Dorie Morgan’s Rising Up
Navigating Twenty-Something Suburban Life
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Archive of "sex" Category
A Very Romantic Rising Up Valentine’s Day
Our first Valentine’s Day as a couple was rough. In fact, it was so bad it made me wonder if Brian and I should even get married. I was drunk, there was a card with a picture of a dead rat (that I suspect Brian went out to buy while I was drunk) and then there was crying. We never had the intent of making a big deal out of the day but then it somehow was a big deal.
We were inadvertently trying to keep up with the Jones’.
Except Mr. and Mrs. Jones had crazy money and went out for a romantic dinner with flowers and chocolates and jewelry and more presents and we were just two drunk twenty somethings with a card that had a picture of a dead rat.
The Jones’ may have won that night.
But it changed the way we thought about romance and now those pesky Jones’ don’t have anything on us.
Romance is baking cookies together on a Tuesday night (try our chocolate peanut butter chip macadamia nut cookies… they are amazing). It really doesn’t matter what we make though. It is the time together that really matters and playing in the kitchen is a fun way to enjoy each other’s company with the TV off.
Romance is going to the community ice skating rink on a Friday night for the open skate. Sure the place might be filled with obnoxious teenagers and might resemble a roller-skating rink during the 80’s. Its fun to remember doing those things when we were younger and now enjoy new things together as adults. Plus we get to split a soda at the Penalty Box (the refreshment stand) and giggle as the teenagers point and laugh.
Romance is pouring over paint colors while we plot and plan what our home is going to look like. We plan ridiculous color schemes and watch as the other one squirms. We make suggests that we think the other will love even though it may be something we hate. We get to envision our future together and share our ideas.
If you are starting to notice a theme, romance has nothing to do with gifts or expensive dinners or showy displays of affection. Romance has everything to do with experiences together. Those experiences don’t have to be expensive but there’s nothing wrong with it if they are (but if the only good experiences you have are expensive experiences, you have some other issues we should probably be talking about instead).
Without the day to day experience romance, the gifts are meaningless.
Last year, Brian bought a beautiful jewelry chest for me and after our first Valentine’s Day together, I was shocked to receive it. It wasn’t opening the present that made the gift romantic – it was filling the box with treasures together. Remembering the ring he gave me on our honeymoon. Smiling about the diamond earrings my grandmother gave. Carefully tucking away his stainless steel ring I wore as an engagement ring until we found the right engagement ring. Without the memories together, it would have been just a box with stuff in it.
This year we aren’t doing anything special for Valentine’s Day. There will be no fancy dinners out. There will be no tickets for the theatre. There will not be any lavish gifts.
There will only be a man and a woman who love each other with a pure heart. There will only be me and my true love. After all, he is stuck with me.
Babies: How many should you have?
Last week in California, a woman gave birth in 8 babies. And by gave birth, what we really mean is that she had a c-section because humans are not animals designed to give birth to 8 babies at once.
The woman already had 6 children. She’s a single mother. She conceived all of her babies through in vitro fertilization.
And now America debates: How many children should a woman have?
And once again, America is talking about events that transpire between a woman’s thighs.
If this woman had birthed 14 babies naturally and without fertility help, people may raise a few eyebrows about the fun she must have been having at night but America would not be discussing her reproductive decisions. But her children appeared with the aid of fertility drugs and that’s where this gets messy. Why did she feel the need to be pregnant once again after already having 6 children? She was a single woman, she was pursuing her Master’s degree in counseling, she was living with her parents.
While the whole situation makes me shake my head in disbelief, I still must ask the question: since when is the number of babies a woman has any of your business? The last time I checked, that was an issue between the mother, the family, the doctor and God.
Yes, there is a concern if the state is picking up the cost of the children. Neonatal care for 8 babies does not come cheap. Diapers are not cheap. Formula does not come cheap (let’s face it: she doesn’t have the milk production that would happen if the mom had 8 nipples). Babies are expensive. And yes, there is a concern from the insurance company regarding the cost of hospital care and what they are legally obligated to pay.
But beyond that, why is America concerned? Is it genuine compassion and concern? Or is it, once again, a side effect of our voyeuristic tendencies and our chronic know-it-all behavior?
My belief is the latter.
