Saturday, October 13, 2012

The Weird Girl’s Guide to (Not) Having Sex, Part 1


This is the first in a planned series of blog posts I’m doing. More specifically, it is the first in a planned series of blog posts I’m doing about sex, or, rather, about no-sex.

This planned series of blog posts was inspired by a conversation at the Wisdom Exchange a few days back. The Wisdom Exchange is what we call our conversations over lunch at the place where I work. The conversation was about sex but this planned series of blog posts is about no-sex, even though the blog posts were inspired by the conversation.

I promise: This will get a whole lot simpler as we go along. On top of that, it will eventually involve dolphin rape.

Okay. At the Wisdom Exchange at work, we talk about all sorts of things, a full spectrum of peculiar topics, but the topic that nobody has been talking about – the topic that has been consciously and somewhat awkwardly avoided over all these weeks – is me and my recent breakup. I mean my recent breakup with Dana, Dana being the woman who is still legally my wife in at least a handful of American jurisdictions.

You have to understand: The Knowledge Exchange is fueled by knowledge in the same way that mosquitoes are fueled by blood. Everybody knows that if there’s a warm body just lying around near a swarm of live mosquitoes, sooner or later that body is going to get pricked. It’s just too tempting, and everything needs fuel. I’m not defending it; I’m just telling it like it is.

And so it was just the other day that somebody at the Wisdom Exchange finally tapped the untapped body of knowledge that, for a long month and a half, everyone had been pretending not to notice just lying there.

Oh, the knowledge, it was flying all around the table – helter skelter, hither and yon, twixt and tween the exchangers – when suddenly, up from out of the din, a lone voice sliced right through: “How ya holding up, Katy?”

Things got really quiet really fast. I noticed the silence but I pretended I did not. I said, “Better than expected.”

I paused, I thought some more, and I added, “The nights can be a little rough, but in general… Yeah, better than expected.”

This was the truth. At that moment, I could not think of a better answer, let alone a lie, let alone a reason to lie. So I went with the truth, even though I work at a law office.

“I can’t even imagine!  said one of the exchangers. She was not the brave soul who had broached the topic a moment before. She was a septuagenarian and she spoke up and she sounded like she honestly could not imagine.

She said, “To have someone for sex, four or five times a week for all those years, and then suddenly, nothing? My God!”

A couple of exchangers nodded. Several others made sounds indicating agreement.

I thought, Four or five times a week?!  but I did not say it out loud. At least, I do not think I said it out loud.

The next exchanger to speak was our firm’s CPA, and this was her contribution to the discussion: “If I don’t get sex at least every three days, I cease to be able to add even simple numbers. My hands start shaking and my brain shuts down and I can’t do the math!”

I heard somebody mumble an incredulous “Really?”  to the CPA. It took me several moments to realize I had been the mumbler in question.  

“Oh, hell yes! I’d go cra-a-a-a-azy!” It was now the receptionist’s turn to pipe in. The receptionist, who had had her first child at the age of fifteen. Who had had her second child at the age of eighteen. Who, now at the ripe old age of twenty-three, had four kids and a brand-spanking new boyfriend waiting for her back at home.

The next person to speak up was IT Dude. Not just any IT dude, either, but THE IT dude. The three hundred pound, bald IT dude with the combination birthmark/mole/prickly rash thing taking up the entire left side of his face. The IT dude who is paying child support to – at last count – four different women, including a prostitute who he claims he didn’t realize was a prostitute at the time, despite having routinely paid her for sex.

“I-i-i-it… It’s j-j-j-j-j-just a biolo-lo-lo-logical fact!”  IT Dude declared. “B-b-biological fact! I-i-i-it’s exactly l-l-l-like b-b-breathing or eat-t-t-ting. Human b-be-be-bei-i… um, people require s-s-s-s-s-sex.”

Everybody else at the table looked positively riveted by the information IT Dude was exchanging.

Then it was Handsome Young Male Associate’s turn. “I was reading the other day about dolphins,”  he said, and he said it in that handsome-young-male-associate kind of way, where everybody believed him.

He said, “If young male dolphins don’t get sexed regularly, they snap. Just snap. They will rape anything around them: Other dolphins, human divers, turtles or rafts or whatever is convenient.”

He said, “If they continue not getting sexed, a bunch of male dolphins will form a gang and start murdering other animals for the hell of it, just to get out their aggression.”

