Chris Abraham » Sexy

My Top Articles on Sex, Love, Dating and Feminism

Chris Abraham — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 18:04:01 +0000

I used to be a very bold and opinionated blogger who wrote about dating, gender politics, feminism, the new sexuality, and online dating back in my early to mid-thirties. Yesterday, over lunch, Caroline and I were chatting about gender and sexuality and dating and and I started quoting my own blog posts. Caroline eventually asked me to maybe send her links to them for insight, amusement, and entertainment value. So, I thought I would share it with you, too, circa 2005-2006 with some more recent forays:

Are Young Americans More Sexually European?

Chris Abraham — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:41:41 +0000

This morning, I fired up my Android G1 and checked my Inbox and found a link to a post on NPR.com, Sex Without Intimacy: No Dating, No Relationships. The premise of the article is that there is no time, in a busy boy or girl’s life, to get stuck in a relationship:

Young people from high school on are so preoccupied with friends, getting an education and establishing themselves, they don’t make time for relationships. New goal: fun, not marriage.

Well, I have had some very strong opinions about this, especially when it comes to girls. In my 2005 opinion, when I wrote Manolo Blahnik Feminism: The Right to Choo’s, I believed that the new “hook up” culture would be a blood bath where women would move forward with the intent of sexual empowerment while men would sit back and lick their lips and take advantage — but I don’t know anymore.

A number of experts accept this relaxed attitude toward sex outside of relationships as a natural consequence of the sexual revolution, women’s growing independence and the availability of modern contraceptives. But Deborah Roffman, who conducts human sexuality workshops for middle- and high-school-age students and their parents, sees that as a distorted view of liberation.
“It’s not a new model. I think most people would probably look back and agree that this has been a more traditionally, or at least stereotypically, male model,” says Roffman. “What I’ve seen over the last few years is girls adopting a more compartmentalized view, and feeling good and empowered by it.”
She’s not convinced that this is a good thing for women, and says that being able to say yes is only one way of looking at freedom. She would feel much better if young men also were developing a greater capacity for intimacy.
Being able to engage in intimate relationships where men and women bring all of themselves to the relationship is the cornerstone of family, Roffman says.

I addressed this in a much less elegant way, which is why I am not Dr. Abraham, in We Men Didn’t Get the Memo, wherein I posit that this “devil may care” attitude towards sex and the hookup could very well result in a Judo flip that puts men too far into the driver’s seat as women need to compete for men because, for men, it is about the path of least resistance to sexual behavior:

As men in such a seller’s market, we don’t have to choose. We can date another willing girl every night. We can push sex much faster than we ever could believe. The three-date rule? Ha! That’s the official rule, but now the first date counts from the night we first met. Oral sex on the first date has sort of become de rigueur — if you want a second date.
Instead of getting control, the Manolo Blahnik Feminist has relinquished control to us men.
And even worse, this is a very dangerous game. We men are bigger, stronger, and not all of us are so nice. I personally have a lot of experience with women who are survivors — survivors not just of dating or their 20s, but survivors of sexual abuse and rape. [We Men Didn’t Get the Memo]

Well, that was then, this is now. Has it turend out the way I thought? Well, according to recent books like Restless Virgins: Love, Sex, and Survival at a New England Prep School and Oral Sex Is The New Goodnight Kiss, maybe things aren’t as fun, simple, or innocent — girl-friendly — as:

We all attended health class in middle school and high school. We know about condoms and sexually transmitted disease. Sex is fun, and a lot of people would argue that it is a physical need. It’s a healthy activity.

Well, after four years and a year living in Berlin, I intuit that the psycho-sexual culture of America’s youth is becoming way more — but not exactly — European. Not exactly because from what I got from the article is that this new mood of hooking-up is driven by intimacy-avoidance rather than intimacy-seeking. Europeans, and Berliners in particular, are not averse to intimacy. Are you intimacy-averse?

Europeans don’t date — even the Brits don’t date — they hang out in groups, go dancing, drinking, socializing, and sometimes hooking up and having one-night stands; however, the be all and end all of this friendly mixing is not to secure constant sex but to have fun. While we like to think of Europeans as being more open to sex and maybe even more promiscuous, I don’t know how true that is.

