The corollary to the sexless guy piece

I was thinking about the drama that I caused myself, I guess, over the sexless guy Dealbreaker piece at The Frisky. I remembered that I'd actually addressed this issue a while ago, on a night we almost broke up. It wasn't a new issue, wasn't something anyone who knows me well, or me or my ex, were unaware of.

So I'm just reposting what I read at Dirty Words night in September because it's all those issues, in a different form, maybe a little less straightforward, but no less true. Right now, though, I feel like that was all a long time ago. I've made my peace with it and realized that, like a lot of things, it's complicated. I still love my ex and we talk and I care about him, but we just weren't right as a couple. I do want to explore this topic more, not about any one person or even me per se, but about sexual rejection, what it feels like, what it means. For now, though, this is a little historical snapshot of what I was feeling one day in September.



I noticed in Dirty Words that there were entries for "Dirty Sanchez" and "Dirty Talk" but not "Dirty" itself. So I wrote something, very on the fly, two hours beforehand. "Did you really write it two hours before?" my friend Flora asked me. "You always say that." But I really did. I was in a kindof dark headspace and writing about it helped, and I'm glad I did. I forget sometimes to journal, to write, to capture things as they occur, before they utterly change on me.

And I got utterly seduced by the second person. I've used it so sparingly in the past, and think that's its proper place. I never really studied much in the way of proper English, but I realized that I write in second person when I want to write something very personal, but also distance myself from it. It's not "I," not "me," but "you" even though "you" is really me. I think why it works is because by saying "You," even though the listener/reader knows the writer is often using "you" as a substitute for "I," it draws them in. It could be talking about any "you" out there in that crowd.

It's seductive, an instant come-on, whereas "I," which I use so much, by comparison sounds haughty, audacious, bragging. "I" can only be about the author, whereas "you" takes on a universality that is broad enough to invite everyone in. In so many ways, it's more confessional. I'm fascinated by it. The other piece I wrote was called "Memories" and it was one of two breakup erotica stories I wrote back in 2004 that I'm glad I did, but still killed me to write.

I felt stronger after I wrote this, and I actually walked into Happy Ending with one idea of how my night would go, and the night, and the people in it, surprised me, in a very good way. I don't know if that has anything to do with the writing, but I'm glad I got the words out. I think I sounded more confident than I usually do when reading and I credit the second person for it. And because this is the internet, you even get links.

"Dirty"
by Rachel Kramer Bussel

You look up a piece you wrote in 2003 about being “dirty,” one that now makes you cringe the same way those artifacts of childhood creativity your mom has saved does. It feels juvenile, the words a weak version of who you are or maybe who you were. But still, they are there, on the Internet, forever, and they say things like:

I want to be nervous, a little bit scared, uncertain. I want my clit and my pussy to be scared too, to try and anticipate what will happen next and be thrown off guard by a slap or a pinch or a pull. I want the pain of a hand falling full force against my ass, making it burn and seethe, and knowing that there's more waiting for me. I need that fear, that edge, to hover over. I need my lover to act differently with me than they do on the street, to treat me rougher or meaner or more fiercely, anything that distinguishes our sex from our average conversation.

You’ve almost forgotten what the good kind of Dirty is like, the kind where you do the walk of shame, or the subway ride of shame, and shop at Kmart before work. The kind where you push everything else in your head aside to whisper fantasies into your cell phone, letting the heat wash over you. The kind where sex becomes central, a daily part of your being, like breathing, not a burden or a worry or a stress, not just a word in your book title or MySpace slogan devoid of meaning. That part makes you feel the wrong kind of Dirty, the slimy kind where you almost can’t look at yourself in the mirror, wondering if you’re living the wrong life instead of being shacked up somewhere with babies and calm.

