Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

From Sex-Toy to Life Companion

Did you hear about the men who have given up on human romance because they prefer to invest in mechanized, life-sized dolls that are programmed to suck and squeeze? I have just returned from my mother’s funeral (which is why I haven’t blogged in so very long) to find a Reuters article and video report entitled “Japan’s loners turn to dolls for sex.”

Funerals do make one think about relationships – too many of which are dysfunctional or dissatisfying, so it seemed perversely logical to look into this phenomenon of men who prefer their sex partners non-alive and inorganic. These guys have rejected flesh-and-blood women – with all of our bodily fluids, opinions and free will – in favor of sophisticated, pliable silicone dolls.

The Reuters piece interviews a 45 year-old engineer they call Ta-Bo who has spent tens of thousands of dollars on a gaggle of dolls in order to avoid the danger, he says, that “a human girl can cheat on you or betray you.” His customized substitutes weigh about 60 pounds, cost up to $6,000 and are forever young. Disturbingly girl-like, even. When Ta-Bo comes home from work, he likes to snuggle in front of the TV with his dolls before bathing them, dressing them in sexy nighties and bedding them.

Those men who aren’t in a position to purchase, one Japanese blogger reports, can rent them from a new chain of stores for about $100 per hour.

The President of Orient Industry (in the photo in his showroom), the company that produces these plastic companions, understands his mostly single 40+ customers: "Nowadays, women are sometimes more dominant than men in the real world, and they don't always pay attention to men." Who needs vital domestic partners anyway? Not Ta-Bo. Admitting the dolls are his only “emotional outlet,” he brags that, “They belong to me 100%,"

Orient Industry claims to have originally been motivated by the needs of men with disabilities. An American company making “the Ferrari of love dolls” has a more historical point of view. The Real Dolls spokesman alleges they were first developed by Germany and Japan to relieve stress in their WWII submarines. This video tour of their factory is strangely censored with strategic clouds.

Committed to the American expectation of retail choice, you can shop ala carte among a dozen varieties of pubic hair or facial expression (from smiling to orgasmic), perhaps adding a motorized pumping pelvis. Twenty weeks later your individualized, silent mail-order bride arrives.

The more I researched, the more distasteful the findings, including a nasty YouTube clip of someone manipulating a doll’s lips and tongue with a disturbingly invasive finger. Particularly foul was a clip about the doll bought by Kink.com’s CEO for use as a bondage model. Someone violated it over the first weekend at his facility and naturally no one on staff wanted to clean it up.

None of these articles ask why these sculptures are so uniformly child-like or what it means for a hunk of plastic to cross over the line from sex-toy to life companion. None of these journalists express puzzlement in the face of owners who have their closest relationship with a captive and compliant sex object (quite literally).

Because these dolls are so anthropomorphicized by those who sell and buy them, it is hard not to be creeped out. If a fetish is harming no one else and there is no breathing human being used without consent, then why does it feel so weird? Perhaps it is the veneer of relationship commitment that surrounds their marketing and use. This isn’t a case of promising men they can stick in their cock and cum: this is more a means to circumvent real women altogether. (Probably not a bad thing in the case of these guys, a close friend suggested.)

I too love my sex toys, but I know their limitations. They can’t collaborate with me in breaking new boundaries of passion. They can’t interact in role-playing or pick up on my moods. They won’t volunteer to clean out the mush at the bottom of my fridge’s fruit drawer or bring me flowers when my mother dies. I admit that I’ve got a long-term relationship with my plug-in vibrator, but it sure wouldn’t get me off to dress it up in finery and tell it how my day went.

Q&A: What are man-nipples for?

ASK A CONSENTING ADULT

Richard, 55, writes sheepishly to ask, “Am I the only man who is completely turned on by having things done to my nipples? I’m always embarrassed about my reaction if I’m lucky enough to have a lover who pays attention to my nipples. My cock twitches like crazy and I find myself gasping. Aren’t nipples all about women?”

Richard, you little bundle of passion, thanks for writing. Nipples are one of those happy human protuberances that, with the right kind of pampering (or abuse), can give you thrills all out of proportion to their size. All that erectile tissue, all those glands – called unnervingly enough “lactiferous ducts,” all those sensitive nerves and all those historical associations (dinner!) Whew! I feel my little areola bumps going all animated, just talking about it.

