Everyone says I love you

“I love you” is a highly overused phrase. Romance novels and romantic comedies bill it as the phrase that women are simply dying to hear. Frankly, I’m here to say that that simply isn’t so.

Maybe I’m finally learning how to have sex like a man. Use ‘em and lose ‘em, right? Naw, that’s not fair. But sex doesn’t have to be all about birds and wedding bells for it to be fun or special.

I’m willing to grant that sex between two people who are “in love” carries different and possibly deeper meanings than sex between two people who aren’t. But sometimes couples develop blinders towards their significant others and don’t see them as the sexual beings that they were before the “in love” developed, and see them instead as someone special or precious or important whose opinion they don’t want to change.

As an example: I dated someone we’ll call Guybrush for about two years. We broke up, and he started dating someone we’ll call Virgin. Guybrush dated Virgin for a few months, not intending to change her status, and during this time would come back and visit his hometown and yours truly and attempt to have sex with yours truly. After Guybrush and Virgin consummated their love, Guybrush continued to attempt to have cybersex with yours truly, because “there were things he could say to me that he couldn’t say to her.” At this point, Guybrush and (ex-)Virgin had been dating for nearly a year.

Advice columnists and relationship advisers often have letters and requests from people who are trying to figure out how it is to bring up the idea of something new to their significant other. “How do I tell him I like to be spanked?” or “How do I get her to talk dirty to me?” are some of the tamer requests that I’ve seen fielded by professionals.

Yet, if these people were simply sharing a one-night stand, he’d be smacking her ass like it was a …something you want to whip with your hand, and she’d be dirty-talking up a storm. Why is it that once “I love you” gets said, people put one another up on a pedestal?

Men and women alike are human beings with faults. We fart, piss, shit, belch, vomit, get diarrhoea, stink, sweat, bitch, whine, moan, get sick and piss one another off on a regular basis. And this goes for women as well as men – sorry to break it to you, but women aren’t these pristine little creatures that never have a bodily function except the innocuous blue liquids that they feature in ads for mysterious “feminine hygiene products” with wings and scented doodads.

Men and women are also human beings with desires and likes. These change over time; once upon a time I thought that piercings and tattoos were scary and that pain was something I never wanted to willingly experience. As I got to know people who were into pain and I read up on it and began to understand why it is that people enjoy it in a sexual context, my perspective changed. Exposure to something makes us more amenable to trying it, or at least increases our tolerance of it in others, as a general rule. Being willing to listen to someone explain their kink or simply keeping an open mind is an important factor in life and particularly in relationships, in my opinion.

So why is it that the one person that we say we love more than anything is often the one person to whom we can’t open up completely and say, “It makes me wetter than blazes when I feel your cock rub against my thighs and stomach” or “It makes me hotter than redwood to think of you on your knees sucking my cock while your finger is up my ass, playing with my prostate”?

This is the person who’s supposed to love us regardless of our most depraved fantasies or desires. There are plenty of ways to approach telling them what turns you on, and while the examples I gave aren’t necessarily the best way of broaching the topic, they’re ideas. You never know; your fantasy or desire may be the exact same thing as what your partner is thinking of when he or she gets off, either alone or with you.

I’d originally started writing this with the intention of discussing how difficult it can be to say “I love you,” but as sometimes happens, my fingers have taken control of this article away from me. Maybe saying “I love you” is difficult for some of the reasons I’ve listed above; when you’re “in love” with someone, society dictates that everything is supposed to be rosy and perfect between you. All of a sudden, your significant other is supposed to be completely devoted to making you happy and should only ever look at, desire, and love you.

That’s a load of crap. As wonderful as it would be if my boyfriend only ever beat off to the thought of me, got turned on by me and loved me, it’s also unrealistic. I, too, notice other men, desire other men and care about other men. Crushes are a part of life, as is finding other people attractive. It’s simply a matter of how you deal with it; if you accept your crush and move on past it, or only indulge your lust in your head, who the hell cares?

