death penalty for Trump
prison for Republican congressperson

persons

@TMK
Your kinks did not vanish, they're been suppressed by your meds.
You should try experimenting with different meds/dosage to restore libido. This should be in the damn FAQ.

Er, I see Dan said basically the same thing, good on him, I could just as well delete this..

@GHOST
I'm so sorry to hear that those ED meds didn't work.

Anybody know if one shouldn't mix pot and ED meds? Maybe try both? (I have no experience with ED meds, but some recreational drugs can be great for arousal.)

Well done to Mr Savage for the L3 correction.
xxx
The spirit of A2 seems fine, though some of the particulars make me wonder. Who says LW2 is a Daddy just because he's 56 or that he wants to become one, even if that's where most of his options lie? I'm not; I never was, and it's hard to imagine Mr Miller's being one whenever he reaches that age.

L2 reminds me a little of how occasionally I'd tell some of my university bridge players that it was rather a shame to be getting a buzz cut at twenty when they would have so many years ahead of them in which it would be their best or only option. We could even cite Mr Lane, back hosting a new version of his old game show Chain Reaction - minus the hair. I wish, though, LW2 had been a little more specific. How much of the sexual confidence that seems to have given him what hotness he's possessed came from performance he can no longer maintain? Whatever the answer, this is certainly a time at which he can take stock of what options are likely to be available for him and how much they might appeal. I just have known people for whom LW2's reduced functionality would hardly cause a blip.

Did GHOST say he was a Daddy, Dan, or you just assume that. My comprehension is slipping.
GHOST, @56yrs old, seems young to be saying goodbye to your hard erections/ not that I’d know anything about having a cock/ what is your diet & lifestyle like? Do you piss on a lot.. as in alcohol. Smoke/ eat the funny stuff? Exercise? I’d suggest, if you can afford it and when the Pandemic has been squashed, go to a health resort. One where specialists are employed, not some hippy dippy one.
Also, have you tried acupuncture? Again, check around to find a skilful healer. At your age, I’d not give up so easily.

MAD, I’ll put up my hand as one who saw it that way, and it was in relation to a specific question, and your dad may still have liked your mom while having his affair. He liked both of them, then his lover’s husband died, and the set up got lost to him.
Morally, yes, he betrayed and abandoned your mother and he’s a coward for doing that. And losing your respect for him is probably what he’s feeling the knife stab of now.

@1 curious2: WA-HOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Congratulations, curious2, on scoring this week's highly coveted FIRDT! (firkt) honors! Savor the envied perks of leading the SL De-Kinked comment thread, and bask in the glory. :)

Venn @4, I too wondered where Dan got the idea that GHOST was a daddy. I re-read the letter and he never says that. Editing or assumption? Perhaps Dan's assuming that only the top needs to have an erection? GHOST doesn't say he was unable to perform/have sex due to his erection problems, he says they were "ego deflating." Which I took more to mean he felt disinclined to seek (seemingly casual) sex -- his own embarrassment is the only reason he's not still out there having it. He didn't say, "I only enjoy topping and now I can't." Even if so, Dan's right that he could top with a strap-on. It might not be the same, but it would put anal back on the table if that's his favourite activity.

Re MAD, another phenomenon is make-up sex. I've known couples who, if they weren't fighting like cats and dogs, were banging just as passionately immediately afterwards. There's another example of couples who have plenty of sex yet don't like each other. I agree though that it's usually a good sign.

@Dan: BDSM is by definition consensual. Anything else is abuse.

@TMK: If I'm not feeling horny, I have pretty much zero interest in spanking anyone. I hear that Wellbutrin is less likely to tank libido. Talk to your doctor - assuming you wrote because you want your libido and kinks back.

@GHOST: "I've talked to my doctor about it." Hopefully, your doctor did a full physical to check for underlying conditions, and didn't just lob Viagara at you.

Erections are caused by the brain telling the blood vessels in your penis to constrict, preventing blood from leaving. Those blood vessels can become less effective with age. Viagara gives them a boost. If it's not working, maybe the problem is elsewhere along the signal chain.

Perhaps the #1 boner-killer for men of a certain age is the anticipation of a less than fulsome erection. Dan's advice is good. Have lots of sex, and try not to think about your dick.

It seems like Dan’s assertion that kinks are “hard-wired” really resonates with people, since he seems to be getting a lot of letters about it recently. I assume that, by “hard wired,” Dan does not mean genetically predetermined, but rather a series of traits that result from an interchange between inborn predispositions, environmental factors, and early situational contingencies. But must kinks exclusively result from these foundational factors? How does this account for those who discover or embrace a kink later in life, as ROPED apparently did in last week’s column? Or those who, as in the case of TMK, find a kink declining or disappearing for whatever reason? Or those who are kinky in some circumstances, and not in others? Could labeling kinks as “hard-wired” be as much about a laudable impulse to normalize a healthy diversity of sexuality and quash harmful social stigmas as it is an actual reflection of some sort of kink originalism?

I know from this forum that many people trace the origins of their kinks to their very earliest notions of sexuality, conscious or unconscious, and I am not disputing those statements at all. I am just curious if there is perhaps a range of kinky connections, some quasi-innate and permanent, others acquired or ephemeral?

@10 fubar
"Talk to your doctor - assuming you wrote because you want your libido and kinks back."

My position is that he should talk to his doctor regardless of whether he #currently# wants his libido back.

The him with the suppressed libido might not want them back, but that's not the real him. In other words, his problem that he doesn't want X might make him a poor judge of whether he wants X.

(Even if the someone #with# their libido and kinks tells me they don't want them, I'm not even taking that for an answer until therapy were to be explored.)

Ms Fan - It seems possible to read A2 as a recommendation that LW2 go the Daddy route, but there seems little in the letter to suggest any inclination in that direction. Now, there are various Daddy MM activities that do not require the appearance of Mr Happy, but I've no clue about how well they'd fit LW2's tastes. Maybe he can adjust into something.

Trying to think of something comparable, I came up with LW2's reminding me of a woman whose greatest feature had been her hair and then lost it. This has happened to some of my bridge players; the ones who were most proud of their hair had the toughest times coping.

Venn @14, another possibility is that he's assuming GHOST is only seeking much younger men, who would see him as a daddy. Does lower-case-d daddy mean "older gay man" without any BDSM connotations? GHOST doesn't say he's only after younger men. Better advice than assuming he's playing the daddy role for anyone he might partner with could be to seek out men in his own age range, who would be more forgiving of erection problems, rather than worrying he can no longer please the young bucks. But again, GHOST never states that his target market is young bucks, and indeed his advice to seek out all possible sex would include partners of all ages. Perhaps Dan will explain what he meant.

It's true that ED oral meds can be only so-so in their effectiveness for some men, but if GHOST has tried different variations, he may want to ask his doctors about Trimix injections. While putting a needle into your dick may sound slightly nerve-racking, the truth is the needle is very small and it will make one as rock hard as an 18 year old.

GHOST may also want to check his testosterone levels and consider supplementing it. Not talking about getting "juiced up"with steroids. A medical professional can determine if a naturally decreased libido that comes with age and lowered test levels is responsible for those spongy erections, and can prescribe ways to boost both.

Don't give up GHOST, there's a lot more sex to be had and can have if you want it.

I'm trying to stave off the extinction of the past perfect tense, thus I must point out: it's "getting bitten", not "getting bit".

LW1 - I believe there is an antidepressant that does not affect the libido. Talk to your doctor.

@18 - Wellbutrin - as @10 noted.

I had a short period a few years ago with antidepressants. Unfortunately, Wellbutrin gave me hives.

@17, long- time reader. Past perfect tense is threatened with extinction? It’ll join a lot of other animals. Sad, hey.
@12, Ens. Pulver, good comment. Yes, I don’t go with the ‘hard wired’ all along position, that Dan takes. Like you I believe links develop because of childhood experiences which mingle with developing sexuality. I believe it becomes ‘hard wired’ then, for some.
I have a handbag/ wallet fetish. Not shoes for me. I literally have to stay out of handbag shops, almost like an alcoholic has to stay out of pubs and any bottleo. I’ve wondered if this is some sexual maladjustment or symbolism. Bags/ Vagina.

Mirtazapine is another antidepressant that doesn't affect libido (in fact it can make orgasms weirdly strong). But it seems like LW1 isn't particularly unhappy with the situation, just curious, and starting and stopping antidepressants can be a hell of a trip just to satsify curiousity.

