Savage Love

1. Romance novels are this particular intellectual woman’s dirty little secret. When the narrative suddenly devotes an entire paragraph to describing in vivid detail the color variations of a male character’s eyes, that’s the clue.

   Porn, meh. I find it depressing – but maybe I wouldn’t if I were just watching it “for entertainment value” rather than feeling that I was expected to get off on it somehow.

   What is missing for me from most porn is an element of humanity, humanness. Tenderness. There should be suspense at the outcome, at least in terms of WHEN and HOW – most porn has such a foregone conclusion that the tension of uncertainty, which is a huge turn-on for me, is missing altogether.

   Adult fan fiction, yeah. I loved those Kirk/Spock cartoons. It felt so intimate to watch some character I knew from seasons on TV and suddenly I could watch his cock. It wouldn’t have meant anything if it had been a stranger.

2. June @95: The wording of his letter — “My wife dates men on her own, and I get to enjoy the occasional threesome with her and one of her partners” — indicates pretty strongly (to me, anyway) that the agreement is that the husband doesn’t get to pick outside partners, not that he is lazy.

   Why that might be is not explained in the letter. Is she insecure about letting him off the monogamy leash unattended, while he is perfectly cool with her doing the same? Is it that threesomes are his favorite thing, but for her to find them palatable she has to be the one to choose the third? (So of course she is going to choose a partner that makes her the most comfortable, which is to say, one of her guys. Again, there is no indication from the letter that either of them is bi.) Whatever the reason, it really looks like the wife is in control of the situation.

   At the risk of repeating myself: ITASP, your wife is getting her fantasy life pretty much the way she wants it, while you are getting at best a warmed-over simulacrum of yours. That isn’t fair, and it isn’t very GGG of her. (And no, neither of the options that you present — whether it’s her continuing to bring home the same losers but pretending more convincingly to enjoy them, or you taking her at face value when she claims to be happy, while obviously just going through the motions — is GGG either. This needs to be fixed.

   One fix might be what Dan suggested: she can either make sure her guy waiting at home is properly satisfied (i,e, make the effort to bring home people who make the threesome satisfying), or forfeit the right to go get her own satisfaction elsewhere without regard to him. Another fix might be to that she makes sure he is satisfied at home or else forfeit the right to keep him there. In other words, he gets to go out and meet his own needs, just like she does, instead of relying on her to meet them. (Depends on whether this is something he actually wants.)

3. Something that (straight) guys generally aren’t into, perhaps even repulsed by:

   gay porn.

   I am a woman who enjoys man on man love. No straight man I have dated has enjoyed it. Most were repulsed. Though cupcakes are amazing, the porn sounds sounds way better for sexual needs. Two men fucking while eating cupcakes? Even better.

4. @Maddy811:

   “Written by straight-identifying women”

   Hold it right there, buddy. We queer ladies like our slash, too.

   (Sorry if I come across as snippy, but if I never hear “slash is written by/for straight women” again, I will die happy.)

5. @Maddy811:

   Written by straight-identifying women

   Hold it right there, buddy. We queer women like our slash, too.

   (I’m sorry if I come across as snippy, but if I never hear “slash is written by/for straight women” again, I will die happy.)

6. Boo, double post. Sorry about that. In my defense, it took literally twenty minutes for my first comment to show up on the thread.

7. Porn equivalent for women? Romance novels.

   There are a lot of women, especially older women, the ones who would never in a million years be comfortable with something identified as porn, who get their erotic/romantic thrills in the pages of a Linda Howard novel.

   Once, on a considerably less sex-positive board, I threw out this notion – that reading romance novels was roughly the equivalent of a little internet porn surfing, or going out on Saturday night to see the dancers, and my, you should have seen the feathers fly.

   As a middle aged, pretty sexually conservative straight woman myself, though, I can’t really see the difference – a pleasant little thrill, external to the marriage and no threat to it unless devotion to it excludes the real human being in the bed there with you. Same same.

8. Women have another sex life that repels men, is completely external to their relationship, and most find quite satisfying.

   It’s call the Romance Novel.

   In my opinion it’s not as good as porn, but for women like my mother and sister, it is used the same way.

   What’s more, romance novels also have the same negative side as porn. They create unrealistic expectations that your average man is completely incapable of living up to.

   Now I don’t think we should ban romance novels, the same way that I don’t think we should ban porn. Nor do I think women should be ashamed of reading them.

