Yes, I have several suggestions, plus a kudo for not taking your partner’s issues on, which can indeed be challenging. First, it’s possible some help from a supportive therapist might make a real difference in your life. Ideally, you can get your husband to do a few sessions with you also. If that’s not in the cards:

Make sure your solo sessions are not just perfunctory, but at least once in a while real dates with yourself. The Chinese translation for masturbation is “self-comfort,” and that is clearly an element of what you’re doing, but try to make these experiences even more than that and indulge in self-care and self-love. That means it’s good to add in pleasurable elements of other kinds, not just a fast one with you and your vibrator.

I just addressed a question a bit like yours last night on the fun podcast LadyBrain; that woman’s twist was that she and her husband’s sex frequency was low, though not non-existent, and he had added masturbation into his life on a regular basis (or had never slowed down, perhaps, even when the two of them were younger and had a higher sexual frequency). This may be true of your husband also, and it might — *might!* — be possible that you and he can merge your self-pleasuring practice and do it together, at least once in a while. Couples who have never masturbated together don’t know how intimate and lovely this can be, and while it may not be possible for you two, it’s worth suggesting.

Finally, yours is one of the many scenarios that leads couples to choose polyamory, and perhaps that’s something for you to consider together. Can you find either a casual erotic playspace that you’d enjoy (sex party, swing club, etc.), or a lover or two who understand your primary commitment and will not wish to supplant or threaten it? Not everyone is cut out for this kind of intimate sharing, but many, many couples do it, and it can help stabilize relationships that include a degree of sexual incompatibility. At its best it creates stable, ongoing families of erotic affiliation, not just sexual opportunities outside the duo for one or both partners – not that there’s anything less about that option, as you (going without as you currently are) may well feel.

Here’s some reading material to help you consider the possibilities and skills polyamory could involve for you – I especially recommend the first one. I’d encourage both of you to read these and discuss, as they say in college. Ideally you two will address this issue together and create a plan that moves you in a direction that allows you to include partnered pleasure in your life once again.

The Ethical Slut (Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy)

Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage (Jenny Block)

Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships (Tristan Taormino)

Polyamory: The New Love Without Limits (Deborah Anapol)

Good luck!–CQ

(Second DM: i only ask this, as a sex worker transitioning out of the industry, this has come up a lot in my past relationships. Thanks!)

Until Sadie Lune’s anthology comes out which will explore such relationships, here’s what I’d say:

This is comparable to two other questions put together, the one where someone’s had lots of sexual experience with which their partner is uncomfortable, and the one where sex workers have to explain to *anyone*, not necessarily their S.O., about The Life.

My advice: Decide what degree of disclosure you and your partner want to handle together (some partners don’t want to know, or don’t want to know details; others want to get as much detail as possible so they won’t make stuff up). Give your partner the gist of your history and get a sense of their questions. Sometimes we’re talking about not one conversation, but several. And if anything about your sexual past (or present), including sex work, puts a current partner at risk of sexually transmitted diseases, you really ethically must be frank about it. Be prepared for questions about how much you did/didn’t enjoy the work, money, safer sex, and expressions of jealousy or discomfort — AND fascinated questions and wonders about whether your sweetheart might be cut out for this too. (These discussions can really go either way).

Other really good books that might make a difference are Whores and Other Feminists (Nagle), Tricks and Treats (about clients) (Sycamore), Turning Pro (Meretrix), Women of the Light (Stubbs) and Sex Work (Delacoste and Alexander). All of them help express how diverse sex work can be, and that’s a big point you’ll need to make to dispel questions grounded mostly in the information we get about sex work from pop culture. If your partner can’t hear YOUR experience because s/he’s too obsessed with Pretty Woman or the HBO ‘ho show or any other representation, it’s a problem, just as it would be if you couldn’t hear legitimate questions and concerns back from them.

If your darling wants to do nothing but come back and bug you about your experience (or fantasize about how hot it must have been), remember you DO get to have some boundaries; you do not own someone constant rehashing — and it might be a bad sign about the direction your relationship will ultimately take. Use your intuition re: whether your partner is genuinely grappling with issues and wants to get to a place of comfort with you. If you see a therapist together, choose someone with some knowledge about sex work.

