Recently, I have been inundated by electronic mail, “tweet” messages, and penned missives from ladies, gentlemen, and gentlequeers who are uncomfortable with the lack of etiquette guides for their sexual encounters. While I must admit, I do not have the ability to write a tome dedicated to the arts of mannerly love, I am pleased to offer a few simple considerations to ensure that your next intimate acts (or, “the making of the beast with two backs”, as you young people call it these days) are polite, mannerly, and will likely yield repeated invitations from your host.

1. Be clean and prepared. Be freshly bathed, avoid heavy perfumes or colognes, and make sure that your underthings are clean and attractive. Your guests would appreciate a well laid table; your lover would likely feel the same way.

2. Always bring a “host gift” of safer sex supplies. These can be arranged in a lovely basket, made into a centerpiece, or placed into a foil wrapped box to add charm and attractiveness to the gift. Not arriving with a gift of barriers is akin to showing up to dinner without any food to contribute – it’s rude, and it places the burden on your host, which shows a lack of courtesy on your part.

3. Always ask permission before you touch anything, or wait until it is offered to you. “May I wrap my hand around your penis?” is far more mannerly than simply doing so, and until you and your partner know each other well enough to have a greater understanding of their pleasures and comforts, a cautious approach is best.

4. A gracious host will understand that even the most careful guest will occasionally have an accident, or need to end the evening early due to physical weariness. Be prepared to respond to these situations in a manner that shows respect and compassion. A nearby damp cloth or a promise of a future engagement can often soothe the guests’ sense of discomfort.

5. Try a bit of everything offered (unless you are certain that it is not to your taste), and if you decide you don’t like it, simply say no and direct to the top selections on the menu. Compliment your host honestly; saying that you loved their cunnlingual techniques when you didn’t is dishonest and does not give them the necessary feedback required for them to adjust their entertainment skills. Far better to compliment the things that you did love, even if it’s the basics, such as that their bedding was highly comfortable or that their choice of lube was sublime.

6. Finally, thank you notes are quite important, even in more intimate engagements. Sending your host a brief letter or card describing your pleasure at their invitation and in their company, as well as perhaps inviting them to be your guest at some future time (if you should feel so motivated to engage in further intercourse with them, both social and physical), both shows you to be a guest that they would enjoy having back into their homes, as well as expresses the gratitude that you should certainly feel after having been invited to join with them for an intimate evening.

.

But when we get on the bus to head to the office, we’re surrounded by lots of conversation & concepts that aren’t what we are used to, in the rarified air of the sex positive community. Guys referring to pressuring their girlfriends or wives into sex, women who say they don’t have sex with condoms, people talking proudly about screwing around on their spouse without getting caught – it can leave folks with a sense of unreality. Sometimes, we get so caught up in our own ethics that we forget that not everyone shares them.

Of course, these are the times when we feel smug and self-satisfied…the times that we pull our judgypants on and they fit us oh so well. Sometimes, we listen and think about how unenlightened they are. Sometimes, we text our friends or send out a tweet or status update talking about how the unwashed masses are so sex negative. But guess what? We have, at that point, totally missed the boat.

The crux of sex positive outreach to others is that we have to acknowledge that they have the right to have the kind of sex life that they choose, even if we do not agree with it. It’s about personal power & personal responsibility – and yeah, while they may be doing things that make us cringe, they have the right to do with their bodies whatever they choose to. Shaming or blaming them for their attitudes is just as bad as shaming them for their orientation or for their sexual interests in fetishes or multiple relationships. We do not know them, and we do not have the right to comment on the life that has brought them to where they are today.

What we can – and are, often, obligated to do – is to act on our own ethics in our conversations. We can listen to them without shaming, and talk about our own reality without making it holier-than-thou. We can answer questions about sexuality from our own perspective, and still leave room for them to choose to act based on what they evaluate as important. We can keep in mind that people have their own reasons for doing what they’re doing, which they are not obligated to share with us (or explain to us, unless we’re one of the people involved). And as long as we are not turning a blind eye to the abuse of another human being, we can give them the space (and perhaps, the non-judgemental information) to consider what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and come to their own decisions about how to live their life. After all, that’s what we want to have as well, isn’t it?

