Relationships

How to Turn a Guy into a Sex Toy

Oh my. How we gals do go on about our vibrators and other sex toys.

Yeah right. I think I’ve had two friends in my almost five decades of life mention their vibrators to me, in an embarrassed, under-their-breath kind of way. Just two.

Even less talked about are sex toys for guys. I hate to admit it but it never occurred to me that a heterosexual guy would want to use a sex toy, let alone know how to use one.

Recently though LELO, the luxury sex toy company out of Sweden, set the record straight for me. They sent me a “BO” to try.

I opened the elegant box it arrived in, noting to myself to keep the matte black box for the collection. (I collect empty boxes. I have no idea why.) Then I pulled out the BO, a small donut-shaped pliable ring with a tiny motor that slips into the ring, activating the vibration.

I held the buzzing BO in the palm of hand as though it were some curious little creature I’d found under my bed and called my new boyfriend, Thorben Klaven III. I explained the situation. With a rising voice, he insisted–no let me rephrase that, begged me–to meet for a trial run.

[Dear reader: due to onerous and often surprising censorship rules that tax our world, along with my distaste for being on the wrong side of ferocious finger-waggers, the so called, “trial run,” has been edited down to well, err, nothing. I leave you instead with the aftermath.]

“TK?” I whispered to his chest hairs. I was resting in the crook of his arm, poking him in the ribs to rouse him.

“Now, now, sweetness” he said patting my head with his big mitt, “You know I prefer, Thorben.”

“Yes of course, darlinginko,” I said patiently. “What did you think, Thor-bo-bo?” I snickered quietly.

He rolled over and snuggled closer, indulging me like a toddler who just never learns. “It was Bo-delicious,” he said. “I felt bionic, like some cyborg sex toy. I could have climbed a skyscraper. You?”

“I’ve never experienced anything like it,” I said with genuine amazement. “Everything was vibrating. You were like a giant human sex toy. Incredible.”

“Better than Dunkin’ BoNuts, huh?” he said laughing.

“Seriously Bo Vibrations,” I quipped back.

“Bo and Quiver,” he retorted.

“BoFinger,” I snapped.

“Bo that rocks,” he crackled.

“Bo Derek,” I popped.

[Dear Reader: This went on for another fifteen minutes. I'll spare you and pick up the story here:]

“Thorben?” I said sitting up in bed and reaching for the notebook I always kept on my nightstand. “How would you describe the quality of your orgasm?” My pen immediately moved into my mouth for that serene, contemplative look.

Thorben looked at me lovingly. “You’re so cute when you do that journalist thing,” he said sweetly.

I gave him an affectionate nudge, pressing him for an answer.

He thought about it for a moment. “I would say the orgasm was multifaceted. I had to negotiate the pressure from the tight ring that kept things, err, backed up and full, if you know what I mean, with the intensity of the buzzing sensation. It was curious but exciting.”

I scribbled furiously. “Anything else?” I nodded encouragingly.

“Why, yes, there is,” he said mysteriously. “If I press it against the mattresses it makes a loud funny sound.” He activated the Bo again to demonstrate—a giant Nordic-type of a man bouncing and buzzing on my bed.

“You’re so silly!” I said trying to restore a certain journalistic gravitas. “Would you mind rating the experience on a scale of one to 10?”

“Oh, that’s hardly scientific,” he said. “To each his own.”

I gave him my best crestfallen look. “That’s your answer?”

He squeezed me affectionately. “Nope,” he said. “Here’s my answer: It’s for any woman who wants to experience a live, super-sized sex toy and any guy who’s wondered what it’s like to be one.” He looked at me with a big grin.

“Oh, Thorben,” I said throwing my notebook aside with a devil-may-care air. “Let’s recharge our little friend.”

“Just what I was thinking dearest,” he said dashing butt naked to the nearest electrical outlet.

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How to Get Married Over Forty

Calling all 40 Over Women. If you want to know how to get married (because it’s next to impossible) then start with this relationship help for older dating from the new book, How To Meet A Man After Forty (And Other Midlife Dilemmas Solved).

Take a look around you. How do you compare with other women over 40? Do you look good for your age (GFYA)? Or, do you look more like Every Inch Your Age, or EIYA? Because if you look EIYA, then will probably never have sex again, and you will definitely never ever get married. At least that’s what I got out of Shane Watson’s new book, How to Meet A Man After Forty, And Other Midlife Dilemmas Solved.

Categorizing women 40 plus into GFYA or EIYA is just the beginning of the book’s silliness. Check out her idea of a “midlife dilemma” (hot off the back cover):

• Should I wax my mustache?
• Am I told old for a leather jacket?
• Am I having the right amount of sex?
• Am I good for my age?
• Why do I hate my best friend?
• Am I turning into my mother?
• Can I be single and happy?
• Is it just me, or is life getting much, much weirder?

