@76 - Very late to catching up with SL, and I'm not exactly in your target age demographic, but I'll take a stab: a lot of my expectations of what real sex would be like were grounded in cheesy 70s era porn which is frankly not all that different (if less accessible) from the cheezy het-junk produced today. There was more of the soft-core Billitus style euro stuff, but again: it wasn't really very realistic about what it took to get a woman off or what real sex was like. The myth of male phallic power and the fantasy allure associated with that is timeless. Since porn is about fantasy, I'm pretty sure there will always be a 'natural" bias towards un-real over real and this will continue to distort things.

For women this amounts to: learn to use your words to set him straight! I'd seen plenty of fantasy sex, but I was so desperate for real sex, I was more than happy to settle for (and was open to) the conditions she wanted to put on it. Most guys will actually be similarly willing. This is a totally straight female cultured thing: wanting people to come pre-rolled/pre-programmed to meet their needs without them having to assert these needs themselves. Now we can blame the porn...BS. Men are just as clueless with or without porn.

@1 Crinoline, @2, saxfanatic, and @3 sea otter: Dang!! Sorry I missed you three, too! My bad.
Yes---it's actually a bit of a surprise to get positive attention after years of being plump and awkward. That was my doing, though, to poor diet.
@4: JJunAus: Okay, I'm curious now: what on Earth does "MILF" or "DILF" mean?

@13 & @14 chi_type: Sorry for such a late entry--I missed your post!!
Thanks for your comments! Ya nailed me!! Spot on!

@91: Ophian: Thank you so much! It has been a blast of a birthday!
And the sun's back out again!! Yaaay!!

@105 sissoucat: Thank you and bless your heart!! It's always so nice to hear from you, too!

@lolorhone re: @107 (nocutename) I second that!!

By the way, I love Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone series, too!
We're up to Y now? Is Sue's "W is for..." book out yet?

Y is for....
Yell
Yearn
yaddayaddayadda
yikes!

I'm 41, just coming out of 10 years of marriage and am in a similar situation to Inactive. I've also lost some weight recently too.
I actually yelled at a (much younger) guy on the street yesterday because he said I was beautiful, yes, I felt like an asshole for doing that as I walked away, but a lot of women get intimidated by that, I did!! It was scary!! And I don't know why it was scary, it wasn't him, he was sweet, but I felt a big knot of fear come up. Having spent most of my time in relationships, that's not something I have had to think about for the last 13 years at least.

Younger men have made a beeline for me, too in the last few months, I've been seriously hit on by a 20 year old, 23 year old, and 26. It's a very strange place to be. I have tattoos that are older than 2 of those guys, ffs.

I would say on the down side, *significantly* younger men just don't have the experience or maturity, or seem to care about anything other than getting their own rocks off, in my very limited experience, and I don't want to be used for that, but I know I have probably just encountered a few assholes and got unlucky.

On the upside, Inactive, make the most of it! I intend to, when I am good and ready, but I know I'm not there yet. I need to get past yelling at guys on the street first when they try to give me a compliment. ;)

@nocutename and vennominon:

A table full of Republicans? It would be my pleasure! Since I consider politics and religion polite conversation topics, I'd thrive. And since I was raised quite far left-wing, but also with a heavy Catholic influence, and with conservative grandparents, I'd be just in my element.

One of my last memories of my grandfather is him telling my mother to move to Afghanistan if she liked it so much, and me to go back to Europe if I didn't like the Bush administration. He was a sweetheart!

And the anti-gay bigoted evangelical I got into an argument with on a relative's FB thread turned out to be another relative who didn't even know he had European cousins...

Mr. Ven @111: I think we basically agree. There's no foolproof strategy for seating arrangements; I was just asserting a preference for being known rather than categorized.

Auntie Grizelda @116:

1) The feeling's mutual :)
2) "W" Is For Wasted comes out September 10.
3) [@115] MILF/DILF: Mom/Dad I'd Like To Fuck (the reference is from American Pie, which was basically Porky's for the 90's if a little sweeter)

Ms Migrationist - I assumed it would be your element, and was just trying to think of something that Ms Cute might experience as comparable to my being at an All Straight Table without any foreknowledge of like interests.

Ms Cute - Of course, one can endure anything and even manage to have a decent or a good time despite a rotten seating assignment. I have endured being described as straight by a host who had set me up as a woman's "escort" without telling me, but never attended another function hosted by that person again. I hope you had a few sharp words with the bungling matchmaker. Best-case scenario in my book for the sort of assignments you describe would be a friendly You Owe Me One; sometimes things just work out badly for someone. I just have the perhaps typical minority point of view that if anyone is going to get shafted it's probably Da Queerz at the top of the list.

