I missed him horribly at first, and then I was on a more even keel…and then we spent some time together and it was as if I was back at square one. You know…where you pretend you’re ‘saying goodbye’ when you’re saying ‘hold me closer/let’s pretend this isn’t real’?

And when I started going through the missing him/questions/why are we doing this stuff again I slacked off on keeping in touch online and it felt like the only people online were weirdos.

I got a delightful email from a lovely man today, and sent one back. He asked if we could chat by MSN which I don’t have. He asked if we could chat by phone. I was nervous so stuck to emailing i.m on the site…then after we’d spent most of the morning talking he asked if he could call. I said yes and we had a good half hour chat about everything and nothing. Nice voice. Smart, funny, and really thinks about stuff. Seems on my level with most stuff. I snapped at him because I thought he was making a ‘joke’ about my friend who is transitioning from female to male and he clarified what he was saying which was not what I had thought. What do you know? I can do this stuff. There are decent people out there and I have good conversations with them.

That’s nice. Now I really *should* get down to that essay!

- Opening with ‘hey babe’, insisting the person you’re talking to is from another country and getting angry when they say they’re busy

- At 45 (or any age really) posting a shirtless photo of yourself looking dolefully at the camera as if you’re just too sad to continue (with no information about yourself)

- Pretending to be an “obese dwarf” and posting several photos of various people you clearly find to be the oh-so-hilarious epitome of ‘failure’ in terms of conventional attractiveness, while being hostile to women. I’m not going to jump through hoops for anyone, especially someone who gives me no info about themselves and who thinks it’s funny to mock men who are not considered to meet the requirements of traditional masculine ‘good looks’

- Giving me a litany of your ‘flaws’ in your first email, begging me to tell you if you’ve said something wrong, telling me you’re desperate for contact as you’ve not had sex in two years and most women don’t respond. What am I supposed to do with that?

- Telling me men should always make the first move – did you not READ my profile and realise I’m a feminist and that was an instant fail? I’ll make whatever fucking moves I please thanks…though certainly not on YOU.

It’s not just confined to the online dating scene though.

I was in the library recently. I work for a law firm. There is a man who is about half my height and twice my age who is one of our clients. He called me by the wrong name, told me he doubted I’d find work after graduating law being a woman, told me that a child needs a man around, that I ought to smack my son and would I like to go for coffee with him since everyone needs some company. Not THAT badly they don’t you fucker.

Please feel free to tell your own random approaches to picking up – I’ll add more as I get more weird approaches/remember other strange stories

I don’t have a whole lot of experience of someone breaking up with me. I think it happened once as a teenager and I cried all night and woke up the next morning looking forward to the school disco that night. It happened once again in my mid twenties and I was ragingly pissed off: he’d bolted because he hadn’t wanted to get married. I think he was confused as to my intentions.We’d been together three months and hadn’t had sex so not wanting to sound like a scary ‘hussy’ to this apparent uber-Christian I phrased my question of ‘WHEN THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO SHAG?’ as ‘What’s your position on sex before marriage’. He unfortunately focussed on the latter end of the sentence where as my focus was firmly on the ‘sex’ part of the equation. Oh well, live and learn.

I did have another relationship after that, and it was meaningful and difficult to end, but I did it.

This is, then, the first time I have loved like this, so also the first time I have felt this level of grief/ this sense of profound loss. It’s simply phenomenal. I had no idea I had this in me, the tears, the laughter, the letting go, the wanting to hold on, the exhaustion, the thought processes…

One thing that has struck me though is how different it is this time around. No anger at the decision, no sense of ‘I hate you you prick’, no desire for angry music, no desire to shut it all off, to hide and make it go away, to protect myself, to pretend I’m ok, to indulge in pride.

I thought music would hurt and I didn’t want any music I loved to be associated with sadness and loss so I steered clear of all music for 24 hours. Then I only listened to Fleetwood Mac for another 24. Is there a more positive breakup song than ‘Go your own way’? It’s not I hate you, it’s you made your choice, I wanted to give you everything, you wouldn’t take it, you made your choice, be free.

I think the last time I had someone break up with me I was listening to ‘I hate you so much right now’ by Kelis.

But I found that I could listen to music, that most of it was okay, that sometimes there was a song that caused a feeling like a shard of glass had slid quickly into my insides, but that that was okay…if I breathed through it, if I held myself and remembered that I think this decision was right, if I let myself feel it, and cried if I needed to, that it was okay to feel that sharp pain, that it was part of it.