   But you can’t deny that there is a real similarity.

9. Opps. Sorry for repeating your point, agony.

10. @25 A bit late to the party, but, EXACTLY! Gay porn is twice as many hot men! And what’s with the limp dicks or no dicks in straight porn? Last time Mr. Canuck and I were in a hotel and ordered up the porn, he had plenty to look at, and I was like, “what the? show me the money!”

11. @108 The last romance/erotica I read, the man was an ex-navy SEAL, had “abs like paint rollers,” was 6’4″, 240, had a jaw that could cut glass, gorgeous, and was an alpha-male who was just waiting for the right woman to come along and make him into putty….what am I missing? That’s EXACTLY like my life… 😉

12. Jesus Wanking Christ. Where has Deb been for the last twenty years? The whole issue of “is porn okay for women, do women like porn, is it okay for women to like porn, you’re perpetuating sexual repression, you can’t tell me what to like, slut, bitch, pornpornporn blahblahblah…” has already been done to death.

    And seriously, Learned Hand – romance novels? Maybe you and Deb should get together for a good ol’ fifties-style stereotype flinging.

13. @102
    I see your point, but ITSAP said “we had no luck dating women or couples”. That sounds fishy to me. How could they have had no luck with other couples? There are so many events, venues, websites, etc. to facilitate couples hooking up with other couples! and his wife doesn’t seem to want the threesomes. It’s the husband who wants the threesomes with his wife and another man, and he expects his wife to fuck people she isn’t into just to make him happy. Seems like his energy would be better spent finding a hot couple or threesome girl for them to enjoy. I don’t see why they couldn’t find one of those situations.

14. Romance novels and fan fiction, boring. This het woman likes gay porn – lots of cock.

15. I’m a woman, and I’d like to find some good porn, but here is an example of why porn is sucking for me: I thought I would like to see something about 1 woman being ravished by more than one hot guy, and they are so totally into her, and are completely focused on HER pleasure. So I go looking for porn like that, assume something like “gang bang” should be a good search term, and all I find are videos with a bunch of guys waiting their turn to be serviced by one girl. They barely even touch her, let alone care about her pleasure, and everyone looks bored. LAME.
    ps. if anyone knows of a video like I’ve described, post the link!

16. Wayne @ 42 and all others who are truly interested in history/politics of sexuality…
    I’m the one behind post # 23 and am so- like -totally- absolutely- delighted to find out I’m not the only one who’s into the historical and political aspect of sexuality, not to mention my very own absolutely- right perspective on it…
    As for your post, King David was shagging everyone in sight and he also defined his “friendship” with Jonathan as, “My love to you is wonderful, much more so than loving a woman”. And this is the real translation from the original soundtrack, so disregard what you’ve read on the subtitles.

    The bible, at least the Old Testament, is full of the really important stuff.
    It should be noted that Sarah couldn’t conceive and allowed Abraham (ladies and gentlemen, the original GGG!) to fuck their maid, Hagar, who then gave birth to Ishmael (also known as Ismail) who is believed to be the first Arab.
    Later on, after she kicked the maid and her son out (ladies and gentlemen, the original jealous motherfucker wife) and reached menopause, the Big G sent two angels to Sarah to let her know she will soon have a son. She first laughed at them, then thought to herself, “Oh well, what the heck”, screwed them both, and then- WHAT DO YOU KNOW- had a son!!! Isn’t it amazing???
    And her stupid cuckold husband was willing to slaughter the boy as a sacrifice for G. What a submissive idiot!!!!!!!

    I just hope we could all continue pleasing each other, be happy and go on with our lives. I’m sure it will promote world peace.

    And speaking of submissive idiots… If you are or know of a lovely Palestinian woman who is interested in an Israeli cross dresser, please let me know… And she can even strap it on every once in a while…

    laugh all you want, but that’s the ultimate offer for a WORLD PEACE!!!

    But unfortunately no one will read this because you’re way too busy scolding a smart gay guy whose attempting to positively redefine female sexuality…

    Nevertheless, God bless you and plenty of kinky orgasms to all of us.

17. ‘@Porn widows are a big and growing segment of the population.

    Bullshit. If anyone is “widowed” by porn, it’s because their relationship is already dysfunctional. There might be some compulsive porn users that are exceptions, but generally porn is consumed as a side dish, not the main course, in healthy relationships.’