Tweet! CQ

Related Products:

Working Sex
9 1/2 Years Behind the Green Door

There are a few parallels to keep track of as you’re learning to communicate this way, because we’ve all been in conversations with people who weren’t paying attention to our contribution, where we got bored, where we felt offended or taken for granted… and hopefully we’ve also had conversations that felt like an intimate mind-meld.

The same skills (and problems) can a verbal conversation and a physical sexual connection, so in deciding who’s appropriate to be physical with (and how to hone your own skills), look out for how it feels to be respected, listened to, your own perspective valued. Even when you don’t know where a conversation’s going, you often know you’re engaged in it, and sex can be like that too.

Maybe this explains why conversation is so often a successful lead-in to sex, or at least how it helps people decide whom they might want to be sexual with at a later time. Just remember in both contexts that you get to have your own boundaries and comfort levels, as well as your own sources of fascination and interest.

Tweet! Take care and have fun!

CQ

Straight people, if you are thinking of getting married, I highly recommend attending a gay wedding. The Unitarian Universalist Church on Franklin and Geary will be holding a marathon of them from November 1-4.

Really, go, you’ll learn something invaluable. You’ll learn that a wedding is about joy.

If proposition 8 were to pass, Feh, Feh, it would not only be a defeat for gay marriage but a defeat for joy.

That is the most amazing aspect of a gay wedding. The joy is palpable. It is bouncing through the room, perfuming the air. When the ceremony ends the room bursts into raucous applause and people begin to hoot and holler.

It is the marriage of the two meanings of the word gay; both the modern slang for couples of the same sex and the thousand year old term meaning joy or great mirth. The modern slang has overshadowed the original meaning. You may read about “gaiety” now and then but rarely will someone refer to having a “gay old time.”

There is joy and great mirth at these oh so modern weddings. They truly are gay. And in being so they return marriage to one of its essences.

One essence of marriage is the contract, a deal struck between two people involving assets. There’s the dowry (current assets), a promise of children (future assets), and the promise to take care of one another (perpetuity assets). Guests are invited to witness the deal and hold people to that contract.

Not a very enticing picture. As we evolved we sewed love into the fabric. Now guests were invited to witness the declaration of that love. Guests were invited to witness a man and a woman state, “I choose you.”

That is the essence of modern marriage, to stand before your community and declare, “This is the person I love.”

And oh, how we lost that.

How common and expected it is to see a bride and groom stressed out as their nuptials approach.

What’s the guest count?

Will Aunt Aida be offended if we don’t invite her?
Yes.
But she lives in Minneapolis and hasn’t left her house in fourteen years.
Doesn’t matter.

What about the menu? Should we serve fish?
It has to be sustainably caught.
Well, didn’t George and Martha have Aquaman cater their wedding? Let’s get his number.

And the venue?
I’d like to get married in the Church I grew up in.
Well, I want to get married in a house built of sustainably farmed straw by three humanely treated little pigs.

Straight people suffer under the weight of a massive paradigm.

Women who have been dreaming and revising their weddings for twenty-five years, the church, the dress, the music, the first dance.

Men who have been told that on that day their joy ends.

Ah, straight weddings, a bride nervous in case it is not exactly as she pictured it and a groom nervous in case it is exactly as he pictured it.

Gay marriage has no such paradigm. Gay couples have not spent a lifetime watching gay weddings in movies, hearing their mother’s tale of her gay wedding day, or going to their perfect gay sister’s perfect gay wedding.

Gay marriage is a virgin forest, pristine in its utter newness. There has been no time for anything to grow other than the essence of marriage.

At a gay wedding there is great joy at the right to stand before your community and say, “This is the person I love. I choose you.” There is little else.

There are two great ironies in all this.

One is that all those people who oppose gay marriage, those who will vote yes on proposition 8, believe marriage is sacred. And here they are opposing the marriage of people who have stripped marriage down to its sacred essence.

These people opposing gay marriage got married in the right church, to the right person, in front of the right people, with the right food and the right pop song to dance too; possibly by Elton John.

Many of them simply missed the point. But they’ll be damned, quite literally, if they allow two people to marry in the spirit of love, and little else.

The other irony is that if proposition 8 is defeated and gay marriage slowly becomes precedent these current marriages of joy will be a short-lived experience. Within a generation gay men and women will have built up their own paradigms. They will have their own images to live up to, their own dreams to get just right.

It will be beautiful because gay people will take the right to get married for granted. And it will be terrible because gay people will start worrying about inviting Aunt Aida and wearing the perfect outfit and finding three humanely treated little pigs who know how to build.

