I'm not much of a tv person, and am far from participating in anything like fan culture, but there is this one show that I have begun to really enjoy. Hung. On HBO after True Blood (which I thought was disgusting and will never watch again). But I like Hung. It's about a guy who used to be a sports hero, but now he is washed up in his 30s, his wife left him, his house burned, he's living in a tent in his backyard and in danger of losing his job as a high school coach. The only thing going for him is that he is Hung. Add a disorganized hippie woman pimp who is surprisingly courageous in an awkward way and a bitch of a wanna-be pimp, and it's a good show.
I think what I like most about it is the fact that it shows women genuinely enjoying sex. There is usually a sex scene, and at least in the first season, they were pretty hot. The women just have orgasm after orgasm. I don't know that I have ever seen much (non-porn) media at all that focuses on a woman's straight up pleasure. No agenda, no judgment of manipulation or sluttiness, no bones about it other than the fact that she is CHOOSING to have sex and is REALLY REALLY enjoying it.
The correlating criticism here is the explicit story that large penis size is crucial to a woman's pleasure and therefore bigger penises=superior men/sex/pleasure for women. And the show is even clear about the fact that he doesn't start out as any kind of super-lover, he is just an average joe with an exceptionally large penis. And honestly, the whole bigger-is-better myth is just harmful. Far more important is appropriate size for the orifice. Just saying.
Showing posts with label masculine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label masculine. Show all posts
Monday, August 16, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Vasopressin Junkies? (RetroPosted)
(Date adjusted to when this should have been written, though I was quite late with it.)
I enjoy sex. As a topic and as an activity. To that end, I read various Everything About Sex books, from the basic biology on down to the sex magic. I stockpile the random facts that make for great party conversations, the kind that stop the chatter in the whole room as everyone leans in closer to try to figure out what I just said about a penis. I know the pH of cum. I know how to make a woman ejaculate and what that ejaculate is made of. I know most of the myriad parts of the complete clitoris. I know what an os is and why not to ram it. I know why zinc supplements are especially good for men. You know, random but useful facts.
A recent factoid acquisition has sparked a conversation between my partner and I. Turns out, there is a hormone called vasopressin that is released in men during physical, especially sexual, contact. It gives pleasure and promotes bonding. My partner and I have been making jokes about getting a vasopressin fix through cuddling, since we do a lot of that.
Upon further contemplation though, my partner came up with the theory that maybe men are often the physical boundary pushers in relationships with women because the men want their vasopressin fix. They get more of an instant biochemical reward for making physical contact. I said I was not so sure, that it seems to me that there is also a competitive territory-claiming side, as if points are given for certain types of contact, the more intimate and personal the better. I think I even compared it to capture the flag, honestly.
Together, we came up with the idea that yes, society/stereotypes says that men (all men) are playing capture the flag (or Oklahoma Land Rush), but that the enforced myth of stoicism and unflagging put-it-in-a-hole-somewhere virility was probably covering up the emotional need men have of making those intimate vasopressin-rewarded physical contacts. I feel pretty proud of us.
I enjoy sex. As a topic and as an activity. To that end, I read various Everything About Sex books, from the basic biology on down to the sex magic. I stockpile the random facts that make for great party conversations, the kind that stop the chatter in the whole room as everyone leans in closer to try to figure out what I just said about a penis. I know the pH of cum. I know how to make a woman ejaculate and what that ejaculate is made of. I know most of the myriad parts of the complete clitoris. I know what an os is and why not to ram it. I know why zinc supplements are especially good for men. You know, random but useful facts.
A recent factoid acquisition has sparked a conversation between my partner and I. Turns out, there is a hormone called vasopressin that is released in men during physical, especially sexual, contact. It gives pleasure and promotes bonding. My partner and I have been making jokes about getting a vasopressin fix through cuddling, since we do a lot of that.
Upon further contemplation though, my partner came up with the theory that maybe men are often the physical boundary pushers in relationships with women because the men want their vasopressin fix. They get more of an instant biochemical reward for making physical contact. I said I was not so sure, that it seems to me that there is also a competitive territory-claiming side, as if points are given for certain types of contact, the more intimate and personal the better. I think I even compared it to capture the flag, honestly.
Together, we came up with the idea that yes, society/stereotypes says that men (all men) are playing capture the flag (or Oklahoma Land Rush), but that the enforced myth of stoicism and unflagging put-it-in-a-hole-somewhere virility was probably covering up the emotional need men have of making those intimate vasopressin-rewarded physical contacts. I feel pretty proud of us.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
I Love the Smell of Gender Parity in the Morning
I just read this NY Times article, Now, Dad Feels as Stressed as Mom, by Tara Parker-Pope. It says that men are reporting more conflict over their work-family balance, specifically that they are moving more into a nurturing father role from a solely providing father role, and so are more active in childcare and homemaking. This is bumping up against the classic workforce dynamic that does not expect men to have childcare and family-life demands that affect their availability as workers, or as the article puts it, assumes that men will be "largely unaffected by children."