My German friend Frank tells me that they find their partners like this:

Well, we hang out together as friends and sometimes when we’re out we dance and drink and sometimes go home together.
Then, when you wake up in the morning, you decide: do I like this — do I like her — or don’t I? If it doesn’t work out, it is considered a one-night-stand, of course, but not with a stranger, with a friend, which is OK in the group.
However, if it does work out, there is a very strong nesting instinct and couples who hook up casually after a night out oftentimes live together, have children, and spend decades together — without all of the bullshit and expectations of the interviewing of dating and the officiation of marriage.

I have a feeling that this is where dating is going in America. And this is not the result of American cynicism or self-destructive behavior, but rather as a continuing evolution away from a “women-as-chattel” culture of marriage to something else. Maybe a gender culture of “separate but equal,” that is less concerned with roles, with expectations, or with God’s Sacraments and more interested in living a life, “fulfilled.”

I don’t fancy this is a response to anything. Why? Well, I was just reading a New York Magazine article called Class of ’09 that kept reinforcing the discovery that teens and 20-somethings these days really love, trust, and appreciate their parents — consider them friends and even share their musical tastes. Parents as mentors, something that is also a breaking down of traditional structures of family.

That said, could the other side of the double-edged sword be that parents have been doing less parenting and a lot of befriending. Are America’s youth acting out sexually because their parents were too busy? Because their parents were too adoring? Because their parents were terrible role models? Could it be a reflection of their parents’ behavior? Could it be the result of indulgent parenting? Well, I don’t know.

Personally, I think that it is a good thing when kids love their parents and don’t think everything they do is super-uncool and lame, no matter how bad it may be for prime time comedies and sit-coms.

I don’t know how this is all going to shake out. I believe that there is going to be a lot of casualties, both emotionally as well as physically, before it all sorts itself out in the end.

What do you think?

I am going to post both articles below: the one from NPR and the one from my blog