If those are midlife dilemmas, I’m a disposable cell phone. Clearly somebody’s been spending a little too much time shopping or sucking up fumes at the local nail salon.

Weird.

Are You A Natural or a Plastic?

The, so called, “Naturals,” (women who [stupidly] think they can age naturally) better start worrying. Plastic surgery and youth worship have so affected our perception of beauty, the author argues, that even though “The Plastics” (women who believe plastic surgery can stop aging – think [yikes] Faye Dunaway) might look “weird and inhuman” next them, “you [The Natural] look crumpled and saggy and ill…the exhausted old crone who let herself go.”

By way of supportive evidence, she later informs us, “there is a cutoff age—let’s call it 38 for the sake of argument—after which some men think single women should be supplied with gray uniforms and kept in camps on the outskirts of towns so that they don’t interfere with normal, healthy interaction between the sexes.”

Oh, oh, now I’m feeling insecure being the dreaded Natural Camp. I sure hope she’s joking but then again, how can she be? She’s not funny.

Weirder.

Some Things You Must Know to Get Married

Her advice on friends gets down to editing out the ones that make you look old or bad (because they’re better at something than you – those “showoffs”).

If challenged about being single at your age, lie. Here are some suggestions: “Who says I’m single?” Or, “Well, it could be that I shouldn’t have spent the nineties on Easter Island.”

She unravels such mysteries as:

• Do men prefer heels? (They “adore” them)
• Do men like underwear to match (“It’s a bummer, but they do.”)
• What do men make of unfitted or unisex clothes (“Men just don’t get clothes that have no desire to be sexy.”)

Tips for Turning A Date Into A Mate

If that isn’t helpful enough, she really shines with her advice for turning a date into a mate (or at least a second date). The key, she warns, is to not be so intimidating – “tone it down, way down.” For all you professional powerhouses out there who have forgotten what that means:

• Smile
• Forget your work
• Don’t take control (at least not all the time)
• Don’t tower over him (if you’re taller)
• Keep it light
• Don’t sound like you’ve done it all
• Go easy on the irony (he might not get it and it may come across as nasty)
• Laugh a lot, “like a madwoman”
• Be intensely interested in everything he says
• Don’t talk about yourself, unless pushed and then keep it brief
• Disappear at some point (create a little mystery)
• Make him responsible for you (Say, “Would you get me a drink?” Or, “Would you let me lean on you while I do up my shoe?”)
• Flirt with other men (while still making sure he knows he’s number one)

Get Married And You’ll Be An Expert Too!

Watson’s claim to relationship gurudom rests with the fact that she got married for the first time in her mid-forties. Apparently, this single act is so improbable, so verging on impossible, that it’s enough to launch her to “iconic status.”

At the end of the book we learn she married an older guy (“men get better with age”) with three teenagers. Hmmm, all that doing-every-thing-it-takes-to-not-look-40-ever and then acting like nothing’s changed since the fifties only to end up as a Stepmom who has mastered the art of making drop-scones?

Weirdest.

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Is Sex Over?

As you can imagine, lots of women (and men) talk to me about sex because they know I have a blog and assume I’d be riveted by their every move between the sheets.

And I guess that’s true except for lately, when I’ve noticed that those sheets are laying low. In fact, the general feedback I’m getting is that a lot of women are a little less than impressed with sex these days.

I can’t say exactly what’s going on. Maybe the older we get, the more honest we become about our feelings towards sex. Let’s admit it, we Americans aren’t that big into sex. Oh sure, we think it’s okay to make money off it—sex really does sell. And we love talking and reading about it. Even Harlequin romance novels have advanced beyond the bodice ripping to the body gripping.

On the other hand, getting sexual satisfaction personally, on a regular basis—well, that just sounds like too much work and worry now, doesn’t it?

Almost as taxing as trying to have a relationship. Which we all know is next to impossible—which is why there are as many books about how-to-have-a-relationship as there are about how-to-lose-weight.

In fact, the whole thing has got so out of hand that there’s a whole new movement afoot—what I call, the so-over-sex-ists.

A diverse collection of folks, the so-over-sex-ists includes such splinter groups and sleeper cells as:

- The multiple cat collectors

- Those with bumper sticks reading ‘I’d-rather-be-cuddling (and-preferably-with-another-woman). Oprah did a whole show on women who “switch sides” later in life.

- People too busy for even their vibrators

- All chocolate addicts

- Women who have impatiently awaited the onset of menopause, presenting as it does, the ultimate excuse for, “Not tonight, honey, in fact, not ever again.”

- And, “2-D lovers,” a phenomenon I read about just the other day in the New York Times. 2-D love describes a thriving subculture in Japan in which people indulge in relationships with an imaginary character—like a lumpy pillow with a drawing of a big cartoon face (ie, the soul mate).

The article explained that the rise of 2-D love could have something to do with the difficulty many young Japanese have in navigating modern romantic life.

Modern romantic life? How about the difficulty of navigating life period?

