Monday, November 11, 2013

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Sexual Organ Care - A

So Blogger freaked out and moved a post I edited up above the first one I posted. So here's a direct link to the other post about today.

I couldn't go on posting about sexy stories, ideas, or other sweet somethings with a clear conscience if I did not give some sex ed beforehand. I believe any platform should be used to spread a message relevant to the medium being used, and a sex blog seems the perfect place to share some sexual education knowledge.

I am going to start with education directed at the broadest possible crowd, moving on over time to more specific. I will try my best to keep everything as gender/orientation/relationship neutral, but please don't be alarmed if I address specific situations. If the circumstances I am describing do not pertain to you, please read it over and make an attempt to think creatively and apply the messages to your life. As always with blogs on the internet, I am not a doctor. I am not YOUR doctor. I am in no way responsible for your choices, and please consult your own medical professionals and/or best judgement before making any decisions based off of the information I am writing. That being said, I am going to do my best to keep to proven medical information and not my own opinion, at least about safety and health. Pleasure may be a different story, however.

I am going to start at the broadest possible level. I am going to assume you have some basic sex knowledge, and if not I am planning an audio/written comprehensive sex education post for later. But the broadest level I can even begin to think about is genital care. Contraceptives, STI prevention, and general safety is targeted at people having sex/multiple partners/planning on having or not having children. But nearly everyone has sexual organs on their bodies, and should care for them.

The first part of care is establishing a baseline. Look at your genitals and examine them regularly. Take notice of colors, smells, textures, and appearance. Use a mirror, or your phone's camera to see all the different parts of your sexual organs. You may miss some indicators of health (or beauty!) if you ignore this.

Examine them both in the shower and later in the day, to establish a baseline. If anything seems off, hurts, smells funny, has strange lumps, rashes, sores, or looks unhealthy, seeing a doctor would be a good idea. Don't be afraid to talk with a doctor. A good medical professional will be just that: professional. They are there to make sure your body is healthy, and your genital health is a part of that. If they make you feel uncomfortable in any way, leave and tell someone. They may be able to find you another doctor in the facility or recommend another doctor for you. Nervousness is okay, but being made uncomfortable isn't.

Once you are familiar with your genitals, caring for them is your next step. Gentle cleaning will help prevent skin issues and bacterial buildup.

For men, gently wash your whole scrotum and surrounding areas with warm water and your hands or a washcloth. If you feel like you need to use soap, please use one made for sensitive areas and avoid getting it in your urethra. If you have any foreskin (skin that covers the glans of the penis or any loose skin surrounding the head of your penis), pull it back and wash it and the areas it covers thoroughly. This will prevent bacterial buildup. Your penis should be washed thoroughly at least once a day, even if you do not shower that day.

For women, gently wash your vulva and surrounding areas with warm water and a washcloth. The use of soap is debated, but if you do decide to use it please use some made for sensitive areas. You should gently wash your outer labia and any areas it covers thoroughly with warm water. You should also wash your inner labia separately, and the immediate area inside of the vaginal opening with warm water. There is no need to wash out the entire vaginal canal with your fingers or a douche. Any folds or areas of skin that are covered by your labia and clitoral hood should be washed thoroughly. Your vulva and related areas should be washed 1-2 times a day, regardless of if you shower that day or not.

For both sexes, when you are finished washing your genitals and surrounding areas, gently pat them dry with a soft, dry towel. Fully drying the areas you washed will ensure the skin stays healthy. I personally use a small amount of neutral, unscented, plain silicone lubricant made for sex if I feel like my scrotum feels dry after I am done cleaning. I have never had any issues, and I recommend it to any men or women who feel their genitals are too dry after caring for them.

Avoid any rough materials touching your genitals, and try not to hit them or harm them in any way when going through your day. Do not allow anything to restrict blood flow to them, or wear anything that is too constricting on them.

Use lubricant for all sexual contact including masturbation, and keep fingernails trimmed to avoid any small cuts.

Now go and give your sexual organs some love. They deserve it.




Mulan as a Gender Study - A

This idea came to me as I was walking to work, listening to Dan Savage's terrific podcast, The Savage Lovecast (http://www.savagelovecast.com/). I'm often inspired at how quickly Dan can look at a situation and assess what it means sexually, how it pertains to sexual culture amongst vanillas and NVT's, and what an individual can do to change, avoid, or participate in it.

I paused the podcast right as I got to an intersection to cross. I like to be able to hear the traffic, just to be on the safe side. But an idea bubbled up in the back of my brain, and kept me so occupied that for the whole rest of my walk I forgot to start the podcast back up (even though I still had my headphones in).

It had started when Dan began talking about halloween, calling it a "big, commercialized straight-pride parade." I am paraphrasing a little bit, but It got my tangential brain thinking about sexuality and video entertainment somehow. I've given a lot of thought to this, being married and eventually wanting to have a child. I want to minimize showing my child anything that could skew how they view gender, sex, love, or relationships. I can't stop them from viewing EVERYTHING that doesn't portray all these aspects of life how I'd want, and often great cinema revolves around characters that don't have perfect, gender-neutral, sexually open, open-minded values. But I specifically have been giving a lot of thought to entertainment targeted at young children. Disney movies, fairy tale movies, kids programming on TV. Anything that is directly and aggressively pushed towards a young, easily influenced and molded demographic. A target age that is still developing and learning from what they see.

I specifically focus on Disney movies, since they are common, purveying force in children's entertainment. And for all of that influence, the stories and characters they portray aren't always what I would want my child to grow up on.

