Tag: sexual dysfunction

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Ashley Madison and American Hypocrisy 


What do I think about the Ashley Madison come Josh Duggar (a name I first heard yesterday) “scandal”? Not too much. Surprising coming from someone whose blog is themed on the mistress in that word’s narrowest and broadest sense. But I have written a lot on the subject of infidelity from all sides, and much boils down to the same recurring ideas:

People get hurt–are hurt–and that saddens me. Luckily, counseling resources for the infidelity-wounded exist. Some have called those hurt by infidelity, victims, like the wife of this Duggar, publicly humiliated by someone who apparently spoke out in defense of “family values.” A shame, but the story often unfolds as more complicated than good guys and bad guys, abusers and victims.

People are not honest. Relationships survive on honesty, an ongoing practice that most are not dedicated to but expect from others.

America’s hypocrisy and sexual dysfunction fosters dysfunctional relationships. It is no secret that what we say what we want is not what we want–or do. I featured this article from The Daily Beast before, but it reports the unsurprising facts and bears repeating:

 

As Pew reports, extramarital affairs are generally condemned worldwide but the U.S. still seems to be uniquely moralistic about them. In fact, most major developed nations in the world are more accepting of infidelity than the U.S., including Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, Spain, and Japan.

In France, a mere 47 percent of adults find extramarital affairs unacceptable, which is less an endorsement of their practice and more a reflection of a widespread refusal to think of it as “a moral issue.” In America, sex is a moral language by default; abroad, less so…
 

All this being said, Americans’ sexual words do match up with their sexual actions in some special cases. Fifty-seven percent of men and 65 percent of women approve of having babies outside of marriage, although CDC estimates show that only 40 percent of all births are to unmarried women. Divorce rates appear to be on their way down in the 21st century while acceptance of divorce has been steadily increasing.

But these are some of the only realistic moral attitudes in a country where sexual attitudes and sexual behavior tend to be dissonant. And although this mismatch might be mystifying in and of itself, the probable reasons behind it are not: the United States has the largest population of Christians of any country and is one of the only deeply religious wealthy nations in the world. That math—like most Americans—does itself.

Ashley Madison? Only in America.
 

credit: johnmbecker.com

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Where’s Letterman’s Sex Sidekick?

It’s a reminder that sex scandals are always harder on the women, tainting their career achievements if not outright erasing them.

  

In case you missed it a couple of weeks ago, the Washington Post write up of David Letterman’s farewell episode of the Late Show noted the glaring omission of Stephanie Burkitt from not only the farewell show but any of the episodes available on Youtube–none of the nearly 300 Burkitt appearances on the show are available to the public–and concluded with the unacknowleged, unspoken epitaph of the mistress: she was an evil temptress.  

Maybe because I was not a Late Show fan–not for lack of appreciation as much as lack of a later bed-time–but I think that’s horse crap. 

According to Argetsinger, the author of the WP article, the successful chemistry and therefore appeal of the Burkitt-Letterman on-air rapport in the short skits they performed and personae they adopted was most probably based on their behind-the-scenes affair. But as his mistress and therefore THE stain on Letterman’s not so much stellar as sentimentally-preserved reputation, Burkitt has been erased from the Late Show history. Boom. Missing, as if she never existed–and soon she will disappear from the fickle and short memory of adoring, gushing late-night television fans.

Maybe Burkitt, an established attorney now, wants it that way. I hope so. Otherwise, the celebrity worship culture strikes again like the mafia of the lottery of who gets fame/recognition and who gets persona non grata in show business. It’s who you know, right? Just not how you know who you know. 

Blech! American society’s sexual dysfunction and the war on women combine as complicit culprits in Burkitt’s on-air erasure of a significant portion, I’m guessing, of her history. It’s just part of the biz.

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Freud’s Immature Orgasm and Other Myths and Truths

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credit:  http://i.huffpost.com

Every day is a thrill to be alive, to be human–even when it’s not. Nothing pleases me more than settling into my writing routine each day with nothing on my mind. Reading around the Internet, then, is an adventure:  wide open. 

