global orgasm for peace

If you notice that Sunshine from accounting is out tomorrow, chances are that this is the culprit.

Global Orgasm for Peace is a day where we can all come together in the name of peace! Calling all Hutus and Tsutsis, Palestinians and Israelis, Obama supporters and Clinton supporters, time to synchronize your watches for Solstice!

Well, Anna Rose, you may ask, what is the scientific tie between orgasm and peace? Well, The Global Consciousness Project the proud sponsors of this worldwide event have that question covered..."To effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible instantaneous surge of human biological, mental and spiritual energy."

I wonder if a donation of more than one orgasm results in a tax write-off?

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Homo for the Holidays?

It's that time of year. Holiday parties at work. Trips to see the family and places you may have fled long ago. Loud, cheesy music.

Not an easy time for anyone. And worse still if you're queer. So many decisions! Do you take the third of your polyamorous triad to your work party? How do you introduce your other half to your great aunt? Friend? Good Friend?Partner (tennis? venture capital?)? Do you keep or remove the facial piercing for Christmas Eve mass?

I have no great answers to the responding to the hyper-conformity of holiday glee. But I do have solutions - run away to your favorite getaway. I'll be in the mountains playing in the snow. And the Big Island is always a nice reprieve if you've got the cash.

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Breaking-up Web 2.0-Style

The other day my girlfriend found out that she would not be taking that long walk down the aisle, as her pischer of a fiancé gave her the proverbial boot. Choosing not to immediately call her friends and family, she opted instead to wallow in self-pity while deciding what to do with the two huge dogs he originally brought home and then left her with. Too bad for her the insensitive lass took it upon himself to update his Facebook profile, changing his “status” from “engaged” to “single”. It wasn’t more than a day before every person in their “network” of friends learned of this sad turn of events, not to mention that she was the obvious dumpee since she had yet to update her own profile. (Read; too busy wallowing in self pity.)

Forget about tactless phone-calls and removed e-mails; cowardly break-ups have moved up a notch, crushing hearts web 2.0-style. After all, mass notifications are way more convenient than time consuming one-on-one conversations.

Think about it, how long has it really been since you last bore witness to the specific cry of a blocked MySpace page? I doubt more than a week, especially if you’ve been keeping up with all those “friends” of yours. If publicly going from “in a relationship” to “single” isn’t bad enough, just imagine not being able to see who your ex is flirting with.

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sure are some hairy palms you got there, son

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Doing it better by breaking down sexual archetypes

Another guest blog, this one from Joshua Bagby from Sex in the Light. If you're interested in guest blogging, write to me at isaacg at sfsu dot edu. We'd be happy to have you!

It’s a constant theme of my blog that sex in our culture is often presented as a paint-by-numbers approach to producing physical orgasms. We don’t pay much attention to the mind, heart, and soul of sex. I am going to hammer on that theme a little more.

Sex for me has been changing as my body changes with age. In my mid-forties I began losing that masculine ability to create erections through thought alone. As men age, more direct physical stimulation is frequently required to bring on the hard stuff.

I was not overjoyed with this development.

In my fifties, I began losing the kind of musculature control over my orgasms that is the take-it-for-granted condition of youth. This is a very gradual loss, and what it means is that physical orgasms are not as powerful as they once were. There’s still a pretty good woo-hoo factor, don’t get me wrong, but the fountain of youth has definitely lost some oomph.

I was not overjoyed with that development, either.

Many men of my Baby Boomer age range think that nature is cruel in masterminding this slow decline. Part of the reason for the rush on medical fixes like Viagra, Cialus, and Levitra is to restore the physical performance lost to the aging process.

But I am not one of them.
The rest of this post continues below the fold.

Rather, I have taken the view that maybe the problem is not nature; maybe it’s us. Maybe it’s that we as a culture have not been open-minded enough about sexual pleasure to step out of the performance paradigm. Maybe nature is trying to nudge us in a different direction—to open our closed minds to new possibilities.

Fortunately, I was one of those guys who learned during my thirties that if I hold back from ejaculating quickly, I’d create stronger ejaculations when I finally let go. By doing that, I’d also intensify my sex energy. Now that I am not so young, and while my ejaculations are less intense, I still have this gift of sex energy.

And that seems to be getting better with age!

