Because you can’t look under the mattress anymore

… to find your partner’s porn, that is.

Well, not that anybody has kept porn under the mattress in the last decade, anyhow. Computer-savvy partners now keep it in sub-sub-sub folders like “D:\windows\system_64\applications\manager\binaries\antivirus\infected\deleted\asian-t-girl-boobies\” or similarly buried directories.

Which is why snoopy wives and girlfriends now have to resort to spyware to find their partner’s fap stash.According to the marketing information on the “Find His Porn” website:

“Technology has advanced to the point where traditional ways for women to keep track of their guys just don’t work anymore.”

You get an RFID device to “keep track” of your pets. You get a cell phone and a Facebook account to “keep track” of your kids. But if you feel a need to “keep track” of your guy, then you need a good, long discussion about your relationship — and ladies? I’m talking to you here — and you’d better be prepared for hearing some things that you may not like.

“Porn has gone virtual – which means no more adult DVD’s or dirty magazines that you will find lying around. Everything he looks at is right there on your computer, only problem is it’s not easy to find. Aren’t you curious what he’s up to? You are not alone. Most women are curious and until now there was little that could be done. Now all you have to do is try Find His Porn today and see exactly what he’s watching.”

Yeah, aren’t you curious as to what he’s looking at? Well, aren’t you?

Okay, okay, I get it. Yes, some guys actually do have a problem with porn; they are addicted to looking at pictures, and some of them masturbate so much that they barely have enough energy for you later on. That’s why you need to lock them up in a chastity device, so they will only be able to…

Hold on, wait,  sorry — That’s the current motto of the chastity nuts on the internet, and is not in any way reflective of real life. Or, at least, real mature, adult life.

And yes, some women become very insecure about the porn that their partners might be looking at because they are constantly comparing themselves, and I think that there is some merit to discussing this. If you are a size 4 woman with B-cup boobs, and your partner is ogling a copy of Big’Uns in the basement behind the furnace, then it’s natural for you to wonder if your partner is thinking about someone else, someone you can’t possibly emulate. 

But these are issues that mature adults should be able to discuss, and come to some kind of agreement or compromise. I’ve heard from real-life woman friends who have bemoaned their husband’s “porn addiction,” only to discover later that hubby’s “porn” was a Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar, or a Playboy Playmate poster; the latter is especially ironic considering that the tv show “The Girls Next Door”(about “Playmates” living in the various Playboy mansions) is watched mainly by women.

Look, sometimes relationships turn weird simply because people fail to treat each other like adults. I once had a partner that used to think it was her job to “catch” me doing things wrong, whether is was cleaning the bathroom, tracking dirt on the floor, or replacing the toilet paper the wrong way on the roll. Each time she “caught” me doing something that was perfectly normal for me (which wasn’t porn, by the way), but that she didn’t like, we had a huge argument. I spent a couple of miserable years learning to hide things, until one day I suddenly realized what I was doing (i.e., acting like a teenager), and just stopped hiding, and began insisting  that if she had a problem, she was welcome to talk to me like an adult, but until then, I’d continue to do things my way.

The relationship lasted about a month after that, which taught me that some people actually do want to play out their child/parent models, or at least, can’t seem to think in other ways. So, if this is you, then by all means buy the porn sniffers. But don’t be surprised when he starts password protecting his accounts, and finds other ways to hide things from you.

Are submissive men devalued?

This question has come up a few times recently; there’s some discussion at Maybe Maimed and at Delving into Deviance, and it’s been making me think about the subject; ironically because I had pretty much written such things off a while back, when I decided that the cultural paradigms that we have regarding kink are so fucked up that I can’t even bring myself to associate with any labels.

Personally, while I think that the short answer is “Yes,” the long answer is that we’re not asking the right questions because we — collectively — have no idea what we’re talking about when we use words like “dominance” and “submission” anymore.

Dishevelled Domina has been interviewing submissive men on a variety of topics (including this one), and she’s posting the results a couple of times a week. It just so happens that my own interview is up now, and I have a little bit to say on that topic.

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I don’t have much to say right now, since it’s not even 7 o’clock on a Sunday morning, so I’m just going to leave this here.

Chastity Therapy

Okay, can we stop now?

Really, before y’all even get started, let’s just take ten minutes to gather our senses before you start with the silly “I wonder if…” speculation.

