RIP Critique My Dick Pic

(Since Tumblr has made ridiculous new "anti-pornography" rules that make zero sense at all, I'm re-running this to memorialize the work of my favorite Tumblriste ever, Ms. Maddie Holden, whose labors (oh, you'll see) might soon disappear forever.  You can read her own eulogy of the brief shining moment that was her righteous blog, Critique My Dick Pic here.  

And for the record, fuck this shit. Facebook is cracking down, or whatever, too. I was just banned from Facebook for a month for the very photo that is, ironically, still running as the photo for IBWMW's Facebook page and has been there for years. (I suspect I was reported by a stranger who took offense at some political thing I wrote. It will not surprise you that I'm kinda outspoken on social media. And yes, I'm working on it.) 

This insane prudery isn't helping any of us. We need to be able to talk to each other about sex and our orientations and share what's really going on. Shoving it down, banning it--all that stuff takes away access to real, decent, information, connection and so much art and beauty. 

This doesn't help "the children" either.  When they can't see a sex educator showing them what a vulva is, then their most easily accessible sex ed is gonna be porn.  Which, porn is fine and you know I love it, but there is a whole lot of really crappy porn with dudes spitting on women or even just not fucking them in a decent manner. That's not helping the kids, my friends.

For the rest of us, we should be allowed to freely talk about so-called adult matters.  Because we are fucking adults.   

Anyway. We were talking dick pics. Let's do it WHILE WE CAN, shall we?

xo
jill 



Consider the courtship practice of the Sending of the Dick Picture.

Men like sending them, but few women -- and only under very specific circumstances -- like getting them. (I think they're sexy, but I get that impression that I'm unusual in that regard.) In any case, it seems like a bit of messed up evolutionary mating economics--all supply, little demand.

Supply's not going down any time soon, so it seems the best solution is to create more demand. In this case, creating a better quality--hence possibly better-received--dick pic.

This is the mission of Critique My Dick Pic.  Writes site creator/judger of peni, Madeleine Holden:

this is a tumblr with a simple premise: send me your dick pics, & i’ll critique them with love.
'with love' is an important addendum. i'm never going to shame you about the size of your dick or what it looks like; i'm not about that life. i will, however, be ruthlessly honest when it comes to things like angles, lighting & general tone. i'm trying to help you improve, because in all likelihood your dick pics are artless & dull.

The girl is ruthlessly honestly and is against "Porky Pigging," that is, wearing a shirt but no pants, and photos featuring "the log," (says she: "the log" is when you take a bird’s eye view, close-up shot of your enormous dick, with your dick taking up most of the frame & with very little surrounding detail. dudes, they’re boring. they’re ~so~ boring. they say "look at my fat cock" & fuck all else.") She ends each review with a letter grade. In bold.

Consider this poor guy who sent in an uninspired shot of his dick hanging over the edge of a kitchen sink. (You'll have to look yourself b/c as Holden puts it, this site is "Not! Safe! For! Work!")

um no this is definitely not very good.
your dick is unceremoniously flopped out of your pants & you look like you’re about to piss in the sink. your right arm is hanging limply & the top right hand corner of your pic is straight blur. sender, this is very bad? you didn’t try very much here? it is extremely unlikely that this picture would arouse anyone?
if i were you, sender, i would scrap this entirely & start again, with 100% less sink, 100% less blur, & 1000% more effort.
thank you for submitting to critiquemydickpic.tumblr.com. your dick pic gets a C-.

I am completely in love with this site and wish I could just run a bunch of the pix here so you don't have to be clicking around, but Google gets a little peevish when I get too racy.  Do hop over, then tell me what you think. I welcome any and all dick pic stories you might send me as well.

xoxox
jill

ps yes I do appreciate the absurdity of kowtowing to Google's prudery while running afoul of Porky Pig's copyright holder.  Though I give part of the blame to him for not wearing pants.

Hey. Been drinking?  Leave a little tip today. 

Overthinking the Magic Bra

Sandra and I were shopping for bras in what is still called--in this day and age!-- the "Intimates" department when I saw it: the Maidenform Women's Ultimate Push Up Bra

Have you seen this thing? "Add two cup sizes!" it promises, as well it should, since it seems to contain a small throw pillow's worth of padding in each cup. The bra was pretty ridiculous, really, so we gave it its proper mockery then continued with the special hell that is bra-shopping. [Oh, men, you don't even know! The egregious misstocking, the deciphering of strange terms (is "demi" good or bad?) and the hideous also-rans (I'm talking to you, green pin-striped push-up bra.) It's enough to drive you to the smelling salts, quite honestly.]