I see that, like me, you’re in your fifties. I find that nipple play works great for older people: to really get wild with our breasts, we don’t need a steel erection, a gushing pussy or the flexibility for some gymnastic position.

But I’m not sure where you got the idea that nipples are just a girly erogenous zone – they’re pretty universal among the two-legged. After all, what else are man-nips for but pleasure? And even if you were unique, why be embarrassed? You should welcome any erogenous zone you can find – on your body or your lover’s.

Aside: Recently my back has become the focus of my passion. My lover scratches it just like I want because I am yelling in breathless hysteria, “Left! No, up a bit! Yes, yes, no, softer! Harder!” I find it builds up and up until I can’t take it any more and I have an intense back cum. It’s the easiest, most reliable warm-up we’ve ever played with.

Now that we’ve established that you are the lucky, rightful owner of two electrifying nubs, here’s a few suggestions of activities to explore together – or even alone. You can lick and blow for sensuous chill or apply ice cubes for a more hardcore sensation; you can delicately close your teeth as the nipple erects or you can nibble vigorously; you can pinch and twist the buds, and you can massage the tits by tweaking or palming or go over the top with a couple of sharp slaps. And that’s without getting into all the available toys (clips, clothespins, pumps, floggers, fur mittens, piercings and more.)

All you need in order to practice this form of safe sex is your chest, your imagination and a friend (or two.) No toy-bag necessary. That’s part of the magic of nipples, Richard. You are unlikely to forget them at home.

Worldwide Lust: China’s Kinky Pu Pu Platter

When I was young, China was a shining revolutionary example of liberation from feudalism, eradication of disease and deep thoughts stuffed into a little red book. Look at how times change.

Penile Morsels: There are restaurants in China specializing in cock and ball torture in a cuisine kinda way: they serve dog dick, donkey dong and apparently a double snake organ. If you aren’t tempted by the “penis hotpot,” you could always splurge ($5,700) on a tiger putz.

China Comes Out: An internet TV channel out of Hong Kong has, at last, launched the first-ever gay program. I wonder if Google in China is allowing folks to find it.

Only Foreigners Get Laid: Modern stress over the combo of career and family has wilted the sex lives of Chinese couples in more ways than one, a survey of 33,000 urbanites confirms. A quarter of under 30s and a third of mid-lifers have given up nooky altogether, with a terrifying 45% of men complaining of erectile dysfunction. In contrast, a westerner’s English-language blog, full of adolescent bragging about all the Chinese women he scores, tops a Chinese blog list. Boo to imperialism.

Talking Dirty: Number 411 Hospital of the People's Liberation Army has opened a sex hotline in Shanghai for middle-aged and elderly people. Many of the 5,000 callers are lonely and horny, so the hospital is attempting to fix up them up with each other by organizing lectures. Even better, as a social icebreaker, there’s talk of a tour of the city’s sex museum.

Love Your Parents, or Starve: In an attempt to sustain old school values, one county in Henan province – and I apologize in advance that although this is pretty kinky, it has nothing to do with sex – is demanding that all job applicants prove “filial piety,” ie, pampering the parents. I picture myself there as permanently unemployable.

All Males Kneel: Come to Shuangqiao (you know, that 2.3 square km district in Chongquing) for a bizarre entertainment and retail center. When construction is complete, “Woman Town” will be a Domme haven in which disobedient men will be “punished by kneeling on an uneven wooden board or by washing dishes in a restaurant" if they question women’s decisions. What decisions? Is it how to overhaul the education system? Whether to institute a multi-party structure? Nope. It’s shopping. Sigh. So much for revolutionary communism.

Scalpels and Patches

Some people are mistakenly calling it the female Viagra. The truth is a bit more disturbing. This week the BBC reported on a new patch for those among the one million UK women who experience early menopause due to the surgical removal of their ovaries. One distressing result of this premature menopause, which causes decreased testosterone production, can be reduced sexual interest. The patch, called Intrinsa, slow-releases testosterone as a means of pepping up desire. It will be available through the National Health Service (NHS), Britain’s sensible if under-funded socialized health provision for all residents. It's being used in other European countries, although the FDA has not yet approved it here.

I have just got to digress immediately. Call me kooky, but the fact that slapped me upside my consciousness in all this is not that the drug companies are treating this symptom in women who have undergone hysterectomies. No, it is the appalling number of women who have undergone this operation in the first place.