In terms of the innateness of kinks, 'born this way' worked pretty well to shut down anti-gay arguments, so it might work just as well to shut down anti-kink arguments. But I'm not sure if it's true.

Freud called it, around five years of age, a window of sex bursts thru, then latency till adolescence. If there is sexual abuse occurring, of course, the natural path is violated. And baby boys have erections from day one, filled with piss, sure, it’s also them getting used to how their cock behaves.
I remember having games of lovers running up to each other, with a gf @ about five. Sex runs thru our lives, and experience weaves into it.

Freud is outdated horse pucky.

Well, and who says? This is not the place, or the time. Return later snd let’s talk. Read a book first, deal?

@TMK I think there is something to Dan’s comment about the libido and the kink leaving at the same time, but it might also be the brain chemicals are different in depressed states.

I know if I am feeling depressed, a good session of impact/pain play can really jazz the endorphins and get me into a sub space. The endorphins of the pain makes me feel happy and excited and pulls me out of the rut. When I’m happy, pain play isn’t as pleasurable because my brain has enough endorphins, thank you.

It may be the same for you in terms of impact/pain play. Not saying my experience is universal, just give a case study that feels similar to your letter.

@25: "Feeling depressed" and suffering from depression are quite different things. I 'feel depressed" from time to time. Who's Republican enough not to have such feelings in this pandemic? But a brisk walk, a good wank, or a half-bottle of Chateau Neuf de Pape fixes that, at least for a while.

People suffering from depression are on a whole other level of brain chemistry imbalance.

swatbot @23: "Freud is outdated horse pucky."

I can't see anything in the letters or comments that prompted you to write that, but I agree 100%. Adler FTW.

@23 swatbot and @27 fubar for the WIN! Agreed and thirded. Freud's a FRAUD as well as horse pucky. "Oedipus complex", my ass.

@27 fubar: I know this is so last week's thread, but did you get your ribbon?

@1 & @2 curious2 for the WIN, along with @23 swatbot and @27 fubar!
Agreed, FIRDTed and SECNODed.

Curious @13, TMK may -not- rationally want their libido and kinks back. There have certainly been times in my life that I wished I had less libido! If TMK is single with no hope of meeting partners in the pandemic, they may be relieved to have the weight of those desires off their back. They should mention it to their doctor as a side effect, but if the antidepressant use, like the pandemic, is temporary -- and effective -- they may enjoy the break.

Long-time @17, thank you! I wondered if that was a regionalism, for instance people in Britain say "had got" rather than "had gotten," but it appears to just be incorrect.

Fubar @26, hard agree. Also, TMK literally says that impact play "just hurts," so clearly TMK's response does not work in the same way as TheMisanthrope's. This just in: people are different.

l-dub 1... that 'miracle pill solution' to your problems... anti-depressants... it comes with a side of sexual castration. think about it.

Venn - You seriously need to work on your analogies. Maybe if your (apparent) social circle included women outside of the bridge-playing country-club set, you'd realize that it's ridiculous to compare a man losing his ability to maintain a satisfactory erection with a woman losing her hair.

Let me help you. The correct analogy would be to compare him to a woman of a certain age losing her ability to produce vaginal fluid sufficient to make PIV (and other sex acts) enjoyable.

You're welcome.

@30 BDF
That's very interesting.

Please know that I'm only cautioning against people choosing they don't want something while their desire for it has been artificially and unintentionally suppressed.

@33 p.s.
Oh wait I also added something not about artificial suppression. But that only spoke to elimination, not reduction.

So I have a question which spins off into other questions:
What is a kink?
I know this sounds like a stupid question, but the more I think about it, the more questions it raises, and the less stupid it seems.

Is kink a sexual orientation?

Is kink always sexual? Is the desire to inflict or receive pain separate from sex?
Is a kink the same as a fetish?
What, precisely, does BDSM mean?

The fact is that these are not easily answerable questions. And it often seems as though the proliferation of what counts as kink or what one means by BDSM (is it bondage and domination or bondage and discipline? Is it sadism and masochism or dos the S stand for submission? Must it always include pain?) is actually contributing to the confusion.

Is kink a sexual orientation? Jillian Keenan thinks so. (https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/08/is-kink-a-sexual-orientation.html)

Wambenger @21 brings up the point that positioning homosexuality as an innate characteristic, not chosen but hard-wired, has helped to diffuse or make obsolete a lot of anti-gay arguments, and that therefore positioning kinkiness as an innate characteristic, whether practiced or not, might "shut down anti-kink arguments," and if that's true, it makes a strong case for considering it an immutable characteristic exactly like sexual orientation. But that's more a tactic to keep people from being sent to "kink conversion therapy," and to keep people from harassing others, than a statement that kink is a sexual orientation. It's worthy in that it helps lead to more tolerant attitude/behavior, but is it true? Or does that matter if the goal of being more inclusive and less intolerant is achieved.

Certainly it can be affirming or comforting for people who have kinks they don't understand or wouldn't want if they could choose. "Born this way," is a helpful concept not only to help bring about tolerance, but also self-acceptance and self-love. These are worthy goals and anyone who's ever struggled unsuccessfully to rid themself of an unwelcome paraphilia, or anyone who's vanilla but in a relationship with someone kinky will find it helpful.

Is kink always sexual? I've read people who say that they are kinky but their partner isn't, and they want to outsource the kink--find a partner or go see a professional dominatrix who will do what their partner won't/can't. (It seems to be the submissives who write in--I can't recall someone wanting to open up their relationship so that they can dominate someone.) The fact that they need to get their partner's permission--and that a lot of people withhold that permission--suggests that most of us understand kink to be linked fairly inextricably to sex. I've heard from people who claim that nothing sexual happens during a BDSM session, but then they go home and masturbate thinking about it, so whether there is touch that is understood to be sexual or not, it obviously has a sexual component for the person. So is being flogged with no sexual touching a sex act? Does it matter whether the person receiving the pain or the bondage or humiliation or some combination is dressed or not? Does the Dom have to be dressed for the part, or can they wear chinos and a collared shirt?

In this comment section, I see two different attitudes from people who are kinky/members of the BDSM community: @25, TheMisanthrope says, "a good session of impact/pain play can really jazz the endorphins and get me into a sub space. The endorphins of the pain makes me feel happy and excited and pulls me out of the rut. When I’m happy, pain play isn’t as pleasurable because my brain has enough endorphins." This sounds to me as though he gets something from impact/pain play that is not purely sexual in nature, though I'm pretty sure it can be incorporated into sex, as well. EricaP's descriptions of what she gets out of pain/impact play are similar. In a way, it reminds me of the way that people who cut themselves respond to that act of self-harm--it calms them or takes the edge off feelings of anxiety or depression. It's as if they displace their emotions stemming from something else onto that act, which diffuses them. And since they're cutting themself, they control or modulate how much pain they're going to receive.

However, @10, fubar says, "If I'm not feeling horny, I have pretty much zero interest in spanking anyone". So for him, sex and his kink are thoroughly intertwined. It seems to be the case that TMK's kinks, too, are absolutely tied to their sexuality: the antidepressant is affecting their libido, and their kinks have been equally affected.

Is a kink the same as a fetish? It's my understanding that a fetish is a specific set of requirements that most people wouldn't consider sexual, that need to be met for the person with the fetish to orgasm.

But is that always true? I know a foot fetishist who, while he is sexually attracted to feet, can quite easily and happily enjoy sex in which feet play no role. I like having sex one way with one partner and a different way with a different partner--one of the benefits of not being strictly monogamous is that it allows for a more complete expression of one's sexuality. So even though I may really enjoy being, say, tied up when I'm with one partner, I have other partners who don't like bondage at all, and I just as thoroughly enjoy having sex with them.

If someone likes to throw pies in someone else's face, which they see as a sexual act (flashback to HUMP 2012, and the memorable film, "Pie Sluts"), is that a kink or a fetish or a preference or just a way to mix things up on occasion? Do those pie sluts REQUIRE pies in the kisser to get off, or is it just something that they enjoy doing from time to time?

What to person A is a kink, might be a fetish to person B; if I say I have submissive tendencies, it would be logical to some people to interpret that to mean I like pain mixed in with my sex, but I typically mean that I like the psychological sense of feeling that I'm under someone else's control, which sometimes means submitting to pain, but doesn't necessarily mean that. I've had partners view our dynamic, which can be described as BDSM very, very differently from each other and they bring out different aspects of my own sexuality.

