Author: Chris Bodenner

Dish Intern Wanted

by Andrew

[Re-posted from earlier today]

It’s that time of year again. Dish Publishing LLC is seeking an all-purpose intern to handle both administrative tasks and contribute to the editorial process. The admin side of the job will include: dealing with press inquiries and permissions, helping with support emails, managing the staff calendar, taking notes during meetings, making travel arrangements, and generally assisting the executive editors and me with sundry tasks. Strong organizational skills and attention to detail are musts. You need to be self-starting and pro-active in getting shit done.

The editorial side of the job will consist of ransacking the web for smart and entertaining nuggets, maintaining our social media presence, working on larger research projects, and helping the team guest-blog when yours truly takes a vacation. We prefer individuals who can challenge me and howler beaglemy assumptions, find stuff online we might have missed, and shape the Dish with his or her own personal passions. Reporting experience is also a big plus as we try to deepen our coverage. Someone with a background in web entrepreneurialism could catch our eye too.

The full-time internship pays $10 an hour, includes health insurance, and lasts for six months. The position is based in New York City. Since the Dish doesn’t have an office, most of the work will be done from home, but the staff meets regularly for lunch and coffee meetings and social gatherings.  I want to emphasize that this is an intense job for the intensely motivated, and one that can get a little isolating at times. But it’s a pretty unbeatable chance to learn what independent online journalism can be as an integral part a close-knit team. We’ve decided to pare down to one intern to keep our lean budget under control, which means the one individual really does have to be special. You have to already know what we do here and care deeply about the Dish. And a sense of humor is a real asset.

We are hoping to hire very soon, so don’t delay if you’re interested. The cutoff for applications is next Friday, May 30, at midnight. The start date is July 7, but we are flexible. To apply, please e-mail your resumé and a (max 500-word) cover letter to apply@andrewsullivan.com.

The Intercourse Is For Fun, Ctd

by Chris Bodenner

In case you have the song stuck in your head too:

A reader is worried about TMI:

There is a reason you leave out the discussion of sexual pleasure in the sex talk with your kids: they are KIDS!  They still think the other gender is yucky.  Even when people kiss, kids are grossed out.  You should get a jump on the game and tell them the facts of life BEFORE they are interested in sex.  After I told my son the facts he stated “I’m NEVER doing that!”  My daughter’s response was “That sounds really uncomfortable.”  The basic facts are so preposterous to them they would never believe that people do it for fun!

Another reader notes:

Several year ago, the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ developed a series of sexuality programs that provide age-appropriate information for children, adolescents, and adults called “Our Whole Lives”. For example, the 27-session program for grades 7 thru 9 dedicates a class session to lovemaking and pleasure.  This curriculum also dedicates a class session to masturbation, including the myths and facts about masturbation (e.g. the fact that masturbation is one of the safest sexual activities that a younger adolescent can engage in).

Another:

Three quick anecdotes:

1) Mom told me flat out, “Well, it feels really, really good. Of course God made it feel really really good! If it was boring like brushing your teeth, no one would ever get around to making babies!”

2) The first non-parental person whose opinion on the subject made me TRUST them was my Sunday school teacher in high school, who also said flat-out, “Sex is FANTASTIC. You’re going to love it, trust me!” (And then went on to explain how we should be married first, but still … it was so refreshing to hear someone tell the truth!)

3) As a kid, I knew my dad had a vasectomy because it was all part and parcel of my adoption story – Mom and Dad had children before me who died stillborn, and that was apparently going to keep happening (this was the 1960s), so dad got “fixed” and they adopted. Then when I was about nine, we had a male cat who got “fixed”, and while petting him, I discovered he had an erection. I went to Mom: “Hey, I thought when we ‘fixed’ him, he couldn’t do that anymore.” And Mom laughed really hard and turned a bit red, and said, “Well, no, what man would sign up for THAT?!” – which is when I realized we weren’t talking about the cat anymore …

Another anecdote from a reader:

My middle school science teacher (at my Catholic school) always made it a point, when we got to intercourse and reproduction, to tell us that “God made sex fun for a reason.” Whether you replace that with “nature,” “evolution,” “spaghetti monster,” or “Allah,” the point stands. I never really appreciated how progressive that was, much less in a Catholic school in the South, but the more time goes on the more I respect what she did. She was a phenomenal teacher all-around, and a big part of that was complete honesty with her students. What’s the best way to make humans reproduce? Make the method of doing so a complete blast!

Keep up the good work. I’m on my second year of subscription and have no regrets!

Guys Fake It Too, Ctd

by Chris Bodenner

Though not really the gays, according to this reader:

Maybe men having sex with women fake it. Men having sex with men don’t, since, well, the juice is part of what men like about sex with each other (as delicately put as I possibly can), even with a condom.

I’m a gay man who has more than once not reached an orgasm with a partner, or had a partner not reach one with me. The thing is, I understand what may be going on with my partner and he doesn’t have to prove anything to me by reaching an orgasm. I certainly understand what I’m feeling and experiencing and have no problem saying “I don’t think I’m going to cum tonight.” I’ve found that true with most of my partners.

I’ve had some pretty good sex without an orgasm, and did not think it was a flaw in me, or in him, that I didn’t or he didn’t or we both didn’t. For that matter, I’ve had some mediocre sex where we both had orgasms. Plus, as Dan Savage has noted in a video posted on this blog, men know of several pleasurable ways to be together and reach an orgasm besides penetration, which seems to be expected in a male-female pairing. Must be a straight thing.

It’s also more of a straight thing because orgasms are more elusive and idiosyncratic among women than men, as this reader can attest:

I am a 50+ year-old woman who’s had slightly fewer than 10 sexual partners. I have gotten into trouble from sexual desire. I have committed adultery from sexual desire. I am a single parent because of sexual desire. But I’ve never had an orgasm during sex. I have never had an orgasm during sex.