But here’s the big problem with our behavior in this situation: by sticking our noses in another families business, we make it easier for our own lives to be invaded. Sure, the woman has 14 children. Maybe that does make her an easy target. But what happens further on down the line?
Could I someday be criticized because I want to have four kids? Would that become the government’s business, the community’s business, your business? Would someone outside of my family with no knowledge of my health or my ability to parent be able to make a decision about what was too much?
Or a scarier thought: could it someday be determined that you were not having enough children? Could the government or the insurance company someday inform you that you are expected to have three children when you really want one child or no child? By opening the door, this could go both ways although one way is much harder to comprehend.
Really, this situation has nothing to do with a woman in California who opted to have 14 children. We want to say it is to ease our minds but we’re only fooling ourselves.
If we are really honest, if we really want to think critically about the situation, we have to realize that this has everything to do with reproductive rights. The conversation is taking place in a different package than Roe vs. Wade but the heart of the conversation is the same. We’re okay talking about abortion these days even though it can still get a bit heated at times but we’re okay with it because we know what to expect. Person A is going to talk about how life begins at conception and Person B is going to talk about it is the woman’s body that matters and then Person C is going to say it is not a decision she could make but she will never restrict another woman’s right to make that decision.
So is it anyone’s business if a woman decides to use help to get pregnant by utilizing fertility treatments? And is it anyone’s business if she becomes the mother of a multiple birth? As a society, do we want to create a minimum or maximum number of children a family is expected to have? And does a single woman have a right to be a family with her children? Or is a family just a mother, a father and children? Where does this leave single parent households, grandparents raising their children’s children, gay couples and the polygamists?
Falling in love with fiction
Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children; life is the other way around. ~David Lodge
I haven’t been blogging as frequently as I want to because I fell deeply in love with Twilight last week. Translation: In the last eight days, I’ve read the first three books twice. And flagged my favorite sections with post-it notes and gone back and reread those sections.
It’s like book crack and now I need rehab.
I should have realized I had a problem when I tried to convince my husband to drive me to all of the places I needed to go so I could read. But I didn’t realize it then. No, it wasn’t until I was sitting an exceptionally long red light thinking about getting the books from the back seat that I realized I had a problem.
I’m okay with my obsessive book tendencies. This isn’t so different from when I was a kid – I realized when I was about 7 years old that I could hide in the bathroom to read because no one would bother me there (my mother must have been convinced that I had intestinal problems for years when really, I was sitting behind the bathroom door with my nose in a book). I also kept a night light in my room until I was twelve so I could read at night when everyone thought I was asleep. It was a sad night when it was finally discovered that I was always so tired from reading well into the early morning hours.
So last week, I let my whole life fall by the wayside so I could read Twilight with desperate need. My husband was confused by it. He’s not a reader. The more I consumed of each book, the more annoyed he became (the ride to Sam’s club may have pushed him over the edge). And the more annoyed he became, the more I grew in love with the characters.
It was so easy to fall in love with the characters too. Why? Losing yourself in the fantasy of a fictional man is effortless. Books don’t write about how he leaves dishes in the sink, the toilet seat up or that he thought it was a great idea to start making fun of your mother’s cooking at the last family reunion. Books are about the desire, the urges, the emotions that are not dirtied by day to day living.
In a book, we never get to the part of the story where the woman loses interest in sex and the man can’t get it up in a moment’s notice. Or if we do get to that point in the story, it’s because we started there and we then discover how something sparked passion again. In a book, we feel the initial passion for the first time and we remember the passion that may have waned in our own lives.
All of this got me thinking: If someone were to write about my life with Brian, where would be the part where our “story” would be “over”? The beginning part of our story is easy. We meet. I avoid him. I realize I’m falling for him. We go on one date. His mother dies. We court. We decide to get married. My parents flip out. I cry. Nine months later, I finally become Mrs. Morgan.
But from there, what happens to the story? Does the story go on to talk about my own cancer scare from last year, which ended anticlimactically? (Thank God, there was no tumor.) Or does the story go on to tell about me making sandwiches in the mornings and doing laundry at night? Does the story go on to weave words of how we sit around playing World of Warcraft together while passing a bottle of wine back and forth?
When we fall in love with fiction, whether that is movies, books or any other type of fantasy, do we set expectations for our mates that can never be reached?
There is a very fine line between high expectations and the impossible.
