How to Be a Person (13 page)

Dump the nice girl, be single, fuck around, and keep your eyes peeled for a girl who wants what you want, change and all.

So I Have These Parents

I NEED YOUR HELP
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I have entered into a period of my life where I am devoting all my mental resources toward my academics—grad school—and am not interested in dating. Thus, I bought a Real Doll so that I may enjoy fantastic masturbation during this loveless period. Unfortunately, while my parents were visiting, my mom discovered it and she reacted very, very badly
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You see, my dear mother is a feminist
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She is very upset by the doll and believes that it is an indication that I have lost all respect for women. I do not feel this is true. I view myself as a feminist, and I realize this society sexually objectifies women. But I also believe that I can masturbate with a rubber woman and have wild fantasies and then come back to reality and respect everyone—men, women, others. My mother, however, is extremely upset, and we haven’t been able to have a civil conversation since. I am hoping you can possibly give me some perspective
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Dolled Up

My perspective: Your masturbatory routines—including your masturbatory aids/aides—are none of your mother’s fucking business.
And if your mother wants to be shocked by something, DU, it ought to be that her son-the-grad-student had $5K to plunk down on a sex toy.

Your options at this stage are pretty limited. You can apologize to your mother and tell her what she wants to hear (“You’re right, Mom, I’m making an appointment with a therapist and donating my Real Doll to sex-starved grad students in Africa …”). Or you can tell your mother to fuck off and butt out (“It’s my dick, Mom, and I’ll stick it in whatever I want. You remember that ‘my body, my choice’ stuff, right?”).

That said, DU, your claim that you bought a Real Doll so you could “enjoy fantastic masturbation during this loveless period” doesn’t quite pass the smell-of-day-old-spunk-moldering-in-the-lifeless-orifice-of-a-silicone-dummy test. Most guys manage to tough out their loveless periods with the help of the porn industry and their own right hands. And most guys who opt for insanely expensive, life-size, hard-to-hide sex dolls do have issues with women—most are plagued by feelings of inadequacy, not superiority—so you may want to entertain the possibility that your mother might be right.

But even if you do have issues with women—still an if—they’re still none of your mother’s fucking business.

I AM A 21-YEAR-OLD BISEXUAL FEMALE
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I’ve never really been close with my mum, and since I moved away from home three years ago it’s gotten worse. I know that she loves me because I’m her daughter, but I don’t think she likes the young adult I’m growing into. Yet she insists I visit her and stay at her house for weeks when I have time off from
college so she can talk me out of liking anything she hates. When I’m with my friends, I’m quite witty and outgoing, particularly about sex. But when I stay with her, my personality becomes crippled and stunted by her authority. I seem to just end up not saying anything at all for fear of offending her. Last year I stupidly told her that I like watching porn; now it’s something that she’s always bringing up. For example, I got into a conversation with her about a recent breakup and asked her if all men were like my cheating ex. She told me that she thought his cheating was my fault—because I watch porn, she said, I must have been sending out subliminal messages that I approve of women being sexually exploited
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She raised me to be a feminist, but I can’t bring myself to ask her if she would kick up this much of a fuss if I were a 21-year-old man who watched porn. I don’t know what to do to make her happy, short of having some sort of porn-aversion therapy. I feel really conflicted: Away from my mother, I feel like a confident, empowered young woman; when I’m with her, I feel like this mute, angry, introverted little victim
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I know exactly what I’d do if this were a relationship, but how should I resolve a difficult mother/daughter relationship?

Can I Dump My Mother?

If hanging out with your mother makes you miserable, CIDMM, don’t hang out with your fucking mother. You’re a 21-year-old adult—not a young adult, not someone “growing into” adulthood, but an adult already—and you’re in no way obligated to spend all of your free time under your mother’s roof. Head off with your friends
over college breaks, travel, watch porn. Head home for the holidays if you must. And since your mother is inclined to use the details of your personal life that you share with her against you, don’t tell her anything about your personal life.

ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS AT COLLEGE IS GAY
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I’m a straight female with my own boyfriend. We’re going to be sophomores in the fall, and I feel like this is about the age where coming out to one’s parents is in order. However, my friend’s parents are conservative. His older brother is also gay—and when he came out, his parents cut off all funding for college and excommunicated him from the family, so my friend is understandably terrified
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When his parents come to visit, I tag along on “dates” with him to “meet the parents.” It’s a free meal, but it feels a little dirty to lie to his mom and dad about how “in love” we are. Moreover, my friend is coming to my house in California this summer. I had said I would love for him to come visit—as a friend. But his parents think he’s going to be staying with his girlfriend, and they’re thinking of tagging along so they can finally meet their future inlaws, i.e., MY PARENTS. I feel like this is getting way out of hand. How far should we take this act?

I Should Win An Oscar

When you feel bad about lying, ISWAO, remind yourself that you’re doing a good deed—you’re doing God’s work—every time you pass yourself off as this boy’s girlfriend. Yes, you’re lying to his mean-spirited, emotionally abusive parents, two complete shits who
deserve so much worse than simply being misled. And he only lies to them because—for the time being—he must.

You should ask him to do three things to secure your continued cooperation in this deception. First, he has to make a solemn promise that he will come out to his parents the day after he graduates. Second, he has to reach out to his excommunicated brother and, if his brother can be trusted to keep his secret, he has to come out to his brother. Third, he has to break up with you at the end of the school year.

The course of true love never did run smooth, as someone or other once said, so a painfully messy June breakup with his college girlfriend—right before summer break!—not only makes your friend’s Potemkin heterosexuality that much more credible, it also gets you off the hook for this ill-advised summer visit. Then when September rolls around, ISWAO, you two crazy kids get back together. Repeat as necessary, i.e., be “on again” when his parents are in town, be “off again” when your parents are in town, over summer breaks, holidays, etc.

And help him look around for his next girlfriend—perhaps a lesbian student with similarly batshit parents—because he can’t expect you to be his beard for your entire college career.

So I Have This Kink

I RECENTLY READ THE NOVEL
A Melon for Ecstasy
for an English class, and an interesting debate came up. It’s about a guy who is attracted to trees and goes around drilling holes into trees so
that he can “seal the deal.” Though he feminizes the trees, he cares nothing about actual human females. The debate centered on this question: Is this man heterosexual? Or is he really gay? Is he having vaginal sex with a woman or anal sex with a man?

RF

If the male protagonist in
A Melon for Ecstasy
is having sexual intercourse with lady-trees—“feminized” trees—then the male protagonist is a true-blue, red-blooded, lady-tree-fucking straight boy, RF.

But it doesn’t surprise me that a room full of mostly straight college students would seek to cast doubt on this character’s heterosexuality. “Heterosexual” for many young people is practically synonymous with “normal.” Introduce college-age straight kids to a not-so-normal heterosexual character, and they’ll spend the rest of the afternoon searching for evidence that the dude is gay. He can’t be straight—he’s not normal! This explains the ability of some in your class to look at lady-tree fucking and see, of all things, “anal sex with a man.” Isn’t santorum bad enough? Do we have to worry about splinters now too? (Queer-studies kids who read homosexuality into obviously straight fictional characters are, for the record, just as annoying.)

I’M A YOUNG HETEROFLEXIBLE GUY
who has been a “sugar baby” for a handful of wealthy older guys. I love it! I get money, I have fun being with them, and the guys seem to like having me around
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The problem is that I just got with a new guy who is really great except for one thing: He is HIV positive. I like the fact that he told me, and I am open to being with him sexually even though I am HIV negative and want to stay that way
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He is VERY submissive—he wants to be used and abused sexually, physically, and mentally. My question is, what kinds of sex acts are okay to do with this guy? I read on one site that him rimming me is fine, and on another that him giving me a blowjob with a condom is safe, too. But I can’t find a site that specifically explains which sex acts are safe and which ones aren’t when one person is positive and one person is negative
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Help In Virginia

It’s pretty simple, HIV: Sex acts that expose you to his semen and/or blood are definitely unsafe, and sex acts that expose him to your semen and/or blood are mostly safe. Rimming you, blowing you (even without a condom), getting fucked by you (with a condom)—all very low risk for HIV transmission. If he’s on a drug regimen and his viral load is undetectable, HIV, your already-low risks of being exposed while, say, accepting a blowjob (and a check) are even lower. The risks aren’t nonexistent—all sex acts carry some degree of risk—but if the risks were any closer to nonexistent, they’d be sitting on nonexistent’s lap.