There will be joy, but joy tempered by expectation.

Right now there is only joy. It’s a beautiful thing.

So vote no on 8. Vote for joy.

“Did I snore?” I ask.

“No honey. I can’t sleep…”

I touch her face.

“Did you have a good time at the party, tonight?’

She bites her lip and touches my cheek.

“Yes, my dear. Always with you.”

“We hardly spoke to each each other. So many guests.”

“I know,” she says in a faint, heavy whisper, “I missed you all night. Did you get my messages?”

“You mean the hand across my back by the punch bowl or on the balcony, the fingers grazing across my cock?”

“Both, lover. You were particularly sexy last night.”

We kiss. It’s a moist, soft kiss.

“As were you. That little black dress is now my favorite.”

“It’s a size too small. I almost fell out of the top. And no room for panties.”

“I noticed.”

“I guess you did, you rascal. Feeling my ass while you talked basketball. Someone could’ve seen that.”

“No. I held their interest. I was pretty glib on the topic of one on one.”

“One on one, huh?”

“My favorite game. Especially with you.”

She raises up, brightened.

“Let’s get back to the topic of no underwear. When did you decide to go commando?” She asks, raising her eyebrows.

“When I watched you get dressed. I figured why should you have all the fun?”

“Well, we are going to be quite the topic amongst our dry cleaners.”

I kiss her again.

“Oh well.”

I love her voice, the richness of tone, the relaxed huskiness. It’s like gentle fingers trilling along the surface of my desire. She raises her eyebrows, then bites her lip. I know now what this is about.

She lifts her side of the covers, presenting herself.

“Look, honey…”

Her body is radiant and disheveled. One breast spills from her nightgown, catches the light. The pink nipple tight and radiant, the other breast still adorned, jiggling at the briefest of movement. Her gown is gathered on her upper thighs, the ruffles of fabric illuminated like the greek sculptures that adorned the yard of our host. Creamy folds in moonlit reverence. She breathes heavy and rubs her thighs together. She knows I love this. She knows its effect. She looks down to see if, yes, it has sneaked out. I revel in the feel of silk along my lengthening intention. I move closer. She parts her legs. That makes a sound.

“It’s talking to you, baby, It missed you. We both missed you,” she says in a whisper, as she moves to me.

My lover is comfortable in size, generous curves. Her movements are my foreplay, even when she’s standing and walking across the floor. In jeans or slacks. That night, I was riveted watching her unrestricted hips gently sway beneath her dress.

But here, in bed, her movements are flammable. Combustible.

How hot she feels against me, against my prick. I ooze a slight precursor along her belly. She wraps my prick in the silk of her gown.

“I wanted to go home as soon as I got there,” she whispered, “you could’ve taken me in that garden.”

She kisses with a slight flick of her tongue.

“You could’ve taken me on the hood of our car.”

She bites my lip. She runs her tongue across my eyelids. My cock pulsates in her hand. My breathing deepens. I take in her scent.

“You mean pull your little black dress up? Run my hands inside your thighs? Dip my fingers into you?”

“Anytime you wanted.”

She kicks the covers off us both.

“Touch me there.”

She’s hot, moist and impatient with my pseudo-reticence. She pushes my fingers in. One finger. Then two. Three. Her essence drips from her pussy onto the bed.

“My God, honey,” I say in a whisper.

“I’m going to drown you, baby,” she says moving her hips to my manipulations.

Her nightgown has slipped off her shoulders. Her breasts heave and dance. The sight of her arousal is breathtaking. Her parfum de sex fills the room. I finger fuck her, then remove my pajama bottoms. They catch on my prick. She covers a chuckle with her hand.

“Having a bit of a time are we? Entangled in our own ardor?”

I laugh and naked, I move to her, repairing the brief distance between us with my body.

“Top, baby. I want top.”

She says it in such a low, lusty whisper, I feel it through my chest. She mounts reaching back for my prick, sliding onto it, mashing her breasts into my chest. I can feel the heat of her through her nipples, as she humps slowly, her cheek to mine.

“I love how we fit together, baby, don’t you,” she says in between gasps, “can you feel me squeezing you?”

“God, yes,” I reply, immersed in our compete embrace.

She gasps and lurches.

“I wanted you all night long. Your hand on my bare ass drove me crazy.”