Sex Without Intimacy: No Dating, No Relationships
By Brenda Wilson
Morning Edition, June 8, 2009 · The hookup — that meeting and mating ritual that started among high school and college students — is becoming a trend among young people who have entered the workaday world. For the many who are delaying the responsibilities of marriage and child-rearing, hooking up has virtually replaced dating.
It is a major shift in the culture over the past few decades, says Kathleen Bogle, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at La Salle University.
Young people during one of the most sexually active periods of their lives aren’t necessarily looking for a mate. What used to be a mate-seeking ritual has shifted to hookups: sexual encounters with no strings attached.
“The idea used to be you are going to date someone that is going to lead to something sexual happening,” Bogle says. “In the hookup era, something sexual happens, even though it may be less than sexual intercourse, that may or may not ever lead to dating.”
Young people from high school on are so preoccupied with friends, getting an education and establishing themselves, they don’t make time for relationships.
New Goal: Fun, Not Marriage
“Going out on a date is a sort of ironic, obsolete type of thing,” says 25-year-old Elizabeth Welsh, who graduated from college in 2005 and now lives in Boston. She says that among her friends, dating is a joke. “Going out on a date to dinner and a movie? It’s so cliche — isn’t that funny?”
It seems it’s far easier to have casual sexual encounters or hookups, though several national surveys of college students found a stalwart 28 percent who remain virgins. The term “hookup” is so vague, however, it might well encompass someone’s idea of virginity — it involves anything from kissing to fooling around, oral sex and sexual intercourse.
“For me, it’s been anytime that I was attracted to a guy and we spent the night together,” Welsh says. “It has been sex; it has just been some sort of light making out. That’s the beautiful thing about the phrase. Whatever happened is hooking up.”
Bogle interviewed college students on a small and a large campus, as well as recent college graduates, to find out what was going on. The hooking-up phenomena has been traced back to the 1960s and the 1970s, when male and female students were thrown together in apartment-style dormitories, and there was a revolt against strict rules on having a member of the opposite sex in your dorm, lights out and curfews.
“What you see on college campuses now, even in some cases Catholic campuses, is that young men and women have unrestricted access to each other,” Bogle says. Throw in the heavy drinking that occurs on most campuses, and there are no inhibitions to stand in the way of a hookup.
The alumni Bogle spoke with were less into hooking up after leaving college, but she says that’s changing. It is catching on among young working adults, mainly because of the Internet and social networks.
The Evolution Of Dating
Dating itself represented a historical change. It evolved out of a courtship ritual where young women entertained gentleman callers, usually in the home, under the watchful eye of a chaperon. At the turn of the 20th century, dating caught on among the poor whose homes were not suitable for entertaining, according to Beth Bailey’s history of dating, From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America.
Young couples would go out for a movie or dinner. The expectation was that dating, as with courtship, would ultimately lead to a relationship, the capstone of which was marriage. Precious few of these young women attended college.
According to experts, the main reason hooking up is so popular among young people is that in the United States and other Western countries, the age at which people marry for the first time has been steadily creeping up. As of 2005, in the United States, men married for the first time around the age of 27, and women at about 25 years of age.
Bogle says the hookup is what happens when high school seniors and college freshmen suddenly begin to realize they won’t be marrying for five, 10 or 15 years.
Prioritizing Career And Social Life
Marriage is often the last thing on the minds of young people leaving college today.
“My first few years out of college was about trying to get on my feet and having a good time,” Welsh says. Dating and a relationship interfered with that.
Avery Leake, 25, knows what this is like from the other side. He’s in a relationship now, but he says that, in general, most of the young women he used to meet “just wanted sex. They’re independent.” Being in a relationship was not important to them, especially if it interfered with their careers or their pursuit of advanced degrees, he says.
Leake found that he was also up against women who had as much money as he had, if not more, and he says dating had just become too expensive. “You used to be able to get away with paying $30 for a dinner and a movie,” Leake says. “Not anymore.”
Empowerment Or Loss Of Intimacy?
A number of experts accept this relaxed attitude toward sex outside of relationships as a natural consequence of the sexual revolution, women’s growing independence and the availability of modern contraceptives. But Deborah Roffman, who conducts human sexuality workshops for middle- and high-school-age students and their parents, sees that as a distorted view of liberation.
“It’s not a new model. I think most people would probably look back and agree that this has been a more traditionally, or at least stereotypically, male model,” says Roffman. “What I’ve seen over the last few years is girls adopting a more compartmentalized view, and feeling good and empowered by it.”
She’s not convinced that this is a good thing for women, and says that being able to say yes is only one way of looking at freedom. She would feel much better if young men also were developing a greater capacity for intimacy.
Being able to engage in intimate relationships where men and women bring all of themselves to the relationship is the cornerstone of family, Roffman says.
But young people like Elizabeth Welsh don’t see the hookup as an obstacle to future relationships:
“It is a common and easy mistake,” Welsh says, “to assume that the value of friendship and those relationship building blocks have no place in longer-term relationships.”
If you’re honest and open about what you’re doing, and willing to commit to a relationship, she says, a hookup and friendship can be fused into a lifetime partnership.
Partnership Still The Ultimate Goal
At 25, May Wilkerson would like a relationship, but not a family — not quite yet. She’s lived a lot of places: Argentina, Canada and Paris. Wilkerson says she hasn’t found much intimacy with the men she’s encountered.
In New York City, where she moved two years ago, people seem even more emotionally detached, and she thinks it is because so many of the people who come to the big city are focused on success.
“For many of us, the requisite vulnerability and exposure that comes from being really intimate with someone in a committed sense is kind of threatening.”
And the thought of being in love with someone, Wilkerson says, “is the most terrifying thing.”
Yes, she has been in love, but the guy wasn’t quite into it. There was one older guy who was serious; he used to bring her cupcakes. She couldn’t work up an interest in him.
Today, Wilkerson says people hook up via the Internet and text messaging.
“What that means is that you have contact with many, many more people, but each of those relationships takes up a little bit less of your life. That fragmentation of the social world creates a lot of loneliness.”
Hooking up started before the Internet and social networks, but the technology is extending the lifestyle way beyond the campus. Deborah Roffman says no one is offering this generation guidance on how to manage what is essentially a new stage in life.
The dilemma for this generation is how to learn about intimacy, she says: “How am I going to have a series of relationships that are going to be healthy for me and others, and going to prepare me” for settling down with one person?
Wilkerson doesn’t really focus on the concerns of people like Roffman, who fear that hooking up doesn’t bode well for the future of young people. She thinks young people will be able to sort it out for themselves.
“We all attended health class in middle school and high school. We know about condoms and sexually transmitted disease. Sex is fun, and a lot of people would argue that it is a physical need. It’s a healthy activity.”

