Bell currently lives in Amsterdam and speaks at film festivals, porn festivals, and feminist porn festivals. Her life is full of the dualities of life, parenthood, marriage, career. She has a toddler and has been searching for preschools recently. Several years ago she set up her own production company, Blue Artichoke Films, to make and distribute the movies she wanted to see. Now she’s working on a series of three interlinked films and is just finishing a documentary in which she followed a woman embracing her submissive side around Amsterdam for three years. We spoke about film theory, porn, sex and ethics.

***

The Rumpus: How did you become a filmmaker?

Jennifer Lyon Bell: I’ve always wanted to make erotic films. I’d seen porn when I was younger and I had thought that it was really ridiculous and nowhere near as sexy as the fooling around my friends and I were doing. So when I was a teenager, I thought it would be neat to do something better. Only I went off to college, to Harvard, and it didn’t really occur to me that that was a legitimate career option. I was into sex-positive feminism, reading Susie Bright and Carole Queen, but I didn’t really consider that erotic film was something I could do. Instead I went into advertising and had a career there for ten years.

Rumpus: So what changed?

Bell: I moved to Europe with my boyfriend and thought it might be time. I’d talked about making erotic films to everyone, friends and family and strangers on the street. In Amsterdam I decided to get a masters in film theory just to study erotic film and come up with a template for why I believe film is sexy. Is it just a matter of showing body parts or is there more to it than that?

Rumpus: A few years ago the New York Times did an article I think in the Sunday Arts and Leisure section about someone trying to make porn films for women. It was all about the Prada shoes, like if you get the fashion aspirational enough, women will be turned on. But that did nothing to change porn or the tropes, say, of what is sexy, which is what you’re trying to do. We’re conditioned to see porn in a certain way and you’re trying to subvert what that is.

Bell: It’s true. We’ve created a separation between sex and the rest of life that’s unnatural, so I want make films that bridge the explicit sexuality in, let’s call it, porn with the artistic expression and emotions and plot lines you’d see in art films. It’s not just a way to make interesting film but is a metaphor for what’s compelling about sexuality. It’s part of life, so acting like it’s some kind of separate ghettoized experience that we need to hide and not discuss is silly.

Rumpus: How did grad school help? What did you do there?

Bell: Specifically I was thinking, does having character and narrative make you feel more erotically charged by a film and if so why? There I had a framework to understand why I believe making something sexy isn’t just about showing body parts, and I stumbled on cognitive film theory, which talks about why everyone – not just women but men and women – feel what they do when they look at the screen. I became interested in sympathy and empathy.

Rumpus: Do they relate to that weird truism you hear spouted off about women and erotic material, that women need character development and narrative and men need visual stimulation? Is that even true?

Bell: I don’t believe men and women are terribly different when it comes to looking at erotic materials and getting aroused. Culturally we act like women need to have a huge complicated story to feel connected to a sexual relationship, but I don’t think that’s true. Plenty of films that don’t have much character I find arousing. Still there’s a basic statement a film can make that enables you as a viewer to become much more engaged. Having sympathy and empathy means you get more turned on.

Rumpus: So, obviously we’re talking something more involved than just tits and dicks, say. More than just anonymous consumer porn.

Bell: Yeah, the statement a movie can make is that these are basically decent people. These are moral people, and that sounds funny to talk about morality when you’re talking porn, but for all kinds of film, porn included, being engaged with the story and its characters involves you in their choices and actions and how you ought to feel about them. One way of talking about it is it boils down to morality. Is what they’re doing good or not? And, when people are basically good, you feel bonded with them and you want to feel what they feel. Use that in an erotic move and we can really get into the action. You can create that bond in an erotic documentary with real people’s stories and personalities and showing what they’re actually like and that they’re basically good people. Or, you can do it with fictional characters. Watching them struggle with their morality makes it more interesting and enhances that erotic bond you have with them.

Rumpus: Which you’re doing now in a bondage documentary, right?

Bell: Yeah, it doesn’t have a title yet, but I’ve been following the main character Lotus around for three years. It’s the true-life coming-out story of a submissive discovering her BDSM side in Amsterdam. She approached me because she’d seen the other films and wanted me to film her life as she went through this. It took her a while to convince me. I didn’t think she was serious but was just being flattering. We just shot the final scene recently and she’s happy with how everything turned out.

Rumpus: How is stuff for Lotus now? What’s her life like?

Bell: It’s changed so much. She’s much more sure of herself.  Before she questioned herself and wasn’t as happy in her love relationship. Now she’s in a satisfying one with a man who she’s been with for quite a while. That happened during the filming, and she’s had fantastic BDSM experiences that have made her more happy and has this boyfriend who loves and supports her. The movie’s message matches up with my personal belief in sexuality, which is that only when you feel safe enough to be honest with yourself, with what really turns you on and what you really want in your heart of hearts that you can live your life to the fullest.