I know less about medicine and medications than most people, but I can count. Let’s look at the numbers. Let's assume that out of a population of 60 million, about 30 million Brits are women. Of those, only 19 million are between 16 and 65. I remind you that a million UK women have had their ovaries removed. Can you imagine one out of 19 men having their balls fall to the knife? What’s wrong with this picture? Why hasn’t medicine found better solutions for “heavy bleeding and pelvic pain” than amputation?

I don’t claim to understand why radical surgery is the favored treatment procedure. At least having “created” the problem, the medical establishment has found in this patch a solution that, thankfully, provided 74% of the 500 women in the test group with an “increase in satisfying sex.” Unfortunately they have not given us the dirty details of what constitutes satisfaction, but hey, I’m a huge fan of satisfaction. The doctor cited in the piece did concede that there are a complex set of possible barriers to wanting sex (he mentioned children being around) – far more than a hormonal patch can cope with.

It's great that the tested women feel the patch has elevated their appetites – and I wish all women lust and passion – but I feel like they’ve got us coming and going: cutting us and then patching us. Viagra and its cousins have been such massive money-spinners that naturally there is an effort to pathologize women’s sexuality, so they can slip us some expensive hormones.

What to do about this lack of desire?

One: value women’s innards more and commit resources to finding less horrendous solutions to bleeding and pelvic pain than removal.

Two: look at the physical and psychological complexities of living without key organs – as is done when limbs are lost – to ensure that the women still feel whole.

Three: begin a Sexual Improvement Campaign that places huge anatomical posters of the clitoris in sports bars and that makes strong vibrators available free in every home.

That’s all bound to heat up the numbers of women reporting satisfaction – with or without cutting and patching.

Q&A: The man who couldn’t resist exhaust pipes

ASK A CONSENTING ADULT

My first Q&A comes from Anya L. who asks,

“Fetishes are fine, if mutual. But what if you hook up with someone who can’t get aroused without, say, toe-sucking, and you aren’t into that at all?”

Thanks for asking, Anya. I completely agree with you that fetishes are fine, even when they are not always mutual. So what’s a fetish? It’s simply an activity, image or scenario that makes the fetishist more intensely ga-ga than it makes the average horn-dog.

 

When two (or more) people become lovers there will be a lot of divergent tastes to work out, once the three-month hormonal tornado settles down. If one of you is a libertarian and the other is a Christian fundamentalist, you’ll be likely to run into bigger problems than just a toe-sucking (or role-playing or latex) fetish. If your main squeeze is into Bond and Rambo and you like musical comedies, how do you handle it? You negotiate and sometimes you compromise. Maybe you take turns choosing the movies, maybe you each go separately with other like-minded friends or maybe you make deals (buttered popcorn or oral sex) to sweeten the compromise.

 

Fetishes can sometimes seem awkward to others, even when they are practiced without another human partner. This week the British tabloid newspaper The Sun reported on a car mechanic named Chris Donald who, in addition to having a girlfriend, makes passionate love to cars. The article quotes Chris as saying: “There’s more to car love than exhaust pipes. Stroking the body panels and delicate touching makes excellent foreplay.” Apparently at least 20 people have driven to Chris’ garage to masturbate while watching Chris “service” their autos. He’s not the only such tradesman: The Sun claims to have reported in 1993 on an electrician Karl Watkins who “was jailed for having sex with pavements...”

 

But you, Anya, are probably talking about the sexual dynamic between two humans. Let’s look at your example of toe-sucking. Maybe your honey is increasingly crawling down to your most distant digits for some lapping. It isn’t necessary for you to share this fetish – that is, it isn’t necessary for you to hunger to swallow a toe or have a toe swallowed. But perhaps there is something in foot worship for you, like the sensations you reap from your partner’s tongue or from a reverent foot massage.

 

Even if those don’t particularly move you, maybe you’re turned on by how excited it makes your lover, and you recognize that you’re going to benefit from that arousal in the end (or in any other geographic area of your choice). If your tootsies really can’t bear it, consider allowing your partner to play a sex video focusing on their fetish while you are making love.

 

If your lover wants you to suck their toes and you’re reluctant, drown those (clean) feet in your favorite chocolate or whipped cream. If your relationship is non-monogamous, perhaps the fetish can be satisfied elsewhere. Unless there is danger to health and safety – elements which trump desire – continue to try to expand both of your sources of desire. Sex should be a matter of consent and mutuality. Where there is attraction and affection, creative solutions can’t be far behind. At least toe-sucking doesn’t require a car-lift.