We have very little consensus on even the most-seemingly basic things. For example, I like the occasional spanking with sex, but I don't at all like a spanking to come in the form of punishment or discipline for some real or imaginary misbehavior on my part; I like it as a purely physical sensation. Whereas for some people on the other side of the hand or flogger, they like the discipline/punishment aspect. So simply saying that "I'm into spanking" doesn't necessarily confer mutual understanding, even between people who routinely incorporate spanking into their sex.

Here are two Wikipedia entries, one for Kink and one for BDSM, and they don't clarify much.

KINK:
"In human sexuality, kinkiness is the use of non-conventional sexual practices, concepts or fantasies. The term derives from the idea of a "bend" (cf. a "kink") in one's sexual behaviour, to contrast such behaviour with "straight" or "vanilla" sexual mores and proclivities. It is thus a colloquial term for non-normative sexual behaviour. The term "kink" has been claimed by some who practice sexual fetishism as a term or synonym for their practices, indicating a range of sexual and sexualistic practices from playful to sexual objectification and certain paraphilias. In the 21st century the term "kink", along with expressions like BDSM, leather and fetish, has become more commonly used than the term paraphilia. Some universities also feature student organizations focused on kink, within the context of wider LGBTI concerns. Psychologist Margie Nichols describes kink as one of the "variations that make up the 'Q' in LGBTQ".

Kink sexual practices go beyond what are considered conventional sexual practices as a means of heightening the intimacy between sexual partners. Some draw a distinction between kink and fetishism, defining the former as enhancing partner intimacy, and the latter as replacing it. Because of its relation to conformist sexual boundaries, which themselves vary by time and place, the definition of what is and is not kink varies widely as well.

In a study published in 2016 it was found that nearly half of respondents reported an interest in some form of kink activity and about a third had experienced a kink practice at least once."

BDSM:

"BDSM is a variety of often erotic practices or roleplaying involving bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, and other related interpersonal dynamics. Given the wide range of practices, some of which may be engaged in by people who do not consider themselves to be practising BDSM, inclusion in the BDSM community or subculture often is said to depend on self-identification and shared experience.

The term BDSM is first recorded in a Usenet post from 1991, and is interpreted as a combination of the abbreviations B/D (Bondage and Discipline), D/s (Dominance and submission), and S/M (Sadism and Masochism). BDSM is now used as a catch-all phrase covering a wide range of activities, forms of interpersonal relationships, and distinct subcultures. BDSM communities generally welcome anyone with a non-normative streak who identifies with the community; this may include cross-dressers, body modification enthusiasts, animal roleplayers, rubber fetishists, and others. . . . The precise definition of roles and self-identification is a common subject of debate among BDSM participants."

And all these musings, lengthy as they are, don't even address the point brought up by Ens. Pulver @12 or the point that curious2 is making that someone with antidepressants in their system isn't somehow their true or real self. I'll save those for another incredibly long comment.

@35 nocute
"the point that curious2 is making that someone with antidepressants in their system isn't somehow their true or real self."

IJWTS that as regards their depression, I think the opposite of that.

That is, I think "that someone with antidepressants in their system" is their true/real self to the extent that the meds delete their depression. Because, like fubar@26 I think that

"People suffering from depression are on... brain chemistry imbalance." ...which the meds thankfully work to balance.

It's just the side effect of involuntary suppression of libido--libido being a thing which I consider good and natural and healthy--which results in them not being interested in sex anymore, which I think is not good. And I see the epidemic of meds which suppress libido as causing an epidemic of people who are not well-positioned to see that they've accidentally lost something valuable because the loss precisely gets in the way of them valuing it!

(And their docs, being largely in the business of selling the meds, and practicing in a repressed culture, are usually disinclined to value it either.)

Ms Jobe - You're expecting comparisons to be far too literal, which actually reminds me of one of the two Susans I've mentioned, the couple that looked like identical twins and had the same first name. Anyway, my mind works much more like Miss Marple's.

If LW2's problem were entirely sexual, you'd have a point. But LW2 took social confidence from his sex life and his sexual performance. Plenty of gays do. That social confidence probably helped him engage with the world on terms that were not too disagreeable for someone perhaps seen as on the wrong side of the age divide. I've been with people like that, who came much more alive after an encounter that ran exactly to their liking. It's the best reason I can conjure for being GGG. And now that's gone.

It's not just a question of how LW2 can have sex. Of course there's lots he can do and learn to do with sufficient skill to make him a worthy rival of those who score points with beauty (recall the young man denying his rich older lover's ex-wife's insinuation that he's a gold digger and informing her, "I'm with him not for any financial compensation but because he gives the most spectacular h*** - a skill I'm certain he didn't learn from you"). But can any of the kinds of sex he can still have give him the boost to let him feel he can hold his own with the creme de la creme? That's why my mind ran to women I've known and the social distress they were caused by hair loss. LW2's distress seems of a similar sort.

Griz @28: I had departed last week's thread after mentioning my desire for a ribbon. Thanks for the reminder. Sadly, none have arrived yet, but I believe the postal service is particularly slow these days.

JibeHo @32: Mr. Venn's fine analogy seems to have gone over your head. I've known very few women who are as heavily invested in the wetness of their vaginas as men so often are in the turgidity of Mr. Happy.

nocute @35: kinks are definitely not always sexual, at least in their expression. I know a service sub that will happily come over and clean my toilet, but is absolutely not DTF. Her profile carries a disclaimer: "Don't embarrass us both by asking." I also know a spanking aficionado who, in the beforetime, had a cadre of pretty young spankees he'd thrash but not otherwise touch.

I think of BDSM as a lifestyle, and kinks/fetishes as specific individual activities or proclivities.

Hi JibeHo, how you doing? Speaking of hair, I got a crew cut yesterday, a no4 head shave, not sure if that constitutes a crew cut. Might have to get @ no1 to call it that.

Venn and fubar - The analogy didn't go "over my head", and I didn't take it literally and miss the point. I suppose your point is that women who lose the ability to get soaking wet when they're turned on (which is a powerful turn on for their lovers by the way) don't suffer a loss of sexual confidence that would rival a man's loss of erection.

I'm not sure why you think that - the options I can think of are equally damning. Perhaps you believe that the almighty penis is in a class of its own with regards to sexual organs - ergo ED is the worst thing that can happen to a highly motivated and sexually active adult.

Or you dismiss female sexuality and the parallel importance of self-confidence to a sexually active woman. The ability to cream one's panties can be a source of great sexual power and confidence. Sheesh.

I think the comparison, JibeHo & Mr Venn, would be a woman who hurts during PiV. Lubricant can always be put up the Vagina.
It’s not my place to comment... re having a cock and how to deal.. except to point to health. Physical and mental. As a questioner shows, western medicine can kill sex stone dead, while it helps with a depressed mind.
I wish CatB was here, because he’d explain the skill and healing qualities of Chinese Medicine, as in Acupuncture and herbs. I know it as a way to release blockages in the body’s chi, so energy flows. Simple simple version. Yes, take erection making pills, if they work, which for our LW, they don’t. My ex kept his cock going hard till sixty, though not rock like a twenty year old.. and he is a diabetic. Like when a woman dries up, and I haven’t @69 yrs of age, there is no inevitability re age about these body changes.
Acceptance and being adaptable, is what Dan preaches, seeing sex move along past the hard erection being numero uno.

Lube exists. Just saying.

JibeHo @40: "I suppose your point is..."

Nope.

"I'm not sure why you think that"

I don't think that.

"Perhaps you believe..."

Nope.

Mr. Venn's analogy, as he has clarified, is that many men prioritize their boners in a way that some women prioritize their hair. But I, and perhaps he, had not considered that for some women, the "ability to cream one's panties can be a source of great sexual power and confidence."

Now I'm a believer!

I'm not sure how this plays out in male SS relationships, but for me the most disappointing/ladyboner-killing aspect about an uncooperative penis is how the penis-haver turns into an insecure puddle of mess about it. Then the insecurity and performance anxiety create a self-fulfilling, ego- and penis-deflating prophecy. Agreed with Venn @37 that GHOST's primary issue is the loss of his sexual confidence, more than the loss of consistent erections (but also his doctor absolutely should rule out and resolve other possible causes for ED). He definitely needs to address both the mental and physical side of this one.

@42 BDF - hear, hear, and thank goodness.

There was a difference to me in how the first lw talked about his (?) loss of interest in his kinks--which was total--and the 'suppress[ion]' of his libido, which may have been partial. His tastes were 'utterly' changed; what he previously enjoyed now holds no appeal at all, while his desire for sex is only 'suppressed'. It's possible that he has less, or less exuberant, sex than before, but still some sex--and is relieved no longer to be drawn to kinds of sex he finds shameful or cumbersome.