Rumpus: As we’ve talked about morality and character that’s made me think of Russell Banks new novel Lost Memory Of Skin about a kid committed for a sex crime. Basically he’s a porn addict, and it’s beautiful, very sensitively written. Banks gives him humanity and depth. As you were talking about a moral sense, it made me think of the Kid (which is what he’s called in the book). He’d been a consumer of internet porn and there was no human aspect to it, just a consumption-addiction driven thing where he was inured to porn. In a way the book was about how and why he couldn’t be open to something slower and deeper and more emotionally driven. It was partly about the larger culture of how that happens, that deadening.

Bell: We contribute to a culture where the only ways of engaging are turned on or not turned on – orgasming or not orgasming, as if it’s binary. Being aroused can have a very different flavor based on what kind of film you’re watching or what kind of situation you’re in and they’re not all the same. Arousal is not all the same. Some people maybe want to have the option of a really quick, not very involved orgasm sometimes. That’s okay, but I think it’s on a broader psychological and philosophical level it’s important to say, there’s arousal that’s more fulfilling for you if you want to find it.

Rumpus: So how does that actually come into your movies?

Bell: My first film Headshot – it’s a remake of a classic Andy Warhol movie from 1964 – and in the original, Warhol detaches the viewer from the image by never letting you see who’s giving the blowjob. You get no sense of the relationship between the two people. And, it’s a silent movie, which also goes a long way towards distancing you. I thought, wow, wouldn’t it be cool to do the same thing and bring in the emotions that come from sound and from seeing the relationship. I remade it with a man and a woman, and you still never see the person who’s giving the blowjob but I tried to bring out his personality.

Rumpus: You get a really quick sense in it that he’s totally up for this, a bit charged by on-screen sex with someone he’s never met, but also that she is too.

Bell: When he and this woman meet each other, it doesn’t take long for you to understand what’s exciting to both of them in this situation, so you’re invested in their having a great time for a couple of minutes because that’s all it takes.

Rumpus: How did you find him? He seems so very dude, like kind of some ur notion of male up-for-it guy?

Bell: At the cast party for Matinee, one of the crew members said he’d like to be in a film for me, and I immediately thought of Headshot. He had no experience at all. He was just a regular guy who wanted to explore his sexuality on film, so when I had the idea he was the first person I called.

Rumpus: How did Matinee work?

Bell: It’s a story of a couple portraying lovers in a play  in Amsterdam and the woman, Mariah, struggles with whether or not to actually have sex on stage with her partner on stage. The play is a struggle and she wants it to be a success. It’s very much her, Mariah’s, story. I want people to be into her and invested in this boundary she decides to overcome. She doesn’t let him know what she’s decided to do, so when it comes to her making this move and having sex with him, you’re completely into it, and you want her to have a good time.

Rumpus: Your movie Skin Like Sun has no dialogue or story, so how do we invest in the characters there?

Bell: It was commissioned for a feminist porn festival, and I made it with Mureille Scherre, who’s also a DJ and lingerie designer. We wanted to bring to life the female character’s experience. One way we could do that was taking a lot of shots that represent how she feels in sex. Those are likely to be shots you won’t see in straight porn since it’s oriented towards men. We tried to take close-ups of when she’s touching his hair and ears and meld that all together so it feels like one continuous experience and you feel their relationship in a broader, closer way. The most important decision was to make it feel like real time. We wondered if it would make us feel closer as viewers to her experience.

Rumpus: The movie has a sweetness to it in all the touching and affection. Those are the telling details that make it clear they love each other. Somewhere I read that in looking at erotic images men are more likely to look at faces first, then genitals, which I thought was interesting and unexpected.

Bell: If you’re looking to understand how someone feels in a certain situation, the look on their face tells you a tremendous amount that can make you feel connected to that person. In traditional porn, men’s faces are largely absent. We see the woman’s face and body and genitals but we don’t see much of his body, and we definitely don’t see his face. But I want to. I miss it. In moments where characters go through a change where they get much more aroused I don’t want to be looking at their body parts but the reaction in their faces.

Rumpus: What movies inspire you?

Bell: Larry Clark’s films, hands down. He has a real feel for how complicated sex can be and that there are different kinds of arousal that being anxious or nervous and how those negative emotions can play in an erotic way. I really love how he has focused on that and made it the emotional centerpiece of his work, showing how sex is so much more than intercourse. He’s particularly interested in adolescents because at that age we don’t have words yet for everything we’re going through, and that makes it a really volatile and exciting time. I’m interested in those same phenomena for people of all ages. Sex is much more complicated and dynamic and electric than it looks on film. I also love Lars von Trier’s movies and how they show people pushing their own boundaries. I love the idea of incorporating that electricity of boundary pushing into my erotic filmmaking. I’d like to think everyone who’s worked on my films has a positive experience. I’ve never had anyone have a nervous breakdown like Bjork was reported to on his, but I respect that he’s not making a simple easy film. He’s throwing his whole self into making it and he expects his actors to do the same.

