Charlie Glickman's Blog, page 5

My Introduction To Rape Culture

I remember exactly when I first understood what “rape culture” meant.

I was nineteen and a sophomore in college. I was talking with a woman I knew about gender and sexual politics, and I just wasn’t getting it. She was describing what it was like for her to move through the world as a woman, to be constantly under sexual surveillance, to always be worried about whether some guy would harass or attack her, to never know if she could walk down the street without getting cat called. This was pretty foreign to me, because I’d never seen any of this happening.

Partly, that was because I’d never really fit in with most other boys and I didn’t understand how the performance of masculinity encourages boys and men to compete with each other to demonstrate their manhood. I simply didn’t play those games. But more than that, it was because men don’t do the same things when they see a woman with a man. I had no idea that women’s experiences walking down the street were so different when I wasn’t there.

So my friend gave me a challenge that changed my life. She offered to walk down the street on a weekend night and allow me to walk behind her so could see what happened. I took her up on it and the next Friday night, out we went. She was dressed in pretty standard “going out” clothes and we headed out to the strip of stores, bars, and restaurants that most college campuses seem to have within walking distance. I stayed about twenty feet behind her- close enough to observe without seeming like we were together. And I was shocked at what I saw.

Individual guys whispered or made comments about her as she passed them. They’d ask her where she was going or simply turn and stare at her ass. Groups of guys were worse, though. I could see them checking her out and talking to each other about her body and appearance. A few times, one guy in a group would say something and the rest of them would laugh while staring at her. And twice, one guy said something, followed by another guy escalating either the volume or the message, with another dude chiming in. I could see them all competing with each other to be the most macho, not caring that their games were at the cost of my friend’s feelings of safety.

It was an eye-opening experience for me. It was the first glimpse I got at the crap that women have to put up with, simply for moving through the world. I started paying attention to it more and thought about how I would feel if I couldn’t go anywhere in public without having to think about getting harassed, how I would feel if I couldn’t feel safe walking down the street. If a picture is worth a thousand words, getting to see this for myself was worth so much more.

Over time, I came to see that I needed to do more about this than simply not participate in it myself. In my workshops on sexuality, masculinity, and gender, I’ve had the opportunity to talk with people of all ages, genders, sexual orientations, and backgrounds about these topics. And one pattern that consistently shows up is that there are a lot of cisgender men who act like this without realizing the impact it has. Many of them are so surrounded by the Act Like a Man Box that they see it as totally normal. Some of them would like to break out of it, but they don’t know how and don’t have the support to do it. And a lot of them are scared to change because other people will attack and shame them back into the box. It’s not just men who reinforce this prison.

I also started to understand the connections between street harassment and sexual assault. One of the common threads is the belief that one person’s desires for sex, sexual attention, or validation as a man outweighs another person’s autonomy, safety, and consent. Another is that very few folks are actually teaching boys and young men about respect. Most of the conversations that I’ve seen center on shaming them without giving them the skills they need to navigate relationships. What if we could actually talk with boys about how to ask for sex, or ways to flirt without being creepy? I know some parents who are doing this, but the “boys will be boys” attitude is still common. Just as most people shy away from talking with girls about these issues out of discomfort with addressing adolescent female sexuality, we also avoid looking at adolescent male sexuality with any clarity. So is it any surprise that people grow up confused about relationships? Is it all that shocking that many of my coaching clients struggle with these same issues as adults?

I’m deeply grateful to my friend for showing me what rape culture it about. For helping me understand that the world she moved through was so different from the one I moved through. For making it possible for me to take my first steps towards understanding what she and other women deal with every day. If you’re a cisgender man, I really encourage you to ask a friend if she’d be willing to do this experiment with you. Trust me. It’ll change your life.

The post, My Introduction To Rape Culture, is from Charlie Glickman's website.

Unpaid Emotional Labor

The amazing Sabrina Morgan posted this on Facebook today:

Post by Sabrina Morgan.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that had this driver’s passenger been a man, he’d never have dared to pull something like that. But there’s more to this that needs to be unpacked. It’s disturbingly common for men try to get women to smile for them. I get how annoying that is and I agree with Sabrina that it’s unpaid emotional labor. I think that more men need to look at why it happens so often.

I’ll admit that this is something that I used to do sometimes. I used to have real difficulties bearing witness to women’s discomfort, whether it was real or simply my perception of it. Knowing what I do now (and not in any way considering this an excuse), I can see that what was motivating me was the story in my head about what women’s discomfort meant. It had a lot to do with my family of origin and it wasn’t until I took a good look at that and did the work that I needed to do that I stopped wanting to “fix” women’s bad moods. For what it’s worth, I never did that to strangers. And I’d mostly stopped actually trying to get women to smile before I got my shit together, because I’d been told how obnoxious it was. But it wasn’t until I’d healed that part of me that I stopped wanting to do it.

This is a perfect example of a man asking or expecting women to coddle his emotional issues because he sees his comfort as more valuable than their labor. It’s one of the many costs of the Act Like a Man Box, the difficulty many men have with managing their own emotions, and the expectation that women will do it for them. I didn’t know how to lean into my discomfort and do the healing work that I needed to do. Instead, I tried to reduce my discomfort by controlling the trigger. In this case, that was trying to get women to stop expressing their negative feelings, even when they had nothing to do with me and despite the fact that they had every right to their emotions and their expressions.