 

Got a question? Whisper it right here in my ear.

Solo Play More Orgasmic than Partner Sex

Single Australian women over 40 have twice as many orgasms by their own hand than those depending on their partners. Is anyone surprised? My digits know my pussy damned well, and my Magic Wand vibrator knows it even better. Older women have had years of self-practice and some have elevated it to an unparalleled art.

The Betty Byrne Henderson Centre is undertaking a five-year study with 500 Queensland women aged 40 to 80 years. They confirmed a lot of trends we might have anticipated. As reported in the Sunday Mail, “55.2 per cent of women with no current partner could achieve orgasm every time with masturbation while only 24.6 per cent of women with a current partner could achieve orgasm every time.”

My London friend Sue O’Sullivan, an activist around women’s health and HIV/AIDS and in her 60s, perfected a wonderfully complicated, pervy wank script during a decade she chose not to date. Here’s what she told me:

“I've been single for over ten years now - and there's nothing more irritating than hearing someone talking about not having any sex when they mean they don't have a partner. I wank regularly and consider myself sexually hard done by if I don't have two or three orgasms in a session.

“Here’s how I do it now that I've been post menopausal for almost 15 years - wow - that long! I pull out my lubrication, after rubbing some health shop vaginal cream on my clit and around the vulva and into my vagina. I already have my clean and trusty big dildo out of its cotton bag. And I might have my little black dolphin out too. It depends how complicated I want to get. I am totally into oral sex at this point although it's nothing I ever did much of with pleasure when I was with men. In the few minutes it takes to get ready, my mouth is aching to be penetrated by a 'hard dick.' I lick my lips and tease them with the tip of the dildo. It’s a real challenge if I want one of those big boys anally too, although Pilates has restored a lot of my agility. Finally, I coat the Wand with the regular lube and start it on slow. It can end in two or three orgasms.”

I’m curious about one thing: Could the same thing be said of men over 40? Please write and let us know.

Too tired for sex? I don’t think so!

I was startled to see a Reuters headline that claimed: “US women too tired for friends, sex: poll.” It reported on a National Sleep Foundation survey called “Sleep in America” that questioned over 1,000 women between the ages of 18 to 64.  70% indicated that stress and anxiety were messing up their snooze. Women, duh, are overworked.

But now, here’s a lesson about journalistic packaging. The study looked at what time-pressed women were shifting in order to cope and deal. Sleep was the first loser with a full 52% of the respondents going without enough. Exercise at 48% was next to go. Hanging with friends and family got short-changed by 39%, while 37% quit eating in a healthy way.

Finally, the very last thing to be limited? Sex, at 33%. The headline says “US women too tired for friends, sex,” but in fact women seem to be fighting like hell to hang on to sex. It’s more precious to us than siesta, sit-ups, socializing and sushi.

8th Fetish Fair Fleamarket

Once a year thousands of New England kinksters and over a hundred sex-related vendors from across the country converge on the weekend-long Fetish Fair Fleamarket (FFF©). This edgy event offers its sex-toy and fetish clothing supermarket, a bondage university and a Masquerade Ball to benefit the Network/La Red nonprofit working around domestic violence issues among lesbians and transfolk.

“Time for some education,” we say on seeing the list of classes in the program. We start with “Creating a Spark: Electrical Play.” BDSM (Bondage/Discipline, Dominant/Submissive, SadoMasochism) focuses on intense sensations and some people find those thrills through toys that produce a spark jumping to the skin. The presenter British Lucky Paul is a self-admitted electricity freak who claims that his skilled use of the edgy tool, the Violet Wand, leads to lots of “shagging” with attractive women. Charmingly disheveled and disorganized, but utterly immersed in this perversion, Paul gives us the history (the Violet Wand was used by quacks as an all-purpose medical treatment), the international context (USA electricity at 110 volts is a wimp compared to European voltage) and, most of the all, the safety instructions. Don’t use it near metal jewelry, it burns holes in latex (be careful of condoms) and keep away from the eyes and pacemakers for starters.

His assistant (subject? victim?) Kristina is a 21 year old friend of the presenter who, until the night before, had never experienced electricity play. So why did she volunteer? “I don’t like to leave anything unexplored,” she explains to me later. However, this young nubile is no kink virgin: she teaches an intro to fetishism at her college in NY. Her throaty moans and sexy writhing add immensely to the entertainment. When she puts her clothes back on, her T-shirt reads: “Pain is necessary. Suffering is optional.”