    How old are you? ’cause there’s a whole generation of internet users growing up thinking facials are first-date material, anal doesn’t take any lube and women should shriek then cum within six minutes. Saying porn isn’t affecting these kids’ lives and perceptions is like saying commercials aren’t influencing them (or anyone).

    Oh and for the guy whose wife isn’t so in to men who want to fuck her and her husband – perhaps it’s because she suspects, perhaps correctly, that a lot of guys willing to do this are really just into her husband (and men in general) and simply putting up with her? Not particularly hot.

18. Women’s porn has been available right at the grocery check-out for decades; gown-ripper novels, romance novels, harlequin romances. There’s something for everyone. You can get your porn and cupcakes in one stop, its awesome!

    Of course, porn flicks are pretty awesome, too, but they were less accessible when I was a teenager….

19. @86: “You’re not making a logical connection between your statements that woman aren’t aroused by seeing a man get horny (and yes, they often are, if they think that the arousal is triggered by them; noting is more attractive than feeling desired)…”

    NoCuteName, I want you. And I can show it. Shall we get together, seeing as you will arouse me and, going by what you seem to be saying, you are often aroused in reciprocation?

    @86: “…and the idea that woman want men who either ogle other women or are unavailable.”

    I said, “Women do not encourage men who ogle, because they aren’t attracted to men who ogle,” so I don’t seem to need to make the first logical connection you refer to.

    As for women’s attraction to unavailable men, I again refer to the steady stream of requests for help Dan gets from distressed women trapped in marriages with guys who never had strong sex drives in the first place.

    It’s just an idea.

    @86: “I once had a boyfriend who frankly lusted after every female we saw. But he turned me into the object of all that lust, and I was one happy camper. I loved the evidence of his libido.”

    Thank you for confirming, as I said, that women “are attracted to men who don’t ogle” — other women. Was that not clear? May I submit the rephrasing?

    @86: “Contrary to what you may believe from your obviously skewed reading of this column, women with high libidos don’t prefer men with low ones.”

    I referred to the steady stream of requests for help Dan gets from distressed women trapped in marriages with guys who never had strong sex drives in the first place (am I really asking anyone to take my word that this is what’s happening?) as evidence women often “are attracted to men who don’t ogle” — other women.

    And I said “According to various articles floating around, a man’s unavailability boosts his attractiveness to women.”

    I never said anyone preferred men with low libidos. I’m saying winding up with a man with a low libido is a consequence of women not thinking far enough ahead about where their default inclinations will take them. Everyone’s path has its boobytraps, no?

20. I can’t speak for other women, but porn just doesn’t do it for me. I’m not wired visually. Watching other people have sex is rather…tedious actually. However, a properly written romance is a whole other story, so to speak.

    ITASP, I can’t answer your question, but this is why I’m monogamous. I was trying to read Dan’s instructions and it reminded me of that souffle recipe that I just can’t face. Way too complicated.

21. hurray for women who like porn! i watch porn both with and without my partner and have been watching since before he came along. most of the porn i watch on my own is, as Violet Blue suggests above, of a tenor that would not arouse my partner. those private fantasies that i indulge in through porn or in my head while we’re fucking, but not the kind of thing that he’s into so we don’t share that. we share other fun porn and fantasies instead 🙂

22. Dan, I’d agree that a stranger lying about many things would not justify a rape conviction – but is there a line to be drawn? What if the person lies about being HIV positive, or having some other STI? What if the person lies about contraceptives? Would you consider any of these scenarios rape, or some kind of assault?

23. The advice to ITASP sucks. Maybe there was a bit too much editing of the letter, but where does it say the LW was unhappy with his wife’s dates? He was expressing concern about her not being that enthusiastic about their MMF sex sessions.

    Maybe she doesn’t have a particular thing for group sex? I’m poly, and I don’t like it AT ALL. Maybe she finds two guys fucking each not that hot? You can find the moment adequately enjoyable in itself, but still not be particularly excited by it. Obviously ITASP REALLY likes these threesomes … she doesn’t. Some people like fucking more than oral sex. Whatever.

    As for people who doubt whether they have as many problems finding other couples or women as ITASP professes, it can be hard finding “unicorns” (as women into het couples are labelled). Personally, if I was interested in a woman in an open relationship, I wouldn’t consider the guy as part of the package. Maybe ITASP is not particularly attractive and (sorry to stereotype) less-discerning men are just up for whatever they can get, no matter what the package is.

