Category Archives: Education

The Futility Closet

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Twitter has a habit of bringing interesting things into my life, such as the Scarlet Alliance sex work conference late last year, interesting people, the occasional client, and today, a new podcast!

Introducing the Futility Closet podcast.  It is an interesting mash up of historical stories and facts.  Here’s the synopsis for todays episode:

An amazing tale of interspecies friendship

The lyrebirds of Australia were highly mysterious and rarely seen until one fell in love with an elderly widow in 1930. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll trace the development of their surprising friendship and how it led to an explosion of knowledge about this extraordinary species.

We’ll also learn how Seattle literally remade itself in the early 20th century and puzzle over why a prolific actress was never paid for her work.

It was the story about the lyrebird that caught my attention, but on closer examination there was a lot more interesting information to be had too.  I have had it playing in the background most of the morning as I have worked my way through my list of new years tasks (like catching up on banking).

If you have a more science oriented mind, then you could also check out the Radio Lab podcast.  It’s one of the best that I have ever heard, but then I am a bit of a science geek/nerd!

John.

We need to talk about Ashley

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In amongst the outrage, fear, and moral grandstanding over the Ashley Madison user database leak I came across this article:

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/ashley-madison-hack-what-if-you-find-out-your-colleagues-on-the-list-20150820-gj3i4y.html

It is about the most sensible and humane piece of journalism that I have ever read. In answer to the question: “should I look up the database to see if X is on it” the author just say “no, leave it alone”. There is wisdom here.

Women come to me for many reasons, some, because they cannot get the sexual satisfaction that they desire in their lives from their partners. Some do it with the partners knowledge and permission. Some do not.

But “cheating” isn’t the problem here. “Cheating”, with all of its derogatory overtones is what happens when we live in a society that is dysfunctional in how it handles sex and relationships. Why do people “cheat”? Some because they can. Some because they feel that they have no other option.

What we need to do as a society is collectively “grow up”. In an ideal world, there would be no need for a service like mine. But the truth is that there is no genuine attempt to teach children, teenagers, and young adults how to develop and maintain functional relationships, let alone give people space and acceptance as they work out what their sexuality is and what they need in their lives. We can’t even allow – in this country – that two people of the same sex can have a genuine functional relationship.

We are trapped in a social narrative that starts with fairy tales and “ends” with white weddings. Then we have to live the rest of our lives trying to live up to this impossibly high standard of happiness and reliance on one other person. In short, it’s impossible for most people. Just look at divorce rates. And just because people are still married doesn’t mean that they are happy and fulfilled, or wouldn’t like something more or different.

Which brings us full circle to Ashley Madison. It’s time that we left our moral outrage at the door. Recognised that people and relationships are complex, that judging others by our own morality is wrong and destructive, and that we need a new order in our lives that prioritises real human needs and wants, rather than religious dogma and social etiquette that is demonstratively harmful.

Recognising same sex marriage would be a good start, but a rethink of even the concept of marriage would be even better.

John.

Sex – what matters?

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From:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jul/29/britain-shares-sexual-fantasies-neil-bartlett

by Neil Bartlett

“Far from being something best left to priests, pornographers or politicians, sex is something people want to think about for themselves.”

Every week I meet someone new who embodies the statement above. Sometimes more than one person. Usually it is women who after years, often decades of their adult lives have thrown off the constriction of sex being “owned” by priests, pornographers, and politicians (and a disapproving “public”). They come to me for many reasons, but mostly because I let them think about sex for themselves. Let them participate in sex any way they want, without judgment. This is no small thing, because sex and more correctly our sexuality is not something that we can push down and repress without consequence to ourselves and those around us.

So I like Bartlett’s statement above. It is an accurate summary of how I and most of my clients think and feel.

“My own advice to my younger self, now that so many strangers have told me what they are really up to, would be simple: when we have sex, we’re not looking for plumbing – but for meaning.”

This is of course Bartlett’s own personal message to himself. But it is also the closing statement of the article and I think that it misses the point that he made directly before it (which I quoted first). Sex is about what you want and need it to be for you, right now. Sometimes that may be a search for meaning for someone (although I don’t think many people come to me for that). Usually it’s about plain simple pleasure, or personal growth, empowerment, healing, even survival.

So I don’t think that Bartlett is fair to characterise sex as being only about “plumbing”, or “meaning”. That sells it so very short. We want to think about sex for ourselves. Discover what it means for ourselves. Not be told by an artist, or anyone else what it’s about. We want to do it, we want to enjoy it, Sometimes we want to film it. Sometimes we want to share it. Sometimes we want to watch it. The list is almost endless.