Some people may be like this. My instinct would be to think that anyone can be sexually happy whatever their kinks, can still be a good person, a generous lover, live a rounded life, and get their rocks off doing whatever they like, consensually.

But there may be a new moralism enjoining people to embrace their kink. Get whipped if you're subby! Eat shit if you're a coprophile! And there may be people who wish that wasn't their urge. And if it abates, and they can still have some kind of lower-wattage sex life, they might welcome that.

BDF - I’m sorry, but as a lesbian, lube is just not the same. Oral sex performed on an artificially lubed vagina is simply gross. I’m surprised at you! That was very heteronormative.

I dread losing my natural lubricants while I age. I don’t give a second thought to my hair. News flash. People are different!

@12. Ensign. It would seem some kinks date from childhood and a very early form of imprinting, some are acquired in puberty and some later. Dan's comments accept that some interests in kink are traumagenic. But this isn't the usual case (I would agree, based on observation), and there's a risk of pathologising kink if it's accepted that trauma of some kind is the motivation for wanting to do kinky things.

@16. AGayDaddy. Good advice.

The lw should of course check out his underlying health, independently of addressing (if he wants) his soft dick.

@30. Bi. Yes. TMK did not seem to me as if they wanted their kinks back in all their importunacy.

@39. Lava. I agree re Freud. Psychoanalysis, and the American psychoanalytic profession especially, did not really break with Freud's theories or speculations regarding infant sexuality, its suppression and sexuality's diphasic onset. Melanie Klein developed new concepts (e.g. the paranoid-schizoid position) but both she and Anna Freud were Freudians.

I had beautiful hair as a girl, then yes, it does start falling out. Best accept my long hair days are gone. Bit like my memory.

There were so many of them, Harriet, branched off. Freud and his Followers, I’ve got that book. Mammoth. Then Splitsville, and fights. He was autocratic, his insights sowed new seeds. Along with many others, Jung being primary.
I don’t read much of that stuff now, except the biography stuff, better to absorb it thru learned modern therapists like Irvin D. Yalom.
Intense times though, and psychoanalysis held sway over people for a long time.

@38 fubar: It's not the USPS--it's me! I'm slow lately, with presenting Lucky Numbers Game awards. I would need your mailing address, and the BIden / Harris Administration needs to oust Louis DeJoy and the equally fraudulent "Board of Governors".
In the meantime, Griz is sending you big cyber hugs, positrons, and VW beeps from my beloved Love Beetle and me, both looking forward to spring. :)

@50: Speaking of Awards---who's hungry for this week's sinfully delectable Lucky @69 Award? Tick...tick...tick...

Mrs Fox - I can't say I've come across any instance of its being more than a minor bother. My guess would be that the meltdown would be most likely to occur among exclusive tops, though even then it might be a little less extreme in general, as it's something that both participants will have experienced. May still ruin the moment, of course.

I was looking more at LW's reaction than at the mechanics of the situation. Mechanics rarely interest me much.

@38: fubar, I used to be approached by a lot of subs--I guess you would call them "service subs"--when I first began online dating. All were younger than me, and wanted to run my errands (presumably clothed) or clean my home while naked.

Tempting as it was to have someone clean for me, I thought it would be wrong and icky for me to take any of them up on it, since the idea of ordering someone around is not at all sexy for me. But I asked a lot of questions, and a few took the time to answer me.

They all said that while they would never dream of touching me or themselves while they were serving me, they most definitely would masturbate once they were home, thinking about serving me. So that even if the interaction seemed asexual, it was actually a sexual thing for them. This made sense to me, since they were soliciting me via a dating website and since so many of them wanted to clean the house while naked.

I understand that a lot of people don't consider something to be sexual if there's no overtly sexual content or contact in the moment, but I consider any activity which results in the person using it as wank-fodder later to be at least somewhat sexual in nature--for them.

If someone just wants to clean and be treated poorly, they could work for a cleaning service, rather than posting a profile on OkCupid, don't you think?

I'm in perimenopause and let me just say, if my hair fell out that would be FAR more devastating than the fact I sometimes need more foreplay and/or lube. I'm not saying some women don't find power in having a WAP, but not nearly on the same scale, as a social phenomenon, as the stock men put into getting erections. And as mentioned earlier, the fix for a dry pussy is much simpler and easier than the options for a limp dick. So neither analogy is perfect but I totally understood Venn's meaning, and thought his analogy got the point across well.

Mrs Fox @44, oh, yes! Instead of just being mildly disappointed and doing other things, you end up spending the next half hour consoling someone that they're not a failure as a man, that they're still sexy, that you're not going to leave them, that this happens to all guys from time to time... I can't imagine most women being anywhere near that neurotic about a lack of wetness. I'm talking generalities here, not exceptions.

Harriet @45, TMK also referred to their libido having gone "out the door," so I think it's reasonable to assume they have little to no desire for either sex or kink.

Jibe @46, I'll just have to take your word that you've tried every flavour of lube on the market and they're all gross. I have been the perimenopausal partner, but I have not had the experience of having a perimenopausal partner; fortunately, my partners (of whatever gender) have been less grossed out than you by providing sloppy cunnilingus should that need arise. Also, neither fingers nor toys have a sense of taste.

If you're aware people are different, why did you feel the need to "correct" Venn's observation that some other women would be most upset by hair loss? Sure, some women value their WAPs more, but you've just confirmed Venn's original point that the people who are most upset by the loss of whatever feature are the ones who were proudest and most invested in that particular feature -- GHOST's boners, his friends' hair -- to begin with.

53-Nocute-- What did your ad say that got you the offers of errand running and housecleaning? I don't find the idea icky, or if I do, it's icky I could stand if it got me free housecleaning. Are there legal issues I should keep in mind before I try this? I wouldn't want to be sued later, though I suppose I could put fair payment aside in a special account in case the relationship broke up in a spectacular way.

Nocute @53, if being naked is part of the thrill, I don't think a cleaning service would be the place for them to meet that kink need. Nor being treated badly -- I imagine most people are grateful and respectful toward the people who clean their houses, or at the very least, absent. I agree that OKCupid is the wrong place for them to be, too -- Fetlife would be a much better option. And I suspect these people were messaging you then skipping straight to the bit where they masturbated while thinking about cleaning your house naked, that's why they didn't reply to your follow-ups.

Nocute, I think "choice" is very hard to define. I think it has to do with our actions, we are generally held responsible for our actions, while feelings are considered to lack choice or morality. Sexual desire in all its aspects refers to feelings, and you seem to be talking specifically about preference-feelings. Yes, preferences can change. But no one can intentionally change, choose to change, our preferences. They can be beaten out or beaten in, but that's unethical as well as hit-or-miss, sometimes you can beat a person into submission, others will rebel until death.. I think the bigger question is, why even choose to try to change preferences unless they are hurting someone? And if you have a preference that's really hard to satisfy ethically, like pedophilia, or an unrealistic preference for centaurs, I think people may want to change themselves but generally can't.. they can just try to act on their feelings morally (without hurting themselves or others) and try to satisfy themselves effectively.

Maybe if we understood feelings better, we could choose to change our preference-feelings effectively, but currently we seem to define ourselves by our stronger feelings and preferences, by what we want as well as our history, and accepting ourselves is important as well as trying to grow better. I don't think there's a "right" thing to want, even wanting to be ethical or wanting money isn't "right", just a metric of how much we care about other people or ourselves.. severe depression where you don't care about yourself or anyone else isn't "wrong", it's not a choice, simply unhealthy. We can try to make someone care about themselves and others, with talk and encouragement or antidepressants or beating them until they say they care, but it's not guaranteed to work.

It's an interesting field of study, but practically, I like to stick with "where's the harm" and "what are my choices", rather than analyzing desires in other ways.

If "born that way" stops other people from trying to tinker with one's preferences, maybe it has some utility although it seems unrealistic.

TMK- It looks like all of your sexual desire has been suppressed, including kinky desires. Yes, I believe that altering brain chemistry can affect pretty much any desire or feeling, and all sexual activity could be considered to be a coping mechanism for our sex drive, but that doesn't mean any sex drive is "bad". You can try different meds if you want your sex drive back, but it will still probably be kinky, which some will love and others will dislike (and dislikers may complain or try to shame you if they are unrealistic and/or unethical, and claiming you are born that way may shut them up).