Rumpus: So how do you balance being married and having a kid, with making sexy movies? You don’t look or act like you have a dual life.

Bell: People always say to me, ‘You don’t look like someone who makes erotic films. I expected someone to be wearing a leather outfit or a vinyl bustier,’ but that taps into what I really want to be saying about sex. There aren’t sex people and non-sex people. Sex is part of everybody’s life and that you can be incredibly sexual and wear a flowered dress. Also making a film of any kind puts you in a vulnerable position. Well, I feel vulnerable making erotic movies because they have to be sexy to me. Each one is like saying this is what I personally find sexy. That’s scary for me even now.

Rumpus: Yeah, I was a stripper but don’t want to write about it in my fiction because I’m uncomfortable with people thinking that was/is/could be me. And, I don’t really like talking about my own sexuality partly because I have a hard enough time not judging myself for it. So, how have you gone beyond that?

Bell: I spend a lot of time managing my boundaries. I need to feel free and comfortable working with my actors and writing my scripts and doing the things that I need to do to make a movie that’s moving and exciting to me. I often spend months building up relationships with the actors. On set there are also all these fine gradations that I’ve learned to manage where someone says, well, how do you feel about – anal sex, say? Or, if someone says, how do you feel about sex doggie-style? I have to be careful to separate out my feelings about whether doggie-style sex makes sense in this film from how I feel about it in all erotic films and how I personally feel in my own bedroom. It’s a balancing act that can come down to a pronoun or else talking to fewer people at one time. Everyone on set has a different comfort level but I have to be able to talk about sex bluntly, and I have to respect my partner’s privacy too. Like, he may or may not want me talking about sex in a way that exposes him and his feelings.

Rumpus: Respecting a partner is one thing but you have a daughter? Wait, I didn’t mean that to sound like I’m shocked. At some point you’re going to have to have a discussion with her though.

Bell: I feel really lucky to have the opportunity to practice what I preach and raise a daughter who’s sex positive. I think I make the kind of films that I’m proud to stand behind. I think they say something good about sex and the way sex really is, and I hope to raise her with open and body-positive attitudes and to talk when the time is right about what I do and she’ll appreciate that.

Related Posts:

• Because It’s Their Work
• Women Resexualized? Is Meat Sexist?
• By the Time You’ve Seen It, It’s Too Late
• Best Director Boys Club
• Kim Hyesoon Interview

Artist Jason Novak brings us his tale “Depressing Sex: An essay in pictures.”

Enjoy:

***

Related Posts:

• Meanwhile,
  The San Francisco Dog Walkers
• The Rumpus Interview with Alasdair Gray
• John Wesley in Venice
• The Rumpus Interview with Craig Yoe
• TRUTH SERUM:
  Fan Club

A NY Times Magazine article on the state of sex education highlights a Philadelphia Quaker Friends high school teacher’s comprehensive approach to teaching sex ed. With Mr. Vernacchio’s emphasis on pleasure as well as emotional complexities, acknowledgment of gender biases, and lessons on female ejaculation, this looks like possibly the best course ever.

(Via Feministing)

Related Posts:

• The Rumpus Interview with Jennifer Lyon Bell
• Depressing Sex: An Essay in Pictures
• Jaclyn Friedman Interview
• Homegrown Textbooks
• Illustrations in The Joy of Sex

“…You can’t become free of influences. You can only become aware of them, and choose which you want to give more energy and attention to. Similarly, as parents, I don’t suppose you can ever not influence your kids. You can only be thoughtful about what kind of influence you’re being. And even that, imperfectly. Because you’re a collection of influences yourself.”

(Via Feministing)

Related Posts:

• The Rumpus Interview with Jennifer Lyon Bell
• Depressing Sex: An Essay in Pictures
• Rethinking Sex Ed
• Illustrations in The Joy of Sex
• On Dirty Talk

BBC takes a closer look at The Joy of Sex forty years after its publication. The piece examines how publishers sought to avoid obscenity charges by using hand-drawn illustrations rather than photographs, focusing on creating quality artwork, and including ancient pictures as “foils” to offset the explicitness of the illustrations. We also get a glimpse of the couple who ended up serving as the main models for the many positions.

Related Posts:

• The Rumpus Interview with Jennifer Lyon Bell
• Women-Only Worlds in Science Fiction
• Depressing Sex: An Essay in Pictures
• Rethinking Sex Ed
• Jaclyn Friedman Interview

Calling for a return to “the golden age of dirty talk,” this Awl piece introduces us to a 17^th century pamphlet dubbed The Academy of Pleasure and reflects on the value of euphemisms.

Related Posts:

• War Slang
• The Rumpus Interview with Jennifer Lyon Bell
• R.I.P. Etta James
• Language Map
• Judging Teachers

I’ll just come right out and say it: I enjoy books so much more when there’s lots of sex in them. And there is so much sex in Hannah Pittard’s smart, affecting, and beautifully crafted debut novel, The Fates Will Find Their Way.

