The Day They Outlawed Zucchini

I’m always a little amused by the attempts to make sex toys illegal.  I recall a woman telling me over two decades ago about using a hairbrush to self-stimulate.  I wonder if the people who think it necessary to propose laws to make sex toys illegal would consider making hairbrushes illegal?  And a zucchini worked just fine for me (for vaginal penetration while I used a vibrator on my clitoris) to masturbate with at Betty Dodson’s nude masturbation workshop in 1992.

What is just as useful as any handheld device is what happens in our minds.  If they could, I suppose, the people who think it necessary to propose laws to make sex toys illegal would try to control what happens in our minds too.  It is the disconnect between our minds and our bodies that all of us should be upset about and not a vibrator, dildo, cucumber, or anything else one could use to facilitate a self-pleasure moment.

           

I want to live in a world where pleasure in all of its forms is appreciated.  Self-pleasure, genital pleasure, or masturbation is just one form.  What about the pleasure of moving our bodies, or feeling the warm sun on our bodies, or relaxation while sitting in a sauna, or the flow of the water on our bodies when swimming or bathing?  What about the pleasure of food or someone’s touch?  These forms of pleasure are just as valuable as sexual or genital pleasure, and sexual or genital pleasure is just as valuable as all these other forms of pleasure.  There is no hierarchy when it comes to being present.

In a society where many of us work too many hours, it makes sense that the thought that we might experience pleasure would make some uncomfortable.  After all, it is not abiding by the work ethic to just enjoy the moment.  In a society that focuses on sick care rather than health care, it makes sense that they would try to take away all things preventive – even relaxation, pleasure, and time off to experience the relaxation and pleasure. 

So sex toys are not just what we might use in the genital area.  And what could facilitate pleasure for any one of us could be much more complex than any tangible object or even another person.  It is not surprising to me that sex toys would be threatening in a society where alternative forms of sexuality are still not fully accepted.   We still live in a world that leans towards more acceptance for sexual practices that fall within the context of male and female married to each other, involving only penis in vagina, for the purpose of having a child.  I want to live in a society where we work less and enjoy living and breathing more.  And I want to live in a world where we all learn to understand pleasure is much broader than what could be experienced genitally.

Copyright 2008 by Susan Miranda.  All rights reserved.  No part of this writing may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder. For reprint permission, email miranda_susan@yahoo.com.

Fine Lines

A version of this essay was presented as a part of “Building Bridges Between the Professions: A Talk about Working with Sex,” featuring Carol Queen and Susan Miranda, at the Center for Sex and Culture, San Francisco, May 22, 2007.

It is a new experience for me to be at a Masturbate-a-thon, but I already have observed Carol Queen masturbate on stage at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis.  I wouldn’t go on stage and masturbate myself at a Masturbate-a-thon, but I have participated in Betty Dodson’s masturbation workshop in New York City in 1992.  There are fine lines between what I would do and what I wouldn’t do and fine lines between what we might call sex work and other work.

I saw the Sex Workers’ Art Show that traveled the United States in 2002.  After the show, I went up to some of the performers and asked, what is the difference between what you do and what I do as a pelvic model?  For five years I’ve let future doctors, nurses, and chiropractors practice pelvic exams, using a speculum and breast exams on my body out of an attempt to teach both technique and how to do those exams in an emotionally sensitive way. Maybe the intent in pelvic modeling is not to create or experience sexual pleasure, but that does not mean it can’t occur.  And I certainly have had instances where I felt I was treated as though I was doing sex work.

Sex workers, tantra facilitators, sex coaching, sexological bodyworkers, sacred intimates, doctors, nurses, AIDS caregivers, sacred prostitutes.  Who uses touch, and who does not?  And why does it have to be so threatening if someone feels a little or very aroused?  It’s just touch.  Sexual arousal or sensation all by itself does not have to be threatening.  It’s what we do with it, or the intent behind it, that is much more important.

Perhaps the question we should be asking is not who is using touch but what kind of touch is being used.  No touch is bad except non-consensual, disrespectful, seedy, or creepy touch, and then it is not the touch that is bad, it is the non-consent, disrespect, seediness, or creepiness that is bad.  The most important thing is the intent, and that isn’t visible.  It is a lot easier to make overt rules about our bodies and sex than exploring the subtle components that go into all of our human interactions.