GHOST- It's a little dramatic to conflate a sexual body change with a dead sex life. You don't need a boner to have good sex, you just need sexual desire for a partner who accepts you and is still attracted to you. I do like the carpe diem PSA, though, it's easy to take our healthy bodies for granted. I hope you keep having sex with your spongy boner and keep trying to get a hard boner medically if that's what you want.

MAD- Just because your father treated your mother badly, doesn't mean that he didn't like her. He sounds like he had trouble caring for others. He must have been attracted to her to have sex with her, but some people can't show much respect or effectively care for the people that they are attracted to, I guess that's called social maladjustment. It sounds lonely, but it also sounds like he can at least take care of himself, at least to give a lot of effort into satisfying his own sexual desire. I hope he impressed upon you the importance of self care, even if he couldn't give you much social guidance and you'll need to pick it up from others. Hopefully your mom modeled some respect for others, or you can befriend some ethical, compassionate people to fill in the gaps. He is not a "winner" if he's unable to have a mutually respectful relationship, it sounds like he uses sex to stave off some of the loneliness from his lack of real connection with others, and that's sad and worthy of some compassion imo.

BDF @30 you said "This just in: people are different" in response to a post by MisAnthrope. But then, in response to my comment (in which I paraphrased you ironically) @54 you say "If you're aware people are different, why did you feel the need to "correct" Venn's observation that some other women would be most upset by hair loss? Sure, some women value their WAPs more, but you've just confirmed Venn's original point that the people who are most upset by the loss of whatever feature are the ones who were proudest and most invested in that particular feature -- GHOST's boners, his friends' hair -- to begin with."

First things first. I was simply quoting you when I pointed out that everyone is different. Apparently it's okay for you to say it when commenting on other poster's opinions, but when I say it I guess I'm being needlessly argumentative? I had an opinion, I stated that opinion. Just like everyone else here does on a weekly basis. As a sexually active lesbian, a self-lubricating vagina is important to ME. To others I'm sure hair loss is more important.

I think it's rich for you to jump on my comment (directed at Venn btw) to tell me that I should respect Venn's observation with regards to women. Every single week you monitor this space and opine on any and all opinions you agree and disagree with. There isn't a week that goes by without a post by you with a list of commenter names and post numbers followed by your thoughts. You "correct" people all the damn time!

People are different. I was pointing that out. And I'm sorry, but Venn's perspective on women seems mostly to be informed by Austen and the blue haired set. Not my peers for sure...

Nocute, I don't understand the harm in letting someone clean your home sexually, if you didn't feel sexual too. If you are honest, how does it harm them? Did you feel bad that you wouldn't be getting as much sexual fulfillment from a sexual situation as they were? Or afraid that you wouldn't satisfy them since you couldn't empathize with their desire? I'm having trouble seeing the harm you worried about..

Jibe @58, yes, I got that you were attempting to turn my own comment against me. And yes, you are being needlessly argumentative. Have a good day.

Just block me already! We'll both be much happier.

JibeHo @58: "I had an opinion, I stated that opinion. Just like everyone else here does on a weekly basis. As a sexually active lesbian, a self-lubricating vagina is important to ME. To others I'm sure hair loss is more important."

JibeHo @32: "You seriously need to work on your analogies ... it's ridiculous to compare a man losing his ability to maintain a satisfactory erection with a woman losing her hair." and "Let me help you. The correct analogy would be ..."

@32 and @58 are not consistent.

nocute @53: If someone wants to run errands or clean house while clothed, then later masturbate over the memory, I don't see it being any different than the stereotypical foot-fetishist working in a shoe store. But the moment they let you know about it, let alone get naked, you become a participant in a sex act, and you're right to decline if you're not into it.

I have a female friend who regularly finds envelopes stuffed with $100 bills in her mailbox. She knows who puts them there, but has never met him in person. He's definitely getting off on it.

nocute @53: "If someone just wants to clean and be treated poorly, they could work for a cleaning service, rather than posting a profile on OkCupid, don't you think?"

Perhaps many do (akin to the shoe salesperson with a foot fetish). But I suspect that you knowing that they're getting off is part of the kink.

Jibe @61, you could always block me. The link is here: https://github.com/ahoyfubar/SlogBlocker

Thanks, fubar, for your comments @63, 64. You understood me.

@55: Fichu, there was nothing in my ad that could possibly imply I was in any way dominant or looking for a submissive person. All the men who contacted me wanting to clean for me or run my errands were substantially younger than me, and when I was in contact with the 2 or 3 men that engaged in a sustained interaction (one guy kept messaging me periodically for months, and as he was polite and engaging, we kept up a sort of dialogue for a little while), I asked why they had chosen me (I mean, I suspect I was but one of many, many women they solicited), and the answer was that since I was older than they were (I was in my mid-40s; they were all in their 20s), they assumed I'd be into it. One said that my photos made me appear "bossy." When I asked him what it was about my photos that gave him that impression, he said it was because of my short hair.*

@59: Philophile, you said, "I don't understand the harm in letting someone clean your home sexually, if you didn't feel sexual too. If you are honest, how does it harm them? Did you feel bad that you wouldn't be getting as much sexual fulfillment from a sexual situation as they were? Or afraid that you wouldn't satisfy them since you couldn't empathize with their desire? I'm having trouble seeing the harm you worried about." Well, it wasn't "harm" and I wasn't worried. But it seemed pretty clear to me that there was something sexual about this for the men and as fubar pointed out, I didn't want to be a participant in their sex. If someone approached me and said, "I'd like to smell your short hair; may I?" We'd all understand perfectly if I said, "um, no." I doubt anyone would ask me why I didn't just let some stranger come up and sniff me, what would be the harm I was worried about. We'd say, "good for you for having boundaries."

I wasn't afraid of harming them; I wasn't worried; I certainly wasn't concerned that I wouldn't be able to satisfy them sexually (although I did suspect that at least one of them would either try to escalate to us having sex or that he'd want to masturbate in front of me on the kitchen floor he'd just washed). I just didn't want to have someone to whom I wasn't attracted come into my home, get naked, ask me to boss him around--BiDanFan, you may be right about some of what you said @56, and perhaps they didn't want to be treated badly, but they definitely wanted to be bossed around--and be part of his sex life. I mean, if someone masturbates about me and I'm unaware of it, that's fine; if some guy jacks it while looking at my absolutely not-erotic profile pictures (which I know some were doing, because they had to let me know after the fact) and I have no idea he's doing it, that's fine--I'm happy to contribute in that passive way to someone's happiness. But this is different and requires more active engagement. It's like fubar's first paragraph @63.

Furthermore, they were asking me to participate and play a role I'm not comfortable with: I'm the opposite of bossy in all things. I am uncomfortable with the role of mistress/master in any and all circumstances, including all non-sexual ones. I would not want to be in the house while someone else was cleaning it, for instance, and these men wanted me to be there.

@56: BiDanFan, I'm sure you're right that they were masturbating immediately after messaging me or after we corresponded and I agree with fubar @65 that their knowing that I knew they were getting off was part of the thill. All that is fine, if both parties are into it. But it's not so okay if one person isn't, in my opinion. And ultimately, it felt exploitive to me. I realize that some people are not aware they are being exploited (think of the whole "Honey Boo Boo" phenomenon years ago. Those people were being exploited and even if they gave their consent and got paid well for it, it wasn't right--and no matter how much money they made, it wasn't nearly as much as the network and network executives made). I don't care for reality tv and didn't ever watch that show, but the whole thing made me uncomfortable. I would have been exploiting these men's sexual kink to get a service for free which ordinarily I would either do myself or pay someone a lot of money to do. Even if they WANTED me to do it, it would be exploitive in the same way that an adult female authority figure having sex with a twelve-year-old boy is exploitive or sexually abusive. It might not feel that way to the boy at the time, and lord knows, there will be plenty of adult men who'd say things like, "Man, I WISH some hot teacher had seduced me when I was 12!", but the majority of us, who subscribe to the notion that children can't give meaningful consent to sex, would say that even if the kid doesn't consider it wrong, it is wrong. If someone fin-dommed a person who was so in thrall to his kink that he gave her money he couldn't really afford to not have and ended up homeless--well, yes, that was what he said he wanted. But it was still unethical for someone to exploit his kink so thoroughly, if she knew or had reason to suspect he couldn't afford it.

I suppose ultimately, it seemed like some sort of sex work to me--a transaction in which I would get compensated (in the form of a clean house, though I've heard and think it likely, that the "cleaning" would be pretty perfunctory, because it's really the IDEA of cleaning that is erotic to these men, more than the cleaning) for being involved in someone else's sex life/acts. I'm not anti-sex work or sex workers, but I didn't want to be one.

