Male clients of female sex workers in Tijuana were the focus of a great study published in the journal AIDS last week. Researchers from both sides of the border interviewed and tested 400 men who they contacted inside the Zona Roja or zone of tolerance, an area where sex worker is allowed by the government. All the men had had sex with a female sex worker at least once in the previous four months. The men were interviewed and also offered free STD and HIV testing.

The majority of clients reported not using condoms and perhaps not surprisingly had high rate of HIV, about the same as the rate among female sex workers in the same city.

The study was conceptualized as the first step towards creating interventions for clients of female sex workers. It’s well documented that the major obstacle to condom use in sex worker-client interactions are clients, who often use financial or other forms of pressure or coercion to avoid using condoms. While some places have had success in reducing STD/HIV rates by working with sex workers to increase condom use, making a more significant impact requires that we get clients on board.

One of the things I appreciated about this study was how it highlights the need for research methods and interventions that are tailored to the people who are the focus of the work. It was also nice to see the researchers acknowledge that by having unprotected sex with sex workers, clients aren’t only transmitting STDs, including HIV to partners at home, they are transmitting it them to other sex workers.

Of course the really hard work is coming up with a way to get clients to start using condoms, and addressing why people knowingly put themselves and others at grave risk.

_{Reference:
Patterson, T.L., Goldenberg, S., Gallardo, M., et. al. “Correlates of HIV, Sexually Transmitted Infections, and Associated High-Risk Behaviors Among Male Clients of Female Sex Workers in Tijuana, Mexico” AIDS Publish Ahead of Print July 10, 2009. Accessed July 12, 2009.}

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My husband wants me to go to a bar, start talking to a strange man, go off and have sex with him and then come back and tell him about it. Now I think this makes for a great fantasy BUT I am not comfortable with really doing this. It does it excite me but it really bothers me too.

We have been married for 33 years, I am not a 20 some year old any more. I love him so much and would do just about anything for him but I can't do this...He gets very pissed off with me when I don't do this.

How can I get us over this and on with our sex life? Hopefully you can give me some constructive guidance.

~ Stuck

You’ve packed a lot into that short email. You may already be aware of this, but, based on Internet traffic, this particular wish is not uncommon. There are scores of chat rooms and porn websites catering to this interest which variously go by the names “cuckold stories” and “cuckold hotwife stories”. For the record a cuckold is a husband whose wife is “unfaithful”. Many of these sites have complicated gender and racial elements to them worth exploring, but not here. Let me try to offer something constructive.

If you’re looking to get unstuck I’d say the first thing you need to do is break the situation down further. To offer a place to start, here are some of the pieces that jumped out for me in your email.

Hearing No
There really isn’t any circumstance where it’s okay for your partner to try and bully, guilt, or otherwise talk you into doing something you don’t want to do sexually. People go through the motions of sex all the time but if your partner actually cares about your pleasure you should let him know that pleasure can’t be forced (unless the person is choosing to be forced, which is a different thing altogether). Pressure is not a good reason to try any kind of sex and if someone can’t hear no, they’re probably not going to get to hear yes very often either.

My question would be whether or not you think you’ve been as clear with your husband as you have been in this email. Even in your short email you made a few comments that indicate you have mixed feelings (more on that below) so before assuming that your husband isn’t taking no for an answer I wanted to check that he’s actually heard you say no. Once he has, he needs to stop asking you to do this and deal on his own with his “pissed off” feelings. He has the right to be disappointed, but if he cares about you and the relationship he has to figure out a way to not keep putting his issues and disappointment on your shoulders.

The Difference Between “Not Now” and “Not Ever”
A few of the things you said in your email indicate that there’s something about the idea that intrigues you. Even if that’s only on a fantasy level, it’s possible that you could bring that fantasy into your sex life without bringing a third person in. That is when you’re ready. So it’s helpful for both of you to agree that “not now” means not now, but it doesn’t necessarily mean never. Saying no to something today doesn’t mean you can’t say yes to it tomorrow, or two years from now. Sexual desire isn’t fixed, pretending it is means giving up a lot of your sexual potential.

What You Want vs. What You’re “Supposed” to Want
You say you don’t want to do this but also the idea excites you and that you’re “not a 20 some year old” anymore. If you were 20 would you want to explore having sex outside your marriage? What is specifically about your age that prevents you from considering that? I’m not suggesting you should or shouldn’t, only pointing out that sometimes we accept arbitrary and fickle community and cultural standards about what a woman of a certain age should and shouldn’t do. Let your desires and judgment be your guide. It might be very wise if you live in a small town and have young kids to decide not to go to a public place and pick up a stranger. But that doesn’t mean it can’t ever happen (if you want it to) or it couldn’t happen in some other town (again, if you want it to).

Read the rest of my answer to "Not Interested in Being a Cuckold's Wife"

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One of my biggest complaints about the way that sex is talked about in public is that it is simplified beyond honest recognition. That is to say, the way we talk about sex bears little relationship to the sex we actually have, and less to the sex we want.

In the abstract this feels like a ploy by for profit entities of all stripes (publishers, therapists, television producers, etc…) to keep us frustrated and wanting more, specifically something more they can sell us.