Inappropriate touching. Masturbation, both public and private. Some grateful fucking. The fetishized hemlines of private-school girls’ skirts. All the boys keep staring at the hot Russian neighborhood mom’s ass. It’s the male gaze times a million—everyone seems to be quietly violating everybody else, in one way or another.

The intertwined tale of a vanished teenage girl named Nora and the hometown boys who loved her—as told through their omniscient perspective—The Fates is The Virgin Suicides for a new generation. Pittard’s depictions of sexual activity are spare and straightforward, but they feel extremely (and credibly) dangerous. Take this scene between two teenagers:

“Just let me see it,” he said. “Just let me see it.”

She looked away and he pulled down the fabric hard, just enough so that her pubic hair was exposed.

He made sounds. She closed her eyes. One hand held down her pants, the other hand was around himself, working.

“Look at it,” he said.

She looked at his face instead, but she was crying a little, hoping it would be over, wanting him to have whatever he needed to finish.

It’s tricky territory, all this underage sex going on in the book. Some of it is innocent, and some of it is sexy, and some of it is disturbing. (There are also references to pedophilia and rape, although they are not rendered explicitly.) That’s sex in America, I guess. We’re a bunch of demanding hypocrites, greedy for stimulation, while we judge everyone around us for wanting the same exact thing—even (or especially) if it’s in a different form. I have done it, and so have you. Can we please have one day where we don’t lie about it?

Hannah Pittard

Pittard seems hell-bent on making her Greek chorus of narrators tell the truth about their own lives, even as they’re mired in fantasies about Nora’s. She tells the story in tight chapters that bounce back and forth between the boys’ youthful existence, their present-day lives, and the imagined possibilities of Nora’s life. Did she hop on a flight, never to be seen again? Did she hitch a ride out West and start life anew? Were there darker forces at work? “It’s the stuff of fantasies, not of real life,” the collective voice says of one possible scenario.

In fantasies, you can get into strangers’ cars. You can have sex with men you don’t know. They’ll love you and pet you and whisper things that high school boys don’t know how to whisper. They’ll fall hard for you and do anything you tell them to, including take you home whenever you want.

Each possibility is teased out deliciously, and the reader uncovers another side of Nora with each of her appearances—“real” or in the boys’ imaginings—in the book. And what of these boys, trapped in their hometown? They grow into men, still trapped: “It seemed, some days, that life was nothing more than a tally of the people who’d left us behind,” they say wistfully.

Meanwhile, we find out the deep, dark secrets of the boys themselves, from childhood to adulthood, together and individually. For the book to work, their collective voice must ring true, and Pittard nails that honest, smart-ass youthful energy. “We never understood why Minka Dinnerman’s dad kept a copy of Hustler tucked in the recess behind the base of the toilet in the first-floor bathroom of the Dinnerman house,” she writes.

Mrs. Dinnerman was the hottest of all the moms. In some ways, it was a shame that she had to be called a mom at all… we all thought it was kind of weird—Mr. Dinnerman’s greedy and unappreciative need to have more than one hot naked lady in his life.

If The Fates has any flaw, it is that Pittard poses perhaps too many questions, and these questions sometimes get in the story’s way. But these questions, distracting as they can be, are at the heart of this novel. And they are worthy of reflection, not least because they are surrounded by so many wise, lovely, and yes—sexy—passages.

Related Posts:

• The Rumpus Interview with Jennifer Lyon Bell
• Depressing Sex: An Essay in Pictures
• Rethinking Sex Ed
• Jaclyn Friedman Interview
• Illustrations in The Joy of Sex

I’m a twenty-one year old guy. I’m in college right now. Though I work full-time to pay for some of my bills, I’m still dependent on my parents for room and board. I also use their car. I have no problem with living with my parents—at least I wouldn’t if I wasn’t gay. My parents are fundamentalist Christians. They believe that being a homosexual is a “sin” that someone struggles with similar to alcoholism or drug addiction and that gays should repent and see Jesus.

My parents know I’m gay but they don’t acknowledge it. They believe I’ve repented and found Jesus. When I was seventeen, my mom threatened to kick me out of the house because she didn’t want “my diseased behavior under her roof.” In order for me to stay at my parents’ house I had to go to Christian counseling to undo my gay-ness. I went, but it did absolutely nothing for me. It only confused me more.

Though I act “straight” around my parents and sister, I am out to friends and co-workers and also to my brother (who accepts me unconditionally). It’s a huge strain to live a double life.

I don’t hate my parents, but I strongly dislike them for their treatment of me. They think I’m “straight,” but they don’t trust me. My mom constantly checks up on me, often barging into my room seemingly in hopes of catching me doing something. If I go out, I have to tell my parents exactly who I’m with or I won’t be able to use their car. They refuse to leave the internet connected if I’m at home alone and they hide the modem when they go to bed because they are afraid that I’ll look at “sinful” material and it will pull me back into the “sinful gay lifestyle.”

