Get in the Right Mindset: 5 Ways to Avoid Bad Sex

Note: This post originally appeared on In Our Words.

Yes, Gentle Readers, it even happens to David Chastity. Bad sex. Sometimes you go to boink and everything goes wrong, and not in that cute “haha whoops that was my elbow, sorry!” way, but in that way where you just want to get up mid-thrust and walk into the other room and watch a movie instead. Alone. But don’t despair! There are lots of reasons Bad Sex happens, and just as many things you can do to avoid it. Let’s look at some of them:

1. Communicate.

Yes, yes, I harp on this all the time. But for a reason! We all have variations on what we like to do when we smoosh our bits together, and if you don’t develop some kind of understanding with your partner, how are you ever gonna get what you want? I have a list of things I really don’t like, and the sooner I mention that my body don’t work that way, the better for both of us. When someone tells me they really like something, I can start doing that all the time, which is fun for everyone. Beyond that, sex apparently has something to do with trust and intimacy, or at least works best when you have similar expectations of trust and intimacy levels. So if you can manage to not be in the middle of an argument with your sex partner, you’re probably gonna have nicer sex than if you both are seething inside.

2. Take Care of Yourself.

Recently, Thing One’s small children were away at grandma’s house, vastly increasing the amount of sleep and self-care Thing One was capable of. We enjoyed a quiet evening at home together, not chasing a single toddler, and by the time we made it to bed, discovered that we had all kinds of leftover energy for particularly good sex. Alas, parents of small children don’t usually get to choose to prioritize their lives for Maximum Sexual Pleasure, but all of us who don’t have to make sure a tiny person doesn’t die Every Damn Day can try harder to do things like get enough sleep and eat some decent food and maybe even exercise with our clothes on sometimes. Sex is a body thing, and the better your body feels, the better the sex will be.

3. Get in the Right Mindset.

Sex is a holy thing for me, and I’ve had some of the best sex ever immediately after meditating, worship, or prayer. I’m not saying this has to become part of your routine (it’s not actually in my normal set of behaviors, because apparently I’m too lazy to spend a minute or two preparing to have even better sex?). What I am saying is that being present and focused can do wonders. That old stereotype about a lady just laying there thinking about the grocery list while her husband pumps away? Don’t be that lady.

4. Have Some Standards.

I’m not saying you can’t take that random person from the bar home with you before you’re even quite sure what their name is. Random hookups can be great! If it’s 3 am and you’re just kind of horny and really drunk, though, it’s okay to take a dishonorable discharge. After all, you know what you’re capable of, and that desperation number in the corner could go either way. Moreover, if you HAVE hooked up with someone and it was so-so, you’d better have a good reason to go back for seconds, like strong mutual interests and shared values that set the stage for a solid long-term relationship in which you can both learn new sexual skills. One of my worst sexual experiences recently was with someone I had hooked up with before quite successfully, and then kept finding reasons to avoid based on some confusing subconscious feeling. Once I finally talked that inner voice into silence and invited Hook-Up back to my bed, it turns out that he was really bad at listening and boundaries, and I couldn’t wait to kick him out and never see him again. If only I had known that my misgivings were legitimate!

5. Do Your Research.

None of us, not even David Chastity, are born with sex therapist level skills. Did you know that sex therapists go to school for YEARS to learn to do what they do? So don’t worry if you’re sometimes the reason Bad Sex happens. We all have more things we can learn, and learning is fun! Get yourself some queer-friendly, feminist, realistic porn- the kind with real couples is the best for this purpose- and watch for ideas. Google lists of sex positions, and spend the afternoon laughing about the least practical, then go and try something that seems simple but interesting. Wander down to the local sex shop and pick out a new toy (or just talk to the clerks for a while! A fun game: find something that totally baffles you, then go ask what it does.)

