{Originally published on Natty’s Spanking Blog.}

My senior year of college I was invited to be part of a national student delegation to the country of Kuwait. A week or so before I received that invitation, I found out I had been accepted to graduate school at Georgetown University with a full tuition scholarship. As our delegation was meeting in Washington DC for a week of briefings before heading to Kuwait, I went a few days earlier to visit the place I assumed I would be spending the next several years of my life.

The waiting room for my graduate program was lined with cherrywood paneling and upholstered in arabesque print. I remember worrying that my wet, squishy tennis shoes would somehow dirty the place after walking in from the April rain. I stayed the night with a recent alum from my hole-in-the-wall state university, but the next day headed to a posh DC hotel where we student delegates were to stay during the Washington leg of our journey.

It was the first time I’d ever hailed a cab. And I was surprised when a guy in a uniform picked up my suitcase as I checked in. I’d never been to a hotel with a bell hop before. The nicest place I’d ever stayed before that was at a Red Lion with a bunch of girls from my church youth group when we attended a winter youth festival. The bell hop led me to the room, opened the door, set my luggage on a rack, opened the curtains, and then stood at the door awkwardly for a few seconds. Was I supposed to tip him? Or was that just something they did on television but not in real life? The bell hop had mercy on me and left quickly. I felt terribly out of place in this new, fancy world I’d found myself in. And I tell you the truth, dear reader, I broke out into tears as I sat on the immaculate bed.

That is how I feel when I read most erotica.

{Originally published on uuMomma.}

Earlier in the week my neighbor said she had a wedding to go to Thursday night. I wondered, who would plan a wedding on a Thursday night? Fast forward to Thursday night when my husband and I are having a late dinner at a very nice restaurant in town, surrounded by young couples and one older couple with their 9 year old son. Doh! It’s Valentine’s Day, that’s why someone would have a wedding on a Thursday night, same reason we would have dinner at 8:30 on a Thursday (okay, wait, that’s not so unusual).

So I pictured the young couple getting married on Valentine’s Day, people I’ve never met and may never meet. Knowing this neighbor as I do, I was able to spin out a fictional representation of that wedding that was startlingly uninteresting. I pictured a pink face surrounded by white lace. I knew she must be a virgin (as this IS what the church dictates for this group) which actually could be an interesting twist to weddings today. I pictured the groom in a black tux and the pink face, white lace and ruddy red and eager-face of the groom show off strikingly against a giant red heart in the background.

So that’s the image that floated to my head as I had my Homer Simpson moment of realization that some couples do get married or engaged on Valentine’s Day. This unknown bride’s presumed virginity caused me to remember something someone once said to me about why she married a man she had known only a few months. “I wanted to have sex with him,” she said, “and back then, you got married if you wanted to do that.”

It was a naive notion, even back in the 50s, but she was a good girl and so she got married. More than 50 years later, this woman is still married to that man and they continue to have a relationship founded not on their desire to have sex (the thought of which causes me to stick my fingers in my ears and go ‘la la la la la’), but to be in love with each other enough to wait for commitment in the first place, and to stay in love through all the trials that that commitment has laid at their collective door.

{Originally published on The Sister Project.}

Winter 2008—five years after we donned our white caps and gowns at Tanglewood—four out of my six best friends from high school are finding themselves in the same sleepy Berkshire town where we grew up.

In honor of this momentous homecoming, I’d like to share an essay I wrote shortly after we graduated. I haven’t touched it since then (except to change some names), and it is a strong representation of the kinds of reflections I was having about my high school experience at that time. Meet me after Bio to get high in the parking lot…

‘Picking at Scabs’

WHEN WE HEARD Brooke throwing up on Katelyn’s 18th birthday, the seven of us skipped a beat. Our spoons, heaped with chocolate sauce and ice cream, paused in midair before reluctantly arriving at our lips. Gator’s hand ticked for a split second as she sliced through creamy frosting and into birthday cake. No one said anything. We just listened. My mind wandered up the air vent to the cool blue tiled floor where I know Brooke knelt with watering eyes and a runny nose—her bony fingers brushing the back of her throat, coaxing and begging for release.

These girls are the closest things that I have to sisters. We are not fused with blood but with bruises and Band-Aids—our mutual growing pains. Our insecurities have bonded us together with can’t-live-without-you love. I watched the girls shift uncomfortably eyeing the caloric catastrophe that lay before us, sprawled across the kitchen counter. Our throats began to close around the clumps of cake and ice cream. We ate fast. We ate to get rid of it. Behind us, Justin sang Senorita through the kitchen speakers. Above us, Brooke coughed and spat. It was an eternity cruelly crammed into a split second.

{Originally published on Suburban Oblivion.}

What is it about the male ego? What is this inner drive they possess that makes them not just a normal person, but a sweat-soaked, testosterone-driven, strong as an ox, and hung like a bull, god-in-their-own-mind? And why do they turn into sniveling babies if anyone so much as hints they are anything less? And why are they so damn scared of skin care products??

