Sunday Reflections

In response to some comments from one dear, dear reader I wouldn't know from a vibrating monkey ass (have we met, Emily?), here are a few clarifications about my intentions behind this blog.

1. It's true, I did very well with a word count. But that was a newspaper; this is a blog. The beauty of blogging is the absence of structure. A blogger is free to be unrestrained in content and form. A blog is the quintessence of unedited, uncensored self-published writing, which makes room for scores of grammatically messy, rambling, boring nonsense on the Internet. However, with some writing talent, a blog can be a platform for useful information, revolutionary ideas, brilliant insights, provocative entertainment, stimulating creativity and so on, that you wouldn't find in a magazine or newspaper. That being said, I'm not claiming my blog to be anything but an honest expression of my erotic experience. Having spent a year and a half churning out weekly 800-900 word columns, I am relishing the freedom to write as many or as few words as I like without worrying about fitting into a preconceived arc. Actually, my column felt rather formulaic after a while, and though I shook it up occasionally with varying voices or tenses, the structure was basically the same: opening with a story, moving into general insights related to the story, then tying it all up in the end with a witty bow that refers back to the story. That's the beauty of a column. But I write a column no more. There's a time and place for word counts. Like when they are attached to dollars.

As for the editors, with the exception of the one who fired me, they hardly ever changed a word. So if I'm being tangential, it has nothing to do with the absence of a guy/gal hovering over me with a red pen. Rather, any changes in my writing from column to blog are evidence of my desire to create a new brand of Lust Life, essays that are less restrained, more personal and...well, I'll leave it for you to judge.

2. I think what many people interpret as narcissism and self-absorption is more often than not, a shocking dose of self-awareness. How many people are truly self-aware? True self-awareness is so elusive in our world--among the hordes of people going through the motions, or living as someone else's version of themselves, or in complete denial or ignorance of what makes them do what they do (early childhood influences, traumas, culture, society, media etc.) that when a self-aware person writes something honest, many a reader will balk and say, "Ha! That's so selfish! How narcissistic! What an ego!" Why? They don't know what to make of it. They forget, or perhaps don't understand that a narcissist doesn't care about anyone but herself. A narcissist would never fall in love with anyone but herself. If I were a narcissist, I would not write so rapturously about my lovers!

I wonder...if I wrote about anything other than sex (and my sex life in particular), if readers would still call me a narcissist. If this blog were about cooking, for example, and I went on and on about the sensations flavors impress upon my tongue, and waxed poetic about the myriad pleasures of cooking from shopping to preparation to getting down and dirty in the kitchen, with the occasional sidebar on the distinct variations of chiles or the origin of chocolate, then I would probably not be labeled a self-absorbed, rambling writer, no matter how many words I may exhaust in describing in great detail, how to make the perfect Sellars souffle.

3. The main drive behind this blog (if you haven't picked up on it already), is the sad reality that sexuality in America is too often intertwined with shame and guilt and sin. It is my mission to help turn over this puritanical insentience by communicating, not only through my art and experience, but through my very being, that sex is natural and beautiful and healthy, and the suppression of it--public or private, is poison to the soul. I believe that if we as a human race were not only more comfortable, but united with our sexuality, there would be far fewer wars. Consider my blog a call for world peace! From vanilla to kink and everything in between, sex, as long as it is consensual and as safe as possible, is a positive, powerful experience that makes life worth living. And why shouldn't I ramble on about something as valuable as that?

Thank you for reading. And thank you for your comments. Now I'm going to go sit by a pool and stare at my reflection.