In her recent article in The Atlantic, Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off, Sandra Tsing Loh talks about the demise of her marriage. “Given my staggering working mother’s to-do list,” writes Loh, “I cannot take on yet another arduous home- and self-improvement project, that of rekindling our romance.“

Translation: bye-bye sex.

Laura Kipnis in her recent book, Against Love, writes about how monogamy stifles the sex out of us by setting up “police state conditions that people consent to live under to achieve it, and to make sure their partners are in compliance. The problem is being asked to commit to boredom and unmet needs as the supposed price of social stability.”

Translation: bye-bye sex.

But hey, let’s not despair. One woman’s magazine says all it takes is a little scheduling to get your sex life back on track. For goodness sake, ladies, Just pencil it in!

I want to write the editors to explain that you got to want it before you’ll make time for it. And if you want, you always make time for it. I dated a guy who ran millions of companies all over the Milky Way. He’d walk out of board meetings without a second thought if his penis needed a little quality time.

Nope, in my big and unsolicited opinion, sexual satisfaction is about reframing. It’s about perspective. In fact, it’s about not focusing on sex at all.

I know that sounds a bit crazy but about 10 years ago, I realized all the expectations and hopes I was bringing to sex were actually destroying it.

Back then, sex had become the equivalent of jumping off the edge of the Grand Canyon. I’d fuss and fret, trying to figure out the right timing, the best wind patterns, my exact landing spot, the perfect gear (tested multiple times), the plan “B, C, D, and E”, and especially, how to keep my hair and makeup in tact.

Come jump time, all I could focus on was everything that could go wrong, and the fact that with one more step, I’d be under the control of a force so powerful, so unstoppable, that the only direction to go would be down.

Translation: bye-bye sex.

Somewhere along the line, I decided to focus on the only thing I knew for sure—what I was feeling.

So instead of thinking of sex as a life or death jump into the abyss, I came to see the act as a kind of tea ceremony. You pour the tea, sip it while hot, have a nice little “conversation,” and then it’s over. A lingering buzz from the caffeine maybe to help jog the ‘ol memory.

Thinking of sex in this way helps defuse all the heaviness of expectation, analysis, and judgment. The only thing I consider now is, ‘Do I feel like having tea with this person or not?’

I mean isn’t everything in life made up of an endless series of tiny moments anyway—not some momentous single leap, marked by a roar of terror and followed by a terrible thud?

I don’t know. It works for me.

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Ask a Cougar: Why do Younger Men Like Older Women?

I got an email from an anonymous cougar who wonders why younger men like older women. She’s had a relationship with a young man and described it as torture, always worried if he’s comparing you to younger women.

Well, I got news for you. He’s already compared you with girls his age. They came up silly, slutty, and boring. You came up intriguing, sexy, and exciting. He went with you. That’s not my opinion. I interviewed my cub, Michael, because, I too have often wondered about this.

Here’s how the conversation went:

Pamela: You’re 28. Why are you attracted to older women?

Michael: Women in their twenties are a) quite boring, b) quite unintelligent, c) only wanting to settle down into some kind of marriage situation, and d) really not bringing much to the table.

Pamela [clearing her throat as she attempts to recover from his pointed analysis]: Top three things that appeal to you about older women?

Michael: Sexually, they know specifically what they want. That helps a younger cub who is not necessarily inexperienced but may lack direction and confidence in terms of how to please a woman. A younger woman in her twenties probably doesn’t know herself or what she likes so wouldn’t be able to communicate it.

Pamela: Why is this sexual confidence so much more attractive?

Michael: It makes for a better, more fulfilling sexual experience.

Pamela: Anything else you like about older women?

Michael: In theory, a cougar is more self-sufficient and they’ll pay for things. A girl in her twenties probably is a student or in transition. It’s not as much fun. You’re limited to what you can do socially and travel-wise.

Third thing I’d say that is appealing about older women is that they’re more sexual. They’re willing to explore more and know what buttons to push to challenge the cub to a higher level of performance.

Pamela: I think you already mentioned sex. It’s mostly about sex for you then?

Michael: It’s not just sexual. The summation of the appeal of cougars is they know exactly what they want and they communicate that.

Pamela: Any downside?

Michael: Gray hair. Kidding. I would say social awkwardness and different interests and friends. That makes it more difficult to share things. A cougar’s done a lot of things by her age. She has more specific wants and needs socially. You’re not going to get her to just hang out say.

Another big negative is if they have kids. Also, there’s a limited future in the sense that if you end up falling in love and there isn’t clear communication about expectations, there could be problems. It’s not the same outcome as it might be for an older man marrying a younger woman. It’s less socially accepted for an older woman to be with a younger man so it requires more effort and understanding on both parts.

Lastly, she’s probably out of touch with younger culture.

Pamela: Culture? [snickering] That’s a big word to describe sitting around watching TV.

Michael: And they definitely stereotype.

Pamela: Out of the mouths of f**king babes, is all I can say.

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