Sex and Sexability

Sex and Sexability: Tips for the Literary Lover

• Every Tuesday, have sex with an elderly man with a disarmingly positive outlook on life. Address him as Morrie, no matter what his name is.

• Crash your plane in the desert. Come to know the long, burning ache of prolonged solitude. Allow -- even encourage -- a fox to die. Draw a snake. Spend three days exploring the body of a wandering naïf. Despair at your inability to communicate even the simplest of your thoughts to another living person; weep at the poverty of speech. Cover every flower you can find with glass and threaten a tiger; it's The Little Prince, and you will never again know the quiet pleasure of a loving companion. Have sex with the drawing you made of that snake earlier.

• Have sex with a lion. Have sex with a witch. Long hopelessly for a wardrobe you cannot afford at a secondhand shop. Have sex with the lion again, only this time it's not the same, not now that you know what you're missing in not being able to be with the wardrobe. The witch stops taking your calls; you hear through a mutual friend she thinks you're emotionally unstable and cold in bed. Silently agree with her.

• Sink into your most regressive self -- give in to every selfish, tribal, racist impulse that slips across the hateful, shallow transom of your mind. Have children intermittently; let them raise themselves. Push away everyone who was ever kind to you. Let nothing hold you back in your feverish quest to make money. Wear hoop skirts and call everyone "darlin'." Seduce your best friend's husband, then watch her die. Avoid introspection at all costs. Promise yourself you'll reevaluate your choices "tomorrow." When tomorrow finally comes, there is nothing left to do but die. You're Scarlett O'Hara and you're beautiful.

• Have sex with a giant bug, the biggest you can find. This works for Metamorphosis and also The Phantom Tollbooth.

• Vow to have sex every day in the coming month. Join an online forum designed for keeping you accountable for having sex at least once a day for the whole month. Update your Facebook status to reflect your commitment to daily sex-having for the entirety of the month. Ask that your friends bear with you and understand if you're unable to honor normal social commitments during this month full of sex. Buy 30 days worth of prophylactics; display them prominently on your coffee table.

• Your partner is Watson and you are Holmes. Deny all overtures for sex. Deny them repeatedly, claiming the act would only distract you. Ingest cocaine. Finally agree to have sex, but demean his intelligence both during the act and afterwards. Find more cocaine. There will never be enough cocaine to make you forget it is impossible for the two of you to ever truly connect, as he is unable to keep up with you mentally and you see no value in feeling empathy. Buy a large black dog and fake your own death, in whatever order you prefer. Decide you are only capable of feeling physical attraction to waterfalls and the sensation of awe. Become a hoarder, but only hoard greatcoats. Solve more crimes. Solve everything. Solve yourself. Disappear forever -- disappear retroactively. Never exist.

• Move to your family's Minnesota lake house. Yell at cats. Ignore all attempts at human contact. Stop yelling at the cats -- it wastes precious energy that you need to finish building your Cat Trap. It's Freedom and you're Walter. Never have sex again. Cats, cats, cats.

• Was Steel Magnolias a book? They probably had some ghostwriter churn one out after the movie did so well. Find a picture of Dolly Parton and have loud, frequent arguments with it in front of your window. Drink improbable quantities of orange juice while shaking violently. Be fragrant and willowy whenever possible, but make sure you can still be smelted using the Bessemer process. Find Tom Skeritt. Take his kidney. Have sex with him if there's time, but the kidney's the important part. Make sure you get the kidney.

• Become intimate with a piece of liver. Serve it for dinner. It is Portnoy's Complaint. Later, write a thousand novels. Set all of them in New Jersey. Announce you're retiring from intimacy with pieces of liver. You're Philip Roth and you're a genius. Assemble all the pieces of liver you've ever masturbated on or with or into and take a long, slow look at them. Get in a fight with Wikipedia somehow; you're Philip Roth and everybody else is garbage and imaginary.

• Have sex with farmers. Have sex with Alton Brown while he's filming one of his Welch's grape juice commercials. Have sex when you're angry. Have sex with Henry Fonda. It's The Grapes of Wrath and you're disgusting. Henry Fonda was an American icon and is also dead. Let him rest in peace.

Sex Surrogate Spills

Sex Surrogate Spills: I'm the Mother Theresa of Sex

Helen Hunt is generating serious Oscar buzz for her role as a sex surrogate in the new film, The Sessions. Just what is a sex surrogate, you ask? Hint: it's not a lady who carries other people's babies. They're therapists who help heal sexual dysfunction—by having sex with patients. And they're real! From 1980 to 1992, Barbara Keesling, Ph.D., now a professor of sexuality at California State-Fullerton and author of Sexual Healing, lived the movie's plot line.

As a former sex surrogate, how realistic is The Sessions?

