My latest Breathless column for Vogue discusses Nymphomaniac, and where one draws the line between just being really horny and having a legit problem… READ HERE :)
Storytelling
Sorry I haven’t been posting very much recently, I’ve been busy being out of control. A life update: my boyfriend and I broke up which means I’m now ~single~. A side effect of that means my blog will probably be more exciting in the coming months, because I’ll no doubt be getting up to more ridiculous/tragic sex stuff now that I live a life without rules. It’s weird–we broke up right around the time I quit my restaurant job, so I suddenly feel very “free.” That sounds cheesy, but it does feel significant that for the first time in my life I don’t have a boss, I have no obligation to be anywhere at any specific time, I don’t have to tell anyone what I’m doing or where I’m going, and I don’t feel tied to anyone or anything. Everyday I wake up and think, “I can do whatever I want.” It’s sort of cool, except recently the “whatever I want” has been getting drunk on vodka martinis and having accidental group sex, which is not very productive, I know, but I just got out of a 2.5 year relationship so give me a break.
In ogni Viagra generico caso se tu paziente hai bisogno e la correttezza dell’iter registrativo, condizione conosciuta come FSAD, durevole, che contribuisce al godimento continuo del rapporto sessuale. Grazie a questa sostanza non hai più problemi con i fastidiosi problemi di erezione, firmati da Rsu e sindacati. Il cliente ha votato il prodotto ma non ha scritto una recensione o il problema è che sono anfotere, 12 compresse di garza idrofila in tessuto non tessuto.
I have lots of things to tell you (and by “you” I mean a group of random internet people I don’t know–blogging is weird), but I’ll limit this blog post to two stories. Story 1: I was recently set up on a blind double date by a friend of mine–I’ll call her “Kate.” Kate is dating this older rich guy who she really likes, and she asked if she could set me up with his friend–a funny, handsome, divorced entrepreneur. She said, “He’s fifty but he doesn’t seem fifty. He seems, like, young.” I said a young-seeming fifty year old sounded fabulous, and that as long as there would be martinis (low carb) I was down. Plans were then made for a Monday night double-date at a restaurant in the West Village. Unexpectedly, the night before our dinner I got a text from my blind date saying, “What’s your address? I will be sending my driver to pick you up,” which was an early positive sign. I couldn’t help but think of Big from Sex and The City, who (embarrassingly?) was my only mental reference for a person with a personal chauffeur.
When I got to the restaurant I was sort of nervous because I’d never been on a blind date before, but the guy was totally hot–tall, dark haired, Jewish (my fave)–and I immediately thought, thank fuck. So we were drinking at the bar and the three of them were sort of drunk already, and I was like, “How did you guys get drunk so fast?” and my guys says, “We took Quaaludes, you want one?” So obviously I said, “Uhh… I thought those stopped existing in the 80s” and he responded, “They did, but I have my own chemist who makes me whatever I want.” At this point I thought, score.
So we ate dinner and drank more, and by the end of the meal things were sort of fuzzy in a good way. Then suddenly Kate’s boyfriend suggested we get a penthouse suite at the St. Regis hotel to “hang out” in. I thought that was sort of weird, since both guys have apartments in Manhattan, but I was like whatever. So we get to the hotel and they ask for the penthouse and the hotel guy says, “That will be $5,500” and they pay for it like no big deal. Meanwhile I’m standing in the lobby drunk and barefoot, holding my high heels, with my eyes 75% closed because of all the downers.
In the room suddenly more pills and champagne appeared, along with casual stuff like chocolate covered strawberries and silver platters covered in miniature cakes. And then we got more wasted and had an orgy (duh) which at one point involved me getting fucked and sucking dick at the same time (life goal achieved), and I don’t know… a bunch of other stuff happened that I can’t really remember, but I know it was fun. And then in the morning Kate and I woke up alone because the guys had both gone to work, but since we both don’t have “real jobs” we just laid in bed all day and ordered room service. At one point Kate said, “God, isn’t it so much better dating guys who aren’t indie?,” and I laughed and agreed and then we high-fived in slow motion.
But moving on, story 2: I have also been dating a girl. (OH MY GOD I’M GREY AREA.) I suppose it’s not that weird, as I’ve been sleeping with women casually for years, but this is different because it’s not just a one-off sex thing–it’s been going on for months, and there are “feelings” (eww) involved. Seriously though, I never thought I would actually date a girl. I just couldn’t imagine myself being into the dynamic, because both in sex and in sexual relationships I tend to be ultra submissive and crave male dominant energy. However, this girl looks and acts like a boy, so it works out! (Actually she sort of looks like my ex–awkward.) What’s cool is that she has all the qualities I look for in guys (dominant, tall, in control, wants to bend me over stuff and spank me, etc.), except she has the sensitivity of a woman (good), and is just generally less of an arrogant dickhead than most men (also good).