You forget what Dirty really feels like, or you remember in stolen moments, flirtations and forbidden fantasies. You debate wearing a dress, or lingerie, or nothing at all for a calendar, wonder if you’ll feel about posing nude as you do about HBO showing you masturbating forever, an endless reminder of memory of wantonness. Part of you wants to be captured like that, and part of you wants to hide, save it for someone special. As much as you know that “dirty” is always subjective, that sex and judgment and what’s proper and what’s not are all in the eyes of the beholder, the words that flow from your fingers you’re pretty sure are universally “dirty.” Your work starts to take a dark turn, full of rape fantasies and bukkake and dual blowjobs and crying during spankings. They say things like:

I pin her arms down and can feel her thrashing beneath me. “Don’t,” she says, letting out a whimper as she tries to undo my hold on her. I go slower even though I want to shove my way into her cunt, hurt her with my cock. I go slow so we can both savor the feel of me taking this from her. “No,” she says again, this time more quietly, and I chance lifting one hand to hold it over her mouth. I had no idea how hot that could be, to have a girl who’s struggling with her desire, who’s wet as can be but is trying to protest. It may be an illusion but it’s one I’m buying.

You wonder if you haven’t chosen the wrong profession, wonder if sex is not the topic you should cover by day, then obsess over at night. You get confused when people want your opinion about it, yet you are drawn to it over and over. The gap between that person, that persona, or some mix of the two, the girl from 2003 with all those yearnings, and the girl in 2008 whose yearnings are of a far more maternal nature, grows bigger.

Yet the words keep coming, even as Dirty itself becomes mundane. You have a dream/fantasy, or fantasy/dream, you’re not really sure which. There’s a girl—you don’t know exactly what she looks like, but she’s pretty, and her very presence turns you on. She’s kissing your lover, right there in front of you, soft, and then less soft. You’re part of it but you’re not, there to look and observe and maybe dictate, but not to join. You don’t tell anyone, until now, even though you think about writing him a letter on the pale green lined notepad you bought, the one that came from Staples in a pack with pink and blue, the one you thought would make you organized. You see the letter in your head, your handwriting, but that’s where it remains, because you can’t see afterwards. You don’t know what would happen after it would be received, don’t know how it would be taken, don’t know if it would brand you the wrong kind of dirty, the kind that makes you more of a freaky than fuckable.

Suddenly you start to rethink everything you thought you knew about being dirty. Is wanting sex dirty? Is desiring other people dirty? You don’t think using your vibrator is dirty, but still, you don’t do that as often as you used to. Even lying next to each other, you start to feel something well up from inside, and you’re torn between pushing it back and letting it take over. The words, much simpler ones than those you type into a screen, sit there, moved from your core up through your lungs, then your throat, until they are on the tip of your tongue, but you don’t. Or you can’t. You curl up under the covers and think about it, and try not to cry, try not to want.

You feel like you don’t know very much at all, but you do know this: That Dirty should not feel like this, sinful, scary, silent. Dirty should not be a code word for wanting but not having, for craving that never seems to end. Dirty, the good kind, should make you love your body more, love that it comes first, not last. You hope there is a time when Dirty will come back to you, mellow out, make its peace. Until then, it’s a word, a feeling, lurking around your edges, more work than play.

The ethics of sex writing, or Monday night's meltdown

Warning: If you don't want to read about my sex life and/or puking, don't keep reading. Seriously.

So on Monday I was at SXSW and got an email from The Frisky editor Amelia asking if she could run my Dealbreaker on The Sexless Guy. I’d sent it a few weeks ago, and had written it pretty soon after my last trip to San Francisco, that didn’t end too well. I’d assumed she didn’t want to use it. I was kindof distracted by the conference and also figured it’d be good to make a little money and get my name back out there. I paused, though, because that heat of the moment urge to share (or, yes, as some might say, overshare) had passed. The act of writing in itself helped; I didn’t feel quite so strongly or emotional about the topic. But I agreed, for various reasons, and then it went up and I blogged about it, sending the link around as I do with any new piece.

And then a few hours later I got an email from my ex. It wasn’t a mean email, it was short and to the point, and basically said the piece was hard for him to read. After I read that, I kindof lost it. I had just been in the panel Sex Lives of the Microfamous, where we were talking about rules we have for writing about other people. As now famously quoted in the New York Times, someone (Kris Krug, according to Nick Douglas) said, “You can blog about me or you can date me, but you can’t do both.”