Find times to casually talk about sex with your partner, if you’ve got one of those consistent partners. Sometimes it’s easier to mention what we like and don’t like away from the pressure of “and we’re about to do this!” If you’re struggling with a specific skill, look for instructional books or videos- there are tons of great resources, but Dr Ruthie’s Exploring Intimacy is one of my favorites. There’s no shame in wanting to up your game, and a patient, loving partner will probably be happy to help you work on something that will lead to both of you getting off better!

We can’t always avoid Bad Sex, but it doesn’t have to be a constant danger. And remember, you’re not obligated to finish what you start! If it’s not working for you, you can stop at literally any time- consent only lasts as long as you want it, after all. Having the self-confidence to say “I don’t want any more of this” is just as important to Good Sex as saying “I want a whole lot more of THAT!”

Let’s Get Some Shoes: On Being a Queer Feminist Femme Who Loves High Heels

Note: this post originally appeared on In Our Words.

Sometimes Pandora makes terrible choices about what to advertise to me. Engagement rings, diapers, and luxury cars have all been known to show up on the breaks between Jesus Christ Superstar and Garth Brooks, forcing me to wonder when I can start hitting thumbs-down on items completely irrelevant to my life. Sometimes Pandora is right on the mark, though, like when they tell me about Taco Bell and Doritos teaming up to create the Ultimate Stoner Food, or remind me how much I love Google+ Hangouts. But by far my favorite, most relevant Pandora ads are for SHOES. Just today I glanced over to find a gorgeous bright pink peep-toe stiletto with sequins, and spent a good 30 or 90 seconds just admiring its beauty. You see, I am one of those girls who loves high heels.

I sometimes feel like I should apologize for it. After all, I’m a feminist, and a queer, and I know that heels do terrible things to your body and are just designed to make you look sexy for men! And yet. I see an exciting pair of shoes, and I feel like one of those ladies in a commercial. It doesn’t help that I also love weddings, like, so much, and would eat yogurt all the time if I could, because yogurt is delicious. And the next thing I know I’m aerating my boyfriend’s back yard at his first wife’s wedding because I just had to wear these shoes that are so cute, and also all my eye makeup is sweating off so it looks like I’m crying, and Oxygen is pulling up in a van to offer me a new reality show just for women. Okay, I made that last part up, but you get the point. I’m an accidental stereotype.

I wasn’t always this way. Both my grandmothers were cookie cutter tomboys, athletic women who had no interest in fashion and such silliness. When my mom was little, her mom kept her hair cut short for maximum ease, which once led a child to ask my mother if she was a boy or a girl, a traumatizing experience we hear about at every major holiday and family gathering. (Whether this early androgyny has given my mom better sympathy for gender outlaws is a topic for another day.) So by the time I came along, I inherited a family tradition of practicality over aesthetics, encouraged to express myself through my clothes, sure, but thankfully avoiding the entire beauty industry until my adolescence was near over. While my high school friends were going to the salon with their moms for tanning, waxing, manicures, and whatever else femmes are apparently required to do, I was watching Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and wondering if I should ask my mom about moisturizer. Surrounded as I was by pop culture gay men, I spent my late teens trying to express my masculine side, mostly by reading gender theory and cutting pictures of male teen heartthrobs out to put on my wall. Being a teenager is confusing.

Fortunately, the gender theory I stumbled into was good stuff, and I even managed to stumble into a college so queer it invited Kate Bornstein to speak at orientation. Living on an all-queer hall in the dorms, I made friends with trans kids and started to feel less like I had to be a boy to like boys. I learned how to bind my chest and started collecting neckties and began doing drag in multiple genders. Other people may talk about going to costume parties in college, but I don’t think that I went to a single party without a costume. Somewhere in that four years of trying on dozens of genders, I came out with a pretty femme one.

