And Which Head Will You Be Thinking With Today, Sir?

I recently read something that shook me to my very core, something that made every hair on my body stand up in protest; something that made me want to believe in god just so I could then question those very beliefs. I read something that created a terrible trifecta of a mental hurricane, an emotional tsunami, and a physical earthquake within my poor little body. Something that made me, as a sex writer, want to stand atop a soap box and yell "WHAT HAS THIS ALL BEEN FOR?!"

It started innocently enough. One morning I came downstairs and saw one of my mom's magazines on the couch. You know, the kind where women write article after article in hopes that they can join forces to convince themselves that turning 50 is the best thing to ever happen to them. One of my favorite actresses was on the front so I poured my coffee and settled in for the stereotypical cover story where the author starts off by saying how normal the celebrity is, showing up for the interview in just yoga pants and a sweater. Yeah lady, ask your "normal celebrity" how much those yoga pants of hers cost and then try and make me relate to her.

Anyway, I was flipping through the pages when I caught a headline about sex, so of course I stopped. You know, research purposes and such. So I'm reading through this article about how to get yourself in the mood and blah blah blah, and then all of a sudden, I had to stop. There it was, this blasphemous paragraph, leaping out from the page, flushing everything anyone has ever thought about sex down the drain. According to this article (and this particular paragraph was not strictly about sex in your 50's, it was presented as a general fact), there is a much bigger disconnect between mind and body in women than there is in men. In other words, women can get physically aroused without any mental or emotional stimulation, while men apparently need us to HOLD THEIR FRICKEN HAND FOR THEM TO GET A HARD ON. What kind of hysterical post-menopausal bullshit artist wrote this??? Has a hot flash completely wiped all common sense from her supposedly wise and experienced brain? IS EVERYTHING I EVER THOUGHT WRONG???

I set down my coffee and frantically began skimming the rest of the article for some further explanation, some rebuttal or footnote that stated "Haha, just kidding." There was none to be found. Afraid that I would have a complete nervous breakdown if I invested any more time in this debacle, I threw the magazine down and began racking my mental rolodex of sex facts, myths, and assumptions. While everything can be left up to circumstance, I pretty sure everyone- EVER- can agree that 99.99999% of the time, women need to feel some sort of emotional connection with someone in order to have really great, mind-blowing sex or other sexual activity, resulting in an equally eye-popping orgasm. Meanwhile, men are the first to admit that mushy feelings make their sail go down and all a girl really needs to be eligible for sex is a vagina and the ability to never, ever give a rake job.

I'm not crazy for thinking this article is bullhonky, right? I've talked about it with a few people since reading it, and they all seem to agree with me. I mean, this is like saying that the graham cracker is the best part of a s'more, or that the second Becky on Roseanne was far superior to the original. Lies and fabrications!

All I know is this: the day that I turn 50- in 25 years, 1 month, and 8 days- I am submitting my own article to this very magazine. An article about how since the moment I kissed my very first boy, my brain, heart, and cooch have been linking arms and crossing that finish line together.

Do You Kiss Your Mama With That Mouth??

Ok, so I know that when it comes to sex, everything has to do with preference. What one person loves is what another person despises. I also realize that you can like something occasionally, but not all the time. Example?

Dirty Talk.

Now, I understand that if you're having low-down, rough, sweaty sex with someone, dirty talk makes total sense. Call us a stupid bitch, a filthy slut, a nasty whore. Ask us what we want yet do what you like anyway. Tell us you're going to [insert preferred demeaning word for sex here] us until we [again, fill in your favorite ejaculation slang]. Pull our hair, smack our ass, blah blah blah. You know how Halloween is the one night a year that a girl can walk around dressed like a prostitute/doctor hybrid and it's totally ok? Well that certain kind of slam-me-against-a-wall-and-rip-off-my-clothes sex is the Halloween of dirty talk.