Here’s my article from back in 2005:

We Men Didn’t Get the Memo
I call the new feminism Manolo Blahnik Feminism, which is a super-sexual, super-sexy, and super-confusing form of self-empowerment. Ariel Levy calls it “raunch culture” and I believe that it is going to blow up in American women’s faces.
I believe very strongly that there are too many dangerous contradictions in the new feminism, in the new American woman. And, what is to become of the more traditional American woman of Faith? And more importantly, what will become of us, the more traditional, American men of Faith?
I attended a panel on gender differences in the new feminism and my question to the panel was,
“I understand how empowering strappy stilettos, butt jeans, bare bellies, and camisole tops are for the modern woman. It is all about taking back the sex, taking back the gaze, reclaiming the control of what is cute, what is hot, what is sexy, it about taking back control, reclaiming feelings of pride in the body, pride in the shape and tan earned from an active, outdoorsy life. That’s all fine and good. Unfortunately, we men never got the memo. I never got the memo.”
In fact, I feel sort of like a fox in a henhouse. Why? Well, all of my old-world, unenlightened, seduction techniques work now better than ever! In fact, the truth is, I am really too nice for the Manolo Blahnik Feminist. In my recent dating life, I have been drawing the line in the dating sand too conservatively for many of my dates. The Manolo Blahnik Feminist wants to be taken, wants to find a real man, wants to take risks and have a great time; she pursues a doctrine of devil may care and she wants her man to be worthy of pursuit.
Well, no matter what the Manolo Blahnik Feminist thinks she wants and no matter what she thinks she’s doing, she is actually walking into a very dangerous trap. It is dangerous because it assumes that we men are good, generous, and stable men. Men who may be able to party, to drink, and to indulge in very passionate, very realistic sex-play while still maintaining a level of respect, of fair treatment, and composure that can guarantee that when no means no, no means no. That is a lot of responsibility to unload onto anyway, no less an unknown entity, a casual date, a new friend.
We men are not responding to this self-empowerment with amazement and respect, we’re responding to it by licking our lips, by taking advantage, by rubbing our hands together, and by trying not to jinx this out of being. We don’t want any responsibility either, it seems. We don’t want to feel like it is our responsibility to mind our Ps and Qs when we’re being pursued ourselves. We no longer have the muzzle on and we have shaken off the choke chain, and we men in general are not a save environment for this kind of soul-searching, this kind of self-empowerment. There, I said it: we men are not a safe environment for raunch culture. And we are taking advantage because we are pretty well convinced that what is happening won’t last: the Manolo Blahnik feminist fancies herself the aggressor, the buyer, the pursuer, the seducer. And we men are what she is after. All we see is, “man that girl is fine – I’d like some of that.”
What is our responsibility as men and women of Faith? What is my responsibility as a man of Faith? I know that many of my female friends are desperate, lonely, and discouraged by this seller’s market. I know that I am war-weary and deeply fatigued by this constant over stimulation, both visually and situationally. What can I expect from my relationships? How to I keep to the tiller and steer my ship straight and true? In my life, I have to not only consider the more pedestrian issued of sexually-transmitted diseases and pregnancy, but my principles, my conscience, my morals, my values, and ultimately my soul!
And it isn’t easy. As men in such a seller’s market, we don’t have to choose. If things don’t work out to our liking, we can just date another willing girl every night. We can push sex much faster than we ever could believe – than I could ever believe. The three-date rule now starts not on the first date but from the drunken night we first met at a bar. Oral sex on the first date has become de rigueur – that is, if you want a second date.
Instead of getting control, the Manolo Blahnik Feminist has relinquished control to us men. To men, women become fungible assets and women of faith become invisible, blending into the wallpaper. Not because they’re ugly – they’re beautiful – but because in a world of of bellies, of thighs, of knees, hip-huggers, butt jeans, padded bras and camisole tops, anything but the bling is effectively invisible.
And even worse, this is a very dangerous game. This kind of exciting, naughty, passionate, irresponsible, reckless indulgence in “raunch culture” is going to result in one hell of a cultural hangover.
Many women will be unable to recover from this self-indulgence with any semblance of faith, trust, hope, or intactness. And many men, too, will be unable to choose just one woman, be able to really and truly commit to marriage.
When it comes right down to it, what modern man or woman could be expected to have the right stuff to have faith in marriage, the family, and children after indulging in such self-destructive, self-loathing chaos?
Not I. And all of this is taken out of the context of faith. This is all from the point of view of people, relationships, self-empowerment, feminism, and sex – all very humanistic concerns. As a man of faith, I have to admit that all of this is very discouraging to me and all the men I know like me. But even I have to admit, I have become desensitized, I have become desperate, and I am sorely over-stimulated myself.
I am not sure if modern women have it very good. Not nearly as good as would be expected. I attended college at a high point for feminism an academia, when a woman would still identify with being a feminist.
Not any more.
(Ed Note: This article is a rework and extension of Manolo Blahnik Feminism: The Right to Choo’s)