*There we go--back to middled-aged women and their hair. Hunter would be chiming in about hormone depletions, and though I have always worn my hair short because I prefer the look of it on me, I absolutely understand Mr. Ven's female acquaintances feeling a loss that goes beyond hair when the hair starts thinning. Jibho, a full head of thick, glossy hair is a public indicator of youth, health, and vitality. Whereas only a few people might get close enough to discover the drawbacks of a less-than totally WAP, unless you're wearing the hijab, everyone can see your hair. We talk about having "good hair days," and most of us know about the jolt of confidence that confers. As men are so much more invested in their penises in general, and in the ability to provide rock-hard erections on demand--or even when not wanted--AND as BDF pointed out, the "fix" for a loss of lubrication is a lot less traumatic than the "fix" for soft penises (I mean, sticking a needle into your genitals is a lot more extreme and inconvenient than reaching for the bottle of lube)--Mr. Ven's analogy seemed more apt to me. Because we're talking about confidence in general. Also, speaking as someone who's fully menopausal and has been for a while, estradiol tablets, inserted vaginally twice a week, do a wonderful job of keeping things more youthful in the vulva and vagina without pumping a lot of estrogen into one's entire system. Plus, I don't need to be wet for cunnilingus to work.

nocute @ 53
I wonder if you can tell us how many potential cleaners you asked those questions and how many got back to you.
While no doubt some may be aroused and act on it sooner or later, there may be different dynamics and preferences at hand.

I agree that this cleaning act per se may be sexual for some, especially for those offering to do it naked, yet would refrain from labeling “any activity which results in the person using it as wank-fodder later to be at least somewhat sexual in nature--for them.”
Relaxing at home while the bank teller or barista we interacted with earlier in the day, mask and everything, come to mind and different ideas and scenarios come up does not necessarily make that interaction sexual. A visit to that same business for no reason just to see person of interest may qualify, yet could also be a daily routine and the possible sexualized aspect of it kept private and separated.

As for your question/comment at the end, assuming those who want “to clean and be treated poorly, … could work for a cleaning service”:
it’s very possible that those who offer such service in D/s context are actually not doing such chores very often which make it part of the thrill.
Working for a cleaning service can turn into a routine and a potential “deboner” for that same reason.

@67:
Oy vey, CMD; I'll try to keep this briefer than my usual comments.
In order:
I don't remember exactly now how many men approached me through a dating website asking if they could come over and clean for me (sadly, my mid-40s are well in the rear view). But it was a lot--probably close to a dozen. As I always respond politely to an introductory message unless it's crude, I politely declined all the offers. Every single man wrote back essentially begging me to let them do this. Some expressed a desire to be a "slave;" some called me "mistress;" a couple, including the one I had the most sustained conversation with, called me "goddess."--all of which is not my cup of tea, but whatever. I had actual dialogue with three of the men. I recall more than a couple of them explicitly stating that they wanted me to order them around, but I can't remember exactly how many.

I see a huge difference in the examples you give of the bank teller or barista. Presumably (universal) you encountered them in a non-sexual context, in the course of your daily errands or routine. The two of you have a pleasant, if brief and superficial interaction. Later, they pop into your head at an opportune moment. It's also worth noting that you were the one who came to them at their place of work--a place where everyone is welcome (unless it's Starbucks, you're Black, and you need to use the bathroom).

That's entirely different from going on a dating site and soliciting an act from someone (boss me around while I clean your house naked) that you are doing for the express and sole purpose of getting off. That was done with intent and the intent was to get off. It wasn't the kind of random interaction we all have daily--in the Before COVID Times--that was a complete stranger asking to be invited into someone's house where they would do something that they have been fantasizing about already.

And yes, I agree completely with your final paragraph. I didn't seriously think they wanted to be housekeepers professionally. I shouldn't have included that somewhat flip comment at the end of my post @53, as both you and BIDanFan and who knows how many others misinterpreted it.

@63 fubar
"regularly finds envelopes stuffed with $100 bills in her mailbox"

This sounds good. Electronic deposits into my account would be more convenient though.

@69: Nah, curious2, seeing a bunch of 100 bills gives people--okay, me--a very big thrill in a way that seeing an electronic balance does not. It's also somehow sleazier and can be utterly anonymous.

@ Nocute 35: I find Jillian Keenan really interesting (and also a bit infuriating at times). And her perspective seems to bear directly on this issue of kink vs. fetish and whether they are universally sexual. I read Keenan to have separated her spanking fetish almost entirely from sex. Although in her somewhat breathless memoir she recalls getting some enjoyment from vanilla sex, especially when paired with her fetish, that seems to have changed as you read her more recent writings.

@ 21, 57: That’s really what I was getting at in my original comment – that even if kink cannot be said to be “hard-wired” scientifically, it may be worth keeping as an expression only because it is a useful way to assert the primacy of individual sexual preference and refute the forces of conformity and shame.

Fubar @62 I concede that my use of the word "ridiculous" was wrong. And I also recognize that Venn didn't make a blanket statement regarding the comparability of a man's loss of erection to a woman's hair loss. I still maintain that a better apples to apples comparison would be a man going bald and a woman losing her hair. Or a man losing his ability to get an erection and a woman losing her ability to get wet. Hair loss is a confidence killer for most people, man or woman - with notable exceptions of course. And the diminishment of one's body's ability to prepare for sexual intimacy can be a devastating development no matter the gender. And a confidence killer.

Of course I'm aware of toys and fingers and lube and Viagra. But I'm pretty sure if you polled sexually active adults, a clear majority would prefer that they didn't need any pharmaceuticals.

Regarding Colonel Angus, one of the great joys (for me) in the act is getting my face all up in there and having the evidence of my partner's attraction for me (and enjoyment of my superior skills!) all over my face. The smell and taste is like nothing else in the world, and a huge turn on - for me. When that's gone, I know I for one will miss it.

In the future I will try to qualify my opinions more pointedly.

Re "cleaning perverts," I have some experience of these. I don't mind being bossy and I hate to clean, so it seemed an arrangement that would suit both sides. Results were mixed: unlike hiring a cleaning person, you do have to deal with time wasters, as Nocute experienced, and (mastur)bait-and-switchers who say they only want to clean your house but then request additional services. I haven't experienced the second phenomenon but I know it's common. I have had a few positive experiences though where everything happened as described/negotiated. Unfortunately, these did not turn out to be regular arrangements -- one found a full-time Domme, another ghosted. It seems reasonable on their part that they would prefer to focus on someone who wants more than to get their house cleaned for free. I don't see it as exploitative as the offer of services came from them, they are consenting adults, we are each getting something we want out of it. Not to say, Nocute et al, that I would encourage you to say yes if there's nothing about this which appeals to you. I'd certainly consider doing it again, post lockdown of course. Although, with all the cleaning supplies involved as well as the D/s dynamic allowing for distancing, it seems this could be a relatively Covid-safe pursuit.

Nocute @66, ha, I too recalled Hunter and his theories on the "great shortening" of women's hair in middle age, and wondered what he would make of this discussion. Also, thanks for your recommendation of estradiol. Thus far my issues have been intermittent, but it's good to know what to ask my doctor for should they become more problematic.

Apologies for taking your comment about working for a cleaning service literally.

Re your long post about what are kinks -- lots to think about there! I reckon it's an eye-of-the-beholder thing, I don't know that universally accepted definitions of any of these things are possible. Hence the need to communicate about them.

And re being masturbation fodder: In the lockdown I have been enjoying "clubbing Zooms," where DJs play online sets and there is also a Zoom for people who want to dance in their living rooms. On one occasion, a stranger entered the Zoom, sent me a few complimentary messages, to which I gave a brief "thank you" and nothing more, then turned off his camera for several minutes, then vanished. It was clear what he'd been doing and it didn't sit right with me. I am not OnlyFans. I pondered the ethics of this, given that I of course have masturbated to photos of people known and unknown to me on the internet, and the crossed line was indeed that he had made me aware of it. If he hadn't sent me those messages I'd never have known, like the hot barista will never know whose head they pop into later that evening. So I agree with Nocute -- messaging women on a dating site for solely masturbatory purposes, without their willing participation, is at best bad manners.

Congrats to Curious on the lucky number!