Yes, you know who you are.

This month’s celebrity-who-got-caught is, of course, golf great Tiger Woods, who, despite being married to a hot looking woman, is now linked to a dozen or so mistresses, waitresses, porn actresses, and others. I will leave it to the media pundits to argue about whether Tiger is simply a good guy who got caught up in the celebrity life. I’m not even going to remark on the real sin of hypocrisy. (For those of you not following, golf is generally a game with few such scandals, and Tiger has been heralded as a good, clean-living young man, and a good role model in the sports world.) When I feel like offering my opinions on such matters that don’t concern me, I’ll start submitting articles to Gawker, Jezebel, or one of the other gossip blogs.

But I am going to beg you to please, please stop your idle chatter on the type of chastity belt that Tiger should wear. Or if he would have been a better husband if he had been wearing one. Or if his wife will make it part of the re-negotiated pre-nuptial agreement. Or if wearing one would screw up his swing.

I ask this of you because – as you’ve no doubt heard me say in the past – anyone who thinks a $200 hunk of plastic (or even a $2,000 hunk of stainless steel, for that matter) is going to cure their relationship problems would be much better off spending the money on some therapy.

Chastity devices are, ironically enough, sex toys.

There, I’ve said it.

I don’t care if it’s a ribbon around your cock, a CB3000, a Lori’s Tube, a Steelwerks custom job, or a solid stainless steel Latowski. They are, pure and simple, toys to enhance your sexual play.

Yes, you’ve heard me about modifying my devices to make them more comfortable or secure, but the simple fact is that with enough resources and inclination, any chastity device can be circumvented. It can be by brute force (by breaking or cutting sections) or by stealth means (lock picking, or practicing yoga to slip it off your body), but given enough resources (i.e., time and/or money) the wearer can get around any device. No, don’t even argue – just take that to the bank. Inescapable chastity devices are fantasy. Let’s no inject your fantasy onto the pain of somebody’s private life.

Mrs. Edge knows that I can Macguyver just about anything, which is why we went through some brainstorming before she left for a month in Bangalore this past summer. Our arrangement wasn’t fool-proof, but it did present some challenges that would have been time consuming for me, and if they failed, would have presented some relationship problems. I leave the idea of resources up to the individual. The more important factor is the inclination.

That’s why I cringe whenever I read about some dumb sop who tells his wife “Honey, you should make me wear a chastity device, so you won’t have to worry about me on business trips or when you’re not around.” Look bro — if she wasn’t worried about you cheating before you mentioned it, then she’s sure as hell going to be thinking about it afterward. That’s because your partner is smarter than you are. She’s not placing all of her trust in the technology, she’s placing her trust in the human resources. Know why? Because that’s how it works in a relationship. That’s part of the relating thing.

You say that your partner has an insecure streak and doesn’t trust you anyway. Chastity device? No, therapy is the better answer. Because as she realizes that you can have fantastic sex with your cock locked up, she’ll begin to wonder if you’re doing the same with your co-workers or cocktail waitresses on those business trips.

You say that you’ve already been caught shagging your neighbor, and you think that chastity will help your wife to trust you again? No, therapy is the better answer, of only to discover what is the problem in your marriage that makes you seek solace elsewhere, instead of trying to talk things out.

You say that your wife married you and now won’t put out, and is demanding that you wear a device, or else she’ll divorce you and ask for a bazillion dollars a month in alimony? Chastity, right? No, you need therapy to help you figure out why you seek attention by posting those ridiculous stories in every friggin’ web group.

But we’re getting away from the main point, which is that Tiger Woods does not need a chastity belt; he needs therapy, and he needs to understand how not to allow the fame go to his head. In other words, he needs to stop thinking with his putter. Just like the rest of you who are making those jokes, and thinking you’re so funny. Because, you know, it’s not like those same jokes haven’t been made a dozen times in the last year… and the year before, and the year before that.

So seriously, guys — have fun with your sex toys. And go ahead and fantasize a little bit. But please put the the idea out of your head that your toys will substitute for honest desire or some serious ethical considerations. This is real life, after all, and not a game.

No Surprise

So, Mrs. Edge is in the kitchen, baking some apple crisp and banana bread. I wander in foraging for some food, and eat a few potato chips from the bag on the fridge. After a few mouthfuls I get irritated for going off my diet, so I decide to look for something healthier.