One of my favorite bits of info from the article says that men are less likely to take advantage of flexible schedules and family leave, and more likely to take care of their family obligations in "stealth" mode. It conjures images of men sneaking out of the office to a Mission Impossible theme song, slinking along the row of cars in the corporate parking garage to their own carseat-laden vehicle. If the boss calls while they are at the doctor's office with the little tyke, he pretends he is out to drinks with an important potential client. "Hem, hum, yeah, I, uh, need to get back to this. Don't want to blow this deal," he mutters and hangs up the phone before his kid starts the usual post-vaccination wail.
Amusing mental images aside, I am encouraged to see more recognition of the shifting gender roles and the upswing of acknowledgment that more and more men are tapping into their nurturing natures and taking on more responsibility around the house to become more equal partners. I am bothered by the tone of the article overall, though. It starts on a campy note with the title, and goes on to cite facts about men and imply accusations about their women partners who doubt they are really contributing as much as they think they are. It comes across to me as a bit self-congratulatory on the part of the men, and seems to perpetuate some war-of-the-sexes thinking.
Instead, I would have preferred if the article took a more philosophical view of the shift: Look, these things are changing. Gender roles are shifting. Here is evidence that some men are making some of the shifts into the home that will balance some of the shifts out of the home and into the workforce that women began 50 years ago. No one has figured this all out yet, but isn't it cool that some of the hard work of social parity between (among) the genders is cooking along?
So I will file it away into my "hopeful signs badly interpreted by mainstream press" folder and move on, encouraged.
One of my favorite bits of info from the article says that men are less likely to take advantage of flexible schedules and family leave, and more likely to take care of their family obligations in "stealth" mode. It conjures images of men sneaking out of the office to a Mission Impossible theme song, slinking along the row of cars in the corporate parking garage to their own carseat-laden vehicle. If the boss calls while they are at the doctor's office with the little tyke, he pretends he is out to drinks with an important potential client. "Hem, hum, yeah, I, uh, need to get back to this. Don't want to blow this deal," he mutters and hangs up the phone before his kid starts the usual post-vaccination wail.
Amusing mental images aside, I am encouraged to see more recognition of the shifting gender roles and the upswing of acknowledgment that more and more men are tapping into their nurturing natures and taking on more responsibility around the house to become more equal partners. I am bothered by the tone of the article overall, though. It starts on a campy note with the title, and goes on to cite facts about men and imply accusations about their women partners who doubt they are really contributing as much as they think they are. It comes across to me as a bit self-congratulatory on the part of the men, and seems to perpetuate some war-of-the-sexes thinking.
Instead, I would have preferred if the article took a more philosophical view of the shift: Look, these things are changing. Gender roles are shifting. Here is evidence that some men are making some of the shifts into the home that will balance some of the shifts out of the home and into the workforce that women began 50 years ago. No one has figured this all out yet, but isn't it cool that some of the hard work of social parity between (among) the genders is cooking along?
So I will file it away into my "hopeful signs badly interpreted by mainstream press" folder and move on, encouraged.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Not a Voice in the Wilderness: Male Birth Control
Well, it seems as though I ask, and then I receive. Remember my previous exhortations to science to step up the research for a male birth control pill? Well, apparently someone is already on it. At the University of North Carolina, they have begun human trials to see if a blast of ultrasound could safely stop sperm production for up to 6 months. It would be low cost and effective, if it works out.
Although, as my partner said, "it's hard to trust anything that says 'safe' and 'stop sperm production' in the same sentence." And, of course, once the man has his treatment, he then has to empty his reserves before he is free of the wiggly little guys. I wonder if the treatment centers will offer an appropriate outlet for that, or if it will be homework.
This could be a fabulous innovation, and if not this particular method, something like it. Men should be able to make choices around controlling their fertility, too, and have a better range of options than the two--condoms and vasectomies--currently available. I know that fertility control is often thought of as the woman's burden, because the woman is assumed to bear the burden of the responsibility of providing for any oops babies, but isn't it time to set that kind of sexist thinking aside?
The old tropes of afraid-of-commitment-marriage-and-family-men and baby-hungry-shackle-a-man-for-life-women are tired and worn out. Let's think of something else. Let's finally acknowledge all the young men in the world who deeply and tenderly care about their potential progeny and who often feel helpless in the face of the social story that babies belong to women, all the time. And let's please fully acknowledge those women who have absolutely no desire to breed or beget children at any point in their lifetime. There is a full range of human experience that gets plastered over and shouted down by the binary gender wars, and that is ridiculous.
