Pubic Hair: Bush or Bare There

Ask lots of women like me, who lived through the 1960s, and they’ll tell you flat out that human hair is considerably more than an enigmatic mix of melanin and water, trace elements, lipids and proteins.

Indeed, in all its myriad variations, hair is downright political. And though some people seldom think of it that way, at least in the US, what we choose to do to our hair - and the often love-hate relationship that we have with it - is likely to be seen as an eloquent, very public statement of our ideological views. In fact, the way we choose to present our hair to the world can be construed as a telling signifier of where we stand on the continuum between ultra-repressed conservative and raging lefty let-it-all-hang-out progressive. Need a bit of corroboration of that premise? Think about the 60s rock musical Hair, a long-haired homage to the burgeoning hippie counter-culture of the era. Wildly popular on Broadway and beyond, it was viewed as a symbol of a particular political ideology, just as the so-called “Afro” hair style, popular among blacks, was seen as a signifier of black political power and pride during roughly the same time.

Homophobia: Hypocrisy and a Price Too High

As my regular readers probably have noticed, I’ve been away for a while. Not necessarily voluntarily, however, since circumstances pretty much dictated that I take the summer off, away from this very invigorating space, and turn my primary attentions elsewhere. 

Of course, I’ve missed you, and suffice it to say I’m glad to be back in my blogging chair, and while I’m sorry to have been gone so long, occasionally in life stuff happens. Indeed, life itself happens. And as those of us who’ve been on the planet more that a minute know, we sometimes just need to divert ourselves and move in another urgent, more critically focused direction for awhile. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either; since, if we’re fortunate, often we can return to the normal course of events with regenerated vigor, blessed with a re-invigorated, hyper-sharpened critical perspective on the issues that matter to us the most.

And as the wisdom of the universe would have it, lots of incredibly exciting and hopeful portents have appeared on the horizon since last I wrote. For example, when I selected the very evocative image for this post back in the tender salad days of June, I had not the foggiest idea that the photo would prove to be such an apt illustration for certain pivotal recent events that have risen to the forefront in the struggle for equal rights for our LGBTQ+ sisters and brothers.

Sex Education: Sing It For The Children

“When I was just seventeen

I ran away from home,

To be with all the pretty people,

 To be on my own...

… Have mercy.”

                                  

                                      - Annie Lennox

Exactly how many times do I need to stand in front of a room and have someone tell me that they’re waiting until the so-called right moment to talk to their daughters and sons about sex? Faced with statements like this, my question is always something like “Waiting… for what? The second coming? Proof of carbon-based life on a distant planet...?”

Let’s start with a basic Holy Grail kind of truth, shall we? There is an enormous and inescapable role that positive, healthy sexuality awareness plays in the development of children’s senses of self, self-worth, agency and identity. And the fact is, today in the US most kids don’t wait until they’re seventeen to explore their sexuality, the hauntingly prophetic lyrics of Annie Lennox notwithstanding.

Still, it seems to me that much of the Western world’s population continues its damaging history of negativity and denial when it comes to educating kids about sex - even to this day. Even when we know better. Even when we swear that we’d surrender a body part, if only our children would give in and learn to trust us, so often we betray them with falsehoods, lies of omission and a dimwitted silence about their own sexuality - and ours. And so often the obfuscations come to no good.

Postmenopausal Women: Embracing the Crone

Some of the most dogged limits that bind us, that keep us from achieving the fullness of a life most richly lived, are the boundaries imposed upon us from outside forces. I’m thinking social injustice of all kinds, here. But most particularly, I’m thinking of unequal access to things like food and shelter, education, and of course, health care. 

Indeed, in the US, the list seems unrelenting and inexhaustible sometimes; and unless we simply haven’t been paying attention, we know that the weights and shackles are tighter around the necks of some of us than others. Think children. Poor folks. Sick folks. People of color. And as crazy as it seems, given the reality that the starting position for every human fetus is female, we know that girls and women continue to struggle inordinately with these inequalities as well.

