Sexuality Happens

My life is very sex centric.

I don’t mean having it (ha! I wish…looks like I’m back to having a dry spell for quite a while)…I mean as far as thinking about it, talking about it, discussing it, interacting with it, etc.

I study sex. I am a full time Masters and Doctoral student in the field om Human Sexuality Education. I’ll have my M.Ed summer of 2008 (barring any unforeseen difficulties), and the majority of my weekends (and this semester, many Fridays) are spent in a classroom talking with other academic types about sex, sexuality, gender, education, sex education, teaching sex, talking about sex, talking to others about sex, learning about sex, watching videos about sex, watching videos of people having sex, etc. My evenings and free weekends are spent reading books, articles and journals for said classes, and then writing papers, curricula and articles in response to what I just talked about, read and learned.

I work in the sex industry. I used to work for a feminist porn company, spending the day watching adult entertainment (ie, PORN) to review it, writing sex tips, interviewing porn stars and directors, surfing the web for sex industry news and the like. Now I work for a sex toy company. My days are spent editing reviews of sex toys written by hundreds (literally) of people, writing for our blog, making silly video blogs for the blog, matching sex toys with reviews to be shipped out, thinking of editorials and fantasy stories to be written for the site (and writing them in my “free” time), coming up with ideas to make it more of a sex positive community, researching toys to see what’s new in the world of toys (and what science as discovered about icky things like phthalates and talc and other vagina pickling badness), and acting as a sexpert on our livechat.

I have this sex blog. I try to post daily, something of some interest; a thought, something for discussion, a video I’ve done or found interesting, a review of a sex toy, etc. I surf other bloggers blog and attempt to make intelligent and thoughtful comments. The sex bloggers have a community and it doesn’t work if it isn’t interactive. I can’t just expect people to read my blog if I don’t reciprocate and read and comment in theirs (plus, that would be boring; there are so many interesting conversations and discussions going on in the sex blogosphere). I learn something new everyday, and sometimes I find out about my stuff being reviewed or reposted (apparently, BlogHer re-posted a piece about my clit piercing back in September and I just found out about it yesterday. Talk about being slow on the uptake!). I love this blog, and it’s a pretty big part of me; I spend a good couple of hours on it daily between writing, reading commenting, etc. Some days it’s less, some days it’s more, but it’s definitely a daily thing.

I discuss sex with friends. When I say sex, I mean sexuality. Whether it’s a discussion about the right for transpeople to have surgery, or for a feminist to be a housewife, these are the types of discussions that my friends and I tend to gravitate towards. Yes, we also talk about “normal” things, but inevitably, sex and sexuality, and usually “sex and society” weasels its way into the discussion…whether we’re validating each other (“oh course you should be able to fuck who ever you please, right on! who do they think they are do say otherwise? asshat!”) or respectfully debating (“I don’t really think that kids under 16 have the right to be sexually active, but let’s talk about why you think they do”), we’re still discussing sex.

In the rest of my “free” time, I tend to gravitate towards books on sex, sexuality and gender. For fun, I’ve read Whipping Girl, Indecent, Naked on the Internet, the Big Bang, the V Book, 30 Porn Star Portraits, Valencia, FTM Erotica, Transmen and FTMs and My Gender Workbook. The other day, I watched Kinky Boots, because I just couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it yet. This is what I do. Yes, I watch NCIS and Criminal Minds. Yes, I can’t wait for Netflix to deliver Shrek 3. But predominantly, I read and watch sexuality related material.

So how much is too much? I watch people in my program finish a weekend and say that they are sick of sex. They watched one video too many, went one discussion too far. I come home and blog about it. I see people at work get sick of silicone…I don’t think sex toys will ever get too old. I don’t know. I’m sure one day I’ll burn out, I will. But for right now, I can’t see myself anywhere else. Sure, I’ve done other things. I’ve been a nanny, a drama camp director, I’ve worked for the ACLU, I’ve been an admin assistant for a German Oil Additives company, I’ve been a sociology major (German minor), I’ve done the “college student” thing. Right now, sex does it for me, and I don’t mean in an “I gotta get off” kind of way. I find sex and sexuality and the culture surrounding it so intriguing. I love talking about it and learning about it and working in it so interesting. Is it too much? Maybe. But how do I know? And what would I cut back? I moved my life across the country for school, so I can’t give that up. I love my job, and can’t think what I’d rather be doing. Blogging grounds me and gives me an outlet to vent and share and discuss and I need that, so I can’t let that go…so if it is too much, what do I change, where do I alter my life?

Besides, can you really ever have too much sex?

Essin’ Em