Yeah, this book has to be awful. He wants the one page summary of what magic button to push.
Oh, wait. The title says it’s for the “thinking man” — he’s clearly not in the target audience.
Also, 240 pages is nowhere near enough.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Wait, he gave it two stars?
I guess asking what she wants is too difficult.
He probably liked how they had to use a stupid fruit-for-female-sex-organ substitution on the front.
After all – why get messy form sex when papaya makes you sticky with far less hassle?
It”s actually ↑ ↓ ← ← [triangle] [circle]. If we had comprehensive sex ed, everyone would learn the cheat code in junior high.
There is a magic button… but either you know what to do or you don’t. If you don’t, any woman would be happy to teach you, I would think, far better than a book written by a man could.
I don’t think I want this R.Barrett performing any service for me if reading a whole 240 pages on learning it was too much.
I have devoted more time than it takes to read a 240 page book to learning how to pleasure my wife, over a period of years, through simple (and fun!) experimentation, play, and communication.
It involved spending heaps of sexytime with the love of my life. This was not onerous work.
When it comes to this topic I am always reminded of my dear friend Jane:
.
“So we proceed to the clitoris – so difficult to find, so elusive. You know, there’s something women down the ages have wanted to ask, and perhaps I should just ask it now: just how difficult to find, just how elusive is –
.
.
.
front and center?
.
.
.
It’s not exactly hiding. It doesn’t move. It doesn’t go anywhere. It doesn’t pop around to the back in all the excitement.”
he’s never really had any sexual intimacy. He frames it as masturbating with someone else’s body instead. How sad.
Women just need 1 picture to teach about men?
Uh–does he realize how many thousands of pages Cosmo has devoted to teaching about the subject over the past, oh, 40 years?
That only works AFTER you learn to breath through your ears though (and even then let her guide you).
I’ve known a bunch of highly-repressed Charedim (ultra-Orthodox Jews). For some of them sex education consisted of a couple days’ gender-segregated group instruction a week or two before their weddings. Most of it is on ridiculous Bronze Age menstruation taboos. The actual mechanics were sometimes explained with the use of a Cheerio and a toothpick as Cthulhu is my witness. Some vomited, fainted or fled the room.
She Comes First was a revelation to many of them. The idea that not only could sex be fun but the girl is supposed to have fun was wildly liberating. They would have plotzed if someone had shown them The Guide To Getting It On or The Joy of Sex.
#8 – Yes, I love my friend Jane as well.
For the rest of you, go watch the BBC sitcom, Coupling, this very instant. If not sooner.
aquaria
Long ago I posted on a messageboard that was almost exclusively female, most of us teens/20 somethings.
There was a thread about how many of us had actually tried out cosmo tips, and the results; it always went poorly and ended in severe humiliation.
Pleasing someone might be a problem if you have no understanding of anatomy, but as others have pointed out communication is all that is really needed.
groan
Well, the reviewer SAYS a woman faking orgasm is just as good for him for the real thing, so clearly these are the thoughts of a real winner anyway :-P
Of course women fake it with you. You babble about vaginas but ignore the existence of the clit. Like so many machos like you.
Just what I need: a book review written by a twit who hasn’t read the book and is clueless about the subject matter.
@Aquaria
As a man, most of those Cosmo tips make me laugh when I read them, and the rest make me wince. Just saying, I wouldn’t take Cosmo’s word on it. Of course, I also wouldn’t take Ian Kerner’s word regarding women’s orgasms, since the name strongly implies someone who’s not a woman. I personally have found that the best way to find out what pleases my current sexual partner is to ask them, and secondarily to read nonverbal cues. This applies regardless of the partner’s gender, incidentally.
I am a gay man, and I suspect that I know more about pleasing a woman sexually than he does.
Why are you spending time pointing out random comments on the internet?
Silly me. I thought the real pleasure in having a sexual partner was figuring out all the little things that get the two of you off, communicating, and taking pleasure in one another’s joy.
All this time, I could have skipped all of that and just been a masturbatory device for somebody with an MBA. Golly! I’d better go tell my love that a poor marine biologist who cares about my orgasms just isn’t good enough.
jamesfrancesco @ #21
Why are you spending time pointing out people who point out random comments on the internet?
Seriously, who the fuck died and made you King of the Internet, Judge of Content and Ultimate Arbiter of What May Be Said Online™?
Best comment (so far) at Amazon on the review:
I actually read that book after seeing it on the bookshelf of a man who is…very good at what that book teaches. I’ll just say that the author gets a whole lot of stuff right.
As for the reviewer: Sex is a “useless topic” now? Oh wait, it’s just the part that’s fun for us ladies that’s useless. I can’t imagine that he meets many women willing to have sex with him more than once.
Why are you spending your time pointing out the pointing out of random comments on the internet?
Simplify my vagina? How? It’s not exactly the most complex thing on the planet. I think it might be best for the reviewer to have no access, seeing as he considers navigating the dreaded vagina to be overwhelmingly complex and tiresome.
I hear it has not one, but two pairs of lips! Jeez gosh, amirite?