What happens for me is very hard to describe because it is such a subjective experience. So much of it happens in the mind, heart, and spirit. I feel it very strongly on a physical level, too, but what separates it from normal body part-by-body part description is that now my mind floats outside the lines and out of the box.

It’s like unlocking myself from the rigid paint-by-numbers approach to producing orgasms. Often I launch myself into a consciousness of pure sensuality. I enjoy sensations of warmth, coolness, wetness, dryness, smoothness, prickliness, whatever. It’s much like that state of awareness you were in as a little kid when you’d lick a window because it felt neat. You were more into the undiluted pleasure of sensation rather than saying, “I think I will lick a window.”

By stepping outside the lines and not painting by numbers, I let my mind soar into a delicious world of abstract thought and feeling. Maybe I’ll see colors, patterns, light. Maybe I’ll see inner drawings or photographs or cartoons. Often they will pulsate in animation and visually represent what is happening sensually. For instance, if I am physically nuzzling between two breasts, my mind might deliver an abstract representation of this activity. It turns lovemaking into art.

Lovemaking for the soul gets so far beyond the range of pornography or everyday R-rated films it’s like re-inventing sex. I wish I had had these eyes when I was younger, but I am so happy to have them now.

I have also experienced a phenomenon I call energy personalities. As a creative writer, I have, of course, become quite familiar with the whole process of dwelling in imaginary worlds. I make up characters all the time. I am also familiar with when I know that I am deliberately making something up - and am in control of that whole process - and when something just comes to me without my deliberating on it. The latter is inspiration. I am more like a passive observer attuned to some cosmic TV, and the idea just pops into my brain ready for action.

Energy personalities are entirely spontaneous and inspired. I do not create them. They come into me. It’s as if for a little while I assume a different identity than ego Joshua and become someone else. That may sound spooky or psychotic, but it’s not. It feels wonderful. Maybe it’s a past life. Maybe it’s a friendly energy presence, a spirit. Not once has it ever been scary or threatening. A rush of energy usually accompanies it.

If you’ve never experienced anything like it, it’s difficult to convey how exciting this process is and how it is often superior to the kind of sex we’re conditioned to want through the media. High energy is naturally exhilarating. It’s like Alka-seltzer for the spirit. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz.

So far, energy personalities for me have been like archetypes. One of them is like a beast that growls like a lion. When this guy is activated, the output of energy far transcends anything that comes out of me as an ordinary human! It’s almost as if he is a different kind of spirit guide - I only experience joy when he is about.

If there is a bottom line to this, it is that when lovers encourage each other to explore sexually, to step outside the paint-by-numbers approach to orgasm production, great things can happen. But because society is generally so conformist-oriented and people are so terrified of making fools out of themselves, diversity in sex is usually discouraged. Well, when you’ve got to do everything by the book, you miss out on a lot of wonders. And when you do what you've always done, you get what you've always gotten.

Blaze your own trail. Give your love the encouragement and permission to re-invent your lovemaking.

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A Breast Fetishist with 40DDs

A guest blog from Virgie Tovar. If you're interested in guest blogging, write to me at isaacg at sfsu dot edu. We'd be happy to have you!

Female fetishists are of the same mythical stuff that unicorns and multiple orgasms are made of. Or so it would seem if you were to read almost any literature relating to fetishism. Well, I'm not mythical. I'm a 25-year-old woman. I'm a breast fetishist. Oh, and I identify as straight.

So what does all that mean exactly? Let's hit Part 1 first - my fetish.

The funny thing about a fetish is that no one knows exactly how you get one. Two people could be raised in exactly the same way, exposed to the same people and situations, and one could develop a fetish while the other doesn't. I happened to have been breast fed until I was four by my mother, a woman with huge boobs. In adhering to the most stringent of definitions of fetishism, it means that I have an erotic fixation on an object, an abnormality that precludes me from experiencing arousal from anything beside this object. The object: boobs. It's not an
unusual fixation, but it's a level of obsession that did limit my orgasms to those inspired by fantasies of the fleshy fabulousness of other women's breasts from the age of 4 to the age of 24. Nowadays there's a little more diversity in my fantasies, but not much.

Part 2: I love men.

