It occurs to me that I’m now willing to be candid about sex, including my own sex life, on here (kind of the point of starting this in the first place), but don’t know if I want to talk about my personal relationship to adoption. So, the occasional news/rants about adoption will have to suffice.

News/rants, example of: here in Chicagoland one of the top stories, if not THE top story, in past weeks was President Obama’s commencement address last weekend at Notre Dame (and honorary degree), and the protests of such by anti-abortion groups. Okay. I don’t mind most of what he said in the excerpts of the speech I heard, except it makes me crazy every time I hear the “let’s discuss common ground to reduce abortion” argument floated when, this can’t be said often enough, NO PRO-LIFE GROUP SUPPORTS BIRTH CONTROL. NONE. I am sure many pro-life individuals kind of get the concept of better access and knowledge of birth control helping to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and hence abortions, but none of the major groups endorse it. No, they’re too busy trying to make it sound like Plan B/emergency contraception IS abortion, and therefore, birth control pills (since Plan B is just a high dosage/combination of such) are abortion…I’m not sure the average person KNOWS this. And then there’s promoting adoption as a simple, “oh why don’t more people think of that?” alternative to abortion. (I believe adoption is usually considered as an alternative to the woman’s raising the child herself, not to abortion.) Sigh. If anti-abortion groups endorse more support for single and/or poor mothers who might feel abortion is their only option (and I’ve heard that the abortion rate has gone up in this economy), that’s terrific. But do they? Uh, I probably should have researched this to back it up with studies and statistics, but I still think I’m on surer ground than the “let’s work together for our common goals!” myopia that infects so much mainstream discussion on reproductive rights.

End rant. Next up: references to my personal life that make it so difficult for me to tell anyone but internet strangers about this blog’s existence!

So! Since the last post…nothing happened with whoever I was writing about at the time (someone I lusted after, but who just wanted to be friends, mild disappointment, moved on). Something mostly cool happened with one guy, something that seemed cool but was also confusing and now seems not that cool happened with another guy, and at the risk of jinxing things, very cool things might be happening soon with yet another guy (all the others are out of the picture, so now you know I don’t have some exciting polyamorous life or anything) and that is why these issues are on my mind again. It’s too depressing to write about sex when I’m not having any (and if I didn’t clarify this elsewhere, any time I say “sex” I’m talking about all sexual activity, not the specific act that gives me trouble…). But now…

But I’m filled with a sense of dread knowing that nothing from now on will not be mediated through the Internet. To drop the double negative–everything will happen through our sites and blogs and social networks.

Everything is knowing when they’re online, and why aren’t they writing you or calling you or responding to what you’re doing online.

Everything is, even if you’re not the jealous type and aren’t bothered by straight male-female friendships, or friendships with exes, or them having crushes or flirting a bit, wondering who all those (attractive, single?) friends are. Everything is wondering what everyone “means” to everyone. Everything is needing to know the backstory. Everything is needing to know the future story.

Everything is finding ways to feel inadequate–about your looks, your personality, your wit, your talents–to people you’ve never met. Everything is wondering what they’ve got that you don’t, or if you have it, why other people like it in them more than they like it in you.

Everything is all the women who are sexier than you, either in a conventional way, or the way they work the less conventional sexiness far, far better than you could. Everything is wondering how sexy you can be to attract the right attention and avoid the wrong attention, and knowing that simply isn’t possible.

Everything is watching too closely, reading too much into everything, letting everything wind you up, or wound you, too much. And not seeing any way out, because you need to be online–this is how you meet people. This is how people know who you are. Well, YOU don’t. But elsewhere, they do.

Note: I’m actually not that upset, this is just one of those moments–oh, there have been several of these moments this week, with several different people of past or current interest–that lets the anxieties rush out.

A picture, a picture of something I don’t seem to need and would be somewhat troubled by the idea of anyone wanting to see me in anyway, because I owe you something other than lots of text. And I’m not interested in linking to video clips and whatnot, in borrowing other images right now. It’ll all be by me, and all be things I wouldn’t put anywhere else on the Internet and no one would recognize me by. I would hope.

And: I only had 3 beers in the house so that’s all this is influenced by. And those bite marks on my arm now, those bite marks will be hard to explain, if I had anyone to explain them to. But they’re better than things I used to do.

It’s probably not good that I’m afraid to see what comments people are leaving.

It’s probably not good that I feel like I can’t drink this beer fast enough, but at least there’s not enough here for me to write a truly drunken post.

It’s probably not good that I’m waiting by the phone. I’m fairly certain there’d be nothing wrong with me calling, but I’m too freaked out to. I’m jealous over something I don’t need to be jealous of, just something that made me feel inadequate…oh, I don’t want to explain. It’s probably not good that what I’m thinking is that I’m not pretty/sexy enough. It’s probably not good I mention that because I have no intention of posting photos of myself here, or describing myself. To be anonymous I can’t have a neighborhood, an age, a home state, a job, etc. that you know of. So you don’t know if I have anything to base my fears on.