She moves like a passionate tide above me, her breasts swinging, until she fills the room with gasps and shouts, wrapping her arms around my neck, clenching my, holding me deep as she comes.

My darling holds me, her fingers grip my shoulders. Her hair is in ringlets, her gown matted in sweat and satiation. She turns her knees out. Her feet rub the insides of my legs.

“You’re magnificent,” I say to her as I feel the last of my passion drain.

“I love making love to you darling,” she says, “but now…”

She rises from me and on her knees, removes the last of her dampened garment. I watch as the last of her gown is pushed from the bed, the bedclothes, off the mattress. The moonlight brightens as if the moon, wide-eyed, is watching in astonishment. She is naked on her knees, giving me a show. Running her hands through her hair and caressing her breasts. Her lovely brown tuft is matted with passion. I hungrily watch her undulate. She watches my cock, and as it bops and rises.

“There it is. There’s my hot fuck toy.” She moves to me and takes it to her lips. I shake with ecstasy as she plunges, cupping my balls with her hands. She works me to rigidity, then moves to her back, drawing her knees up slowly. A move that ignites me time and time again. I move between my lover’s legs, and run my shaft along her slit.

“Take me home, lover,” she says, “fuck me…”

I mount my goddess and plunge deep. She wraps her legs around my waist, and we move as one.

She urges me to the brightest light of passion. Sensing the horizon, she grabs my ass and shimmies hard, propelling herself into bliss.

The calm after our vigorous collision surrounds us. We sigh to each other, wearing silly grins. All around us, discarded linens and garments. Our breathing is one breath. The moon, sated, passes by our window. The room is dark.

“We must attend more parties, my love,” she says.

The ticking of the clock returns as the only sound. We sleep as the clock’s hands sweep to three-fifty one, a.m.

Soon Dominic needed a port-a-potty. Acid can do that to you. We stood around for about 25 minutes while Dominic “released.” He kept opening the door to the port-a-potty to make sure we were there. To his credit, it is bad form to abandon your mate on the Playa while he’s emptying his entire digestive track and hallucinating.

Standing there for so long I noticed that women with small breasts frequented this set of port-a-potties. Let me state here that there are many things to be said for small breasts. Chief among them they do not bounce and hurt the woman during vigorous or obscenely athletic sex. They can also do beautiful things to the lines of a woman’s torso.

I once read that Jean Paul Gaultier railed against breasts for ruining the line on his clothes. But I digress.

My main point is about the different sides of Black Rock City. The one side, the side we were on, the side Dominic was now walking back out on with one of the world’s greatest sighs of relief, was the rave side.

The clubs are outdoors, the girls wear fur-clad booties and lycra tube tops and impossible booty shorts and by dawn are dancing topless and offering themselves wide-armed and eyes closed to the rising sun. The boys wear baggy pants and crazy hats and open fur jackets over their tight torsos and they sit in the desert and meditate to the rising sun.

It is a sexy scene but much of the communing is either with yourself or with one other person. Sure there are people on E but they’re kind of slowly rubbing against each other and kissing so deeply you’d think they were looking for their keys.

On the rave side the sexuality is contained, a place of personal or coupling exploration.

That night we set off for the opposite side of the Playa.

My brother and Dominic were cooing over all the lights and kept asking, “Is that tower moving? Is that light bright moving? Is that giant game of Tetris moving?”.

Our destination was a big, loud, white dome but first we had to go look at the Tetris game. Our other friend, Reynaldo, and I were drinking our G as we walked across the sand. Standing on top of a glowing 20-foot Tetris piece we started to come on.

Suddenly, I wanted to fuck everybody. That’s what it’s like. We headed to the dome. Reynaldo and I took off our pants and ran around laughing, our willies bouncing in the night air, my brother and Dominic asking, “ Are they moving?”

I ran over and grabbed my girlfriend, Misty. Then I kissed her, and grabbed her, and bit her, and growled at her and wrapped my hands around her hips and pulled her tight and I think I tried to swallow her. The poor dear, she handled it with aplomb. She said I was like a 5-year-old with a hard-on. Pretty much, which is why it was such a good idea to go to the other side of the city.

Reynaldo and I put our pants back on and ran into the big, white dome. Reynaldo took my hand and led me through the dancers until we were up front near the dj. Some girl took Reynaldo’s blue fur shrug and wrapped it around herself and set her legs apart so her bronze lame mini dress rode up her thighs as she danced with us.