As far as US culture is concerned, the current and ongoing right-wing conservative assault on women’s reproductive freedom sharpens my point, don’t you think? Add to that the globally situated atrocities against women’s bodies that continue across the planet on a widespread scale. After all, there’s the reported increase in rape in India; the ongoing horror that is female genital mutilation; the continued fondness for infanticide of baby girls in some South Asian locales. And let’s not forget the tireless use of rape as a weapon of war in Uganda - and against female soldiers in the US armed forces as well - not to mention the monstrous explosion of human trafficking that thrives as a result of a sex trade wherein the largest numbers of victims world-wide are women and little girls.

Sex and the Patriarchy: Habemus

How about the Catholic Church's current, but not-so-new-now Pope? And how about the process that got him there? 

Of course, absolute secrecy being what it is, not a lot about what actually went on inside the cloister made it out into the public discourse, despite the best efforts of folks like Anderson Cooper and the rest. 

And feminist though I am, I’ve got to admit that from the outside, at least, I was more than a little fascinated by the patriarchal lock-step kabuki of it all, the exclusive boys’ club ritual played out in lavish vestments of crimson and white.

But now close your eyes for just a tiny minute. As your mind settles down into the shaded blankness, let your brain imagine a solitary marble chair. Purple in color, large and hard, more like a kind of throne, really, its purpose to impart an aura of solemnity and conjure the heady scents of religiosity and power.

Now. Imagine said purple chair with a big ol' hole in its center - like a birthing seat, maybe. Or an elaborate bedside commode. And while you’re at it, imagine the chair’s occupant as a new prospective Pope. Quiet, reserved. Smiling serenely at a few select and esteemed male colleagues.

But the purple chair in question isn’t simply some esoteric aid to sexual pleasure; so when someone reaches a hand beneath the hole in the chair’s middle, the logical question, naturally, becomes why?  So that the old man’s genitals might be vetted, of course. So that the Church might make perfectly, intimately certain the person with whom it was dealing was, in fact, a man.

 So picture it, won’t you?

Penis? Check. Testicles? Check. All right then… as it's proclaimed from the balcony of the Sistine Chapel, “Habemus Papam," a phrase which translated from the Latin this means "We" (aka, those in the Catholic Church) "have a Pope."

But enough of the disturbing imagery, I think… And of course, I’m certainly not undeniably asserting that this is what actually went down in Vatican City a couple of days before the Ides of March. After all, the level of secrecy surrounding the whole affair situates age-old whispers about the purple marble chair, and the ritual touchy-feely stuff, firmly in the realm of speculation – nothing more.

Still, narratives of the chair, and the reason for its existence, cling to their place in religious historical secrecy, a shrouded part of the process of selecting a Catholic pope. And if you’re someone like me who believes that the nexus of religion, patriarchy and power has spawned a void in the historical record large enough to swallow a galaxy or two, there’s the irksome little matter of the legend of Pope Joan – a cross-dressing woman around AD 800, also known as English John.

As folklore has it, she was the one and only female Pope, and while she's said to have held the office for a relatively short time, her existence has always been vehemently denied by the Church. No such person, the Vatican claims, dismissing stories of Joan’s rise to pontiff as the perverted fabrications of a pagan-hearted rabble over the long arc of time.

But really, what can you say about Joan, a woman in medieval England who cross-dressed her way through iron-fisted misogyny convincingly enough to survive and thrive in the super-secret shadowy halls of early Christian patriarchy?

In 9^th century Europe, when women and girls were flat-out barred from education, the German-born Joan was a formidable scholar who outshined her male colleagues, at least as recorded by the historian Martin Polonus in the 13^th century. According to religious scholars who’ve been doggedly on her trail, it was only through strength of intellect, moxie, and the ability to disguise her gender, that this female scholar, proficient in arts and letters, rose in the ranks of the Vatican, first as curial secretary and then, was appointed as Pope. Even today, detractors of Pope Joan claim she was adept in the occult and in league with the Devil, no less. How else could she have managed such a grand deception? Born female, after all. How else, indeed?