I’ve only gotten more femme in the years since I left college. I no longer start my trip to the thrift store in the menswear section, but instead make a beeline to the shoes. Nothing can change my attitude and outlook quite as drastically as putting on a pair of heels, the higher the better. Recently, Thing Two’s metamour had a Drag Karaoke party for their birthday. I leaped at the chance to play dress up again, and got even more excited when I realized I could bring Thing One with me and coordinate our outfits. In my classic overachieving style, I decided to do Velvet Goldmine, me Brian Slade and he Curt Wild, and that meant I got to go buy New Shoes.

I found them at one of those places that buys and resells clothes, just a step up from Goodwill. I’m a size 6, and I’ve never had an issue fitting shoes, which helps explain my love. And there on the sale shelf sat a pair of 5 inch black velour platform heels. For something like $5, I got the highest heels I’ve ever owned (a distinction that was previously held by the dominatrix boots I bought for $10 before my first porn shoot). I got a lot of other great clothes to make two fantastic glam rock outfits, but nothing excited me like these shoes. I spent days practicing wearing them. I watched a video about how to walk in heels, just to make sure my technique was right. Still, faced with the prospect of walking some 8 blocks on uneven sidewalks to the karaoke bar, I wore flats on the way over and switched at the bar. Thing Two called me a wimp, claiming he’s walked farther in worse. I don’t believe him. My shoes (and everything else) were a party hit, and I’m sort of sad I don’t have places to go in ridiculous heels every week.

And I’m still a really good feminist. I play high femme because I love it, and I’m just as comfortable rolling out of bed unshowered, putting on the same shorts I’ve been wearing for a week, and going out to breakfast because my interest in scrambled eggs is a lot higher than my interest in looking cute. This is the real point of feminism: not rejecting one form of being a woman in favor of a more acceptable one, but instead opening the roles up for all of us to pick how we want to be. Moreover, I’d argue that my embrace of femme style is a pro-woman stance: rather than claiming that the only way to be equal is to reject that which is feminine, and thus masculinize ourselves, I celebrate the fun of that which is entirely associate with the female. People who are authentically butch should stay butch, but those of us femmes are equally right to buy ridiculous heels and wear glitter eye makeup and laugh over our bowls of fruit.

Avoiding the Big Talk: Coming Out to People As Poly

Note: This post originally appeared on In Our Words.

Like everyone else, I was so pleased to read Anderson Cooper’s coming out letter when Nico posted it on Facebook about an hour after it went live. I felt such empathy for the way Anderson has guarded his privacy; I’ve written before about the reasons I remain closeted. I’ve been trying something new recently, though. Something that feels kind of like what Anderson was talking about.

I started a new job a few months ago. I have only two co-workers, one of whom is one of my dearest friends and knows most of my secrets. The other, our boss, is a Canadian Quaker who looks like Tom Cruise, a likeness we are not allowed to mention, because “Tom Cruise is just such a bad person.” So, basically, I work for the most polite person you have ever met. It’s a friendly office, and sometimes we talk about our feelings in staff meetings, because that’s just how we are.

So, I’ve been trying something new. It used to be that I was either super-closeted about being polyamorous, or I had one of those big Coming Out moments, when I’d sit someone down and say “so I’m poly” and draw a chart of all my partners and theirs and answer all those questions that people inevitably have. But I’ve gotten tired of feeling like I have to have a Big Talk with people just to provide context for whose adorable dog is living in my house. Instead, I’m trying that thing that straight monogamous people do when they talk about their partners. I just talk about them. I mention someone either by name or drop in the title “boyfriend,” and then tell whatever story I was going to tell. (At a recent happy hour, for unrelated reasons, my boss raised a toast to “polyamory and stuff.” He’s clearly gonna be fine with whatever he learns.)

So far, it’s been subtle. I haven’t felt a burning need to tell people who don’t already know about going to karaoke with my boyfriend and his wife. Thing Two went and moved in with me the other week, and I kind of mentioned that to my boss when talking about my weekend. He didn’t really notice or ask further questions. Folks who have tread the line about coming out know that feeling, when you get away with a mention without making a Big Deal of it, and then you kind of want to make a Big Deal about how chill that whole situation is.

