the bridge to puberty” and in the last scene, two children and a cartoon Dr. T jump over a rainbow bridge, laughing.

The school nurse pressed stop on the VHS. She was a large, ruddy woman, with a forced smile she told us to ask her any questions.  She told us that men were especially sensitive to the way periods smelled. (What did she mean by this?)  She also wrote IBUPROFEN on the chalkboard, telling us to jot this down because, “this would be our period’s best friend.”

At the end of question and answer time, we were made to fill out a form with our name, date of birth and address. They were going to send us some “free gifts” in the mail. I passed the form back, to avoid the “gift”… but when the form ended at my desk and the nurse stood above me, I scrawled my name.

I checked the mail daily in hopes of snatching the package before anyone else found it. Months passed, and awake at night I now ruminated about this package’s arrival– but it didn’t come. Six months passed with no package and I decided they must have lost my name. I talked to other girls at school, lots had already received theirs.

Then, on the morning of my twelfth birthday in December,  my Dad brought in a brown parcel with a return address from “Kimberly Clark”. He added the brown paper package to the pile of birthday presents from family members.

That morning, the neighbor kids showed up early for our car-pool with a birthday present for me, I opened it. Then my Mom picked up the brown box–“What is this present? Who is this from?” she asked, then pushed it toward me–“open up this one too.”

I felt myself grow hot and pink. “I don’t know who it is from, are we going to be late for school?” But my Dad, sister and the neighbors protested, “open it, open it!” So, I did.

I pulled the tape and removed an aqua-purple toiletry kit from the box, “what is it?” someone said. I opened the kit, which contained tidy sections of pads, tampons and more brochures about pubic hair growth. “Oh” my mother said. “Well, let’s get to school”.

When I finally did get my period I was 13 –and a half. It came on a sticky day in June. I was the last of my friends to get it. I still didn’t want my period, but I was a bad liar, I felt uncomfortable when friends asked if I had it yet.

I wanted my period to fit in, but  I felt uncomfortable and angry when it came. Despite the school thinking it was a good idea to send period kits as birthday presents, and despite adults using flowery language, this was not a gift. But it was nature, it was time passing, it was a new era. Viva La womanhood.

Now, tell me your period stories! When did you get yours? Any horror stories to share?

Consider it a birthday “gift” to me!

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When you ask girls why they like make-up, the answer you’ll usually get is that it’s fun. That it’s creative, to blend the colors and paint your face. And that is one aspect of make-up, it is creative, it is part of fashion and can be a way for us to project our mood and interior life.

But, one of my favorite reasons that we wear make-up is that it’s sexual. There was a study cited in the book Do Gentleman Prefer Blondes that had men rated photos of women with and without make-up, and say which were more attractive.

The men consistently rated the women with make-up as more beautiful, except when the women were ovulating. Then the men rated them as the same. Ovulation is the time that we are able to get pregnant, so it’s also when our bodies are trying to trick us into having sex. One of the natural magic tricks it pulls is that we become more beautiful, our skin clearer, lips fuller, eyes sparklier, kinda like we are wearing make-up. So it’s no wonder the guys rated the women sans make-up but  ovulating as the same as those wearing make-up.

But what I like to extract from that is this. Because humans can have sex whenever we want, not just when we are in “heat” that make-up is woman’s way of tricking nature, an unconscious tool that we use to lure would be-lovers into thinking we are fertile.

The make-up to sexuality connection seems pretty obvious if you think about it. When I asked twitter, one friend noted: “You could get all anthropological about that – red lips mimic the genitals and so forth.” Yeah. And then that made me think about lip gloss as a phenomenon, and making our lips look all wet and well…okay enough there.

So, wearing make-up is in part about sex. I knew this inherently when I was first starting to wear make-up because it made me feel sexy. We know make-up is linked to sex because it’s taboo for young girls to wear it, and that anyone in make-up before puberty is just “playing dress up”

So, we know this but we aren’t totally open about it. We say we wear make-up, not because it’s part of our sexuality but because becomes it makes us look good, or because it’s fun or that’s what you do when you are a girl. What if we owned the sexuality of it, yeah I wear make-up when I want to get laid.

Because the sexuality of it is inherent. And if that remains unconscious, I think it could lead to low self esteem, whether sexually or in other areas.