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, “return on investment” (or ROI) relates to how much money / wealth you will accumulate based on your investment over time in any particular mutual

Intimacy, from ToniVC's Flickr stream

fund, or real estate, or what have you. In an ideal world, the return would always be higher than the initial investment – even a very safe, low risk account should gain us at least something above the amount we initially put in. The higher the risk – or the longer the investment period – the higher we want the potential rewards to be. So, carrying that a bit further – we become consumers who evaluate the risk versus rewards, or ROI, on all of our investments – whether that’s a job that we’re considering, a new home, or even – gasp! – a partner.

Each of us wants different things from partners – and people who engage in multiple levels of intimacy with multiple people will want something different from each one. Yet, we sometimes find ourselves opting for experiences with people who are not the fit that we want and need; we choose quantity over quality, or poor company over no company. The biggest question is: why? Why do we choose the people and experiences that we choose?

This is where the real crux of the question is: without evaluating what we want, and what is likely to bring us that result, we make choices that while, perhaps not foolish, are certainly not as fulfilling. Wanting to stave off loneliness with a dip into the gene pool is not a bad thing; what’s not so great is when we latch on to someone that is looking for more, or we bargain more than what we really want to offer in order to get the thing that we want to get. Likewise, there is no pain like the pain of starting something with a person whose desires, whether stated or unspoken, are diametrically opposite our own.

The first step that a financial counselor will give to a new investor is to determine what their goals are, and what they’re willing to risk to get those goals. That’s not a bad first step for intimacy, either.

I went to a party a while back, and the guy that interrupted my conversation to chat with my (male gendered) friend went off into a conversation where he referred to women as “bitches”. Not in an angry way – that “She’s such a bitch!” way – but in a matter-of-fact manner that dismissed a whole gender. Had you asked him, I’d guess that he would not have said he was sex negative – in fact, it was a party in which sexuality is not just appreciated, but encouraged. I’m also fairly certain that it’s a colloquial term that, in some parts of the community, is totally acceptable. The problem is? It’s not.

Few folks raise a fuss when the term “vanilla” (as used as a synonym for unenlightened sexuality) is brought up. It’s boring, and it’s old, and if you’re doing vanilla, why – you just might be better off having no sex at all. Sex positive, right?

And while we’re on that topic – not everyone enjoys fucking. There is nothing wrong with having desires that differ from the norm, right? Unless, of course, it’s not even wanting to have sex, because that’s just not okay for anyone. Something is obviously wrong with you if you don’t want to screw.

I got called out on my offhanded use of referring to monogamous folk & Christians in less-than-accepting ways a few years ago. I can’t imagine how hard it was for those folks to do that – but I’m glad that they did. I put myself out there as a sex educator, and I need to be able to stand by that by continually seeking to make my communication as clear and affirming as possible. And yeah, it’s painful for me to be corrected – but it’s probably a lot less painful than it is to hear words that make you feel like you’re less-than from someone who is speaking from a place of expertise or authority.

If you are putting yourself out there as sex positive, listen to what you’re saying, especially if you’re in a subculture that’s suffered the slings and arrows of slander. It doesn’t make us suddenly either classy or holier-than-thou when we use terms that cause pain in others – even as a joke. We also don’t know how loaded terms that some of us use affectionately with friends – queer, slut, whore – will be received when someone else hears them.

Words have power. Wield them carefully.

This song is called Alice’s Restaurant, and it’s about Alice, and the
restaurant, but Alice’s Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant,
that’s just the name of the song, and that’s why I called the song Alice’s
Restaurant.

You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant
Walk right in it’s around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on – two years ago on
Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the
restaurant, but Alice doesn’t live in the restaurant, she lives in the
church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and
Fasha the dog… And livin’ in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of
room downstairs where the pews used to be in.  Havin’ all that room,
seein’ as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn’t
have to take out their garbage for a long time.

We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it’d be
a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump.  So
we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW
microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed
on toward the city dump.

Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the
dump saying, “Closed on Thanksgiving.”  And we had never heard of a dump
closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off
into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.

We didn’t find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the
side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the
cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile
is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we
decided to throw our’s down.

That’s what we did, and drove back to the church, had a thanksgiving
dinner that couldn’t be beat, went to sleep and didn’t get up until the
next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie.  He said, “Kid,
we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of
garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it.” And
I said, “Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope
under that garbage.”

After speaking to Obie for about fourty-five minutes on the telephone we
finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down
and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the
police officer’s station.  So we got in the red VW microbus with the
shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the
police officer’s station.

Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at
the police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for
being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn’t very likely, and
we didn’t expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out
and told us never to be see driving garbage around the vicinity again,
which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer’s station
there was a third possibility that we hadn’t even counted upon, and we was
both immediately arrested.  Handcuffed.  And I said “Obie, I don’t think I
can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on.”  He said, “Shut up, kid.
Get in the back of the patrol car.”

And that’s what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to the
quote Scene of the Crime unquote. I want tell you about the town of
Stockbridge, Massachusets, where this happened here, they got three stop
signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the
Scene of the Crime there was five police officers and three police cars,
being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to
get in the newspaper story about it. And they was using up all kinds of
cop equipment that they had hanging around the police officer’s station.
They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and
they took twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles
and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each
one was to be used as evidence against us.  Took pictures of the approach,
the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that’s not to
mention the aerial photography.

After the ordeal, we went back to the jail.  Obie said he was going to put
us in the cell.  Said, “Kid, I’m going to put you in the cell, I want your
wallet and your belt.”  And I said, “Obie, I can understand you wanting my
wallet so I don’t have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you
want my belt for?”  And he said, “Kid, we don’t want any hangings.”  I
said, “Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for littering?”
Obie said he was making sure, and friends Obie was, cause he took out the
toilet seat so I couldn’t hit myself over the head and drown, and he took
out the toilet paper so I couldn’t bend the bars roll out the – roll the
toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape.  Obie
was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice
(remember Alice? It’s a song about Alice), Alice came by and with a few
nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back
to the church, had a another thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat,
and didn’t get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court.

We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty seven eight-by-ten
colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back
of each one, sat down.  Man came in said, “All rise.”  We all stood up,
and Obie stood up with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy
pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he
sat down, we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the
twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows
and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog.
And then at twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles
and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry,
’cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American
blind justice, and there wasn’t nothing he could do about it, and the
judge wasn’t going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy
pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each
one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us.  And
we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but thats not
what I came to tell you about.

Came to talk about the draft.

They got a building down New York City, it’s called Whitehall Street,
where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected,
neglected and selected.  I went down to get my physical examination one
day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so
I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning.  `Cause I wanted to
look like the all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted, I wanted
to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from New York,
and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all
kinds o’ mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gave
me a piece of paper, said, “Kid, see the phsychiatrist, room 604.”

And I went up there, I said, “Shrink, I want to kill.  I mean, I wanna, I
wanna kill.  Kill.  I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and
guts and veins in my teeth.  Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill,
KILL, KILL.”  And I started jumpin up and down yelling, “KILL, KILL,” and
he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down
yelling, “KILL, KILL.”  And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me,
sent me down the hall, said, “You’re our boy.”

Didn’t feel too good about it.

Proceeded on down the hall gettin more injections, inspections,
detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they was doin’ to me
at the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four
hours, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty
ugly things and I was just having a tough time there, and they was
inspecting, injecting every single part of me, and they was leaving no
part untouched.  Proceeded through, and when I finally came to the see the
last man, I walked in, walked in sat down after a whole big thing there,
and I walked up and said, “What do you want?”  He said, “Kid, we only got
one question. Have you ever been arrested?”

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Alice’s Restaurant Massacre,
with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that and all
the phenome… – and he stopped me right there and said, “Kid, did you ever
go to court?”

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven eight-by-ten
colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on
the back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said, “Kid, I want
you to go and sit down on that bench that says Group W …. NOW kid!!”

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W’s
where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after
committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly
looking people on the bench there.  Mother rapers.  Father stabbers.  Father
rapers!  Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me!  And
they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the
bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest
father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean ‘n’ ugly
‘n’ nasty ‘n’ horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me
and said, “Kid, whad’ya get?”  I said, “I didn’t get nothing, I had to pay
$50 and pick up the garbage.”  He said, “What were you arrested for, kid?”
And I said, “Littering.”  And they all moved away from me on the bench
there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I
said, “And creating a nuisance.”  And they all came back, shook my hand,
and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing,
father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the
bench.  And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of
things, until the Sargeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held it
up and said.

“Kids, this-piece-of-paper’s-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-words-we-wanna-
know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-
you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-want-to-know-arresting-
officer’s-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say”, and talked for
forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had
fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there,
and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it
down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the
pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the
other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on
the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the
following words:

(“KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?”)