Of course, this is hardly the only reason men do this. There’s also the fact that women are supposed to constantly be on display for men’s visual pleasure. This is sexual labor that women are expected to perform. Women are expected to be eye candy for any random dude who sees them walking down the street, and that’s ridiculous.

Women are also supposed to be accommodating and to set their own needs aside, even to a total stranger. This is another kind of emotional labor that women are expected to perform, and while the motivation may be different than the desire to not feel discomfort when we see women who seem unhappy, the way that men demand it looks pretty much the same. The impact of this is huge. A lot of men expect their desires to be more important than a woman’s needs, and that is the definition of privilege.

I’ve always found it really curious that most men, when confronted about this, will fall back on claiming that they just wanted to compliment her. They don’t see that trying to make someone smile is an attempt to control her. And while they usually deny any sexual component to their actions, I can’t help but notice how much more often it happens to women that these guys find attractive. If the frequency and tone of your compliments correlates with how attractive you think someone is, you don’t get to pretend that there’s nothing sexual about your motivations, whether you actually want to have sex with her or not. Expecting women you think are attractive to perform femininity for you is one of the many sexist microagressions that reinforce gender inequities. Stop it. You’re making the world a worse place.

And then there’s this specific situation, in which a man threatened reprisals for non-compliance. He extorted sexual and emotional labor because he could. He might have thought that he was being funny, without any intention of following through. But that’s like someone who’s big and muscular “joking” that he’s going to punch me in the face. My ability to protect myself is less than his ability to follow through on his “joke, ” and I don’t know if he’s actually going to do it. It’s a violation of trust that makes it harder for me to move through the world feeling safe. And what this driver did to Sabrina (and, I assume, does to other people) was much the same. She had to choose between compliance, confrontation, or the risk of retaliation.

That’s the deeper problem with this kind of thing. Whether the motivation is harassment, a desire for sexual validation by getting a woman to smile, or to avoid one’s own uneasiness with women’s discomfort, it’s all about controlling women. And when women don’t comply with that, they run the risk of reprisals. Women already walk through the world worrying about their safety from men, and there’s no way to know who’s going to lash out. This driver might have had no intention of following through on his threat, but how could she have known that?

So here’s my suggestion for any men who feel the urge to get a woman to smile for them. Stop and ask yourself if you would do the same thing if you were engaging with a man. If that person is your close friend and you want to help them out, then perhaps your answer is yes. Though I expect that in those situations, you’d probably ask them what was going on instead of demanding that they pretend that things are OK. If you’re training someone at work and part of their job is to smile to customers, or if you’re a photographer, then yes, telling someone to smile is a reasonable thing to do and it has nothing to do with the gender of the person.

But if you wouldn’t do it to a man, then stop it. It doesn’t matter what your motivations are. Stop it. Figure out why you expect women to perform unpaid emotional labor for you. Figure out what’s prompting you to try to control women’s emotions and behaviors and faces. Figure out why you think that’s ok. And then do what you need to do to change that about yourself so that you can be a better man. Do what you need to do to make the world a safer place. Because if you’re not making yourself part of the solution, you’re part of the problem and we don’t need that. Stop it.

Update: Stop Telling Women To Smile is an awesome art project by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh about street harassment. Check out the Kickstarter page and her video below.

The post, Unpaid Emotional Labor, is from Charlie Glickman's website.

Some Thoughts About Hugo Schwyzer

If you haven’t been tracking Hugo Schwyzer’s crash and burn, this post probably isn’t relevant for you. But for those of you who have been following it…

I’ve been thinking a lot about how everything went down for Schwyzer ever since his meltdown. It’s taken me a bit to sit with what I’ve read and what I’ve heard because there’s just so much of it. And every time I think things have gone as far as they’ll go, they keep getting worse.

I feel a lot of anger about what Schwyzer has done. Like many others, I hoped that his contrition for his past actions was genuine and that his behavior had changed. Like all of those other folks, I was wrong.

The last direct contact I had with him was when I spoke at his class this past April. To be honest, I had mixed feelings about associating myself with him. By that point, I knew that he wasn’t everything he presented himself as, but I decided to go ahead with my talk because I thought that I had something valuable to offer the students in his Navigating Pornography class. Given my background discussing gender and masculinity, I wanted to open up a discussion with them about how porn both reflects and shapes masculinity, and to offer alternative ideas of how we can define what it means to be a man. I volunteered my time for the sake of the students and while I had a fine experience a guest speaker and bringing some different perspectives to the class, I still felt unsure about being connected with Schwyzer. I should have listened to my gut on that one. I didn’t realize just how big a chasm there was between how he presented and how he acted.

I recently read a good definition of “trustworthiness.” We decide that someone is worthy of our trust when we believe that they will take our best interests into account. That doesn’t mean that they’ll do what we want. It means that they’ll consider our best interests and will take them seriously. Unfortunately, some people are good at putting up a front and convincing others that they deserve that trust. When we get conned, it’s hard to let go of that, even in the face of direct evidence. I wish I could say that I hadn’t been taken in, but I was. And as a result, I didn’t see the damage Schwyzer was doing, despite having been told about some of it. The inability to let go of the illusion that we want to see, and the tendency to throw good money after bad because we can’t admit our error both got in my way, and I deeply regret that.