After some time (hours? days?) I had gathered a few bras that appeared that they might work (though "gathered" is not nearly a strong enough term for the savage, skillful foraging it took.) Though oddly, as though guided by some sort of unseen force, I kept finding myself circling back to the Ultimate bra. "Oh look," I thought to myself, with a forced casualness that didn't fool me one bit. "It's that ridiculous bra again." In a jump of logic that remains unclear to me even now, I concluded, "Well, may as well try it on."

I did, and well....DAMN! I had huge boobs, insanely inflated porno boobs, boobs that could not be tamed by man nor bra. My bosom, as they say in the romance novels, was swollen. My cups runnethed over. I was like the chick in this photo modeling the bra in question, but...more. Way more. My boobs were so huge, I was unclear on which side of the sexy/comically large divide they fell. "Sandra!" I called to the other dressing rooms. "You must come in here and behold my giant boobs." She looked. "Damn!" she said (as well she should.)

"I don't know...I look...different," I said, hoping Sandra, who knows about such feminine matters, would tell me whether to get it or not. Sandra took charge immediately. "Well, girl, I look different when I'm not wearing make-up--that doesn't mean I don't wear it, " she said definitively. "You Are Getting That Bra."

So I got it. And it sat, unused, in its preternatural perkiness on my dresser. I put it on only two times. Once to show Leah and once to show my husband. "Look at my boobs!" I said. Leah looked. My husband looked. "Damn!" they said.

I liked it. Kind of. I think. I don't know. The bra was becoming... problematic. I just couldn't bring myself to wear it. Was it indeed sexy, or was it just too damn big, borderline silly? Would I feel comfortable showing up to my usual haunts with my suddenly gigantic rack? (It should be noted that I already have a pretty smokin' D cup, but the difference with the magic bra was noticeable, way noticeable.) What if someone started flirting with me just because of my big fake boobs? Would I be irked that they were into something I didn't actually possess? Hey, my eyes are up here, Mr. Big Boob Lover.

And what if you were still dating and wearing this bra? The padding was so flippin' thick--would you even notice when things had gone to, as we used to say, second base? And what about a "home run"? As you flung your bra to the floor, so would go your boobs, piled there on the carpet, still waiting perkily at attention. (Warning: never do your real boobs look so dreadfully inadequate than after taking off the magic bra.)

The magic bra was causing me to overthink. I mean, not that I control the direction of society with my bra choices, but did I really want to be promoting this as what a women's chest should look like? By wearing the bra, in some small--albeit, incredibly busty--way, I would be raising the bar of what a woman's chest was supposed to look like. If my D-cup needed enhancement, what about my C, B and A-cup sisters? Would they be forced to don a completely fabricated chest, similar to those boys' superhero costumes with the build-in foam muscles? Would we one day just all don our blonde-haired, big-boobed, sweetly smiling full-body foam costumes, completely covering our unworthy, misshaped, shameful selves? No, by jingo! I would not be a part of it!

I found the tags and the receipt for the bra. I had to return it--for the Good of Society.

But first I tried it on one more time.

Damn.

xoxo
jill

Addendum: Btw, if you, like some of the commenters below, wish to play your part in bringing down society, you can get the thing--it's full of lies, I tell you!--at a department store like Kohl's or order it via In Bed With Married Women through the link above:

"Don't You Fucking Move," Letter from a Feminist Submissive

Didn't I tell you not to strive for
equality in the workplace?

(Hey gorgeous, found this in the backwaters of the blog today and I loved it all over again. Just ignore the highly untimely Fifty Shades of Grey tie-in, and you'll be good.)

Today's letter came in response to a Newsweek cover story on Fifty Shades of Grey, the insanely popular S&M-y mommy porn, unpromisingly spawned by, of all things, Twilight fan fiction.

Reader Submissive and Truly Fine With That was but one of the people pissed off by the article, which tied (yes, and I'm too lazy to think of a better word) working women and feminism to S&M. You can read her response below.

If you are unfamiliar with Fifty Shades of Grey, see this Daily Beast article on the book's 14 Naughtiest Bits (a genius idea!) Here, you can witness Perfectly Good Smut being ruined by a few ill-chosen words. For example, when heroine/virgin Anastasia (she would so be named that) watches Christian's (same deal) "erection spring free" (so far so good), she thinks--unlike a young woman would, but exactly like a middle-aged fan fiction-writing author might--"Holy cow!"

Later, when she takes him in her mouth (again, a good start...) it's described thusly: "He's my very own Christian Grey-flavored popsicle. I suck harder and harder...Hmmm...My inner goddess is doing the merengue with some salsa moves."

By the time Anastasia's "inner goddess is doing the dance of the seven veils," my own inner goddess is "confused, slightly icked out and ready to go to the kitchen and get a cup of coffee."