But when a concrete example of this complaint appears, as it did the other day when I read a study on the components of “optimal sex” by one of my favorite sex researchers, I realize that my complaint itself is a simplification.

No matter how hard some of us want to keep sex complicated, when we try to talk about it, even in complicated ways, it’s almost impossible not to either simplify it ourselves or provide fodder for those who are just dying to keep it simple.

So begins the paper “The Components of Optimal Sexuality: A Portrait of `Great Sex’” which represents part of what plans to be a ten year study on the nature of great sex by Canadian sex therapist and research Peggy Kleinplatz and graduate students at the University of Ottawa. Indeed the researchers chose the term “optimal sex” in an effort to get away from creating yet another gold standard by which people will compare their current sex lives. Optimal is meant to evoke something that’s more, but not necessarily better suited to any individual. The goal of the research, in part, is to begin to describe in an empirical way the outer edges of human sexual experience, particularly experiences that people who have them describe as “great sex”.

Or put more simply, the researchers are trying to figure out what makes great sex great. See how much easier it is to simplify?

There is much in this paper to unpack, but cutting to the chase so to speak, here are the eight components of great sex that the researchers identified after conducing semi-structured interviews with people who identified as having had great sex:

• Being present, focused, and embodied.
• Connection, alignment, merger, being in synch.
• Deep sexual and erotic intimacy.
• Extraordinary communication, heightened empathy.
• Authenticity, being genuine, uninhibited, transparency.
• Transcendence, bliss, peace, transformation, healing.
• Exploration, interpersonal risk-taking, fun.
• Vulnerability and surrender.

In the paper the researchers expand a little on each component and offer quotes fro participants. One of the things that the early press has focused on is not so much what’s in the list but what isn’t. Participants didn’t emphasize either physical prowess or orgasms in most of their descriptions of what is great sex. To be fair they did often say that orgasms were a part of great sex, but in general they didn’t think that orgasms alone defined great sex.

What I love about this structure is how each element offers complex and contradictory ways of thinking about ones own experience. The first one to leap out at me was the concept of great sex as being “embodied”. For an experience to be embodied does one have to have a good relationship and awareness of ones physical body? I can see how being aware of your body and how it is feeling, and being able to focus on that could lead to great sex. But being narrowly focused on your body can also be a distraction in sex and even make feeling desire or pleasure difficult. I would argue this makes the concept of “embodied sex” a much more useful for anyone interested in exploring the potential of sexual experience than something like “g spot sex” as it defies simple explanation.

For those interested in the specifics, the researchers interviewed 64 people who identified as having had great sex. Of the 64 people 25 were over the age of 60 and 19 of them self-identified as being a “sexual minority”. The older adults who were interviewed had all been in long-term relationships (the researchers figuring that anyone who was still enjoying sex after decades together likely would have something to share on the subject of great sex). This paper is only the most recent (they have a few already published and several more on the way).

The research is unique not only for whom they spoke with and how they analyzed the data, it’s unique in its focus on positive sexuality. Most sex research and almost all clinical sex literature focuses on sexual dysfunction and helping people “return to normal”. Years of working with clients, and actually paying attention to them, brought Kleinplatz to the conclusion that helping clients return to whatever they consider “normal” simply isn’t doing enough to help them actualize their sexual potential. If we really want to help people access the positive potential of human sexual experience we’ve got to do more. And she figured we should start at the beginning by knowing what “more” actually is.

Unfortunately the media coverage thus far has been disappointing, missing the point about great sex involving a completely individual, subjective deconstruction of rules and cultural norms and instead reporting that great sex isn't Script A that said media conglomerate has been touting all these years, it's actually Script B! I have no doubt that once more U.S. media gets a hold of this study it will get a lot more coverage, hopefully some of it will be better.

_{Reference:
Kleinplatz, P.J., Menard, A.D., Paquet, M-P, et. al. “The Components of Optimal Sexuality: A Portrait of `Great Sex’” The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality Vol. 18, No. 1-2 (2009): 1-13.}

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Last week I was puzzled by the use of the term “virtual pornography” in a CNN piece about a man who photo shopped young girls faces on to naked adult women’s bodies.

After reading Wendy Kaminer’s concise and worrisome warning about the potential legal implications of this case I feel a bit myopic in my concerns. Kaminer discusses the virtual porn case along with another involving a convicted sex offender who was imprisoned for talking about the sexual abuse of children. Kaminer argues that these cases, along with some Supreme Court rulings, have important implications not only for free speech, but free thought. It’s well worth reading.

It’s hard to write about this stuff when you know it can be read as if you’re defending speech that’s so heinous (at least it’s hard for me). As Kaminer says, few people will lose sleep over losing the right to discuss abusing children. And it’s hard for those of us who aren’t lawyers or legal scholars to know how much of this hand wringing is justified.

But I hope I’ll never be so complacent that I’ll pass over something about criminalizing thought and not take a second to read more.

Read more – The Atlantic: Child Porn, Animal Cruelty Porn, and the Right to Imagine