Jibe @72: "When that's gone, I know I for one will miss it." Sure. But ageing does a lot of unwanted things to us. Sure, we'd all prefer to have sex without needing a little blue pill or a bottle of lube. But it's not really as if we have a choice. We'd also all prefer to stay the same weight we were in our 20s, for our knees to work consistently, for our foreheads to remain unlined. Alas, this is none of our fate. (Some) loss of moisture is inevitable. I agree completely about the joy of losing oneself in a wet pussy, but without the wetness, it can still be fun. Your partner will still moan and writhe in pleasure. She will still come. Life will still be worth living and sex worth having. Sadly, we don't have the option to forgo ageing -- well, we do, but given the alternative, I'll age as gracefully as I can, thanks.

curious @69: congratulations on the soixante-neuf! No doubt Griz will be along directly to deliver the customary cheers.

I imagine the risk of getting caught, and the proximity to the recipient of his attention, are both factors in the choice to deliver cash. He's been doing it regularly, albeit infrequently, for years, and has never sought to upgrade the relationship.

nocute @ 68
Our previous comments crossed so the numbers issue may have been clarified a bit prior to your recent one.
Yes, those who approached you seem like fantasizing rookies looking at the wrong place, yet may get a hit nevertheless.

I think much of it is due to the supply and demand and the hope/assumption that eventually someone may be up for their shtick. Correct me if wrong, but I assume you also got plenty of other suggestions for only being a woman. (I also got hits from men who only saw my otherwise lovely, sexy pictures yet never bothered reading the post itself.)

Just want to point out to you and the rest of humanity that performing domestic chores in a D/s context aren’t necessarily sexual. Some people actually do a good job cleaning and also know a thing or two about cooking and serving, and often wear the proper attire, and are motivated to do so despite knowing they should not expect much if any at all in return.
Differences upon request.
Don’t leave your chores at the hands of cheap wannabes- contact the pros!
(and the line at the very bottom reads in small letters:)
This is not an equal opportunity employment.

@70 nocute
They could send me bitcoin anonymously.

I hear you that cash can be a thrill. Certainly to the fin-sub, so I'll accommodate all who want to give me sufficient numbers of large bills. (I hope they wouldn't want me to disable the motion-sensor on my mailbox I use to keep from leaving it in there so long it gets stolen again.)

I had a part-time (uh) job once that involved great piles of cash and few transactions; the thrill of it wore off quick, leaving just the risk of it. And the tedium of counting it.

"References" as opposed to "Differences"

Fichu @75: Fetlife is full of men offering cleaning and other such services, and I'm sure that if you list FinDom amongst your interests, you'd stand a pretty good chance.

Housecleaners that I pay well are difficult enough to get to do what I want. I'm concerned that their performance might be worse if they sought discipline. I value getting the job completed efficiently, which might not be their priority. Hopefully they'll just drop off hundred dollar bills instead.

@JibeHo: Oh, believe me, I mourn the loss of my copious wetness. I used to get very wet and very easily and quickly, and I know how my partners liked this. (And btw, I loved your use of "Colonel Angus," which I may have to adopt.) I do still get wet, just nowhere near as much so as before. While I sometimes am concerned that my partners (all hypothetical for the past year, sadly) will be disappointed in the relative dryness, I try to counter that by letting them know in other ways how turned on I am. BDF is correct: it doesn't affect my arousal or hinder the ability to orgasm.

But even though the loss of lubrication tied to aging can be a bit of a confidence-drainer DURING sex, I think the thinning hair would be a confidence-shredder all the damn time--every time I would look in a mirror, for instance, or meet new people. And although I agree that it seems appropriate to compare men's and women's reactions to losing their hair, I'm going to say that we are all used to the phenomenon of men losing hair in midlife. I would guess that at least half of all men, if not more, start to go bald around age 30ish. Whereas women are supposed to have that "crowning glory" even into old age (think of every tv show or movie that shows grandma awoken late at night, with her white hair loosed from its standard bun, streaming down her back while she wears her nightgown).

Additionally--and men, please correct me if I'm wrong--I think men don't lose confidence in general over hair loss; it's a common thing we all see happen to so many men and so many really sexy and strong and manly men go bald and either just walk around with the (in my opinion, cute) monk tonsure or go for it and shave their heads--no one sees Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson thinks he's a wimp or has lost his mojo; no one said, "Sean Connery was sexy before he started losing his hair--or for every person who DOES say that, there are more who say, "no, he's still just as sexy" and some who will say he's even sexier now. I wonder if the hair loss might not even be all that big a deal to many if they didn't think that potential partners would mind. Apparently, from the stories I hear regarding straight men on dating websites, women routinely reject men because of height or amount of hair, although I am not one of those women.

But a dick losing its ability to get and stay rock-hard? For many men, that is the definition of manhood, of virility. Lately, I've been hearing young people describing some man or other as having "big dick energy," which I posited was a synonym for self-confidence. I was corrected that it is a very specific self-confidence born from having a big dick. I think that for most men, their penis is much more central to them, to who they are, than a head of hair is.

Alas, as BiDanFan pointed out in her excellent comment @74, age does a number on all of us, and I am grateful for the little blue pill or any of its permutations--better living through chemistry, I always say--and for lube. I think it would have been far more challenging to maintain a satisfying sex life as one aged a couple of hundred years ago, and I consider us lucky to have the options to somewhat mitigate the effects of aging.

@curious2, when you find the person who will clean your house well and then stuff your mailbox with hundred dollar bills, please feel free to pass along my contact information!

Hair loss is distressing nocute, it’s a few hairs as you wash it, etc. I hate hair on my neck, so my hair was always up, and there was hair wrapped around the hair ties. Not sure shredding is the right word. Slowing being dehaired, few hairs at a time.
Now with my crew cut, my grey temple streaks, being more visible, make me look distinguished. I’m sure women who have much better health than me, their hair won’t necessarily fall out.
Re losing vaginal fluids, so far so good. Desire is what has changed for me. Again, like the hair loss, slowly over time it has decreased.

Nocute @82, raises hand! As part of my androgyny fetish, I only ever fancy cis men if they have long hair. And as Venn said, the ones who are the proudest and most invested are the ones that are most distressed when they start to lose it. Both my partners, in their late 30s, sadly have thinning hair; both have researched hair transplants. (One may do it, the other doesn't want to shave his head.) Hair transplants are pretty popular, so a not insignificant number of men are indeed distressed when the hair starts to go. Just imagine, for instance, you're a metal musician who starts to go bald at 30? I recently reconnected with my ex-husband who still has his magnificent mane, and says it's the envy of his balding friends.

To bring this back full circle, loss of erection in men is like loss of hair in women -- devastating for most who experience it -- while loss of wetness in women is like loss of hair in men -- most expect and roll with it, but a minority find it a devastating blow to the ego and identity. :)

Which I find liberating, because desire has been constantly driving me since my sex got activated. Now, my mind go more to artistic responses. Books have always been linked up to my desires, because, they are like super intense intimacies with strangers. I salute authors, you rock.

Music too, I listen to it very differently now. Amazing how people use instruments to talk thru, and create such Beaty for our ears.
Sex took up centre stage, for decades.

Evan without partners, it’s important to keep the flame alive. Dan said it yrs ago, self pleasure every day./ or there about/, don’t lose the heat which our sex gives us. And as our LW reminds us, make hay while the sun shines.

Nocutename@66, thanks for explaining.. I also thought of nude house cleaning as low grade sex work.. maybe because I knew a guy who made so much money cleaning houses nude that he quit his internship early to travel.. but offering free house cleaning is more like soliciting sex work, even if the only “payment” is a clean house.. but if you have no interest or a dislike for prostitution, or would feel uncomfortable playing the expected role, it makes a lot of sense to turn down the payment.. I have some firm belief that it’s hard to remember is not universal, that the only thing “good enough” to trade for sex favors is sex favors.. maybe I was trying to see if you shared this too.. the idea of not wanting to participate in sexual situations unless it’s personally sexually enjoyable.. and I guess it’s hard for me personally to think about a naked man eager to clean for me as boring or icky, although surely it’s possible.. maybe I lean more dominant, or lazy, idk.. also I don’t think consensual sex work is really exploitative (except that women’s salaries average lower).. not otherwise comparable to statutory or administrative sexual offenses..

Thanks for the inspiring post(s).

JibeHo- I also think it’s more appropriate to compare loss of hardness and loss of wetness, if you don’t expect these unwanted effects of aging, that’s just unrealistic.. I also agree that the female “fix” is less intrusive, and in that way genital aging effects is a bigger problem for men. I don’t think Venn was intentionally malicious or trying to diminish the importance of female sexual desire and function to our sexual confidence, just a bit out of his element.. because he seems to (admirably) strive for respectful relationships.. it’s nice to see you post more..