But I digress. Please give a warm welcome to Submissive and Truly Fine With That:

Dear IBWMW;
God bless you for being the one place I can send this email. I just finished reading an article in Newsweek about how (or why) today’s feminists have a more-than-passing interest in S&M, or more to the point, being sexually submissive. Now I feel the need to rant because of all the sources they consulted, they neglected to ask one of us, ie. a feminist who craves domination. (To be fair, they did quote Simone de Beauvoir, but, last time I checked, she’s dead.) I thought, what better venue to rant to than this column? (Actually, there is no other option. I really don’t want to disgust any of my friends with details of my sex life beyond relative wang dimensions or whether a guy was “orally efficacious” or not.)

For starters, I have to admit I believe I was born into this desire. My first sexual fantasies all involved bondage; usually, some guy I hated or found grossly unattractive would tie me up and have his way with me. In retrospect, I think it had to be someone I didn’t like for the submission to feel “honest”.  

If I go backwards in my life to my first physical sexual feeling, it was this: a happy little tingle between my legs while watching a TV episode of "Batman and Robin." The boys were tied up in a hot air balloon that was continuously ascending and their ultimate demise was imminent. I didn’t recognize it as sexual excitement at the time, but I do now. The numerous episodes of “Electra Woman and Dyna Girl” that followed elicited the same phenomenon. And they were tied up or trapped at least once per episode. No wonder that was my favorite show.

Reader's New Dude Has Too Much Stamina. What Should She Do?

"Marjorie, hold all my calls. Gonna be a long night."

One among us has a problem! Quick! Grab your rescue bag* and let's go help!

This urgent query has come in over the wires: 

Jill, my favorite sex writer, who knows all the good shit. I have a question that I simply refuse to google or tweet. So I'm going to throw it your way... I've recently taken a lover who has stamina like I've never experienced. So much so, it is almost a turn off. Despite hours of hot sex, full of variety, it's nearly impossible to get him to orgasm. In fact, it's taken him manually handling business. This is a blow to my fragile ego. I've pulled muscles I didn't even know I had. What's a girl to do?

NAP 

So. Besides bowing in admiration for the phrase "I've recently taken a lover" (~swoon~), here's what I've got:

 --My friend had this identical problem with some dude she was dating from Tinder. Meaning, you are not alone, this is a thing that happens, and actually, I'm not even going to call it a "problem," I'm gonna say "situation."

--Maybe he's watching "too much" porn (whatever that means) and now needs that kind of hyper-stimulation to get off. So a). a l'il porn diet. Yes, tragic, but perhaps necessary. Or b.) bring whatever porn he may be into (or may not--I'm already accusing this unknown dude of overwatching porn) into your fuckery. Imitate it, fetishize it, watch it during, whatever. If something super turns someone on and it's not actively horrible to you, I say take advantage of that passion and explore the sordidness together.

--See if he'd be willing to switch up his jerk off habits. Dan Savage, who knows things, says everyone should change up how they jerk off (other hand, new positions, lighter touch) so they'd don't become over-accustomed to it and only able to come in that one specific way. I personally never follow this advice, but it's something I know I should do, and intend to...someday, like going vegan. (I just read Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer and holy fuck.)

--Work within this framework.  He needs a hand to come, so do a lot of us. Maybe you can go with the amount of P-in-V fucking that seems good to you both, and y'all just accept that a handy is gonna be how it ends for him. This is not failure. This is kind of a more queered attitude to hetero sex and is super cool and progressive of you. Celebrate that shit. Let him come all over your tits or something spectacular.

That's my part. This chafed reader also wants to hear your advice, dear Internet stranger. Whatcha got?

xoxo

jill 

*Rescue bag suggested contents:

And yes, I did just see Isle of Dogs last night. How did you know?

Sedes Libidinus, if you know what I mean

Name this body part. Go on, take a guess!

That, my friends, is the full structure of the female clitoris*--including the extensive internal parts. Yes, the clitoris has internal parts! Extensive ones! Am I the only one who didn't know this? I thought a clit was a tiny button there on the outside--the end. For 46-friggin'-years (many of them, to be fair, non-friggin' years), I've been walking around ignorant of my own damn anatomy.

I could choose to wallow in shame over this, but I'm not gonna be too hard on myself because a) I generally cut myself way too much a lot of slack and b) practically no one knows this stuff. 

We should have been learning about our extensive clititude way back in 1844 when Georg Ludwig Kobelt published his seminal (though that is undoubtedly the wrong word) clit research in Die männlichen und weiblichen Wollust-Organe des Menschen und einiger Säugetiere (The Male and Female Organs of Sexual Arousal in Man and some other Mammals). 

