The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex (86 page)

For instance, one in five Americans is currently infected with genital herpes. Some 80 percent of these people are estimated to be unaware that they are infected with the virus, or that they have the potential to transmit it asymptomatically, that is, without actually experiencing an outbreak. Chlamydia is the most common STD in America, spreading particularly fast among people under 25. AIDS, still widely viewed as a gay white man’s disease, is rampantly on the rise among African Americans, Latinos, and young people.

Acknowledging the prevalence of STDs in all classes and communities and setting up effective prevention methods is going to require a major overhauling of our social attitudes and proscriptions around sex. Our sex-negative culture is one of the prime culprits in the spread of disease. Sex is seen as shameful, and having an STD identifies you as a sexually active individual, which is even more shameful. Telling a partner you have an STD identifies you not only as sexually active (shameful), but also as someone who’s sick. Being sick is also shameful in our society, where the punishing viewpoint “If you’re sick, it’s your own fault” still holds sway. All this shame results in secretiveness, and secretiveness results in further transmission.

The AIDS epidemic provides a distressing example of the inherent limits of public health campaigns to impose behavioral changes in the context of a sex-negative society. Despite the ubiquity of AIDS-PREVENTION campaigns within the gay community and a decreasing rate of new infections throughout the late eighties, more and more gay men are reporting “falling off the safesex wagon,” with optimism about the efficacy of new AIDS treatment drugs resulting in backsliding to unsafesex practices (such as “barebacking,” having anal sex without a condom).

Societal unwillingness to be explicit about sexual activities often results in public health warnings being painted with such a broad brush that people wind up just throwing up their hands and taking no precautions whatsoever. Individuals with genital herpes may be advised to use latex barriers every time they have sex, owing to the outside chance of asymptomatic transmission. The “use condoms every time” injunction is the cornerstone of AIDS-prevention efforts, accompanied by laudable campaigns to eroticize latex. But blanket regulations can backfire. Just as teenagers who are urged to choose abstinence over sex are more likely to wind up pregnant than those who are provided with a more comprehensive range of options, adults who are urged to use latex barriers for every sexual encounter are likely to cheat. It’s the American Way to seesaw wildly between extremes of abstinence and abandon: One more box of cookies tonight and I’ll give up all fat and sugar tomorrow.

Individuals who weigh the specific risks of each encounter, and modify accordingly the safer-sex approach they choose to take, stand a much better chance of sustaining a safer-sex lifestyle over the long haul. For instance, you might decide that since you always know when a herpes outbreak is coming on, the risk of asymptomatic transmission is low enough that you’ll forgo using a dental dam for oral sex. You might decide that you’re willing to perform fellatio without a condom as long as you haven’t flossed in the past few hours. And we hope that you’ll insist on using a condom for vaginal intercourse with someone you’ve just met. We intentionally use the terms “risk management” and “risk reduction,” rather than “risk elimination,” to encourage you to take an active, dynamic approach to protecting your own sexual health.

Before I started having sex, I thought the point of safer sex was that you just have to do it all the time, no matter what. Now I think that it’s really important to be able to communicate with a partner and determine risk and make informed choices. Meaning that sometimes it’s okay not to have safer sex.

STDs and Your Self-Image

Because of our culture’s sex-negativity, contracting an STD can really do a number on both your general and your sexual self-esteem. Common mental tapes include: “It’s all my fault, I’m being punished for being sexual”; “If only I hadn’t (fill in the blank) this would never have happened”; “I’m ruined, violated, no longer whole”; “No one will want me now that I’m a vector of disease.” Compare the dramatic negativity of these thoughts with how you’d feel if you’d simply caught the flu from a coworker, and you’ll have a sense of how extraordinarily vulnerable we all are around our sexuality.

It’s common for people to experience a decrease in sexual desire immediately after contracting a disease. Some people stop masturbating, let alone engaging in partner sex.

One of the hardest things for me about my chronic herpes outbreaks was that I went from feeling very positive about my labia to viewing them as a painful, sore, disgusting part of my body. It seemed to me that all my genitals did was let me down, and the less I had to think about or touch them, the better.

What’s sad about this attitude is that you are effectively denying yourself access to one of your greatest sources of healing. While it’s natural to feel a decrease in sexual energy when you’re physically debilitated, you should try not to let this extend into a total shutdown of sexual activity. Honoring your right to be sexually active can be physically healing: Sex reduces stress, provides a cardiovascular workout, strengthens your pelvic muscles, and otherwise creates an all-over glow. Exercise is frequently recommended for people suffering from any kind of disease, so what better therapy for an STD than sexual exercise? Honoring your right to be sexually active can also be emotionally healing. Negative sexual feelings easily segue into an overall negative self-image. If you can keep the perspective that you have an unalienable right to sexual pleasure, then your health and self-esteem will benefit directly.

While it may seem flagrantly Pollyanna-ish to speak of the positive ramifications of contracting an STD, it’s true that certain silver linings can emerge if you let them. Many people find that STDs have taught them to be more open and communicative with sexual partners, as they can no longer simply initiate sex with new partners without some sort of preliminary discussion. While honesty entails risking rejection, it’s also one surefire way to separate creative, compassionate women and men from narrow-minded, fearful girls and boys.

Chronic, incurable diseases, such as herpes or HIVINFECTION, also force you to take a healthier approach to your entire life, to do what you can to reduce stress, and to build up your immune system.

Finally—we saved the best for last!—an STD can pull you out of a behavioral rut like nobody’s business. Suddenly, you’re forced to appreciate the fact that sex can be oh-so-much-more than commingling body fluids and sticking one body part into another orifice. A whole new world of toys, fantasy play, and full-body sensation can be yours…if only you’ll let it.