I went over to the sargent, said, “Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to
ask me if I’ve rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I’m
sittin’ here on the bench, I mean I’m sittin here on the Group W bench
’cause you want to know if I’m moral enough join the army, burn women,
kids, houses and villages after bein’ a litterbug.”  He looked at me and
said, “Kid, we don’t like your kind, and we’re gonna send you fingerprints
off to Washington.”

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a
study in black and white of my fingerprints.  And the only reason I’m
singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar
situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a
situation like that there’s only one thing you can do and that’s walk into
the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say “Shrink, You can get
anything you want, at Alice’s restaurant.”.  And walk out.  You know, if
one person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and
they won’t take him.  And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
they may think they’re both faggots and they won’t take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. They may think it’s an
organization.  And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said
fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and
walking out.  And friends they may thinks it’s a movement.

And that’s what it is , the Alice’s Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and
all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come’s around on the
guitar.

With feeling.  So we’ll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here and
sing it when it does.  Here it comes.

You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
Walk right in it’s around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant

That was horrible.  If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud.
I’ve been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it
for another twenty five minutes.  I’m not proud… or tired.

So we’ll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part
harmony and feeling.

We’re just waitin’ for it to come around is what we’re doing.

All right now.

You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
Excepting Alice
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant
Walk right in it’s around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant

Da da da da da da da dum
At Alice’s Restaurant

(c) 1966-1967, Appleseed Music

A group of Toni’s supporters have created Right Here, Right Now as a way to provide support to Toni (as well as help fund his work with writers and others who cannot afford to pay for the valuable assistance he offers). You can easily donate any amount (and there is over $3000 of matching-fund money available, so your donation will go even farther to assist). You can also offer your assistance in other ways, from social networking assistance to local in-person help to fundraising and even more.

If you wonder why I think you should help, look at it this way: Toni is a fundamental reason that many writers, activists, community organizers, and even educators (like me!) are where they are, both professionally and personally. The world would be a poorer place if Toni decided to fully step back from his calling because of a lack of ability to cover his expenses. And we, as a community, need to foster people like Toni, and ensure that the heart and soul of our world is nurtured and cherished.

I’m still co-facilitating the Sex Positive Professionals Group that I co-facilitate. This group, run by Dr. Ruth Neustifter, brings together both established and budding sex educators from around the world, offering an ongoing curriculum of classes, one-on-one coaching, private interviews with the movers & shakers in sex positivity, and group “open office” calls & forums for members to network & learn from each other. I offer the one-on-one sessions for members, along with the group “open office” hours, and I’m so excited about everything we’re doing. If you’re a budding (or experienced) sex positive professional, consider joining us and taking advantage of the community & support.

I’m also THRILLED beyond words to announce two books that I had a small part in. First, my friends Dan & dawn from the Erotic Awakening podcast have released their second book, “Sex, Stories and Power Exchange: Adventures – and lessons – of a naughty power exchange couple“, which engages our brains (and our genitals) with fabulously slutty stories that inspire and provoke. I got the distinct pleasure of being asked to write a brief forward for the book, and the even more distinct pleasure of getting to ready it before it was printed (I’m all about being one of the first, you know). Second, Tristan Taormino’s new (and, in my opinion, groundbreaking) anthology, “The Ultimate Guide to Kink: BDSM, Roleplay, and the Erotic Edge” is coming out in March 2012, and I am honored to be one of the writers that are included (along with luminaries like Midori, Patrick Califia, Lolita Wolf, Mollena Williams, Hardy Haberman, Edge, FifthAngel, etc., etc.). I was asked to write the chapter on vaginal fisting, and I’m really excited to see it in print.

So why is it so outrageous when we decide that our sexual orientation is changing? Why is it something that’s seen a deceitful, willful, selfish, or even offensive when we realize that our old definitions just don’t work any longer? Even more, if we’re kinky, our play styles and orientation may (and usually do) change on a regular basis – yet I see social expectations (as well as outright pressure) to remain static and stick to a single role. Likewise for people that move between single romantic relationships to multiple romantic relationships (or vice versa).

Life is change. Sex is part of life. Therefore, sex is also change. When we embrace it, we can rejoice in it. When we fight it, we’re fighting our own core essence. Which would you prefer?