Whether you actually believe in her existence or not, I suppose the way she ended should come as no surprise. Legend has it that during her papacy she got pregnant with the child of a close and trusted companion. Unfortunately, she gave birth in the street during a papal procession, whereupon she and her newborn infant were stoned to death on the spot, in the street between the Coliseum and the Church of St. Peter.

So what can we possibly make of the legend of Pope Joan? It's a cautionary tale, perhaps, especially if we buy into the notion that murder-by-medieval-street-mob is in the due course events, when presumptuous penis-less pretenders overstep their bounds. And wouldn’t you know it? It was the waywardness of that wanton female body that proved her undoing in the first place, of course!

Still, there’s plenty of gnarly stuff to go around when it comes to organized religion’s often contorted view of us, and it’s surely not just the Catholic church. In some places, menstruating women aren’t allowed to touch certain images of the Buddha. Female members of some Jewish sects are still required to visit a mikvah, a special ritual bath believed to cleanse them, body and spirit, after their periods. And as troublesome as some of this may seem, the inherent implication that there’s something faulty, lacking, and hopelessly deficient about female bodies is what troubles me the most. After all, most of what we believe about the perimeters of our sexuality is couched in the religious doctrine we’ve all been marinating in over time.

But even now, as the new Pope Francis attempts to lead a world-wide church racked with scandal and abuse - a church steeped in a flat-earth view of women that’s based upon a notion of female bodily fault and deficiency - the tale of Pope Joan endures, troublesome, outrageous and deliciously resistant. 

I hope she’s watching...

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Sex Without Romance: On Our Own Terms

Romantic relationships can be wonderful, can’t they? Even the ones that eventually go south, as they say, often start out as heart-racing, soul-affirming, sunny affirmations that reify our place in the bittersweet swirl that is the human condition. Complicated sometimes and scary at their edges, at their steamy first-blush best, relationships convey the promise of human connection. Empathy beckons and the allure of bonding too, as we hope with all that’s in us for the companionship we crave, for that oneness under the skin that feeds the famished spirit and for that nuanced glimpse of our heart's own reflection as seen through the prism of another person’s soul.

At the age of 61, I’m apparently neither too jaded nor too cynical to believe in that miracle, since the thought of it - even now- makes me misty and clouds my view. But I freely admit what I do have trouble believing - the nagging, dusty artifact of a notion that women need romance and the promise of a true relationship, in order to fully realize their capacity for sexual pleasure. 

I mean, really. Did you ever?

Group Love: Looking at Polyamory

Like many people, I’m twice divorced, a fact of my life that I certainly don’t mind sharing. And when I talk with women like me who’ve been married more than once, it’s natural to hear them imply that, at some point anyway, they loved each of their husbands, no matter how many we’re talking about them having - two, three, four, even or more.

In fact, we expect it, don’t we? Even when there are other motives involved in entering into a new relationship such as wanting to have access to financial resources, or wanting someone to help raise the kids, or whatever, we nonetheless expect that there’s some emotion (love?) involved, no matter how many times this occurs in the course of someone’s life.

Of course, we’re expecting something else here, too. No matter whether there are two, three, four or more emotional attachments in a person’s romantic history, we’re expecting that they happened one at a time, as in serial monogamous relationships, right? When people do otherwise, as often they do, it flies in the face of conventionally acceptable relationship behavior. There’s inevitably talk of the “offenders” being sluts or dogs or cheaters and the like… the language does get ugly.

But if we’re honest with ourselves, we know that human beings are possessed of a range of enormous capacities, not the least of which is the capacity to love, and the capacity to express our Universe-driven sexuality. And when you get right down to it, what else  besides the proscribed social order, says that loving has to be monogamous and sequential, serially one at a time?