Kobelt discovered a bunch of highly useful info--that, ahem, science, would have been NICE TO KNOW--like: clitorises (the whole extensive lot) become erect when aroused, and have all sorts of parts that you (and by "you," I mean "me") never even heard of like crura, bulbs and other clitorally-related new words I will probably not be incorporating into my sexy talk. "Oh my God! My clitoral vestibule is sooo hot for you."

Although maybe I should be talking vestibules and such. If you're a guy and plan to be sliding your manhood into her sweet feminine folds, you actually do want her clitoral vestibule, as well as her two corpora cavernosa, to be hot for you. When these parts are erect, they'll tighten quite nicely around you.

According to the anatomical explanation in this article on the Museum of Sex blog which I could barely understand without consulting the drawing frequently:

Most of the clitoris is subterranean. The glans is connected to the body or shaft of the internal clitoris, which is made up of two corpora cavernosa. When erect, the corpora cavernosa encompass the vagina on either side, as if they were wrapping around it giving it a big hug! Near each of the crura on either side of the vaginal opening are the clitoral vestibules. These are internally under the labia majora. When they become engorged with blood they actually cuff the vaginal opening causing the vulva to expand outward. Get these puppies excited, and you’ve got a hungrier, tighter-feeling vaginal opening in which to explore!

If you're feeling sciencey, I highly recommend you have a look at Helen E. O'Connell's Anatomy of the Clitoris in the Journal of Urology. (Important caveat: article contains photos with such labels as "Fig. 2. Lateral view of dissected clitoris in fresh cadaver of 57 year-old post menopausal woman." Which, as a sentence, contains a surprisingly high amount of unpleasant imagery.)

"The tale of the clitoris is a parable of culture, of how the body is forged into a shape valuable to civilization despite and not because of itself," writes O'Connell.

In the oddly enjoyable article (Journal of Urology, who knew you were such a good read?), O'Donnell rails against the medical establishment for not providing decent diagrams and accurate info on clits--a "blinkered approach," she writes. (A blinkered approach that still exists.) She also describes the history of clitorical research with its ever-changing ideas about what goes on between a woman's legs, and the comical regularly that men throughout history have claimed to "discover" the clit, each one giving it names, culumella (little pillar), sedes libidinis (seat of lust) and landica (shhh, Latin profanity!)

In the 1500's, Flemish anatomist Andreas Vesalius disagreed with Falloppia (yes, he of the tubes) that "healthy women" had a clitoris and wrote: "It is unreasonable to blame others for incompetence on the basics of some sport of nature you have observed in some women and you can hardly ascribe this new and useless part, as if it were an organ, to healthy women." (On a related note: I can find no mention of a Mrs. Vesalius.)

So why isn't anyone bothering to tell us this stuff? It sure would explain a whole fuck of a lot and clear up the vaginal vs. clitoral orgasm debates, what a G-spot is, etc...  I mean, it seems like it's all just stimulation of various parts of the clitoris. Right? That said, I do think that orgasms feel different depending on what spot is being stimulated. An orgasm from the G-spot area, or cruca or whatever the fuck we're calling it today, really does seem deeper and richer to me than the more tinny, shallow feel of a clit only orgasm.

And...I can't believe I just wrote that sentence. I am writing to complete strangers (and worse, people I know) and describing the color and tenor of my orgasms. That, my friends, means it is so time for me to go today.

However, if you want to weigh in on matters orgasmic, bring it on. You know I like it when you talk like that to me.

xoxo
jill

* Is it CLIToris or CliTORis? According to Wikipedia, which offers audio pronunciations so you can hear the words, each is correct. So use them both as you please! Wikipedia also offers a pronunciation guide for the UK version, /ˈklaɪtɒrɨs/, which is completely non-helpful gibberish to me, and sadly, does not come with a corresponding audio version. Because my inner 5th grader would really really like to hear a crisp British voice intoning patiently, /ˈklaɪtɒrɨs/.

For more IBWMW info on orgasms (or, in light of new developments, possible misinformation):   

How to Have A G-Spot Orgasm

Did You Know There Are Three Types of Orgasms? Yes, Three.

In Search of the Elusive Third Type of Orgasm 

(images)

This is a rerun. Please direct further concerns to our customer service number. 

My New Dick

My new dick arrived the other day.

His given name is Buck and he was sent to me by Good Vibrations for a story on pegging.

Buck came in a clear plastic cylinder, as though he'd been captured in the wild, mid-fuck, but only temporarily subdued. Even after his long journey through the postal service, he remained swollen and hard.

A few days later, when no one was around, I pulled him out from under my bed--where the pervy things live--and held him tentatively.

