Salon Urge | Strap-on epiphany

T H E_.H O T_.S P O T
Check mate
By Susie Bright
What I teach my daughter about sex
(01/22/98)

___________________
Got an urge you need to satisfay? Check out barnesandnoble.com's selection of sex books
___________________

R E C E N T L Y
Confessions of an office pervert
By Angie Monroe
In satisfying her own nasty desires, one woman discovers the key to worker productivity
(01/21/99)
Bonfire of the porn queens
By Benjamin Weissman
Trapped between a silicon breast and a hard place, the Adult Video News Awards struggle to boost their legitimacy
(01/14/99)
The gentlemanly art of spanking
By Carson Fitzgerald
When women turn the other cheek, what are they asking for? (01/07/99)

Two concepts of sexual hysteria
By Linda R. Hirshman and Jane E. Larson
The Democrats offer "Boogie Nights," the Republicans "The Crucible." Can we change the channel?
(12/24/98)
The shipping nudes
By David Steinberg
Why have certain postal services decided to become arbiters of obscenity?
(12/10/98)

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Browse the
Urge archives
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STRAP-ON EPIPHANY | PAGE 1, 2
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Before Adam, I'd never considered the business end of a dildo, partly because I hadn't known a heterosexual man who wasn't utterly cowed by the taboo. I'm not interested in being anally penetrated myself, but I'm not interested with much less intensity than the noninterested guys I know. Women have no analogue to the horror -- not universal but widespread among straight men -- of taking it up the butt. It's so frightening that other men's allowing it is an affront. I've heard tolerant, sane men equate anal penetration with castration, an act with the almost magical power to transform men into "bitches" or "little girls." Adam certainly had lugged this baggage around America, too, but managed to set it down so we could have our adventure.
It was autumn when we took up. We were both coming off chilly partners who'd left us frustrated, each convinced we were undesirable, oversexed. We were as grateful as teenagers to find each other, and we spent eight months in a fever state, a long erotic crescendo. We never fell in love; we were not soul mates, but perfect sexual playmates.
From the start, I noticed role reversals outside of bed. I talked more than he did in groups; he would fret later about not being articulate. (But inarticulate men make the best lovers; as Colette said about a reticent paramour, "Speech is not his language.") Adam was vain and fussed more with his hair and clothes and imaginary fat than I did. He was insecure, which sometimes manifested male, in bragging and resentful ranting. In bed, though, his desire to please went beyond experienced-guy pride in competence and his affection for me. There was something warm and yielding in him, a sexual fantasy looking for a creator. This self-gifting reminded me of Marilyn Monroe. Since I was writing a play, I decided that made me Arthur Miller. I was the smart one and he was the pretty one.
But he had the medical information that got us thinking. He told me how the prostate gland was, sensation-wise, an extension of the penis and ran right up alongside the rectum. This was revelatory: I had assumed that all the bottoms of the world, men and women, were just good sports. So I'd not done much knocking at my boyfriends' back doors. Adam was initially embarrassed to tell me how erogenous a zone it was for him because, he said, of the homosexual implications. I assured him that, to me, the fact that his body derived pleasure from certain sensations meant only that. His gratitude for such basic tolerance made me wonder about the women who'd come before me.
Meanwhile sex was getting better than I knew sex got. Adam tended me like a gardener, coaxing orgasm after orgasm from my body. He plowed like a champ too; I'd never been fucked so exhaustively. He could reduce me to a small puddle, and from that grateful goo a resolve formed -- to give back. I wanted him to know the joy of being pounded into, rocked and rolled. And now I knew he wanted me inside him. Still it shocked me when, looking down on his high narrow hips while he slept on his stomach, I heard myself think, "I want to fuck him." It was the first time in all my gender-questioning, sex-experimenting life I'd had such a thought.
A few nights later, we found ourselves shopping in a marital aids boutique. Adam, always thoughtful, wanted something with a knob that would penetrate me while I wore it, but we found no such animal. We settled on a battery-powered vibrating number mounted on rather ghastly "flesh-colored" rubber panties that Velcroed on the side. It was called the Boss. I kept saying, "Are you sure? This is huge," but Adam nodded stoically. As we picked it off the shelf, a male stranger gave Adam a congratulatory pat on the back that confused both of us. The sales clerk, a perky dyke, tried to put us at ease as we paid (Dutch treat).