My 40DD breasts play a huge role in my playtime with men, acting as appetizer, entree and dessert in a lot of ways. I become wildly aroused with my partners, but my clitoris lies dormant, unmoved by begging and even prolonged visits from expert tongues. I have still never orgasmed by the stimulation of a partner. When I'm alone, however, I indulge in fantasies about huge breasts and big nipples. Though in actual experimentation with women's chests, I've found myself completely unaroused. Confusing, I know.

In my book, Destination DD: Adventures of a Breast Fetishist with 40DDs, I cover what it's like living with my "abnormality:" "My fetish makes orgasms easy and relationships hard. It's brought about questions about whether I needed therapy, hypnosis, the right man, the right woman, about whether I was a lesbian or I needed a chick with a d*ck."

Am I sure I'm straight? As sure as I am that I'm a fetishist. And if you're reading an American Sexuality blog, you probably know that sexuality is not as easy as girl + boob love = gay. I'm playing with the idea of identifying as queer. I guess the question that I ask myself the most is: what better defines a person's sexuality: their fantasies or their real-life sexual behavior?

The world may never know!

Visit Virgie at her website: www.BreastFetishist.com. Buy her book on amazon.com or at Good Vibrations in San Francisco.

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Teenage birth rate rises for the first time since 1991

For the first time since 1991, teen birth rates rose in the United States, according to the Center for Disease Control. Note that this survey only refers to birth rates, not pregnancy rates.

The most significant finding of this comprehensive study of American birth rates is that birth rate for teens ages 15-17 climbed 3 percent and for teens aged 18-19 the rate climbed 4 percent. This is the first increase in 16 years.

It's not entirely clear what the reasons for this increase are. It could be, and I'm inclined towards this viewpoint, that the anti-family planning policies of the Bush Administration have slowly worn down the good work done to increase rates of family planning and condom use during the Clinton Administration, and now we're reaping the rewards.

The more important figure, I think, is how many of these pregnancies were unintended. That's the number that we can then wave at policy makers and demand a change of course from abstinence-only (read stupid) sexuality education to age-appropriate and fact-based sex education.

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"Greening" sexuality

NoPornNorthampton, an anti-porn community organization based in Northampton, Massachusetts, advocates for "the concept of sustainable sexuality -- "green sexuality" -- characterized by long-term, mutually respectful relationships between two equals."

It's a fascinating concept and reflects some new thinking in the anti-porn movement.

Before our loyal readers tear me apart, I think it's worth exploring this concept a bit more in good faith. Here at American Sexuality Magazine and the National Sexuality Resource Center, we are debating constantly about whether or not porn is ok. Some of us reject porn on a purely moral or religious ground, some of us reject porn on feminist grounds by saying that it demeans women. Others support porn (some porn) on feminist grounds for the fact that it empowers women to determine their own sexual destiny and one shouldn't interfere with that, and others support porn because they see it as a natural part of human sexuality.

Until now, I hadn't heard the 'green sexuality' argument, and it's striking me as another interesting way to approach the porn argument. I'm all for new and interesting ways to approach sexuality because it's clearer and clearer that we need new ways to think about sexuality, sexual health, and sexual expression. More new thinking raises the quality of the discussion from one of hate and vitriol to one of honest and open discussion. Kudos, NoPornNorthampton, thanks for adding something positive to the discussion.

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Polling Lesbians, Gays, and Bisexuals

Hunter College has released a new Presidential Primary poll of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual community, the first ever with a national representative sample. The most interesting result, which is somewhat intuitive, is the following:

The Hunter College Poll also finds that during the process of “coming out,” LGBs become more liberal and more engaged in the political process than the general population.

It's nice to see this all in hard numbers. It makes sense that the LBG population would become more liberal as they came out, given the strength of the hatred coming from the current governing conservative coalition. Keep in mind, though, that this population will only become bigger as coming out becomes more and more accepted. It's nice to know that this demographic will continue to fight for its rights as it grows. Hopefully, we'll get to a point where conservatives realize the mistake of alienating this demographic from any of its attempts to win elections, but I doubt it.

And for the horse-race data you need like that fifth peanut butter cup:

Senator Hillary Clinton has the support of 63 percent of LGB likely voters in the Democratic primaries, followed by Senator Barack Obama with 22 percent and John Edwards with 7 percent.

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