However, more often than not we find that the world is set against us in some way when we think “gee I would really love to…”. Social convention, marriage, laws, friends, family all say “no” tacitly, or explicitly. So the thoughts stay in our heads most often. And there they breed conflict within ourselves as we weigh them against the values that the rest of the world – the priests, the pornographers, and the politicians – say we should have. We wonder who we really are and we doubt ourselves, instead of experiencing, rejecting, accepting, and ultimately learning.

I am glad that Neil Bartlett learned something from his exhibition and the feedback that he received. But lets not allow his personal insights to narrow the discussion once again. Lets keep it completely open. Especially for young people, who’s sexuality will ultimately be shaped by the society that we create, and they live in.

John.

Being who you are can be very hard

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I saw an article today in the local paper that caused me to want to write something. You can see the article here:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/how-one-man-thinks-he-can-change-the-samesex-marriage-debate-in-10-minutes-20150721-gigw8w.html

In summary, the gentleman who is the subject of the article is gay. He grew up in a small town, with (one can imagine) little or no support, and the horrible prospect of homophobic reprisals against him if he came out to friends and family. He survived though, and ultimately his story is helping others and even influencing politicians.

What resonated with me though in this article is the fear and pain that Lachlan felt because he was different. Different to his friends and family. Different to the social stereotypes that society and the media propagate. Different to what he thought he should be.

This last item is perhaps the most insidious. It’s one thing to defend yourself when you have confidence in who and what you are. It’s another thing entirely when you can’t even trust yourself. So this is my topic for this post: understanding and trusting ourselves.

As you know I work as a male escort for women. I came to this work for a number of reasons, but perhaps the key reason is that I love sex and (if I may say so), I am good at it. I like having lots of sex. And I like having sex with more than one person. As a male escort this benefits everyone. As a person in a “regular” job and a monogamous relationship (which was me for most of my adult life) it left me feeling a little like Lachlan. I didn’t fit in to that society. I didn’t fit in to that world. I was ashamed that I loved sex, because society told me that really loving sex wasn’t ok, oh and it probably meant that I was a pervert too.

The truth though was and is for me, for other men, and also for women that many, many of us love sex. We love it a lot. We want to have it. We are sick of being told that we can’t, or it’s not right, or it’s not normal, or it’s bad. These things are untrue. They are figments of the imagination of a demented society that tries to deform people’s minds and sexualities, be they gay, straight, lesbian, bi, queer, asexual etc.

You do not need to doubt yourself. You do not need to be ashamed that you like sex and want to have it – no matter how vanilla or chandelier swinging kinky. It is one of the great pleasures of my work to see a woman who comes to me knowing what she wants, but barely able to ask for it, blossom into a person who knows and trusts her body and her sexuality. One of my clients has gone on to become an award winning maker of feminist porn. Others have found relationships that fulfill their sexual needs. Some have overcome their personal fears and inhibitions to be able to enjoy sex in a way that they couldn’t in the past.

I don’t claim credit for these transformations. I am simply part of the journey that these women took to being able to own their sexuality, no matter what it’s form.  This is something that we should all be able to do and should be supported in doing.

John.

 

All about sex – a writing project

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In my recent post about sex education I suggested that it was time for me to write something on the topic.

In the last few weeks I have started on this project and am delighted to say that it is progressing well.  My intention is to publish parts of the book here as they are completed, or at least knocked into a reasonable shape.  I expect that it will be an ongoing project that evolves over time as I get feedback and more experience with the process and subject.

So.  Stay tuned.

John.

It’s time that we had REAL sex education

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Following on from my recent post about beauty in our society I want to write something about sex education. It’s a topic that I have cared about since my ok, but rudimentary sex education in high school. I was prompted today by this article in the local paper. From the article:

So it is not uncommon then for a female student to graduate high school having never received any formal education on topics such as natural lubrication, the clitoris, female masturbation or the female orgasm, even though the male equivalent of these topics were first broached way back in primary school.

The inherent asymmetry this creates then stigmatises female pleasure, while reinforcing a phallocentric model of sex. Thus male pleasure is centrally coded into the experience and attributed hyper significance, while the female orgasm is treated as taboo, embarrassing, irrelevant or even non-existent.

Worse still, by erasing female needs and prioritising male needs as paramount, the current model of sex education normalises male entitlement and perpetuates female voicelessness. At a fundamental level, this reinforces the same gender stereotypes and patterns which give rise to sexual violence and intimate partner violence.