There are people who say that women dress up for other women, wear make-up for other women. Yes, I think that’s true but it doesn’t make it any less sexual. That is just us peacocking around to each other, proving our prowess and virility.

Owning that you wear make-up for sexual reasons, I think can be very freeing. Anytime you become aware of something unconscious, something that is biological, you can begin to overcome it. You can decide what of that you want to keep and what you want to move away from.

So, maybe you want to own wearing make-up when you are feeling sexual. Or maybe once you become aware that make-up is just boosting your sexual ego, you no longer need it and can choose to move away from it.

What I begin to wonder, is what role would make-up have in a society that is not sexually repressed? Would we need make-up? Would we still have it?

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It’s an unplanned bonus post!  I’m night-capping No Make-up Week day one with a video. The bloggers I mention in this video are Alexis Belon’s Every Freckle, Apricot Tea’s No Make-up Week introduction and The Beautiful Kind’s (warning, she’s a sex blogger) No Make-up Intro.

BEWARE THE MOM BLUSH BRUSH ZOMBIEE~~~!!! That is all.

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I talk fast. Here is the text.

With the book “Sex at Dawn” coming out there a light is suddenly shed on research that shows humans are not naturally monogamous. From evolutionary psychology, we know that men are naturally non-monogamous, their urge being to spread as much seed as possible. But it was long believed that women were inherently monogamous, however, not exactly right. We now know that women are actually hypergamous by nature. Which means they are with one partner at a time, but are always looking for a trade-up. A partner who will bring home a bigger boar, who has a bigger cave.

So. Humans are naturally non monogamous. Most of us in relationships are going against our biology. Does this mean that you should just stop what you are doing, open your relationship up?

An easy answer is “it’s just biology, and you can overcome your biology.” This is true. I mean, we’ve been overcoming it for years, right. But I’m not sure that I can argue it has worked out too well. I think that it is important to look at what we know about our natural behavior, especially when culture dictates against it.

I don’t think that monogamy by default is good. I think that when you enter a relationship this is something that needs to be explored, questioned so you can find where you each are.

But, I think in order for non-monogamy to work you have to be ready for it, emotionally and psychologically. Personally, I don’t know that I could psychologically handle my husband having a girlfriend. The thing is that choosing non monogamy might suite your biology but is going against culture, against the world that has been impressed on you, against your thought patterns. I don’t think non-monogamy is any easier an answer. It takes a ridiculous amount of strength in self, and strength in your relationship. And further, blindly choosing non-monogamy can be just as damaging, if not more, than monogamy by default.

But what grounds a good relationship is not monogamy or non monogamy. Relationships are built on some basic tenets and virtues of how you approach life and how you will approach each other. Honesty, communication, self knowledge. I think for the most part, this stays solid, but the rest needs to be fluid.

It is normal to be attracted to other people. In my relationship, because we value honesty, I tell my partner when i feel attracted to other people, and when this attraction worries me. It keeps us on top of where we are, and what we feel is okay.

My partner and I are monogamous. Now, when one says something like “my partner and I are monogamous” we have this thing, where we think it has to mean forever. But just because something works for you now doesn’t mean it always will.I think we need to be more fluid in our relationships, and allow for change as we naturally change. Keep an open mind, whether you are monogamous or non.

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I don’t think we really allow men to really explore their sexuality. When they do they are seen as “icky” to an extent, in turn male sex toys are seen as “icky.” I wonder if guys themselves afraid of sex toys. A majority of men’s sex toys are made to stimulate the prostate, anal toys.  In our culture it seems exploring anal stimulation sparks homophobia.  I think the new homophobia is a more personally directed fear. As LGBTQ becomes mainstream, so does the awareness that gay-bashing is not okay. So instead of “you are a fag” it becomes, “Well its okay for you, but I’M not gay.” It becomes this paranoia about your own sexuality.

But beyond guys being scared, are we scared of guys that use sex toys? It’s a weird double standard. There is such a friendly attitude toward vibrators but with male masturbation-sleeves it’s a resounding “ewww”. The only legitimate “ew” issue with sleeves is clean-up but you can buy ones that are easier to clean. Fleshlights are easy to clean, there are sleeves you can boil. So that argument really doesn’t stand up for me.