Judging from the looks on our companion’s faces the music was terrible but we didn’t care. If the other side of the city is the rave side this was the sexy side. Here the sex was not turned inward or specifically directed. Here the sex was wide open, an ether filling the air.

Here the girl in the mini dress danced with Reynaldo and she danced with me and she danced with the whole dome. Women wore corsets and tight jeans and short skirts and kitten heel boots. Men were in tight pants and shirts tailored to flatter.

My brother left because he got stare-fucked so many times. And believe me, having someone stare at you so hard it feels like sex is not where you want to be while tripping balls. But if you’re a five-year-old with a hard on it’s perfect.

Reynaldo and I danced though a few more songs, one of which I remember being a terrible house remix of Shout. We loved it. I was madly in lust with mini dress girl for a full 10 minutes. In truth it was simply the air I was breathing, eroticized ether filtered through my drug to become pure want.

We left to get back to our group and within a short time I was coming down. We slogged across the soft Playa back to our camp and there I made grilled cheese for my brother, Dominic, Reynaldo and Misty. I was happy to be doing it. I was back home on the rave side.

The sexy side was a beautiful place to visit and I am thrilled it is there and I love the vitality and exuberance it adds to the spirit of Burning Man. But I don’t think I could live at its source. I’m much happier with its reflection. I was happy to curl up with Misty that night. And maybe the girl in the mini dress too, but that’s a story for another time.

I know I’m supposed to go to Burning Man for the art, but that’s a little bit like saying you read Playboy for the articles. It’s true the articles can be excellent, but what keeps bringing you back, what entices you and fills your dreams are the pictures, the women and their unabashed nakedness.

The art at Burning Man can be majestic but it’s what’s in the ether that entices, it’s the freedom the Playa gives so that women are more alive and in themselves and sexier there than anywhere else in the world that brings me back. It’s the chance to be a five-year-old with a hard on. At least that’s what Freud would say, and Misty.

Redundant, say you.
No, say I.

Bachelor Parties aren’t really for bachelors, they’re for almost married guys. And there’s a big difference between living alone with no promises made and having a fiancé, a caterer, a hall, a guest list and your parents in town.

Just because the ring is in your pocket doesn’t mean you’re still a bachelor. The ring going on your finger is a technicality. And technicalities don’t count in matters of love.

The bachelor party I attended recently began at 8 a.m. Yes, as other bachelor party attendees stumbled home in a bleary-eyed haze, I sauntered by bright eyed and bushy tailed, sober and chaste, on my way to a sensible breakfast in Glen Park. From there we went south to shoot clay pigeons.

The reason for this was that the bride-to-be had expressed extreme duress over our going to a more traditional venue. I believe the direct quote was, “No f—ing lap dances.”

At first I was as disappointed as you. There are few things as much fun as going to a strip club when it is not your idea. “I’m not really like this – just here with the boys – being supportive – trying to help the ball club – hey you’re pretty.”

On the drive down I listened to a guy describe how much he loved surfing. His wish was to find a “part-time parenting situation”, 2-3 hours a day, 3-4 days a week so that he could teach a kid to surf.

That, my friends, is a bachelor.

My friend, the groom to be, was not.

Lying on a picnic table, comatose from too much barbeque and too much sun, surrounded by the gentle lullaby of shotgun blasts I had my epiphany.

There was my friend, a man who had made a big decision in his life, a brave decision. He was going to stand up in front of his family and friends and declare his love for a woman.
It’s a beautiful thing. It should be up to us, his friends, to support him in that decision.

The night before or the week before a man’s wedding is not the time for a man to carouse as he once did in the past. It is a time for his friends to celebrate his future, to pay tribute to the life he has chosen.

A traditional bachelor party is actually a subversive act. It focuses attention on a man losing his freedom rather than a man choosing his life. By it’s very nature a traditional bachelor party denigrates marriage as not a choice but an obligation, a giving in, a failure.

The night before the wedding one should not be mourning the loss of bachelor hood. One should be celebrating the creation of a new role, that of husband.

Which brings me to this, Bachelor Parties should continue. They just shouldn’t take place any where near a wedding.

A Bachelor Party should be all about celebrating the fact that you’re still a F***ING BACHELOR.

26-years-old? No girlfriend? Have a f—ing Bachelor Party; girls, guns, blow, donkeys, whatever you want.