More sounds of agreement from the Knowledge Exchange. “Been there!” somebody said. This appeared to be exactly the sort of useful knowledge that the Knowledge Exchange was craving.

Handsome Young Male Associate continued. “The life of a duck is completely sex-driven,” he said. “Ducks will even have sex with dead ducks, and rape is so common in the duck community that the females have evolved genitalia specifically designed to repel these frequent attacks.”

Then Handsome Young Male Associate sat back and victoriously tossed a grape into his mouth. “From the perspective of almost ANYWHERE in the animal kingdom, your current situation is unsustainable and potentially dangerous for you, Katy.”

I looked around the table, from face to face to face, from pockmarked visage to snot-covered mustache, and on every face, without exception, I could see sincere concern. The Knowledge Exchange was worried that this horrible no-sex of mine might kill me – or if not kill me, then it might lead to my killing them!

I said, “Are you heteros being for real here? Are you all fucking insane? Did I wander into an eighth grade boys’ locker room?”

At this outburst, everybody looked sad. They probably all assumed that the weight of no-sex was finally taking its toll.

I said, “It has not just been a month and a half since I’ve had sex. It has been ten months.”

There were audible gasps.

I held up my hand to them.

I said, “My hands aren’t shaking involuntarily.”

And I said, “I can still add numbers.”

And I said, “And I am most certainly not… raping… dolphins!”

I said to the Knowledge Exchange on that day, and I say to you now, that I am not a eunuch. I am not frigid. I am not a prude. I have no real moral objections to people having sex – even having sex for pleasure and fun and profit. Hell, I think I am called a “pervert”  or a “degenerate”  on an almost daily basis. 

But the conversation about sex that day at the Knowledge Exchange has inspired me to launch into this planned series of blog posts about no-sex because, well, because I did not understand then and I do not understand now the psychology behind that conversation. Because I need to think about it in some systematic fashion. Because these days, whenever I need to think about something, sooner or later that something is going to turn into a blog post… or two or three or maybe even four blog posts.

This is “The Weird Girl’s Guide to (Not) Having Sex,”  and things are just getting under way…

With any luck, this will get Not Safe for Work.

46 comments:

  1. Even though I'm retired, I eagerly await the "not safe for work" part! That would be the highlight of my current sex life (which seems to be non-existent). Sigh.

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    1. I will do my best, then, to try and make it count.

      I generally keep things pretty PG-13 around here, but based on the first two comments this time around, it appears that my blog might be the best some of us do...

      Damn.

      Delete
  2. If I'm right Katy, most of us who read this corner of the blogosphere aren't getting any. I know I'm not.

    And I'm used to it. Haven't gotten together with any other 'nots' to gang-rape anything or anyone, either. Not even remotely tempted to do so.

    Anyhow....

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    1. Based on this comment, if I am ever in a position where it comes down to choosing between trusting YOU or trusting a young male dolphin, I'm totally going with YOU!

      Delete
  3. I forget what I was going to say, but I suddenly feel the unshakable urge to go rape the chickens in my backyard, or perhaps kill a few of the neighbors for kicks. It's been waaaaay to looonnng.

    Seriously, WTF is wrong with your co-workers?

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    1. I will be trying to figure that out in the next few blog posts.

      Figure out what's wrong with my co-workers, that is, not the chicken rape thing.

      Delete
  4. It became extremely popular to talk about other people's masturbation habits, but never to mention our own. I've tried talking about it multiple times to anyone who would listen. They ended up looking at me like I was crazy. A lot of girls even told me that I was being "creepy" or I was "totally grossing" them out. Finally I got the hint and stopped talking about it altogether. This raised a lot of unanswered questions though, which I hope will get answered here:

    This guy is hilarious.
    "blow gideon's trumpet", "beating the demon"
    http://youtu.be/x45EOzMJA5o

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    1. I know, isn't it unfair?

      When Lady Gaga does that stuff, she earns millions. When I do the same thing, I end up on a sex offenders watchlist.

      Delete
  5. Well, I have sex only when my lady and I get together, and that's every six months for a week. Haven't been remotely tempted to rape or assault anyone so far. But you know that.

    I think this sex question is something dreamt up by magazines to sell more issues. Personally, my current physical inability to write is infinitely more frustrating than lack of intercourse.

