Action: A Book About Sex (22 page)

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Gender-tangling.
One of my favorite gambits with male partners who are down is that they’re my girlfriend—and this doesn’t apply to all the dudes I’ve been with; just the handful of ones who’ve gregariously indicated they like it. It’s always the most traditionally masculine guys who like this, I think because it’s such a reversal of what they’re expected or think they’re allowed to do in reality, which always makes for sex. I tell them I’m going to give them head like I would to a girl—and I do it. Usually, gender-flipping is as much about the sexualized “shame” that guys are supposed to feel about being feminine or what have you; so, if they’re into it, comment and capitalize on that as you go.

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Rape.
This fetish isn’t specific to one gender, or even to one idea of which gender is the attacker and which is the target. I like to tell dudes what they have to do as much as I like to “accidentally” leave the front door of my apartment unlocked and have them come up behind me as I’m working and stop me from it. It takes all kinds—and it’s all totally fine. I’m always confused by men who dismiss rape fantasies as having to do with the meaningless catchall misogyny-net known as “daddy issues,” since this is about, for me, taking a harmful, potentially mortal situation that
I have to be wary of and protected against in my day-to-day all the time, then defanging it and making it into a farce of which I am in control. What’s
damaged
about making lemonade when life hands you rape culture? People who try to shame women for wanting to flip the script about one of the toughest parts of their daily realities should reconsider their positions. And leave my dad’s name out of your mouth, because he’s the best.

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BDSM.
A common misconception about BDSM, which stands for bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism, is that it’s inherently degrading to those who are being dominated. After all, the person they’re having sex with has tied them up, inflicted pain on them, and/or said things to them that would, outside of this context, qualify as abuse, correct? Yes, but if all parties consent to BDSM, it’s understood that the “sub”—the person with their wrists bound, for example, as opposed to the person tying the knots—is the person who’s really in power in this arrangement. They dictate the rules of the game: what acts are permissible, what tools are used on them, when it’s time to calm things down or increase them a bit, and when the game stops. The dominator has to respect those rules, or else, yes, what they’re doing is a non-consensual disobedience of their partner’s boundaries, like any other sexual act that is done without permission, no matter how plain in flavor. Just because BDSM incorporates acts and objects commonly associated with violence doesn’t make it violent in itself: Like any kind of “taboo” sex, it can lead to a feeling of deep recognition, trust, and affection when two or more people are able to get down and have it work for everyone involved, which can feel improbable before the first time you try it and it works. Some basic interpolations of BDSM include spanking, which has tons of crossover appeal for those who aren’t as enthusiastic about BDSM. Others like to be paddled, whipped, or otherwise smacked on—although as I note in the toy story below, this doesn’t have to involve any pain. Handcuffs and restraints follow the same logic.

Make a Deal

If you can’t find a partner to share your fetish with, pay someone for that. There are many discreet, professional sex workers who bring home the bacon by meeting this need, and some of them work in dungeons that won’t require hotel-room sneakery or the fear of someone invading your privacy at home. There is NOTHING wrong with hiring a sex worker as long as you treat the person in question with respect, and that you fully understand that they are on the job, same as if they worked at a bank. If you choose to hire a sex worker, understand the limitations of this arrangement! Escorts and other sex workers are usually paid by time, although some might have a flat rate per act. This does not mean you are purchasing them, the person, so be courteous and conscious of what they’ve specified the deal is. Handle the money upfront—count it in front of them and give it to them before you do anything else, and follow their boundaries and instructions to the letter. Tipping is recommended—20 percent, or $20 for every hour, at least.

ACCESSORIES TO A GREAT TIME

You don’t ever “need” anything more than the corporeality you were born with to have fun sex—but you can
want
to use sex toys, or, in some people’s cases, be able to orgasm only with their deft aid. Some of us might have personal tastes or physical makeups that respond to equipment-based stimulation more than skin-on-skin contact—and that’s not only fine, but great to know about yourself. Equipped with that knowledge (and actual equipment), you and your partner won’t be left wringing your hands in the buff, disappointed and confused as to why you
just can’t come
. Opting to add sex toys to an already hot and lovely practice is usually even more of a good thing.

How to Be Suave in a Sex Store

Go to a sex store. Shop. Make a purchase or, if nothing strikes your fancy, leave. Done! Seriously, dudes: No one is judging you. The clerk is being paid by the hour and wants to go home and see what non-adult movies look good tonight—maybe order a little ltalian or something. The other patrons are
also
in a sex store. You’re good.

WOULDN’T IT BE FUNNY IF WE HAD THE BEST ORGASMS OF OUR LIVES?

Have a new sex-cohort you intend to kick it with for a minute or two? When you’re ready to broach the subject of adding new routines to your shared sexual repertoire, empty your bedside table’s drawer and invest in some new sex-based equipment, if that’s what you two are into. If you’re unsure and want to find out what your common stances are there, hit the sex store together. Yes: Take a romantic stroll along the walls of cock rings and scads of blow-up dolls for whom the only variable is hair color, but whose packaging makes the lewd and unconvincing promise that the delights within match exactly the experience of a carnal tryst with your most jerked-off-over celebrity.