And bear this in mind: Odds are good that some of the other guys you’ve babied for—some of your previous daddies—were HIV positive and either didn’t know or didn’t have the decency to disclose.
This guy’s willingness to disclose is evidence not just of his honesty and decency, HIV, but of his respect for you and his commitment to keeping you safe. This guy is less likely to ask you to engage in sex acts that are higher risk or unsafe than a guy who isn’t aware that he’s positive or is actively hiding the fact that he’s positive. And his interest in being “used and abused” creates lots of hot safe-sex-play options—letting him beat off while he licks your boots or jerking him off while he’s tied to the bed with your jock in his mouth are no-risk sexual activities that he’s likely to enjoy immensely.

I’M A YOUNG LESBIAN
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I recently met a girl who’s cute, and I think we’re on the likely-to-have-sex-soon track. The thing is, she confided in me that she’s participated in needle play in dungeon-party situations. I’m not someone who is turned off by kinkiness just ’cause it’s kinky, but it seems like even “safe” needle play is a recipe for STI transmission unless you’re playing with trained medical professionals. She says she gets tested regularly, but still, would it be really risky for me to sleep with her?

Enthusiastic Reader

Every time I’ve watched needle play in a dungeon-party situation—watched with my hands clamped over my eyes, peeking through the small spaces between my fingers—no one was being stuck with rusty needles by dirty-handed brutes. All the public needle-play scenes I’ve witnessed were ostentatiously sterile affairs: These kinksters, some of whom were trained medical professionals, made
a big show of using alcohol wipes, cotton swabs, latex gloves, and clean sharps. I think it’s fair to ask this girl for more information about her blood and needle experiences, about the safety precautions that her partners took, and about how recently she was tested. But rest assured, ER, that the most effective STI transmission routes involve sticking dicks in people in completely vanilla situations, not clean needles in dungeon-party situations.

I AM A 22-YEAR-OLD BISEXUAL MALE
who goes to a small, prestigious liberal-arts college in the Midwest. I’ve had boyfriends, girlfriends, and one-night stands, but I have never really felt like sex worked out as well as I imagine it could. I have a dominant personality, and people tend to follow me. Perhaps for this reason, I have fetishized submission. I imagine I would be into bondage and domination. I think I am a bit more attracted to women and would love to find a woman who takes a strong, dominant role in our relationship. I feel like I am always expected to make the first move with women, which has led me to prefer hooking up with men. I just wonder if there is anything I could do to find a woman who’d be into dominating me
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I don’t really like making the first move, but I’ve found just waiting and looking pretty doesn’t work too well with women. Are there some ladies I could approach, and after the initial flirting, the dynamic would change and they would take the lead? How would I know who these people are?

Not Sure What I Want

There may be one or two young women kicking around your small, prestigious liberal-arts college who fantasize about taking the lead, about tying up and dominating their boyfriends, NSWIW, but they’re not going to be tottering around campus in high-heeled boots and latex and leather. And even dominant women who are out tend to observe/succumb to the same cultural norms/practices that you find frustrating, i.e., they expect the male to make the first move, even in kinky environments.

But back to the young women you’re likely to encounter at your prestigious college: A lot of women with naturally dominant and/or sadistic streaks—women who will one day really enjoy BDSM—don’t realize it until that first submissive boyfriend draws it out of them. So if you want to get tied up, pegged, and bossed around while you’re at college, NSWIW, you need to be paradoxically assertive about your submissive tendencies. You may have to ask four or five girls, or a dozen, before you hit the jackpot (before you ask a dominant girl), but you will have to take the lead.