I’ve had two gay relationships. The first wasn’t as involved emotionally as I would have liked, but I’m very involved with the guy I’m with now. My parents know he’s gay and they treat him like he’s going to re-infect me with his gay-ness.

I would move out, but I can’t find any available rooms within my budget. One option that has arisen recently is that a good friend asked if I wanted to move to the Pacific Northwest with her—I live on the East Coast—and I’m seriously considering it. The thing is, I don’t want to run away from my problems and I really like the guy I’m with, but right now I feel like I’m stuck in a situation that is hopeless. I feel suffocated by the expectations of those on both sides of my double-life. One side would damn me to hell if they found out I was gay. The other side wants me to cut myself off from my family.

Is there any advice you could offer that could help?

Thanks.
Suffocated

Dear Suffocated,

Yes. There is something I can offer that will help. I can tell you to get yourself out of that house. You mustn’t live with people who wish to annihilate you. Even if you love them. Even if they are your mom and dad. You’re an adult now. Figure out how to pay the rent. Your psychological well-being is more important than free access to a car.

It’s miserable that your parents are hateful, ill-informed bigots. I’m sorry they’ve made you suffer so, sweet pea. There is nothing correct about their ideas regarding homosexuality (or alcoholism or drug addiction, for that matter). We are all entitled to our opinions and religious beliefs, but we are not entitled to make shit up and then use the shit we made up to oppress other people. This is what your parents are doing to you. And by choosing to pretend you’re straight in order to placate them, you’re also doing it to yourself.

You must stop. Stopping is not running away from your problems. It’s solving them. In your question you write that you feel “suffocated by the expectations of those on both sides,” but there are not two sides. There is only one and you’re it. The real you. The authentic you. The gay you.

Be him.

Even if you aren’t ready to come out to your parents yet, I implore you to remove yourself from their company. Pack up your things and go. To the Pacific Northwest, across town, to your wacky cousin’s basement in Tuscaloosa, it doesn’t matter. Just stop living with the people who sent you to re-education camp because they equate your (normal, healthy) sexuality with a disease.

This doesn’t mean you have to break all ties with them. There is a middle path, but it goes in only one direction: toward the light. Your light. The one that goes blink, blink, blink inside your chest when you know what you’re doing is right. Listen to it. Trust it. Let it make you stronger than you are.

Your lunatic parents are going to figure out you’re gay whether you tell them or not. In fact, they know already. They aren’t banishing you from the internet so you won’t watch Scooby Doo, doll. I encourage you to leave your parents’ home not so you can make some giant I’m gay! pronouncement to them, but so you can live your life with dignity among people who accept you while you sort out your relationship with them from an emotionally safe distance. Sooner or later—whether they learn it from you or discern it on their own—your folks are going to have to grapple with the reality that you are a homo beyond (their) God’s reach. It seems that the best-case scenario when this happens is that you will lose their approval. The worst-case scenario is that they will disown you. Perhaps permanently. Which would mean that their love for you hinges entirely on:

Nothing. Because you are their beloved son                           √ No
and their primary obligation to you as your
parents is to nurture you and foster your
growth, even if you turned out to be someone
they didn’t precisely imagine.

Your agreement to refrain from touching                                √ Yes
other men’s man parts.

Wow. Really? Isn’t that so sad and crazy? I know I’m being a bit glib about it, but only because if I look at it stone cold serious it smashes my heart into smithereens. More importantly, I’m trying to make a point: love based on conditions such as those set forth by your parents is ugly, skimpy, diseased love. Yes, diseased. And it’s a kind of love that will kill you if you let it, sweet pea.

So don’t. There is a world of people out here who will love you for who you are. A whole, vibrant, fucked-up, happy, conflicted, joyous and depressed mass of people who will say, You’re gay? So the fuck what? We want you to be among us. That’s the message of the It Gets Better Project that’s currently sweeping the land. Hold on, it says, and stick it out, because guess what? It gets better.

And true as that is and moved as I’ve been by many of the videos made by gay, lesbian, bi and trans people telling their stories, I think there’s an important piece missing in that message. All those people in the wonderful videos? It didn’t just get better for them. They made it better. Each and every one of those people rose at a moment in their lives—one that is very much like this moment in your life, Suffocated—and at that moment they chose to tell the truth about themselves instead of staying “safe” inside the lie. They realized that, in fact, the lie wasn’t safe. That it threatened their existence more profoundly then the truth did.

That’s when it started to get better for those folks. When they had the courage to say, This is who I am even if you’ll crucify me for it.

Some of those people lost jobs because they said that. Some lost family and friends. Some even lost their lives. But in saying that, they gained themselves. It’s a sentence that lives in each one of us, I believe—the one in which we assert that we will be who it is we are, regardless—but sadly it has to live especially strong in you, Suffocated. I hope you’ll find it within you. Not just the sentence, but also all the beauty and nerve that has gotten you this far, so that when you say it, you’ll say it loud and true.