I used to tell the future doctors and nurses as they practiced on my body that only they know when their intent is good or not.  I couldn’t say when their intent was not good, but I could trust myself and speak up when it didn’t feel right to me.  Maybe that is where our focus should be.  Instead of being protective of people as though sex and touch are dangerous, we ought to empower people to trust themselves, speak up for themselves, and know themselves.  At least that is where I am putting my time and energy as I go around publicly talking about sexual healing, sacred intimacy, the concept that all of our body is good and deserving of touch – yes, even the genitals. 

I will never excuse the violence and disrespect that can exist in our society.  But it is not just the violence towards my genitals that I will not excuse.  It is just as important how I get treated when I am doing paid office work or walking down the street as when I am doing pelvic modeling.  And I can feel just as violated with my clothes on as I can with my genital area exposed.

Sex work: What is it?  As if the words on this page isn’t doing sex work!  I can see the fine lines of healing, sexuality, touch and without any hesitation say sex is not the problem, nor is touch.  Sex for money is not a problem any more than paying someone to care about us through counseling, therapy, or bodywork is a problem.  There are fine lines.  Let’s live in the gray areas and ambiguity and complexity and unravel the obstacles to the pleasure that is our birthright.

Miranda, S.  (2007, Sept/Oct/Nov).  Fine lines.  BiWomen, The Newsletter of the Boston Bisexual Women’s Network 25 (4), 8.

Copyright 2007 by Susan Miranda.  All rights reserved.  No part of this writing may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder. For reprint permission, email miranda_susan@yahoo.com.

A View from the Stirrups

In the five years that I have done pelvic modeling, I have attempted to teach the future doctors, nurses and chiropractors who practiced on me the rules they should follow to do a respectful breast or pelvic exam.  Often I followed the lead of the professional in the room with me as to what those rules were.  While it didn’t necessarily seem important to me to have the person wear a white coat when doing the exam, it seemed important to them. So I watched as the white coat passed from student to student as each person took turns practicing exams on me.  There were other rules too.  Only do the breast exam with one hand, not two hands.  Don’t touch the shoulder or knee.  It can seem patronizing.  Don’t slide your hand down the thigh when introducing your touch.  Only use the back side of your hand when introducing your touch.  Don’t tell jokes or be too friendly.    Don’t say “looks good” after examining the genital area. 

While many of these general rules are helpful to consider, after a significant time doing this work I did start saying that “it all depends.”  Years later things didn’t always seem so clear cut.  Inevitably I would come across the individual that could do the breast exam using two hands and it did not seem awkward, or someone who did slide their hand down my thigh and the way they did it didn’t make me feel like I needed to correct their touch.  In the same way, I couldn’t always articulate why the person doing the exam in a technically perfect way was still doing something that didn’t feel quite right, yet they were following all of the rules.  It became very clear to me that it was much more important how something was said and done as opposed to what was said and done.

           

It also became clear to me that the skills for communication and sensitivity were what are most important to teach.  While it is easier to focus on the things that are easy to see and measure, it really was the more difficult, intangible aspects of human interaction where I felt the focus needed to be.

           

Here are the things that seemed most important to me to teach:  Communicate what you are going to do prior to doing it.  Learn to ask questions when you’re not sure about something.  Explain why you are doing something, especially if it is out of the ordinary.  Learn to be intuitive, to be sensitive and to ask questions in a non-judgmental way.

This is not to suggest that technique is not important.  After having hundreds of people practice breast exams, pelvic exams and speculums on me, I won’t minimize how big of a deal it can be and I won’t minimize the necessity of it being done respectfully.  But I also will go on the record to say that sexuality, even if it’s not talked about, is ever present even if the white coat is on.  I have come to hope not for a denial of that sexuality and its presence in all of our lives all of the time, even when we are at work; I have come to hope for a healthier way of being with it, so that we can talk about it respectfully and without fear with our doctors, health practitioners and the other helpers in our lives.  We all know our intentions.  It is not so important whether or not we have a sexual thought or feeling as what we do with it.