Spotting the large plastic spring clip that keeps the bag closed, I grab it and make some snapping motions toward Mrs. Edge — or more correctly, her boobs. “Get out, I’m busy,” she says in an exasperated voice.

So I walk behind her, saying “Hmm…” in a loud voice. I then snapped the clip and say “Ow! Ow! Ouch!”

She turns around. “What the hell are you doing?” she asked. “Did you hurt yourself?”

I start laughing. “No, I just wanted to see the look on your face when you’d *thought* I’d hurt myself.”

Mrs. Edge rolled her eyes and turned back to baking. “No surprise, Tom,” she said. “If you’d really done it, it would not have surprised me one tiny bit.”

Huh. Wait until next week when I try that trick with the vacuum cleaner…

They Ain’t Pagan Virgins…

Some people fire up their web browser and run down the lost of bookmarks, perhaps check out a couple of the links that they’re run across, and then they’re done for the night.

Here at Edge of Vanilla Labs, though, we’re constantly on the prowl for interesting or informative links because we believe that it’s important for us to be a resource for our community – whatever community you happen to believe yourself (or me) part of.

Back over the summer, I ran across an interesting site (set up in a blog format) run by five women who took turns addressing questions from the readers, or who would sometimes use those questions as the basis for an article of opinion or interest. I lurked for a bit, and then wandered off to look at other pretty, shiny things and sort of forgot about it until another blogger pointed out that they had a post concerning chastity devices. The chastity community is small and easily distracted, so naturally I headed over there for a peek. I found that the discussion about the devices was good; it was fair-minded, and they treated the devices (or at least, the concept of the devices) as an interesting toy to be used to spice up one’s relationship. This, some of you realize, is rather close to how we view it around the EoV Labs.

What makes this noteworthy, however, is that this perspective comes from a group of women that, in other circumstances, you’d expect to be somewhat critical of using anything to spice up one’s sex life. Not so, however, for the Christian Nymphos. Their site, now a little over a year old, has had about 2-1/2 million hits, certainly a testament to their progressive thinking and their well-written articles on how to develop and maintain a close and fun intimate relationship while remaining within the bound circumscribed by a Christian marriage.

Yes, you read that correctly. Conservative Christians are allowed to have an enjoyable sex life.

Now, at this point it would be easy to hoot and point and make some rude comments about Christians in general – and certainly, not all of this would be undeserved. And I know that some of you are probably wondering why I’m even mentioning this in the first place, since a) I’m not Christian, and b) I’m not exactly conservative. I’m writing about them because I think that any group of people who make a point of reviewing their cultural mores with an eye toward a more fulfilling intimate life deserve some strokes. Also, I know that a certain number of people who read this blog are themselves conservative and mostly vanilla, and would probably gain something by visiting their site.

It’s written more from a woman’s point of view, and is really aimed at women – Christian women – in such a way that allows them to confront and deal with some of the issues they may have over enjoying their bodies, their husband’s bodies, having sexual pleasure, and the various other issues that keep women from enjoying a good relationship with their husbands. Resonating with their mission to help other women to add spice to their sex lives, the five women have adopted pseudonyms based on various spices: Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Peppermint, Ginger, and Cumin.

No, no, that’s pronounced kyoo’-min, you fools. It’s like a spicier kind of carroway.
Sheesh!

While I think that they do an excellent job of interpreting Biblical script in the context of developing intimacy, I suspect that many of my regular readers will no doubt take issue with some of their views. For example, while they are fine with the use of various toys in the bedroom, they consider porn to be off-limits, in part because it introduces (in a fashion) other people into the relationship. Likewise, threesomes, swapping, swinging, and related activities are regarded as cheating of a sort. Marriage is between two people and should remain so. They consider sex outside of marriage as still inappropriate. BDSM, especially the more painful or humiliating aspects, are also off-limits. I found this last bit interesting because there are several large web groups advocating Christian BDSM, which explain why it’s really okay.