My day’s journey may start with poking around Facebook or Twitter to see what’s shaking in the world, immediate and distant, and then end with a question sparked by something I read, which then drives me to Google or some other engine, and so on until a shaped idea forms.
 
Today’s Facebook scan brought me to elephantjournal.com’s The Top 3 Secrets Women Tell Their Sex Coach. The word “sex” in the title did not pique my interest as I have read enough intolerably reductive “3 ways” articles about sex to last a lifetime. No, I was drawn to the idea of a sex coach.  My first thought:  “How much do they get paid and for doing what?”  All I could think of was my daughter’s soccer coaches yelling on the sidelines, “Move forward!!!  Now move back!!! Cross it, cross it!!” I recall paying them more than I could afford to yell at my kids. So is that what a sex coach does and what type of degree or schooling does that require? Are the final exams practicals? The possibilities are endless.
 
Goofball wise cracks aside, I read with an open curious mind and found the article while yes, reductive, not simplified. The three observations gathered from listening to hundreds of clients (wow, and I never even heard of a sex coach before this except for Masters & Johnson) were, in paraphrase, that women have difficulty having orgasm, they don’t like their partners’ touch but don’t know what to ask for and want to want sex more than they do. These three observations alone are not earth shattering news but the expansion upon each is worth the five minutes’ read.  
 
Summer Engman cites the porn industry, cultural dictates, women and men, the usual suspects, for  women’s lack of orgasm and realistic expectations. Again, none of this is revelatory to me so much as confirmation that my own intuition and vague recall of books I have read and lectures I have attended have not steered me wrong.
 
But the nagging thought persisted after reading this article:  It’s Freud’s fault. And I Googled just that. Aside from some hits I knew would appear, scrolling past Wikipedia and other usual fare with phrases “the immature orgasm”, I landed on Meghan Murphy’s It Happened To Me:  I Don’t Masturbate (But That Doesn’t Make Me a Bad Feminist) on xojane.com. While the title is intriguing enough, her insight and wit make this a worthy read and a nice counterpoint, sort of, to the tonal apogee, elephant journal’s serious arrival at sexual advice.  
 
Murphy’s take is she does not masturbate, does not feel the need, not wired that way, and to each her own. She is not offering advice so much as perspective. And not just that women are all different–duh–with different needs–duh–and different bodies and upbringing and anatomy, yadda, yadda…duh. She includes nod-your-head-in-an-amen tidbits like we know so much more about female anatomy now, i.e., the clitoris is not where and what you think it is because it’s way longer and probably parked in the vagina too, so Freud was operating in a clear deficit of information. He was mistaken. Women can and do have vaginal orgasms. 
 
I blame Freud for ruining everything for feminists who have vaginal orgasms (they’re the “mature, feminine” orgasms, he said, causing us all to rebel by only having “immature” clitoral orgasms).
 
Murphy’s saying so–vaginal dick-initiated orgasm is her thing–is neither proof nor an epiphany. But it is refreshing to read. Women (Hey, what do you know?) are diverse beings with a variety of pathways to orgasm. (Hey, what else do you know?) We don’t hear enough about that diversity.  
 
I am not disagreeing with Engman’s canvas of women’s sexual experience. I believe women of my era, specifically, have inherited a defensive posture toward sex from un or ill informed mothers and surrogate foremothers of second wave feminism, who were just trying to change the course of history, a tidal wave of oppression and missing or mis-information, kind of like steering a cruise liner’s direction with a wooden rowboat oar.  
 
So, I am content with my morning adventure into the too-often disappointing and disgruntling cyber world (maybe it’s just the ebb and flow of my moods) for today’s sea treasures I uncovered for my readers. I hope there is a tasty morsel there to savor (apologies to the non-pescatarian vegans) or something shiny to admire, at least.
 
Peace,
 
Gaze
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