Does it make sense to wait till you have a fiancé to go out and have the biggest blow out of your life? Does it make sense to wait to hire strippers until you have someone in your life you need to keep it secret from? Why wait to have your dirtiest night until you have reason to feel guilty the next morning?

Men, for god sakes, start having your bachelor parties while you’re still legitimately bachelors. Celebrate the fact that you can do anything and not feel guilty. Celebrate that there’s no one waiting at home for you; no one to keep a secret from, that you don’t have to explain your night or what you did in that hot tub with Kia and Iris. That’s a bachelor party.

Luckily, we figured this out on the picnic tables and so you are all invited to Steve’s official and legitimate Bachelor Party; a grand shindig where we will celebrate the licentious beauty and carnal delight of Steve’s bachelorhood.

I was 26-years-old living in Goa, India, on a research grant to study the international rave culture.

All right, it wasn’t a research grant. I was in school for my masters.
And true what I was doing could only loosely be defined as studying.

All right, fine, I was only thinking about going back to school for my masters.

And in the spirit of full disclosure it wasn’t Goa it was Brooklyn.

But Brooklyn was a hot bed of psychotropic activity at the turn of the millennium. It was also home to one Anna Belvedere, temptress and critical theory major. She liked to tell people we met in a rathskeller drinking absinthe smuggled in from Prague. We actually met while getting high on a fire escape at a house party. This didn’t stop her from insisting that I call her my little green fairy.

At the time I was having a great deal of fun with mushrooms. Not shitakes, though they can be hilarious. These were psychedelic mushrooms. I liked walking down to the water and watching the
Manhattan skyline sway to and fro.

To bring this all together one night Anna Belvedere and I were lying in bed when she turned to me and said, “You don’t love me enough.”

This is a horrible thing to say to a sensitive young man from the east coast. To not give a woman enough love, that’s so 1950s, so devaluing, so patriarchal. It wasn’t until moving out to the west coast that I learned to say, “That’s your bag.” The west coast is all about the art of throwing it back on your partner.

Still on the east coast, I was wracked with guilt. Anna hammered the point home with accusations of hegemony, hermeneutics manipulation, and my mother’s penchant for befriending large bosom women. Anna Belvedere’s breasts could best be described as two eggs, fried.

The next day I ate some psychedelic mushrooms and walked down to New York Harbor. Sitting on a bench on a pier I could see the water from the river being drawn up into the skyscrapers. The skyscrapers bloomed into soft petals, red and yellow and white. People were freed from their offices and lay in communion on the new flowers. There was a sense of oneness to the world.

And in the middle of it sat Anna Belvedere with her big words and little breasts. I felt an opening towards her. It was love and desire. It was a belief that through Anna I could connect to the whole of existence. (It was shortly after this experience that I moved to the west coast.)

When she came home I grabbed her and kissed her and extolled my love to her, even using the word parsimonious to describe my emotional withholding. I looked it up. Anna gazed at me with delight and asked where all this had come from.

I told her about my vision. She gave me a funny look. I told her I had the vision while on mushrooms.

Anna Belvedere erupted. Nothing real ever happens on drugs she screamed. Nothing profound can occur while on drugs. She threw her shoe at me. I had demeaned our relationship by thinking about it while on drugs. I was hit in the face by a very small bra.

Our relationship ended then and there. I had been torn about the experience for years. Until the other day when I came upon this study that just came out of Johns Hopkins.

It seems scientists administered psilocybin to a group of older religious folks. Psilocybin is the active ingredient in magic mushrooms. Johns Hopkins gave psychedelic mushrooms to forty-something churchgoers. Many of them reported intense, deeply felt spiritual experiences, experiences of connection with the divine. You can see the study here:
http://www.csp.org/psilocybin/

And here:
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2006/07_11_06.html

Two years after taking the psilocybin these people were reporting that the experience had deepened their faith, created a more positive attitude ion life, that it had altered the way they see themselves in
the world. Magic mushrooms had helped some of them have primary mystical experiences.

A-HA! Take that Anna Belvedere. I walked down a frightening road to discover my love for you. And what I found was true. It was true I tell you! Johns Hopkins says so. But your narrow little mind was too full of big words to see it.

Very often what is happening on drugs is a glimpse of a something quite honest. It is a veil being lifted. And then the veil comes back down and since it is all we have ever known we assume the veil is real and our drug-induced experience must be the falsehood.