Everyone @all. YMMV. While I respect all of your various opinions about which losses are more significant and to whom, I respectfully submit that we all speak only for ourselves. I have yet to see an ad on television for a single “retain the wet pussy you had at 30” miracle drug. We have at least 2 of those heavily marketed miracle drugs addressing the problems that men face. To the point where we can all finish the sentence “if you have an erection that lasts more than 4 hours...”

I get it. Boners are important! We all get it. I was just pushing back for the ladies (sorry Venn if I’m misusing the 4 letter L word here).

Which brings up larger societal issues that I wasn’t really addressing before but I feel forced to now.

And now that I’ve looked into that can of worms - forget it. It’s not worth it. I’ll just finish by saying that as someone who values wet pussies exponentially higher than hard dicks - I thank my lucky stars that I don’t live in Russia. Or the other 75% of the world in which I wouldn’t have the opportunity to complain about the conflation between satisfying boners and cosmetic hair loss.

@85 BDF
"I only ever fancy cis men if they have long hair...Both...sadly have thinning hair...hair transplants...One...doesn't want to"

OMG, this sounds like a terrible conundrum from a letter to Dan!

I guess a wig wouldn't help? Does it help that you knew them when they had hair (by which I mean does attraction persist even now that the hair to create the attraction is going)?

Congratulations on one of them looking at transplants. I sure as heck wouldn't want to...but I would. (Does that fall into GGG?)

/Break/
I think I've mentioned before that at age 27 I was parting my hair in the middle...then it seemed like (though probably I simply didn't notice the thinning phase) the very next week I didn't have a middle. And caring seemed far less convenient than simply finding all the women who also didn't care.

Which made it seem really weird to me a few years later when walking down the street I heard repeated screaming from the top of a high-rise college dorm I was on the sidewalk next to. "Minoxidil!" And much laughter. I figured it was something that the screamers cared about, and that would more than likely bother them in time. Unlike me.

nocutename @35 "EricaP's descriptions of what she gets out of pain/impact play are similar."

Nice to be remembered! Yes, what most people seem to find "normal stroking" (on any body part) feels light & irritatingly ticklish to me. Whereas strong hands grabbing my flesh hard, or eager teeth sinking into a real bite -- that sends me.

And the fun, physical part of impact play is similar. Solid thud is like a lovely deep massage, and sharp sting wakes me up in a good way. (There's a psychological aspect too; the complex sexiness of submitting to sensations I -don't- enjoy, but that's a different topic.)

I wonder whether for TMK new kinds of touch are pleasurable that used to be boring/unpleasant, or if touch has just completely become unappealing altogether.

How about a nice back massage or a back scratching, or a hug? Those are pleasures for most people, right? But they're not fundamentally sexual. I also wonder if TMK no longer finds those kinds of familiar physical pleasures appealing in any way.

And then that makes me wonder about other kinds of pleasures: music, favorite foods, warm sunshine. Are those as delightful as they used to be for TMK? Or have they all been dimmed by the antidepressants?

I haven't taken antidepressants myself, so would love to hear other people's experiences.

JibeHo @ 90
That gracious last paragraph reminds me that my appreciation to Savageville grew once I started going out en femme.

People liking the idea of $100 bills in their mailboxes reminds me that we're all open to sex work if the price is high and the ask is low.

The rest is just negotiation.

CMD @93: Is that a new avatar? I like it a lot!

@75. Fichu. It looks as if you're just getting (one's getting) your house cleaned for free, but in fact you're entering into a sexual relationship with the person, with your subby kinky house-cleaner. Sexual relationships always entail reciprocal responsibilities. And you might not enjoy it, knowing the relationship is sexual, once it starts. If it's an arrangement without money, it's a consensual sexual relationship; and if you're paid for it, as nocute was offered, you've gone down the road of offering sex work.

Philophile: it's sex work for the person being paid; and this is maybe more often (?) the person having their house cleaned e.g. by the subby person wearing very little, as the person doing the cleaning.

Bi might have found the relationship manageable in her head, but she's an experienced Domme. And it's possible, for the woman served by the subby guy cleaning her house, that there's something she's into: there's a reversal of the usual power or service relationship in domesticity, and being gratified by it is something like being tickled by a sexual feeling.

[break]
'Big dick energy', as I've seen it used, is a gender-neutral term. Woman and nonbinarians can have 'big dick energy'.

@fubar: I believe you misunderstood me: I don't want to have to do anything but pass my mailbox and scoop out the hundred dollars bills on the way into my clean house.

@Harriet, regarding "big dick energy" being accessible to those without dicks, even more reason to used the term "self confidence." Rather--and I don't generally do this--using BDE seems to gender an attitude that doesn't need to be gendered.

It's like people saying "man up," or "grow a pair" or calling someone a "pussy," all of which are gendered, and all of which imply that being not a man--i.e. a woman--is bad. The ridiculous correction has been the belabored and strained use of women's body parts to "ova up," or replacing "pussy" with "balls" or whatever it is that Dan and his Flying Monkeys say (Dan: "pussies are strong; they push babies out. Balls are weak; have you ever seen a man get kicked in the balls?"). In reality, there are perfectly good words and expressions that are non-gendered and convey the same meaning without all that patriarchal baggage, like "coward," "grow a spine," and "grow up" or "get some courage." Why call a coward a pussy or a (I don't know) scrot(e), when you can just say "coward" and everybody knows exactly what you mean and most aren't likely to be offended. If I need to screw my courage to the sticking place, I don't need to be told to grow a pair or to to get some balls--I'm quite capable of ginning up some courage while happily retaining all my lady bits, not by swapping them out for men's.

It seems as if the language and the culture is becoming ever more segregated by rigid gender constructions all the time. When I was a kid, there were Legos. Now there are "girls' Legos" and "boys' Legos." It feels regressive to me to suggest that confidence is a male trait, signified by the presence of a large penis--a real man! So that even when women or non-binary people exude confidence, it has to be phrased in relation to a dick they may not possess or which they may not feel defines them.

@Harriet: The fact that you see a term like "big DICK energy" as being "gender-neutral" is depressing as fuck.

@JibeHo: I value your contributions, but I think you're misreading some of the comments. I don't value a hard dick more than a wet pussy; they're both very nice things to either have or have access to.

(I realize this is a post that's going to be heavy on a gender binary and also which privileges heterosexuality--I hope you realize that everything comes with all the usual caveats and YMMV. Harriet, that doesn't mean that I don't acknowledge the existence of non-binary or trans folx, and everyone, I'm not trying to assert the supremacy of straight relationships or to contribute to bi-erasure. This comment, as all of mine, is already too long, and if I tried to cover all gender and gender expressions and sexual orientations and possible configurations, it'd be five times as long. I assume you all have things to do.)

The fact is that no one is trying to take away your preference for a wet pussy, whether your own or someone else's. You are correct that there are Viagra commercials on at late night, but I seem to recall seeing some sort of lube commercials back when I watched commercial tv. But even if there are more ads for erectile dysfunction on tv, that decision wasn't made by any of us. The people who run that ad have good reason to expect men, insecure as many of them are, to be more willing to spend the big bucks on boner pills (and they are much more expensive to get than lube, not to mention more ripe for manipulation of the gullible and desperate--so there's a good reason for advertisers to push one more than the other). It strikes me that men are probably the people who buy the Viagra et.al. because they are scared they won't be manly enough without their big dick energy if the big dick won't comply (I assume we're talking big, erect dick, not big-but-flaccid dick), which means that the men who have anxiety about the loss of their hard dicks are pussies!! A joke, but not really--as the whole point is that it's MEN who prioritize the dicks, not so much women, even if straight women can be more logically expected to benefit from the hard dick.

The original analogy was about signifiers of youth and vitality. Mr. Ven and many of us read the op as saying he felt a general lack of confidence triggered by the fact that he doesn't have the erections of his former years. While it's true that in the purely sexual arena, a WAP is the equivalent of the stiffie, I think it's possible to remove this from the purely and exclusively sexual arena. And if it were, I'm pretty sure that any woman who is suffering age-related hair loss also has menopause-related vaginal dryness. So it's a win-win. (Haha--since my humor seems to be difficult to discern on this thread, I feel the need to explain that this is a sad joke).

Or just ignore me. I'm only one long-winded person with thinning hair and a no-longer-so-wet-pussy. I shouldn't speak for anyone but myself.

Speaking for myself, I am far more upset at the state of my hair than the state of my genitals.