For Manon and Lyndsay, this all points to a need for urgent reform, starting with more consultation with young women.

I couldn’t agree more about the need for reform. Also for the participation of young people (girls and boys). And that when we neglect to make sex education broad and inclusive of both genders (and a range of ages!), we help to entrench stereotypes that marginalise women and their right to self knowledge and sexual pleasure.

It is a regular occurrence for me that I meet women who have little connection with their bodies and their sexuality, who have difficulty achieving orgasm, and generally have a hard time enjoying sex. It happens so often that I specifically offer “therapeutic” services to try to assist women and give them a better sex life. It is enjoyable and rewarding work for me, but in an ideal world it would not be necessary.

To this end I have often thought about (collaboratively) writing a set of ebooks for young (and not so young) people about all aspects of sexuality. Not just the biology of reproduction like I was taught at school, but about relationships (straight, gay, bi, open, closed, and poly), kissing, masturbation, oral sex, contraception, consent, peer pressure, penetrative sex, breaking up, emotions, porn, and anything else that people wanted to hear about.

Importantly I think that this sort of material shouldn’t be “one size fits all”, but revised or expanded for gender, orientation, and age. Young people need access to this information, but even us adults need it too some times.

And we now live in an age where (thanks to the magic of computers, smartphones, tablets, and the Internet) we have the ideal means of distribution and totally private viewing for this sort of material. In short the time has never been better to solve this problem.

Having said that, I guess it’s time to put my money where my mouth is and write something. So, a question for my readers: as a young person (or as an adult), what aspect of sexuality would you have liked most to be able to pick up a short e-book and read about?

In hindsight, as a teenage male, I would have benefited most from a book about masturbation for boys/men. I suffered for many, many years with premature ejaculation (ironic I know, given what I do now!) and I can absolutely attribute that to having no idea about how I should have been learning to masturbate – with a view to having a healthy sex life once I had a partner to share sex with. Just a few basic tips would have made my sex life (and that of my first three partners) much more enjoyable.

So, please let me know what you think. I am very interested to hear your thoughts.

John.

Beauty is so much more than skin deep

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A recent hacking incident that lead to private nude photos of women being published on line caused a cascade of responses, one of those being presenters on Channel Seven’s Sunrise program here in Sydney indulging in victim blaming.  This lead Sydney Morning Herald columnist Clementine Ford to respond with a semi nude photo, posted to Facebook with a message “Hey #Sunrise – get fucked”.

It was, I thought a powerful response and entirely appropriate.  The post has been very popular and attracted vast numbers of comments.

Clementine Ford has since published an article in the Sydney Morning Herald talking about the torrent of abuse that her post drew down on her.  Mostly men basically trying to shame her for how she looks.  To her credit she had held the line and not taken the post down despite the very, very personal criticism.

We live in a media saturated world that puts physical beauty on a pedestal (then alternately savages it).  We all know this, but we like to think that the people around us aren’t so shallow – after all, we live in the “real world” not in the celebrity world.  But the truth is that, as Clementine Ford experienced, there are plenty of regular men (and boys one suspects) who are equally vacuous and malicious and prepared to publicly judge and criticize women for their appearance.

Which is why I am writing this post.  It is a common thing for women who come to me to feel insecure about their appearance, or even hate how their bodies look.  Year of subtle, or not so subtle denigration by people around them, and of course the relentless pressure of the media sap their confidence and take away their love and enjoyment of themselves.

I am often asked what I do if I don’t find a client attractive.  The answer is not what most people expect though.  When it comes down to it, I see all of my clients as people, as women, as human beings.  Different shapes and sizes, different interests, fear, worries, and desires.  But all people.  And in every person there is something to admire, something that can arouse passion and make a person attractive to themselves and someone else.

On top of that, no matter what, we are all able to enjoy sex.  And sex transforms people, pleasure makes people vulnerable and beautiful.  Not beautiful in the superficial way that the media would recognise, but in a way that speaks to the partner with whom they are sharing something so intimate.

We all have beauty.  And it deserves to be celebrated.  A big part of what I do is give women an opportunity and the safety to experience feeling and being beautiful.

John.