But that’s not so. You couldn’t see that Anna. And thank god, because you, Anna Belvedere, were crazy.

On the basis of this groundbreaking study I’d like to take a moment to right a number of wrongs done me.

Beverly Kozciuzko, remember that time we were high and I said you were the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, well it wasn’t the drugs talking. It was the honesty with which I saw you.

Simone Bouvier, I always knew that wasn’t your real name, but when I told you that was the best sex of my life it wasn’t the GHB talking.
It was my self opening and recognizing how beautiful our experience had been.

And to the 75 women I’ve declared my love to while on ecstasy, that was the E talking.

Of course Google has made me exceptionally lazy. If two or three keywords don’t give me my answer by halfway down the second page forget about it. Besides, only loser ideas show up on page three.

Now, I know there are sites where people gripe about their exes.

“John is a two-timing douche bag who invites himself places and never brings wine.”

“Craig seems like the perfect guy until you’re lying in bed with him and he refers to your mother as a MILF.”

But those are site that deal with everyday behavior. What about a site for people to talk about what their lovers were like in bed? That’s right, sex reviews of your former lovers. There it is. That’s my idea, yelp for sex.

I searched for it for a while but as I said, nothing on the first two pages of google. I went to sleep only to awake in the dead of night with a web address in my head. I typed it in and there was the site I had been looking for. The first thing I did was click on the bad reviews.

“Patrick was odd. Don’t go near him unless you like being asked to cluck like a chicken.”

“Salvatore is very proud of himself for going down on you. If only he would have continued down and fallen off the bed I would have gotten a better nights sleep.”

I found myself smiling.

Ah yes, schadenfreuden, the malicious enjoyment of another’s misfortune.

Humanity is big on schadenfreuden. It is why we love to watch the fall of the rich and famous. Watching another have misfortune makes us feel the playing field is a little more even, that there is plenty of misery to go round, that we’re all in the pit together.

Reading stories of a woman’s utter dissatisfaction with another man is enjoyable. Suddenly, I’m feeling pretty good about myself. I’ve certainly never left a woman, “drier than a prune in the Negev”. Apparently that’s how Ari left Liat.

It was at this point that a furry pink walrus with vibrating tusks drove through my living room on an art car. I realized I was dreaming. But it was pleasant enough. I was feeling proud of my sexual prowess. So I dreamed on.

“Kevin has a great time in bed. I just wish he remembered I was there.”
I could feel myself puffing up, growing lighter. I was experiencing the malicious enjoyment of another’s misfortune. In my excited state of confidence I started searching for my own name. I assumed some lucky girl must have posted a good review of my performance, no, a rave review.

Then I found it, posted by some girl I couldn’t quite remember: my name, the word sex, and a veritable ocean of negativity. Thumbs down, I’d rather have meditated, you call that a penis?

Right there, in front of god, George Bush and my mother. Oh god, did my mother see this? Would she type my name into yelp sex? Is she that sick? No, wait, my mother can’t turn the computer on. I’m just freaking out.

But what about my current girlfriend; does she know about this site? This isn’t funny.

I was insecure so I looked up the bad reviews. I was so insecure that I enjoyed reading them. And now that insecurity was coursing through my body. I’m bad in bed and now everyone knows.

No one wants to be known as bad in bed, selfish in bed. To see it in black and white, someone saying you’re no good at this, this most primal, important, human act, it’s a knife to the ego.

But wait, wait, do I even know this girl who posted? Is she just making all this up?

Holy crap, how could you stop people from just making anything up? I could write a review of my boss. I could rip apart my exes for the hell of it. I could take out a competitor with one swift technological blow.

Yelp sex is actually a brutal arena. Like those Elk that bash their skulls and antlers together for mating rights. It is a repository of vicious innuendo and cutting hearsay. It is sexual Rashomon.

Now I really am awake and I can’t sleep and I certainly can’t masturbate because all I can think is, “Everyone thinks I’m bad in bed. OMG, I am bad in bed.”

The ramifications of yelp sex become apparent.

People are giving false names at bars and at parties because everyone’s heard the urban myths. The friend of a friend who was into this girl; she yelp sexed him on her iphone, discovered he refused to go down on women, and walked out. Or the one about the guy who used his iphone to read that the girl he was talking to gave a blowjob like she was chewing gum. He just walked away.