That was funny.
R. Barrett, honey, if you can’t figure it out you don’t belong there.
And, yes, that’s what she said.
Reading the headline, I was afraid this was going to discuss one of the most appalling product lines on the market, the “whitening feminine wash” used in various corners of the Third World to bleach vaginas into fashionable pale pinkness.
(Apparently backlash has caused the major companies producing this abomination into withdrawing it, at least from the English-language Web.)
Pierce:
Eeeeeek.
My vagina is going to live in a small cabin by Walden Pond for a couple of years.
Err, I mean, my girlfriend’s vagina. Yeah.
Silly people, that’s what ladies my age use on their vaginal wisdom teeth.
Removing the minibar and gift shop might be a good first step
It has long struck me how many straight men seem to be extravagantly fucked up (no pun intended) about The Vagina. Given how much of their sexuality is, at least to some extent, connected with It, it seems tragic that they seem at best conflicted, at worst downright demented, on this subject.
As a gay man, I do not find myself squicked about the bits and bobs of other men’s bodies to which my erotic attention is directed; the fact that I, myself, HAVE all the same bits is likely the cause there. Do these men see women as some alien, incomprehensible Other beyond their understanding?
Is the Pope German?
One shiny internet for SamStrange.
Ing:
Pffft, I took those out ages ago, they suffered too much damage from the dentata.
There’s a wonderful sub-plot in Forgetting Sarah Marshall in which a virgin-before-marriage couple on their honeymoon experience some difficulties with sex. Russell Brand as the Rock Star gives the guy some pointers (the two of them dry humping extra large chess pieces is funnier than it sounds reading about it here).
Seriously, though, the U.S. is such a repressed country that you come upon ridiculous situations and clueless people (like our “reviewer”) all too often.
Selected other reviews by “R. Barrett”:
Are these cries for attention or the sad scrawls of a pathetic mysogenist?
You decide.
well, if it’s your girlfriend’s vagina, then it’s your vagina. isn’t that how relationships work?
I just can’t get over the ridiculous assumption that so many women are banging down his door to be his masturbatory instrument that he feels it necessary to instruct us to “simplify” our vaginas for his ease of pleasure over the internet.
And really, the moment a guy admits that a woman faking orgasms is good enough for him is the moment you know he has no, or very little, sexual experience with live people.
The female orgasm is like advertising. Only 50% of what you do does any good, and you never know which 50% it is.
@37
the only explanation I’ve heard is kinda flimsy. It is a problem if your sexuality is based in puritainism; if you think sex is dirty and that women lure you into dirty sex with their bodies and vaginas then it is hard to see vaginas as anything but dirty and weird. This is some old-school shit though, I don’t know wtf to say about reviewer dude, there is no indication either way if he subscribes to such ideas about sex.
Why do they always use suggestive looking fruit and flowers to represent women’s genitals on book covers? I mean really. It’s not a fruit people, it’s a body part.
I dunno, I needed a 200 page book (“Sex for One”) to figure out how to give myself an orgasm. That book was revolutionary for me when I was in high school…I stole it from the library because I was too scared to check it out (don’t worry, I gave it back). Up until then I didn’t even know women could have orgasms. I’d asked Mom what an orgasm was after a throwaway line in a “welcome to puberty” book back in Jr. High, and I was told, “Orgasms are what men have when they have sex.” (Looking back, I really, really hope that she was just too embarrassed to tell me the truth, because the thought that after 30 years of marriage and 6 pregnancies, my mom hasn’t had an orgasm, is just too depressing to think about.)
I was homeschooled. My sex ed was, word for word, “Sex is when the husband puts a seed in his wife,” and it wasn’t until I was 13 or so that I realized it wasn’t, like, a literal, lima bean sized seed that the guy stuffed up your vagina. Also, we watched one of the moms give birth to her 12th kid. Boom! Sex-ed complete! No wonder I read the excerpts of the Ken Starr report that Newsweek published like it was porn.
So, yeah, probably a needed book, and a book that douchecanoe should probably read. I agree, Mr. Myers, the basic facts of pleasure should be taught in sex-ed, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before that ever happens in American schools. (Though I hear the Unitarians have a pretty awesome sex-ed program?)
Oh, what a shame you can’t figure it out, Cupcake.
The fact that he spelled it “cum” says enough about this douchebag for me.
EEB, I knew people who were religiously schooled (not home-schooled, but little difference when it came down to it), highly sheltered and had every activity rigorously overseen. They were much like you, absolutely clueless when it came to sex, let alone the fun stuff like orgasms.
It’s a shame what so many parents are willing to do to their kids, with the mistaken notion of protecting them.
That would be my uncle Ralph who died.
‘Tis Himself @ #51
I’m sorry to hear that :(
On a side note, I didn’t realize you were related to Internet Royalty™! That sounds nifty.
Sam Strange 1
My beer 0
Amirite strate doodz?
Caine:
But but but! It’s dark! And spooky! And there could be… things all up in there!
