["Quantity vs. Quality" doesn't work for several reasons, including its being depressing.]
I must sometimes, reluctantly, face the fact that having had a lot of partners doesn't necessarily mean having had a lot of sex. Once, I told a friend my number* and she did in fact say, "That's a lot of sex!" But it's simple math--if you're in a long-term relationship, you're probably having sex a few times a week for years; if you're like me, you're having sex once every month or so, plus those little two-month islands in which you're actually dating someone. I'll wait while you run those numbers.
Yeah. Exactly.
I suppose I've never had extensive hands-on tutelage--at least not with the same mentor/equipment. So sometimes when I get into a naked situation I feel a bit...remedial. This is especially true when it's not a one-nighter, or when I'm with someone whom I know has had long-term relationships. While I've tried a lot of different things--usually more than your average single-digit-history person--I'm not necessarily proficient at any one of them.
This is mostly paranoia. The things I have little practice with are usually the advanced or novelty kind of practices, which most people do not expect you to be expert about. And while I think I am probably pretty good at most of this stuff, and have a good attitude towards sex (which is important), I do get self-conscious about technique**.
So, be encouraging. Even sluts get performance anxiety.
*Back when it was only ten!
**Especially when it comes to oral.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Depth Vs. Breadth
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Susan B's Words To Live By: No Girl-On-Girl Crime
I have nothing but derision for women who say they don't like women. I hope I don't need to explain why--basically, in addition to being insulting because it means they don't like me, it means they are not interesting people, and spend their time sucking up to the male gender because that's who they want to fuck, and they're fooling themselves about why. To say "I don't like women" is to buy into the notion that male=good, female=bad,* and of course it's to buy into assumptions about what constitutes male and female behavior to begin with.
My general theory on, well, everything, is that EVERYONE is pretty lame**, but we notice certain behaviors and ascribe them to whatever gender is relevant to our sexual orientation. For example, a straight girl is going to have relationships with boys, so if her partner is a jerk, that means boys are jerks. And if the same girl's female friend goes after a boy she likes, that means girls are disloyal. But if the genders were reversed, I imagine a straight boy would feel the same way about girls and boys, respectively.
With me?
I say this because I'm about to talk about loyalty, but I want you all to know that I'm not saying This Is How Girls Act. This is how some, not most, people act, and the ones I'm talking about are girls because that's who I'm in "competition" with. I don't know how boys act amongst each other, but I do know that "women are bitches who only like jerks" is as common a notion as "men are jerks who only like bitches." Equal-opportunity bitterness.
But. I will tell you how to be a better girlfriend (as in, to a girl). Today's twin wise-sayings, ready for your implementation:
-If a guy treats your friend badly, and acts like a career jerk, it is your job to shun him.
-If a possibly cool guy is potentially interested in your friend, it is your job to cheer them both on.
Which can really be boiled down to one, all-encompassing commandment:
Help a sister out.
Seriously. I feel that I have always been the kind of friend who wants my friends to be happy, and if this means them getting together with a guy, I will do my best to help. There are totally loving friends out there, of all genders, who WILL NOT DO THIS. I don't get it. I don't want to get it. I just want to say that it is time for this to stop. As I've said--karma works between lifetimes, not within, so we have to do the work ourselves. Justice must be served!
So get out there and serve some fucking justice already. Jeez.
*I should definitely post on Girlie Feminism soon, because it's an important thing to think about and I wish I'd discovered it sooner. So, uh, remind me.
**Okay, fine, has the capacity to be pretty lame.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Fictional Ingrates
My roommate and my neighbor and I have a Monday tradition. First: dinner at our local bar cuz food is half-price on Mondays. Second: How I Met Your Mother, which is an awesome show, and is by and about graduates of our alma mater. Third: Neighbor Steve buys beer, we flip away from The Big Bang Theory as quickly as possibly lest it injure our brains, and we watch the second half of Chuck*. We have never seen the first half of Chuck, due to HIMYM, but we very much enjoy the latter half. Every time we tune in, a gun is pointed at somebody's head (and sometimes something's threatening to blow up!). It's like skipping to the sex scenes in a romance novel. (Though we are still planning to by the DVD when it comes out and have a party where we watch only the beginning of each episode.)
However, last night's episode betrayed me. Not the main plot, the plot with Chuck's Dorkier Friend Morgan (a male Morgan). They all work in a Buy More, a big electronics store in a strip mall, and apparently something embarrassing happened with Morgan and the hot (and Asian! which is TV code for hot) sales clerk Anna. I of course don't actually know what happened but whatever. Then, as this is TV, Anna comes to like the less-attractive Morgan and they make out. Morgan is excited because Chuck was in a relationship, and maybe he was feeling left out or something? Cuz when Chuck breaks up with his girl, Morgan immediately goes on the Buy More FUCKING LOUD SPEAKER and casually rattles off, "Anna, it's been great but it's just not working out." (Or something to that effect.) Obviously, it's far better for he and Chuck to be single together (cuz y'know, THAT was going so well for them) then for Morgan to score with someone seriously cool.
WTF, mate? Morgan sorta gets his comeuppance (Chuck reveals that he's actually getting back together with his OLD gf), but it still pissed me off. That is the worst TV dumping since Berger left Carrie that Post-It note. Roommate Katey, less miffed, fondly noted the homosexual bond between male friends, and its frequency on TV. And, true. But. What a douche! I am personally laying a curse upon Morgan's head: may he never again feel a woman's touch, as he is incapable of truly appreciating it. I spit upon you! You have lost all ability to arouse empathy OR sympathy, which is half the point of a Dorkier Friend!
Sheesh. Nerds today.
*And then we watch Heroes and as much as we can of Journeyman before getting bored, but that's irrelevant to the post.
Friday, November 16, 2007
That Helpful Third Wheel
Your friend Susan B. does not date a lot. It's not that I'm a sad sack sitting around moaning for a boyfriend*, and I've dated nicely this year, but usually I am not in a relationship, and don't have many serious ones under my belt.
And yet.
I have always found this really funny, but my becoupled friends love to ask me for relationship advice. I don't understand why. Sometimes there's a clear reason--like, there's a specific issue and they know I have knowledge or experience in that area--but much of the time there is not. One pair in college simply tried to make me into their couples therapist. And I wonder about the impulse. Is it because I was a psych major? Because I seem generally wise? Or is it partially--and I've long suspected this--that they think my chronic singledom means I know something they don't? A lot of people in relationships romanticize being single to a degree, but I wonder if some of my friends (especially ones who are younger or don't know me THAT well) view me as somehow above the fray. There was a Times article after the Dumbledore outing about how "[t]he master wizard is not a sexual being; he has shelved personal cares and embraced a higher mission." So maybe I'm some kind of paladinic guru! (On the other hand, no one that I recall asked Gandalf for relationship advice.)
But seriously folks. I guess it's that people want an outside perspective, and a single person is more outside than someone in a different relationship that comes with its own problems and biases. But why a PERPETUALLY single person? Eh, I dunno. I don't dislike it --except in situations where I feel like people ONLY want to hang out so they can tell me about their romantic problems--and I love being there for my friends and being trusted to help, or at least sympathize, with their important issues. But I don't really understand it. One of my friends posited, mostly joking, that I was single BECAUSE of all the relationship tsuris I'd ingested over the years. She envisioned me meeting the man of my dreams, getting flooded with the memory of every bad story I'd been told, and running in the opposite direction. Which is a convenient excuse--I'm not a dateless loser, I've just been scared straight!
But, yknow, probably the Loser Hypothesis is a little more accurate :)
*That would be what we call "four years of college."
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