Polyamory, or the practice of having multiple lovers at once, has long been heady and seductive grist for soap-opera writers and fans of sensational pop-psych talk shows. And no wonder? Poly meaning many, and amor meaning love, the syllables together quite literally mean “many love.” Got your interest?

But as a serious philosophical position adopted by untold numbers of relationship-bonded men and women, polyamory is a topic rarely discussed, at least non-judgmentally. This is unfortunate, since the polyamorous community world-wide is a large one, encompassing millions of decent, principled folk who care deeply for their poly partners and engage in caring, committed, consensual sexual behavior with all of them, sometimes all together and sometimes not.

So what’s the difference between polyamory and good old, garden variety group sex? It should be noted that as a daughter of the 1960s, I well remember the free love movement of that era – the make love not war sensibility that emblazoned a new (old?) notion of sexual freedom into the American consciousness. In some circles, ménage a trios arrangements, threesomes, were the most common, but there were also other, larger configurations. It wasn’t unheard of at the time for people to wind up at casual get-togethers and completely without warning, be invited to join in. And it was often the case that the group might consist of friends, romantic partners and perfect strangers with no particular personal or emotional connection.

Then as now, there’s a great deal of difference between polyamory and group sex, although the two are in no way mutually exclusive.

Polyamory exists when the partners - three, six, ten twenty - or no matter how many, have an emotional bond or love connection between each other simultaneously. Obviously, this emotional bond can and often does include sexual activity, hence the reality that polyamorous relationships can also include group sex. But don’t be confused. Group sex is not said to be polyamorous unless the participants share an emotional bond and care about each other in some sort of personal, loving way.

If you’re interested in learning something more about polyamory, then by all means, I’d urge you to take a peek at Dr. Leanna Wolfe’s essay, On Kittens and the Very Invented Culture of Polyamory.

In actuality, it’s the text of a talk she once delivered at a Poly Pride event in New York City, and it goes a long way in demystifying the nature of sexual relationship attachments, especially as it pertains to the way we humans decide between monogamy or polyamory.

Wolfe believes, as do most people in this culture, that the true default biological setting for humans is pair-bonding. However, she also argues that the physical attraction that characterizes new relationship energy – something she abbreviates as NRE - is brief and dependent upon large amounts of the brain chemical dopamine that is responsible for the new relationship’s feel-good effects that cause us to focus on one love. 

Poly people, argues Wolfe, don’t hold that feeling in such high esteem as does the monogamous community, since it’s relatively short-lived and inevitably levels out to something more sustainable. Once new relationship energy levels out and dopamine subsides, other brain chemicals, vasopressin and oxytocin, take over in the attachment phase of a relationship. 

For that reason, polyamorous people tend not to be afraid to allow their partners to experience new relationships; since they know the initial intensity of those relationships won’t last. Ask around and you’ll find that true devotees of polyamory are people who’re quite comfortable with the prospect of being alone. 

But this is counter-intuitive, right? After all, if the definition of a poly lifestyle includes the willingness to engage in multiple relationships simultaneously, one might argue that these are the folks who are LEAST comfortable with being alone. But in reality, true poly people know that being willing and able to release their lovers from the bindings of pair-bonded relationships to experience and explore the dopamine driven effects of NRE, or “new relationship energy” inevitably means that sometimes, partners don’t return, but rather move on permanently, and that’s okay.

All of this notwithstanding, polyamorous relationships aren’t for everyone. Ours is a culture of possession in more ways than one. The idea of mutually sharing the love, so to speak, throws most folks in the US into a convulsive tailspin. It’s just not something we’re used to, after all. But it pays to be open-minded about most everything in life. Even if only to ratify our existing views, it’s wise to hold them up to the light and see if they withstand a bit of scrutiny now and then. In the process, it pays to try our level best to consider a thing’s benefits and drawbacks free from essentializing bias and mindless prejudice – as much as we’re able.