    I think ITASP should talk to his wife and if she reiterates the fact that she finds their MMF encounters as “fine”, then take that at face value. However, taking away the one valuable point that Dan makes, it’s important to check whether THEIR intimate relations are measuring up – it’s all very well having adventures with other people, but not at the expense of neglecting your core relationship. If she’s preferring the bits-on-the-side over one-on-one with ITASP, that’s more of a concern.

24. I always assumed the female equivalent to porn were those awful “women’s interest” magazines like Cosmo and Glamour. Both have pictures of sexy women on the front and they’re both full of unrealistic depictions of the opposite sex. Of course, in pornography, women are usually intended to be attractive, where as in women’s interest mags, men are portrayed as oafish and childish/childlike.

25. @107: “As a middle aged, pretty sexually conservative straight woman myself, though, I can’t really see the difference – a pleasant little thrill, external to the marriage and no threat to it unless devotion to it excludes the real human being in the bed there with you. Same same.”

    You rule. Keep on rockin’.

26. @118 – “How old are you? ’cause there’s a whole generation of internet users growing up thinking facials are first-date material, anal doesn’t take any lube and women should shriek then cum within six minutes. Saying porn isn’t affecting these kids’ lives and perceptions is like saying commercials aren’t influencing them (or anyone). “

    I’ve heard this complaint before, but it’s a pretty myopic view, frankly. There’s some apparent presumption here that kids would have a more informed view of sex, or were poised to grow into better lovers, if porn wasn’t accessible to them. Kids in the pre-Internet era would just have different dumb ideas about sex – the messages they got about sex came from sources misleading in their own ways (Hollywood movies, freaked-out parents, ignorant high school teachers, etc.)

    Which is why the real answer to “Porn is skewing kids’ views of sex!” is better sex ed – something that (certain segments of) the US will probably forever be squeamish about, unfortunately.

27. “And, yes, you should have the authority to do that—both partners in an open relationship should be able to call a time-out.”

    People in open relationships “should” have the authority to declare things that they may never have discussed or agreed upon? Bullshit. I would find that an unacceptably disrespectful way to be treated. I want my partners to tell me when they’re unhappy, and I want them to ask me to dedicate more of my attention to our relationship if need be, and I’d want them to let me know if there was something else they wanted, like a time-out. However, if a partner suddenly decided that they had the “authority” to suddenly announce how things were going to be, I would be extremely upset. That would go against the way we have agreed to treat one another.

    It’s fine, of course, for a couple to have agreed that either of them can call a time-out! I’m all for people making whatever agreements allow them to have a happy relationship. What’s not fine is deciding that it’s the default and doesn’t need to be agreed upon.

28. 124: “I think ITASP should talk to his wife and if she reiterates the fact that she finds their MMF encounters as “fine”, then take that at face value.”

    I disagree. Clearly she looks so not-into-this that it is messing up the experience for him. Electing to take her at face value is to resign himself to the fact that, while she gets as much hot sex as she can go find, his fantasy fulfillment will just have to be second rate.

    They need to discuss exactly what it is about these encounters that she doesn’t care for, and either fix that, or find something else to do that both of them can be excited about. Either that, or find something that he can be excited about without involving her. I continue to wonder why that option appears to be off the table for him, even though she gets to do it.

    “However, taking away the one valuable point that Dan makes, it’s important to check whether THEIR intimate relations are measuring up – it’s all very well having adventures with other people, but not at the expense of neglecting your core relationship. If she’s preferring the bits-on-the-side over one-on-one with ITASP, that’s more of a concern.”

    I agree with this. He doesn’t mention their private sex life at all. But the details that he does include (her dating actively on her own, her preferring her outside dates, her “hotter” partners not wanting to participate, and her acting disinterested during the “occasional” threesomes) creates a pretty clear vibe of “she’s into her outside guys, but she isn’t into what I’m into, which means she isn’t into me.” It almost paints the picture that maybe she isn’t much into any sex that involves him. That would be a huge problem, and that is what underlies the suggestion that he yanks the emergency brake on all outside sex until they get their own intimacy back on track.

29. 128: Naj, you are hanging up on a semantic quibble.

    If your partner told you out of the blue that some unexpected thing was making them unhappy, I would like to think that you would take their concerns seriously, even to the point of calling an immediate halt on whatever it was that was bothering them until the two of you could work through it. That is for all intents and purposes “authority … to call a time-out.”

