A: Marriage isn’t for everyone so don’t assume that just because a certain amount of time has passed you need to feel the marriage bug. Or if you do think you want to get married, but it scares you a lot then don’t jump into it just because you think you should. Jumping into marriage is never a good idea. But if it concerns you, sit down and talk to your girlfriend and discuss it. Maybe she doesn’t even want to get married.

For me, it was actually something I decided before I even met my wife. This may sound odd, but it felt totally normal for me. A lot of it had to do with what happened before we met and how my attitude about relationships changed. Story time!

Most of my romantic life has been a series of awful relationships one after another. They were all intensely felt and extremely short. Part of the problem was that I suffered from major paranoia. My brain always went off on its own tangents about what my significant other was doing in the time we were away which pretty much led me to be that crazy girlfriend who is always calling and crying. But it didn’t help that most of the people I dated seriously were jerks or completely immature. At 23 I was starting to think that I’d never have a real longterm relationship.

Then I started dating a coworker. In the beginning we tried to take it slow because we worked together and didn’t want to start any sort of office drama. But it really didn’t work. We had a whirlwind romance and fell in love really quickly. We spent all of our time together and life was fantastic. He was the first person I had ever been with that I wanted something more with. I seriously started having fantasies about moving in together.

But then he became busy … all the time. These were real issues he was dealing with; he wasn’t just blowing me off. He was a genuinely nice guy. He found out he had a daughter from a one night stand 5 years ago, he had decided to go back to school, and he was trying to fix the life that he had fucked up in his 20s. It was all too much and he became less and less available. The paranoia started and would NOT stop no matter how much he tried to console me.

Eventually I had to break it off with him. We were still madly in love, but I couldn’t live so unhappily. The end of that relationship was the biggest heartbreak I ever went through. I was used to breaking up with people for being assholes, not because it just wasn’t working. I tried sex with other people and I hated it. I’d drink and then call him. This led me to basically becoming a hermit for the next 8 months where all I did was eat, watch tv, work, and go to school. I stopped socializing, I stopped drinking, and I stopped dating. Eight months is the longest period of time that I have EVER gone without sex or dating. I was seriously distraught.

But the truth of the matter is, I never actually saw a real future with this guy. I loved him and I wanted to move in with him, but the next step in my head was breaking up. I thought our relationship would probably last maybe a year or two. I loved him so much and yet I knew that we wouldn’t work in the longterm.

Moving in with someone and then breaking up with them after a year or two was actually the next step for a relationship in my head. I thought that was how it was supposed to be. Just another relationship casualty on the path of life.

So during that 8 months of deep depression I reassessed what I wanted. I also started going to a therapist to help me get over the devastation I was feeling. I decided that I couldn’t go through that again. I did not want to relive this breakup, so what was the point of moving in with someone and then breaking up? That started to sound like a horrible plan. So I decided that the next relationship I got in would be for keeps. Keep in mind though that I don’t commit to just anyone who happens along. I date awhile first before I decide anything.

The first person I had sex with after that 8 months was a total disaster. The paranoia attacked way earlier than it normally does and I had to break it off. But soon I would meet my wife and that relationship started off pretty much the only way I can imagine a relationship of mine starting and actually being successful. She was more screwed up than me. She’d just gotten out of a 4 year relationship and was completely destructive. We became friends and we had sex, but I was so not interested in a relationship with her.

This went on for 2.5 months before we admitted to each other that we had feelings for each other. After 3 months we had a talk about commitment and what we both needed from the relationship and the other person. It was then a bit of a whirlwind relationship where we quickly fell in love as we both healed as people. And the most important thing of all was that I didn’t suffer from paranoia. She texted me all the time. I never asked her to. She just did it. I always knew where she was, who she was with, and what she was doing. It turned out that that was exactly what I needed to quiet the thoughts. It was never an issue of trust for me, but an issue of not knowing what was going on. I’m a control freak with an overly active imagination.

The weirdest thing about our relationship though was that we planned our wedding before we ever decided to get married. It wasn’t scary or anything. We knew that all we were really doing was comparing our likes and dislikes in a way that most people don’t do. It was a lot of fun! We actually started planning our wedding before we even moved in together.

After we had moved in together and discussed the wedding more like it might actually happen we both started thinking that big scary thought: “spending the rest of my life with this person.” Yikes! We realized that we both weren’t ready just yet. While we knew we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with each other pretty early on in the relationship, it was still a scary idea to actually commit to forever.