Work is one of the last frontiers for me to come out at. I came out at seminary in a slightly bigger way. On our very first day of orientation, we all sat in a big circle and went around to talk about where we were from and who was waiting at home for us. I hadn’t decided yet what I would do, but when it came around to me, I just said it. Said “I’m polyamorous” and then described Thing One and his family and how they’re my family, too. When I met Thing Two a few months later, my seminary friends were some of the people I got to gush to. When Thing One married his second wife, I put a picture on my seminary Facebook group, right along with the pictures of my classmates’ weddings. I talked openly about my relationship structure in Sexuality class, and people thanked me for my honesty and the diversity it’s brought.

I’ve never gotten any flack for coming out as poly. I’m careful, of course, and only disclose to people I assume will react well. A few people express concern, probably because they’re imagining something more like traditional polygamy and less like an open, ethical, equal relationship structure. So I get to educate those people and promise that I’m being treated well and my needs are met, and that everyone is really wonderful and we’re going to be fine.

I haven’t come out to my parents, or any of my extended bio-family. Thing One and I have been dating for almost two years at this point, and I mentioned that I was dating him to my parents a few months into the relationship. They’ve asked no questions about him, not even an age or an occupation or any sort of innocuous detail. When I went on vacation with him and his wives and children, I simply told my parents I was going with his family. They asked nothing even then. I have brought Thing One to none of the family gatherings that happen just 45 minutes from where we live, even though my cousins regularly bring partners. No one has yet asked me to make an excuse for his absence.

I’m having a little fun with my parents’ WASP-y refusal to pry now that Thing Two has moved in with me. I’ve mentioned Thing Two by name, but with no other description, a few times. Once when I visited him in the town he used to live in, my mom remarked that it was strange that I was going to see him when he’d been in my town so recently. I gave her no further information. And so now she knows that he lives with me, and that he likes her taste in mugs and is also taking my allergy pills, and I’m waiting to see if my parents ever work up the nerve to ask a question about him. I should be waiting a while.

Back before I was so poly that I needed to consult nine people to plan a date night, I identified pretty openly as polyamorous to anyone who asked. I felt no qualms about publicly disparaging monogamy (ah, the know-it-all tendencies of youth), nor did I feel that anyone would ever stop me from doing anything for my poly identity. These days, I walk a line between wanting to protect myself and to protect my poly family. I worry about being kicked out of church work for failing to live up to someone else’s family values. But I still have some of that snotty teenager in me. I think about telling the Bishop I’m not interested in ordination because the life of a pastor isn’t compatible with my family.

Ultimately, I want to be out the way I am at work. I’m tired of the Big Talk, and I’m tired of feeling like I can’t mention the people who matter to me. I want to put a couple photos up and say what I’ve been doing honestly and easily, in passing. Here’s to hoping that’s how it goes. If not, I’ll just steal Anderson’s letter and change the words to be about me.

Reclaiming Family Values: Proof that Poly Relationships are Biblically Based

Note: this post originally appeared on In Our Words.

You know what I’m tired of? Conservative, heterosexual, monogamous Christians being the only ones who get to talk about family values. I’ve recently decided to reclaim the word family for my partners and theirs and those other dear wonderful people who float around my inner circle and whom I used to refer to as my Herd. Because then I can claim that I’m not willing to do something because it conflicts with my family responsibilities, and that shuts people up real damn fast.