9 times out of 10 (and again, I'm just going off the majority of girls I know), if we're just having regular old sex, talking dirty to us is uncomfortable. We tend to just smile and nod, let out a little "yeah", "uh-huh", or "uhhh, sure". Secretly, we're trying not to laugh. Seriously, what are we supposed to do when out of nowhere we hear, "Yeah, you like that baby? You like that? Right there? Do you? Huh? Do you?!" What are we supposed to say? "Actually, I suppose I can tolerate what you're doing for the time being, but if we're being honest, I would prefer it if you would kindly move slightly to the left and shut the hell up."

Let me allow all you men in on a little secret. When girls have sex, they have to concentrate in order to get off. We don't have the luxury of having a magical skin wand that feels amazing as soon as it simply touches a lady bit. There's a lot going on down there for us and if you want us to actually have an orgasm and not fake it then maybe you should pay attention and realize that right before we're about to have fireworks go off in our heads, we get very, very quiet. That's us trying not to lose it ("It" being the orgasm). So please don't ruin perfectly good sex by asking us if it "feels so good" and if we like your P in our V. We're busy imagining our favorite celebrity girl crush so we can reach our happy place.

Now, I feel like I end up giving the same disclaimer in all my blog entries about how this is just my opinion and it's not always the case and even I disagree with myself sometimes. In this case, this still applies. All I'm saying is, for the most part, talking dirty to a girl is not the everyday, run-of-the-mill way to get her off. However- and this is where me disagreeing with myself kicks in- it can be pretty fuckin hot and actually help in the process. So I guess I just kinda bashed my whole theory... Crap, now I've gone and lost my literary boner. Bummer.

Give Me An S! Give Me An L! Give Me A U! Give Me A T! What Does That Spell???

Here's a question for you: Just how many people does a girl have to sleep with for her to be considered a slut? And is it the number, or is it the way she carries herself?

Let's say a girl has only slept with 2 dudes in her life, but she has blown the entire tri-state area. I would consider her more of a trampy tramp than some chick who has slept with 10 people over the course of many years, but all of those 10 people have been steady boyfriends and the aforementioned girl doesn't just hand out bj's like it's National Suck Off A Stranger Day.

I'm not going to go into the whole double standard issue where feminists that don't shave their armpits and probably never get laid anyway bitch about how when guys have a lot of sex they're praised and when girls do it they're looked down on. Frankly, I don't give a shit. In my opinion, people can do whatever they want as long as they're not spreading around STD's and making more whiny, sticky, little kids.

I was once dating a guy for awhile, and we made a point to never tell each other our "numbers". Then, one night, over a year into our relationship, we revealed our numbers for some stupid, terrible, awful reason. Once he found out that I was more, let's say, "worldly" than him, he didn't look at me the same and our sex life changed. We broke up shortly thereafter. Now, I've been with guys who have known their exact number, and guys who have tried counting and then given up and said "I don't know. A lot." Neither of these situations bother me. Because here's the thing. I think that once you reach the age my friends and I are at now, sex becomes pretty straightforward. We'll let you know if we're exclusively sleeping with you or if we're just using you for sex, just like you're using us. Either way, it doesn't fucking matter what your number is. I straight out ask guys if they have anything they could give me and my nether regions, and (this is assuming they're not lying cause that would just be messed up and terrible) the way I feel about the whole thing is that as long as we're all cleared in that area, I don't care how many other people you've slept with, cause guess what? I'm not exactly a nun.

Here's my bottom line. Guys and girls can sleep with as many people they want. It doesn't make you a bad person if you have slept with a hundred people, and it doesn't make you an angel if you've only slept with one. It's how you carry yourself and, as much as I hate to sound like a health class, it's about being smart and not being shocked if you get knocked up after letting some guy shoot his load in you the week before your period when you're not on the pill.

Sex feels good and chicks like it just as much as the fellas. Actually, you know what? I shouldn't be trying to defend girls towards guys. I should be defending girls towards other girls. Ladies, if I want to get laid, I'm gonna get laid. So don't judge sweetheart, you know you're doing the same exact thing as soon as no one's looking :)

The Four Seasons Of Doing The Dirty

Fucking In The Fall:

Weather-wise, this is probably the best season to get it on. It's not freezing yet, so you can keep the windows open and get an awesome breeze while you and your partner make your own body heat. Plus, there's something undeniably romantic about fall colors. As soon as those leaves start fading to brilliant reds and golds, you have to admit that all you want to do is throw on a sweater and cuddle up with someone under a blanket. There's no rain to make you miserable and no snow to make you angry, it's the perfect temperature outside to get close inside.