Sure, you don’t necessarily want to go telling your One True Love that you thought about James Marsters last night while you got off (and cut that out, he’s mine), or that you sometimes picture tying up your cute neighbour and running your mouth all over her body until she’s begging you to get her off, but you never know; if your One True Love can accept that these thoughts are just that – thoughts and fantasies – and that regardless of who you might think of, you still want to and continue to jump his bone(s), it may go a long way to strengthening your sex life, relationship, and love.

The “I love you” definitely changes relationships. Sometimes it happens too early, or from someone that you don’t want to feel that way about you. Sometimes it doesn’t change circumstances, and you’ll break up anyways. Sometimes it means that you’re afraid to show someone your dark and dirty side. But if you’re lucky and you have the trust that goes hand-in-hand with a strong, loving relationship, saying “I love you” also means that you can say “I want you to call me your little come whore while you fuck me in the ass with this dildo and bite my nipples."

posted by Jen on 2:45 AM

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The Scent of a Woman

Last week I touched on a subject that comprises one of my favourite angry rants -- the smell of a woman's genitals.

Jokes -- unfortunately -- abound about how unpleasant women smell, and it leads to fear and discomfort on the part of women, young and old alike... as well as trepidation and uncertainty on the part of men -- young and old alike.

Many people will argue that the jokes are harmless and that women shoul dbe able to simply shrug them off. If there was only one joke directed at a single woman, I might be inclined to agree. However (and here my degree shines through), that's not how it goes. There exist many jokes and commercials and products designed to keep women hyper-aware of the fact that their parts are naturally moist (I hate that word, but it's appropriate) and with that moistness comes an odour. As I touched on last week, men's parts also carry an odour, also due to natural moistness.

One of my "favourite" print ads featured a couple sitting on a couch before a roaring fire, about to kiss. The caption? "Because feminine odour is everyone's problem." Can you honestly tell me that if there existed a series of ads with captions like, "Because penile odour (or hah, size!) is everyone's problem," or commercials with guys talking about how they just "don't feel fresh down there" you mightn't feel a little paranoid about how your parts smell? How about if women were regularly joking about your stinky cheeseness smell?

Okay, I'm off my soapbox now. I say it constantly, but I'll repeat it now -- a healthy woman smells musky, at worse. Someone who bathes regularly and/or performs some form of hair maintenance has very little odour. Granted, at the end of a day, a woman is likely to smell stronger than she might've halfway through the day, but this also holds true for guys. All it takes is a quick shower to change that, if you're so concerned.

I said at the beginning that the ads and jokes lead to fear and trepidation for women and men. That may seem a bit of an exaggeration, but it can hold true; many women, even now, are terrified to let their boyfriends go down on them because they feel they're "unclean" or not pleasant "down there." Many men, growing up listening to and maybe even making these jokes, feel uncertain about going down on their girlfriends because of the smell or taste. I dated one guy who rarely went down on me because he didn't "know what he was doing" and apparently somehow thought that he could learn without trying. If our culture valued female sexuality more -- and I completely disagree that using women's bodies to sell everything from cars to ketchup counts as "valuing" it -- then would this type of situation be less common?

Everyone's bodies have different smells and tastes and textures. This is one of the joys of being human -- experiencing these differences. Many things take getting used to, and the smell or taste of a woman can be one of those things; you might not like the flavour straight off the bat, and you may never want to put it on your ice cream (a frequent joke around my friends when discussing the flavour of men's come), but it can be a taste that you get used to, and dare I say it, enjoy?

Some guys enjoy having the scent of a woman's parts on their fingers or even on their face. I've heard it said that if they catch a whiff of the odour during the course of their day, they find it arousing -- they remember the circumstances that led to it being on their fingers or face and get turned on; or they simply find the scent of an aroused woman ... well, arousing. These guys are kinda fun; not to say that someone who doesn't get off on a woman's odour isn't.

If you're really uncomfortable with the way a woman happens to smell or taste, try going down on her in the shower, or just after a shower. Here her flavours will be at a minimum, and perhaps with time you'll find yourself getting accustomed to it. Remember, sex is a shared event; I think it's only fair to try pleasing your lady orally, especially if she's willing to do the same for you. But that's another column.
posted by Jen on 9:55 AM

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