Very Real, Very Absurd, US Sex Laws

Chris Abraham — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 04:20:46 +0000

This is written by Jessie Whitfield and comes via The Best Article Every day:

1. Oral sex is illegal in 18 states, including Arizona (including DC and Virginia).
2. In Virginia, it is illegal to have sex with the lights on.
3. It is illegal for husbands in Willowdale, Oregon, to talk dirty during intercourse.
4. Sexual intercourse between unmarried couples is illegal in Georgia.
5. Engaging in any sexual position other than missionary is illegal in Washington, DC.
6. In Connorsville, Wisconsin, it is illegal for a man to shoot off a gun when his female partner is having an orgasm.
7. In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, it is illegal to have sex with a truck driver inside a toll booth.
8. Having sexual relations with a porcupine is illegal in Florida.
9. It is illegal in Utah to marry your first cousin before the age of 65.
10. Sex with animals is perfectly legal for men in Washington state, as long as the animal weighs less than 40 pounds.

I am a little bit ashamed of spending a lot of the Summer in Virginia. And, I hope nobody turns me in for breaking 1, 2, and 5!

Sex Position Secrets for Women from Dr. Sadie Allison

Chris Abraham — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 15:20:47 +0000

As you can see, I have been writing about Sadie Allison for years now — Dr. Sadie Tickles My Fancy with TickleKitty and See Sexy Dr. Sadie With Your Own Two Eyes On TV This Sunday — and just recently received 5 copies of Sadie’s new book, Ride ‘Em Cowgirl: Sex Position Secrets For Better Bucking. She’s a friend of mine — and she’s super cute and knows what she’s talking about! OK, I am sort of crushing.

Before that, Sadie penned three sex-help books, Tickle Your Fancy, Toygasms!, and Tickle His Pickle — but she has outdone herself with this book! Oh, and on page 97, the G-Spot is finally demystified! Come on fellas, you’re really missing out if you haven’t sorted out some of the magic little bits and pieces of lovemaking. Definitely a worthwhile endeavor for the both of you!

Here’s some of the stuff I have been able to steal from both Amazon and the Tickle Kitty website:

Enjoy an entire lifetime of sexual enrichment for the cost of a couple of cocktails!
Fully illustrated to guide you. Over 100 tasteful point-n-play illustrations help you visualize your exciting new moves together
Easy and fun to read. You’ll feel inspired by Dr. Sadie’s conversational style and hands-on encouragement
Filled with secret touches. You’ll explore all the strokes, squeezes and sensations your lover wants (but isn’t telling you)
She’ll start coming like crazy. Many of Dr. Sadie’s tips are designed to ignite the woman’s orgasms—including the wild and elusive “during intercourse” orgasm
You and your lover are invited. Come discover how to reposition your bodies together for the most satisfying, fulfilling, mind-blowing lovemaking ever!
Product Description
Why is this today s best sex position guide? Instead of twisting you into impossible pretzel poses, Dr. Sadie illustrates hundreds of ways to shape your favorite sex positions into a more passionate orgasmic fit for the two of you. Comfortably! Even better, Dr. Sadie s fun, empowering hands-on coaching inspires intimate new explorations and sensational erotic touches. You ll reveal your lover s deepest sexual desires (and yours, too!) while triggering powerful orgasms like never before especially hers! Whether you re newly intimate together or long-time lovers ready to take the monotony out of monogamy this is the one lovemaking guide ready to create a lifetime of excitement, passion, confidence, supergasms, and un-wipe-offable smiles every morning after. Try it! And read it together…in bed!
Check out what’s inside Ride ‘Em Cowgirl!:
1. Your Passion Cocktail—How to shake awake your lovelife
2. Supergasms—The secrets to supercharging your orgasms
3. The Art of Penetration—Sensual entry secrets just for him
4. The Art of Being Penetrated—Sensual entry secrets just for her
5. Missionary Possible—New pleasure angles when HE’S on top
6. Doggystyle—Enjoy new come-from-behind victories
7. Ride ‘em Cowgirl!—Exciting moves when SHE’S on top
8. Spooning—Rediscover the world’s most romantic position.
9. Clitilicious—How to arouse her orgasm trigger every time
10. The G-spot—Finding and stimulating her deep pleasure spot
11. Backdoor Boogaloo—Why couples now say yes to this old taboo
12. The HE-spot—Finding and stimulating HIS hidden pleasure spot
13. Voluptuous Loving—Positions designed for our larger lovers
14. Pregnant Poses—Exciting positions for the soon-to-be-mom
15. Outercourse—An exciting alternative of good messy fun
16. Location! Location! Location!—Reasons to skip the bedroom
17. Vive La Difference—Exciting new ways to fit your lover to you
18. Sexy Playthings—Choosing the right sextoys for you
Appendix: Safety First—How to practice safer sex every time
Position Index—So many positions, so much time!
Excerpts from Chapter 9: “Clitilicious”
As opposite as the sexes often seem, women and men share one important sexual similarity—the workings of their sexual pleasure centers. Here’s why:
The clitoris is micro-clustered with millions of the same type of erotic nerve endings found in the head of the penis.
Men become erect during arousal—and so do women! As the clitoris swells with blood, it swells in size. Next time, feel it grow from small and subtle to round and firm as foreplay
heats up.
There’s rarely an orgasm without direct stimulation to the head of the penis. Likewise, there’s rarely an orgasm if you ignore the clitoris.
The clitoris and the penis respond best when slippery-wet. Did you remember to pick up a good sex lube?
By understanding these similarities, it’s easy to see why it’s vital to stimulate the tiny but powerful clitoris directly, especially during intercourse. Guys…please read that last sentence again!
20 ways to supercharge intercourse
Between the two of you, you’ll find 20 warm, soft, active little clitoral stimulators that you’ll never misplace, need no batteries, and can lift the woman to the highest orgasmic peaks on earth.
They’re your fingertips—just add sex lube!
The fingertip secret is to touch the clitoris with slow, gentle caressing motions, matching the pressure and pace to the level of her arousal. Just be sure there’s lots of lubrication, start slow and soft, and you can’t go wrong.
Whoever is doing the arousing, vary your fingertip motions till you find a pattern that works: up ‘n’ down, side-to-side, round ‘n’ round, or even figure eights. For a real treat, try these motions with the tip of the penis.
About the Author
When you need answers about lovemaking, look to Dr. Sadie Allison, founder and CEO of Tickle Kitty, Inc., and ticklekitty.com. Dr. Sadie is a leading authority on human sexuality today, and author of the award-winning bestsellers Tickle His Pickle, TOYGASMS! and Tickle Your Fancy. She appears frequently on TV and radio, including E! Entertainment Television, Talk Sex with Sue Johanson, Dr. Drew s Loveline and the Bob & Tom Show. She is a sought-after speaker, and is often quoted in national magazines, such as Cosmopolitan, Redbook and Men s Health. She s a Licensed Doctor of Human Sexuality, having earned her degree from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. She s also a member of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors & Therapists (AASECT). Her Tickle Kitty brand of sex-help books, sensual pleasure kits and sex lubricants enable her to assist more individuals and couples find greater joys in sexual pleasure.
Editorial Reviews
Review
YEE HA! for Ride Em Cowgirl!, Sue Johanson, host of TV s Talk Sex –Sue Johanson, host of TV s Talk Sex
Read this together and enjoy the pleasures to come., Ian Kerner, Ph.D., Author, She Comes First –Ian Kerner, Ph.D., Author, She Comes First
Dr. Sadie Allison combines sex education with erotic temptation so everyone can learn and enjoy. She s one of the great emerging sexologists of the 21st century., Dr. Ted McIlvenna, President, The Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality –Dr. Ted McIlvenna, President, The Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality

Review of My Beautiful Mommy by Abigail Jones

Chris Abraham — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:29:00 +0000

I adore Abigail Jones just because she’s Abigail Jones but also because of her mind, her politics, her ethics, her writing, and for her sense of humor. I have written about Abigail before in the form of Restless Virgins and Abigail Jones and Abigail Jones’ Newest Fan is Josielle for “Restless Virgins”. I don’t know if you have heard about the Children’s Book, “My Beautiful Mommy,” but it is pretty appalling.

A new children’s book, “My Beautiful Mommy,” helps parents tell their young kids why mommy, who just came home from the hospital in bandages, will now have a new nose and a thinner waist. Whether it’s your next-door-neighbor, her daughter, or Heidi Montag, plastic surgery has become business as usual.

Well, I am not the only person who is completely appalled — so is the lovely Abigail Jones, who wrote this scathing op-ed for the International Herald Tribune, my personal newspaper of choice in Berlin, Germany, titled The Mother of Perfection:

A new children’s book, “My Beautiful Mommy,” helps parents tell their young kids why mommy, who just came home from the hospital in bandages, will now have a new nose and a thinner waist. Whether it’s your next-door-neighbor, her daughter, or Heidi Montag, plastic surgery has become business as usual. But it wasn’t always this way.
Back in Victorian America, women embraced the ideal of natural beauty, associating makeup with the artificial faces of prostitutes and showgirls. In the 1910s, when the flapper was the measure of femininity, Vogue signaled a significant shift, urging readers to (discreetly) use lipstick and rouge to enhance their beauty. Decades later, Clairol’s legendary 1956 ad campaign – “Does she or doesn’t she? Hair color so natural, only her hairdresser knows for sure” – publicized another turn; women in the Eisenhower years were hiding the gray, enhancing the red, and becoming blonde, but they still wanted it to remain a private matter. Unnatural changes to one’s physical appearance were meant to be a secret – unless you were Marilyn Monroe.
Today, however, blonde highlights have become as typical as red nails. There’s the “mommy makeover.” From blogs to Facebook to reality TV, private life is more public than ever. Given the obsession with appearance and perfection, beauty has gone public, too, and plastic surgery is the latest frontier. Such physical changes are practically impossible to disguise, but the point is that many women don’t want to hide them at all.
Ashley Tisdale got a nose job. So did Ashlee Simpson. There’s Joan Rivers’s face, Tara Reid’s stomach, and Pamela Anderson’s chest, all of which we’ve seen plastered across the pages of gossip magazines, the photographs magnified and analyzed for inconsistencies or modifications.
Most celebrities don’t end up like modern-day Frankensteins Jocelyn Wildenstein and Michael Jackson, yet this pursuit for eternal youth is real. Plastic surgery, however, is hardly just a Hollywood pastime.
Women all over the United States are altering body parts in search of physical perfection. By now, everyone knows what a “mommy makeover” is (in case you missed it: liposuction, tummy tuck, and breast lift, with or without breast implants).
Yet aiming to regain one’s pre-pregnancy body is only part of the story. Women turn to a range of surgical and nonsurgical procedures to help turn back time, and, last year, they constituted 91 percent of all cosmetic surgery patients.
How many of these women have children? It’s a critical question, because aside from the emotional effects plastic surgery can have on patients, how does a mother’s plastic surgery affect her kids?
Teenagers are growing up in a society where you can buy what you weren’t born with. After a brief recovery, you, too, can have a button nose and slim waist or lips like Angelina Jolie. MTV’s “I Want A Famous Face” exposed teens’ obsessions with beauty in possibly the worst of the plastic-surgery-meets-reality-TV glut.
The show, which aired in 2004, featured young people getting surgery to make them look like their favorite Hollywood stars. Amidst pop culture’s quest for extreme beauty, who do girls look up to? Their moms, the very women who now pay thousands of dollars to look just like their daughters.
Though “mother” has always been heralded as the heart of the family, the attractive – and gracefully aging – matriarch, the rules are changing. Some women will do anything to stop the clock. Whatever happened to the idea that it’s the daughter’s turn? Today, the mentality has flipped: It’s mom’s turn, too. But women’s efforts at preserving their youthful appearances often put them in competition with their children (hello Dina Lohan and Kris Kardashian).
The publication of “My Beautiful Mommy” shows that plastic surgery belongs on that laundry list of issues (drugs, sex, alcohol) for parents to discuss at the dinner table. Many mothers will continue to get plastic surgery, so as long as they care for their relationships with their kids, maybe that’s enough. After all, is it worse when mothers strive to perfect themselves or when they strive to perfect their daughters?