It’s only with an open mind that critical contemplation inevitably generates the possibility of new perspectives. And in a culture such as ours, wherein love seems so often to be in woefully short supply, who’s to say that  polyamory might not open the door to more varied and more fulfilling possibilities for consenting adults at all stages of our lives? 

Hmmm…

Vaginal Lube: A Little Extra

You don't have to dress up like a vulva to know that over the age of 55 or so, vaginal dryness can be a bit of a challenge. It's also true that you certainly don’t have to be anywhere near the second half of your life to benefit from a nice little bit of extra lubrication. In fact, even when everything’s in fine working order, making the decision to augment one’s own natural vaginal lubrication with a little something more can be a smart move for women of any age.

Naturally, you ask why. Well...

Because regardless of whether we’re young or old, gay or not, whether we’re having partnered sex or sex for one, well lubricated sex organs are way more sensitive and responsive than dry ones are. And while there are definitely devotees of a well tempered bit of friction, the fact is that lubricated vulvas are also less prone to injury during enthusiastic sex play. 

Of course, if you’re worried that your partner - if you have one - might take offense and wonder why enhancing the slip and slide factor is even necessary, you might suggest to him or her what others already know - that mutual lubing, as in "I lube yours and you lube mine," is a pleasurable act in itself and well worth the time it takes to accomplish it. And if your partner happens to be a guy, in this culture, anyway, penises have been known to appreciate and enjoy the heightened sensation that increased lubrication provides them as well.

Senior Sex: Why Not Tell Grandma?

An increasing number of women whom I talk with about sexuality issues are decades away from being senior citizens - which means, of course, no old folks’ discount movie tickets for them for quite awhile. 

Not surprisingly, though, lots of these women are lucky enough to still have their mothers, aunts, older female friends and acquaintances – even their grandmothers – with whom they’re blessed to be able to share their lives. And since remaining in active touch with our sexuality tends to help us live longer and better lives, many of these young women know that they have a vested interest in setting the story straight insofar as it pertains to older women’s sexuality. After all, anything that can help women of our mothers’ generation stay vibrant and healthy is worth the effort, right?

With that goal in mind, I’m hoping that as younger women continue to take control of their own knowledge-base about their bodies, they’ll feel both motivated enough and emboldened enough to share what they learn with the older women in their lives. 

After all, age is just a number, or so they say, and in order to keep those numbers adding up, there are cogent, compelling arguments to be made that staying sexually active is a life-affirming thing, so long as one stays within the confines of whatever one’s health, and one’s doctors, will allow. Not that many doctors are interested in talking about the sex lives of their female patients over the age of 65 or so, regardless of the fact that we are born, live and die as sexual beings.

So okay, before you gasp and swear before all the angels that your mother, your auntie, or your grandmother would NEVER want to talk about her sexuality, much less consider tapping into it in some sort of active way, contemplate the following:

When it comes to characterizing the nature of postmenopausal sexuality, a recent survey of more than 600 older women between 50 and 85 reveals much of what lots of us already know. 

Conducted by Beverly Johnson, Ph.D., in conjunction with AARP’s Modern Maturity magazine, the survey asked women to describe their degree of interest, participation and satisfaction for a variety of sexual activities including reading and/or looking at erotic materials, kissing, embracing, intercourse, masturbation and engaging in oral sex. 

Johnson asked the women to describe themselves in both specific and general terms as a way to help interpret her survey’s results. One half of the women who participated were married. One third were widowed which is not surprising since at least in the US, women tend to outlive their male partners by an average of 6 years. Three-quarters described themselves as being satisfied with their lives in general. In terms of their physical health, 85 percent of the women in the study described their overall condition as “good,” while the most common health issues for these women were arthritis and hypertension. Forty percent had had a hysterectomy.