We unpacked it back at my house. I decided not to fill out the warranty card. Again, I worried about the size. Adam closed his eyes, angled it out from his lap and grabbed it with a practiced hand. "Mine's wider," he reassured me. It was true, but I couldn't imagine either one buried in my butt.
I felt embarrassed and shy as I Velcroed myself in, unsure of how to play the man. We lubed the thing liberally, than Adam got up on his hands and knees. I gingerly poked at him from alpha doggie position; he stopped me and flipped onto his back. He wrapped his legs around my waist, which sent the first shock of non-recognition. What had always felt rather take-charge from below felt completely passive from above, a nervous welcome. The Boss had a weird consistency, so I rolled a condom over it. As Adam reached up to help, as I had so many times, I felt the second shock. As his hands fluttered around this missile in my lap, he was like a child playing at a grown-up task. I marveled at how much the penetrator drives every part of this act, something that had never been apparent to me as penetratee. Adam's eyes widened as I pushed in slowly, a little at a time, stopping to ask "OK?" every minute or so. His breaths were shallow; he urged me on.
As "my" huge appendage disappeared inside him, his eyes showed shame, trust, fear and a sort of helpless adoration. In a way I'd never understood those words before, he was mine. The knowledge I could really hurt this person by being less than careful made me feel responsible, protective. The vulnerability appalled me at the same time; it was vaguely disgusting that he would let someone do this to him. Mixed in with the disgust was possessiveness. The thought of anyone else penetrating him seemed revolting. These observations clicked into place in quick succession; I felt like a projector being loaded with slides of maleness, of male seeing.
I saw all this as if from a distance, perhaps because my nerve endings weren't involved directly in the drama and perhaps because Adam and I weren't in love. Were souls entwined, I imagine, the Boss would dive much deeper into power, identity, empathy. But my experience was weirdly sociological and clarified much that had confused me. I saw why men feel entitled to women as possessions, why women must be protected from other men, especially from sex with them. Why a woman's, not a man's, virginity is "lost" and why her sexual activity inspires disrespect. I also felt the allure of a virgin, of being singled out for that gift.
This view of heterosexual sex looked far less like a mirror than my woman's view. I realized as I fucked Adam that at some of the most connected-feeling moments of my life, I was having an utterly different experience than the man pushing into me. Regardless of who's initiating, who's on top, or who holds what emotional reins, I realized, surrender is at the center of my sexual experience; invasion at my male partner's.
With the Boss, I was conquering, silent, responsible, the taker. With his legs spread, Adam was agreeable, inviting, ashamed, taken. I felt closer to him that night than any other time, because we changed in front of each other's eyes. Parts of ourselves that had been locked away from it engaged in sex for the first time.
The world looks different since then. I was riding up a steep escalator a few weeks after I took Adam's cherry, idly watching the butts up ahead of me as I usually do -- as a pleasing shape. And suddenly a slide clicked over the round female bottom perched above me: Access. Men aren't just admiring the curve of a butt the way women do; they're negotiating access. It's a hill to be taken.
And men do love access. Clubs, fraternities, committees, old-boy networks -- they've built a world where access is power. They like slit skirts, open-toed shoes, crotchless panties. They like finding a way in. I think the name of the highest-profile condom brand is no accident -- the Trojan Horse was the original tool of access!
Adam and I never took the Boss out on that particular ride again; we both discovered our loyalty to the home teams. That night shook my heterosexuality much less than it shook my feminism, my wishful thinking about natural similarity. The fuckers are different. Getting in looks male now, and giving in seems female, something I never wanted to believe. Perhaps fucking, or the man's-eye view of it, is the template for much more of the world than I ever realized. Which is somewhat limiting in the bedroom and terribly so out in the world. A template offering two choices to nearly 6 billion people is bound to punish, squelch or misrepresent the female tops, the male bottoms, the complexly gendered and everyone else who falls somewhere between a Cosmo quiz and a Desert Storm on the vast continuum between prissy and macho.
But if our differences do stem from sex, what better place to explore what feminine and masculine really mean? Digging around at the roots of those distinctions was not only more fun than a women's study seminar or a lawsuit -- it was more illuminating.