It did occur to me this afternoon while I was hitting tennis balls that I have been underestimating the number of gays who seriously prefer straight culture. 9I am specifically avoiding my usual "same-sexers" because this is a potentially thorny issue for bisexual people who don't want to come across as Oppressor Wannabes, and it's much more rare among lesbians, hit as they are by the double whammy. I call it a variation on the White Woman Wearing a Hat [or Walking Through the Fields in Gloves] theme.) Speaking as a GGGM (an acronym which is in no way Savagerian), I find it much more pleasant not to consider the GWM Santorum voter than to remember his existence.

Or perhaps I'm just greedy, thinking that, if I'm going to hold out for an Austensplaining Half-Table, there's no extra harm in hoping for a Gay Austensplaining Half-Table. One doesn't want to preach entirely to the choir; there is Recruitment to be done.

(Sad side note: This month we will see the first Solheim Cup ever without the marvelous Laura Davies representing Europe.)

Mr. Ven: No, I was more of the "no harm, no foul" frame of mind. The two of us were the only single middle-aged people at the event, and I'm sure my host put us at a table full of couples and hoped that somehow trying to match us up wold mitigate any hurt feelings. I had none that needed mitigating. Logistically, I was a problem for the host, after all, since the table sat 12 and if he didn't seat the one single man there, too, there would have been wasted space translating to too much over-crowding at a different table. No sharp words were necessary.

Oh, dear, one of "those" events. I'd be inclined to suspect that in general the conduct of the host would be more likely to create problems than solve them, but you know the people involved.

I imagine that, had the seating been arranged in an attempt to disguise the fact that the two of you had been placed at the same table as the only singles, your counterpart would probably have been the most fascinating person at the event, and you'd have been irked all evening at being placed on the opposite side of the table.

And of course Logistics so often trump all else.

@114: "This is a totally straight female cultured thing: wanting people to come pre-rolled/pre-programmed to meet their needs without them having to assert these needs themselves"

It's more complicated than that -- it's more like we have incompatible desires ('needs' feels too strong), one of which is to not be assertive about our desires (since that wouldn't be "appropriate" for a woman).

In my twenties I told my now-husband that I didn't need to come during sex, because I had a sort of reflective-orgasm whenever he had an orgasm. I believed what I was saying, and so did he. I can even still sort of get into that mind-set: receiving someone's orgasm can be very pleasurable. But, seriously, it's not the same as orgasm! I just wanted to not have to deal with the fact that I found it hard to orgasm during sex, so I came up with this story which left us not dealing with the issue for several years.

"it's more like we have incompatible desires..., one of which is to not be assertive about our desires"

Well, what is the source of that? Nature or nurture?

I don't doubt the truth of what you are saying, but it seems to me a balance is in order...and really, doesn't lack of balance lead to:

"But, seriously, it's not the same as orgasm!"

I'm not saying she shouldn't tell her partner "I want you to be assertive and take the lead here and do things like...". Bitching about porn teaching men the wrong things is another form of "not hav[ing] to deal with the fact that I found it hard to orgasm". That sounds harsh and I don't intend to slam you at all...I just feel like you're basically making the same case as me: that getting what you really want means dealing with difficult challenges.

I had the good fortune pretty early on to have a partner who was able to speak up and tell me she had a hard time orgasming and what it took to get her there, and it set me on the path of paying closer attention to my partners.

Gah, that didn't come out quite right...need to proof better.

I get that these are conflicting desires - the desire to get what you want as well as the desire to not be assertive (that not being assertive is in fact part of being taken and ravaged) - having to ask kind of spoils the whole mood. I think post-orgasm pillow talk is a good time to ease in suggestions and comments. JMHO.

@AFinch (#s 114, 126, 127) and EricaP (#125):

I know EricaP doesn't need me to speak for her, but I don't think she was "Bitching about porn teaching men the wrong things" when she said "It's more complicated than that -- it's more like we have incompatible desires ('needs' feels too strong), one of which is to not be assertive about our desires (since that wouldn't be "appropriate" for a woman)" in response to "This is a totally straight female cultured thing: wanting people to come pre-rolled/pre-programmed to meet their needs without them having to assert these needs them."

First of all, she doesn't mention porn at all; she just tried to deepen and make the conversation more nuanced. Secondly, Erica has never been anti-porn, but is more porn-positive than a lot of women. She's also very much in favor of people speaking up for their own satisfaction.