“I wanted to explore sexuality in older women from a broad perspective and not just equate sexuality with sex or sexual behaviors,” says Dr. Johnson. In that regard, she also asked respondents to characterize other aspects of themselves such as perceived level of self-esteem and intimacy. Highlights of participants’ responses included that:

Two-thirds of these women, between 50 and 85 years old, remained “very interested” in sexual intercourse. Around fifty percent said they participated in sexual intercourse “very often.” About one-third said they are “very interested, active in, and satisfied with” talking about sexuality, reading or watching erotic materials, daydreaming about sex, masturbation and oral sex. Thirty-eight percent said their overall sexual satisfaction had increased, rather than decreased, with age.

Since the participants in Dr. Johnson’s study weren’t chosen by random, we can’t really generalize about the entire population of older women based upon these results. But who needs to generalize, anyway? One woman's life, by one woman's life, our lived experiences are both meaningful and precious, no matter their frequency in the overall population. But beyond that, Johnson’s outcomes are proof positive that contrary to social stereotypes, there are large numbers of older women in the US who continue to feel positive, fulfilled and in touch with their sexual energy well into their 80s and presumably, beyond. Awesome, right?

Of course, it’s important – even critical – to note that the women in Johnson’s study used a broad definition of what being sexually active actually means, and that’s as it should be, for anyone, not just seniors. So often we make the mistake of narrowly defining what it means to be sexually active by suggesting that it’s only penis in the vagina action that makes the grade. Obviously, this is nonsense. Remember our reaction when a certain dearly loved former US President tried to assert that oral sex in the Oval Office and slipping a fat cigar into a White House intern's vulva was somehow NOT having sex? Though I remain an ardent fan of the guy, the bald-faced silliness of that particular notion still makes me smile.

In that context and every other, whether we’re gay, bi or straight, partnered or single, remaining active sexually includes a nearly limitless array of activities; oral sex, water play, masturbation, fantasy play, intimate touching and holding of all kinds, alone or in pairs or groups – happily, all of it counts.

And so the question becomes, why not tell Grandma? More than likely, she'll be happy to know that she's not alone in her feelings and that someone, at least, realizes and validates the importance of them, regardless of what society's rigid norms and negative expectations might be about grandmas "getting it on."

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Aphrodisiacs: Food for Thought

“Homemade white cheese, sizzling in a pan melting inside a folded tortilla… My mouth salivates at the thought of the hot steaming tamales I would be eating… if I were home.”

                                         “How To Tame a Wild Tongue,” 

  ~ Gloria Anzaldua 

I suppose it’s almost a no-brainer that whatever our cultural/racial/ethnic backgrounds, the natural collaboration of food and feelings is common to the experience of us all, generating a mix of visceral reactions in us that can span the enormous gamut of human emotions. For Anzaldua, memories of her Mexican girlhood, the loving warmth of home and family, were all tied up in the seductive sensory impact of hot, spicy, savory dishes that nourished her at her roots.

I remember a recent talk I was invited to give about, what else? Postmenopausal women and sexuality. My audience was to be a group of retired and semi-retired professional women. The venue? A high-end country club on Florida’s Gulf Coast. As is usually my preference, I arrived a bit early and to my happy surprise, was greeted by the group’s Chairwoman and the most beautiful display of fat, luscious freshly-dipped chocolate-covered strawberries that I have ever seen. “We hope you like them,” the Chairwoman beamed. “So ripe. So decadent. So perfectly juicy!” …. Indeed!

Of course, as Valentine’s Day approaches, the intricately entwined relationship between certain foods, desire and the performance of sex is often on our minds. And when you stop to think about it, the presumed connection between particular foods, desire and the performance of sexuality has been a source of human fancy and fascination since ancient times.

Called aphrodisiacs in honor of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sexuality and love, we can’t get away from the notion that some foods have particular use when it comes to enhancing our sexual energies and desires. And when it comes to what really works in terms of libido-enhancement, torrents of folk wisdom have ebbed and flowed over time. 