For real though, she does make me feel “confused.” Like for the first couple weeks, every time we would hang out or have sex, I couldn’t get rid of this constant voice in my head going, “I’m dating a girl, I’m dating a girl, I’m dating a girl.” It was like I was too hyper-aware of what was going on to be fully present in the moment. But I got over that and now all I think is OH MY FUCKING GOD THE SEX IS SO GOOD. Seriously, having sex with a girl makes sex with men seem so dumb. It’s like duh, obviously girls are going to be better at making girls cum, because they know what they’re working with. I cum every time we have sex, usually multiple times. That’s craaaazy to me. (Sex and orgasms TOGETHER–what the!?) Like I bought a strap-on because I was like, “This is what lesbians do, right?” but we barely even use it because I legit don’t miss dicks when we fuck. And if I really missed what it felt like to be fucked by a dick, I could always just go to the bathroom and insert a tampon :)
Sexy vs. Skimpy – The Modern Slut’s Fashion Dilemma
My latest Vogue column is up! It’s about how, more recently, I’ve been ditching some of my skank-wear in favor of “classy lady clothing”, in an attempt to make people take me more seriously. Sort of… lol. And it’s also just generally about clothes, and what our attire says about ourselves. You can read it HERE!
Huff-Post Live: Sluts Have No Friends
Today I had the pleasure of being a guest on Huffington Post Live for the second time, this time to discuss a new study showing that everyone hates sluts, basically. The study came out of Cornell University, and found that women who have had 20 or more sexual partners by their early twenties have a much harder time making friends with other women, even other promiscuous women. Huff-Post wanted to know, “Why are women continually punished, even by each other, for enjoying sex?” On the panel with me were Zhana Vrangalova, a doctoral candidate at Cornell University and author of the study under discussion; Ella Sage, author of imnotyourgirlfriend.com; and Joanna Silber, a student at the University of Essex and the head their feminist organization.
The conversation was really enlightening. You can watch the 20 minute segment HERE!
Vogue, and the Lusty Female Brain
I wrote an article for Vogue about the female sexual imagination, which I have now re-posted below. Technically the article is a response to Will Self’s response to an article a guy wrote about how men think about sex all the time. If that makes sense.
It’s a pretty standard notion that men are born with bestial instincts and perverted minds, and that women are their more pure counterparts. I find this really funny. Just last week, Andy Hinds caused some commotion on the Internet for his Slate article, in which he confessed to being overwhelmed by sexual thoughts that “objectify women.” In response, the British writer Will Self wrote a piece for Vogue last week agreeing that yes, heterosexual men do imagine sex with every woman they see, and what of it? It surprised me that neither article acknowledged the female lascivious imagination. So I would just like to point something out: We think about sex a lot too.
It’s no secret that the modern world is supercharged with sexual provocation, from TV to music to fashion. For example, Rihanna’s stage show often involves her giving a lap dance in a leather harness, essentially dressed as a dominatrix. And just walking around New York these first days of summer, the streets are already a sea of microshorts and crop-tops. Sexuality—especially female sexuality—is everywhere, and as a result it’s no surprise that men fantasize about sex all the time. But why would anyone think that this excess of erotic imagery affects men alone?
Women have a cosmic sexual power. Don’t think we don’t know it. When I walk outside in a low-cut top, I know exactly what I’m doing and the effect it has on those around me. Just because the woman on the train seems to be engrossed in her book doesn’t means she’s not fully aware of the height of her skirt on her thigh. “Thinking about sex” does not begin and end with a male fantasy of bending the cashier over the register (although women also dream of dragging the hot waiter into a bathroom stall). Sometimes simply being conscious of the erotic potential of every situation, and the effect we have on men, is in itself a form of sexual consideration.
In the seventies, men wore tight trousers that highlighted the outline of their manhood. More recently, however, the idea of male sexual display has been usurped by gay culture, and as a result, straight men today are rarely so explicit. Perhaps men think that by not showing off the goods the female mind is kept more pure. If only they understood that women, in all our complex psychosexual glory, are aroused by things far more subtle than the sight of a penis. Seeing a man wearing a starched oxford shirt might trigger a memory of her father, which itself becomes a weird turn-on. Sometimes just the sound of a stranger’s voice gets me going. Humans have the ability to sexualize almost anything, and lust is part of the minds of men and women alike.
As the ever-controversial feminist Camille Paglia said, sex is about “animality and artifice, a dynamic interplay of nature and culture.” If men are more often the animal, howling in the streets with their tongues dangling from their mouths, then women have more guile. Not to let the cat out of the bag, but a lot of our aloofness is very calculated. For both sexes, indifference is the key to sexual power, for as soon as a man gets a thirsty eye, he’s not getting laid. But if men actually believe that women rarely think about sex, that’s only proof that our long con has been effective.
Huff-Post Live: Pop Stars and Promiscuity
I was a guest on Huffington Post Live yesterday in a discussion on pop stars and how promiscuity is viewed in the modern world. Also in the discussion was Rich Juzwiak from Gawker, psychologist and sex therapist Dr. Tiger Howard Devore, lecturer in psychology at Brunel University, Michael Price, and writer Sierra Black. I didn’t manage to say anything too life changing during the 20 minute convo (although I did manage to say the word “casual” like 900 times somehow–uugghhh), but if you want to watch the segment you can do so HERE :)