That said, I found it fascinating that the Christian Nymphos were able to make a case for the use of various sex toys, and for trying various positions normally only seen in an illustrated Kama Sutras. They even have a page on which they list various positions, and grade them on relative difficulty. And it might surprise some of you to learn that certain activities which might be considered slightly kinky are perfectly acceptable. Light, teasing bondage is okay, as is oral sex and even anal sex. At least one CN made a case that “pegging” – i.e., a woman taking her man with a strap-on – is perfectly fine. They even describe how a woman can make a tempting cheesecake picture to send to her husband.

The Christian Nymphos are not going to appeal to everybody, and they’re fine with that. The blog is heavily moderated, and comments are checked before begin posted. A trackback to my own blog was manually deleted, and they explained that it was because they prefer not to link to any other blog that has nudity or graphic sexual descriptions. I understood, and was not insulted; it’s their blog and they can run it any way that they like (I explained that I hadn’t expected a link to this blog). They do, however, have links to various other marital and intimacy resources for Christians, some of which I’ve seen in the past.

While I’m not recommending that everybody who reads my blog should check them out, I will say that those of you who feel so disposed will likely gain something if you do.

Weirded out

Okay, so here’s the deal: I have a new friend, a cute 27 year old woman who has been emailing me and being generally pleasant and chatty. She’s a professional in the local entertainment media, and we chat – via email – about just how things are in life. She has wondered about how to act around guys, and I’ve offered up advice. We’ve touched briefly on the nature of sexuality in relationships, but I’ve drawn a line in the sand beyond which it just feels too weird to cross. This may sound weird, coming from somebody who freely discusses how to navigate the kink/vanilla relationship, but there’s an added factor here. This woman knows me in real life. No, that’s not the part that’s weirding me out. The part that’s really weirding me out is this:

She’s a friend of my son.

Let me stress that this is not his girlfriend, it’s just someone that he met as an area entertainer; he has a girlfriend. And let me also stress that I don’t get the vibe that she’s hitting on me. She’s been to the house several times, we’ve run into each other socially, and she knows I’m married. And she’s quite attractive and is in a business where she gets a lot of public exposure and does not need to hit on married guys twice her age. Mrs. Edge knows that she emails me. We don’t do anything beyond friendly banter. Are we clear on this?

I do, however, get the impression that she doesn’t have anyone with whom she can talk about relationships. Her parents are from “the old country” and seem to be rather strict and conservative, and her conversations with them on the subject tend to run toward them accusing her of being a tramp or about to get pregnant. Not very sex positive, in other words. I sort of think that she may be adopting our family because Mrs. Edge and I are generally pretty laid back and non-judgmental with our younger friends. We try very hard not to act like know-it-alls (which is very difficult when you’re me, of course). We’ve had a number of younger people over the years that seem to adopt us for periods of time, coming over for dinner, helping, hanging out, stuff like that.

So what’s weirding me out? I’m not quite sure. I think it’s because she’s been friends with the son for a while, which makes her quasi-family. I don’t discuss sexuality with family members – much to the relief of several of them, I’m sure. But why don’t I discuss it with family members? Frankly, I don’t know. I think that I have some kind of idea that I’m supposed to be setting an example, although the idea that I’m some paragon of virtue is laughable for people that know me.

On one hand, I feel badly, because I suspect that she’s reaching out in some way, and I’m not being as helpful as I could be. On the other, I don’t want to get overly intimate with someone who might happen to mention something to my son. Is this just me being weird, or what? I don’t often find myself questioning whether or not I should do something or be in a situation, but this one just sort of snuck up on me.

Any ideas or comments?

A Parable…

One day, when a seamstress was sewing while sitting close to a river, her thimble fell into the river. When she cried out, the Lord appeared and asked, “My dear child, why are you crying?”

The seamstress replied that her thimble had fallen into the water and that she needed it to help her husband in making a living for their family.

The Lord dipped His hand into the water and pulled up a golden thimble set with pearls.

“Is this your thimble?” the Lord asked

The seamstress replied, “No.”

The Lord again dipped into the river. He held out a silver thimble ringed with sapphires.

“Is this your thimble?” the Lord asked.

Again, the seamstress replied, “No.”

The Lord reached down again and came up with a leather thimble. “Is this your thimble?” the Lord asked.

The seamstress replied, “Yes, that is the one I dropped.”

The Lord was pleased with the woman’s honesty and gave her all three thimbles to keep, and the seamstress went home happy.

Some years later, the seamstress was walking with her husband along the riverbank, when her husband fell into the river and disappeared under the water.