Let's empower everyone to make their choices about their bodies, fertility, procreation, and life arc for themselves, and stop trying to use these tiny little boxes to fit everyone. It just doesn't work and it leaves too many of us social creatures feeling isolated and alone. Let's embrace and empower each other instead.
Although, as my partner said, "it's hard to trust anything that says 'safe' and 'stop sperm production' in the same sentence." And, of course, once the man has his treatment, he then has to empty his reserves before he is free of the wiggly little guys. I wonder if the treatment centers will offer an appropriate outlet for that, or if it will be homework.
This could be a fabulous innovation, and if not this particular method, something like it. Men should be able to make choices around controlling their fertility, too, and have a better range of options than the two--condoms and vasectomies--currently available. I know that fertility control is often thought of as the woman's burden, because the woman is assumed to bear the burden of the responsibility of providing for any oops babies, but isn't it time to set that kind of sexist thinking aside?
The old tropes of afraid-of-commitment-marriage-and-family-men and baby-hungry-shackle-a-man-for-life-women are tired and worn out. Let's think of something else. Let's finally acknowledge all the young men in the world who deeply and tenderly care about their potential progeny and who often feel helpless in the face of the social story that babies belong to women, all the time. And let's please fully acknowledge those women who have absolutely no desire to breed or beget children at any point in their lifetime. There is a full range of human experience that gets plastered over and shouted down by the binary gender wars, and that is ridiculous.
Let's empower everyone to make their choices about their bodies, fertility, procreation, and life arc for themselves, and stop trying to use these tiny little boxes to fit everyone. It just doesn't work and it leaves too many of us social creatures feeling isolated and alone. Let's embrace and empower each other instead.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Urgent: Must Win Bread
So now that we are married, I am feeling this sudden urgent need to get stable. I want to create a plan, a situation, that will give us at least 5 years of stability, rather than 6 months or 1 year. I have spent this week obsessing about where to move to and how to make the income we will need to raise our kids.
This is, I know, premature. We are not even pregnant yet. But we are trying, the prenatal supplements and nutrition are in place, and at this point it is a matter of time as we wait for the next ovulation. Translated, this means that I have taken all the action steps I can (or that my plan allows at this point in time) towards babies, therefore, I am fixated on the next items on the list.
I would like to say that I find it amusing/interesting/ironic that I am having such a stereotypically masculine response, worrying about the bread-winning. I would like to add the caveat that I am also terrified of committing to 5 year stability, even though I have been decently stable in my current situation for the last 4 years or so. The difference is that I could have left or changed things at any time. I have the trappings of 1 year stability, I have just extended their contracts. Signing a 5 year contract (so to speak, and this is getting almost ponderously metaphorical) seems as daunting as it does necessary.
I have been fixating on the possibility of opening a thrift store as a way to generate stable income and family-friendly scheduling. For two days, I ran through all the reasons I could think of for why a thrift store could be a really awesome thing. Finally, I decided to get serious about it and sat down to write lists. I started with the Why This Is a Good Idea list, and then went from there. Five or six lists later, I wrote the Assumptions I am Making list, and it burst my bubble. Too many assumptions, one or two of them deal-breakers if things don't work out that way. I am not willing to work 70 hour workweeks to have my own business/thrift store. Instead, I want to dabble in it (I can concede 30-40 hours/week) and have it be successful enough that I don't have to do more. NOT the most viable plan right now.
Once I realized that, I started to panic. I don't have a good enough plan, nothing is figured out enough for my comfort, what am I going to do? I decided the best thing was to pull the plug and turn off my brain. Once I got it out of its feedback loop, I could look at the bigger picture. To that end, I went to the library and checked out my maximum allowable number of books, almost all mental-bubblegum novels. I will spend the weekend reading fun romps that don't even leave footprints in the sand of my mind, and then check back in with everything next week.
This is, I know, premature. We are not even pregnant yet. But we are trying, the prenatal supplements and nutrition are in place, and at this point it is a matter of time as we wait for the next ovulation. Translated, this means that I have taken all the action steps I can (or that my plan allows at this point in time) towards babies, therefore, I am fixated on the next items on the list.
I would like to say that I find it amusing/interesting/ironic that I am having such a stereotypically masculine response, worrying about the bread-winning. I would like to add the caveat that I am also terrified of committing to 5 year stability, even though I have been decently stable in my current situation for the last 4 years or so. The difference is that I could have left or changed things at any time. I have the trappings of 1 year stability, I have just extended their contracts. Signing a 5 year contract (so to speak, and this is getting almost ponderously metaphorical) seems as daunting as it does necessary.