Maybe it IS good that pathetic concerns about not being pretty/sexy enough to be appreciated have even briefly distracted me from the months-long concerns about not ever getting to have sex again (and I’m not just talking about the stuff that hurts me–did I mention vulvodynia? but any really intimate contact, and this hasn’t just been an obsession while I’ve been totally single or mostly single [by that I mean some flirtatious stuff and a little kissing going on but not anything approaching a "relationship"] but when I was in the last “relationship,” because not much was happening there).

Hey, this isn’t so bad, writing here again. Though I didn’t intend to use this as “therapy.” It’s supposed to be a place to write about “Hot Midwestern Action,” if I ever get any or know of any. And sexual politics. A place to prove all that time and money on reading about sex wasn’t totally a waste. I can write about it, even if I don’t get to have it. Even if that’s the pathetic story of my life, the story, in fact, I’ve wanted to tell the person I want to call (that phrase works for either “I want him to call me” or “I want to call him,” I realized), but I’m not sure I should tell. You can’t seduce anyone through pathetic stories. At least I would hope you can’t.

So, we’ll see if I end up writing here, and actually make an effort to PROMOTE this blog and link to others and all that. It’s fun to have an uncensored space like this but even so I have to hold back. I don’t want to write about my pathetic angst. I want to write political stuff, dammit! I want to write about the intriguing idea of being “sex-neutral,” a term I heard since my last post. I’ve really rethought the term “sex-positive,” although I’ll still defend it against simplistic charges that that means male-identified or totally pro-porn or whatever. I’m going to go Google “sex-neutral” right now. But I’m glad to be back. Coming soon: links, and commenting on other blogs, and all that stuff that might increase traffic here. No photos, though, sorry. I’ll need graphics of some kind.

Oh, and I do have a LibraryThing page for HazelJ or is it AlmostTouching? I don’t know, I lost the password, but there’s a big ol’ list of sex books on there somewhere…

So, I’ve made this new friend and we’ve been hanging out. I wasn’t sure at first if I had a crush on him, now I blush every time I think about him. It seems likely that he likes me too and I’m all agitated about what to do next. Why am I bothering to tell you about one of the most common situations in the universe? BECAUSE THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED TO ME BEFORE. I only know what it’s like to meet a guy (for the first time, or someone’s who’s a casual acquaintance) and immediately start dating them. Not necessarily fooling around right away (though that has happened), but it’s been clear we’re going on dates, flirting, moving towards physical contact (even if the “normal” denouement [i.e. fucking] didn’t happen).

And then to have it fall apart in some boring, non-dramatic way (no cheating or fights, just drifting apart). And then to be good friends with them. All the guys I’ve dated in the last few years (there was a significant unintentional time-off before that) are people I could comfortably call up and invite to things or hang out with; one is more-or-less my best friend (I’m wary of calling anyone that, especially if I’m not THEIR best friend). I don’t know what “friends first” is; all I know is “friends after.” And I’m amazingly paranoid that this could actually screw up a friendship I very very much want to maintain.

Anyway, if you’re tired of that old vagina, where can you get a new one? Well, back in time, on the now-canceled “Greg Behrendt Show.” Behrendt is a stand-up comedian/writer, co-author of the “revolutionary” (according to Oprah, but she has rather generous standards for “revolution”) He’s Just Not That Into You and its sequel, an appalling breakup guide. (Appalling because the mainstream idea is always that it’s weird to be friends with your exes, and I’m friends with virtually all of mine, but then these weren’t especially passionate relationships to begin with…). HJNTIY wasn’t as horrible as some made it sound but the “never ask a man out” advice was pretty retro.

So I watched the Greg Behrendt Show now and then and it wasn’t terrible. But the day the woman wanted vaginal surgery…oh boy. To clarify, although these often get mixed up in articles/on blogs/etc., there are several disturbing trends in elective genital surgery: repairing/reconstructing hymens (there’s SO much so wrong about that, but I suppose it could actually be lifesaving for women from extremely repressive cultures that care about virginity that much); “fixing” the external genitals to be more “attractive” (there’s another scary beauty standard), and the surgeries that allegedly “enhance” sexual pleasure, basically by tightening up the vagina.

My stereotype is that the latter is a surgery for affluent white women in their 30s-40s, possibly in the suburbs of L.A. or New York, who’ve had some kids and worry that they’re not “tight enough” for their men anymore, and their husbands will leave them for younger, perkier, tighter women. This is certainly the impression I’ve gotten from stories about it, and the whole thing is depressing, no matter how much the women say they like it. (Given my vulvodynia situation, I am a bit biased on this topic, but I still think I’d be disgusted.)