    It’s not possible or practical to separately pre-negotiate the option to accept or reject each and every situation that might come up in a relationship. You will find yourself with ridiculous, Byzantine codes of agreement that you can ask to stop Situation A, but you aren’t allowed to ask to stop Situation B. What that implies is that in Situation B, your partner’s feelings are irrelevant, and you intend to do as you damn well please regardless if they are unhappy. Now THAT is disrespectful. Your partner’s feelings should NEVER be irrelevant.

    What the default agreement should be is that your partner’s opinion matters as much as your own. That’s what makes it a partnership. Otherwise it’s you and your junior partner.

    Don’t forget that if you pulled that “you don’t have the authority to make do that” crap, your partner can always conclude that you don’t care about their feelings, and invoke the “authority” to end the relationship.

30. Dan’s kinks aren’t boring but they are normal. He is into smells and clothing, not gross smells and not gross clothing (Leather, sorry dudes).

    So he likes it when his man comes home from the gym in a cute gym outfit smelling of sweat.

    Not boring, just natural.

31. I don’t understand why everyone is so horrified at the conviction of an Arab man who lied about being Jewish to get into a Jewish woman’s pant. In any other legal arena, misrepresenting oneself in order to gain access or consent to someone or something that one would not have been access or consent to otherwise is legally actionable fraud. In paricular, if it occurs with in the context of a marriage contract it is grounds for annullment. Why should ying to get into someone’s pants not be considred rape?

32. 130: I disagree. I see a very broad- and important- range in between “authority to call a time-out” and “partner’s feelings are irrelevant”. Whatever you might like to think about me and my relationships aside, I wouldn’t necessarily call an immediate halt to whatever was bothering a partner, no. That doesn’t mean I’d ignore their concerns, or that their feelings would be irrelevant!

    If the issue was that I was spending a lot of time with a group of friends, and my partner was feeling like she never saw me, that’d be an important thing to pay attention to. I’d start looking at my schedule to see how to fix things and make sure we had enough time together- and we’d negotiate to figure out what “enough time together” looked like to each of us, and possibly need to work out a compromise. What wouldn’t happen is for her to announce that she wanted me to immediately stop seeing my friends until we worked out the issue, and tell me that she had the authority to tell me to take a time-out from having friends. That would be inappropriate and a bad sign. This isn’t just phrasing; it’s phrasing that reflects expectations that are really important in relationships.

    Now, the difference between the examples is that in most relationships, people go in expecting each other to have friends but not expecting each other to have other folks they date. Depending on the open relationship, though, that may not hold. My partner and I have always expected that we’d be seeing other people, so for us, it’d be a lot like saying, “I’m uncomfortable, so you should stop having friends until I’m comfy again.” That’s why I don’t think “open relationships should work this way” is reasonable advice when it gets more specific than “people should be good to each other”.

33. I’d also like to point out that Dan has in the past advocated that removing a condom during sex when unprotected sex was consented to was tantamount to rape:

    You consented to intercourse with protection, and that asshole deceitfully initiated unprotected intercourse. When a fucker removes a condom during intercourse—gay or straight, vaginal or anal—it invalidates the fuckee’s consent to the fucking. (And what is sex without consent, class?) So your “more experienced” boyfriend sexually assaulted you, JC, and placed you at risk of an unplanned pregnancy—and for what? An ever-so-slightly enhanced orgasm for him?

    http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Savag…

    Why is misrepresenting your ethnic background to gain another’s consent to sex not at least analogous?

34. “Why should lying to get into someone’s pants not be considred rape?”

    Because it should be considered fraud.

    She was entirely free to say no at any time. She decided to say yes. True, it was based on false information, but it was still her decision, freely done. Freely? Hell, recklessly. Having sex with someone within fifteen minutes of meeting them doesn’t meet any reasonable standard of due diligence. She did it because she wanted to. That is why it is fraud, and not rape.

35. i’m a female who is into porn, and for me, it satisfies a curiosity and a turn-on i’m never going to get from my marriage. i enjoy watching gay porn and bisexual porn, and there is no way my husband would ever join me in this. so, it’s ALL MINE. i don’t care what he’s watching…more power to him…as long as we are still having satisfying sex together at a frequency and intensity that makes both of us happy, i couldn’t care less what he’s watching and/or getting off to (within reason…if it was kiddie porn, i’d feel differently).