The other class we attend is taught by the well-known bondage expert, Midori. We would enjoy the lesson on creating a Body Harness from rope a lot better if we had remembered to bring rope. However, it is so simple and clear that we are able, hours later, to reproduce the knots and wrappings at home. Midori, too, emphasizes safety, under the teasing slogan: Dead bottom, Bad bondage. I like the way she recognizes the variety in the room by referring to “domestic units,” – acknowledging that the terms couple, family or even tribe aren’t broad enough to embrace our combinations and desires.

We don’t make the others classes – from Sensual Tickling to Canes and Caning, from Role-Playing in Scene to SM & the Law. The latter is always relevant to this event, which has been forced to move from hotel to hotel. Vivienne, Chair of the sponsoring organization New England Leather Alliance, attributes this to “antiquated zoning laws, small-minded politicians and conservative zealots trying to tell us what we can and cannot do in private surroundings.” This, despite bringing in over a million dollars of business in just a weekend.

There is a further problem, Vivienne tells me. “We’re really saddened that the juried art show, Seduction, which consists of museum-quality photographs and drawings, had to be censored.” When I visit the show and see the ridiculous pieces of black tape put over representations of nipples, pussies and cocks, I am appalled. Making women’s nipples – and only women’s – into something that needs to be hidden from view is simple misogyny.

But on to the shopping. First we head straight to the world-renowned local leather maker Danny who has invented some of the most popular restraints and toys. Rummaging through his generous sale container produces a couple of fabulous hand-held leather slappers. Further along, John Miles from Georgia patiently straps me into a waist-cinching corset. I sample some thumping dungeon music from the ever-amazing Butt Boy and some classic erotica from David Moynihan of Disruptive Publishing in Maryland. Rick Savage, one of the best kinky filmmakers, offers some new DVDs – I’ll unwrap them when I finish this review.

Year after year NELA manages to create a welcoming atmosphere at the FFF© for people across the spectrums of gender, sexuality, age and race. There are gender free bathrooms, a page on etiquette towards transgendered people in the program and instructions on respecting the privacy of all attendees. Besides all the slender, young beautiful perverts, it is inspiring to see kinksters in their 50s, 60s and 70s slutting around in latex and lace, to see fat people flaunting their wonderful curves in leather and satin and to see cross-gender players mixing it up. The FFF© is the melting pot in which sex-positive queers, straights, freaks, pervs, tops, bottoms, switches and voyeurs keep alive a boiling hot New England tradition.

Wordsmith and Rebel

My books are available on Amazon here or for an inscribed copy, write to ConsentingAdultPress@hotmail.com. Enjoy all of my low-priced books:

A Raisin in My Cleavage: short & shorter stories

Lillian in Love (a novel)

Lillian's Last Affair and other stories.

I'm available for interviews, readings, visits to book clubs, being the entertainment at your party, talking about senior sex at your senior center, talking about love in senior housing, and any other creative ways to get the word out about my work.

Some of these stories are 5,000 words long, some of them are 100 words exactly. Some protagonists are old and some aren’t.  Several stories feature gay men or lesbians, while several do not. So what unifies this collection? It is the interplay of heart and smart, facing off against the dangers of a viral wedding smooch, a scary staircase, a runaway supermarket cart, a disastrous online date, and a stolen sausage. Of course, you'll also learn about the raisin that falls where it shouldn’t.

Lillian’s life at 84 is tumultuous. She is moving to Manor House to be near Sarah, abandoning the demands of her own home, which has been colonized by her children. How will she and Sarah deal with the reactions of relatives, ex’s, and neighbors to their romance? How do two old women negotiate new love? Will slow-dancing, vibrators, and pot brownies help smooth the way?

 

“If I’m going to go after one more affair of the heart at 84, I’d better get my ass in gear,” says Lillian, speaking for all the characters in these six stories.

Ruby has a run-in with a waterbed and Catherine tokes her first joint in the bathtub with Victor. Elegant Anna’s introduction to kinky sex is bittersweet. And then there’s the neighbor with the strange attachment to the grocery cart. Sue Katz’s hilarious, tender, and impeccably written stories confirm that age fails to erode our eccentricities or dull our ardor.

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