           

What is also true is that teaching simple rules for behavior is not the answer to preventing harm.  After years of doing the pelvic modeling work, I wanted to teach and talk to health practitioners most about how to have compassion for the person lying there.  How to know when one is doing something to meet the needs of the person in front of them versus meeting one’s own needs.   This is much more difficult to teach and convey than simple rules.  Not doing so doesn’t make any of it go away.  But by doing so, hopefully we will open up more doors for compassionate care and healthy sexuality in this society.

Reprinted from:

Miranda, S. (2005, December 14).  A view from the stirrups.  Minnesota Women’s Press, 21 (19), 13.

Copyright 2005 by Susan Miranda.  All rights reserved.  No part of this writing may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder. For reprint permission, email miranda_susan@yahoo.com.

The Complexity of Intimacy and the Labels We Choose

I can be single, polyamorous, monogamous and something in-between all at the same time.  I’m tempted to call it the polyamory – monogamy continuum or the monogamy – polyamory continuum.  Yet, the concept of a continuum seems way too linear to me. 

If I look at all the ways that one can be intimate: sexual, physical, spiritual, emotional, recreational, and playful (to name just a few), I can see how intimacy and sexuality can be so incredibly complex.  Each of these categories or forms of intimacy can be broken down much much more and potentially have their own continuums, degrees and complexities associated with each of them.   Take sex or sexual intimacy for example.  Sex could be physical or non-physical, genital or non-genital.  It could include emotional intimacy or not, or include different types of emotional caring.  What I am describing cannot be easily defined in one word or with one label.  Yet, many of us describe and categorize ourselves based on all of these intimacy components and more.

A major tenet in all of my work is that we all have the right to self-identify.   In addition, we all have the right to define what our self-identity means.  What is most interesting to me is that in most cases, I believe, none of us fit other people’s assumptions about any label we choose.  The beauty of what happens in relationships, love and intimacy is what happens beyond the words, the intellect and, certainly, beyond the category or identity.  How can we describe the emotional, caring, heartfelt, erotic, aroused, sensual, sexual connection we can have with a particular person?  How can we describe what it means to feel many of these things in many different combinations for many people?  The possibilities are endless.  Even basic concepts aren’t easily definable.  What is sex?  Can I have sex not even touching someone?  Can I be in a sexual relationship with someone I have not had sex with?  Would that relationship help define me as monogamous or polyamorous?

Often, I see people shifting their polyamorous or monogamous definitions of self based on what is visible in their sexuality and relationships.  I want to decry the need to change what we call ourselves based on what is only visible from the outside when so much is going on inside and the complexity is so vast.  In her book Polyamory: the New Love without Limits, Deborah Anapol writes, “…polyamory has more to do with an internal attitude of letting love evolve without expectations and demands than it does with the number of partners involved” (p.4). 

I, too, have started talking about polyamory as a mindset and not necessarily something only to do with whom we have sex with or whom we have as a partner.  For example, I have a friend who is a playwright and in one of her plays, she shares experiences of going camping with one person, but remarks that often they both saw the benefit of opening up their camp circle and welcoming other people around their camp fire.  I told her that her play (or at least that part) was polyamorous in nature.  This is all said with the awareness that there may be times they only want to camp by themselves and not forgetting that sometimes we may only want to do something by ourselves, which is probably our most important relationship of all.

Longer is not better than shorter.  Shorter is not better than longer.  Sexual is not better than emotional.  Emotional is not better than sexual.  The intellect and spirit is not better than the body.  The body is not better than the intellect.  Living is not more intimate than dying.  One moment with a stranger can be as important as that with the love of my life.  My mind and self-definition is not more important than the fullness of my heart and body. 

I believe we live in a society that does not teach intimacy skills, relationship skills or how to live and die.  As opposed to what we often get taught about relationships in this society, I think relationships are to be lived creatively.  Life is to be lived creatively.  Our dying should be a creative process.  It is always important to remember that if we truly want to know how someone identifies, we have to ask what they mean when they use a particular label or word to describe themselves.  It is in that spirit that I identify as single, monogamous and polyamorous and something in-between and all of them alone and combined.