Chris Abraham As Quoted in The Atlantic

Chris Abraham — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:21:12 +0000

I will let my words speak for themselves, as published in this month’s Atlantic magazine in Lori Gottlieb’s article, Marry Him: The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough (gulp):

“Then there’s my friend Chris, a single 35-year-old marketing consultant who for three years dated someone he calls “the perfect woman”—a kind and beautiful surgeon. She broke off the relationship several times because, she told him with regret, she didn’t think she wanted to spend her life with him. Each time, Chris would persuade her to reconsider, until finally she called it off for good, saying that she just couldn’t marry somebody she wasn’t in love with. Chris was devastated, but now that his ex-girlfriend has reached 35, he’s suddenly hopeful about their future.
“By the time she turns 37,” Chris said confidently, “she’ll come back. And I’ll bet she’ll marry me then. I know she wants to have kids.” I asked Chris why he would want to be with a woman who wasn’t in love with him. Wouldn’t he be settling, too, by marrying someone who would be using him to have a family? Chris didn’t see it that way at all. “She’ll be settling,” Chris said cheerfully. “But not me. I get to marry the woman of my dreams. That’s not settling. That’s the fantasy.”
Chris believes that women are far too picky: everyone knows, he says, that a single middle-aged man still has appealing prospects; a single middle-aged woman likely doesn’t. And he’s right. Single women are painfully aware of this. I hear far more women than men talk about getting married as a goal to be met by a certain deadline.”

Note: the interview was conducted over two years ago.

Curvy Women — Not Boys with Breasts

Chris Abraham — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:50:46 +0000

This is one hell of a funny poster. I call the type of women that so many men are attracted to, “boys with breasts.” I prefer my women to have feminine and womanly signifiers: zaftig women. (Did you know that zaftig is Yiddish for juicy?) Call me crazy. When and if I ever decide to jump back into the dating pool, I will date proper womanly women with proper thighs, bosoms, and bottoms and not boys with breasts. (Via The Universal Church of Cosmic Uncertainty and Fark)

This is Where I Get Interviewed About My Sex Life in a Podcast

Chris Abraham — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 09:21:55 +0000

"Who the heck is Chris Abraham and how did he get to be such a * known quantity*? Check out his blogs (try www.chrisabraham.com) and check him out on Facebook. . Abraham has a lot more blogs than just the one and I checked them out along with his posts on Facebook and somewhere along the way the mention about his year-long moratorium on sex came up." These are the questions that Stevie Wilson asks me in a very intimate podcast interview that you should check out! Episode 1 and Episode 2. (Via Memes.org, Chris Abraham Online, and LA-Story with Stevie Wilson)

What Sexy Celebrity Men and Women Do I Resemble?

Chris Abraham — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:42:02 +0000

I popped an IM to Anthony Citrano asking him if I look like Hugh Grant. Do I? Well, Anthony looks like Kate Bosworth, don’t you know. Well, I checked again and these are the folks I look like…