I have been fixating on the possibility of opening a thrift store as a way to generate stable income and family-friendly scheduling. For two days, I ran through all the reasons I could think of for why a thrift store could be a really awesome thing. Finally, I decided to get serious about it and sat down to write lists. I started with the Why This Is a Good Idea list, and then went from there. Five or six lists later, I wrote the Assumptions I am Making list, and it burst my bubble. Too many assumptions, one or two of them deal-breakers if things don't work out that way. I am not willing to work 70 hour workweeks to have my own business/thrift store. Instead, I want to dabble in it (I can concede 30-40 hours/week) and have it be successful enough that I don't have to do more. NOT the most viable plan right now.
Once I realized that, I started to panic. I don't have a good enough plan, nothing is figured out enough for my comfort, what am I going to do? I decided the best thing was to pull the plug and turn off my brain. Once I got it out of its feedback loop, I could look at the bigger picture. To that end, I went to the library and checked out my maximum allowable number of books, almost all mental-bubblegum novels. I will spend the weekend reading fun romps that don't even leave footprints in the sand of my mind, and then check back in with everything next week.
Monday, March 29, 2010
I Vote for a Male Birth Control Pill
In poking around in the blogosphere, I stumbled on this fact I had never really thought about before: women have a choice of 11 kinds of contraception, but men only have two: condoms and vasectomies. And, if gender bias were not an issue and the research were being funded and made a priority, we could have a long-acting reversible contraceptive (LARC) for men. It could work through hormones, though there are sexist fears that the side-effects of testosterone might make some men feel unmanned. It could work by stopping ejaculation, since ejaculation has no effect on orgasm, but that might make some men "freak out". The research for a male birth control pill is 50 years behind the female birth control pill, due in part to these gendered stories.
I think this is a crying shame. A pill to stop ejaculation? All the orgasm, none of the clean up? Sounds awesome. No more socks or towels with their special home by the bed. Less worry about condom efficacy. No more choice between permanent birth control (snip snip!) or latex sheaths. I wonder what kind of effect it would have upon the tantric goal of male multiple orgasms? Would it make them easier? Common, even?
Even better, a male birth control pill could help even the contraceptive playing field. Both (or all) sex partners would be able to be equally responsible for prevention of pregnancy. It would empower men to better control whether or not they are sowing seeds. It would take the onus of birth control off of women and bring more equality. And it could get men in to see their doctors annually, like women do now for their female birth control prescriptions. There are a lot of benefits to that, as I understand it.
Also, what about the fact that vasectomies are much easier and less invasive for men than tubal ligations are for women? Could a male birth control pill be easier and less risky for men than female birth control is for women, with its elevated risk of blood clots and all?
"Permanent" birth control, also known as "getting fixed" or vasectomy/tubal ligation also comes with all kinds of strings attached. There are mandatory waiting periods, minimum age requirements that come only after 20-25 years or so of fertility, minimum procreative requirements of so many kids, of these sexes, etc. If a sexually active man really wants to make sure that he does not accidentally father any kids, his choices now are to rely on condoms with their 16% ineffective rate or jump through the hoops and hope someone will give him a snip, thereby foregoing a change of mind or incurring the expense and inconvenience of a vasectomy reversal.
I sincerely hope the money and research on this one gets stepped up, because it sounds to me like we are past due for this one.
I think this is a crying shame. A pill to stop ejaculation? All the orgasm, none of the clean up? Sounds awesome. No more socks or towels with their special home by the bed. Less worry about condom efficacy. No more choice between permanent birth control (snip snip!) or latex sheaths. I wonder what kind of effect it would have upon the tantric goal of male multiple orgasms? Would it make them easier? Common, even?
Even better, a male birth control pill could help even the contraceptive playing field. Both (or all) sex partners would be able to be equally responsible for prevention of pregnancy. It would empower men to better control whether or not they are sowing seeds. It would take the onus of birth control off of women and bring more equality. And it could get men in to see their doctors annually, like women do now for their female birth control prescriptions. There are a lot of benefits to that, as I understand it.
Also, what about the fact that vasectomies are much easier and less invasive for men than tubal ligations are for women? Could a male birth control pill be easier and less risky for men than female birth control is for women, with its elevated risk of blood clots and all?
"Permanent" birth control, also known as "getting fixed" or vasectomy/tubal ligation also comes with all kinds of strings attached. There are mandatory waiting periods, minimum age requirements that come only after 20-25 years or so of fertility, minimum procreative requirements of so many kids, of these sexes, etc. If a sexually active man really wants to make sure that he does not accidentally father any kids, his choices now are to rely on condoms with their 16% ineffective rate or jump through the hoops and hope someone will give him a snip, thereby foregoing a change of mind or incurring the expense and inconvenience of a vasectomy reversal.
I sincerely hope the money and research on this one gets stepped up, because it sounds to me like we are past due for this one.
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