I do like how this doucherocket thinks that an MBA is a fucking aphrodisiac. I mean, seriously? It seems like every other person I know either has their MBA or is working towards one. They don’t have any more sex than my friend who has his GED and works at the local head shop.
SC:
A particularly pathetic one in this case. Ah, such a challenge to the intellect, those pesky vaginas!
Audley:
I know! That had me laughing. If doucherocket thinks that’s his ticket to the sort of money which will buy him fake orgasms*, he’s sadly mistaken.
*Just how skeevy can this guy get? Sheesh.
@37, @45:
The purpose of women is to make men happy.
Most women do not easily orgasm doing what usually makes a man orgasm.
It follows that the female orgasm has no purpose. This is a mysterious violation of both the laws of unintelligent design and of evolution.
Ergo, we ladies are a mystery and the clitoris is unnecessarily complicated.
I dare you to find a flaw in this logic.
Caine:
Well, at least we know that he’s completely uninformed about pretty much everything.
Yanno, if I could edit my experience growing up in the Catholic Church, before the fear of hell, before the self-loathing, I would remove the fear of sex.
That’s Catholic Sex Education: make you ashamed of your body and your desires until you don’t even want to try. It worked very well on me, unfortunately. I remember attending a high school dance with this cute chick who really liked me, and when she tried to kiss me I literally shoved her away.
Even after a decade of sexual activity with a woman I love, I still struggle with fear and anger and worry and self-consciousness. It should be the most joyous thing in life, but I still… I want to hit things with my fists when it goes wrong. That’s how repressed I can be. I can’t even articulate what I’m feeling with words, I want to shout and put holes in walls.
Holy Mother Church doesn’t just work to destroy the sexuality of LGBT people, though I think they tend to do a greater amount of damage with them – they injure the sexuality of anyone who believes.
Those fucking assholes.
This won’t be too much TMI.
I was the son of a minister, two stuck-up (sexually) middle-and-lower-class Brits. Plus I was a social pariah throughout school and uni, with no male friends to compare notes, vocabulary, and experiences with. That made me sadly (and hilariously ignorant. But it all worked out.
When, at 23, I did make the acquaintance of a (should I say The?) vagina, I had no difficulty finding the clitoris, or finding things to do with it (much to the delight of my girlfriend, who had had a similarly strict upbringing, and hadn’t even explored her own vagina to find her clitoris).
All I can say is: Why or How on Earth do Some Men Find it Impossible to Find the Clitoris? or, having found it, Don’t Want to Play with it and Make their Partners Deliriously Happy?
The greatest obstacle to wonderful sex, I believe, is not primarily all of the physical facts about bodies and such, the names and details — a very basic explanation will suffice. The greatest obstacle is the fucking moronic, anti-sex, anti-woman, anti-intimacy, anti-pleasure attitudes inculcated in so many people — mostly through goddamn fucking religion! Really, a little physical information (enough to forestall unwanted pregnancy and STD’s), plus a loving and forgiving attitude, practice with intimate communication, and a genuine respect for oneself AND one’s partner is all that is needed for the aforementioned Wonderful Sex.
And, yes, I know that the requirements I just posted are rarely taught to any children and adolescents being brought up today. It certainly didn’t happen to me; but I hope that I can do so for my son, who is now thirteen, so that his emotional/sexual life is happy and healthy, regardless of Global Warming and the coming Economic Apocalypse.
Vaginas actually are quite simple – just a sheath connecting the vulva to the uterus. It’s the vulva that’s kind of complex, what with all those parts with their exotic names: labia majora, labia minora, clitoris, and Mons Veneris*. OTOH, it’s not a very large area, so it’s not like you need a road map to get around.
*That is actually my favorite name for a body part, since it sounds like it should be a volcano on another planet.
Despite its length, I have actually read this book and I learned a lot from it. I highly recommend it.
Right, they have less. Much less than the local head-shop guy, at least if my recollection of head-shop guys are anything to go by.
You should check out his other reviews on Amazon. I especially like the one where a T-shirt allowed him to kick lots of ass.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AHDCFV4SRGJ95/ref=cm_cr_pr_auth_rev?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview
I’ve read this kind of book before. 240 pages is a lot of repeating “experiment and see what feels good” over and over and over.
EEB-I can only say my sympathies to you. Oh the guilt for laughing out loud at your post.
On women not having orgasms: It’s sadly and shockingly common.
I have a friend who works for a company that does helping out/personal care-type stuff for old folks and people convalescing from surgery. She goes to their houses and helps with bathing, cooking, errand-running, that sort of thing.
Yesterday she told me that one of her clients (no, she doesn’t name names or identifying information, don’t worry) confessed to her that she’d never had an orgasm. In her 84 years of life. Client lady said she’d spent her married life believing what she was brought up to believe: That her function in bed was to lay there until her husband got off. She had no idea that it was possible for women to enjoy sex or even that they had the right to do so.
Obviously she never masturbated either, or never did so enough to figure out what would make her come. It’s sad but it it’s not rare.
In what world is 240 pages considered dauntingly long? Jesus Christ. Do you tl;dr after one bullet-point?