The thing is, I wasn’t ashamed of what I wrote. It was something that had been on my mind for a while, and it bubbled up from that. It wasn’t just about my ex, but a pattern of men I’d dated, one that clearly had a strong effect on me. But it led me to wonder: Why exactly did I write it? For the $150? To send some passive aggressive message to my ex? To have some kind of final word?

The more I thought about it, the worse I felt, and we hadn’t really been talking much, mostly by my choice, so I didn’t want to call him. As I watched the comments at The Frisky pile up (currently 43), I realized that maybe I wrote it for the same reason I’ve written most of the personal, revealing things I have: to connect with other people. In that sense, my ex was in no way the target audience. If he were, I’d have been able to say some of that directly to him. But what would be the point of that? We were already broken up and we’d discussed this issue between us. It wasn’t about fixing it or rehashing it but more about declaring something for the future that I need out of relationships. I think that is sortof the point of the dealbreaker stories, aside from entertainment; that by trial and error, by seeing traits or behaviors in people we date that we don’t like, we can figure out what we do.

But still. I felt awful about having hurt him, because that wasn’t my intention. It wasn’t really a secret either that I felt that way, and I admire and respect him, and value his opinion of me. It was killing me that maybe I’d squandered any high regard he might have held me in. I tried to convey that to him, but email is not always the best format, and I kindof wished I hadn’t seen his email to me, but I had, and it settled into me, all over, making itself hard to ignore.

We were at this event at Whole Foods, sitting in the sun, mingling with food bloggers and basking in the good weather after the previous day’s chilliness. I ate. A lot. These amazingly delicious mushrooms, some meat and potatoes, a rice ball. I drank the free iced tea and tried to chat but couldn’t really. I went to The Onion party where the sight of more food really grossed me out. I’d eaten too much and just felt out of sorts while everyone was preparing for all kinds of revelry. I went to the Feministing/Pandagon party and was offered a drink, but I at least wisely declined. Then I left and started walking, I wasn’t really sure where. Stopped at the hotel to charge my phone and rub my itchy feet on the carpet.

Then I was in our room, alone, and it all kindof hit me. I was upset because I missed him, especially there. How could I not when I was hanging out with his cousins and our mutual friends, when I kept hearing and seeing things I knew he’d have appreciated? Way back when I booked our joint smoking room, I’d envisioned us going there together, being this geeky blogger/writer couple and having yet another out-of-town adventure.

I really felt like I could not proceed with the night with all that food in my stomach. It was painful and annoying. We’d been joking about it earlier, but I went in the bathroom, knelt in front of the toilet, shoved my fingers in my mouth, and puked. Once, then got up, drank a little water, then again. I can’t even tell you how relieved I felt. Physically, in a way, but mentally. I’ve never gotten high (I’ve tried to smoke pot twice in my 33 years, with an emphasis on tried – it didn’t really work) so I don’t know what that’s like. Drunk, I know. Even that, though, takes a little while. There's a time delay between drinking and feeling drunk, and even if it's short, it's there. You have to wait, and as an impatient sort, I never liked that. But making yourself puke is this instant rush of satisfaction. What you want to do is accomplished, just like that. It doesn’t even hurt, even though it’s gross. For me, there’s a sense of both accomplishment and transgression to it, and I wanted and needed both at that moment. I felt so awful about myself that I needed to do something to myself to prove that.

Anorexia doesn’t have that high of the a-ha moment. It’s a slow, drawn out, neverending thing. You wait to eat, and then wait, and wait some more. You’re always waiting, always hungry, and it has to be this round-the-clock vigilance because you could be good up to hour 23:59 an din that final minute, ruin it all. Making yourself vomit isn’t like that; in fact, it’s the opposite. It’s like saying you can be bad and bad and bad and bad and stuff your face all you want and in moments, undo what you’ve done. Of course that’s extremely seductive; imagine if you could undo all the stupid things you’ve done in mere moments.

It’s not something I make a practice of; maybe I wind up doing it once a year, when I’m feeling like I’m at some sort of crisis point. I fight the urge at other times, take walks, drink seltzer, try to remind myself that tomorrow is another day and I’ll get through whatever the present painful moment is. But sometimes that rush is exactly what I need, in fact, to remind me that I don’t want to be there. I think we all have rock-bottom go-to places that we need, if only as a benchmark to remind us how much we don’t want to settle there. At least, that’s how it is for me.