Visiting an erotic supermarket as a couple follows the “perfect date” model, after all—it’s a “joke” outing that can, surprise surprise, accelerate your blood at warp speed and find you fucking desperately in the parking lot before you know it. This is the handiwork of a dyed-in-the-wool and classic iteration of the “wouldn’t it be funny if” going-out structure. Stopping into a retailer rated XXX is king of the form. You’re familiar with this template, I bet.
Wouldn’t it be funny if we got high and went to the planetarium?
molts to reveal its true skin: You didn’t know it yet, but your actual
motivation was gawping at the universe’s majesty, plus that of this human comet beside you, and, bing big-bang boom, you’re carfucking.
Wouldn’t it be funny if we went to that Halloween party in sheets we drew our invented, two-person cult’s insignia on and insisted to everyone that it was real in the 1970s?
Oh, now you two share the furtive alliance that comes with a secret no one else is allowed to know, plus you’re creating it by literally wrapping yourselves in bedclothes, aka what you regularly have sex on? How novel! Why, is that a car fuck I spy just beyond the fake-cobwebbed bushes out front? No joke is ever really a joke, and this is especially true at the sex store.

When you make your first shared venture to the grocery store with a partner, it can feel awkward: an immediate, accursed,
Oh, God, does this mean they think I want to marital-bliss it up with them or something? GAK!
hyper-commitment. Going to an adult store is that errand, depressurized, but ends up drawing you closer than considering the merits of less figurative hot dogs and cherry pies together would. (I love when gastronomic euphemisms skew super-patriotic
and
lewd.)

Even the most diplomatic of sexual tastes, however eagerly a person wants to express them, can take some time to announce themselves, as I have so often experienced firsthand. One great shortcut: Plunk yourselves in front of their accoutrements. You will find yourself Astro-gliding right over to where the wares of your SECRET INNERMOST DESIRES are housed eventually, if not with great if subconscious haste, and the same will be true of your companion.
Ha-ha, oh boy, handcuffs? What is this, a sitcom doing a “kink” episode where our prudish heroes, Larry and Linda, decide to “spice things up a little”? How hilarious would it be if we bought those?
Well, all right, but make sure to keep track of their key, or else you’re going to have a strained interaction with the AAA after you’re auto-erotically manacled to the steering wheel four minutes later.

You can and probably will drop the yuk-yuk pretense a few minutes into your jaunt. Going to the sex store doesn’t have to
masquerade as pure and simple folly—some of you are self-possessed people who don’t stumble clumsily around their desire, and that rules. If you’re reticent to go sex-browsing because you’re worried someone will laugh at you, however: Look over there. There’s a whole row of penis-shaped candy that does not appear to have a hint of novelty about it. Self-serious dick lollipops! What!!! That’s hilarious. If you note the ad copy on the packaging surrounding you, the word “rod” is used in earnest
a lot
. You are in the company of a merchant who sells more
Fifty Shades of Grey
“starter kits” than everything else in the store combined. (Sex-shop employees at all different dildo-purveyors have insisted to me that this is true, and while I think it’s fucking rad that so many people are inspired to step up their sexual exercises by those books and movie, I still can’t quite get over seeing a rack of silver clip-on ties marketed as the height of carnality.) If you’re into one of the things I poked fun at above? Guess what? I would be totally game and encouraging if we were sexual teammates and you proposed utilizing one of those things—anything new to me is also scintillating to me.

The most difficult-seeming aspect of this—the proliferation of choice—isn’t even all that complex! You know how, upon being presented with the heaping rows of shelves at a bookstore when you didn’t go in with a particular volume in mind, you blank out?
Jesus H. Cam’Ron, where do I start? What do I like? Do I even like ANYTHING?

You do—abundance is just dizzying! Freak boutiques are less stultifying, in part, because the variety is winnowed: You’re working with a pretty static set of categories here, and though their manufacturers have done their best to try to swindle you into thinking that the variance of bumps, speeds, colors, and shapes of a specific item will have the greatest of bearings on your ability to come, this is true only some of the time, and if you’re on a budget, cheap toys are basically all the same—with some exceptions, which we’ll go into in a bit.

It is imperative that you shop for your sexual toolkit in the
flesh, not online, where you might not be as inclined to browse. The internet is rife with smutty weirdness, but you typically have more control over what area of that you’re seeing. Let yourself be surprised! If you pick a toy that’s a dud? Note what you/your person disliked about it, and on your next sex-shop spree, tell an employee, and they can help you find something more to your liking.

This past year, I was walking through the West Village in New York City, a neighborhood where window mannequins in harnesses, latex masks, and stretch teddies represent 51 percent of the population: Sex stores are
everywhere
. A person I was fond of happened to be in town, and our agreement was,
Let’s try everything, as frequently as possible, save for a few acts that aren’t to our tastes
. As he summarized our sex life: “We don’t care who’s in charge, as long as
someone’s
in charge.” We tried just about everything we could think of, but even sexual geniuses (like this guy was) can exhaust their mental capacities. In need of a muse in the form of a storefront mannequin wearing a chain-mail thong and pasty set, we took to the Village.