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    1. I'll probably end up using this quote elsewhere n this series of blog posts but your comment reminded me of an Aldous Huxley quote:

      "An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex."

      I think I'll have more to say on that later...

      Delete
  6. Since the infamous Strawberry left, I've had no desire for sex. Perhaps a couple weak moments of masturbation, but no real desire for sex, love, or anything resembling it. It just seems like too much trouble to go to in order to find a suitable mate... especially since, in my case, they mostly turn out to be extremely unsuitable... even worse than the one who vomited down the side of Astra's car. That's my lot in life, I suppose.

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    1. I'm sitting here, a month and a half out of an 8 year relationship, and none of that stuff is a priority to me right now.

      Delete
    2. St. Benedict said that whoever exalts himself shall be humbled and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.

      Ego plays into all these things. My ego can get out of control. I've been working at gaining a little humility.

      Delete
  7. Replies
    1. I think it's almost more... socially acceptable to be without sex when you have a significant other than when you don't.

      When you are single, you are sort of "supposed" to be pursuing something...

      Being alone is not as bad as I feared. I think I might try some more of it for a while!

      Delete
  8. See, you're numbers make total sense. And you have some horny, bizarre co-workers. Marriage is the best place to have no-sex. I had way more sex when I was single. Tons, by comparison. But I never have raped a dolphin, either while married or single. Am I getting that backward?

    By the way, the duck thing is at least largely true. I have two male ducks and two females and rape is a regular and sad occurrence in my poultry yard. The males have penises shaped like corkscrews. I'm dying to know how you might repel that.

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    1. Hi, Tara. It just so happens I have that very information handy!

      According to the article I read before I wrote this (yes, that wold be duck rape research), the females have developed vaginas that are also like corkscrews, but... THEY TWIST IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION.

      So now you know...

      Delete
  9. Maybe I'm just lazy but 4 times per week sounds exhausting. Can't we just read whilst nude and count that? Also, Handsome Young Male Associate is right about dolphins being super rapey. I don't see how that correlates to human sexual desires, but then again, I also never watched Flipper.

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    1. The dolphin facts are great support for my ongoing efforts to legalize in humans all behavior found in the animal kingdom.

      If I get arrested for running around naked outdoors, licking myself, and going to the bathroom in the neighbor's yard, I'm pulling this Handsome Young Male Associate in to testify about dolphins.

      Delete
  10. Reminds me of Seinfield episode where George's lack of sex works good for him to Elaine it works the other way. Hey I was a virgin till I got married at 25 and lack of sex would make no difference.
    Ducks deserve my respect and jealousy and dolphins too , sex part not the rape part

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    1. "Would make no difference" is the good part of that comment. It makes me want to turn around and ask, "How has sex positively affected your life, if at all?" next time out.

      I wonder whether folks' replies here would be different if I was talking to a different crowd.

      I mean, the folks who come here and take the time to read my stuff AND UNDERSTAND IT are not representative of the the general population.

      Delete
    2. Sex positively affected your life - I gave birth to twin boys, and and and sorry I don't have second point. :(
      Different crowd? Hmmm, I wouldn't let my co-workers know about problem in personal life leave sex life. Beauty of Internet is you could get honest opinions as well as "Internet experts" and "Internet tough guys" .

      Delete
    3. Oh yeah! I don't always keep that nexus between sex and kids in mind, for obvious reasons.

      Kids can be a positive effect of sex, yes.

      Or a negative effect of sex, depending...

      Delete
  11. i want to punch those fucking liar co-workers in their faces. point blank. no warning. i bet they are a real deep and sensitive lot.
    fucking liar fools.
    it never- ever- ceases to amaze me the lengths of fibbery people go to just to make themselves look so-called better than another. and dolphins can fuck off too for that matter.
    i love sex. but being not in a relationship with a mate- well, i am not sexing it up. and being the type of woman who deems it healthy for me to not be a free-love bullshit artist, i opt for long chilly nights solo... until some amazing person wins my heart. not going to budge there. and who says that fucking others helps you get over the break-up? [countless assholes still tell me that crap] it just seems to mask the real issue: pain.
    i'll take the pain.
    now go sucker-punch someone at work already. for peeps who go to such lengths as to educate- they sound stupid as shit.

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    1. Haha... Yeah, I think it gets tied up in ego issues... people needing to feel attractive or something. And I think fear of being alone plays into it, too.