Have you ever been to a LGBT Pride parade? Every year I take my kids to the one in our city and every year I cry while watching it. There are the drag queens riding in Corvettes. There are the queer cops and firefighters all spiffed out in their uniforms. There are the lesbians on bicycles pulling their kids on tag-alongs and trailers. There are the gay samba dancers in thongs and feathers. There are the drummers and politicians and the odd people who are really into retro automobiles. There are choirs and brass bands and battalions of people riding horses. There are real estate agents and clowns, schoolteachers and Republicans. And they all go marching by us while my kids laugh and I weep.

My kids never understand why I’m crying. The parade seems like a party to them and when I try to explain that the party is an explosion of love that has its roots in hate, I only confuse them more, so together we just stand on the sidelines, laughing and crying, watching that ecstatic parade.

I think I cry because it always strikes me as sacred, all those people going by. People who decided simply to live their truth, even when doing so wasn’t simple. Each and every one of them had the courage to say, This is who I am even if you’ll crucify me for it.

Just like Jesus did.

Yours,
Sugar

***

Sugar will be taking next week off. She’ll return on December 2^nd.

***

You can follow Sugar on Twitter here.

Or join her Facebook fan page here.

And don’t forget the Dear Sugar Google Group.

***

Got a problem? Hit the Sugar spot: sugar@therumpus.net.

[Editor’s note: If you prefer to keep your question 100% anonymous it is best to use the button below.]

Fill Out My Form!

Related Posts:

• DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #49: The Locked Cock
• DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #43: Unrolling
• DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #96: The Dark Cocoon
• Sugar’s Coming Out Party!
• Sugar Says

Dear Sugar,

I’m a woman in my mid-20s who has had four sexual partners. Two of them were relationships (one with my present boyfriend) and two were short-term flings. I’ve been in my current relationship for about eight months. No man has ever made me orgasm. I don’t blame my current boyfriend for that. He tries. I just never come.

It seems that I can only have an orgasm when I masturbate, Sugar. My boyfriend turns me on very much. I love fucking him, but I’m not even close to orgasm with him, in spite of his efforts. (My previous boyfriend didn’t try. He just rolled over and fell asleep when he was finished.)

I’ve never even come close to having a vaginal orgasm. My boyfriend stimulates my G-spot while he fucks me and he tries doing it all different ways—at different speeds and in different positions—but no luck. So then he just goes ahead and usually he comes really fast, which is okay, but depressing for both of us.

What’s wrong with me, Sugar? Other women have orgasms, don’t they? I’m beginning to feel guilty that my boyfriend even tries with me. Do you have any ideas about how to make me come?

Bad in the Sack

Dear Bad in the Sack,

Yes, darling, other women have orgasms. You do too. You have them when you have sex with yourself, so let’s start there. You talk about the G-spot and vaginal orgasms and fucking fast and slow while explaining your boyfriend’s efforts to make you come, but how is it that you make yourself come, honey bun? Do you hammer away at the vag? I’d put money on it that the answer is no.

As I wrote about in a previous column, The Orgasm-Friendly Zone, the clitoris is the female sex organ. Since I’m always having people write shit on little pieces of paper you might as well go ahead and do that too. Write: the clitoris is the female sex organ and put it on your bathroom mirror. Are we clear on that now? The female sex organ is not the vagina. Not the G-spot (which, by the way, is both scientifically controversial and something many women cannot even detect). It’s the clitoris. Yes. That sweet little nubbin that’s so indisputably sensitive to touch. This is where we go when we go to the place where the whole world became one big glorious OOOOO.

So go there. Forget about “vaginal orgasms,” darling—another scientifically controversial thing that some women experience, but most don’t. Forget, for a while, even about fucking. I love to fuck. I do. But that fucking has been placed front and center as the main recreational sex act is a conspiracy against women. It’s not your fault that you seem to be unaware of the clitoris’s sexual primacy. I have oodles of letters from young women like you—all who say they can’t come, while describing sex acts that don’t generally make women come. Intercourse is not the way most women get off, unless the clitoris is simultaneously being stimulated.

So direct your boyfriend to the place where you know you’ve got the goods. Don’t be shy. He’s going to be out of his head happy that he finally knows what to do.

Perhaps you should begin by masturbating in his company. Let him see what you do when you make yourself come. Put a blindfold on if you feel self-conscious. Next time, put a blindfold on him and use his hard cock as your masturbatory tool. No fucking. Just him against your clit, however you like. Fast, hard, slow, soft. On top of him, beneath him, beside him. When you’re ready for him to make an attempt, take it slow. Laugh. Talk dirty to each other if that turns you on. Tell him what you want. Exactly. There are so many things he can use. His fingers, his lips, his tongue, his cock, a vibrator. Use them. Every last one until you come.

You say you’re afraid you’re not able to let go but letting go is the only way. It has to do with listening to your body rather than the voice in your head. The one that’s constantly saying: I’ve never had an orgasm with a man! This isn’t going to work! I’m taking too long! Where the fuck is my G-spot!