SALON | Jan. 28, 1999
Virginia Vitzthum is a writer living outside Washington, D.C. Her last piece for Salon was "Femme Fatal."


T H E_.H O T_.S P O T Check mate By Susie Bright What I teach my daughter about sex (01/22/98) ___________________ Got an urge you need to satisfay? Check out barnesandnoble.com's selection of sex books ___________________ R E C E N T L Y Confessions of an office pervert By Angie Monroe In satisfying her own nasty desires, one woman discovers the key to worker productivity (01/21/99) Bonfire of the porn queens By Benjamin Weissman Trapped between a silicon breast and a hard place, the Adult Video News Awards struggle to boost their legitimacy (01/14/99) The gentlemanly art of spanking By Carson Fitzgerald When women turn the other cheek, what are they asking for? (01/07/99) Two concepts of sexual hysteria By Linda R. Hirshman and Jane E. Larson The Democrats offer "Boogie Nights," the Republicans "The Crucible." Can we change the channel? (12/24/98) The shipping nudes By David Steinberg Why have certain postal services decided to become arbiters of obscenity? (12/10/98) - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Urge archives - - - - - - - - - -		STRAP-ON EPIPHANY \| PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - Before Adam, I'd never considered the business end of a dildo, partly because I hadn't known a heterosexual man who wasn't utterly cowed by the taboo. I'm not interested in being anally penetrated myself, but I'm not interested with much less intensity than the noninterested guys I know. Women have no analogue to the horror -- not universal but widespread among straight men -- of taking it up the butt. It's so frightening that other men's allowing it is an affront. I've heard tolerant, sane men equate anal penetration with castration, an act with the almost magical power to transform men into "bitches" or "little girls." Adam certainly had lugged this baggage around America, too, but managed to set it down so we could have our adventure. It was autumn when we took up. We were both coming off chilly partners who'd left us frustrated, each convinced we were undesirable, oversexed. We were as grateful as teenagers to find each other, and we spent eight months in a fever state, a long erotic crescendo. We never fell in love; we were not soul mates, but perfect sexual playmates. From the start, I noticed role reversals outside of bed. I talked more than he did in groups; he would fret later about not being articulate. (But inarticulate men make the best lovers; as Colette said about a reticent paramour, "Speech is not his language.") Adam was vain and fussed more with his hair and clothes and imaginary fat than I did. He was insecure, which sometimes manifested male, in bragging and resentful ranting. In bed, though, his desire to please went beyond experienced-guy pride in competence and his affection for me. There was something warm and yielding in him, a sexual fantasy looking for a creator. This self-gifting reminded me of Marilyn Monroe. Since I was writing a play, I decided that made me Arthur Miller. I was the smart one and he was the pretty one. But he had the medical information that got us thinking. He told me how the prostate gland was, sensation-wise, an extension of the penis and ran right up alongside the rectum. This was revelatory: I had assumed that all the bottoms of the world, men and women, were just good sports. So I'd not done much knocking at my boyfriends' back doors. Adam was initially embarrassed to tell me how erogenous a zone it was for him because, he said, of the homosexual implications. I assured him that, to me, the fact that his body derived pleasure from certain sensations meant only that. His gratitude for such basic tolerance made me wonder about the women who'd come before me. Meanwhile sex was getting better than I knew sex got. Adam tended me like a gardener, coaxing orgasm after orgasm from my body. He plowed like a champ too; I'd never been fucked so exhaustively. He could reduce me to a small puddle, and from that grateful goo a resolve formed -- to give back. I wanted him to know the joy of being pounded into, rocked and rolled. And now I knew he wanted me inside him. Still it shocked me when, looking down on his high narrow hips while he slept on his stomach, I heard myself think, "I want to fuck him." It was the first time in all my gender-questioning, sex-experimenting life I'd had such a thought. A few nights later, we found ourselves shopping in a marital aids boutique. Adam, always thoughtful, wanted something with a knob that would penetrate me while I wore it, but we found no such animal. We settled on a battery-powered vibrating number mounted on rather ghastly "flesh-colored" rubber panties that Velcroed on the side. It was called the Boss. I kept saying, "Are you sure? This is huge," but Adam nodded stoically. As we picked it off the shelf, a male stranger gave Adam a congratulatory pat on the back that confused both of us. The sales clerk, a perky dyke, tried to put us at ease as we paid (Dutch treat). We unpacked it back at my house. I decided not to fill