It really took me back because I worked with people, at least one guy, who was in worse shape than the patient in the movie (who has polio.) My patient (let’s call him Andre) had a very severe case of cerebral palsy. Initially his mom came to us when he was in his late 20s. He’d been put in a home at a young age but he was very smart and went on to graduate from college. Like the character in The Sessions, Andre never had an opportunity to lost his virginity. Andre couldn’t talk; he could only sort of growl. He couldn’t couldn’t shut his mouth so he would kinda drool. He only had the voluntary use of one arm; the rest of his limbs were spasming all the time. I would have to grab his one usable hand and hold it still and rub it all over me.

So, did you help Andre?

Oh yes. Cerebral palsy is a problem with your muscles. Because your penis doesn’t have any muscles, his penis was totally normal. He had no problems with becoming hard and we accomplished losing his virginity pretty quickly. Instead, the focus was me just moving him into different positions. I literally had to psychologically brace myself to work with him and then afterward I’d just sit there and go, “My God, it was not easy.”

What motivated you to do this?

What was going through my mind was, “I’m getting paid for this!” It is a job, okay? There’s something in my personality where I don’t get grossed out with things. And I wonder, “Hmm, what can this person do?” It’s about the sexual bill of rights. Everyone has the right to have sex.

What other issues did your patients face?

There were people who never learned to have sex. Some were very old or super fat. Some had ALS, MS, paralysis. My mom told me I was the Mother Theresa of sex! I don’t recall ever telling a client “no.” The most common sexual dysfunction of men in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s is premature ejaculation. When you never have any experience, you can’t control that reflex. Patients in their 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, it’s about erection. There was also sexual aversion disorder, a phobia about sex due to anxiety or depression.

So, uh, how do you treat these issues specifically?

For premature ejaculation, I taught a process called peaking. You set up a scale of from one, which is no arousal, to 10, which would be releasing the hounds. I would stimulate him by hand and he’d tell me when he’d feel even a two, and I’d stop. It’s training someone to allow their arousal to have peak-like patterns. With the more psychological patients, it’s relaxation exercises—breathing techniques, muscle relaxation. We didn’t always have sex.

Was it ever pleasurable for you?

Being with somebody with a physical challenge, I have their best interest at heart. I’m not thinking about having an orgasm. But if you take a client who is good-looking and personable and might have, say, an ejaculatory issue... once I get ‘em trained, yes! Oh yes.

How lucrative was sex surrogacy?

I charged the same hourly rate as a therapist—$80 back then and I’d think the rate would be $150 now. I was going to school in a doctorate program the whole time, seeing maybe 20 clients a week, so, yeah, I was doing well. I didn’t want to have to go through a student poverty situation. Now, since the movie came out, I know some surrogates are doing package deals. But Viagra has cut into the business quite a bit! And even though everyone gets tested, patients and therapists, HIV is a concern.

If you’re being paid for sex, isn’t that prostitution?

Prostitutes have the attitude of get in, get out, get off, and pay me. We’re coaching and teaching. We want patients to feel like they’re now confident to go out and get intercourse on their own. As Helen Hunt's character in The Sessions said, “I don’t want your return business! This is a fixed time relationship.”

What does it feel like to sexually “cure” someone?

There is a sense of reward. Big time. I would say to critics—think about how you would feel if you were in their position.Where else is he going to go? Who else would do this?

What do you guys think about sex surrogates?

Sex, Politics, and the Porn Star DA

From Pericles to Petraeus, public figures have run afoul of sex. The only thing really surprising about the public reaction to the burgeoning sex scandal among top military leaders is the fact that people are surprised.
The immediate and legitimate concern about l'aiffaire Petraeus is whether any secret information has been compromised. The use of sex to obtain information is hardly limited to James Bond movies; the World War II adage that "loose lips sink ships" may have had multiple meanings.

More instructive, if vexing, is the case of the recently reelected district attorney in my home county of Cortland. On November 16 -- days after winning reelection to a second term -- DA Mark Suben held a press conference to announce that, in the 1970s, he had appeared in several pornographic films, showing him engaging in a variety of explicit sex acts. He explained his actions as the "bad judgment" of a young man and apologized both for his actions, and for lying to reporters when asked about the allegations in the days leading up to his election. His bombshell admission came as the result of a lengthy YouTube clip, posted after election day, which presented evidence of his past, and presumably posted by political opponents who had also tipped off reporters. The post includes clips from some of his dozen films, including Deep Throat Part II and The Love Witch, where he used the name Gus Thomas. (Suben's acting had not been limited to skin flicks, but included off-Broadway work, television commercials, and soap operas.) Democrat Suben noted that all this happened before he attended law school, and concluded his press conference by stating emphatically that he had no intention of resigning.

One can readily imagine how this salacious story has reverberated in our small, upstate New York county. But within hours of Suben's press conference, the story was splashed across an array of national, and even international, outlets. Why, and what does this portend for Mr. Suben and our politics?