I was startled at how alive I felt through and with all the pain. That I was distraught and sobbing, but also energetic and enthused. I downloaded Ben Lee’s music as I’d recently seen him and liked his take on life. I was walking through the city, listening to Ben Lee, bouncing along the street, headed to my counselor’s office, and right there alongside the grief and loss was a sense of opportunities, of a love of life, of people, of my city, a sense of joy.

I had ‘Gamble Everything for Love’ on high rotation ‘tell me are you getting hurt is it worth it, tell me are the people strange, do they change, tell me are you letting go, do you know’. I was amazed that in this hurt and sadness that I still believed it, still believed in gambling everything for love, believed that I had, that it had been worth it, that I felt alive.

I started pondering how much his music made me feel happy and open and loving, or how I liked it because it reflected those things I was feeling, and thinking about saying a Nietzschean ‘yes to life’ – to the pain and loss as well as the joy, and how much more alive I felt because of it.

I’ve just tried to not control it, to go with it, even as I know how exhausting it is when you think you’re ‘better’ and something triggers your loneliness or sense of loss again, I’ve thrown myself into life, to cutting myself breaks, to doing what I need to, to friends, and food, and time with my son, to time alone, to time to greive, and time to laugh, to run when I feel cooped up and to lay quietly when I feel I’m running too fast.

I guess I’m surprised by it all as I come from a very locked down family, where emotions are only ever registered and displayed as anger, not sadness, and that I know this was an issue I had for a long time.

In the light of that, the fact that I loved with everything I had, that it ended, that I am grieving it honestly because I still love, because I want to let go properly, because I want our end to reflect our beginning, because I want to be myself in this, to be open and honest…it just makes me really happy that I can. I think I’d always liked the concept of Nietzsches’ ‘yes to life’ but had known secretly that I was afraid of embracing the painful sides of life. It just really feels like a moment of having grown up in some way to be able to embrace it, and to realise that embracing it doesn’t make it worse, or unbearable, but better, lighter, more joyful grieving?
Aaanyway…I loved him, I love him still, I think I always will – and the relationship ending doesn’t mean those things dissolve or get coloured by the ending or I need to think of him differently. I loved him as I wanted to and I’m grieving him as I want to, we’ll move on to new and different things and I will take with me all the good things and leave behind the times we hurt one another, as the line(s) in Ben Lee’s ‘Gamble Everything for Love’ go:

Gamble everything for love, gamble everything
Put it in a place you keep what you need
You can gamble everything for love if you’re free
You gotta gamble everything for love

I was a little late to the twitter-verse this morning and I didn’t check the link until I read Lauredhel’s post over at Hoyden About Town.

I *did* hear something about how women frequently feel the need to get drunk before having sex due to feeling uncomfortable with their bodies. Not me. I like sex and I like bodies. I like to have sex when I’m tipsy with people I wanted to have sex with prior to feeling tipsy, but that’s cos I like sex. And my body? Well you know, I am also impacted by incessant media telling me it’s gross since it’s not Barbie-like or like a Bratz doll (being that my head and eyes are in the actual human-like-proportion to my body and not fucking ENORMOUS) but on the whole, well it’s a lovely body, all warm and curvy and responsive and fun.

I do indeed get that self esteem and issues around perception of your own body are real issues for women, but as Lauredhel reported this is not some long term reputable survey, this is something produced by manufacturers of a deodorant/perfume for vulvas. At this point I am beginning to shake with rage.

Let me tell you something. I know a little about the smell of vaginas and the smell of penises. If the body to which said genitals are attached showers regularly and pays attention to hygiene, both vaginas and penises are inoffensive to smell. Contrary to popular mythology, however, the cock DOES have an odour. Yes indeed. (It’s ok lads, breathe deep, I know you thought we were the ones with the ‘Ew yuck smelly’ parts but it’s a truth you need to get used to. Your penis has a smell too). So if both the penis and the vagina have a smell (being that they’re parts of the body that secrete fluids and are kept in underpants all day) and if the smells are actually just normal bodily smells provided basic hygeine is followed (and let’s be clear if it’s not then there are other smellier parts of the body like underarms and feet) then why exactly is it that there’s a range of products out there to make the vulva smell like a synthetic flower and there’s nothing marketed as ‘rub this on your knob so whoever gets near it doesn’t yack’? I think we all know why.