Josh:
I’ve been wondering about this myself. 240 pages? Geez, that’s a really quick read for me. Perhaps those who find it terribly long need to read more.
Josh:
:( :( :(
Please, remind me to give my sex lovin’ hippie mom a hug next time I see her.
Caine:
Right? I regularly read books that approach 1,000 pages. They look to me like a tasty, meaty smorgasbord. No, not everything should be that long. But yes, you should be embarrassed if by dint of your generation you believe that anything that can’t be distilled into a two-paragraph blog post is an imposition on your mind.
Audley:
Here’s to sane parents!
Oh, and Audley, I’m sorry, but I just must: The very thought of you passively laying there just accepting Mr. Darkheart’s diddling is too funny. Because I know you’d be all like, “You call that FUCKIN’? I’ll show you some fuckin’! Now work that pussy.”
Whoops-my brain/mouth barrier was just breached.
Josh:
Ha!
I’ve killed for less.
(As an aside, I received a text from a dear friend the other day that said, “You were right, sex for fun makes babies”. Boo yeah!)
And teeth. Don’t forget about the teeth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagina_dentata
Josh:
Yeah, me too. A book under 300 pages is more like sorbet, a lovely, tasty sorbet, but not a meal.
Momo Elektra
Oh my, yes, Jane. Haven’t seen her in years, but who could forget her?
Caine, Fleur du mal
You just gotta work it. Then Lamarckian evolution takes over.
EEB
Me too. It is sadly true that women frequently are denied orgasm with their partner because he is too scared, ashamed, lazy, ignorant, or doesn’t care.
I knew a woman who would be around 44 now, who had three kids at the time, who said she hadn’t had an orgasm since she was married (at 19). Which kinda blew me away.
Audley Z Darkheart, ass-sociologist extraordinaire
It’s like the Crack in the Cosmic Egg, or something. Teh woods is a-skeeery at night.
250 pages, for me, is a light afternoon read.
240 pages is a lot if you are reading it like a swing set assembly manual and you weren’t really interested in the first place.
I am now imagining the IKEA instruction manual to sex.
Wait.
There’s a trope for that! Warning: TVTropes.
Read About Love-Richard Thompson
A professor of biology who gives lectures all over the world and debates and fights against creationists who want to put their magic into our science classes posts something about a random comment from a no one on amazon of all places…and I get criticized for thinking that’s weird?
Seriously, Ze Madmax, kiss my ass. There’s a million sexist racist comments on the web everyday, what’s pz going to do, mock all of them individually?
While reading through this thread, it occurred to me to mull over why my mutually-virgin girlfriend and I made out so well despite our cloistered and ignorant upbringings. And the answer stood out quite quickly.
We were atheists — not just atheists, anti-theists, and we deliberately did everything we could imagine as we explored ourselves sexually to break the “rules” we had been brought up with.
Sigh. It was a LOT of fun! (Though in my case, delayed by about seven years. I’ve been trying to make up for lost time ever since.
Who the fuck do you think you are, little boy?
You got criticised for being a fuckwit who bothered with a content-free comment.
Just what the fuck is your problem, Cupcake? Are you the reviewer being poked at in the OP perhaps? A buddy?
Here’s a protip: if you don’t like a specific post, don’t fucking read it, fuckwit! Move on to something else.
By the way, I have a *great* memory for nyms and commenters here (sciblogs & ftb). I’m not remembering you. Why don’t you try to say something of substance instead of just whinging?
Seriously though, 240 pages? There’s two steps to pleasuring a woman:
1. Ask her what she wants
2. Do that
Am I wrong?
…
No, seriously, am I?
I first saw this book as a cashier at Barnes and Noble. I saw the cover picture and mindlessly attempted smalltalk with my female customer by saying “That sure does look tasty!” Then I read the title and there was much embarrassed throat-clearing.
“… which would make my woman at least FAKE an orgasm (Which works for me.)”
Awfully telling of his views on relationships there.
@83. jamesfrancesco:
It’s one thing to think it’s weird. An entirely different thing to -criticize him- for it.
Sure it’s a random comment from a nobody from a completely random source. But what’s the problem with commenting on it? It’s not as if this is the first time something like this has ended up on Pharyngula, and damn well won’t be the last.
jamesfrancesco @ #83:
Of course not. But, if for whatever reason, PZ does run into* one “sexist racist comment on the web,” he can comment on it here because, whaddyaknow, it’s his personal blog. He gets to say what goes here.
If you don’t realize how fucking entitled you sound when you ask the blog owner why he posts about anything on his own fucking blog, well… I’d hate to see you when a restaurant messes up your order.
—
*Because I doubt he spends what little free time he has browsing Amazon book reviews. And even if he did, and that’s how he spends his free time, then it’s his free time! Let the man do what he wants!
crocswsocks:
Nope. :)
Ze Madmax:
People email stuff like this to PZ all the time.
Yes. Various illustrations of how stupid sexism gets are just weird. Just like various science facts. Or various examples of creationist stupidity. And then there’s you, jamesfrancesco.