I’ve been sitting with the question of why part of me wanted his stories to be true. Some of it is that I do genuinely want to live in a world in which we can trust people when they do their best to change. I don’t buy into the confession-and-redemption model that so many others do, but I do think that people can make amends and change. That made it easy for me to focus on the parts of Schwyzer’s story that I wanted to.

Some of it is that he was very charismatic. We spoke on the phone a few times when he interviewed me for pieces he was writing and he really seemed to get it. I didn’t agree with everything he wrote, but in conversation, he seemed more clued in. I’ve seen enough people write to generate controversy to have assumed that was what he was doing. On the two occasions when we met in person (one of which was when we chatted before I spoke to his class), his charisma was even more compelling. I don’t know how to describe it, but if you’ve ever met someone with charisma, you know how it can draw you in. I’m willing to bet that he could turn it up when it was directed at someone who had something he wanted, like say, a student he wanted to have sex with.

Some of it is that I have less direct experience with the kind of manipulation that he was doing. I was talking with a friend who faced a lot of that growing up and they recognized his bullshit early on. That’s a difficult thing to see when you don’t have those particular filters.

I’m sure that there are other elements to it, but those are the three big ones that I’ve come up with so far. The thing about a con artist is that they get you to want to believe them. They can get you to overlook the most glaring inconsistencies, which is what makes the con so successful. I don’t know if Schwyzer was buying into his act himself, how much of it was the result of his mental illness, or what else might have been going on. It doesn’t really matter to me because whatever the root causes, he conned me and he conned a lot of other people. I wish I’d been able to see it sooner.

Unfortunately, his lies and his actions have made it that much harder for all of the men out there who want to be allies to women, whether we call ourselves feminists or not. By convincing folks to trust him and then betraying that trust, by lying about what he was doing for years and pretending to be acting from integrity when he wasn’t, and by using the language of feminism and social justice as a smokescreen, Schwyzer has made it even more difficult for us to demonstrate our desire to be worthy of the trust of the women in our lives and our communities.

Far worse, Schwyzer’s betrayal of the women in his classes, as well as in online and in-person communities, adds insult to injury. There are women he hurt directly and indirectly, and I don’t think we have a complete tally, yet. While I feel some anger over how Schwyzer conned me and others, that pales in comparison to my anger about the ways in which he has injured and betrayed women while lying to our faces.

I’m glad that Pasadena City College is taking steps that I expect will result in his losing his position as a professor. Wherever he ends up, I can only hope that he is no longer in a position of authority over anyone.  And I hope that he is no longer able to influence or contribute to the ongoing discussion about gender equality and sexual politics. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

The post, Some Thoughts About Hugo Schwyzer, is from Charlie Glickman's website.

Get F*cked

I suppose it won’t really surprise anyone who knows me that I like to get fucked. After all, I wrote a book all about prostate play, I teach workshops on anal sex, pegging, and prostate massage, and I’ve been saying that the world will be a better place when more men take it up the ass. So really, is it so unlikely that it would be one of my favorite ways to have sex?

The more I claimed this aspect of my sexual self, the more I noticed the ways in which we’re surrounded by messages that say that’s a bad thing. Some of it has to do with people’s reactions to blurring or disregarding the gender norms that say that getting fucked means losing masculine status, that it means becoming a punk, a fag, or taking on the “woman’s role.” Clearly, that has says a lot about sexism. Some of it has to do with people’s unthinking squick or disgust reactions about anal sex, though those are consistently more easily triggered and more reactive when it comes to men on the receiving end. That says a lot about homophobia. Some of it is bound up in sex-negativity. After all, “fuck you” is an insult and lots of people say “I’m so fucked” when something bad happens. Is it really so difficult to consider that those might shape our ideas about sex and gender for the worse?

Even in communities that describe themselves as sex-positive or that have embraced the fact that many women enjoy anal play are sometimes uncomfortable when men talk about getting fucked. And it’s not as if gay men are immune to that, either. Some of the guys we surveyed for The Ultimate Guide to Prostate Pleasure said that they had concerns about losing their “top status” if they switched roles. (“Top” here refers to who does the fucking, which is a different concept than how the word gets used in BDSM contexts. Though of course, there are some clear parallels.)

It’s pretty apparent that sexism, homophobia, and sex-negativity wind around each other like a braided rope that holds a lot of men back from exploring something that can bring amazing pleasure. So let me explain a little about why I like it.

First up, I enjoy the way it feels. Whether prostate stimulation is part of it or not, I really like the physical sensation of anal sex. Not all of the time, and not with every partner- it’s a situational thing for me. But when things are lined up, it’s definitely in my list of favorite ways to have sex. It helps that my very first experiences were pleasurable because I had partners who knew what they were doing. I’ve spoken with a lot of folks whose first experiments were disasters, usually because of alcohol, clueless or selfish partners, or lack of genuine interest.