36. @avast2006 (#135)

    She was entirely free to say no at any time. She decided to say yes. True, it was based on false information, but it was still her decision, freely done. Freely? Hell, recklessly. Having sex with someone within fifteen minutes of meeting them doesn’t meet any reasonable standard of due diligence. She did it because she wanted to. That is why it is fraud, and not rape.

    Consent obtained by fraud is not consent.

    Do you think the woman whose boyfriend removed his condom during sex was guilty of rape (as Dan implied), even though she had consented to have protected sex with him?

    Are women who have sex with men who they have just met asking for “it” (whatever “it” may be)?

37. OH-MY-GOD!!!!! Dan, you’re a GENIUS!!!

    Who needs a man when you can have cupcocks???

    Brilliant!!!

38. “Are women who have sex with men who they have just met asking for “it” (whatever “it” may be)?”

    Of course not.

    If he beat her, that would be battery, and of course she wasn’t asking for it. So prosecute him for battery. To the extent that the beating coerced her against her will in the commission of the sex act, that would be battery AND rape. Prosecute for both.
    If he threatened her with a knife or with violent words, that would be assault, and of course she wasn’t asking for it. Again, the threat would interfere with her ability to say no, so you add rape on top of the assault charge.
    If he impregnated her or infected her with a disease, that would be (I’m not sure what the correct charge would be. Reckless endangerment? Battery?) and of course she would not be asking for it. Prosecute him for those.

    And if he lied to her, that would be fraud, and of course she wasn’t asking for that either. But I don’t believe that it was coercive or compromised her ability to resist.

    So prosecute him for fraud.

    Would you call someone who lied about his age a rapist? How about someone who dressed for a night on the town in a way that implied a higher salary than he actually makes? How about someone where his toupee fell off during sex? A woman could, after the fact, choose literally anything as a criterion without which she never would have consented, whereupon the man becomes a rapist.

    Kindly point out where I said she was “asking for it” in any way whatsoever. I said she made an affirmative, though reckless, decision to proceed with sex. Sex is all that occurred, not anything else, “(whatever “it” might be.)” Because the sex occurred as a result of this affirmative decision on her part, not coercion on his part, it wasn’t rape.

    It was, however, fraud.

39. I’m a woman. I don’t like chocolate or cupcakes. I HATE romance novels and romantic comedies.

    But I’m all over the yaoi. I guess I’m a little cliche after all.

    P.S. Dan has inspired some PG-rated yaoi of his own:
    http://archiveofourown.org/works/87243
    It probably makes no sense if you don’t know the fandom in question (random manga), but still…

40. I know some of you are allergic to this, but let’s play the reverse-the-genders game and see how the situation looks.

    A Palestinian woman passed herself off as an Israeli looking for a serious relationship. She introduced herself in this manner to an Israeli man. After approximately fifteen minutes, the two of them retired to a nearby building, and they had sex. Afterwards, the Israeli man discovered that the woman was in fact Palestinian. She was arrested, tried, and convicted of raping the man. “If I had known she was Palestinian at the outset,” said the man, “there is no way I ever would have consented to have sex with her.”

    Well? Did she rape him? Really? Or did he decide to do something fun with her in the heat of the moment, without thinking it through first?

    Also, do the unsavory racial overtones shine out any brighter when the genders are reversed?

41. An alternative to porn for women? Ever read fanfic online? ESp slash – there is a lot of great fic written by women and read by women and I may be wrong but I think the majority o readers and authors are women – and it can be highly erotic and have a plot and romance

42. I have to agree with avast2006 on this one. People lie to get laid, all the fucking time. They lie about their age, their career success, their relationship status, their emotional investment in the person they want to fuck, their hobbies, their personality, their politics, their religion, and so on ad infinitum. And unless the lie they happen to be telling is something along the lines of “I’ve got a gun in my pocket and I’ll shoot you if you don’t take off your pants and lie down on the floor right now,” then they aren’t guilty of rape. Assholery, yes, but not rape.

43. To mjpam – are you fucking serious? As if people don’t lie to get into someone else’s pants all of the time? Really? Of course people do. It’s really not always cool and in fact, can be sleazy. But rape? Hell no.

    I’m with Dan. You fuck a stranger, you take your chances. Although if said stranger harms you physically, that’s an entirely different matter. If he/she just told a lie, too bad for you.

44. So the basic defense against lying for sex is “everyone does it”?

    The fact that the majority of people jaywalk doesn’t mean jaywalking is not a crime. (This goes for any illegal action that someone might engage in, lest anyone think I’m trivializing rape by equating it with jaywalking.)