Copyright 2007 by Susan Miranda.  All rights reserved.  No part of this writing may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder. For reprint permission, email miranda_susan@yahoo.com.

Honoring Pleasure

For the past ten years, I have been talking, writing, and thinking about almost every aspect of sexuality imaginable.  I’ve conducted homophobia/biphobia/sexphobia lectures routinely for a period of five years.  My master’s degree in Human Development focused exclusively on issues of sexuality such as homophobia, biphobia, and sexphobia.

           

All these years, I’ve been thinking about a wide range of sexual issues, such as gay/lesbian sexuality, bisexuality, S/M (sadomasochism), polyamory, teen sexuality, transgender issues, prostitution, sexual healing, masturbation, and sexual shame.  There are other topics I’ve been thinking about as well, but one topic that seemed to escape my attention was abortion.  In February 1999, I started working as a Reproductive Health Counselor at a clinic where abortions, as well as other reproductive health services, are provided.  The issue of abortion as it relates to sexuality has now taken center stage for me.

           

While I was not surprised by how difficult a decision abortion can be for women, I was surprised by the number of women I counseled who had expected to feel bad or guilty about having the abortion, when, in fact, they did not feel that way at all.  When this issue comes up in the counseling session, I acknowledge the many judgments against abortion by certain segments of society.  I often mention the protesters outside the clinic (if she doesn’t) to illustrate for her one of the obstacles she had to experience just walking into the clinic.  I tell her that half of my job, sometimes, is dealing with the negative atmosphere that can be created by those kinds of judgments.  Given all this judgment, I do not minimize the fact that the decision to have an abortion can be difficult.  Still, I question why these women, who basically are comfortable with their decision to have an abortion, are being pressured to feel bad about it.

           

Often there is no clear-cut answer to why there is an unintended pregnancy.  I’ve observed at the clinic that someone can use birth control perfectly and still become pregnant.  Everyone is different, so what works for one person does not necessarily work for someone else.  But what is clear is that the unplanned pregnancy came as a result of sex.  If it was not coerced sex, then often sex comes out of an attempt to feel closeness and pleasure.

           

Sex and sexuality do not always go as planned.  Sex and relationships are fluid, moving, changing phenomena.  Even if someone has only one partner in their lifetime, sex does not usually stay stagnant and unmoving even with that one person.  Intimacy may deepen, skill may change and, one hopes, become enhanced.  Interest in what to try may change for one or both persons.  Sometimes what the people involved choose to do sexually may be pleasurable, and sometimes not.  And, in some situations, an unintended pregnancy may occur.

           

The only way to completely avoid an unplanned pregnancy is not to have penis-in-vagina sex at all.  It is ironic to me that often the same people who don’t think abortion is acceptable are also the people who do not think masturbation or same-sex sexuality are acceptable either, both being sexual expressions where no unintended pregnancy could result, and therefore, no abortion.  Of course, there are other sexual practices that would also not result in a pregnancy, such as oral and anal sex.  These sexual practices seem to find judgment as well from the individuals who would advocate for abstinence, unless it meets their standards for what is morally right and acceptable.

           

What I would say to the abstinence advocates and what I do say to the women who come to the clinic for abortions, is that we each have a right to be sexual.  We have a right to be sexual with ourselves, with another person, with someone of the same gender, someone of the opposite gender, more than one person in a lifetime, and in all the unique ways that we might choose to be sexual in any given situation.  We have a right to determine what is desirable for ourselves and to pursue those sexual practices as long as they are consensual.  We have a right to be sexual even if it means that it results in an unintended pregnancy.  We have a right to be sexual even if it means that we need an abortion.

           

There is risk to opening up and being vulnerable sexually with someone else, and with ourselves.  And there is great potential for pleasure, intimacy, and closeness.  So regardless of what happens in the process of being sexual, and regardless of whether there is an abortion, I will always affirm for individuals who come to the clinic and elsewhere that having pleasure and seeking pleasure are very important and worthwhile aspects of life to pursue.  It is our right to make decisions all along the way that best meet our personal values for how to be.  Abortion may or may not be one of those decisions. 

Published originally in:  (2002).  Honoring pleasure.  In Jacob, K. (Ed.), Our choices, our lives: Unapologetic writings on abortion.  (pp. 147-149).  Lincoln, NE: iUniverse.