In discussions about anal sex for women, I’ve often heard folks say that the reason that gay men like it and women don’t is because men have prostates. But when we surveyed men for our book, we found that that simply isn’t true. Anal sensations are distinctly different from prostate sensations. And I’ve spoken with too many women who enjoy anal sex, either on its own or along with clitoral or vaginal stimulation, to buy the notion that women don’t like it. Of course, plenty of folks don’t enjoy it, just as plenty of people don’t enjoy certain kinds of food. But let’s let go of the clearly false claim that enjoying anal sex has anything to do with whether someone has a prostate or not. It’s just not true.

I also find that anal sex one of the best ways to relax the muscles of my pelvis. In modern US culture, we spend way too much time sitting and that can cause real problems for the body. When I’m at the computer or driving too much, I can feel my pelvic floor get stressed out and while I have a very strong yoga practice, there are times when that’s not enough. When it’s done well, anal sex helps me release that muscle tension and I simply feel better after.

There’s a reason that people who are stressed out all the time are called “tight asses” or “uptight.” The pelvic floor literally tightens up when we’re under pressure, scared, or stressed. The same thing happens to dogs and cats, and it’s a lot easier to see on them since they have tails. But people have a very similar physical response and all the time we spend sitting only magnifies it. When my pelvic floor gets like that, getting fucked is a great way to release that tension. (Please note- some people have had physical injury or trauma to the pelvis. In those cases, you’ll want to see a professional like the physical therapists at the Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center or a sexological bodyworker.)

I’ve also found that learning to relax and receive has made me a better lover when I’m on the giving side, especially for penetrative sex. It’s one thing to know intellectually that your partner prefers or needs a lot of warm-up before penetration, but knowing it on an embodied level is a much different thing. I know from personal experience that it’s possible to be turned on and really want it, while my body simply isn’t up for penetrative sex. So when my partner is in that place, it’s easy for me to switch things up and find something else fun to do. I don’t take it personally because I’ve been there.

Then, there’s the fact that enjoying getting fucked forced me to choose between the pleasure I was experiencing and the negative attitudes that I’d internalized about the pelvis, the anus, my body, penetration, gender roles, sex, queers, and women. There are a lot of cultural barriers, relationship challenges, and emotional triggers keeping men from trying anal play. A lot of men only manage it by using alcohol or other drugs to avoid their feelings. Pleasure was a great motivator and it helped me move through some pretty challenging stuff.

You can’t be fully present in your body without being present in your ass. That doesn’t mean you have to have anal sex. But it does mean that if you’re tuned out of your pelvis and your ass, you’re limited in your ability to be totally engaged in your body. I’m too deeply committed to being fully present in my body and in my sexuality to go that route. It took a lot of work to move through the stories in my head that were getting in my way., and I know that I’m a much better person for that.

But really, when it comes down to it, I like it because it feels good to me. I know that there are lots of people it doesn’t work for. After all, we all have different tastes when it comes to sex. But how are you going to know whether it works for you if you never even try it? Are you going to let your fear rule you or are you brave enough to let go of the performance of masculinity? Are you willing to discover whether getting fucked feels good for you, too?

In my world, “getting fucked” is no longer an insult. What about you?

The post, Get F*cked, is from Charlie Glickman's website.

Play The Long Game

When it comes to creating a sexual connection with someone, one of the most useful things you can do is play the long game.

That means that rather than only focusing on what can happen tonight or right now, you lay the foundation for the future. Of course, there’s still plenty of possibility for a hook-up or a one-night thing or having sex on the first date, if that’s what you both want. But even in those situations, playing the long game means creating opportunity for a future connection with that person.

Here’s an example from my personal life. A couple of years ago, I met Sarah at a party. It was clear that we had a mutual attraction and we had a lovey time flirting with each other. By the end of the night, we exchanged phone numbers and I figured that we’d get together sometime soon for dinner or a drink and see where things would go.

It turned out that that wasn’t going to work out quite like that. Sarah was in an open relationship and her partner was totally fine with what had happened, but they were going through some stuff and it wasn’t a good time to add any new variables to the mix. So when Sarah explained that to me, I told her that I completely understood, having been in a similar situation with my partner, and that I’d still really enjoy getting together another time.

When we had dinner, we had a lovely evening. Sarah and I had a lot to talk about and we kept things friendly, but not flirtatious or sexual because there was a clear boundary in place. I figured that either things would change at some point and we could revisit the question, or they wouldn’t and I would have made a new friend. Either way, it looked like a win to me. At one point, we took the opportunity to talk about that and we both made it clear that the interest was there. That made it much easier to set it aside and have a really good time.

Over the next couple of years, we got together every so often. We moved through some of the same circles, so we always had plenty to talk about and have a fun get-together. And when things changed and the possibility of having sex opened up, we’d laid the groundwork to be able to have that happen. There wasn’t any awkwardness about it because we’d both been clear in our intentions and the reasons for refraining, and we’d developed a connection that had room to put our cards on the table.

Playing the long game means taking the larger view. We were willing to invest a little time into building a friendship that made room for future possibilities. It’s a shift in perspective that can make things much easier.

When you take the long view, there’s more room everyone’s boundaries. Rather than pushing to make something happen immediately, you can create some space for whatever each person needs. That demonstrates your commitment to everyone’s well-being, including any other people affected by the situation such as other partners, their kids, etc. Supporting everyone’s well-being is one of the hallmarks of sex-positivity and it demonstrates respect. It also shows your willingness to calibrate your relationships to fit everyone involved.

Playing the long game is a great way to show that you understand the difference between “not right now” and “never.” You might be in a relationship with someone who’s sexually unavailable because of stress, work crises, family difficulties, physical or medical challenges, or anything else. Stepping back and looking at things from a larger perspective can make it easier to remember that unavailability isn’t the same as rejection.  It helps you avoid slipping into a shame spiral because you know that things will change.

My partner and I have been together for over twenty years and we’ve had plenty of phases when one or the other of us simply wasn’t available for sex. Knowing that a gap of a few weeks or months was a temporary situation within the context of our relationship makes it much less difficult when those things happen. It used to feel like the end of the world, but we’ve learned that it’s simply temporary.

Of course, some people say “not right now” when they mean “not ever.” Playing the long game only works when there’s enough honesty for both people to make informed choices. And sometimes, people have medical issues or mental health healing that can take a while to resolve. Being committed to doing the healing work that needs to happen is how we demonstrate that we’re aiming to make it a “not right now” situation. If we expect our partners to work with us in good faith, we need to demonstrate a good faith effort.

Here’s another way to play the long game. I was recently flirting with someone who I know from various polyamorous and sex-positive communities. We’ve always had a sweet, flirty friendship, but they recently got into a relationship with someone and they were wanting to focus their attention on that rather than flirting with anyone else. So I thanked them for telling me and said that I would take that as our new baseline. I also asked them to let me know if that ever changed so we could check in and see where we were.

I didn’t say that I would necessarily be available to flirt again because I don’t know for sure that I’d have the room for it. There are plenty of reasons why I might not, and taking care of my future self means remembering that things might change for me. So instead, I simply said that we can see where things are if it ever becomes relevant. There’s a big difference between saying, “if something changes, I’ll be available” and “if something changes, let’s check in and talk about it.”

Playing the long game means thanking people for telling you what their boundaries are. As Monique Darling puts it, when we say no to something, we’re saying yes to something else and it’s usually ourselves. I’d much rather know that someone can tell me where their “no” lies because otherwise, how can I trust their “yes”?  I don’t have any reason to question, push, or test their boundaries. It means that I take them at their word because there’s a big difference between playing a long game and not taking no for an answer. And while it’s true that some people say “no” when they don’t really mean it, I’d rather filter those folks out. I’m not willing to try to guess what “no” means.

Of course, this is only relevant when there’s a mutual interest and it really is a “not right now” situation. If the other person isn’t available or declines an invitation, there’s no reason to question that or expect it to change. Granted, some situations do change eventually, but I don’t want to make it seem like I’m advocating for waiting around to see or for disregarding someone’s boundaries. When there’s a clear no, the best bet is to thank them for their clarity and move on.

In those genuine “not right now” moments, one of the most important pieces to playing the long game is being able to express your attraction and your desires without attachment to the outcome. Some dating advice suggests that being the first one to express interest puts the control in the other person’s hands. There’s a small grain truth to that, since there’s a vulnerability that comes from being the first to open up. But don’t overestimate the size of it. This isn’t a question of control, which after all, is a zero-sum “I win or you win” game. Instead, it’s about creating something where everyone wins and sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do is be the first one out on the dance floor. With control, either I have it or you have it. With power, we can both have it and the more you have, the more I have.

There’s an old joke about some people looking for Mr./Ms. Right and others looking for Mr./Ms. Right Now. But you might also find some success presenting yourself as Mr./Ms. Right When It Happens. Of course, not all of your invested time and energy will pay off, but it will often enough that I think it’s worth trying.

The post, Play The Long Game, is from Charlie Glickman's website.

Opening the Gate: A Weekend of Prostate Play Classes in San Diego August 16-19

Are you ready to learn all about prostate play? I’m teaching a whole weekend of classes in San Diego with Sabrina Morgan and Monique Darling. It’s going to be an amazing time and I can’t wait to see you there!

We’ll be covering everything you need to know: prostate play basics, working with energetic sexual skills, playing with fantasy, using sex toys, pegging, and more. Plus, we’ll have a play party Saturday night so you can try your new skills and have a great time! You can sign up for each event separately, or register for the whole weekend for $197.

Opening the Gate : Intro to Prostate Play

Friday, August 16, 7-9 pm

$30, get your tickets here

Come get all the info you need about prostate pleasure. You’ll learn everything from what the prostate is and what it does, what prostate massage feels like, easy and fun anal penetration, dealing with common concerns such as discomfort and hygiene, combining prostate stimulation and energetic sex, and more. If you’re new to prostate play or you want some new inspiration from three experts, join us for this intro session.

Opening the Gate : Going Deeper with Prostate Massage

Saturday, August 17, 10 am-5pm

$97, get your tickets here

There are a lot of ways to enjoy prostate massage and we’ll cover them all! We’ll dive deep and explore how prostate play can revolutionize your sex life. You’ll learn to expand your capacity for pleasure, ways to include mindful touch and energetic practices, how to share and explore your fantasies, tips for pegging, and how to overcome common obstacles. You’ll also get to see a live demonstration and have the opportunity to practice!

There will be a 1 hour potluck lunch during Saturday’s workshop–bring something yummy to share!

Opening the Gate : Play Party

Saturday, August 17, 7:30 pm

$30, get your tickets here

Doors open at 7:30pm and close at 8pm

Are you ready to put your new prostate pleasure skills into play? Or perhaps you want to explore your desires, enjoy the thrill of seeing and being seen in a sexy space, or find someone new to connect with. Whatever your experience level or desire, join us for a night of adventure with like-minded folks. Give yourself room to explore your pleasure edges and come out to play!

WHAT TO BRING: You and your sexy self! Whatever food and drink you might want for the evening. (No drugs other than alcohol please. We like everyone to be present and capable of connection.) If you’d like to share, that’s very nice. Sharing is caring. Bring whatever sexy things you’d like to don and lounge in while we frolic or just throw on your regular weekend clothes for relaxation and chilling. Bring along whatever safer sex supplies you desire (condoms, dental dams, gloves, toys, lube – whatever you might be needing to create that perfect evening).

PLEASE BE ON TIME. For participants to play with abandon, we need to co-create a safe environment. Having people floating in and out makes that difficult. Therefore, the doors will lock at the time mentioned above, sharp. If you are running unavoidably late, call and we’ll see what we can do. But don’t run unavoidably late please. And although entry will not be permitted after the doors close, you’re welcome to leave whenever you wish.

Opening the Gate : Communication Brunch

Sunday, August 18, 11 am-3 pm

$47, get your tickets here

The best way to get what you want and to build the connections that feed you is to be able to ask for what you need and listen to your partner with an open heart. Come get some incredible useful tools that’ll help you bring more flow to your relationships. We’ll explore how to work with love languages (including some advanced skills not covered elsewhere), managing conflict to empower both of you, ways to reconnect and enhance attunement, and how to unpeel the layers and reveal the tender heart inside.

The post, Opening the Gate: A Weekend of Prostate Play Classes in San Diego August 16-19, is from Charlie Glickman's website.

Sexual Authenticity and Your “True Self”

Over on Facebook, Gloria Brame recently posed the question:

Do you change when you go on vacation? Do you become someone you are not at home? Topic came up in therapy today.

The answers were pretty varied. Here are a few of them.

True side can come out not so much different
oh yes, eagerly so
I am always me. I have no need to be anything more or less.
Always being authentic is the way to go. Lying is a lot of work and getting found out isn’t pretty.
I’m more carefree. …childlike

While the original question wasn’t about sex, it reminded me of one of the topics that I’ve seen

a lot of people struggle with. What does sexual authenticity mean, and how do we know what it looks like?

It’s a tricky thing. Authenticity can be taken to mean “being your true self” or “acting in alignment with who you are” and I see some value in those definitions. It’s easy to see that if you’re in the closet about your sexual orientation, your gender identity, your sexual practices, your relationship structure, or any other aspect of your sexuality, you’re not living as authentically as you might. Of course, there are many reasons that people choose to be in the closet, and it’s not always a bad thing. If you need to keep quiet about your personal life in order to maintain your employment, that’s a perfectly fine cost-benefit analysis. The fact that other people have different options or make different choices doesn’t mean that your decision is wrong.

At the same time, I think the response about lying is important to unpack because I don’t think there needs to be a dichotomy between authenticity and lying. That’s what really struck me about the original question because for me, it’s not so much about becoming a different person. Instead, it’s about allowing a different part of myself to come to the surface. That’s also what role play feels like to me. I can’t do it if I don’t have that personna within me. For me, it’s not about acting a part. It’s about making room for a different piece of myself to emerge.

Authenticity doesn’t mean that you’re the same person in all circumstances. It means that whatever situation you’re in, the parts of yourself that people see are genuine rather than being a front or a mask. It’s speaking your truth, even if it’s not the whole truth. Authenticity has room for privacy, but not for secrets. It has room for boundaries, but not for lies. And it has room for being a different person in different situations, simply because most people are pretty complex.

To quote Walt Whitman, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” I see no conflict between that sentiment and my desire to me true to myself. What about you?

 

The post, Sexual Authenticity and Your “True Self”, is from Charlie Glickman's website.

Accidental Assault, Due Diligence, and Consent

Here’s a question that someone sent to me that is definitely worth asking:

Is it possible to accidentally sexually assault someone?

My short answer: yes. And I think there’s a lot to say about this.

One of the biggest difficulties when we’re talking about sexual assault and consent is the question of what consent is and how we know when someone has given it. Some folks will say that if a person says “yes,” that’s sufficient. I think that’s an overly simplistic perspective because there are a lot of reasons that someone might not be able to say no. They might not believe that they have the right say no, or they might think that it won’t make a difference or that it will will lead to unpleasant outcomes. They might feel fear, even if the other person has no intention or thought of violence. It might not even occur to them that they can say no. (Note- this might not be the legal definition of sexual assault, but for this post, I’m less concerned with the legality than how people feel about their experiences.)

It’s important to be mindful of the fact that saying no is a skill. It’s something that we need to learn, to be encouraged to develop, and to practice. And it’s something that we need to have opportunities to try in safe settings so that we can become more confident about doing it in sexual situations. People who think it’s easy usually seem to have a fairly limited understanding of how complex it can be.