Living without sex

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I happened upon an article titles Living Without Sex via the Sydney Morning Herald recently. You can see it here:

http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-culture/what-is-it-like-to-live-without-sex-20150329-1ma4lh.html

It peaked my curiosity as most articles about sex and sexuality usually do. I was ready for something similar to an article that I have seen in the past on the subject that left me unconvinced. It was about a group of young people who considered themselves asexual, had never had sex, and weren’t interested in it. There are a number of issues with that situation, but I won’t go into them here. This article however was more relevant I think to the people who visit my website.

It looked at three different women who each had their own life related reasons for not having sex. Ranging from choice to medical reasons. I would like to touch on each briefly and make some comments.

Sara – 43, chose to stop having sex for a year as she found that her instinctive response to men (to flirt and sometimes sleep with them) was making it difficult for her to make good decisions about relationships. I think that this is fascinating, and a lesson that more people could benefit from incorporating into their lives. She found that when she put sex aside that she was better able to see potential partners for who they were and decide if they were right for her. It sounds like a good decision to me. Being able to understand ourselves and why we make the choices that we do and what drives them is the path to making better choices in the future.

Sally Broom – 37, chose to stop having sex for religious reasons. For me, this is more of a negative example. I understand that some people have beliefs that preclude sex, the problem is that many people (including Sally) find ways to excuse themselves from this stricture when it suits them. Then they feel guilty. Or don’t enjoy it. Or feel bad about what they have done. This can lead to very negative feelings about self and sex in the long term. I was raised Catholic, so I understand the way that organised religions can use guilt to control people, especially when it comes to sex. But it can do much more than just control you, it can damage you and your relationship with sex and with your body. My personal opinion is that religion does not belong in our sex lives and should never be allowed to guide our choices about who, how, and when we have sex.

Sally has had the experience of discovering that since she became celibate that she is more engaged in the rest of her life and that other things are fun too. I would turn this around and say: to the person who represses natural sexual desire that you are missing out on something that can be very positive in your life. All things should be done in moderation, including sex, but repressing anything that you love and desire will have consequences for the rest of your life. They may be trivial, or, as is often the case with repressing sexual desire, they may be huge. I have plenty of personal experience in this area and my considered opinion is that it’s not healthy and can go a long way to making you miserable and no fun for the people around you.

Breanna Percy – 24, had a medical condition called vaginismus. Simply put it means that due to fear, or trauma, or some other reason, the muscles of the vaginal opening contract strongly and don’t allow the woman to have sex. It’s a reasonably common problem, and thankfully one that no woman needs to put up with. In Breanna’s case she eventually (with the help of Google – yay for Google!) worked out that she had vaginismus. It still took her a long time though to find a method of treatment. In her case it involved going to the US for expensive treatment at a clinic that uses therapy and vaginal dilators to gradually allow a woman to train the muscles of her vagina to relax.

The good news is that you don’t need to go to the US and it doesn’t need to be terribly expensive. You can easily buy the vaginal dilators online (safely and anonymously) and there are plenty of doctors and therapists around who will help you with the use of them. It is even something that I have done on a number of occasions successfully with clients. Half the battle with problems like vaginismus is knowing that you are normal and that other women have the same problems that you do. Once you realise that and have someone to help who is supportive and understands, then it’s just a matter of a few weeks to do the work and help your body learn that having sex is safe, not painful, and even fun.

So why live without sex? Having sex can be good for your mental health. It’s (another) way to connect with people. And best of all, it’s fun when you know how to do it well and are with someone you connect with. And one thing that I definitely see missing from too many people’s lives is fun.

John.

The world just became a slightly better place

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I saw the following article online today:

Potential new vaccine blocks every strain of HIV

http://www.sciencealert.com/potential-new-vaccine-blocks-every-strain-of-hiv

A new drug candidate is so potent against all strains of HIV, researchers think it could work as a new kind of vaccine.

Developed by researchers from more than a dozen research institutions and led by a team at the Scripps Research Institute in the US, the drug is effective against doses of HIV-1, HIV-2 and SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) that have been extracted from humans or rhesus macaques – including what researchers consider to be the ‘hardest-to-stop’ variants. It worked against doses of HIV that are way higher than what would be transmitted between humans, and works for at least eight months after injection.

This is great news for everyone around the world.  As someone who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s and now works in the sex industry HIV/AIDS has been an ever present fear (for good reason), so news that there may be a way to block HIV entirely with a vaccination is fantastic.

The reality of that solution is still a way off though and of course that only covers one of a range of STi’s that are out there.  Safe(r) sex is of course the very best thing that we can do to protect ourselves, but the thing that often isn’t mentioned is testing.  Many people carry STI’s without knowing it and while it may be uncomfortable to get tested and wait for results, at the end of the day if everyone was tested regularly during their lives, then the risk of STI’s would be cut almost to zero.  If there is a problem, then you can do something about it.  This is why I am tested regularly and why I recommend that everyone (whether you book a date with me or not) should get tested too.