Wanking In The Winter:

Once you graduate high school and snow days are a thing of the past, there is absolutely nothing good about those inconvenient little white flakes intruding all over the place. They dump down on our cars and walkways and make traveling a nightmare. Therefore there is nothing else to do but stay in and try and keep you and your special buddy both busy and warm. So you put down your hot chocolate and turn down the fire. You grab your luva by the hand and lead them into the bedroom. You start kissing and fall into bed and start taking off each other's clothes. This is where things go downhill. The second your shirt comes off, you realize that it's 30 freakin degrees outside. Then your pants come off and, for girls, you get the unsexy experience of feeling every single one of your freshly shaved leg hairs poke back out through your skin, creating a type of jagged weapon against your guy's unsuspecting legs. You search for warmth under the blanket, but then the guy starts complaining because he can't breath when he's going down on you with a comforter over his head. Then whoever is on top is either freezing cause the blanket slipped off, or sweating their ass off because they're doing all the work and they need some air god dammit! So yeah, everything about the winter is a big old cock block.

Spanking In The Spring:

Spring is similar to Fall, in where it's between the two extreme seasons. After suffering through the long, cold winter, everyone is ecstatic that it is finally getting warm again and suddenly, everyone becomes attractive. So you and whoever is closest start to kiss and make the necessary steps towards putting some P in some V. Everything is going great until someone sneezes. Then the other person realizes that their eyes are watering. Then you both start wheezing and itching every inch of your body. Allergies have officially ruined your hard-on.

Sexing In The Summer:

It's hot. It's sticky. It's muggy and buggy. It's perfect. Well, this is just my personal opinion. I happen to be someone who enjoys summer sex, but for the sake of argument I will look at both the pros and the cons. One pro is that this is the season that people are wearing the least amount of clothes. Girls are wearing tiny little dresses and guys are sweating through their t-shirts. Everyone is in string bikinis and board shorts, soaking wet from the pool and ocean. Another pro is that if we're already sweaty, why not get more sweaty? Of course, this could be a con for some people. There are definitely times when you're in the middle of having sex and you realize it's just too damn hot and if your boyfriend even comes close to touching you, you swear to god you will ball tap him so hard his head will spin. But I still maintain that summer is the best season to have sex. It's just, well, sexy.

Oh, You're Married? Well Didn't YOU Just Get More Attractive!

This past Saturday night I was down in the city having dinner with an old college friend (I like/hate that I'm old enough to say "old college friend") who married her long-term boyfriend back in October. She was telling me a story about how ever since their wedding, whenever they are out at a bar, girls won't stop hitting on her husband.

"Why is that, do you think?" She asked me.

I thought for a moment and then presented a question.

"Does he wear a wedding ring?"

My friend nodded and this led us into the hypocrisy of married men versus married women. Here is what we concluded:

Girls become more attracted to men who are obviously in a relationship. This is because what we ultimately want is a man who can commit. Therefore, if we see a guy with a wedding ring on or standing with a girl who is obviously his significant other, our hormones go wild and our biological clock starts spinning like mad. Here is someone who isn't out at a bar just to pick up chicks to go home and bang, it's someone who is out with his wife or girlfriend who he cares about and is (presumably) faithful to.

"But why don't guys approach me when they see me with my wedding ring on?" my friend then asked.

"Because," I said, "it shows that you're committed which, while this is what we want, is the exact opposite of what guys want."

Once again my friend nodded.

"Makes sense." she said.

So then we began dissecting the other side of the spectrum. If a guy sees a girl that he is attracted to, and as he approaches her he sees some sign of her obviously wanting a commitment, this will scare him off. The boner goes down and he turns to go search for some girl with her tits spilling out of her shirt and drunk eyes.

Think of it this way:

Girls- Do we not find celebrity men more attractive when we see them being affectionate and caring towards a woman?

And Guys- Do you not completely want to vomit when you see a female celebrity with a new baby in one arm and a breast pump in the other?