out the warranty card. Again, I worried about the size. Adam closed his eyes, angled it out from his lap and grabbed it with a practiced hand. "Mine's wider," he reassured me. It was true, but I couldn't imagine either one buried in my butt. I felt embarrassed and shy as I Velcroed myself in, unsure of how to play the man. We lubed the thing liberally, than Adam got up on his hands and knees. I gingerly poked at him from alpha doggie position; he stopped me and flipped onto his back. He wrapped his legs around my waist, which sent the first shock of non-recognition. What had always felt rather take-charge from below felt completely passive from above, a nervous welcome. The Boss had a weird consistency, so I rolled a condom over it. As Adam reached up to help, as I had so many times, I felt the second shock. As his hands fluttered around this missile in my lap, he was like a child playing at a grown-up task. I marveled at how much the penetrator drives every part of this act, something that had never been apparent to me as penetratee. Adam's eyes widened as I pushed in slowly, a little at a time, stopping to ask "OK?" every minute or so. His breaths were shallow; he urged me on. As "my" huge appendage disappeared inside him, his eyes showed shame, trust, fear and a sort of helpless adoration. In a way I'd never understood those words before, he was mine. The knowledge I could really hurt this person by being less than careful made me feel responsible, protective. The vulnerability appalled me at the same time; it was vaguely disgusting that he would let someone do this to him. Mixed in with the disgust was possessiveness. The thought of anyone else penetrating him seemed revolting. These observations clicked into place in quick succession; I felt like a projector being loaded with slides of maleness, of male seeing. I saw all this as if from a distance, perhaps because my nerve endings weren't involved directly in the drama and perhaps because Adam and I weren't in love. Were souls entwined, I imagine, the Boss would dive much deeper into power, identity, empathy. But my experience was weirdly sociological and clarified much that had confused me. I saw why men feel entitled to women as possessions, why women must be protected from other men, especially from sex with them. Why a woman's, not a man's, virginity is "lost" and why her sexual activity inspires disrespect. I also felt the allure of a virgin, of being singled out for that gift. This view of heterosexual sex looked far less like a mirror than my woman's view. I realized as I fucked Adam that at some of the most connected-feeling moments of my life, I was having an utterly different experience than the man pushing into me. Regardless of who's initiating, who's on top, or who holds what emotional reins, I realized, surrender is at the center of my sexual experience; invasion at my male partner's. With the Boss, I was conquering, silent, responsible, the taker. With his legs spread, Adam was agreeable, inviting, ashamed, taken. I felt closer to him that night than any other time, because we changed in front of each other's eyes. Parts of ourselves that had been locked away from it engaged in sex for the first time. The world looks different since then. I was riding up a steep escalator a few weeks after I took Adam's cherry, idly watching the butts up ahead of me as I usually do -- as a pleasing shape. And suddenly a slide clicked over the round female bottom perched above me: Access. Men aren't just admiring the curve of a butt the way women do; they're negotiating access. It's a hill to be taken. And men do love access. Clubs, fraternities, committees, old-boy networks -- they've built a world where access is power. They like slit skirts, open-toed shoes, crotchless panties. They like finding a way in. I think the name of the highest-profile condom brand is no accident -- the Trojan Horse was the original tool of access! Adam and I never took the Boss out on that particular ride again; we both discovered our loyalty to the home teams. That night shook my heterosexuality much less than it shook my feminism, my wishful thinking about natural similarity. The fuckers are different. Getting in looks male now, and giving in seems female, something I never wanted to believe. Perhaps fucking, or the man's-eye view of it, is the template for much more of the world than I ever realized. Which is somewhat limiting in the bedroom and terribly so out in the world. A template offering two choices to nearly 6 billion people is bound to punish, squelch or misrepresent the female tops, the male bottoms, the complexly gendered and everyone else who falls somewhere between a Cosmo quiz and a Desert Storm on the vast continuum between prissy and macho. But if our differences do stem from sex, what better place to explore what feminine and masculine really mean? Digging around at the roots of those distinctions was not only more fun than a women's study seminar or a lawsuit -- it was more illuminating. SALON \| Jan. 28, 1999 Virginia Vitzthum is a writer living outside Washington, D.C. Her last piece for Salon was "Femme Fatal."