The lacking element is communication. As a lesbian I’m not entirely qualified to comment on male/female relationships…but, it seems like men get hung up on specific actions or ideas, like thinking “do X and then Y if and only if Z, else do A…why isn’t this working?!” instead of going with the flow and trying to read their lovers’ body language. Or, you know, asking her.
Isn’t it supposed to be about building your lover up and “resonating” with her? Isn’t it supposed to be about learning one anothers’ bodies and synching up and being as close as two people can be? I don’t understand it. I just don’t. Something two people do shouldn’t be so alienating.
crocswsocks:
Actually, I suspect it isn’t really that simple.
From reading various threads here it seems to me that there are a lot of women who, thanks to a prudish and repressive society and education, don’t know their own bodies or how to please themselves. So they may not know what to reply even if asked.
So don’t knock education.
BothAll sexes stand to gain much pleasure from learning both about their own and their partner’s physiology and psychology, in addition to the aforementioned intimate communication.Or so I’ve been told. It’s largely academic to me: I’ve been using my personality as a contraceptive for decades now, and it’s proved quite effective.
OK, TMI
I came to orgasms late in life (fortunately not too late, but I’m sad about all those years of orgasms I missed).
That’s partly because I thought I actually had orgasms. It was not like I didn’t enjoy sex, I enjoyed it lots and lots of it. Until one day I was like wow, what’s that why didn’t that happen before?
And I couldn’t tell my partner before what to do because, uhm, I didn’t know myself.
Fun fact: the similarities in shape between a papaya and a vagina have led to the fact that the Cubans needed to find a whole new word for the fruit…
Someone mentioned the Unitarian Universalist sex ed program – It’s called Our Whole Lives, (OWL) and it is awesome. Although it was disconcerting to get a letter from the church inviting my daughter to attend a sex ed class, it was a great thing. The parent orientation included the slide show the kids would see – drawings of people having sex, including gay, elderly and transracial couples. My daughter now has lots of other kids coming to her to for info at school, including a 15-year-old friend who is expecting a baby this month.
Our UU is partnering with United Church of Christ to offer the program to their congregations, too.
If this crap keeeps up they’ll have to start printing instructions on toilet paper.
Best thread, evah! Thanks for all the TMI. Made my morning. Hat tip to Josh for brain/mouth barrier breach. LMAO!
marcus (lifelong student of the vagina dialogues).
Hey guys, please don’t make the assumption that clitoral stimulation = orgasm in all women. Some women have hypersensitive clits and prefer indirect stimulation, and some are so sensitive that they adopt the, “Don’t touch it, breathe on it or even look at it” mentality. Personally, good ole fashioned PIV sex can work wonders for me in under 5 minutes that 20+ minutes of intense clitoral stimulation can’t. Just sayin’.
Communication, communication, communication. It’s really simple. Just *ask*.
Okay, I know this is framed as a throw-away insult, but
possibleprobabletotally TMI-laced rant to commence (with a danger of veering into self-pitying bullshit, feel free to call me out on it, I know I’m a narcissistic asshole).Disclaimer: I am extremely drunk and haven’t slept in two days. If this is recognizable as English I’ve done better than I hoped.
I’ve never had any sexual intimacy. Period. I’m turning 30 later this year. I’ve been pressured into masturbating with someone else’s body. Didn’t appeal to me, and yeah I know I could have and should have just said “no”. But what’s an insecure 18-year-old kissless virgin supposed to do when dad’s already told everyone what’s going down with the expectation of stories of exploits after and a strong insinuation of “son, you’re gay and I am disappoint” if he refuses? Go and use someone else’s body to masturbate like you’re supposed to, that’s what. Intimacy? No kissing! Pleasure? Hump and finish already, time’s up. What the fuck is this IKEA bullshit? I don’t know, but it sure as shit ain’t fun, ain’t appealing, and is all I know of sex other than second-hand accounts. There’s no connection, no feeling, the filthy shame of (failing at, in my defense I guess) treating a person as a jizz rag, and at least a goddamn Fleshlight wouldn’t have involved eye-rolls and sighs of disapproval. I know, I know, if I didn’t like it and it didn’t appeal to me in the first place (it = ‘sex’ w/o anything resembling intimacy), why the fuck did I do it? I dunno. Maybe I was overcome by teenage insecurity, homophobia, and peer pressure. Maybe I’m really a misogynistic piece of shit deep down and wanted to do it even if my conscience said no and kept me from at all enjoying it. Maybe I’m just a spineless coward.
Fuck, lost my point. I think I was going somewhere with that story, something about what a bullshit pantomime of (what I am told is) intimacy using someone else’s body to masturbate is, but I forget. But it is sad and pathetic, and absolutely worth no pity. Self-awareness goes a long way; the self-awareness to recognize you’re so fucked up in the head w/r/t intimacy and sex that you are not, and never will be, capable of genuine intimacy or a non-pathological relationship, so stay the fuck away. If that dipshit lacks the self-awareness to recognize that his idea of sex is a form of assisted masturbation, the desire for which makes him a horrible waste of life, don’t feel sorry for him. He should have the decency to crawl into a hole and crasturbate it out.