Boooobs Part 2: The Experiment

A month or two ago, my friend and I were at Target, once again spending way too much money. At one point we were in the bra section because I had recently realized that all of my undergarments were about as unsexy as they come. So as I was picking out a nice little lacy number, my friend points out a rack (pun totally intended) of bras next to us.

"Dude, have you seen these before? They increase you two cup sizes." she said, sifting through the different color options.

"So, wait, I would be a C?" I asked, unable to grasp that concept.

"Yeah, what size are you? I'll find it."

I told her my bra size and we picked one out with a borderline trampy purple and black leopard pattern. The padding in each cup was roughly as thick as a couch cushion.

We went back into the dressing rooms and crammed into one stall because we obviously needed each other's opinions on everything we had to try on, and could not be bothered with the concept of opening the door and stepping out in front of the communal mirror. When it was time to strap on my bra-on-steroids, I already had the idea in my mind that it was going to be a complete disaster and there was no way I would end up walking out of the store with that thing in a plastic bag.

Neverless, to amuse my friend, I slipped the bra on and scooped my boobs into the cups (you girls know exactly what I'm talking about with the boob-scooping...at least all you girls with slightly smaller chests). As I turned around to face the mirror, I started laughing at what was sure to be a completely ridiculous sight. However, once I faced my reflection, my laughter died down.

"Huh." I mumbled, turning to the side. My friend looked up and gave me a once over.

"Whoa."

What we saw in the mirror was plain old Alexis with a huge freakin' rack. Like, my cup runneth over. It was a spectacular sight.

"You have to get that." my friend said, nodding in approval.

"Yeah, but I would never wear it," I argued, continuing to turn from side to side, simultaneously creeped out and strangely attracted to myself. "Unless.."

"Unless.."

"Unless I wore it out one night, just to, you know, see if people's reactions were any different."

"DO IT."

So I did. I bought the bra with the idea in my head that I would wear it out to a bar one night and then write a blog about it the next day. You see how I'm always thinking of you guys, my lovely followers?

Despite this plan of mine, the bra remained in the Target bag, underneath my desk, for a full month. It was as if I was afraid to let it out of the bag, like it would come to life and attack me like some terrible 80's horror movie. What exactly was it about this bra that terrified me, you may ask? It was the possibility of the following scenario happening:

I wear the bra and go to the bar. Some guy sees my giant headlights from the other side of the room and approaches me, eyes on my retail store produced goods the entire time. We start talking and he asks me and my girls out on another date. I show up in my regular bra, and have to explain to him that I was doing a little experiment and in reality, he and I have the same size chest. He then tells me I'm crazy and peaces out.

Basically I was afraid of pretending to be someone that I'm physically not.

So I decided to scale it down a notch. During a day of errands with the same friend who I had gone to Target with the day of the big purchase, I wore the bra underneath a simple tank top. I looked down and for the first time ever, the first thing I saw were boobs. When I got into my friend's car, she looked at me and went "Good lord!". I felt extremely uncomfortable but I was going to ride this thing out. After all, it was just a bra. There are a bajillion girls out there with a giant rack, what made me any different on that particular day?

So I held my head high as we walked through the mall, not so secretly catching a glimpse of myself in each store window that we passed. I also made sure to be alert towards any potential attention that I received from the people we walked by. You know, see if guys noticed me more with a bigger chest.

Well, I can honestly say that not one guy looked at me. Now, the girls I passed on the other hand, they were very open to glance down at my boobs and sneer. And people wonder why I'm not a giant fan of chicks.

All was not lost on my bra though, fear not. Later that night, I went over to my special gentleman friend's house and he certainly noticed my enhanced ladies. As we sat watching a movie I would occasionally feel his hand reach over and poke one. As I was leaving that night, he walked me to my car, gave me a kiss, and as he was walking back towards his house, he turned and yelled out "Wear it again next week!"

So, I guess the bra had some degree of success.

All I know is, by the end of the day when I finally got home and into my own bed, my back was killing me.