Not to brag, but he is pretty fucking glorious. Buck's not too long, but super thick--like so thick that when I tried to wrap my hand around him, only my thumb and middle finger could touch. He is firm but has a soft outside that feels preternaturally realistic. His girth makes him seems sort of brutish, like the kind of dick who would fuck while wearing a wife beater.

According to random internet articles, upon receiving a new penis, you should first get used to wearing it. I guess it's like trying on new shoes and walking around the shoe store, except not with shoes and certainly not at the shoe store because although I suppose the specific law "don't walk around a shoe store test-wearing your big ol dildo" is not on the books, it's probably still some sort of misdemeanor.

I was too wigged out to do the test run at home--the thought of anyone coming to my door and seeing me wearing Buck about the house was unacceptable. So I snuck him out in a bag and took him to a house where I was dog-sitting. (Um, if I happen to dog sit for you, this was totally not your house.)

I was weirdly elated as I got out all the new paraphernalia. There was Buck standing erect, as is his way, plus a black leather harness thing. (Not this one specifically, but kinda like it.) It's like a string bikini, with a dildo hole thing on the front ("dildo hole" is not its actual name, at least I hope not) and adjustable straps on the sides. My particular harness was truly one-size-fits-all. Not only did it fit me, but it could accommodate up to a 52 inch waist. If nothing else, I could always save it as a pair of makeshift fat pants, in case nothing else fit.

After an embarrassing amount of time, though one could argue that this is the least embarrassing thing I've told you so far, I finally figured out the tangle of leather straps and saddled up. I stuck Buck out through the dildo hole, adjusted him so he was sticking up and out at a jaunty angle and walked out to the kitchen to get a feel for dick-having.

It seemed, actually, normal enough. I felt that if called upon, I could wield this cock. I knew what it was to be well-fucked and I could simply do those things from the other side of the equation. So with both of the kinds of cockiness inherent in my situation (jesus, sorry, what's wrong w/ me?),*  I wandered back to the bedroom to behold myself, be-dicked, in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

It was at that moment that the dog came into the room, poked his nose between my legs, and immediately started licking Buck.

As I yanked my penis away (for better or worse, Buck, sensationless, felt nothing) I caught a quick glimpse of myself in the mirror--wearing a silicone penis and being fellated by a dog.

It was, to date, the most fucked up moment of my life.

I'm not sure if it was the existential absurdity of the moment or the magnitude of wrongness going on at once, but as I drove home to wash the living hell out of Buck, I was  sort of pleased with myself. Like, "Yeah, I'm the kind of chick who has subversive #@%$ like this going on." It's probably not the correct way to respond, but that's what happened with me. 

xoxo
jill

*It says a lot about me, none of it horribly favorable, that I feel way more embarrassed about the bad joke than the general content of this entire post.

[This is a rerun. Please remain calm.]

Why We Fuck

I was sprawled across my bed, utterly wrecked, one morning many years ago. I'd just had amazing amazing phone sex with someone who, to this day, remains the most attachment-avoidant person I've ever met.

"Holy fuck," I mumbled, made dreamy by ravishment. "Why was that so...good? We were on the phone."

"People need connection," he said simply. To my surprise, even he had known this, deep in some barely accessible part of his poor love-avoidant heart. And it had been a connection, an intense sexual communion that felt like something real had happened, even though no body parts had been touched or even seen.

This private connection between lovers--This is why we fuck each other, even though there are plenty of promiscuous toys, pillows, and shower spouts that can do the job quite well. And, yes, it has to be fucking (of some sort) because other human interactions--a nice chat in the bank line, for example--just won't do it.

Bearing witness to someone surrendering to their instincts--just being with them in the moment they lose themselves--is fucking powerful. And to find someone you trust enough to fall into that void with them, well, it's a rare and beautiful gift.

On a less sublime level, I think it's also about being present in the Now and existing in a state of Flow, where you are wholly consumed with what you are doing. These are purportedly optimal (and often needlessly Capitalized) states for achieving happiness, inner peace and well-being. (See also: Ekhart Tolle's  The Power of Now and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's  Flow). The orgasm is, like, a bonus to what's really going on.

Caitlin Moran describes this kind of focused-attention-on-another in her book How to Build a Girl about a teenage Brit who transforms herself into a badass music journalist/sexual adventurer:

"Here's the amazing thing about sex:  you get a whole person to yourself, for the first time since you were a baby.  Someone who is looking at you--just you--and thinking about you, and wanting you...You are in a room with a closed door, and no one else can come through it....It seemed to me that this was the real reason people wanted to fuck so much. To get here. To get to this tiny, quiet place where there was nothing else to do but be with each other. Just to be two humans who had--for a short while--stopped wanting."

