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As regular readers of this blog know, I’ve been struggling with worsening lupus for many years now.
Because the illness feels so very alive to me, as if it has an actual personality, I have referred to it throughout as “Mr. Wolf,” chosen because lupus is the Latin word for wolf.
I am sorry to say that my constant furry nemesis has gained an upper paw of late. As a result, I am taking a hiatus from penning this blog until I am again well enough to do the topics covered here the justice that they deserve.
As a sex-positive, bisexual woman, I believe that having a gloriously frequent, confident sexuality with a consenting partner of your choice (or being self-sexual) is vital in maintaining personal health – and even your very humanity.
It is also way beyond time that this country participates in a continuing frank and honest dialog about sex and relationships for the health of our children, and to promote a global/cultural understanding so that sex and gender issues no longer lead to hate, bigotry, bullying and too often to violence.
Those were the underlying goals that prompted me to begin this blog. Those goals continue to drive me, so I will remain very active on Twitter, re-tweeting news and commenting about these issues in a timely, and I hope, interesting and even challenging manner. I have found that penning 140 characters is much easier for me right now than writing and researching detailed posts required to put this blog together.
So, until Mr. Wolf gets sick of me instead of me being sick from him and I can resume this blog, please follow me on Twitter. Please do tell me what’s on your mind — and who’s in your bed and what you’re doing!
I cannot thank you all enough for your continued support throughout my battle with Mr. Wolf. I hope that I will be able to rejoin you here in this space soon. In point of fact, that is why I have called this post Part I: The Retreat, because when I am able to resume writing this blog that I love so much, the title will be Part II: The Return!
Happy living and loving, to all. Cheers.
— The Curator
Marilyn Monroe, who would have been 85 years old today and arguably still the most iconic sex symbol, apparently had a very surprising secret: The inability to orgasm!
She was rescued from this horror by learning how to masturbate. Difficult to believe, but I actually have something in common with Marilyn!
Sadly, masturbation has been much maligned in our society, especially when it involves its practice by women. As a disabled woman with a progressive disease, I can assure you that I have ONLY been able to hold onto my sexuality — at all — because of masturbation.
Solo sex (and it is REAL sex) allows me to function when partner-sex is too physically difficult, if not downright impossible at times because of my disease, and some of the medications I take. Masturbation protects and reinforces my Divine birthright as an honestly sensual, sexual woman.
As a sex-positive blogger, I remain dedicated to promoting all healthy sexual practices — especially masturbation, which is, afterall, the safest sex there is! Thus, I am reposting a blog in its entirety by LilithLand whose post appeared on the fabulous website of Dr. Betty Dodson and Carlin Ross. Betty has championed masturbation for decades as an award-winning author and sex educator, and continues to do so with her expected wit and verve.
Please read LilithLand's post below or directly and the Dodson and Ross website:
Marilyn Monroe the 20th Century's Greatest Sex Symbol was Pre-Orgasmic
By LilithLand
(Finishing my doctoral dissertation on female sexualdysfunction and sexual satisfaction)
May 26:
"You said there was an obstacle in my mind that prevented me from having an orgasm; that it was something that happened early in my life about which I felt so guilty that I did not deserve to have the greatest pleasure there is;...That it was buried in my unconscious. Through analysis we would bring it to my conscious mind where we could get to the guilt and free me to be orgasmic. Well, we sure worked it and got nowhere. I'd go home and cry and vomit from the frustration."
-Marilyn Monroe
The above paragraph is part of a transcript made from tapes Marilyn Monroe allegedly recorded for her psychoanalyst, Dr. Ralph Greenson, not long before her death. LA prosecutor Joseph Minor was probing into Marilyn's death, and he compiled the transcript from tapes Greenson handed over as part of the investigation.
No one knows for a fact that they are legit, but Minor was a credible, though solitary witness. I kind of think that the tapes are authentic. There's too much in them that feels like a real woman speaking.
In these tapes she talks about many things — her feelings about herself, her body, Lawrence Olivier (he was an arrogant prick) — and the fact that she couldn't orgasm until shortly before her death.
Yep, the twentieth century's greatest sex symbol was anorgasmic.
That's the current, politically correct.term; her analyst would have called her frigid back in 1962, and as the quote makes plain, it weighed heavily on her. Though she never won an Oscar, apparently her bedroom performances were worthy of one — a fact that she wryly acknowledges to her shrink.
"Speaking of Oscars," she says, "I would win overwhelmingly if the Academy gave an Oscar for faking orgasms. I have done some of my best acting convincing my partners I was in the throes of ecstasy."