A Literary Slow Dance

I know I said that I would write about dressing up like a ho-ho this week, but there's been a change of plans. Something about all of these recent break-ups of long-term celebrity marriages has got me thinking about the whole "happily ever after" concept, and the fact that I just watched one of the more dramatic episodes of Sex & the City (the one where Harry proposes to Charlotte and Carrie knocks the vase of carnations off her coffee table after Burger breaks up with her on a post-it) made me decide to write a somewhat serious entry.

Now, it's no secret that I would love nothing more than to be a redneck Carrie Bradshaw, basking in one of the Carolina's, writing my very own newspaper column on sex and relationships. I have also recently purchased a pair of shoes (from Target, of course), that I believe would make Carrie herself very proud. However, a big fear of mine is to find myself at 35 years old, with a long list of ex-relationships but no husband. And a bigger fear of mine is to settle into a comfortable, long-lasting marriage, only to realize after 25 years that I have committed to the wrong person.

I grew up surrounded by terrible marriages, so I have absolutely no clue what a healthy relationship is supposed to look like. I have an idea in my head of what I hope to someday achieve with a significant other, but in my own personal experiences of both my past relationships and the relationships around me, I just don't trust anyone anymore. Even if I meet someone who completely knocks my socks off, someone who is absolutely everything I ever wanted and more, how do I know that after a couple of years things won't completely fall apart? And do I have it in me to once again give myself completely to someone- mentally, emotionally, and physically- just for it to be thrown back in my face eventually?

I'm thinking no.

And this is a sad thought. It's really sad, actually. I know I'm still young and I have my whole life ahead of me and blah blah blah, but the fact of the matter is, I'm ready to find that person. And I think that a lot of my single friends would say they feel the same way. Especially with this sudden boom of college and high school friends getting married and having kids, it's really discouraging to show up at these celebrations either A) completely single, or B) fresh out of yet another relationship. I have come shockingly close to marriage twice in my life, and if this whole third-time's-a-charm thing isn't true, well, I'm screwed.

I was recently at the wedding of my old college roommate's, serving as a bridesmaid. Also in attendance was my first love and his new fiancee. Now, me and this former love, we broke up 4 years ago and while it was extremely, heart-breakingly traumatic for me at the time, I've obviously been over it for quite awhile now. In fact, it was great to see him and even more great to realize that I was genuinely happy for him and his fiancee (she's stuuuunning, he really hit the jackpot with this one). It wasn't until the very last song, when everyone was circled around the bride and groom as they danced, all of the guests linking arms and swaying in what was actually quite a beautiful moment, that I looked across the giant loop of people and saw that I was directly across from my ex, his fiancee nowhere to be seen. For a brief standstill in time, he and I locked eyes and the look we gave each other almost seemed to say, "This was supposed to be us."

Of course, it wasn't supposed to be us because if it was we would have already been married. A more honest depiction of reality was, "This COULD have been us." It's just strange to think about how there have been relationships in the past where you could have sworn with every fiber of your being that it would result in Forever.

In the span of time and experience between the end of my first love and the complete and utter destruction of my last love, I have built a thick, heavy, unbreakable walls of cynicism and distrust and just a general feeling of 'what's the point'. But then I would look at the few couples that I know that genuinely are happy, like all of my aunts and uncles or some of my friends' parents. I know that it's possible to have the happily ever after that every young girl dreams of, but there's still this impracticable desire of mine that I can someday find someone to be with that doesn't involve constant work and compromise and doubt. I would love to find someone who just fits. I know there's no such thing, but it's nice to think about.

One of my friends and I have been talking a lot recently about how all we want is a crush. Just to see someone and get those butterflies and the daydreams and good kind of what-ifs. It's extremely frustrating when you realize that you haven't felt that way in years and you are no closer to feeling it today.

Because the absolute worst feeling in existence is knowing that you have all the love in the world to give, and no one seems to want it.

So I guess we all just have to keep waiting. I don't want to believe the old adage of love comes when you least expect it, because I never want to give up on the idea of love. At any given moment, I want to be able to reach down into the most guarded and beautiful parts of my emotional insides and pull out my heart, hoping there is someone standing in front of me with their hands outreached, waiting to hold it forever.