That idea fits nicely with what I discovered when I looked on PornHub the other day for the Top Rated Video of All Time. It wasn't "Bitch takes cum in her hair" or whatever I was expecting, but a sweet little clip of a sleepy, tousled-haired woman waking her lover up and giving him a blow job. 

This top-rated video--OF ALL TIME!--showed two people portrayed as affectionate, familiar lovers happy to be waking up together in such a nice way. They weren't over-the-top porn excited, but just enjoying the everyday-yet-so-amazing swollen pleasures of taking someone you like in your mouth and/or being taken thus. In the world of porn, this was maybe about the squarest, most vanilla thing ever. And yet it was the most loved...of all time! (For that one day, at least. Today, alas, I can't re-find it. It has been replaced by "Hot blond maid having anal." Top-ratedness is apparently fleeting. )

The point of all this being: sexual connection, in whatever form it takes, is something we all seek, including the millions of surreptitiously wanking users of Porn Hub on that particular day. Even my old friend, dear attachment-avoidant boy, needed this intimacy, albeit from the distance that felt safe to him.

We all need to get this place, however we can--where you get to be two humans who have--for a short while--stopped wanting.

Go find your place.

xoxox
jill

(photo)

Want to read an interview with me?

The interview process

Want to see what I said last week? No? Well, if you change your mind, here it is. (And jeez, you could've at least pretended like you wanted to read it.) The interview was with Amanda Wayne of The Letter Works, an editing outfit that apparently doesn't mind a little cussing. (thx also to TLW's Catherine Foster, who you can hold responsible for this and probably doesn't care for this sentence structure.)

******
In Bed with Jill Hamilton by Amanda Wayne

When I started researching Jill Hamilton for this interview, I ran into a rather unique problem. Every site I visited had her essays and tips. I kept getting sucked into them and forgetting that I was there to do actual work. I wasn’t there to learn about the weirdest sex inventions, seminars for vagina meditation, or octopus fetishes. I just wanted to find out about her degree from the University of Michigan and any random tidbits on her personal life that I could. I used every millennial surfing trick I possessed. I was all over social media, scouring website “about me” blurbs, and lurking on professional networking sites. I was this close to paying one of those stalker sites to get some good info on her. I knew super intimate details about her, but not the boring surface stuff that I knew about my neighbor's sister. Jill manages to make it feel perfectly ordinary to read about things I only talk about with my best friend after we split one of the really big bottles of cheap wine.  It turns out that reading all of Jill’s entire anthology of essays was all the research I needed on this enigmatic lady. Jill has written for major magazines such as Rolling Stone and Cosmo and Entertainment Weekly. Her blog, www.inbedwithmarriedwomen.com, is hilarious and full of useful information. She agreed to answer a few questions for me and it was every bit as entertaining as I had hoped.

You have built this persona as a sexpert, writing for Cosmo, Salon, Alternet, Jezebel and many others. How did you fall into this crazy line of work where you make money talking about sex? 
My first Cosmo story was about 10 Weirdest Sex Devices or something like that. One of the things was a 70s-era bra with built-in nipples. The joke was about would happen if your actual nipples decided to make an appearance.  That is, 2 nipples = sexy, yet 4 nipples = not so much.
It mutated into me doing a stint as a sexual guinea pig, testing out Ye Olde Cosmo Tips–Use a scrunchie during a BJ! Smear food all over yourselves!  I have literally taken money for having sex (with my husband, for a Cosmo story, but still.) Whorish? Best job ever? Answer unclear.

What was the first big break you got as a writer?
I found out (long story) that there was a concert at a local nudist park in Michigan featuring Foreigner, Eric Burdon and others of that ilk. I sent a query to the delightful Jancee Dunn at Rolling Stone and she sent me to cover it. In case you were wondering, no one in Foreigner got naked, but everyone around me–who were exactly the age and demographic you could expect of older, not especially-toned nudists in Michigan– were butt naked, but for, incongruously, shoes and socks.

At what point did you decide to just embrace the baser side of humanity and write about the kinds of things people read in an incognito window?
Short answer:  Why bother with anything else?
Longer answer: I was sitting at the friggin’ Chuck E. Cheese with my friend, and we were discussing our moribund sex lives. What were the other preschool mothers doing about this? Was that one lady who looked like a grandma still banging her grandpa-looking husband? Were people having affairs? Did people just let their sex lives die, chalking it up to “maturity” and focusing really really hard on something like scrap booking?
I decided to start a blog In Bed With Married Women to ask people just this. (I am alarmingly nosy.) The idea was going to be a sociology study, with women just telling their stories. Like Studs Terkel but with more nudity.  The thing was, stories about marital sex are about as interesting as actual marital sex.
About the same time I saw an ad for something called Anal Ring Toss and I kind of veered in a whole different direction. This is still the central tension in the blog today–between a serious look at sex and what the hell it even is vs. the immature joy of finding a Japanese sex spray that smells like “secretary.”