And then one day, I wasn’t scared anymore. It just seemed right. So we went ring shopping and I put her in charge of proposing.

My story is probably very different than a lot of people’s stories. I’m sure that if you have a story, it will be different than mine. Just remember that marriage isn’t for everyone and that there is no need to rush into it if you don’t want it or aren’t ready. Talk it over. It always freaks me out that in a lot of heterosexual relationships the man just pops the question. Deciding to get married should be a discussion, not a surprise.

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This post, When is the Right Time to Get Married?, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 03/09/2010. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: When is the Right Time to Get Married?. Thanks for visiting!
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The biggest shortfall of most sex guides is that they default to heterosexual sex and treat queer sex as if it’s this other thing that other people do, but obviously not the reader. They’ll usually include a chapter about homosexuality and bisexuality and another chapter about trans folks, but always from the point of view that they’re teaching us about a foreign concept. They couldn’t possibly be teaching anyone who actually is one of those things. That can really make LGBTQQI folks feel abnormal and like maybe something is wrong with them. And is it really a comprehensive guide if they’re cutting out a good portion of the population?

Moregasm does not make this mistake. Throughout the entire book they address the reader as if they might be open to any kind of sex. This is not surprising given the writers. They are the founders of Babeland. As someone who works in a sex shop I know exactly how to talk to a customer without making any sort of judgments about who the person would be having sex with. I make sure to include all types of bodies in my discussions unless the customer makes it clear who they intend to use the object with.

At the same time, sex shop workers are used to talking directly to a person whose gender we can usually assume from looking and talking to them. We rarely try to make assumptions about the person’s sex, only about what gender they are presenting. Because of this and many other reasons they decided to write the book from the perspective of a woman for women. It can be extremely complicated to write a book that makes absolutely no assumptions what so ever. I’d really like to see someone try to do it and come out with an amazingly fantastic inclusive book. I really would. But damn it would be difficult. So I gotta give Moregasm props for being inclusive even if they wrote the book specifically for women. At least they acknowledge that fact.

Moregasm is not only inclusive, but it’s also completely accessible. The writing is light, fun, and educational. The writers know that they know more about sex than the average reader of this book, but they don’t make you feel bad for it. They celebrate your quest for knowledge and they never once put you to sleep. The colorful explicit pictures help to make the book fun and sexy although make it much more difficult for me to read on my morning commute to work on the bus. In fact I blame those giant naked pictures for me taking so long to get through this easy to read guide. It is DIFFICULT to hide them! But you’re all good if you just plan on reading this guide in the comfort of your own home, which is probably recommended anyway.

So, what doesn’t Moregasm do well?

The thing about publishing a book is that the publisher has to approve it and that means they have to approve the look of it. This can be extremely difficult if you are trying to create an all inclusive guide to sex. This book is filled with beautiful pictures of beautiful people. There are some pictures of different types of bodies, but most of them are thin, young, white, and cis-gendered. There are a few different races sprinkled around in the book. There is one picture of a trans man pictured next to a write up about trans, genderqueer, and intersexed folks. Although, I do credit them for picturing a few more androgynous women throughout the book. There are two pictures of older people, but those are tucked in the back amongst the questions about sex when you get older. And while the models aren’t all super skinny, there isn’t one person I would categorize as fat in the whole book. There is also not a single picture of anyone who is visibly disabled. This is all important because I feel that it is necessary for everyone to see themselves in a comprehensive sex guide in order for them to feel included in the discussion and because it is important for everyone to see that people of all types are sexy and beautiful in their own ways. But like I said before, this can depend hugely on what the publisher okays.

The other thing that I didn’t really like about Moregasm is that I felt that it was constantly trying to promote Babeland. This is probably going to keep this book out of a lot of other sex shops that are just as good as Babeland is. Why would a shop owner want to sell a book that is constantly telling the reader to shop at Babeland? This is especially poorly done in the section on lube. Every single lube that the book recommends is a Babeland brand lube. There are lots of good lubes out there that aren’t made by Babeland, but they aren’t mentioned. Probably because Babeland makes more money on their lubes, especially if you have to buy them from Babeland.

So overall, this book is fun, sexy, and educational. It doesn’t do everything perfectly, but it delivers where a lot of books don’t. I definitely recommend this book to all sexualities, but would recommend other books for information on sex with disabilities, aging, and trans identities.