Your body knows what it’s hungry for. Feed it.

Yours,
Sugar

Dear Sugar,

I’m a thirty-one year old man involved in a monogamous relationship with a man who is eight years older than me. Or at least I thought we were monogamous. We’ve been together for about four months—not long, I know, but it’s the longest I’ve been monogamous with anyone and he is very special to me.

So la, la, la we were having this fun time. I am really in love with him and he’s in love with me and I’ve reached an age where I thought this might be the man I’d “settle down” with for several years (or gasp “forever”). But guess what? He sits me down the other day and says that he wants us to participate in a sex party (it’s some house party an old friend of his has every year that he has attended in the past). An orgy, I guess you’d call it.

I’m mixed up about this, Sugar. That’s the reason I’m writing to you. (My boyfriend and I both read your column religiously. We think you are a rock star goddess, so what you say will matter A LOT.) I told my boyfriend that I probably didn’t want to do it, but I needed to think about it and he was supportive of that. To his credit, he wants me to be a part of this and he’s respectful of my feelings.

What are my feelings? That’s the problem, Sugar. I am a little turned on by the idea, I must admit, and I don’t really know if I want/can sustain a monogamy over years and years, but mostly it makes me heartsick. I feel jealous when I think of my boyfriend with someone else and I also feel depressed about doing anything with others, even if it’s only for one night. Especially because we’ll be doing it in front of each other.

What does this mean? Am I being  prude by saying no? If I say yes will it destroy my relationship? What would you advise, sweet woman?

Love,
Monogamous Man

Dear Monogamous Man,

I think group sex is dicey. It basically only works if:

a)     you don’t have an exclusive sexual/emotional attachment to anyone present or

b)    if you are attached, you and your lover are in clear and perfect agreement about your willingness and desire to have sex with others and

c)     the two of you have discussed the issue and its many complexities honestly and you’re prepared to deal with the emotions that may (and likely will) arise.

It doesn’t sound to me like you’re there, honey bun. It sounds to me that you’re in la la land with your new man and you don’t want to see him touching anyone else.

In my answer to the previous letter—the one above, from the woman who hasn’t had an orgasm with her boyfriend—I encouraged her to listen to her body and I encourage you to do the same thing. Everything in your letter tells me that in spite of some mild (and unsurprising) titillation over the idea of taking part in an orgy, you know in your gut and in your heart that you don’t wish to do this. The sort of love you are currently feeling for your lover is too sweet and new to include anyone else. Even for a night.

That’s okay. Tell your lover what you so apparently want to tell him: no. Trust yourself.

Yours,
Sugar

Dear Sugar,

I’m so glad to have found your column. I’m in my early 30s, and have been with my husband for 10 years. Our sex life has been mostly great. The occasional bad times have to do with general life stress from time to time, and a pelvic pain condition I have called vulvodynia. I’m prone to muscle weakness in my pelvis, so I have to be really proactive with exercise, internal stretching and toning. It is chronic, though very mild, and most of the time doesn’t bother me. I would say over the course of our marriage (most of my adult life) that it’s made me a bit more emotionally sensitive to what happens in my privates. Some positions overstretch or strain. The only other relevant bad time was very early in our relationship, when my husband got really into porn, to the point that he was neglecting me (staying up late every night on the computer instead of spending time with me, etc.) But that’s not really a concern now.

So, for the last year my husband has been VERY interested in anal sex. I was hesitant at first, but eventually we tried it. I didn’t like it. But it wasn’t horrible to the point that I’d rule it out forever, knowing he really enjoyed it. (Though he did say it was a lot of work.) I told him it was something we could do very occasionally (like, a few times a year), but we’d have to talk about it in advance. Sugar, since then, virtually EVERY time we’ve had sex, he tries to sneak in the back door in some way. Often it is just as I’m climaxing from manual or vibrator play, which completely ruins my moment. I can count on one hand the number of times in the last year that he has not attempted some kind of anal penetration.

I did my best to initiate other new things, but he doesn’t seem to care about anything other than anal. I’ve talked to him over and over and over again—nicely, clearly, not right in the moment or in times of other distraction. He always agrees to respect my boundaries. But when the time comes, he never does. If I physically shift away or ask him to stop touching me there, he slumps and sulks from being “scolded” and the moment’s done. He thinks he can “surprise” me into enjoying it, or maybe hopes that I won’t notice. Um, there’s no way I won’t notice. And sometimes he says he just forgets that I don’t want it, or just gets carried away in the moment, and I’m not sure I buy that.

I am so, so angry over this. It’s true I don’t like the physical sensation. But the more painful thing is that he is deliberately disregarding me. Or he’s just paying me lip service (and not the good kind) to shut me up and ignoring my feelings. It’s so hard to relax and be open and allow myself to reach an orgasm when EVERY time it’s ruined by his violation. I try to talk to him, and he just sulks and shuts down. He doesn’t want to put effort into enjoying other sexual things. He doesn’t understand how I don’t trust him now.