Knowledge is power.

John.

The fallacy of “female viagra”

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Today I saw this article in the Sydney Morning Herald that discusses the race to create a “female viagra”:

http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/multimillion-dollar-race-to-find-a-pink-viagra-20141121-11e1b6.html

There’s a saying that goes … “to a hammer, everything looks like a nail”.

Therefore it is no-surprise-at-all to me that pharmaceutical companies (who as a matter of course make drugs and sell them to people) would like to have a convenient pill to sell to women to alleviate their “sexual dysfunction”. Hammer/nail.

There are so many things wrong with this conversation about why women don’t want, or don’t enjoy sex that it’s hard to know where to begin. Perhaps the most pertinent place is with “male viagra” and to define what it really is, as opposed to what this article (and popular culture) think it is.

Viagra is the brand name that Pfizer gave the drug sildenafil. Sildenafil is a vasodilator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasodilation). In short, this means that it increases blood flow, particularly arterial blood flow (that conveniently carries blood to the penis). This is VERY, VERY useful if you are male, older, less fit, have poor circulation etc. It can make getting and sustaining an erection much easier. But it doesn’t create arousal.

So, viagra gets your blood flowing. But it does not create arousal. Let me say that again: viagra does not create arousal in a man. This is a common misconception, and one embodied in the title of this article. No arousal, no erection, no-matter how much viagra you have popped.

As implied by this article, men rarely suffer from a lack of desire and arousal for sex. What some men lack (due to age, and perhaps less than ideal health) is the blood flow to get and keep their penis hard. Women on the other hand often lack the arousal. Therefore it is pointless – in my opinion – to talk about a “female viagra”. Viagra works perfectly well on women as a vasodilator. The obvious problem is that this doesn’t do one damn thing to increase a woman’s level of arousal. It probably won’t hurt, but it’s not going to change a woman’s perception of someone who she don’t feel like having sex with.

What people who talk about female viagra are really talking about is developing a drug that makes women aroused (or some facsimile of). There is at least one very obvious problem here, so lets address it first: this is sounding seriously shady to me. We usually call these sorts of things “date rape” drugs. You know, things like rohipnol (who’s effects include: disinhibition and impaired judgment). If a woman can pop a pill to become aroused, then what is to stop someone else slipping them a pill to do the same?

I am sure that the pharmaceutical companies would be horrified to hear me characterise their work in this way, but at the end of the day making a pill that alters women’s state of mind to increase sexual arousal is a dangerous and very slippery slope. There is of course a common drug that already does this sort of thing. It’s called alcohol. Used in moderation it can be socially beneficial. Used inappropriately it can be disastrous – and people think that a more powerful version would be better?

A second problem is that, if you are trying to develop a drug that creates the physical responses of female arousal (like vaginal lubrication etc) then you are again missing the point. Having the physical indications of being ready for sex in no way guarantee that a woman will actually want to have sex with the man in front of her. Being wet, or having an erection doesn’t always mean that you want to have sex. Just that your body is ready to do so. Granted, for women who have issues with a lack of lubrication (as many women do post menopause for instance), then this could be a good thing. However that’s not really what the article, or the pharmaceutical companies are focusing on.

So, lets stop talking about “female viagra”. Lets instead have an adult discussion about why so many women don’t want sex. Or lose interest sexually in their partners as relationships age. Lets talk about how the concept of the “nuclear family” (and the social and physical isolation that causes) effects women’s libidos. Or about long work hours (for men and women), stress, debt, consumer culture, social dislocation, negative body image messages, hormonal contraceptives, lack of skill and interest from male partners, social pressure for “conventional” relationships, monogamy, and plenty more.  All of these things play a part in women having sex lives that are unfulfilled.

And that’s where the answers to the question of how to arouse women lie. Not in pills. Not in miracle cures. The problem of how to make a man’s erection last longer and be harder is trivial by comparison. Answering this question requires a revolution in both our thought and behaviour. It’s little wonder that people and business just want a pill! This stuff is hard, bordering on impossible to address. However, if we look hard at our lives, work out what really matters to us as people, then we can start to work on changing our lives to support those things. It’s not an easy thing to do for most of us, but that’s the reality of life. It is incumbent upon us all to find our own path.

John.