My first orgasms were when I was 12 or so.

They happened in the swimming pool of a friend of mine. I discovered that if I had a somewhat full bladder, and I propelled myself up and then floated down in the water a few times, I could trigger some awesome spasms between my legs. I didn’t know this had a name, I only knew I liked it.

I get turned on during sex. I’ve had partners who know what they’re doing. But I’ve never had an orgasm during sex. And I’ve always felt inadequate because of that. And yes, I fake it. Although the faking is no fun and doesn’t add to my enjoyment. I’m only trying to satisfy what I think are my partner’s expectations.

The only orgasms I get now come early in the morning, again with a full bladder. It’s as if the muscles around my urethra need to be teased into spasms. When I wake, sometimes if I press down on my vulva and clitoris, I can trigger the same orgasm I enjoyed as a child. But I can’t make this happen during sex.

And so I feel like a failure at making love. I’ve been with the same man for seven years. He’s good. He’s got a mechanic’s feel for torque. He’s had plenty of experience with other women/wives. And I fake it because I don’t want to admit that I can’t come. And this is miserable in a big picture sort of way.

Why don’t the numbers of women who never climax during sex force the conversation to admit that we are normal too? That sex can be over-the-top enjoyable without orgasm? Because it is.

Another female reader:

I’ll accept that faking it can be a relatively benign deceit, especially when having sex with someone you don’t intend to see for long. But I would never recommend it with someone you actually care about, because the downside can be profound (speaking from long ago experience in a my first serious relationship).

I did it once kind of innocuously, and then felt I had to do it a second time, and then it just became a downward spiral that left me lonely and frustrated and him suspicious and confused. He was a crappy partner and I pretended it felt great but I was never wet. Ehhhh. I cringe remembering it. It was just a bad, bad thing. I never got a chance to learn what would actually make me come and he never got the chance to become better in bed. In the end, it killed the relationship, and I vowed I’d never do it again.

Love At A Distance, Ctd

by Chris Bodenner

The discussion continues:

That reader in a semi-monogomous relationship with his GF who has her own place can live as they please but still have each other … and that’s great – without kids. With kids that’s called an amicable divorce.

Another skeptic:

So this reader is in a non-monogamous relationship with someone they don’t live with. Congratulations, you’ve discovered dating. This is not exactly a breakthrough.

I met the woman who would become my wife when we lived on opposite sides of the country. I moved to be with her and we married a year after I got to town. But even before we got hitched, we lived together. I love her, so I want to be around her. Like everyone, we have times where we recharge individually, but good grief; I couldn’t imagine saying “I love you, I’m so grateful to have you in my life, now go away.”

There’s also the joy of intimacy, and I mean real intimacy – of having someone in your life, of giving yourself to them, of just being around someone. My wife isn’t a roommate with benefits. This is not someone I dig and want to hook up with occasionally. I love her. It would be insane not to want to be around her.

But another reader has had success with living apart together:

Can we talk some more about LAT? It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. My long-time partner and I maintain separate households in neighborhoods about a half-hour drive away from each other, but we’ve lived together periodically when circumstances dictate (I had to get out of my place for awhile while it was being worked on; he had to sublet his place for a few months while he was unemployed).

Living together just hasn’t worked out so well for us. Both of us live in an expensive city, so our places are small, and we have very different styles when it comes to maintaining our space. I like a clean, peaceful place, and he tends to leave a trail of clothes and crumbs wherever he goes. I sometimes like to binge-watch shows on Netflix, which he hates. Living together, domestic resentments piled up (I don’t like to clean up after another adult, but he’s never going to be as orderly as I am, etc.), and we grew tired of seeing each other morning in and morning out, much as we enjoy sleeping in the same bed, and the focus of many of our conversations were domestic issues. It got boring, even though I find him anything but boring.

We plan to marry, but we will still live apart and date. Visiting each other on weekends and one or two nights during the week  builds in enough space that we have lots of unshared experiences to talk about, and enough space that we’re overjoyed to see each other when it happens. Sex isn’t on the table nightly and therefore easy to avoid; when we see each other, it’s with anticipation. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I want to be with this man for the rest of my life, but sharing a domestic existence would grind that desire right out of me. I’m at an age at which I don’t need a relationship for child-bearing or asset-building; I’m in it for good times, affectionate companionship, and mutual support. It makes sense to keep the good times rolling. Luckily for me, we see absolutely eye-to-eye on this.

Another:

I’ve been so excited to see these posts; they are very comforting to me right now. My husband of seven years recently took a too-good-to-pass-up job offer in San Francisco, moving away from me and our pet rabbit, who live in Boston. It hasn’t been easy, but so far, it’s been working for us. He came home two weekends ago, and we spent the best weekend we’ve had together in years. It’s easier to spend quality time together once a month than every night in front of the TV and laptop screens.

Like the other reader, I see very real advantages to living apart, like moving to the neighborhood he never wanted to live in, and getting the farm share he wouldn’t eat. But as we learn to navigate this new normal in our relationship, it’s tremendously helpful to see that many other people are making it work.

Update from the original reader:

Love the responses, and let me add an addendum: Yes, my GF don’t have (or want) kids (or marriage) which makes it simpler for us. Exactly: for us. We don’t think that our way is for everyone, yet people who criticize the LATs of the world (and they are legion, including many family members, gay and straight, who push us to get married) assume that what works for them (Living together! Daily intimacy! Every damn day forever and a day!) should work for everyone. We all share certain things in common (the desire for love and affection, intimacy and support) but we’re also all different and people ought to do what works for them without scorning or dismissing those who do otherwise.