What advice do you have for moms trying to live both lives?
My kids are kind of like Stepford children and are bizarrely good and smart. Advice for others:  just do the parts you want. Like I don’t really fold clothes as much as bend them into smaller shapes.

Do you ever have trouble making those pieces work together? “Lift your left leg on to your partner’s right shoulder and- Hey! Don’t eat with scissors!”
I actually have said “Don’t eat with scissors.”  They were safety scissors, but still.  My kids are older now and they know way too much about what I do. I think it’s good though. Knowledge is power and all that. My sixteen-year-old, Maddie, is cheeky as hell and makes up fake positions that I should be sending to Cosmo.  I think the most recent one was the New Year’s themed “The Ball Drop” for the older gentleman.

What advice would you give to someone trying to get their first set of words in print? 
Write something. If you don’t, maybe you aren’t actually a writer. Maybe you’re a chef or something.

Do you ever get tired of writing about sex? 
Positions, yes. So yes. But sex, not yet.

Does anyone ever recognize you and ask for sex advice?
People ask me about sex toys. If you’re asking, I am currently going steady with an iRock by Doc Johnson.

You have a very intimate writing style. It is unapologetically frank and quite charismatic. Did this come naturally to you or did you develop it over time?
This sounds so ick and pretentious, but if you’re not talking about something real, what’s the point?

You seem to go to a lot of sex seminars and workshops, is it usually a sausage fest? Or are the sexes equally represented?
Both; people are generally earnest.  They want to be decent lovers, have good sex lives and are open to learning something new.

In the 60s, America had a sexual revolution and women came out of the kitchen burning bras and marching for rights. Women have started to march again. What do you think the future generations will have to say about what women accomplished now?
I think they will think it’s ridiculous that we were so backwards.

Do you think we have gone too far? America’s modern mother is a bread winner, bacon cooker, house maid, PTA president, soccer mom, 5k runner who also is forward thinking enough to want to be on top when the lights go down. Is this equality?
Equality is when we all can feel comfortable and able to be whoever we are. Men women, black, white, whatever.

If you could have a one minute Superbowl ad to impart your wisdom to the masses of men and women in America, what would you say?
Science is real, you fucking morons.  Hmmm, maybe should tone that down a little. (Nah!)

You interact with your readers a lot. Are you ever afraid an overzealous fan will use internet skills to find you and show up at your door? 
Eighty-five percent of my readers are exactly who I hoped–super smart, funny and curious. I adore them. The weirdest people were a group of couch Nazis on Twitter who got all roused/riled up by a piece on pegging I did. They were super furious, yet oddly obsessed. They were like “Are you a Jew? Cause you write like one.” I said “No, but thank you!” and they got even madder.

What’s next for Jill Hamilton? Your own sex toy line? Lingerie? A book? Directing female friendly adult films? Parenting books? Cooking show?
I’m eternally working on a book, though by “working” I mean thinking about it, then playing Words With Friends.

IKEA, Tentacles and Other Sexy Sexy Things

[Hey! Look what I found from back when the blog and the rest of us were shiny and new, unaware of what would befall us. Yes, my friends, welcome to 2010.]

After a few months of In Bed With Married Women, I thought I was getting somewhat savvy about what's going on out there in the world of sex. But as it turns out, clearly I have no fucking idea. None.

Like, just today, I learned that there is a whole genre of art, animation and storytelling focused on tentacle eroticism, which is the desire to enjoy sexual congress with particularly fetching members of the octopus or squid family. The fetish is traced from the early 19th century woodcut, The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife (aka,"Honey, I had a really weird dream last night," shown above) by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, (a man who, as Nathan Reed put it in Cracked.com, "Liked him some tentacles.") The tentacle love was inadvertently furthered when Japanese censors banned depictions of penis penetration but weren't forward-thinking enough to ban depictions of tentacle penetrations as well. (I am pretty sure they assumed such a ban wouldn't be necessary. And, to be fair, if I had been sitting there in that censorship meeting, it's not like I would want to be the one to be bringing up the subject of tentacle/personal orifice contact.)

Hey Sailor, do you like IKEA?