Because women are ‘gross’ and leaky, excessive, bodily, meaty, they’re irrational and uncontained and the vagina is a site of abject fascination: desire and horror, horror and desire. It’s constructed that way, and the researchers of this ‘survey’ are not neutral, they’re not merely interested in women and their perceptions of their bodies, they’re interested in *pushing* bad perceptions of the female body as messy, gross, disgusting, smelly, hideous. They want us to think this way so we pay ten bucks for a bottle of chemicals to rub into our vulvas so we feel ‘confident’ enough that our disgusting vaginas are now acceptable for those clean, perfumy-smelling, lovely, kind, buff, strapping young lads out there! Those lads who apparently love women but hate the smell of a vagina.

So what we have is the results of this survey writ large in the media of late: CHICKS NEED TO BE DRUNK TO ROOT (or similar).

Unfortunately some of the findings are distressing. The bit about 14% of women needing a few drinks before sex with their partner? This suggests to me that sex with their partner is not something they enjoy, and that they continue to feel compelled to ‘provide’. This makes me want to cry.

That six percent of women have never had sex while sober also concerns me. I am unsurprised by this though – I grew up on the Coast and remember lots of girls talking about sex as something painful, gross and uncomfortable, something you *do* for the guys…someone I know told her sister that while she’d been having sex for about 9 years, she really only enjoyed it for the first time very recently.

These are issues that take a lot of careful thinking about and discussion.

This ‘survey’ however does not come from a place of women are not enjoying sex because women are conditioned to think of themselves as sex objects for the service of men, but rather from a place of ‘I have a product to smell that is reliant on women thinking of their bodies as disgusting, what survey can I release that makes my shitty product seem like a community service’.

I think there’s some substantial fudging going on with the language and results in some areas as well – like this:

More than half claimed drinking with a prospective partner was “part of the dating process” so were a bit drunk when they had sex.

I wouldn’t mind knowing what they asked. If for instance they asked ‘Do you think that alcohol plays a part in dating’ or similar, I’m not surprised that so many people answered yes, I’m sure men would say similar.

People often meet up for dates for dinner or at a bar, and you have a couple of drinks while you’re talking. You keep talking and laughing, you say yes to another drink because you’re enjoying yourself. Being a ‘bit drunk’ does not to me mean I’m shitfaced and can’t decide for myself. Being a bit tipsy I can still judge for myself if I want to take someone home or not. And yes, I do think that that level of tipsy-ness can just be a regular part of a date – for women who are sure of themselves and their bodies, who want to have sex for their own desires, who have resources and support and who aren’t pressured into sex they don’t want as some kind of societal ‘obligation’.

On the other hand, as Lauredhel is suggesting there are some sinister sides to the research and the ideas it gives out to the public, that if this information is portrayed as women getting drunk because they want to have sex, but lack the confidence while sober, does this reinforce the idea that you can just fuck someone that’s out of their head drunk?

It’s a bit of a mess, the way that it’s presented as neutral fact, and there’s no attempt to show us the methodology of the survey, the language of the questions, the options to respond, the language of the responses etc.

For instance:

The study found 75 per cent of women liked to drink before getting into bed with their husband or boyfriend and 6 per cent had never had sex sober.

There’s a whopping difference between 75 per cent and 6 per cent.

Note that 75 per cent ‘liked to drink’ before getting into bed (presumably for sex). Does this mean respondents might have thought the question was something along the lines of ‘Do you feel most like sex after you’ve had a nice dinner and drink with your partner’ but is being reported as ‘Do you need to be slightly shitfaced to do the deed’.

Further, do you think it’s really that from 3000 women none were gay/bisexual or do you think they hand picked straight women? Did they also hand pick straight women with issues around sex? We don’t know – they could have sent out emails saying ‘If you’re aged between 18 and 50, heterosexual and uncomfortable with sex, please contact us’. They could have phrased the email in any way they wanted to get the ‘right’ sorts of people and responses. They could have found the women through a community support program for women who have body issues, or had particular sexual backgrounds that caused discomfort. They could have phrased their questions craftily. We simply don’t know how they got the data, and how they interpreted it, but we do know they’ve got an agenda to push: your body is disgusting, your vagina is hideous, you drink because you’re ashamed, put on our perfume products and all your issues will be solved as your vagina will smell like a perfume counter.