I felt better, kindof, but still really out of sorts. I kept wandering from party to party but none of them felt right, until I got to Beerland. I walked in and this girl Gillian was belting out “What’s Up” by Four Non Blondes and it was awesome. I’d been Tweeting some of my feelings, because I really couldn’t figure out where to put them or what to do with them, and because we were at SXSW and my friends are constantly connected, when I got there I got at least five hugs and “Are you okay?”s. I got invited back to Minneapolis (for a spanking). I watched my friends kick ass at karaoke. And I felt better. Not perfect, but better.

The thing with the whole dealbreaker piece is that I know it was never meant to be a personal affront. With any of the sexless guys I’ve dated, it was never I don’t want to have sex with you so much as I’m not in the mood. I get that intellectually, but my whole point was that it still feels the same, and for me, I place a lot of value in who I am sexually, in what that kind of connection brings me. Maybe I place too much emphasis on it, but I just know I felt buoyed when I found someone who was the sexless guys’ opposite. Because it’s not just about, well, sex, though it might seem to be. It’s about affection and desire and interest and attraction, which often get conflated. For me, it’s not so much about “doing it” a set amount of times as feeling wanted, which is what I was trying to express.

Orion67 posted a great comment at The Frisky, about his use of anti-depressants and the resulting low libido:

I can tell you from personal experience that finding fault with yourself is not the place to start; I have seen this first hand with my wife. We decided to sit down with each other and discuss the problem and how it affected our relationship. It isn’t a new concept; communication and mutual respect for each other is the cornerstone of a healthy relationship. Before I sound like I am getting on my soapbox, I cannot pretend to know everyone’s issue with this problem; I can only speak for myself.

The first part of our conversation was to differentiate between sex and love. So many of the issues we faced were centered on a false understanding that the two are one and the same. At first she felt I did not find her attractive (which was totally not the case). She disclosed to me that she even had fleeting thoughts of infidelity on my part which I assured her was the farthest thing from the truth. As a result of our discussion, I tell my wife how much I love her and express my affection for her every day. I also let her know how beautiful I think she is.

I think there’s some great discussion going on there, and I’m glad to know I’m not alone in reacting the way I did. I’m almost wrote, “I’m glad I’m not wrong in reacting the way I did” and that’s the thing I told my ex the other day about this; there is no right or wrong. I don’t think there’s any “should”s when it comes to libido or sexual frequency, it’s a matter of your desires being compatible with someone else’s.

We talked the other night for a long time, and I realized I’ve missed him a lot. It would be much much easier in some ways I think to not try to be friends, because I start getting all these “what if” scenarios in my head. What if we could have...? But there are only so many ways that can end, and if this were the only issue between us, I’d say, okay, maybe there’s some kind of way for us to get back together and make things work. That’s not the case though, and I’ve had to make my peace with that.

So to everyone who asked, thanks, I’m okay. Good, in fact. The panel and this experience gave me a lot to think about, about why I write and what I write and the purpose of it. I don’t necessarily have hard and fast rules like everyone else in that room seemed to, but I hope I have a little better sense of the impact my words can have.

Dealbreaker: The Sexless Guy, or When He's Just Not That Into Doing It

After a too-long hiatus, I have a new piece up at The Frisky, about why sexless guys (meaning guys who just aren't into sex) are a dealbreaker for me (I say that as a veteran of that type of guy):

I’ve dated several guys who, from what I can tell, have a take it or leave it attitude toward sex, with an emphasis on leaving it. Why, you may ask, did I, someone who writes about sex almost every day, wind up with them? I don’t really know, but I did. And the worst part about it is not the physical withdrawal; I’m not the kind of girl who needs to do it every day (though that would be nice).

The worst part is the feeling of rejection that cuts really, really close to home. When I experience that, it’s like taking all the fears I have about my attractiveness and boiling them into one pointed barb: you’re not pretty/sexy/fun/cool/hot/exciting enough to f**k.

Read the whole thing and feel free to comment/rate it. Thanks!