So I went home, and checked out Grolier's multimedia encyclopedia. That opened up an entire web of vocabulary that was entirely new to me, and I read about the Kinsey reports and Masters and Johnson and connected things up with a host of jokes that had never really made any sense from a score of British comedies and Monty Python sketches. At 12, I had a useful working vocabulary to describe a lot of things I had not yet experienced.
By the time I did have sex, I knew a lot about sexual practices I had no interest in, and not very much about what I was interested in. I knew I didn't like any of my boyfriend's porn, and he had so much of it that I assumed that was pretty much what was out there in terms of hardcore porn, not just the realm of "I take off my robe and wizard hat," and comics about furries or Arthur Dent and Fenchurch flying that I was familiar with. So I accepted that this was what it was like and there wasn't much out there for me. Because I was strange; I'd never so much as kissed anyone until I was 19, and reader, I foolishly married him.
And now, I'm ostensibly single. I spent some time being weirded out by OKCupid, but all that did was confirm that, um, nope, I don't even want to meet any of those people.
Casual sex has never been a thing I've done. It's not really a thing I'm interested in.
But, I've spent a year filling in gaps I should have filled in sometime in the last decade. I still know a lot, academically speaking. I can discuss at length the various pros and cons of top of the line sex toys that I've never even seen in a shop, never mind used. I can talk about consent and individual sexual response and how the biologically female brain and body react to sexual stimuli, and I've read about a lot of kinks I'm still not in to.
When I was 13, the year after the dictionary and the encyclopedia clued me in on a vast universe, I read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy all the way through for the third time. I believe I mentioned Arthur and Fenchurch? I would go on to read The Catcher in the Rye and Lolita. Eventually, I discovered erotic literature and fan fiction and have always preferred it to visuals, but most of it is poorly written. Even published erotic fiction is pretty bad, probably because it all describes in lurid detail things I can imagine just as well without the description.
It is stupidly easy to get me off. Under extreme circumstances, I can almost manage without any physical stimulation whatsoever. Maybe because I was a 13 year old American trying to figure out what on earth Marks and Spencer made and what exactly was happening in the skies over Islington and what that had to do with The Beatles effect on teenage girls in the 60s, and succeeded in working it out. I've always had an extremely accessible imagination, so it doesn't take much.
One of the many, many things I'd always wanted to do and never had the opportunity for was sexting. Not photos, just text, words inside my brain from someone as interested in me as I was in them and channelling all the things I'd read. Now, it probably would have helped if the person I wanted to try it with was at least interested in literacy, but, I thought, it doesn't matter, I could make it work. It never came to pass.
It's the one thing I've tried this past year. I've been really worried that I am not inventive enough or knowledgeable enough or good enough to have sex with- the one person I have had sex with told me often enough that I wasn't very good at it. I'm learning to remind myself that he defined good sex as the kind where he laid there and did nothing. So. But I still worry.
Casual sex has never been a thing I've done. It's not really a thing I'm interested in.
But, I've spent a year filling in gaps I should have filled in sometime in the last decade. I still know a lot, academically speaking. I can discuss at length the various pros and cons of top of the line sex toys that I've never even seen in a shop, never mind used. I can talk about consent and individual sexual response and how the biologically female brain and body react to sexual stimuli, and I've read about a lot of kinks I'm still not in to.
When I was 13, the year after the dictionary and the encyclopedia clued me in on a vast universe, I read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy all the way through for the third time. I believe I mentioned Arthur and Fenchurch? I would go on to read The Catcher in the Rye and Lolita. Eventually, I discovered erotic literature and fan fiction and have always preferred it to visuals, but most of it is poorly written. Even published erotic fiction is pretty bad, probably because it all describes in lurid detail things I can imagine just as well without the description.
It is stupidly easy to get me off. Under extreme circumstances, I can almost manage without any physical stimulation whatsoever. Maybe because I was a 13 year old American trying to figure out what on earth Marks and Spencer made and what exactly was happening in the skies over Islington and what that had to do with The Beatles effect on teenage girls in the 60s, and succeeded in working it out. I've always had an extremely accessible imagination, so it doesn't take much.
One of the many, many things I'd always wanted to do and never had the opportunity for was sexting. Not photos, just text, words inside my brain from someone as interested in me as I was in them and channelling all the things I'd read. Now, it probably would have helped if the person I wanted to try it with was at least interested in literacy, but, I thought, it doesn't matter, I could make it work. It never came to pass.
It's the one thing I've tried this past year. I've been really worried that I am not inventive enough or knowledgeable enough or good enough to have sex with- the one person I have had sex with told me often enough that I wasn't very good at it. I'm learning to remind myself that he defined good sex as the kind where he laid there and did nothing. So. But I still worry.
Except that the couple of times I've wound up in a chat room with people who are there specifically to do exactly what we're there to do, it's been disappointing. Serves its purpose.
I'm playing Dungeons and Dragons with friends through Facebook. (There is a parallel here, I swear there is.) I started a game with actors, hoping that it would be a lot of improvisation and good role playing and make for a good performance. It's slow to get going. The other game is mostly with non-actors, and they're not really great at role playing. It's OK, but, not my expectation; they're not really rising to the occasion or doing or being anything terribly detailed or interesting.
Exactly the same thing. The goals are not the same thing at all, but, there's a real lack of urgency or drive present in both. If actual sex isn't any better than what I've experienced in real life, or online, and is pretty much like lukewarm D&D roleplaying, I'm not really sure it's worth the trouble.
I'm playing Dungeons and Dragons with friends through Facebook. (There is a parallel here, I swear there is.) I started a game with actors, hoping that it would be a lot of improvisation and good role playing and make for a good performance. It's slow to get going. The other game is mostly with non-actors, and they're not really great at role playing. It's OK, but, not my expectation; they're not really rising to the occasion or doing or being anything terribly detailed or interesting.
Exactly the same thing. The goals are not the same thing at all, but, there's a real lack of urgency or drive present in both. If actual sex isn't any better than what I've experienced in real life, or online, and is pretty much like lukewarm D&D roleplaying, I'm not really sure it's worth the trouble.