I was in Target tonight when I happened to catch a glance at a new skin care line for men. I wouldn’t have even realized it was there had the words “Anti-Pale Skin Moisturizer” not jumped out at me. Anti-pale skin?? I’ve seen anti-redness creams, but never anti-pale stuff. Wtf? So I read further- “Provides gradual, natural looking color.” It took me a second to realize what I was actually looking at was sunless tanning lotion for men! Seems we have to be very careful with the wording, because I guess the male ego just could not handle using something with the words ‘tanning lotion’ in it? So now its not sunless tanning lotion, its anti-pale skin moisturizer. Riiiiiight. Anyone else find this funny? Just a little? Actually if you want a real good laugh, the directions further explain that you will see “maximum anti-pale, anti-pasty benefit within a week of twice-daily usage”. Gosh forbid ya just tell the guys they will start to see a little color on their face within a week. I checked my bottle of sunless tanning lotion, btw, and nowhere do the words “anti-pasty benefit” show up.

Naturally I had to check out this product line, and the madness continues. Men do not use things that make their skin fresh it seems, they use “Power Clean Anti-Dullness Face Wash”. (Sounds like something my husband would clean his car with.) Feeling dry? Try the “Hydrapower Invigorating Moisturizer”, or if you have combination skin, how about the “Oil Controller Anti-Oiliness Moisturizer”. And we must have our “Power Buff Anti-Ruffness Exfoliator”.

Is it just me or does all this stuff sound more like something you’d find in a garage than a medicine cabinet?

{Originally published on The Belly Project.}

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59 years old, 1 pregnancy (baby given up for adoption 40 years ago)

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22 years old, 0 pregnancies

{Originally Published in Cafe Philos.}

It occurs to me this morning you might be wondering how someone would have gone about buying a Playboy in a small American town in the early 1970s — and get away with it. Of course, that was back when buying a Playboy in a small backwards town could break your reputation, so getting away with it was key.

Now, I don’t recall how old I was when I bought my first Playboy. Older than 16, at least. So long ago some of the details that never mattered to me anyway now escape me.

I do, however, recall that I bought my first Playboy at Potter’s Drugstore, and that Old Man Potter himself rang up my purchase. Old Man Potter owned and operated one of two drugstores in my pathetically small town of 2,000 people where it seemed everyone knew everyone else. And here’s what I recall about buying that Playboy:

I recall I began sweating the moment I picked it out of the magazine rack, and I began blushing the moment I handed it to Old Man Potter at the check out counter. The only two people in the whole store at the time were Old Man Potter and me — I had carefully seen to that — but I nevertheless felt like the eyes of the entire community were upon me.

For a moment, everything seemed to go smoothly. I handed the Playboy to Old Man Potter; Old Man Potter took the Playboy; he looked at the price just like he would any other magazine: and then he entered the price into his cash register. Smooth. Normal. I was almost about to breath again when suddenly he said, “I’ll be right back. I have to make a phone call.” Then he dashed off to the back room with the Playboy still in his hands.

I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I didn’t stop blushing. I didn’t stop sweating…

Originally posted on Bitch Ph.D.

So here is the biggest, most annoying problem with having a feminist marriage:

No matter what you and your partner have agreed on, other people will cling to their antiquated notions.

It’s the biggest evidence to me that marriage is not just a
contract between two people; it’s also a kind of social contact (for
better or for worse). Like, if you and your partner decide to reverse
conventional gender roles-you work the day job, he stays home with
kids and kitchen-and you are perfectly happy with this arrangement
(ok, reasonably happy). Lovely! You win! You and your partner have done
all the hard work necessary in arriving at this decision, you have had
principled discussions about division of labor, you have made sure that
neither one of you is feeling coerced, that this is how you both want
it to be, blah blah blah and now you can sit back and enjoy your
domestic life. WRONG. Because now you have to deal with constantly
explaining to everyone around you that, “no, this really is what we both
want, no, I am not an emasculating bitch, actually this was his idea,
no really you can ask him, no, he isn’t doing it “for” me, no, we’re
not doing this to “prove” something, really, we are doing this because
it works for both of us, individually and as a couple.”

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Originally published in Cafe Philos: an internet cafe.

When Danielle was 22, she wanted to go to an erotic dance club. She
did not want to go alone, however, and instead, she thought it was a
good idea for me to take her.

The first time she brought it up with me, I was skeptical.

Erotic dance in this town is very much hit or miss. You are lucky to
find a dancer who can express her sexuality through dance. I feared
Danielle would encounter some poor dancers and consequently be hard
pressed to understand what good erotic dance is all about.

The second time she brought it up with me, I was reluctant.

I was only a little younger than Danielle the first time I saw an
erotic dance, and the dancer was so numbingly awful, I didn’t go back
for 27 years.

In hindsight, I understand what that dancer’s problem was: She
wasn’t dancing her own sexuality. Instead she was going through a
series of motions someone perhaps had mistakenly told her were sexy.
Most likely, she was pandering to the crowd for tips. Witnessing that
ugly farce was enough to put me off erotic dance for almost 30 years. I
certainly didn’t want Danielle’s first experience to be anything like
mine.

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