Why I Believe in Chastity as A Spiritual Discipline
Chastity. Scary word. My gut reaction is instant dislike. It reminds me of celibacy, of sacrifice, of doing something for no good reason. Chastity was a praised virtue in my home as a teen yet there was no real reason behind it and my mother probably would have fashioned some sort of chastity belt for me had I held still long enough for her to put it on me. Chastity was a virtue that was never defined but expected and the lack of definition left it blurred with celibacy and fear in my mind.
The dictionary defines chastity as:
1: The quality or state of being chaste: as a: abstention from unlawful sexual intercourse b: abstention from all sexual intercourse c: purity in conduct and intention d: restraint and simplicity in design or expression
2: personal integrityThat’s a lot of meaning to leave undefined.
Upon further dictionary reflection, we can also learn that “chaste” means:
1: Innocent of unlawful sexual intercourse
2: CELIBATE
3: pure in thought and act: MODEST
4: severely simple in design or execution SYN Chaste, pure, modest, decent: shared meaning element: free from all taint of what is lewd or salacious.Translation: once you lose chastity, you can never get it back.
Well, then. What about celibacy? It is another very scary word. It was interesting to learn that celibacy has more to do with being sexually pure and a vow to never marry than with simply not getting any.
Still. Why should I care about chastity? What was it going to accomplish? What was the point of keeping my sexual flower intact? What did I have to gain from it? Did God really care if I was virgin? After all, in the Bible I was supposed to be property handed from one man to another and slavery was okay…. since those standards had changed, why should chastity be any different? Was God going to stop loving me if I had sex? I was desperately screaming out for one good reason to remain a virgin, yet none was being provided.
I wanted a good reason.
Needless to say, I went out and had sex. And nothing bad happened. God did not descend from Heaven to punish me. God was easily pushed out of sight, out of mind. He did not seem all that upset that I was getting some. In fact, I discovered that I was damn good at what I did and I enjoyed it too.
The first time I realized how good I was, I kept thinking about how my mother always told people that I was a jack of all trades and a master of none. Oh, I was a master of one alright. I prided myself on being able to meet needs, wants and desires that men never knew they had. Chastity was something for the archaic Biblical students that I made fun of on a regular basis.
I went along quite happily like this for about six years.Around the time I came to the conclusion that “I can’t get laid in this town without these pointy fucking shoes and my feet are so black and blue”, I started to realize that my plan of attack might not be the best one. Sex was usually physically fulfilling, it was hit and miss with emotional fulfillment, but at the end of the day, it just was not enough.
So I changed.
I’ve been reading a book titled “Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity”. It is amazing. Very well put together, very well thought out. I soon realized that I finally found all of the answers I so desperately sought in high school.
Chastity was not about not having sex. That was merely a consequence of its purpose. It was not about controlling me. It was not about forcing me into an antiquated patriarchal system, designed to hold me down. Chastity was not about making my mother happy or avoiding motherhood.
Chastity was about bringing me closer to God.
Now I should say that I have had sexual experiences that I do believe have brought me closer to God. All of my sexual past has taught me quite a bit about myself, about other people, about men and women, about Christians and Jews and many other believing/non believing types. It has taught me about my own value, about the values that I admire in others, and about the inconsistencies in my own life. I do not want to discount any of those experiences in any way, shape, or form.
But.
I am now left with questions. Why is chastity a spiritual discipline? How will it bring me closer to God? Can I become chaste after being so unchaste? Will I forever be damaged goods? Will the Christian community damn me before I ever get a foot out the door? Will it get easier with time? Why didn’t anyone ever tell me that it was a discipline?
I am starting to wonder if there might be more teen virgins in the Christian community if it was explained as a discipline. I had no problem as a teen with the concept and execution of tithing. It was so ingrained in me that I knew it was something I needed to do. I really only developed a problem with tithing after I realized that God didn’t strike me down the night I put out. If God wasn’t going to punish me for the sex, drugs, and rock and roll, He certainly wasn’t going to punish me if I didn’t tithe. It all made a previously effortless discipline all that more difficult.
I can’t exactly say what makes chastity appealing. It is a number of things. But that isn’t the point. The point is I am becoming closer to God. It is a lot easier to see my own flaws and faults when I am not hiding behind my ability to attract and bed any man of my pick. While I think I was always authentic with others, I did not have to face as many demons when sex was in the picture. Sex could replace almost anything.