The answer to the first is simple: people are fascinated by -- if also repelled by -- the private lives of public people, and especially when sex is involved. Given that Suben's triple-X film career occurred decades ago, was legal, and predated his legal education and practice, the public is left with a breach of manners and morality, but not of law.
This leaves two other important questions: would Suben's past somehow interfere with his ability to function as a district attorney, including prosecution of sex-related cases; and what about lying to reporters (and therefore to the public) about his past? Aside from those who cannot abide a DA who once took off his clothes and had sex in front of a camera, this is the more troublesome question.

As to the first, Suben's first term lends no support to any notion that he would somehow fail to prosecute sex-related criminal offenses. And it is important to remember that he simply had sex -- a legal, natural, and ubiquitous activity. That he did so in front of a camera is a matter of performance (even if distasteful), not perversion. The lying problem is more significant. Yet it is no surprise that Suben did what most do: lie about an embarrassing and indiscreet past. That does not make it right, but unlike Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Clinton's chief political mistake was lying under oath about his extramarital activities, which is what precipitated the effort to impeach him. Suben's lie was not a legal, but a political (and arguably moral) problem -- considerations magnified for a public official.

Will county citizens decide that his past, and cover-up of it, negates his legitimacy as an elected official and prosecutor, or will he be judged by his record and legal credentials, which are indeed considerable, including prosecutorial work in the Bronx and Onondaga County DA's offices. A similar paradox arose during Clinton's sex scandal and subsequent impeachment trial in 1998-99. While the public decried Clinton's extramarital affair, most also continued to support him throughout his impeachment, because they felt that his private behavior bore no relationship to his ability to carry out his duties as president. And during the recent presidential campaign, Clinton's approval rating registered 69 percent -- higher than any other Democrat, including Obama, Biden, and the First Lady.

In the case of Mr. Suben, the people of Cortland County will face similar calculations in the ever-messy business of politics.

Sex Talk

Sex Talk: Don’t be stuck with just one joke

Even when you are really good at what you do, keep a change window open to avoid becoming too predictable.

You know what predictability in the bedroom signals: boredom.

What you did and how you did it ten years ago may have set that honeymoon suite on fire back then and for the years that followed, but don’t become too comfortable with your game.

It can become like a good joke that has seen the same stage too many times. Just because they laughed till they cried when you first cracked it, don’t be too disappointed when the next time you try, they even complete the sentences for you.

Or, haven’t you encountered the toddler who, having enjoyed a game of tickle-bump-tickle with you one evening, is eager for “let’s do it again, auntie” every evening after that, not knowing that the thrill of that was for just that moment (move on already, kiddo)?

Good but unvaried lovemaking can quickly become that way too. Like a repeated meal of matooke and beef year in, year out, that soon loses its essence and specialty. Yet when you punctuate it with the occasional frittata, the matooke’s specialness goes to an even higher level.

While some people battle sexual dysfunctions, others battle this being one-sided and too predictable in bed. Not a bad thing in the sense of the word, but just dangerous to a marriage. Seek to discover new ways to you.

If the tantric sex works magic for your marriage, then good; just don’t ruin its specialness by making it the daily bread. You can punctuate things with a little spontaneity here, a quickie there, a planned make-out there.

Don’t be associated with just one way of romance. Even when there are no complaints yet, don’t give boredom a chance. Don’t allow yourself to be predictable in sex; those are the cases where one of the spouses is perplexed as to why their mate could possibly cheat yet orgasms and the pink elephants are regular visitors in their bedroom.

The answer may be standard: “It is not you hon’; it is me.”

Listen to your body more and don’t allow to be grounded in just one way, or position, of doing things. A marriage is a partnership for the long haul – well, at least it should be – so, make yours an enjoyable stay.

Just like you don’t let your dining table become associated with “the usual”, don’t let even your bed sheets know what you are about to do next. It may be time for you to reciprocate some of the special favours your wife usually does for you as a matter of duty in the bedroom.

You may consider throwing in an incentive to making love with you, by coming off your male chauvinist horse once in a while to do things like breakfast in bed for her, as opposed to it being her daily duty to make your tea and biscuits ready before work.

Wives, thank goodness there are massage parlours all over the place now. Go get some tips and come back home to participate in foreplay. You know many wives I have sounded out feel foreplay is their husbands’ thing to deliver, and theirs to consume. No. You too can bring the swagg during that part of business.

Give him a massage, challenge yourself with things that would raise his brow in pleasant surprise. It cannot be the usual wham-bang-we-are-done-where-are-the-cleaning-towels kind of sex, year in year out. Monotony and boredom will be inevitable in that case.

Allow yourselves to be more adventurous; you will glory together in whatever you pull off successfully and laugh together over memorable bedroom gaffes. Just don’t be scared to rock the boat a little. It may reignite a part of your marriage you had long written off.