When she cried out, the Lord again appeared and asked her, “Why are you crying?”

“Oh Lord, my husband has fallen into the river!”

The Lord went down into the water and came up with George Clooney.

“Is this your husband?” the Lord asked.

“Yes,” cried the seamstress.

The Lord was furious. “You lied! That is an untruth!”

The seamstress replied, “Oh, forgive me, my Lord, it is a misunderstanding. You see, if I had said ‘no’ to George Clooney, you would have come up with Brad Pitt. Then if I said ‘no’ to him, you would have come up with my husband. Had I then said ‘yes,’ you would have given me all three. Lord, I’m not in the best of health and would not be able to take care of all three husbands, so THAT’S why I said ‘yes’ to George Clooney. “

And so the Lord let her keep him.

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The moral of this story is: Whenever a woman lies, it’s for a good and honorable reason, and in the best interest of others.

That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it.

Signed,
All Us Women

Stereotypical Joke

Jokes are a great way to study culture because they often portray those things that people may think without being willing to admit publicly. I subscribe to a joke-a-day list, and like most of you, I get dozens of stale jokes forwarded to me from well-meaning friends who have yet to learn how to cut & paste to avoid the >> >> >>>> > >>>, or the dozen message envelopes with the header “This is funny!!!!” or “You’ve got to read this!!! Too true!!!!!” that you need to get through before you can actually read the damn thing.

Yeah, go ahead and tell me that you would just delete the thing. I rarely do that because you never know – AOL and Microsoft and Outback Steakhouse and Fudrucker’s might, just might be willing to give me a new car full of Ben & Jerry’s Super Fudge Chunk if I forward it on to 2,500 of my closest friends

Anyway, this joke came to me this morning. It’s old, but I still laughed because the stereotypes that it plays up still seems funny to me. Then I caught myself laughing, and began to wonder why I found it so funny. Perhaps in the back of my mind it still rings of some amount of truth, or at least, skirts dangerously close. I suspect that a lot of men will find it funny, and a few women will roll their eyes.

Bill and Ted were at a poker game that had run late – past 3 a.m.

Bill says, “You know what I hate about these games? When I go home, I turn off my headlights, shut off the engine, and coast into the driveway. Then I go to the front door, take off my shoes and sneak in as quietly as I can. But my wife always wakes up and we end up having a fight.”

Ted replied “You’re going about it the wrong way. What I do instead is drive into the driveway, honk the horn a few times, get out of the car, slam the door, go in the house and bang the door open. Then I yell ‘Honey, I’m home’, run upstairs, slap her on the ass and say, ‘Hey, how’s about a little lovin’, woman?’ She never even rolls over.”

Okay, anybody up for dissecting this one?

The Puerile Cuckoo

Okay, fasten your seat belts, because I feel a rant coming on.

The Edge of Vanilla gets a lot of hits from people searching on male chastity and orgasm denial. Those kinks overlap with others, among which are: BDSM, transvestism, tease & denial, female domination, D/s, and cuckolding.

Personally, I don’t understand the attraction of wanting to be considered useless and impotent as a lover, much less the desire to have your wife/partner seek out sex with other men while you wait for the details (or not). Swinging, I understand. Cuckolding? I don’t get it. One of Bitchy’s bestest posts ever covered that quite well:

“you only have to look at the number of toppish women in this thread saying, hell, yeah, what’s in it for me, to see that cuckolding really isn’t about pleasuring your partner. Most women would rather have sex with their partners.”

But so what? I know that we’re all supposed to be understanding and accepting of each other’s kinks and fetishes and all that; and certainly I have some kinks that other people would consider to be odd. There’s no doubt in my mind that consenting adults should be free to do whatever they want.

But what is it that we call “consent”?

Advice or adverse?

For those of you who may not have heard of him, Dan Savage is an advice columnist (Savage Love) that is most definitely not from the Dear Abby school. He is a direct, to the point, no-holds-barred writer who’s not afraid to tackle a wide range of sex questions. While he does get a few questions that he’s not sure what to do with, he’s certainly a refreshing alternative to “You should talk to your doctor or clergyman about this problem.”

His latest column in The Stranger (Seattle, Washington) has a confluence of items of interest, which I’m going just quote verbatim: