The definitive "Do You Blog on the First Date?" SXSW panel recap and sexual politics redux

The very prolific, detail-oriented, and intelligent Amelia G of Blue Blood attended our "Do You Blog on the First Date?" panel at SXSW and gives what has to be the most exhaustive account of almost everything we covered.

Also, she's hilarious:

At this point in the panel, I apparently passed Forrest Black, who was shooting the presentation, a note which read: “MY BROTHER SHOULD MARRY SHELASKY ONLY HER FACE IS NOT HEART-SHAPED.” (For the non-Luddite savvy, note passing is a sort of low tech Twitter.)

She captures the ambivalent feelings most of us have about blogging about sex and dating. I'm the first to tell you that it's tricky territory that I'm constantly reevaluating. I deleted my whole blog in 2005 because there was too much that was so raw and painful and, I'm sure, hurtful, but it was also how I needed to process that particular breakup. I think I've wised up a little, though I still use it for catharsis, I'm more interested in looking at other people's sex lives than strictly my own, though I always draw from my own experiences.

How much do I heart Sexerati? They continue to give me reasons to swoon over their very intelligent, often amusing, writings about the non-glamorous side of sex. See their latest piece, "How to Have Awkward Sex."

- Dirty talk is always good. Awkward dirty talk is even better. Consider mentioning: your mom, your partner's mom, animals, politics, Ron Jeremy, your grandmother, Twitter, the last time you had a condom break, MySpace, babies, your blog. Works like a charm.

My fellow panelist Melanie Boyer also did not get laid in Austin.

"OK, now, are you still on hiatus?"

"No," I said. "It's not really a self-imposed hiatus so much as it's just that I haven't met anyone I want to date, or sleep with, or anything else. If someone came along that interested me, and I interested him, I wouldn't walk away from it, but I'm not looking either."

And in terms of a one-night stand, I can think of nothing else less sastisyfing or more of a black hole of wasted energy. It just doesn't sound good at all. There's a lot of messy bodily fluids involved in sex. I don't want to get all up in it for nothing, unless we can do it again. And again and again and again, for a long time to come, and get really good at it.

I'm so right there with her in terms of not wanting one-night stands, casual sex, casual anything really. I don't even want casual friendships. I want people in my life who are going to stick around, who don't just want some idealized version of me, but the real me, who will give me their honest opinions even if that involves tough love. I have had plenty of casual sex and there were times in my life I welcomed it but in the last year or two I've just found that I don't want that, it leaves too many hollow spaces, too many gaps, too many voids sex alone can't fill.

I think it's important, though, to differentiate what I'm talking about in my personal life versus the overall goal of sexual freedom, which has to include casual sex if the term's going to mean anything. There are so many subtle and overt ways right now that sexuality in various forms is under attack. I think that we can simultaneously look at how casual sex might not be ideal for some people without denigrating our right to choose it. I feel like we're seeing again and again scolds who warn us of the perils of hookups, who are there to be our supposed big brothers and big sisters when the truth is, a lot of us need to learn from experience. And not everyone will walk away with the same conclusions. I don't regret anything I've done in the past, though am trying to be smarter about dating and sex, to not make assumptions about other people's motivations, to really think about what I want independently of what society or other people are telling me to want.

I keep seeing the same debates on feminist blogs about certain sex acts, and I'm really tempted to write a book called Feminist Sex: An Oxymoron. Maybe someday. I don't think sexual freedom is the be-all and end-all of feminism, but it has to be part of the goal, and not just a narrow definition of sexual freedom. It's easy to argue for it if "freedom" means safe, behind-closed-doors, heterosexual, married penis-in-vagina intercourse. But news flash: lots of people, married, heterosexual people included, don't always have safe, pretty, perfect, penis-in-vagina intercourse. I go back to this example a lot, but when Caitlin Flanagan tosses off that blowjobs are "debasing, uncomfortable, and messy," I do feel the need to defend the act. Not as a feminist act per se, but as the right of men and women to perform it. And now that I revisit her words, I think there's something cock-phobic about it as well. What if she had said that in terms of cunnilingus, it's "more debasing, uncomfortable and messy" than giving a handjob? Would that have been offensive to women? I just think some of these conservative takes on sex need to be examined more thoroughly. On the other hand, do I think all is perfect in the world of teenage sexuality? No. But teenagers and adults alike are not, I don't think, going to curtail their sexual explorations simply because someone older and wiser tells them to, nor should they. I'm not saying that how we conduct ourselves in public and private is apolitical, but I don't think there's a single reading we can give any sex act. It's about the context, the people, and the motivations and yes, I'm going to get more impassioned about the things that I'm personally interested in, but I do believe in sexual freedom broadly defined, not just for women, for everyone.