She was a goddess. A woman's whose bountiful, Rubenesque curves got the entire world off, but she never came. Everybody got off, but poor Marilyn — her lovers, her husbands, the guy who watered her lawn, even Joan Crawford. According to the tapes, Marilyn had a onetime sapphic encounter with the legendary "Mommy Dearest" during which Crawford had a thunderous orgasm (she was a "shrieker"), and during which there were most assuredly no wire hangers in sight.
Greenson was a psychoanalyst, and so Marilyn's initial therapy consisted of free-association (saying whatever comes to mind). The process is supposed to work kind of like a therapeutic version of Drano — blasting away psychological blocks so the analysand can "turn hysterical misery into common unhappiness" (Freud's exact words).
Sound's fun.
I can't help but have this mental image of Marilyn propped up on her analyst's couch, blond curls spread on the pillow, and in a feathery, little girl voice free-associating like a bat shit fiend (...let's see, orgasm makes me think of organ... and organ makes my think of prick...um... and that makes me think of my ex-husband who was one...you know..). But I digress...
Not surprisingly, it didn't work. Not matter how much emotional sludge she pulled out of the convoluted drainpipe of her unconscious (an unconscious that housed such traumas as parental abandonment and childhood sexual abuse), it wasn't enough to torpedo through her anorgasmia.
But lucky for her, Greenson hit on a novel idea (novel for a psychoanalyst anyway, not novel for any woman with a right hand). Dispensing with the Drano, he told her to masturbate. And just in case she got lost, he gave her a road map. That is, explicit instructions as to how to actually accomplish this task. It's no exaggeration to say that this advice was a revelation for Marilyn. Finally, a breakthrough:
"'By now I've had lots of orgasms. Not only one, but 2 and 3 with a man who takes his time.
I never cried so hard as I did after my first orgasm. It was because of the years I had ...never had an orgasm.
What wasted years. How can I describe to you, a man, what an orgasm feels like to a woman. I'll try.
Think of a light fixture with a rheostat control. As you slowly turn it on, the bulb begins to get bright, then brighter and brighter and finally in a blinding flash is fully lit. As you turn it off it gradually becomes dimmer and at last goes out.
It is so good ... Doctor, I worship you."'
I think Marilyn makes an amazing case study on this issue. Our culture consistently equates desirability in women with the ability to desire. Indeed, women often confuse the two themselves and assume if they were thinner, had better breasts, they would have better sex. But the fact is being sexy looking, according to social norms, has nothing to do with feeling sexual.
I find it an ironic metaphor that the 20th century's greatest sex symbol was a woman who was both infertile and anorgasmic. How appropriate. Over the last century, sex has become increasingly disassociated with reproduction but not necessarily more associated with female pleasure.
According to the National Health and Social Life Survey, around 24% of women have problems experiencing orgasm (other studies have put the figure lower). The DSM-IV (the diagnostic guide of the mental health field) refers to this issue as female orgasmic disorder.
Generally, there are two flavors for your displeasure: generalized (no orgasm under any circumstances) and situational (orgasm occurs under certain conditions but not others e.g., masturbation but not partner sex, with Joe but not with Bob, or the planets have aligned, the moon is blue, and Johnny Depp is your midnight pal ). Marilyn had the generalized variety.
The New View Campaign has an interesting way to conceptualize women's sexual issues. Rather than focusing on limited diagnostic classifications, they look at the situation more holistically, including both medical and socio-cultural factors. So, using Marilyn as a case study, here's how it works:
1. Sexual Problems due to Sociocultural, Political, or Economic Factors:
Being a follower of Freud's (the original father of the vaginal orgasm) probably didn't help Marilyn's sex life much. Traditional psychoanalysis regards the clit as a child's play toy to be put aside when a girl sprouts boobs. At that point, it's time to come like a "real" woman- vaginally. The fact that Marilyn didn't learn to masturbate until she was 36 tells me that she was probably too indoctrinated by a theory (and a clitaphobic culture that denied her sexual reality) to take charge of her sexuality. Most likely, she was too afraid of getting fixated on her clitoris.
Plus, Hollywood regarded her as a joke. She was seldom given the parts that she desired as an actress, and instead was stuck playing humiliating roles that made her look like a fool. Her sexuality was her meal ticket. And Marilyn, like many women, may have looked at it as a way to get things: love, attention, work, money, fame. In other words, it was a commodity to be traded - not something for herself to be enjoyed.