I’m just noticing more and more that a survey from ‘Femfresh’ is reported as a ‘new survey’ with no one looking into the agenda, and for instance, the Advanced Medical Institute being used as medical experts when in fact they’re a company pushing some dubious treatments for ‘erectile dysfunction’ (and indeed having dubious definitions of ‘erectile dysfunction’). And it’s shitting me.

So I guess from this there are a few topics to discuss:

The heteronormativity of the media (lesbian/bisexual women do not exist, and if they do their sex is unimportant/problem free/not worth discussing)

The assumptions that monogamy is best (and the hiding of all the problems within hetero monogamy, including the findings that have been used to blame or shame women, but which suggest they do not feel sexual desire for their partners but continue to ‘put out’ at the same time as being blamed/shamed for not ‘putting out’ more often)

The abundance of dodgy stats and the presentation of findings/conclusions as ‘neutral fact’

The lack of satisfaction many women are finding in heterosexual penis-in-vagina-sex and all the issues around that

The relationship of alcohol and sex

The relationship between alcohol and dating

Desire and representations of women’s sexuality…
Did I miss any? I’m pretty sure I did. This is going to be the challenge for me, teasing out all the issues to try to write something on everything over the next few months.

But in the meantime I would say to Femfresh that they can fuck right off. My vagina is not some hideous disgusting place of grossness and foul smell. I don’t need to slather my vulva in tacky smelling chemical ‘perfume’ in order to have sex. I also don’t need to get shitfaced. I further don’t need them pedding some agenda in a socially irresponsible way with no attempt to engage with the issues raised by their ‘findings’ other than to say ‘squirt some chemicals on it – all better’.

Have I missed something? Is there anyone out there that thinks ‘Femfresh has made my life better’?

You can probably glean from the title of the blog the sort of thing I’ll be blogging about.

I once had a seven year long accidental bout of celibacy – I think that constitutes like a drought or a famine or a plague rather than a bout, but still – and during that time I joked about Sex and the City being irrelevant to my life. There I was, young, energetic, full of energy and ragingly frisky and…no one to have sex with. No wonder I smoked so long!

But the realities of meeting new people, the humour in the frustrations and odd moments, those are the things I want to talk about. The very real negotiations and dilemmas involved in satisfying my desire for sex and affection while maintaining the boundaries that are important to me, as well as the ‘what the fuck’ moments of dating, and the reality of the difficulties of meeting people given my life circumstances (location, work situation, study situation, family situation etc).

Just as I really embraced the idea of blogging about being a woman with a love of sex and no one to have sex with, it fell by the way side. I got involved with someone and we had lots and lots of wonderful sex and hours and hours of smoochy affection…ah, those were the days. But now we’ve broken up and I am going to again have to navigate the world of dating, the negotiate how I can *have* sex in my circumstances, weighing up my desire for sex and affection with my ambivalence about getting into a ‘relationship’ again given the demands on my time etc.

I have no ethical issues with casual sex, but I am a single mother which leaves me in a bind – I will not go home with someone I don’t know as I am nervous of the risk (that’s to do with reading criminal law cases, not to do with being a single mum*), and I don’t feel comfortable bringing someone I don’t know into my house when my son is here – I simply don’t feel enough trust for someone I don’t know at all, and fear I would be unable to protect my son should anything go wrong.

So that’s where I’m at. I have plenty of stories about my first foray back into online dating, and I guess I’ll pop that up soon and we’ll go from there. Happy to hear feedback, or to publish other women’s negotations of the complexities of navigating sexual interactions, or just their funny stories of dating/love/breakups/shennanigans.

*I just want to make it perfectly clear that just because I am a ‘Nervous Nellie’ when it comes to going home with someone I don’t know because of the risk, that I do NOT want to make women feel like they ‘shouldn’t’ or they’re not ‘sensible’ if they do. My stance is this: if you get raped, that’s because someone raped you. It’s not anything to do with what you did. Women should be safe to be sexual when/where and with whom they please, and going home with someone does not mean you consent to being raped. This is going to be a vehemently feminist space – I’m not going to truck with the bullshit of women ‘ask for it’ or the Madonnas/Whores crap. Just so’s we’re clear.