Of course, you don’t have the real Moral High Ground until you can prove that your family is Biblically based. Fortunately, my views on family are way more supported by the Abrahamic faiths than this bullshit about one man who is in Total Control and one obedient woman. Here are some of my favorite marriages in the Bible:

1. Abraham.

This dude is looked to as both the first Jew AND the first Muslim, and Christians are also a big fan of how he and God were BFFs who ate dinner together all the time. So what did Abraham’s marriage look like? Well, his legal wife Sarah happened to be his half-sister, but he’s early enough in the Bible that people don’t seem to care about that. Abraham really wanted people to know that fact, though, so much so that, every time he arrived in a foreign land, he would introduce Sarah only as his sister, only to find that suddenly she got swooped up and placed in some king’s harem and then Abraham would have to go and apologize and awkwardly free her. This literally happens three times, guys. But don’t worry, Abraham wasn’t a sad mono partner. When Sarah failed to get pregnant, she generously offered her handmaiden Hagar to Abraham, with whom he promptly conceived a son. Of course, then Sarah got jealous and threw Hagar and Ishmael out, which is really poor poly manners. No matter, the First Family Of Three Major Religions remains poly as all get out.

2. Jacob. 

Jacob is Abraham’s grandson, and picked up his grandfather’s polygamous ways after Isaac, who was completely monogamous, proved to be a Really Boring Character Who Couldn’t Even Tell His Own Damn Sons Apart. Jacob did it kind of my accident, though, because he fell in love with this girl Rachel, but her dad switched her for her sister Leah at the last minute and apparently Jacob didn’t notice until the next morning and then they were already married, so whoops? Anyway he got to marry Rachel eventually, too, creating the first literal Sister Wives. What I actually love most about Jacob’s marriage is this wonderful little scene in Genesis 30, when one of Leah’s sons has harvested some mandrakes, which apparently were supposed to increase fertility. Rachel was desperate to get pregnant, and so she asked Leah to help her out. Leah agreed, but only if Rachel let her have a Sexy Date Night with Jacob. This kind of metamour bargaining happens all the time in my life, and I’m charmed to see it so plainly in the Bible.

3. David.

David is considered the Best King Israel Ever Had, and he’s deeply associated with the Messianic myth. Neither Christians nor Jews can pretend they don’t venerate him. And do you know how many wives David had? I don’t, actually, because no one can quite keep track of them all. Everyone knows about Bathsheba, the woman whose husband David had murdered after he got her pregnant via extramarital affair. David’s divine punishment for this action? That baby died, but then the next baby Bathsheba had was his heir Solomon, aka the embodiment of all Wisdom. David’s got some other wives with good stories, though! Abigail is my favorite. She’s married to this guy Nabal, who refused to help David when he was fleeing Saul’s armies (long story). Abigail apparently had a big crush on David, though, because she sent him supplies without Nabal’s knowledge. God apparently was so touched at Abigail’s generosity that he immediately struck Nabal dead so that David could marry her. Even though David was already married. God really wanted to make sure David had lots of variety among his wives, you see.

4. Solomon. 

David’s son Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. It would take him two and three-quarters years to have sex with all of them, if he fucked only one per day. Respect.

5. Hosea. 

Hosea was a prophet, and his prophetic career began when God told him to marry a prostitute. Because Israel had been slutty, see, and just like Sarah Palin opposes abortion so much that she had a special needs baby, Hosea opposed Israel’s spiritual sluttiness so much that he married a real slutty lady and raised the children she conceived by other men. And probably lived off her prostitution profits, because Political Performance Art can’t be that lucrative.

I also want to give a Special Bonus Mention to the Prophet Muhammad, who was a proud polygamist. What I like about Islam is that it does set limits on polygamy (four wives per man), which is a pretty good practical rule for polyamorists, too. Once you get past four serious partners, scheduling gets real damn hard. The Prophet had way more than four wives, though (13!), because he is Special. He actually seems to have been a really great guy to them; many of his wives were widows or orphans, i.e. women who didn’t have a lot of options on their own. Marrying the Prophet gave them status, security, and opportunity they never would have had otherwise, and that’s honorable.

So, there you have it. That Bible folks love to thump is chock-full of families that look like mine, only with a lot more murders and a lot fewer happy dinners followed by board games and beers. I think I’ll stick to my Family Values, thanks very much.