But she's pointing out a truism: not only does telling someone what you want feel antithetical to a certain sexual set-up (ravishment), it also seems (to some) to be exemplary of the kind of assertiveness that is equated with unfemininity and is, therefore to some, deeply unsexy and a big mood-killer (see mydriasis). More importantly, for some people (particularly, I think, young women), it is almost impossible, since they honestly don't know yet what they want or need to orgasm.
I can totally sympathize with EricaP's post @125, because I said virtually the same thing when I was young. I had several partners who would have been so happy to oblige me whatever I wanted, but I had no idea what that was. When I first started having sex as a late teen in 1980, I expected a man to somehow intuit what I needed or wanted. I had never had an orgasm so I couldn't tell him what worked for me, and besides, everything I read had talked about the man *giving* the woman an orgasm. So he should be able to do it, right? After I had had several sex partners and none of them *could,* "give" me an orgasm, I internalized that failure as meaning that I wasn't capable of orgasms. And after a while I just felt like I was being pushy and difficult. It became easier to just say that my pleasure wasn't an important part of the experience. I was incapable of telling someone what I wanted until I knew what it was, myself.

I don't blame my inability to know what it took to get me off nor my ability to communicate that on porn or the books I read in the late 1970s.
It is true that most people could and should be more communicative about what they like, porn setting unrealistic expectations or not. It is also true that many people have a very difficult time articulating or sometimes even identifying those needs and desires.

Porn probably sets up some unrealistic expectations, but I doubt that you can blame porn alone for a partner's ignorance of what it takes to get an individual to orgasm.

@ Finch

I'm also not Erica but it seemed to me that something she was hinting at was the fact that men and women have very different experiences which you're slightly trivializing by suggesting women want things rolled up nicely for them.

Women are taught to give people what they want, men are taught to go for what they want. Is it not clear that men are the ones who have it easier going into a heterosexual relationship?

I myself stand really far outside this because I'm a very assertive person (when I need to be, though I prefer to be doting when I have the choice) and also because what I like sexually matches what men like sexually with astonishing fidelity (unless they're trying to do what they've learned women like).

But it seems pretty plain to me that womens' problem doesn't come from a place of entitlement ("I want everything perfect without having to ask"), it comes from a place of disadvantage ("I want x or y but it's extremely hard for me to ask for it because it's been drilled into my head not to"). Even I struggle to understand this on a visceral level and I've been 100% female my whole life, so it doesn't surprise me that it's clearly not intuitive to you.

@117 Chandira: Thanks for sharing and congrats! That's where I am, too.

@120 lolorhone: Thanks so much!! I can't wait until Sue's "W is for Wasted" book comes out!!! XO :) Thanks, too, on the clarification on the American Pie terminology.

@129: God. That is so true. Spot on, mydryasis, and certainly why I am proceeding (heterosexually at least) with caution.

Aunt Griz @130: Anytime :)

@nocutename - no, no, I totally get that Erica was adding nuance: I'm the one that made the link between blaming porn and the desire to not have to express your desires...I get what Erica was saying and I don't disagree.

My question was more: is this a culture thing, or a hardwired thing. When I say "hardwired", I'm thinking of:

- Cienna Madrid's frequent SLOG posts about street harassment.

- this weeks SLOTTD from a woman whose hormones have changed (and libido shifted into high gear) following the discontinuation of HBC

- the FtM transgender man on This American Life who was blown away/bowled over by the way going on testosterone kind of took over his brain and turned him into "a monster".

I'm very sympathetic to what EricaP was saying and I meant it when I said, 'it can kill the mood' if your fantasy - if the thing that gets you hot - is not taking control and spelling it out - but rather, being taken control of. As a straight guy, it would be like a woman obviously faking it.

My question is simply: where does this come from? Is it all cultural conditioning?

Porn makes a horrible "how to" manual - it might, at best, be a means of arousal - but I can't imagine that constantly worrying about giving the camera a good shot is conducive to making contact in the right way with the right bits...and how many people are quiet breath holders naturally? This is the striking thing about real amateur porn - you can't "see" things so well, and the sounds aren't so clearly scripted.

I was merely attacking the idea that the increasing availability of increasingly hardcore porn was somehow teaching boys to grow up to be terrible lovers.

Just popping back in to say I agree with everyone here. I don't know, AFinch, if it's nature or nurture. But I think most cultural conditioning still works to make it harder for young women to know what they want and to ask for it. Maybe some "It Gets Better"-style staged videos could encourage young women to see a range of what women want, and how to talk about it.

I do think your suggestion is a good idea: "I think post-orgasm pillow talk is a good time to ease in suggestions and comments."

@130: Shit! Sorry for the typo---I meant mydriasis, not mydryasis.

@Auntie G

;)

@6: If it's the person from that boring TED talk, it sounded like she goes for the "young and dumb" variety of dude and that was more of a problem than any "porn addiction".