One reason that Cuddle Parties are so amazing is that they give participants a chance to lean into their edges around physical contact, and with hearing and stating boundaries, all within a larger container in which actual sex isn’t going to happen. Learning a skill needs to take place in as realistic a situation as possible, which is why pilots learn in flight simulators and chefs learn in kitchens. Setting boundaries during sex is different from setting them in most other circumstances, so it’s no wonder that lots of people have difficulty with it. Most of us aren’t taught how to say yes or no to sex, and far too many people are taught that their “no” doesn’t count. There are gendered trends that affect that, of course, but that’s not the whole picture. Cuddle Parties, interactive workshops, sex therapy, and similar experiences create room to learn the skill of saying yes or no, or to make a counteroffer, or find another way to respond.

I’ve been on both sides of this. I’ve had sexual partners who didn’t tell me that what we were doing wasn’t comfortable for them. Some of them told me afterward, and unfortunately, there have probably been others who didn’t. I’ve also been the one who wasn’t able to speak up and tell my partner that I wanted something different, or that I wanted to stop. I know what it’s like to feel like my partner assaulted me, even as I recognize that they had no idea at the time. I know what it’s like to not say no and feel violated, and I know what it’s like to find out later that someone felt that way about an experience we had. Both sides of that are pretty awful.

How do we know that we’ve done enough to be reasonably sure of our partner’s consent? I think this comes down to is a question of due diligence. Due diligence is taking a reasonable amount of care before entering into an agreement with someone else. It acknowledges that we rarely have all of the information when we make a decision. It means that we do our best to get as many of the relevant facts as we can. And it also recognizes that there’s a difference between saying that we made a mistake and saying that we made the best choice we could with the information we had at the time.

When it comes to consent, my due diligence includes things like asking my partners to tell me what they want to do, in enough detail and with enough interpersonal engagement that I have confidence that they want to do it; sharing their STI testing history, and their safer sex needs; checking in with them often enough to feel confident that their ongoing consent is present, without doing it so much that it’s annoying; making sure that we’re sufficiently sober to be able to make decisions we’re unlikely to regret later; and choosing to not have sex with someone who doesn’t seem clearly capable of doing all of these things, no matter how hot they are. I also expect my partners to do all of those things in return. I’ve learned to do take these steps because I know that it’s possible for one person to feel violated or assaulted, while the other person had no intention or desire to assault them. I don’t want to be on either side of that again.

Of course, due diligence doesn’t mean that that situation will never come up. In those cases, all it does is help us know the difference between “something unfortunate happened” and “I hurt someone.” That’s not a small thing because I have more capacity to respond with support and care when I’m not feeling shame for acting dishonorably. I can acknowledge what I’ve done and the reasons behind my choices without taking on blame or shame for not being perfect or for not being able to read their mind. And once the feelings of injury and hurt are attended to, it gives us more room to rebuild the connection, whether sex is part of that or not.

So, yes, it is possible to accidentally assault someone, in the sense that we can do something that we didn’t realize they didn’t want to do. When that happens, we need to hold onto the fact that an injury happened AND the fact that we didn’t intend it. Those are equally important, although I find that healing works best when the fact of the injury gets attention first. And having said all that, it’s also important to be honest with ourselves about whether we’ve actually done enough to qualify as due diligence. We need to have the self-awareness and honor to be able to acknowledge when we could have done more. We need to be able to be honest with ourselves and our partners about whether we really did the best that we could.

Whatever the specific situation, accidentally assaulting someone can be a tough thing to heal from. It’s a different experience than being the one who was hurt, and both of you deserve the space to do what you need to do. It’s important to get some help with figuring out whether you really did your due diligence, with getting the support you need to learn from the experience so you can develop new skills, and to be able to take responsibility without without sinking into a shame spiral. I strongly suggest getting that from someone other than your partner, because they’re too close to the situation to be able to give you the care you need. And while you might be willing and able to offer them some help, they need to get at least some of their support elsewhere, for the same reason.

So there’s the long answer to your question. If this is about a situation that’s happened to you, whichever side you were on, I hope you get what you need to be able to move forward.

The post, Accidental Assault, Due Diligence, and Consent, is from Charlie Glickman's website.

Calibrate Your Relationships

One of the things I’ve noticed is that a lot of people seem to think that if they could just figure out the perfect setup, or find the right communication patterns, or create the ideal situation, their relationships would be stable. In fact, I used to believe that myself. And I eventually came to see that that’s exactly the wrong way to go about it because relationships don’t stay stable. They’re constantly changing, growing, and shifting. So instead to striving for stability, I’ve found that it’s more useful to develop my skill at calibration.

Think about what you do when you drive. The situation keeps changing as cars speed up or slow down; the road curves, rises, and falls; traffic lights change color; new lanes merge and others disappear. When you drive, you’re constantly calibrating and adapting to new information and to new situations. At least, if you don’t do that, you’re going to be in trouble.

Relationships are much the same. We’re always growing, learning new patterns, shedding old ones, and responding to our ever-shifting circumstances. Each of us is different from moment to moment, day to day, and year to year. Any stability we have in our relationships is either illusionary, temporary, or both. So rather than trying to hold onto the constancy that we often imagine or hope for, what if we could think of relationships as a practice of ongoing constant calibration?