With sleeves it sometimes seems like we are seeing the toy as a disembodied vagina and that is what makes it weird or gross. And I don’t think that we think of dildos this way, so I’ve got to wonder why. I think maybe it’s because we objectify women. We put value on a woman’s body, on her looks. In porn, all we see are disembodied penises, we don’t care about ogling the whole man or putting him on a pedestal. A dildo is a toy.

I think “sleeves are icky” is a result of the male version of the madonna/whore dichotomy. Either you are a good, nice guy or you are mechanical, you want a hole to fuck. And guys who use sleeves get painted with the “hole to fuck” stereotype.

A new study came out about vibrator use and men by Michael Reese and Debra Herbenik. This was a follow-up to their study last year which found that 45% of men reported having used a vibrator. This time they studied gay and bi men and dug into how they use vibrators and when. The vast majority was anal use. Most of guys agreed that vibrators increased arousal, pleasure, and orgasm, but they didn’t strongly agree with these statements.

A post on About.com noted that last part was interesting Because, according to the author so often people talk about sex toys as this life altering experience that will solve all of your problems and that’s really not what it is.

It’s hard to justify the price of sex toys. How many times do you really use it? But I think it should be looked at as entertainment. As an experience. Not this sex-life changing thing. And it’s an experience that I think men, like everyone, should be able to freely explore.

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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.

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I read this theory last night, and woke up a bit puffy eyed and excited to share it with you.

Overview

A new theory published in Archives of Sexual Behavior shows again that men and women aren’t that different. This theory explains the shape of the human penis and how it evolved to where it is now. In this explanation the foreskin as an important part of the penis and  it’s evolution.

So this study says that while the glans scoops vaginal secretions, the foreskin absorbs them. Now why would it do that? Well there were some studies awhile ago that proved that semen actually had psychological effects on women by releasing certain brain-chemicals, making them less depressed and more bonded to their partner. So, basically it works both ways. Like semen, vaginal secretions also have a psychological effect on dudes. Eurohormones are released that are associated with bonding and are thought to trigger protective behavior among males for their partners. So potentially by cutting the foreskin off, you cut off this natural sexual effect.

In the mainstream we have this idea that male sexuality is so simple where-as female sexuality is shrouded in mystery, you’ve got to push the right buttons and pull the right levers to unlock it. Of course, this is dismissive of guys sexuality and just not true. Biology shows that our sexual responses aren’t all that different.

To me, the the un-cut cock also shows this.

Seeing a foreskin, I feel like we don’t actually look that different from one and other “down there”.  There are all those lame  jokes about a woman’s smell, but if you know an un-cut man intimately you know that genital-smell is a human phenomenon, not a female one. Also we have lubrication and they have lubrication–the foreskin helps guys retain that moisture.

I was talking to a friend recently and she reminded me of when we were younger and she told me her boyfriend was uncut. My response was all “eww how do you deal with that?” I was talking shit when I had no idea what I was talking about, I’d never even seen an uncut cock.

But, I think that is a normal reaction for American girls. We aren’t used to seeing it, and the unfamiliar is easily dismissed. But it’s natural. It’s the way men were meant to be, the way we were made to have sex with men.

So, to 19 year old Rabbit I say, hey keep an open mind. Also, do your research about  foreskins, sex with foreskins and what circumcision does before you form an opinion. Think deeply about it before you speak.

If you want to learn more about circumcision and foreskin check out Penn & Tellers Bullshit episode of circumcision  or the work of Marilyn Milos of NOCIRC.

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Show Notes

Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction. Asexuals are not anti-sex, they just could not care less about having it. David Jay is the founder of AVEN (Asexual Visibility and Education Network) and is arguably the person who single-handedly whipped together the asexuality movement.

In this segment the basics about asexuality are not covered, what I pulled from the interview is a conversation about intimacy… and non sexual intimacy in particular. Asexuals have a refreshing point of view on sex because they are removed from it, yet many consider themselves sex positive. I think there is so much information that sexual people can learn from asexuals and the topics the asexuality movement focuses on. It was so exciting for me to hear David talk about non-sexual intimacy because this is a big part of my life and my relationship– and to me it is more important than sex.

I truly think that if the sex-positive movement and the asexuality movement were to fuse their ideas, we could reach a state in human relationships and sexuality where we could become unstoppable–whole.