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This post, Moregasm, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 03/07/2010. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: Moregasm. Thanks for visiting!
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The Sexist points to a recent study (giant pdf) done by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy which surveyed single Americans aged 18-29 asking them about their perceptions of contraception. It turns out that women don’t know too much and men know even less.

Twenty-eight percent of young men think that wearing two condoms at a time is more effective than just one. Twenty-five percent think that women can prevent pregnancy by douching after sex. Eighteen percent believe that they can reduce the chance of pregnancy by doing it standing up.
For the most part, men lagged behind women on the pregnancy prevention front. And when the study dipped into the realm of “female” forms of birth control, the gender divide intensified. In the study, 29 percent of men and 32 percent of women reported that they know “little or nothing about condoms.” When asked to rate their knowledge of birth control pills, 78 percent of men reported to be clueless, compared to 45 percent of women.

To really drive the level of stupidity home, the article shares anecdotes from women with clueless boyfriends not understanding how the NuvaRing works (“how is it going to catch my semen?”) or even how women’s bodies work (can you shower on your period while not wearing a tampon?). They point to the lack of sex education and knowledge of women’s bodies as the problem here and I have to agree strongly.

The next study done by the Kinsey Institute shows that Americans can’t even agree on what sex is. The study was a survey of 486 mostly heterosexual 18-96 year olds. They asked a series of questions involving different sexual acts and then asked them if it was sex. “Would you say you ‘had sex’ with someone if the most intimate behavior you engaged in was [blank]?”

“two out of ten people did not concur that penile-anal intercourse was sex, and three out of ten said ‘no’ to oral-genital activity, as did half of the respondents about manual-genital contact.” And, while 95 percent classified penile-vaginal penetration as sex (one has to wonder what does count for the remaining 5 percent), that number dropped to 89 percent in cases where the man doesn’t ejaculate.

You have to wonder if this is part of why people are so clueless about safer sex and birth control. If we can’t even decide on what sex is then how can we adequately protect ourselves? And hell that’s why Gold Star Lesbians are still considered virgins by so many mainstream folks. I mean, how can queer sex even exist at all within these kinds of definitions? Its no wonder so many people so offensively ask how two women can have sex.

It reminds me of when I lost my virginity. I had a pretty traditional view of losing one’s virginity at the age of 17 and yet my boyfriend at the time still considered himself to be a virgin even after we had, what I considered to be, sex. His penis went in my vagina and he broke my hymen. It hurt. There was no real thrusting or orgasms that night. But I thought I’d lost my virginity. According to him though, neither of us had.

Can we please stop with the abstinence only education already? It does NOT work! We all have a right to know how to take care of our bodies and learning about sex is a huge part of that.

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This post, Why We So Desperately Need Good Sex Ed, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 03/06/2010. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: Why We So Desperately Need Good Sex Ed. Thanks for visiting!
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One such STI is Molluscum contagiosum (MC). Surprising you don’t hear about it considering how contagious it is (did you not get that from the second part of its name?). MC is a viral infection spread through skin to skin contact or via shared items like towels. It’s most prevalent in the immunodeficient (like HIV+, transplant patients, the elderly, etc.), children – which lets face it, their immune systems kind of suck too-, and sexually active adults.

MC forms lesions on the skin which often look like pimples or ingrown hairs to the untrained eye. They are shiny red or skin-colored bumps with a little dimple in the center filled with a waxy white substance which actually contains the virus. I’ll leave it up to you to do the Google image search. The bumps often itch, which is how the virus spreads. Scratch scratch scratch and the white stuff gets all spread around to make more bumps. Even worse, now that shaving your genitals is all the rage. One day you think you just have an ingrown hair and the next you have itchy bumps all over your genitals. And if you shave other places with that same razor, you probably just spread them there as well.

MC is no fun! But the good news is that its relatively easy to treat. First, get yourself to a doctor to make sure that is what you have. Then the most common treatments are usually burning the lesions with acid or freezing them with liquid nitrogen. Some doctors will just scrape the white stuff out. If you don’t have a lot of bumps you can try your luck with cleaning the area thoroughly, scraping out the white stuff, and then cleaning the area and your hands/implements used for scratching. If you have a weak immune system though I would recommend against this.

The other option is to just let the virus run its course. This can take up to 2 years. But seriously, who the heck wants to do that? You could infect all kinds of people and that shit itches.