I used to love fucking up the ass and getting fucked, because of the intimacy and sometimes roughness of the gesture. After I got anal herpes, from my days of unprotected sex, it became painful to get fucked and was a turn-off. Now I’m mostly a top (I wear a condom) or I delicately perform ass play on myself. Sometimes I squat on my partner’s finger, gently jiggling against my prostate, so I can control the depth of the action. This is the hardest load I shoot. Being witnessed and having my partner’s help in bringing me off makes me feel a rush of sexual appetite.

I first started making my partners use rubber gloves just so I wouldn’t have to be distracted by worrying about cuts in their fingers and infecting them and all that. The unexpected bonus was that I love the way gloves turn a human hand into a slick, smooth little creature—sometimes I pretend I’m getting fucked by a seal.

If you’re receptive to the possibility, a heightened consciousness around STDs can even inspire a unique level of sexual self-awareness. Whether you have an STD, your partner has one, or you have no idea what the true status of your partner’s health is, it’s up to you to make the call as to how to behave. Coming to terms with and identifying your personal safer-sex guidelines is a golden opportunity—a chance for you to appreciate the myriad possibilities of your entire body, to face your fears, to name your desires, and to celebrate the triumph of sexual energy over ignorance and shame.

Sex for Fun

We thought about calling this book
Sex for Fun
because it expressed so simply and concisely the message we wanted to impart to our readers. By now you’re probably tired of hearing us tell you that sex should be playful, experimental, communicative, and celebratory. But nowhere is this more worth repeating than in the conclusion to this chapter on safer sex. We’ve given you the information, the tools, and (we hope) the motivation to go out and play safely—but only you can take those latex products out of your medicine cabinet and treat them like the real sex-enhancing, communication-building, confidence-inspiring, turn-on toys they were meant to be!

Benefits of Safer Sex

People rarely stop to think about these benefits of practicing safer sex:

• It’s a show of respect for both your own and your partner’s sexual health.

• It gives you peace of mind.

• Condoms can help erections last longer (thereby prolonging intercourse or masturbation).

• Condoms can be effective contraceptives if used properly.

• Safer sex curbs the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

• It keeps your sex toys clean.

• Latex barriers are ideal for those who might find sexual fluids unappealing.

• Latex barriers offer a unique tactile sensation, especially when used with lubricant.

• Safer sex frees you from having to rely exclusively on your partners knowing or telling the truth about their sexual histories.

• Condoms make for quick cleanup.

• Safer sex facilitates communication about sex.

• It allows you to be creative in your sex play.

• It can introduce an element of humor into the bedroom.

• It has resulted in phrases like “anal sex” and “intercourse” becoming commonplace in the media.

CHAPTER
20

Censorship

Just as reliable as the natural urge to express our sexuality is the societal urge to censor these expressions. In this chapter, we’ll take a look at recent American trends in sexual censorship and give you tips on what you can do to stand up for freedom of expression.

“Unnatural” Acts

In the United States, a surprising number of consensual sexual activities are simply against the law. Until 1961, all fifty states prohibited various forms of consensual sex between unmarried adults. While many of these statutes were repealed during the seventies, well over a dozen states still have laws on their books criminalizing unmarried cohabitation; “fornication,” which refers to sex between unmarried couples; and consensual “sodomy,” which refers to oral or anal intercourse or both.

In other words, depending on where you live, your sex life may be literally felonious—and you
can
be prosecuted. In the late 1980s, a North Carolina man spent over two years in prison on a felony conviction for having oral sex with his ex-girlfriend. As of 2001, anal sex with a same-sex partner in Oklahoma carries a ten-year sentence, while anal sex with an opposite-sex partner in Idaho could get you five years to life.

These antiquated statutes are slowly being dismantled thanks to local legislative and court challenges—but no thanks to the federal government. You may recall the Supreme Court’s
Bowers v. Hardwick
ruling of 1986. In a five-to-four decision, the Court ruled that same-sex couples don’t have a constitutional right to privacy to “engage in sodomy” and upheld the existing Georgia state laws, in which consensual oral or anal sex between same-sex couples was a felony offense. The good news is that Georgia’s sodomy laws were struck down by a lower court in 1998, but as the following letter suggests, attitudes die hard:

After teaching human sexuality courses at the technical school and university levels for many years, I quit because I cannot discuss in open and honest ways all of the wonderful ways of pleasuring oneself and one another without incurring the wrath of the Georgia state legislature and the school system in which I work.

Most frequently, “sodomy” laws are used to discriminate against gays and lesbians in housing, employment, or child custody cases, but they can be used to discriminate against unmarried heterosexuals as well. As recently as 1996, an Idaho prosecutor charged unwed mothers with violating state fornication laws as a means to deny them welfare benefits. Check out our resource listings under “Freedom of Expression” to learn how you can help decriminalize the pursuit of sexual pleasure in your state.

Obscenity and the Law

Sexual expression becomes a crime when the materials that are produced, whether writings or images, are legally classified as “obscene.” Obscene materials are exempt from the First Amendment guarantees of free speech. The legal definition of obscenity, and the inevitably subjective interpretations of this definition, determine what sexual materials we have access to and what materials we can create.

The Supreme Court definition of obscenity, which has been in effect since its 1973
Miller v. California
ruling, allows states to regulate sexual materials according to their own community standards, provided the regulations be restricted to works that, “taken as a whole, appeal to the prurient interest in sex,” that portray sexual conduct in “a patently offensive way,” and that, “taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.” Only materials that are found by judges or jurors to meet all “three prongs” of this definition of obscenity may be deemed obscene.