      Neither of those is actually an issue for me all that much. Therefore, a sexual relationship at the moment could and would only make my life more complicated and probably worse.

      Especially in light of how flat-out bad the average person is at sex to begin with...

      Delete
  12. Four or five times a week? That's a typo, right? She meant four or five times a month (if you're lucky), right?

    If you'll excuse me, I have to go form a gang and beat up some dolphins. That'll make the blue balls go away.

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    1. I think that's called braggadocio. The five or six times a week thing, I mean.

      Well, I suppose beating up dolphins might be braggadocio, to. Depends on who the intended audience is.

      I don't know. I didn't have much of a chance to think about this reply because I was busy wrestling alligators. Yeah. I wrestle alligators five or six times a week.

      Delete
  13. jervaise brooke hamsterOctober 15, 2012 at 10:23 AM

    Katy, it could of course be argued that this post is itself a direct product of "THE TIME OF SEXUAL REPRESSION" because when anyone says or writes anything that is negative in any way, shape, or form about ANY aspect of sexual activity its derived directly from the hideously sexually repressed hell-on-earth that we`ve unfortunately created for ourselves, by definiton ! ! !.

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    1. Maybe.

      I'm never going to be sold on this theory of yours.

      I am NOT repressed, and I tend to talk about sex less than most people I know who more arguably ARE repressed...

      Delete
  14. jervaise brooke hamsterOctober 15, 2012 at 8:39 PM

    Katy, you may not be sexually repressed but the rest of the world IS ! ! ! believe me. Besides, another thing that makes it difficult to explain properly is that a lot of the reasons why the time that we`re living through will always be remembered by future historians as "THE TIME OF SEXUAL REPRESSION" are reasons that are still supposedly 'taboo' subjects in our society (to even discuss in a civilised way). Remember in the past for instance how you`ve been offended by things i`ve written on here when all i`m trying to do is educate you about what the future is going to be like. You see Katy, when you`re unfortunate enough to actually be living through "THE TIME OF SEXUAL REPRESSION" its very difficult to convey to people what a glorious world it will be a few decades from now when "THE TIME OF SEXUAL REPRESSION" is finally and thankfully over simply because people dont want to listen to the truth, just like people as relatively recently as 200 years ago would not have wanted to listen to the truth with regards to society existing without religion in the future, that truth would`ve scared them in the same way, its an exact parallel ! ! !.

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    1. Sexual repression?

      Society's sand in the line is too old? Or you want to corkscrew a duck?

      Katy is a pink dolphin.

      Delete
  15. As an asexual virgin, I am perplexed.

    On another note, it seems to me that the conversation was hijacked: not at at all about how you are managing, but about the OTHERS' sex lives. Of course, empathy involves putting yourself in someone else's shoes, but I don't think that's what was going on here.

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    1. Thank you, Ashley! I hope I can hit on this in the next few blogs, but... When I think about my breakup, the sexual aspect is well towards the bottom of my feelings of loss... And right now, I could not even imagine getting into that sort of thing right now.

      It's very weird.

      Is it cultural?

      I don't know...

      Delete
  16. Only at a law firm would the Liars Club be called the "wisdom exchange." I love it. Clearly the wise have been studying under Jerry (I paid for a hooker with a personal check while an elected official) Springer. The crap they were telling you is what high school boys use to get girls naked. OK not just high school boys. I once used "if we don't have sex soon I am going to explode" line on my wife. She laughed in my face. But it worked. I have no idea what my point was.

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    1. I remember now. I would like to see their browser histories. With facts like those presented, there has to be some late night research going on.

      Delete
    2. I think our entire society might best be described as a 13-year old boy.

      "America is a 13-year old boy with acne and some major ego problems."

      America has left strict instructions with his best friend, Israel, that his browsing history is to be deleted if anything ever happens to him...

      Delete
    3. Thanks for the snort laugh Katy, delete the browsing history indeed.

      Delete
  17. I'm still kind of new to your blog and a bit out of the loop, so I'm sorry to hear about your break up. That must be very hard for you, and you have my best wishes.

    Also, I think I'm going to like where this series is going to go. I guess I'm a prude (or what we used to refer to as a gentleman) and I can't imagine having that kind of conversation with a mixed crowd at work (I work at a law firm too, but I don't think it's just law firms where that rule should apply.)With very close work friends maaaaybe, but then only in humor.