(Maybe I’m just drunk, but also maybe that last few bits reads as snark. Not intended as such. I really mean in all sincerity, fuck that guy if he doesn’t have the decency to recognize how worthless he is and recuse himself from the entire concept of “intimacy”.)
hahahahaha “freethoughtblogs”
more like “don’t question my god pz, his ways are beyond you” blogs.
I bet you all just love the drama thunderf00t’s been stirring up, too. I looked at his blog hoping for another wonderful science article, and saw him bitching about supposed strawmen by pz (i’m on pz’s side for that one, do i get points with you drones now?). I’m guessing you all just eat up that gossip shit, though.
bunch of drama queens
and i love how on “freethoughtblogs” no one responded “because he felt it was a good way to get a discussion going”, “you don’t think it’s worth time?”, “I ran into it while browsing and thought it was interesting”, or even the one reason that would have shut me up: “becuase i felt like it”
glad to see you’re all so mature here.
Funny how idjits who say this think “freethought” means agreeing with them, and not thinking for ourselves. Not very freethought yourself.
This from an idjit who can’t even capitalize? Immature be they name…
>Funny how idjits who say this think “freethought” means agreeing with them, and not thinking for ourselves. Not very freethought yourself.
Funny how you missed the point and I was criticizing you for NOT thinking for yourself. Not very literate of you.
>This from an idjit who can’t even capitalize? Immature be they name…
this from an IDIOT who can’t even spell?
Jesus Christ and fuck me sideways with a baseball bat.
jamesfrancesco, are you 12?
jamesfrancesco, why the fuck are you bringing that shit here? Oh wait, it’s cause you’re a fucking troll trying to derail the thread you fucking jackass. Go fuck yourself.
Sure, I’m 12. What are you guys? 11?
wow, good points there, you sure got me.
@JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness
Why the fuck didn’t anyone just answer the question or not reply at all? Oh, because you’re hypocritical and think having an opinion different than the great pz is “trolling”.
i love how I’m “trying to derail” the thread by reflecting on the thread. good call there.
Why the fuck should we counter you with good points when all you have is bullshit? All you’re good for is troll-stomping practivce, and even then only for troll-stomping neophytes like myself. Veteran Pharyngulistas have pooped more impressive trolls than you!
Hey, luckily there’s nothing problematic about that term, right?
James, he posted about it because it’s his fucking blog and he felt like posting about it.
There, James, you satisfied? Can you now please stop turning this into the Jamesfrancesco show now? Coz it’s kind of boring and if I wanted that, I’d read jamesfrancesco’s blog. Oh wait…
uh huh sure.
because questioning him is bullshit.
ooooooommmmmmmmmmm all hail pz
ooooooommmmmmmmmmm all his posts are gold
ooooooommmmmmmmmmm
jamesfrancesco:
So you know all of the obvious reasons why PZ would post something like this on his blog, and decided to chime in with your vapid query anyway, with no apparent goal but trolling. People recognized that you were trolling and yelled at you a bit.
And their success in realizing that you’re a troll and not wasting effort on fruitless attempts to engage you… somehow signifies their immaturity?
Boy, you are a bright one. Go forth and shine your light elsewhere, your intellect is wasted here.
>James, he posted about it because it’s his fucking blog and he felt like posting about it.
Yeah, that’s actually a legitimate answer.
Nice to know I’m not allowed to talk or reply, else i’m turning into my own show.
Bow your heads! Only praise shall be allowed here!
damn you guys get bent out of shape easily.
Questions are only as good as the evidence used to answer them. And PZ has the evidence, which has been shown here ever since I arrived 4+ years ago. You don’t have any evidence, which you would have led with if you had some. So all you have is unevidenced OPINION. Which means you are trolling. Show otherwise with evidence….
jamesfrancesco
Because we’re suppose to only reply the way you dictate or not at all?
Fine, let’s play this game.
Let’s look at your comment:
WHERE THE FUCK IS THE QUESTION IN THAT PILE OF BULLSHIT?
I’ve had a similar experience as many of the posters here. I was raised in a conservative Christian family, where my ûber-Catholic father held sway (not that my WELS mother was any better) and besides the general mechanics of intercourse, my sexual education was “If I find out you’ve been screwing around before marriage, I’ll kill you!” Of course, back then I was quiet the right-winger myself, so I more or less came to the conclusion that sex was something only to be enjoyed by married, heterosexual couples. In fact, I loudly condemned anyone my age who had a differing opinion because… well, because “God” said so. In high school, I was once sent to the principal’s office for calling a female classmate a “slut” because she said their was nothing morally wrong with pre-marital sex. At the time, I thought I was the innocent one. After all, I had God on my side.
However, there was masturbation. Despite both my parents assertions that self-pleasuring was a sin AND detrimental to my health (my mother claimed that it would lead to infections), my curiosity (and hormones) won out and I spent many a delicious private moment discovering what my genitals could do. One day, a teenage boys’ worst nightmare occurred: I was caught red-handed (or, in this case, rosey-palmed) by my parents. My parents yelled at me for about an hour before grounding me for a month. My enraged father asked me “What are you going to do next!? Rape a 10-year-old girl?!?!”