In an effort to be positive some people solely look up the good reviews. But there only seem to be two kinds of people who post these.
There are the sex positive couples that praise their partners for understanding their bodies and playing them like a fine musical instrument.

And then there are the sex hippies that write glowing reviews of themselves.

“Daniel is the finest male specimen I have ever had in bed. His large, substantial penis, like a towering conifer, sent ripples through my yoga body, bringing me back in touch with my deep roots in the red earth.”

No more shadenfreuden in the good reviews, these people are making you feel bad about yourself. It’s all gone backwards.

My lord, yelp sex is a terrible idea. Thank god no one has done it. Or if they have don’t tell me about it. And please, don’t write anything about me. Unless you want to say something positive about my sexual prowess in which case please post your comment here.

“Judah has the uncanny ability to make me climax while achieving enlightenment. If you get the chance, sleep with him.”

Posted by Judah.

The dispatcher reported a robbery in progress at a gas station/convenience store around the corner. Dispatch reported a six-foot tall white male perp with a gun. I accepted the call, flipped on my lights and gunned it down the street in my undercover car, a Dodge Charger.

Yeah, of course it’s a fucking dangerous business, but I love my job. Calls like this get always get my pulse racing, sweat beading in my armpits, adrenaline flooding my veins. As I raced to the call, I tried to prepare mentally for the scene. Would shots have been fired by the time I got there? Who was the perp? A pedigreed crook? A piker? Some kid on crystal meth? How would he react when a female cop came on the scene? Some whimper like puppies and come crawling to mommy. Others don’t give a shit who you are and will fight to the death.

I pulled in to the far edge of the parking lot across from the entrance and near the gas pumps. I got out of the car and went to the far edge of the building to size up the scene. A man dressed all in black with a green stocking cap pulled down low walked out of the store and took off across the parking lot, most likely tailing it for the apartment complex a few blocks away.

I took off after him, calling out, “Halt! Police, you’re under arrest. Drop your weapon!” The cocksucker kept running, so I turned on the juice and sprinted, tackling him when he tried to jump a low fence.

I got my hands onto his shoulders and shoved my knee in his crotch. “You freaking little piss ant,” I screamed at the perp twice my size. “You’re under arrest.” On your stomach, NOW! Hands behind your back!” I cuffed him and pulled him up by one of his cocked elbows. Then I read him his rights before walking him back and shoving him into the back of the Charger. He spewed profanities as we drove, but that shit doesn’t bother me. Goes with the territory.

About a mile from the station, as I turned onto a side street, I felt hot, moist air on my neck. I tried to bash the dude’s nose in with a backhand to the face, but he was already on me, hands around my neck. The car swerved off the road and came to rest on the side of the road. The perp was out of his cuffs and on me before I could get to my gun. He dragged me out of the car and shoved me to the ground.

“How does that feel, copper?” He growled. “You like being trapped like an animal?”

I struggled against him as he twisted my arms back for cuffing.

The perp pulled me up, my hands now cuffed behind my back, and slapped me hard on the ass as whispered, “You are a very bad cop!” I tried to kick him in the groin, but he was too powerful. He slapped me again and ran his hands down my sides.

“You can’t get away with this,” I sneered. “I’ll hunt you down and eat you alive.”

“Sorry baby,” ain’t gonna happen. You’re the prey tonight.”

His hands were on me then, pulling at my clothes, reaching between my legs, squeezing my breasts. There were no signs of life on the deserted side street except for our struggling.

The perp continued to feel me up. He ripped open my shirt and ran his tongue from below my navel to my throat, his hands grabbing everything they could. I could feel his hard cock pressing against my leg as he licked and grabbed like the crazy sonofabitch he was. I clawed and scratched at him, but he was huge, and I didn’t have a chance.

He slapped me hard across the face and let loose another string of profanities, cuffed me and shoved me into the car. He drove me to the station, cursing the entire way, before jumping out taking and off.

“Don’t let your guard down bitch,” he screamed as he ran away. “I’ll be back for you.”

When I walked in the front door, that fucking perp was sitting naked at my kitchen island, drinking a glass of merlot.

I sauntered over to him in my ripped uniform, my hands still locked behind my back.

My husband looked me and grinned, his forehead still shiny with sweat.

“Damn, that game’s a winner, baby!” he said. “You make a fine lady cop, but you’re my prisoner now. Ready for fingerprinting?”