It’s been a year. At various times when we’ve talked, he’s said that anal is completely off the table. But that never lasts. He says it won’t be any good unless I enjoy it too—I think that explains his attempts to penetrate when I’m climaxing. But I just don’t like it. This is affecting my feelings for him. I don’t know what else to do.

Angry

Dear Angry,

Of course you’re angry, sweet pea. Your husband is violating your trust as well as your body. It’s a big deal. And a strange one too. How has this “mostly great” lover of yours gone so profoundly off the rails? The cornerstone of any consensual sexual relationship is that one’s partner does not do what one has told him or her not to do. If you don’t have that, everything else crumbles.

There is no excuse or explanation for your husband’s behavior. Because you report that your relationship is generally positive and loving, I can only imagine that your husband’s year-long inability to absorb your very clear instruction that you do not want to be spontaneously fucked up the arse means that he doesn’t believe you’re serious.

Make him believe it.

It seems a third party would help. I urge you to see a counselor together. Of course this issue will be at the forefront of your concerns, but it’s obviously brought up other, deeper issues in your marriage. Your husband desires a sex act that you loathe—that’s one thing. Your husband refuses to respect your wishes—that’s another. You are angry and you no longer trust him with your body—more still. Wade into this all the way or your relationship is bound to fail.

I think it would be a good idea to be celibate for a time while you reestablish trust and respect between you. As you’ve noted, the sex for you is terrible anyway, since you can’t have an orgasm without worrying that your heinie’s about to be harpooned. The celibacy is not a punishment for your husband’s bad behavior—though he has behaved terribly—but rather something that will ultimately protect and preserve the sexual bond you share. Or used to share.

Remember that one? I hope you can find it again, sweet pea.

Yours,
Sugar

***

You can follow Sugar on Twitter here.

Or join her Facebook fan page here.

And don’t forget the Dear Sugar Google Group.

***

Got a problem? Hit the Sugar spot: sugar@therumpus.net.

[Editor’s note: If you prefer to keep your question 100% anonymous it is best to use the button below.}

Fill Out My Form!

Related Posts:

• DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #43: Unrolling
• DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #57: That Ecstatic Parade
• DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #49: The Locked Cock
• DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #39: The Baby Bird
• Dear Sugar: The New Rumpus Advice Column

Here are some ideas:

Patriot Games

Yes, there are conservative-friendly sex toys. Take “The Liberator,” for example. It’s a vibrator that you crank by hand. For every four minutes of cranking, you get thirty seconds of buzz that you create completely by yourself. It’s 100% American, 100% self-reliant, and it flies in the face of everything socialism stands for.

Just Say NO to State-Sanctioned Pork…Barrels

You need to protect yourself from unwanted, un-American things in your body. You don’t want anything undocumented getting through, if you know what I mean. So the new Amendment X Brand Condoms are your best choice. Each package is labeled with the official motto of the red-blooded American state where it was sold. Buy your condoms in New Mexico?–“It grows as it goes.” Idaho?–“Let it be perpetual.” Maryland?–“Manly deeds, womanly words.” Massachusetts?–“By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty.” And so on. If you don’t see your state motto on your condom, don’t use it! And if you don’t know your state motto, just look down at your condom.

Dress (and Undress) like a Tax Payer

Being a Tea Party Patriot doesn’t mean you have to give up the sexy factor, and small-business sex shops run by Joe Sixpack are definitely getting wise to that notion. Look for fun-phrase items made in the USA to get your conservative mate juicing with excitement–“NObama 2012” and “Puck Felosi” undergarments are proven to do the trick. I have to say, I’m a big fan of the super soft fabric and the breathability—it’s a right-wing dream ticket to pleasure town.

Glide with Pride

DeepWater is a new American lube. It’s glycerin and paraben free. Every tube contains a tiny drop of crude oil from the BP spill. When you use it, you can congratulate yourself on helping to reduce the spill’s impact on the Gulf. The best sex play is spontaneous—unprepared, unorganized, and urgent. Use your imagination, use DeepWater, and move the booms from the Gulf into the bedroom.

Sweet Freedom

Remember, Tea Party Patriots are all about Freedom with a Capital F. At the end of the day, when you put down your rally sign and start getting randy, Rand Paul-style, it’s all about exercising your rights in the greatest nation the universe has ever seen. The sky’s the limit (unless you’re gay or an illegal)–because American family values are the sexiest thing out there.

**

Please submit your own funny writing to funnywomen AT therumpus dot net. See first: Funny Women Submission Guidelines.

To read other Funny Women pieces and interviews, see the archives.

Related Posts:

• The Rumpus Interview with Jennifer Lyon Bell
• Thanks this isn’t happiness
• FUNNY WOMEN #74: My Debilitating Anxiety Decodes My Unread Work Emails
• FUNNY WOMEN #73: How to Write Like a Funny Woman
• FUNNY WOMEN #72: People We Want to Be and the People We Are