Copyright 2002 by Susan Miranda.  All rights reserved.  No part of this writing may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder. For reprint permission, email miranda_susan@yahoo.com.

             

             

Take Time to Satisfy Youself

Somewhere I learned not to take life for granted.  As I write this, I have been grieving for myself and for my friend the loss of her baby.  Now I remember why I always say “I love you” when I think of it.  Life is short.  So I embrace the concept “don’t wait for what you don’t have to wait for.”

Yet some things I have waited for a very long time.  My mind in all of its imagination, spontaneity and playfulness knows my fantasies of making love to someone and being made love to.  My heart knows the longing and desires to have that happen in my life.  And yet I wait, not willing to compromise and experience sexual intimacy with someone unless I deeply care about that person.

While I wait, reluctantly, to experience the passionate physical and sexual intimacy my mind can only imagine at this time, I have learned what is probably even more important.  I’ve learned that while waiting, something else is happening, and that is life.  I’ve learned to embrace this very moment in time and who and what I have in my life, and I have learned to embrace the only person who is with me all the time and that is myself.

For me, waiting is not easy.  So I embrace the concept “don’t wait for what you don’t have to wait for.”  Don’t wait for the playfulness and love that can happen in so many friendships of all different kinds.  Don’t wait to enjoy the sensuality and flirtations that can exist in brief moments of knowing many people.  Don’t wait for the sexual pleasure that we can give to ourselves that is not like being with another person but that is sexual pleasure no less.  Don’t wait to know the complexity of love and that life is not so simple as either/or.  I’ve had friends who were lovers and lovers who seemed more like friends.

Don’t wait to be present in this moment.  Don’t wait to take the risk to say “I love you” or “I like you” or anything else that could shift or end because of a death, life transition or change in one person’s feelings.  And don’t wait to know the pleasure we can give ourselves this very moment in time.

Reprinted from:

(2001, June 20).  Take time to satisfy yourself.  Minnesota Women’s Press, 17  (7), 3.

Copyright 2001 by Susan Miranda.  All rights reserved.  No part of this writing may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder. For reprint permission, email miranda_susan@yahoo.com.

Indiana Cold

The sun comes out, but it is cold in this small town in Indiana named Portland.  Not as cold as Minnesota, and it is odd to hear complaints of the cold from the people here.  To complain about the ice and dreariness would be a more realistic gripe.

It is cold here in terms of the weather, but it is cold in a different sort of way also.  The Hoosier hospitality would seem to underscore a niceness that one should find pleasant.  But even with that Hoosier hospitality, one such as myself would still know that I am not welcomed here-not my female strength and not my lesbian identity.

It is not a cold like in a big city–like Chicago, which I have passed through a few times in the past month or so, or Minneapolis, where I live.  In fact, often I feel a warmth in those cities because I know I can be different, for the most part.  No, the cold here makes me avert my eyes.  Never out of fear of danger from the outside, but danger from the inside.  I feel my body and its history of having grown up in religion and farmland.  That is when I know my body has rebelled from those traditions and rebelled so angrily that the stares coming my way from the people here let me know I don’t belong here.

It is cold because I am angry.  I am angry I grew up in a similar environment where my femaleness was dirtied and my gay identity went to a deep place of hiding.  I am angry that a movie theater full of people can in unison express disgust for a brief showing of two men holding hands, conveying very clearly that they can’t imagine something so foreign as gays or lesbians sitting in the same audience as themselves.

I am angry that I feel the female inferiority and the male superiority that I knew on my own father’s farm–a farm that was never considered to be mine.  Farms go to boys, never girls.  I even knew that at an early age.

I feel cold… a cold that the warmer weather can’t decrease.  A cold that reminds me that the unfreezing of homophobia is as far away as the 800 miles that I am from home.

Reprinted from:

(1997, Feb. 5 – 18).  Indiana Cold. [Personal essay].  The Minnesota Women’s Press, 12, (23), 4.

Copyright 1997 by Susan Miranda.  All rights reserved.  No part of this writing may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder. For reprint permission, email miranda_susan@yahoo.com.