We can develop more skill at communication, at building trust, at asking what our partners need with open hearts, at stating our desires and expectations, at setting boundaries, at requesting what we need. We can improve our capacity for apology and amends when we make mistakes and act thoughtlessly. We can increase our willingness and ability to assume good intentions, and to demonstrate our own. That’s a lot to ask ourselves to do.

Learning to calibrate our relationships takes time, just like driving. With practice, it can become much easier, and we can often get to the point where we can put some of it on autopilot, but not too much or we risk our attention wandering so much that we get into trouble. We need to calibrate each relationship we have to different levels, just as driving a Mini Cooper is different from driving an SUV or a pickup truck. Sure, most of the basic skills transfer over, but we need different settings with each person in our lives.

I find this a useful metaphor because it helps me stay present when a relationship needs some attention. I used to think that processing was a necessary hassle that had to happen to get to the good stuff. And for a while, I thought that the processing was the point. But now I see processing as the investment of my time, energy, and attention that allows the relationship to get where it’s going. When things need to recalibrate, it’s not a sign of failure. It’s a measure of our ability to adapt to the new situation. Recognizing that makes it easier for me to not get caught up in my own reactions, triggers, emotions, and attachments.

When I think of it as an act of calibration, I become more willing to explore, to try something and see how it works. We can adjust a setting and step back to see what effect it has. If it doesn’t work, we can try something else. I can approach it as an experiment, and even if something doesn’t do what I wanted, it offers new information that allows for a different direction. This metaphor helps me keep away from the shame spiral of “we tried it, it didn’t work, nothing will ever work.” It helps me make the relationship a place for play, for love, for getting messy, and for cleaning things up. It gives room for the relationship to be a growing, living thing like a plant with its roots in the soil, rather than a statue that we hope to finish and set on a pedestal to be admired.

It used to be that when I became aware that something in one of my relationships needed to change, I would sometimes feel resentment. I thought that if only things would stay calm and stable, the relationship would be good. Now, I understand that the success of my relationships rests on our ability to recalibrate. And that gives us much more room for love, joy, pleasure, and passion.

The post, Calibrate Your Relationships, is from Charlie Glickman's website.

Black Jellybeans

Last night, I was chatting with a friend and we started talking about how a lot of people just don’t get her. While she and I clicked pretty much from the start, she told me that when she meets people, they don’t always have the same easy conversation and connection that she and I have. As we explored why that might be, we realized that it’s because she’s a) incredibly intelligent, b) very direct in her communication, and c) attractive. In my observation and from talking with lots of other women who could be described similarly, plenty of people find that combination threatening. Actually, many folks feel threatened by a woman with any two of those three. But it wasn’t until last night that I put it all together: my friend is a black jellybean.

When it comes to black jellybeans, almost everyone seems to fall into one of two categories. Either you love them or you can’t imagine why anyone would. There doesn’t seem to be much of a middle ground, and I’m willing to guess that when we’re talking about actual jellybeans, you know which group you’re in.

Of course, this is just a metaphor and I’m not suggesting that this is only a matter of individual taste. A woman who’s upfront about what she wants and needs is often considered aggressive or a bitch, while a man who does the exact same thing is simply being candid. Women who allow their intelligence to be visible are frequently seen as threatening, while men rarely are. And women who are “too attractive” get scrutinized and attacked in ways that good-looking guys don’t. When we unpack each of those traits and our cultural attitudes towards them, it’s easy to see why a woman who has all three gets a lot of crap as she moves through the world. So don’t stretch the metaphor to the breaking point. There’s a lot more to this than “to each their own.”

For that matter, there are also gendered differences to how this plays out. Queer women who are black jellybeans seem to have fewer difficulties with partner’s attitudes around this than heterosexual women. I can think of several possible explanations, though many of them boil down to the fact that queer folks (regardless of their gender) tend to appreciate traits that are outside the heteronormative definitions of how people should act. Even so, I’ve known quite a few women who find it hard to find women who value their black jellybean characteristics.

While the metaphor is limited, I think it has some value when it comes to navigating interpersonal relationships. Reid Mihalko often says that we have more success when we date our own species. I like Reid’s approach because he offers some really useful perspectives on how to find someone compatible. And I also think that the black jellybean metaphor works well because the reactions that many people have to smart, attractive women who speak their minds fall into that love them/hate them split.

I don’t have any specific ideas to suggest to someone who’s a black jellybean for how to navigate that, other than to try to find people who like that flavor. I’m not sure whether there’s any way for someone to cultivate a taste for that particular combination of traits. I would certainly like there to be- I know a lot of amazing women who would love to find partners who adore them as much as they deserve.

So with that in mind, here are a few questions that have been bouncing around my head. If you’re a black jellybean and you feel moved to answer, either in the comments below or privately, I would love to hear from you. I’d like to be able to offer something more useful to other folks, rather that only being able to tell them that they need to find someone who enjoys them for who they are.

What’s it like for you when people have that either/or response to you?
How do you find people who appreciate your particular flavor? What do you do when it becomes clear that someone doesn’t?
Given how often people blame black jellybeans for not being what they want, how do you take care of yourself around that? What do you do to not absorb their negativity?
Do you have/have you had a partner who learned to appreciate your black jellybean traits? How did that work out? Was it something they could cultivate? And was it worth the effort for you?

 

The post, Black Jellybeans, is from Charlie Glickman's website.