As if that weren't enough--and I'm quite sure it is--there's this whole other thing I learned regarding IKEA and sex. And, no, I'm not referring to the almost sexual rush of finding stylish throw pillows at an Impossible Price but rather actual sex at IKEA. Apparently there's this whole sex thing going on at IKEA--meet-ups in the parking lot, stolen moments for bathroom hand jobs, furniture assembly/masturbation dates--or so it would seem according to Nerve.com's Best of Craigslist: IKEA Sex, a compilation of hook-up/sex ads that mention IKEA. One ad reads: "Going to IKEA? What you cock sucked?" Yes, "what you" cock sucked. I know this is illogical, but if I had a cock and indeed wanted it sucked at the IKEA, I would want a cock sucker with better grammar skills. I'm picky like that.

Writes another aspirer to IKEA sex:

I bought this IKEA table and I can't assemble it. Come over and put it together for me and I'll masturbate while you do it. With a dildo. And I will serve you unlimited iced tea. I'm 37 and not amazing looking but totally serviceable. 

I especially love the touch of the unlimited iced tea. I'm mean she/he has already offered to masturbate--with a dildo--but somehow feels the need to sweeten the deal. "Hmmm," she/he pondered while composing the ad on the floor, next to the mockingly still-unassembled IKEA table, "What does everyone love besides masturbation (with a dildo)? Iced tea! And not just one puny glass of iced tea--unlimited iced tea."

What especially wigged me out about this IKEA sex thing is that one of the IKEA sex ads is for a meet-up at the Costa Mesa IKEA, that is, my IKEA. Which means that I'm not just missing on this trend in a general sense, but in a very literal sense at my own damn neighborhood IKEA. While I'm in blissful ignorance eating attractively-priced gravalax in the Costa Mesa IKEA cafeteria, someone's probably a couple yards away in an ergonomically-designed bathroom stall smearing lingonberries all over a stranger. This is unsettling news, to say the least. But...I do love IKEA and I'm ashamed to admit that I'm not sure that decadent sex between poor grammarians going on all around me as I obliviously shop for housewares is enough to make me stop going there.

I will, however, draw the line at having sex with a tentacle. As mentioned above, I do have standards. Although if the tentacles offered furniture assembly, excellent grammar skills and unlimited iced tea...

Emma from Sweden Reports on Her Vibrator Because That's the Kind of Place This Is

Someone who is not Emma

If you must know, I was kinda pissed that Emma from Sweden didn't mention that she was from fucking Sweden when she entered to win something from that big-ass box I got from my beloved Erica Braverman at Doc Johnson.
 
Not only did I have to pay like $50 bucks to ship the damn thing to dear Emma at a time of personal poverty (aka always), but I had to deal with the super gross guy at the post office who always needs to drill down on what, exactly, I mean by “massager” on the customs form.

Anyway, now all is forgiven because Emma wrote back with a wholly unnecessary but delightful review of her iVibe Select iBend. She even sent pictures and is the cutest thing ever.

Here then, Emma from Sweden, who will remain only thus because, "I have children who I do not wish to shame."
 
******

I won something! On the Internet! This in itself is miraculous, as I rarely comment on blogs and have never won anything before. And then it turned out (and turned on) to be a sensuous object of desire. It arrived in a package all the way from sunny California, USA to cold and dark Sweden, discreetly packaged and marked as "Massager" on the customs label, but I managed to hide it from my prying coworkers. In the evening, my Darling was out of town on work, so after I had sent my children to bed, I decided to go for it. Should I dress up for my new electronic lover, or put on sexy undies?

The box was sturdy and made to resemble the packaging of phones of the apple kind, and the pink matched my Colefax & Fowler wallpaper very nicely. Inside was a reliable-looking silicone dick with a super-smooth surface and pleasant size. It joined the other electronics on my vintage teak vanity, Kobo reading tablet (fantastic!) and Natural Cycles thermometer (the best thing that happened to my sex drive ever!). After half an hour of charging, which I spent knitting like the Little Old Lady that I am (44), I unplugged it and turned it on to the first stage. Mild, friendly buzz, and I tried the other six patterns on my thigh (foreplay?) before getting serious. The iBend can be bent in one direction, and then HOLD that position, which is brilliant. I bent it to an angle that allowed insertion and still provided enough buzz on my clitoris. The second setting made me come hard and sudden. Next time I will try the other rhythm patterns as well, and maybe let my lover decide for more surprises.

I can strongly recommend this dick to horny folks who like something well-made and versatile for their buzzy needs. My only complaint is that it is somewhat difficult to turn off, it requires pressing the on/off-button for 4 seconds, but as the iBend can run for over an hour on one charging, it is not necessary to save batteries. In the instruction leaflet it says to store the iBend away from other sex toys. The reason for this must be that the other toys will get really jealous when iBend gets all of your attention!

Nighty-night!

See? Cute as a damned button

xoxo

jill 

Thanks Emma and everyone who has sent mail that I not only haven't run yet but might not have even answered yet. I can be cruel that way.