Depending upon where you stand on the planet, it’s not out of the question to hear praises sung for the ingestion of emu eggshells sold in capsule form, or a nice, big helping of horny goat weed. And while almost anything is possible theoretically, scientific proof about lots of this stuff is pretty hard to come by. 

Still, the world is a wide one, as we learned in our girlhoods. Take the exotic truffle, for example. Ancient Greeks and Romans once thought that eating these earthy, buttery-tasting fungi greatly enhanced erotic pleasure and performance; some folk still do. And we’ve all heard the lore about oysters and their reported impact on the prowess of the notorious Don Juan. As legend has it, he regularly downed massive quantities of the hapless creatures as a way to ensure a long-lasting, rock-hard erection and make legend his ability to send many a swooning partner over the edge.

Indeed, Eastern cultures often look to the relationship between yin and yang-oriented food items as a way to affect sexual energy and performance; yin items are thought to be more passive and cool, like vegetables, while yang items are thought to be hotter, more protein packed, like meats. And let’s not forget, that some culture traditions prize certain exotic animal parts, like tiger penises, as the gold standard in maximizing sexual energy regardless of the fact that these animals and many others with sought after sex organs are in danger of becoming extinct.

And as always in the US, history frames our present reality. In fact, since reality really is shaped by our language, it’s easy to see how we’ve framed women’s sexuality in food-related terms, with objectifying words and expressions like “tart”, “tomato” or “tamale” which sound silly now, but were once commonly used in the US to describe women who were seen as hot, spicy, sexually exotic and permissive.  And let’s not forget the cultural use of the word “cherry” in referring to a female’s virginity.

Even today, such ubiquitous and well-known terms of endearment still in use like “honey”, “sweetie,” “sugar” and the like, all find their origins in reference to foodstuffs that sit easily on the tongue. What’s more, in 19^th century New Orleans, brothels catering to gentlemen of the land-owning aristocracy often threw parties at which their affluent male clients were invited to spoon out and enjoy a rich, sweetened caramel custard that had been packed into the plump vaginas of young mulatto virgins.

Really… Can you imagine?

While there’s no real scientific proof to support such claims, generally, foods are thought to evoke sensuality if they exhibit one or a combination of the following characteristics: smooth, rich, creamy, exotic or spicy. In that regard, and based largely upon a wide expanse of cultural folklores, most edible aphrodisiacs have fallen into five general types over time.

First, foods that create warmth and moisture such as curries and peppers were thought by many cultures to arouse heated passion. 

On the other hand, cold foods like lettuce and other green leafy foods were thought to chill passion and slow things down.  Second, foods that stimulate the senses (sight, smell, taste, and touch) in a pleasurable way were thought to stimulate passion. Think about the old standbys here: rich, smooth chocolates, red ripe strawberries, thick, creamy caramel custards, not necessarily spooned out of someone’s vagina, and so on.

Third, foods that were involved in reproduction such as fish eggs or roe, bird eggs, and animal genitals were believed to increase sexual desire and potency, and foods considered rare, expensive or otherwise hard to obtain were believed to be sexually exciting. Of course, as these items became more common, their reputations as aphrodisiacs diminished. 

Fourth and finally, foods that resemble male or female genitalia were thought to increase desire, hence the reputation of Don Juan’s oysters, corn, some fruits and root vegetables like bananas, cukes and carrots. Lots of folks call this sympathetic magic. Cool, right?

But on Valentine’s Day, though we’re not likely to be interested in serving our partners some of the truly exotic, storied sex-drive enhancers like ambergris, a thick semi-solid substance regurgitated from the gut of sperm whales, or a tasty side serving of tiger penis stew, many of us might still be looking forward to something special for that romantic dinner. And for those of us who aren’t partnered, whether by chance or by choice, there’s reason aplenty to treat ourselves to something especially, deliciously, lustfully decadent as well.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Sexuality and Women's Body Image: Sizing Us Up

Every time I speak in front of a group of women, I’m taken by the beautiful diversity of their individual selves. Of course, there’s the hypnotic variety of skin tones, facial features and hair colors and textures, that testify to the infinite garden of racial, ethnic and cultural diversity that flavors the human condition. But there’s also, invariably, a breath-taking array of body sizes, and I’m always so pleased to see those women who wear their sizes, the largest to the smallest, with love and pride.