Throughout my teenage years I never once dated. First of all, my parents wouldn’t let me. They seem to have this strange fear that no sooner I would be with a girl other than my sister, I would crawling into bed with her. Also, since I was a “geek” and a “spaz” I was on the dead bottom of the adolescent social hierarchy and therefore unworthy of female attention. I remember one of my high school tormentors telling me that I “couldn’t get a $2 whore to fuck you even if you paid her $2 million.” I believed him. The beatings he and other bullies helped.
I clung onto my sexual prudishness well into college until I met a young woman through the College Republicans. (Yes, I was a member.) She asked me out and with a single word (“Yes”) I had my first girlfriend at 22! I won’t get into the details of our relationship beyond that, but it was around on third date when I officially shed my “abstinence-only” morality.
However, looking back, I wish I had shed them a lot sooner.
wow. yeah, guys did a great job of showing me you’re no drama queens
i’ll let you think you won and say i’m out. bye
Oh wait, I found your question up at #21
Why the fuck are you bring up TF00t on this thread which has nothing to do with this topic or your question?
People have answered your stupid fucking question. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like the answer you fucking weasel.
Now you get to answer mine.
Although I’d rather you just go fuck yourself with a porcupine instead of turning everything about you and your love affair with TF00t.
This is the sign of an oblivious troll:
Made no effort to engage or present evidence, just complained like a true ineffectual loser would. Why it would want to show that to the world via the internet is beyond the ken of normal people.
I recently saw a slogan that sums up the troll’s psychology:
Hey PZ,
Thanks for this thread!
After reading this thread last night, this morning my dear hubby took a nice long time to prove that he’s already an expert on this subject!
BTW, we’ve been married nearly 36 years.
Funny how someone actually had to explain to our new buddy what should be obvious to anyone vaguely familiar with the whole blog concept. Apparently PZ is not supposed to be like other bloggers, he’s only supposed to write posts that are truly Serious Business.
localnebula:
I don’t think you’re a misogynistic piece of shit or a spineless coward, localnebula.
I am very sorry you didn’t get the understanding and support you needed growing up (or now). That’s actually a huge part of our ability to be intimate later on in life.
I had major issues with intimacy myself for many, many years. It’s one hell of a struggle and it’s not worth the fight for a lot of people.
I’m also sorry a strikingly stupid troll detracted from your post. I’d offer you a hug, but I know some peoples don’t like that. If you’d like one, though, consider yourself virtually hugged. Or awkwardly patted on the back.
Caine, send the hug anyway.
Internet hugs arrive in the privacy of the huggee’s home. The huggee can then apply said hug only to the degree they are comfortable with: try it on for size, accept or reject it, in whole or in part, without the pressure of possibly offending the hugger to their face.
iHugs are really cool that way.
So, localnebula, please accept one of my signature big bear-like hugs, but deal with it in your own way.
localnebula: Everyone experiences sex in a different way. For some, sex is barely more intimate than a handshake, and just as easily initiated and completed. (Please note that I’m NOT shitting on people who are like that; it’s just a neutral descriptor of some people’s sex lives, you know, the ones who say, “What’s the big deal, it was just sex!”) For others, sex is ONLY really experienced and valued in the context of deep emotional honesty and intimacy.
On the whole the emotional-based intimacy one is better for me, though I have had a whole range of sex, from just-for-funsies to major commitment.
localnebula, you’ve identified the kind of sex which is valuable, important, and significant for you. That kind of self-awareness is a very good thing to have. I’ll send you a hug, and encourage you to keep your standards. When you find the person you can have that emotional intimacy with, I believe the sex you will have — will make you happy. The only thing to you have to, as hard as it is (and it’s hard) will be to emotionally expose yourself so that you can find someone who values intimacy the way you do.
It’s a bumpy road, and you have my best wishes.
@localnebula
Just when you think that you are the one with a tough row to hoe…
I feel for you my man, and I send out another iHug your way. While my own issues pale i comparison to yours, It seems we’ve both have had really shitty childhoods with at least one really crappy parent who screwed up how we relate to people. I’d like to say that it gets better, but at 37, I’m stil dealing with my own emotional problems; some caused by others, some brought on myself, and some utterly biochemical. If you haven’t done so already and you can afford it, I reccomend you look into a psychologist/psychiatrist to help you through this.
Any which way you choose, we are in your corner.
If it helps any, it wasn’t until I was in my mid to late thirties before I began to actually resolve all the issues my childhood had left me with. Life can get better – don’t give up because you’re in your 30s.
Oh, I’ve got a TMI share.
If you’re still reading, that is.
I did not realize the vigor with which my parents instilled in me a taboo against ‘touching myself’ until I had been masturbating for several years. I learned, in high school sex-ed class, that most boys masturbate by touching their penises with their hands. I was flabbergasted, and tried it myself (not in class). No go. My guess is that my early boyhood experimentation had been noticed, and strongly discouraged, leading me to the frottage method. I was well into my twenties when I first managed to bring myself to orgasm manually.