The great news is that once the lesions are gone, the virus is gone. It does not hide in your body like herpes or HPV. However, just because you had it once, does not mean you can’t catch it again. If your partner still has it you could pass it back and forth to each other for eternity – and condoms aren’t going to do any good. So make sure everyone gets treated and you wash all of your towels, clothes, and sheets. And give yourself a couple weeks after the disappearance of the lesions to declare yourself MC free.

How can you protect yourself against MC? Well, really its not all that easy. If your partner has it, or someone else in your household has it (and you share towels) there is a very good chance that you will also get it. You can decrease your risks by using condoms (the female condom is actually the best for this as it covers the vulva), dental dams, and gloves. And of course, if you see something abnormal on your or your partners’ bodies then do not have sex.

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This post, The STI You Haven’t Heard of: Molluscum contagiosum, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 03/03/2010. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: The STI You Haven’t Heard of: Molluscum contagiosum. Thanks for visiting!
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Anything in particular on that list you want to see?

Who do you think should win in the following categories:

• Hottest Kink Film
• Sexiest Straight Movie
• Steamiest Trans Movie
• Most Deliciously Diverse Cast
• Heartthrob of the Year
• Movie of the Year

Any websites or movies you think are missing?

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This post, Fifth Annual Feminist Porn Awards, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 03/02/2010. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: Fifth Annual Feminist Porn Awards. Thanks for visiting!
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We all know what impotence means for men. Afterall, there are tons of commercials for Viagra, Levitra, Cialis, etc on TV all the damned time. Although, they usually call it erectile dysfunction these days so as not to upset the men folks, but I wanted to use a single word to describe what it is in both men and women. Granted, it actually is the same thing in women as men: erectile dysfunction. Although in women it is rarely called that. In women its called Female Sexual Arousal Disorder. I don’t know about you, but erectile dysfunction is a much nicer way of saying it. In fact, I think I’d prefer calling it impotence for everyone than calling women’s inability to get an erection Female Sexual Arousal Disorder. That sounds horribly sex negative.

Enough with the rant, what does it mean? People spend so much time talking about the differences between men and women that it almost seems like we’re two different species. But the reality is that we all start out female in the womb and either continue to develop as a female or the course gets altered and we become male. This means that our bodies are pretty much made up of the exact same stuff. Heck, why do you think men have nipples?

Sure, our genitals look pretty different from each other, but they’re actually strikingly similar. There is erectile tissue in both the clitoris and the penis and when any healthy, able-bodied person becomes aroused they sport an erection. Its just that some of ours are smaller and more internal than others. Its hard to ignore a man’s erection when its sticking out at you and its pretty obvious when he is having a difficult time getting or maintaining his erection. Sexual partners often take it personally or think that he is not a “real man” and the man with the limp dick often freaks out about it and starts asking the wrong questions of himself. Instead of asking things like “Am I really attracted to her? Am I gay? Am I not virile enough?,” he should be asking “What is different? Am I on any new medications that cause side effects? Have I changed my diet recently? When is the last time I had a prostate exam? Have I been really stressed out lately? Am I in bad health?”

When a woman becomes sexually aroused, we don’t think of her as having an erection, but she really does. Maybe its because our society focuses on one side of sex and not the other? Arousal in women is often judged by how wet she gets, not how big her clit gets. But if her clit does not become erect, it will be very difficult for her to have an orgasm, just like it is very difficult for men to have an orgasm when not erect. So while it is obvious when men experience erectile dysfunction because their cock isn’t waving at you, it becomes a bit more obvious when a woman cannot have an orgasm that she can normally achieve. However, it isn’t obvious as to what the reasoning is. A woman may still feel pretty aroused despite her clit not being erect. Or she may just feel her sex drive drop. And there really aren’t any pills out there for women to help with this dysfunction. But I don’t really think Viagra for women is going to fix the problem either if a woman doesn’t know why she isn’t becoming aroused or orgasmic. First, women need to learn more about their bodies in order to understand the way it changes.

So smoking effects the ability for both men and women to get an erection because nicotine is a vasoconstrictor, which means that it tightens blood vessels and constricts blood flow. This obviously has a big effect on how the blood flows into the genitals.

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This post, Female Impotence, originally appeared on Ask Garnet on 02/26/2010. Click over to leave a comment or ask a question: Female Impotence. Thanks for visiting!
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