45. Dan, I think your advice to ITSAP was great. All to often individuals in an open relationship feel they cannot renegotiate the terms, but any healthy relationship should be based on mutual respect and on the ability for all involved to have equal input on the terms of the relationship.

    As for the much publicized Arab “Jew imposter” case out of Israel, the real substance of the case has been somewhat distorted in the media for the sake of playing up the Arab-Jewish angle. From interviews I have watched, it seems the main issue for the woman was not that the man was an Arab who purported to be a Jew, but rather that he was a married man who purported to be single and seriously interested in marriage. I think the case is rather bizarre, but Israel has much stricter rape laws than most other countries. Apparently, prosecutions for rape by false pretenses are not uncommon and Jewish perpetrators have been prosecuted under the same statute, too. Personally, I think the prosecution trivializes incidents of real rape (i.e. rape by force or coercion or rape of an incapacitated, elderly/infirmed, minor, or mentally-challenged individual), but I think it is a matter for the Israeli Knesset to deal with through legislative reform. Also, before we get too high and mighty here in the U.S., we should take note of the fact that in a least a few states in the U.S., including California(!), it is possible to be prosecuted for rape under the same legal theory (rape by false pretenses) used to prosecute the man in Israel.

46. Women have been enjoying our “cupcocks” for decades, and it’s called erotic literature. The majority of erotic anthologies and novels are aimed at women, and also written and edited by women.

    Lately lots more women are finding the same appeal in gay sex and romance that many straight men find in lesbians. I’m a queer woman who wrote slash (male/male) fanfiction for years, and found out that both the readers and writers are about 95% women (both het and queer). Now the trend is getting more and more mainstream, with publishers like Dreamspinner churning out eBooks and everyone making jokes about some Edward/Jacob action. But it’s still predominantly women writing sexy stories about two (or more) male characters getting it on, in order to get other women off.

    Most men don’t get why we need 2,000 words of foreplay before getting to the action, or why we’d prefer text to XTube. So I think that meets all of Desires Erotic Balance’s criteria 🙂

47. Women have been enjoying our “cupcocks” for decades, and it’s called erotic literature. The majority of erotic anthologies and novels are aimed at women, and also written and edited by women.

    Lately lots more women are finding the same appeal in gay sex and romance that many straight men find in lesbians. I’m a queer woman who wrote slash (male/male) fanfiction for years, and found out that both the readers and writers are about 95% women (both het and queer). Now the trend is getting more and more mainstream, with publishers like Dreamspinner churning out eBooks and everyone making jokes about some Edward/Jacob action. But it’s still predominantly women writing sexy stories about two (or more) male characters getting it on, in order to get other women off.

    Most men don’t get why we need 2,000 words of foreplay before getting to the action, or why we’d prefer text to XTube. So I think that meets all of Desires Erotic Balance’s criteria 🙂

48. To 135, 137, 139, 141, and 143, regarding the Arab men who was sentenced to 18 months in jail for lying about his both identity and marital status….

    I’m no legal expert, just an Israeli guy residing in Seattle for the past 25 years. And it is my observation that this case has been blown way out of proportion, and that him being an Arab and her Jewish indeed played a major role.

    You may recall my comments about the issue at #23 and #117 if you ever read them, but I think you really need to understand the mentality of the country as well as the discriminating judiciary system.

    And just so you know, most comments about that issue came from Israelis who were appalled that a man, an Arab or a Jew for that matter, would be the one to pay the price. This happens to be in an environment were most posts are written by supposedly paid right wingers, but nevertheless many of them sided with the guy stating that women, at least in Israel, often lie about their age, appearance, as well as the use of contraceptive with the hope of getting pregnant and “encourage” the man to marry them.

    This is not a happy picture, but the whole thing smells racism. As I often tell soccer players in my hometown, whenever playing or refing co-ed teams, equal rights for women also mean equal duties. And if a man and a woman collide it should be called against the person who caused it regardless of their gender.

    Pamela, where the hell are you when I need you?

49. @140 – HELENA HANDBASKET!!! I adore her work <3

50. @141 Ok let’s play this game. What’s the punishment in the Sharia for a woman having pre-marital sex with a non-muslim? Had the situations been reversed she’d be facing much much worse according to her laws than 18 months in prison, and that’s before any claims of rape.

    Yeah the unsavory racial implications are really unsavory. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s what you meant.

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