No matter our size, there’s a vital case to be made for maintaining a “healthful” body weight, whatever that might be, based upon a variety of factors like age, height, individual and family history and so on. And certainly, maintaining a healthy relationship with one’s "numbers" including those associated with blood pressure and blood glucose levels, both of which are tied to size and weight, can be absolutely essential to staying alive.

But as far as sheer appearance and sense of self are concerned, like so many of women in the US and elsewhere, I’ve scuffled with this weight thing for as long as I can remember, sometimes impatient with my family’s tendency towards being “pleasingly plump” as my beautiful and pleasingly plump Nana used to say.

But especially now, when January 1^st’s resolutions to trim it all down have begun their inevitable wane, a smart young woman who’s close to my heart thought a post about sex and size - not penis size, mind you - might just be in order.

LGBTQI Civil Rights: A King's Legacy

It’s hard to believe, but as we prepare to celebrate another birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we’re still embroiled in the struggle for human rights in the US. This at a time when we’re on the cusp of the second inauguration of the nation’s first President of color.

In the spirit of Dr. King, many of us still actively work for the day when the infinite rainbow of human diversity is universally celebrated, cherished and protected, rather than resented or merely tolerated. After all, as folk who’ve heard me lecture know I’m fond of saying, one tolerates a headache and waits for it to go away. Our response to the richness of racial, cultural, gender and sexual orientation diversity needs to be way more positive, nurturing and celebratory than that!

Color and Sensuality: A Different Kind of Color-Struck

Back in the 70s, neither condoms nor dildoes came in so many pretty colors. Flavors, maybe. But colors? Not so much. But then, today and always, colors and their influence in the world we call home, continue their complex shaping of the way we live our lives.

What do I mean? Well, take for example, the movement to fight breast cancer. By now, most of us are familiar with the breast cancer prevention movement’s use of the color pink as a binding force for its fundraising and awareness campaigns, thanks to a savvy dedicated marketing effort that’s been highly successful. Pink ribbons, pink bras, pink accoutrements of every kind pervade our daily lives in the service of this very important cause. As a matter of fact, as I write this post, my favorite pink-over-stainless-steel drinking mug, embossed with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation’s pink ribbon, sits where I can reach it on the desk beside my keyboard. 

Long considered a color connoting the delicate, and some might say ineffectual, lady-like essence of frail femininity, in the fight against breast cancer, pink has morphed, almost before our eyes, into a color connoting power, solidarity, bravery in the face of the scariest of odds, and warrior-women’s hopes. And yes, in case you were wondering, there really are breast cancer themed pink glass dildoes!

Body Changes in Menopause: Vita Nova

Vita Nova is Latin for new life. Kudos to my beautiful and brilliant 88 year old mom, a retired teacher of Latin, for that! She is not, however, pictured above.

As all of us embark upon a shiny new year, full of "vita nova," promise and reflection, and an optimism that often blooms in the shadow of residual fears, it seems natural to talk of new beginnings. And how timely, then, to talk about one of the most exciting new beginnings of all – menopause!

While myths and folklore abound, sometimes it’s a little tricky trying to actually pin down what we mean when we talk about menopause. Of course, all of us know the basics, right? It’s the time when one’s monthly period comes to a quiet end, and unless we enter menopause surgically, for example by having a hysterectomy, it’s a process that tends to take awhile, one that begins with natural, normal changes in our hormones. It’s a hugely important issue and one that women frequently say that they’d like to know more about.