    Second, this "if I don't have sex every few days/three times a week/every weekend I go crazy!" attitude baffles and annoys me. Maybe it's just my background; thanks largely to ineptitude with women I spent looooong periods pre-marriage in a completely celibate state. I sure as hell didn't like it, but I did what I had to do and I got by without losing my ability to concentrate at work or feeling like I had to jump on anything I could hold still. Other people can do the same, or do whatever they need to do to fix that...and anyway, there are worse problems in life than not getting laid on demand. And actually, now that I've been married for ten years and have three young kids, I can still kind of relate to the life of enforced celibacy...

    Anyway, I'm enjoying reading your blog. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. Thank you, Xanthippas! If I can manage a GOOD blog post once a month, I always feel really good about it all.

      I think it's sort of about priorities. There are a lot of things I like in my life, and I guess that includes sex, sure... but considering the crap that can go with it and the time involved and everything else, the priority isn't always at the top of my list...

      Of course, my priorities change...

      Delete
  18. I'm where Ashlee is. You are some weeks out of a break-up of a years' long relationship and people are wondering about sex? They probably also would be if you were straight, but this also strikes me as the obsession people have with lesbian relationships and sex, defining the entire relationship by one act. Not by the love they share, the housework, the decisions, the blah blah, but by what they do in (or out of) bed.

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    1. I'm starting to think that people have an obsession with sex out of all proportion with its actual importance in their lives.

      That probably goes for gay, straight, or other.

      So far, the one thing I've learned from all of this is that I should not take life advice from co-workers!

      Delete
  19. Not fair. I was reading one of your other blogs and at the end was a bunch of words that referred me to other blogs I might like. But I didn't like it and there's nowhere to complain. Why didn't I like it? Because the thought of going without sex is a scary one. I did it once for a year. Well, I originally did it for eighteen years but then after that I did it again for one. But the first time after that was less than earth shattering and hence a lost year to whittle down my bed frame even further with more conquest notches.

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    1. Scary thought, huh?

      I've gone from a comedy blog to a horror blog...

      Hmmm...

      That's Halloween at "Lesbians in My Soup": Imagine a celibate year!

      Delete
  20. As a young man I could not imagine life without sex. Now, at age 54 I have been celibate for 8 years after my wife of 25 years was caught having sex in a school bathroom with a 16 year old boy. I have had chances to have sex for the sake of sex with women, but found that sex without a real attraction was not worth it to me. The world seems to have a new religon...the young vagina. Even women seem to be in love with it now. It makes me wonder if we are spiritual beings at all, when we worship a globby stinky hole. It is often described as the 'giver of life', but it is but a portal. Bioology seems to control humanity far more than it wants to admit. Look at the general who lost everything, for a shot at some young puddy. My ex threw our home and family away for one ride on a teen-age dick. Now ten years later our children and grandchildren have no grandma and grandpa's house to visit for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Our family is forever fragmented. Sex has huge power. Men will do almost anything to get it. Many women learn to use it for power or income. Women call men 'dogs', yet who are the escorts who blow into town for a week and rent a motel and fuck as many men as they can and then go back to their own town with the loot. And no, they don't do it to put food on the table, they do it to get fancy cellphones, fancy fingernails, to go to Hawaii or get a fancy car. Look on the internet and see women in every concievable pose doing every concievable sex act. No repressed sex that I see. Too bad, I see sex as being ruined in this generation...it's been so whored up it has no goodness to it any more. AND I am not blaming women. Society has turned sex into a comodity. I don't have to worry about it any more. There is a real medical term called the 'death wall' where biology says if a man is not having sex at age 55, he is no longer needed and nature kills him off. It's a medical fact. Thank God. I had more hope that we were spiritual and not just biological driven fuck machines. I have found that I can live without sex, but life without intimacy with a woman is not worth much. Too bad for all of us....plenty of sex these days...no intimacy.

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    1. Wow! Thanks for sharing that, None. You have really experienced the fallout from someone not being able to keep sex in perspective!

      And I agree with some of that. I don't want to come across as a robot, but there is an obsession with sex in our culture that is way out of whack with its actual importance.

      I've had people ask me how I find time to write and get academic degrees and work and raise kids and read and learn about various topics, etc. And my answer is generally something like, "This is what I'm doing while YOU are trying to figure out how you can get laid."

      Delete

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