Wether it is the helpless Sleeping Beauty who is rescued by her prince, poor Cinderella who only got her crush to love her by looking pretty and being surrounded by beautiful clothes and the trappings of opulence, our dear Ariel who learned the valuable lesson that you must conform to your significant other's lifestyle to be with them, Bella, who knew that even though her love was isolating and trapping her in his domain, her love would eventually change him from a nasty beast to a perfect prince, or even the princess of the recent hit "Tangled", who couldn't get out on her own until a man came along, and showed her how to be free from her family while being so arrogant, annoying, and risk-taking that she couldn't help but fall in love with him, Disney doesn't really portray good, healthy relationships in all of their movies. An alarming number of their worst offenders are made for young children, and will probably be some that I save until my child has a good grip on what everyday, healthy relationships look like. 

But Disney seems to have accidentally made a movie with an interesting sexual-relational premise in it, in their 1998 hit "Mulan". In the movie, we are presented with a few situations that aren't in Disney's usual "heterosexual helpless female smitten by proud and dashing heterosexual male" story.

First of all, they start off the movie by giving a big middle finger to societal gender norms. All the women in Mulan's village spout nothing but drivel about being a beautiful, submissive homemaker to please a man. Bu what does Mulan do? Sticks up for herself, says "Fuck that mess", and goes off to do her own thing. Any hardcore feminists would be so wet to be scissor sisters with Mulan at this point that they would be buying airplane tickets to Japan with the last bit of cash they haven't blown on awesome vibrators. I can't think of another Disney movie with this much encouragement to female independence and equality. I mean, when the draft officer tells Mulan that women can't fight, she tells him where to shove that sentiment by stealing priceless family heirlooms, shattering societal pressures about honoring ancestors in the process, and joining the army by posing as a male. No man or woman is stopping this one-woman runaway train!

Once in boot camp, she continues to stroke the proverbial feminist boner by working hard to go from zero to hero. She eventually holds her own against the other (male) soldiers in everything from martial arts, endurance training, and beats them heartily at the great totem-pole-climb-whilst-chained-at-both-wrists-by-priceless-Aztec-ornamental-disks-to-retrieve-an-arrow competition, which I am sad to say is NOT in the olympics.

Mulan continues to demolish the concept of helpless female protagonists by earning her spot as a war hero, braving a debilitating injury in combat, and defeating the big evil bad guy with her wits and band of close supportive friends and fellow soldiers. These same soldiers do find out she is a woman despite her hiding it during their training well before the big final battle, and still follow her. In fact, how do they assist her in defeating big-bad-evil-u-forgot-his-name? BY CROSS DRESSING AND KICKING ASS WHILE DOING IT. This whole movie is constantly taking gender norms and turning them upside down. It also doesn't call attention to them in a big "this is okay but still weird" way, but rather a "look at these gender non-conformists be amazing" way. 

Before all the NVT's reading this cream their pants over how great this is, let's also take a moment to talk about another storyline happening in this movie: Li Shang's story. The gruff leader of Mulan's troop battalion, he starts out viewing Mulan as a clumsy failure of a male soldier (she is not revealed to be a woman until after her injury later). He gradually comes to respect Mulan, and early on is a key helper in her (his) training. Throughout a wonderful training montage, we see their relationship turn from distant to quite close-knit. We see Li Shang stop glowering at Mulan and start smiling at her (him), being nice to her (him), rewarding her, looking deeply into her (his) dreamy eyes... 

He relies on Mulan and helps her during combat. Very quickly after she is injured, he casts her from his troop for deceiving him. But very soon after, he discovers that he has feelings for Mulan. But this love didn't spring up instantly as soon as he knew she was a woman. We see their relationship get close as they are training, relying on one another, learning more about each other, smiling at one another. So we we left with one conclusion: he began falling in love/like/lust/whatever with Mulan as he was getting to know her more... In his camp, when she was a he...

Yes. We have witnessed a full, beautiful homo-hetero love story. Even if the whole story ends with a perfectly boring monogamous heterosexual marriage bond between Li Shang and Mulan, deep down we know that our buddy Li swings both ways and Mulan isn't a demure helpless woman.

And they probably love pegging because of it.

Multi-Post Day - A

Today started easily, a slow Saturday after a hectic Friday. Yesterday gave nothing but problems, and very few solutions. Circumstances outside of my control made accomplishing anything repeatedly difficult. I felt like I was trying to run in a dream, screaming at my legs to move faster and watching them slowly pick up and move forward, heavy with the fog around me.

But today was new, with none of the baggage of yesterday's frustrations. I wish I knew how sleep resets the clock in our heads, to make the day feel new. After all, I simply laid down and closed my eyes, but time still moved continuously. I want to be able to "reset" anytime. I feel like I could relax more if I was able to let go of the past at will. 

I woke up to my alarm, 6 AM. Got out of bed, and stood for a minute to feel my body acclimate to the cold air. My wife slept on in the bed. I brushed my teeth and grabbed a water bottle and started a new journey in my life, one of fitness and flexibility. I am recommitting to practicing yoga daily, with gym visits happening every afternoon or evening I am able to. When I last tried this method, I found my stress decrease and my body felt more relaxed and natural to me. I hope my wife can join me this time. I showered afterwords, grooming myself and saving my face and scrotum. Then I got dressed in my work clothes and a sweater and walked to my job for the day. And now here I am, with everything set up and ready for this event, just waiting for the performers to show up. What better way to pass the time than write?

I'm not sure this will be my only post today, I'm feeling quite inspired to open up. Lately my sexuality and desire has stayed inside of my own head, and I've outwardly wished for a more open, fluid, and constant sexual relationship. So I'm getting these thoughts out of my head and invest time in my current relationship to make it the sexy, bonding, exploring one I want. 

For now I must go and find the coffee. Be back in a bit!