2. Sexual Problems Relating to Partner and Relationship:
I don't know much about Marilyn's relationships, but with three divorces, it's safe to say that they may not have been very satisfying. She picked extraordinarily successful men who were from very different worlds than her own, which isn't usually a recipe for a harmonious marriage. People tend to do better with partners like themselves.
3. Sexual Problems due to Psychological Factors:
Marilyn had a history of sexual abuse, a mentally ill mother, an absentee father, problems with infertility, and three husbands — that's a lot to deal with. She grew up in foster homes and as an adult had problems with depression and substance abuse. Her death was officially ruled a suicide, but Minor didn't believe she killed herself. But that's a whole other kettle of worms.
The fact is feeling like "a candle in the wind", without a strong center, doesn't make it very easy to be sexually authentic. To fully own your sexuality takes tremendous inner strength. And sex is the female Achilles' heel — a weak point that's pushed to the side when issues like relationship stability, or economic security are more important.
I am glad to know that Marilyn didn't die without ever knowing how to orgasm. I sometimes wonder what her life would have been like if she had lived. Would she have won an Oscar, married again, adopted? At least, she would have had some ownership over her sexuality, and maybe that would have empowered her.
Who knows, maybe she would have run for president."'
Here's LilithLand's profile:
"Hi, I am a single, graduate student who is finishing up her doctoral dissertation on the subject of female sexual dysfunction (FSD) and sexual satisfaction. Sex, particularly female sexuality, is something that has always fascinated me since I was 14 and read my first book on the subject: The Hite Report.
Boy, was that an eye opener, prior to that book I had never heard the word clitoris. I had my first orgasm through masturbation within days of reading her book. I have worked as both a counselor and a college instructor. I am also hoping to turn my dissertation into a book on female sexual dissatisfaction. I would love to find participants for both my book and my dissertation. My blog is http://www.lilithland.net."
— The Curator
I’m old enough and motivated enough to be really good at sex.
I know the subtle, and not so subtle, nuances required to consistently give and receive enormous pleasure. I’m not bragging, it just happens when you age – and provided that you care to learn. I have always cared to learn. That’s why these last few weeks have been especially brutal.
As regular readers know, sex has been saving my life – or more precisely, has helped me decide to hold onto it for as long as I can.
I have Lupus, which I refer to as “Mr. Wolf,” because lupus is the Latin word for wolf. I have the most serious form of the disease, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (pronounced: er-uh-thee-muh-toe-sus), also called SLE. (Visit the Lupus Foundation of America America for more information.)
SLE is an autoimmune disease. As such, it is characterized by a malfunction of the immune system. In these types of diseases, the immune system cannot distinguish between the body’s own cells and tissues and that of ‘foreign’ matter. So, rather than simply producing antibodies to attack invading viruses, bacteria or other similar foreign substances, my immune system creates auto-antibodies that attack my body’s own cells and/or tissues. It causes a great deal of pain, stiffness, and I’m losing my ability to walk, and to use the fingers. It also often makes me really exhausted, frequently feeling like I have the flu. And at the end of it all, is the end of it all, as it’s eventually fatal.
Recently, Mr. Wolf has been really having his way with me – and not in the good way, either. (Ironically, October is Lupus Awareness Month. I am soooo very aware – but others need to become aware, too. Research for this disease needs funding, duh!)
During the current onslaught, I blogged about having had a sudden, horrible realization: I could no longer truly remember what it felt like to be well. Oh, I had memories of being very active, athletic and whole, but they were no longer sense memories. It was as if that part of my life was so insubstantial it had been absorbed into the unreality of dreams.
That’s why sex has been so very important. When I’m having sex, I am no longer disabled. The pain and misery that has been Mr. Wolf’s calling card transcends into pleasure. Touch and intimacy has been my link to life, and to the divine. In those moments, I am my true self again. Not a disabled person on her way out, but a vibrant woman who was put on this planet for some purpose beyond her finite understanding. (I have always lived my life as a sex-positive person, but if I hadn’t, Mr. Wolf would have converted me at first orgasm!)
To say that it’s not easy, emotionally or physically, to have a consistently satisfying sex life when you’re disabled, suffering from an acute disease or illness, is an enormous understatement. I worked really hard at overcoming and/or coping with my physical limitations to be truly, satisfyingly active and intimate; to re-build my core sexuality from the ground up, as it were. I was convinced that by doing that, I would establish and be able to maintain a razor thin edge of stability. My goal was not to perform sexually as I had before since that would be impossible, but to re-invent my intimate life; to re-imagine myself and the glorious, rich possibilities that only sexuality offers.
— The Curator