But that day on the Greg Behrendt Show…well, it was a thirtyish, working/middle-class African-American couple (I don’t know/care if they were married) with one kid. And the woman wanted the surgery, but the man didn’t want her to get it (or want to spend $1000s for it). She wanted it because, well, she was TWENTY-SEVEN and had ONE kid–my god, of course her body was shot to hell!

The whole thing was framed as the unreasonable, unenlightened husband (well, that’s not that unusual on daytime talk shows) who didn’t want to spend money on something his wife really wanted, who didn’t care enough about her sexual satisfaction. They both had their say, the show brought out the sexpert to talk a bit about Kegel exercises and whatnot, but then, the big prize: free “vaginal rejuvenation” from the renowned Dr. David Matlock! (This guy’s in nearly all the articles.)

Happy ending, allegedly, for them; bafflement and despair from me. I’m obviously a little fixated on it; I’ve searched the internet several times and found no discussion of this episode (I don’t know if ANY feminist blogger regularly covers TV talk shows; I know there are many more important things to cover), and weeks ago the official Behrendt show website was vaporized, and this has faded away entirely…I don’t like to seem like I’m opposed to something that improves a woman’s sex life, and since I’ve never had positive experiences of intercourse I can’t know what it’s like to lose your pleasure from it…but still, can’t I be freaked out by this? Handing out a risky, invasive surgery like it’s a trip to Hawaii or consultation with a professional organizer or new bicycle, the sorts of prizes I expect on daytime talk shows?

Why do I care so much about this? I still haven’t even talked about it with people I know here. Well, I’m very sympathetic (but not yet publicly involved) with adoption as a political issue. And my family situation is so intriguing: there are three major types of adoption (not counting stepfamily adoption): domestic infant adoption, public/foster care adoption, and transnational adoption, and my brother’s situation was a bit of all three. (If you’re wondering how someone could be both domestic and transnational…you might figure it out. It’s also a transracial adoption.) Oh, and it wasn’t just “intriguing,” it was totally fucking tragic. Not that we aren’t a relatively happy and stable family; it’s that sometimes you learn that these things come at a price.

More on this later. I’m just writing this in lieu of a report back from the conference.

NOW I understand the concept of one-night-stands, which have never appealed to me (except perhaps on vacation)–we could have just left it that. But we did want to go further, and did, and some of that was quite good. (You’d think I wouldn’t be vague in a pseudonymous blog, but hey, I’m new and nervous.) We were trying to “go all the way” (if you understand what a prolonged adolescence my life has been, you’ll forgive my use of that phrase) but it just didn’t work, and after a while, I decided it wasn’t worth the trouble with him. (Intercourse is a confusing, painful ordeal I’m saving for people I really care about.) And I wasn’t touching him very much, not that I was unwilling to… So the physical aspect wasn’t spectacular.

And we weren’t friends–we were friendly to each other, but I couldn’t imagine inviting him to meet anyone I knew, or to an event I was enthusiastic about, or just talking to him on the phone. I won’t say anything identifying about him (I’m saving those details for future short stories, maybe). We were able to be friends with benefits because we weren’t really friends and in danger of having real feelings for each other–but not being friends made it a little too sordid.

One unbearable detail that’d made me want to end it–this guy is well into his 30s and doesn’t have a full-size bed. He doesn’t have a big or fancy apartment, which is fine, but c’mon–if you want to have adult relationships, you need an adult bed. I didn’t want to sleep over anymore, because one of us would sleep in the bed and one on the lounger, no cuddling. And we’d have to fool around on the floor, which is fine as an occasional passionate thing, but not all the time, not if you’ve got a lot of back pain which is almost certainly related to the pelvic pain you can’t afford to treat.

But I’d held on to this, out of laziness, or from not wanting to hurt him. This is the only relationship I’ve ever had where I felt I was the less enthusiastic partner. He initiated nearly all the phone calls, I always went to his place, he’d ask what I was doing for some holiday months from now, he’d say “thank you” at the end every time I returned a phone call. It seemed like it was all up to me to accept/reject him. Maybe I held on to this just to be able to be the one to end it.

Of course there’s a punchline–a couple weeks ago, when we’d barely seen each other all month, we were meeting on a Saturday afternoon. I thought maybe he wanted to fool around that afternoon or evening. But I detected a tone in his voice…and we met at a cafe, got as private a booth as possible, and he said he didn’t want to keep this going.I didn’t particularly want to keep it going either, but damn! I was suppose to end it! And he even used the EXACT lines I was thinking–that we weren’t really friends, and the benefits hadn’t been that great. We’ll be in touch (he still has a book of mine) but we haven’t talked since.