I'm A Prude, I'm Encouraging the Spread of HIV in South Africa and Other Reader Comments

Let's reach into the mailbag and--ouch!--there are some pokey ones in there this week.

Emmanence, a reader from South Africa, had this to say about How To Behave in the Presence of a Female Condom:

I laughed out loud and then it made me sad. Not that the whole 'women's empowerment through access to female condom' thing isn't riddled with its own problems, but really, that we can be so disgusted by the one barrier method that doesn't rely on anyone else to use it, and actively discourage people from even trying? I'm writing from South Africa, highest rate of HIV infection in the world, lots of issues with women even being able to talk to men about sex, or even have control over where, when & how. There's some evidence that some women manage to use it in a way that hides it from their partners so they don't even have to get into this discussion...

Point taken, Emmanence. I'm not sure how many South African women consult In Bed With Married Women when making Important Sexual Decisions, but just in case:  ATTENTION women of South Africa (and elsewhere)!: Although female condoms, like nearly all forms of contraception (and sex itself, for that matter), are both awkward and humorous, if some dude is trying get on you and you're not in the mood to get pregnant or infected with HIV, by all means, USE A FEMALE CONDOM.  Use two or three of them, if you want.  Put 'em in all your orifices. Better safe than sorry, I say. Meanwhile, here in the States, I will be contemplating the physics of hiding an external rubbery tube from my partner.

Meanwhile, Kiki is all irate because of the post on furries.

DAMN, those furries are weird! Right. Because, no one EVER has sex in a costume at a Star Trek convention, or after a Halloween party. You're a prude!

Although I took great pains in the post to note that people can do whatever they want, it's all good, etc... after careful consideration, I have decided that I am indeed a furry prude. If some giant bobble-headed googly-eyed Chipmunk came up to me and said (chirped?) "Hey, suck the matted fur on my erect Chipmunk penis. C'mon, honey, don't be such a prude," I would have to decline. Even if, he (or she) promised to lift his (or her) specially built-in groinal flap to reveal the glories beneath. I feel somewhat ashamed of this prudery, but there it is. (Attention Google: please add "furry prude" to "Jill Hamilton" searches to go with my name's current designation as "anal bleaching expert.")

It wasn't all hatin' around here this week. There was an uptick in people clicking on the blog's pay-per-click Google ads (sending fives of dollars my way--sweet!), someone used the Amazon search box and actually bought something, and as usual, you came through with a host of witty, smart, thought-provoking comments. ValVan, for instance, urged his fellow men to consider "the long game" with regards to the back-rub-as-stealth-route-to-sex technique. Men, heed his words, as they hold great wisdom.

And Anonymous' comment on "That Doesn't Turn Me On" by The Housewife Blogger made me realize how damn nitpicky we women are when it comes to sex. Like Seinfeld and the man hands, we can get turned off by anything from a surprise butt thwacking with a penis to "vacuum-like head" to a mid-sex "Hoo Boy" exclamation. Wrote Anonymous:

The Mars/Venus problem here is that most men don't need to be "turned on." They turn on automatically. A lot of women get frustrated when guys equate sex and food, but to us, they really are quite similar. Horniness comes on naturally, like hunger. And also like hunger, it's an urgent need that we don't like putting off until later. We don't need to be inspired into it. We don't need you to talk dirty about steaks and pasta, or dress up a hamburger in a sexy bun, or sprinkle cake crumbs around the kitchen in an appetizing pattern. When our stomachs rumble, we want to eat. When our dicks get hard, we want to fool around. 

Besides the delightful image of dirty talk about steaks and pasta (Oh, you just wait, I am going to roll you around my fork. Slowly. Until you think you can't take it anymore. Then, with increasing urgency, I'm going to...) Uh...sorry, I, uh, was writing a sentence or something? Oh yeah, this: This brings up a question: Men, at the very real risk of sounding like a Playboy, circa 1978, what are your turn-offs anyway? Is there nothing so heinous it dampers your ardor, or is this just a dumb stereotype? I honestly don't know. I've asked one dude so far, who told me about having sex with a goth chick who suddenly bit his neck, drawing blood. But I kind of think he wasn't turned off so much as bragging about it.

And finally I'll leave with this quote by, well, I'm just going to let you look that one up yourself.

 “Men wake up aroused in the morning. We can't help it. We just wake up and we want you. And the women are thinking, 'How can he want me the way I look in the morning?' It's because we can't see you. We have no blood anywhere near our optic nerve.”

Okay, go on now. Oh, and I do apologize for the image that will pop into your head once you look up who said it.

(image source: http://wickedknickers.tumblr.com/post/3475685092/vintage-nude-erotica-boxing-1940s-naked-woman)