Sex is an easy and comfortable vice of choice.
Something I’ve discovered: Even when I practice chastity, I engage in a large amount of unprotected sex. Sex without a condom is a thrilling experience – not only is there an increased pleasure but there is also and increased thrill. Nothing adds quite the same excitement as the subliminal risk of herpes or the clap. The knowledge that the pleasure could cause so much pain makes the Sexual Roulette such a turn on. You might get an orgasm or you might get AIDS.
Sometimes, you get both.
The sex I talk about now is emotional. I haven’t had sexual intercourse almost four months. Yet the last four months have been marked with unparalleled emotional promiscuity. What makes this emotional sex unprotected is that my partners often do not know that they are having sex with me.
Unprotected sex involves some sort of trust. Committed relationship. Husband and wife. Lovers not fuck buddies. Unprotected sex should be carefully planned and orchestrated. This is not an event to be entered into lightly. In this day an age, most married couples do not truly have unprotected sex until they are ready to reproduce.
New question: have I been committing emotional rape?
Clearly, there are ramifications. And only recently did I realize how frequently I did this. I always knew that laundry was a form of emotional sex for me. I deeply tie my emotions to my ability to provide and care for another person. By taking pride in a man’s appearance, I take pride in him. There is something more emotionally binding to me about cleaning his clothes than there is about having sex with him.
I’m also discovering other acts that are emotional sex. Book lending for one. Words have such an intimate meaning for me. Its one thing to lend a text book. It is another thing to lend a dear old friend of a book. That is how I get myself into trouble. My markings, the inner workings of my mind in relation to the author are exposed. In essence, I am exposed in a way that I might not be ready for and in a way that the other person may never realize. I don’t know how detrimental this could be to me but I’m not sure I want to find out.
Lauren Winner wrote: “Communities working toward chastity ought to have honest and true conversations about sex, conversations that include opportunities for counsel and witness.”
I need to work on that more often.
(Originally published June 28, 2006 on Diaryland)
The Hard Part of Marriage
The most difficult aspect of marriage is realized around the same time that you realize you want to shed some aspect of your life. You can’t. You are now unable to shed the skin you are in when it becomes itchy and uncomfortable. You can no longer escape your bad decisions when they no longer suite you. Your bad decisions now belong to someone else and in turn, their bad decisions now belong to you as well.
In my pre-marriage life, I used to take solace in the fact that I did not choose my family. The egg and sperm that I grew from did not choose each other, they just happened to both be lurking in the same uterus at the time of my conception. I did not pick my parents but they were still my family. And by not picking my family, it became so much easier to distance myself from them or discount them as people. I may be sharing genetic material with them but they chose me.
As a married woman, my family now is my husband. And I did choose him. I decided to marry Brian just as Brian decided to marry me. I decided to love him and build a life with him. I decided he would be my family. And for that reason, I am not able to discount him or distance myself from him for the simple reason that it was all my choice. I am married to both Brian and his decisions.
Sometimes this scares the crap out of me.
When we first completed our walk down the aisle, I suspected that the most difficult aspect to relate to the fact that I would be having the same sex every night with the same man for the rest of my life. And as the play-ette I was in my single days, this was a bit concerning. There would be no more bad day sex with an ex-boyfriend. No more mid-week booty calls. I would be having sex with Brian until we were either too old to have sex or until one of us died. Surprisingly though, thus far, it hasn’t been that bad. In fact, I find that I like it and the lack of a chase for sex means I have more time at night to moisturize, therefore maintaining my youthful appearance for as long as possible.
But along with the consistent sex comes the consistent marriage. When Brian does something dumb, I can’t just walk away. I can’t through the towel in because I’m pissed off that Brian didn’t get my car fixed in a timely manner. When he comes out with a statement involving a bad idea being “really great”, I will still have to deal with the aftermath of that idea in the morning. And when I do dumb things, which I do constantly, I can’t just walk away from it. Suddenly, I have discovered that I must deal with the consequences of my actions.
My life choices for the first time have truly become life choices.
Life as a single person is transitional. Your friends, your job, your hobbies – these all can be replaced and no one needs remember but yourself. After marriage, someone will remember all of these things and more. My life story has now become so entwined with Brian that now he is my life story and I am his.
It seems the binding of marriage has hit me in ways I did not know how to prepare for.
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