I am quite certain that my fifteen year old son is masturbating, and equally certain that I will do nothing to stop him from doing so. Although I HAVE insisted that he put his dirty socks into the laundry basket himself.
On this note, I find it appalling that there are otherwise relatively reasonable guys I know, in my age group, who seem to regard going down on a female partner as something you’d “resort to” if you “had to.” WTF? :(
Or rather, “om nom nom.” ^.^
Don’t understand that. The Redhead tends to get very incoherent and hyperventilates if I go down on her. That makes it very fun to do.
I can’t imagine NOT going down on a woman during sex.
Okay, since we’re sharing here, I was on another discussion forum at lot like this place, years ago. It was called Mr.Cranky.com, a bad-language-themed movie review site. All the regulars got to know each other very well, and over about 10 years, we met in Toronto, Boston, Cleveland, Seattle, and a few other places.
Anyway, one day some guy asked the impertinent question, “Have any of you guys ever tasted your own come?” There was fumfering around, and one guy described a time when, at fifteen and very flexible, he had contorted himself enough to kiss the tip of his penis.
I chuckled (on the forum). I said I had tasted my own come hundreds of times, as, unless there were objections, I always went down on my partner after I came, to make sure she had come. It was a revelation to me that many men found/find that icky, horrible, and “gay.” It was then that I began to realize (with gratitude) what I had missed: having guys who would share their sexual experiences — and all of their biases and stupid, stupid hangups.
jamesfrancesco in a nutshell:
“Joke’s on you, I was just PRETENDING to be a complete waste of neurons and an embarassment to the intellectual accomplishments of humanity! You fell for it! Who’s stupid now? Huh? Huh?”
“I can’t imagine NOT going down on a woman during sex.”
Unless you’re already married or otherwise committed, I’d say it’s something you should leave yourself open to. Some women don’t particularly care for it but will tolerate it, and some women flat out hate it. Personally, although I can orgasm that way, usually I just find it distracting and less fun than fucking, so 9 times out of 10 I’ll just drag my husband up by his hair after a few seconds.
julielada: As I said, “Unless there are objections” And, yes, I’ve met some who have objected. As long as they were happy otherwise, I’ve always gone along with their lead. As for me, well, I don’t get what’s so great about blowjobs. (Which has led to a few interesting conversations.)
Reading this thread, I think I’m going to have to give my mom a big hug and kiss and maybe take her out to dinner.
Here’s my TMI–I was masturbating by the time I was five, and it turns out she knew about that. The whole time. And she did not burst in to stop me, or confront me about it, or otherwise attempt to prevent me or shame me, or even bring it up (I only found out long after I was a full-grown adult). She felt it was a natural thing that kids will tend to do at some point and that it didn’t need her input (and believe me, this is is a lady who’s got input for every situation!). I don’t know how screwed up I would have been if at five years old my mom had berated me about masturbation and demonized it. I was pretty solidly bonded with her at that point, and every word she said was God’s Own Truth.
Sure, if it was going on in inappropriate settings that might have been different, but it wasn’t. And though I (and my sister) do plenty of bitching and fighting with her about things we think she did wrong, this is definitely something I should let her know she did right–which every parent needs to hear. And yes, this is exactly the type of thing I have always been able to discuss with her too–another good thing about her, I’m beginning to realize! (Remember that ep of Frasier where Roz is talking to someone on the phone about some recent boyfriend and how he was in bed, just like it was a girlfriend, and it turned out to be her mom? That’s us!) And if dad didn’t like his daughters expressing sexuality, my mom was right there, ready to tell him to stuff it! And when I wasn’t bringing home any guys (I wasn’t ready to date, I was focused pretty heavily on school and didn’t want distractions) she had a talk with me and assured me she wouldn’t be upset if there was a girl I’d like to bring home–she was actually worried that maybe I was repressing lesbianism for fear of disappointing her, and she wanted to make it clear that I didn’t have to do that, that it was okay with her if I was a lesbian!
Thing is, this is such a taboo subject in most quarters that I didn’t even realize how good I had it with my mom in that arena. So often you just focus on the crappy stuff and assume that everyone shared the good experiences. Thanks to her, I at least know myself and what turns me on and don’t have any weird shame-based or guilt-based hangups about that either. And when I’m ready to date, I have a good idea of what to say if I’m asked the question “what would you like?”. Reading about some of these situations, with parents doing all sorts of nasty or creepy things trying to control their kids’ sexuality, 80 year old women who have never had an orgasm, women who grew up thinking their own sexual pleasure was meaningless or nonexistent if not evil incarnate, and women married over 30 years who wouldn’t know what turned them on if you asked them, I’m beginning to realize how lucky I was.
I’m gonna think of something special to do for her now!
Also, typing “Simplify[Vagina]” into Mathematica does nothing. Even “FullSimplify[Vagina]” is no help. O.O