 Hello there. It's Thursday at noon. I know it is. Do you remember our arrangement? Thursdays at noon on CFUV. Are you ready to get started? What do you have in mind? What I want to do now is called First Person Plural. You make it sound excessively attractive. That's what I have in mind. Impression of sexuality is one of the most basic ways that people enter. What seems to the naive observer like nothing more than a biological imperative is in practice an activity marked by enormous contextual issues and rituals and is culturally layered with all sorts of meaning. Sex toys, sex games, masturbation, penis, vagina. These words are difficult to say in public and evoke a noteworthy amount of emotional reaction on the part of the speaker as well as the listener. In Western cultures, a number of social and political factors are affecting sexual expression, including the changes in women's roles and expectations, the legalization of abortion, the growing political movement recognizing the human rights of homosexuals, the growing political backlash of religious groups against both abortion rights and homosexuality, the spreading of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and questions about pornography from both the liberal feminists and the religious right. The symbology of sexual relations evokes so much more than two people sharing intimacy that it is any wonder we can have sex out of all these days. Even if you are able to ignore the cultural, political, and larger social aspects of the relationship, sex is still contextualized by the relationship itself. Finances, health issues, children, and other of life's stresses often get in the way of relationships. This week we spoke with Laska of Laska Maria Entertainment Limited in Vancouver. She has built a business selling sex toys and games on the World Wide Web and in private appearances similar to Tupperware parties. This may seem like a strange business for a single mom, but Laska's philosophy involving holistic approaches to sex toys and sex games is unusual in an industry that usually cures its advertising and other marketing to make extensive use of the sleazier aspects of sexuality. We talked with her about her philosophy and the cultural barriers to enjoying our bodies and our sexualities. In an episode we call, Adults Have the Best Toys. Let's start out talking about how you got into this business and a little bit about your philosophy. How I got into the business was that I'm a mother and I'm actually my husband passed away, wow, it's almost five years. When I first came back to Canada from Africa, because that's where we were living with my son, and he was almost two years old when we first came back to Victoria actually, because that's where my parents are from. I wasn't into the dating scene because I had a kind of a grieving issue. I wasn't into dating, wasn't into sex, but I was into sex. I was into sex more on stimulation, but on the emotional level is that really fair to be in a relationship when you're actually in love with someone else. So that's when I discovered toys. It was actually my mother who came up with the idea to start the company because she says, wow, you really know your stuff because I did so much research for myself on what toys were good and which ones, how to clean them, how to store them, which ones were good for different areas and different feelings because there wasn't a lot of information out there. That was now almost three years ago. How did you go about doing your research? The Internet. Unfortunately, the only time you could get toys was back in Victoria there was that little garden in Beeden. The romance shop was just about to open and there was a couple other little fleazy little stores that made me feel really uncomfortable. There wasn't anything nice. Nothing that like as a mom, I don't want to take my child in there, but I don't want to be there with a bunch of triple X movies or anything as well. I wanted to have an experience where you actually get to touch the products before you buy them. I'll tell you the best stores are Women's Word does a great job. They're based out of a concept out of San Francisco which is good vibrations. Good vibrations, amazing store. Because you get to go in there and touch the items, kind of understand a lot of education about what products are used for and which ones are good. But a little out of the way for Vancouver. Unfortunately, the problem is because we have a lot of licensing problems here in Vancouver to open up an adult shop. So that's why there isn't anything in family-orientated communities. Even if they're tastefully done they're still City Council will not approve those type of licenses. Back to why I started the business when my mother said, she was interested in things because she has just recently become divorced and then all of a sudden I had this big group of older women like 30 plus going, wow, how do you buy stuff? And I actually originally did everything through the internet by finding things and saying, oh, just buy it here and buy it here. And so then I started thinking, okay, there's got to be a better way to handle a business. And that's where I started doing a lot of research back in China and Taiwan Oh, so most of these toys are made overseas? They are except for the fine factory line which is a silicone-based product which is actually the best product and I think because it's non-porous. So I bring stuff in from Germany but yet the motors, et cetera, the plastic items which are a little bit more reasonable priced are actually all brought in. There's only six companies back in the Far East that actually manufacture toys. Now, you are not in the manufacturing business though. You're basically a distributor. There's four main distributors in western Canada. And I said, look guys, you guys don't have presence on the web. You don't have the U.S. market. Why don't I get something organized? You guys pay me a sales commission. So that's how I do it through the web. So I get them leads, et cetera because I spend so much time on the web and the reason why the web is so important and then the home parties as well are very, very separate identities. Now, how did you come up with the idea of having a home party? My mom, she said it would be great because it would be a great, like Tupperware parties. Women just had fun. I did a lot of bachelorette parties as well and then they get to see me. They get to talk to me with their friends sometimes even one-on-one I offer that as well and I don't spend a lot of time in my business talking about the therapy side. I talk about cleanliness, how to introduce them to a relationship. What I really specialize in is sexual products are not supposed to be an exchange of relationships. What they're supposed to do is add a communication level to a relationship. So unfortunately in this day and age men and women are spending more time. Finances are going crazy. I mean everybody's in debt. We spend so much time in front of the TV that most relationships, the breakdown of them is because of a lack of communication. So by adding a toy or a game or something it brings laughter back into relationships and if you can bring the laughter back in the children are happy. The family's happy. Everybody's happy. That's how I do my whole sales pitch. It's not a substitute. It should be recommended or anything. It should just be a fun part of life. It's almost like an enhancement to the relationship. It's like dinner and a movie. Have you been dinner and a movie lately? That's 100 bucks. You could have scheduled date night every Saturday night. Do one of those like rent a movie and then one night trying out a new product and you spend $50 and you can use that a couple of times and it's worth your money and it adds a little spice to your relationship. Are the parties today tend to be all women or do couples attend? I'm doing more couple parties because most of the women and men feel very relaxed with me because I don't go on about products just for women or products just for men. I go well why don't we introduce these to a relationship. I have a whole section of products just couples, I call it couples which are non-phallic looking. I'm really against phallic looking products as well so that it's not a threat to the man because the man always assumes that it's a substitute. And then we talk a lot about games which is one of my best sellers. Games, board games, card games, you know, love vouchers. Now do you sell some of these games? Oh absolutely. Tell me a little bit about why you think having a group come together might not just help with, you know, obviously there's a business strategy here because you get to talk to more people in less time and so forth. But I have the feeling from reading your website that you also have a kind of philosophy about that, that there is something about having a group of people come together whether it's a group of women or a group of couples that breaks down some cultural barriers, if you will, or something like that. Absolutely. Tell me a little bit about how that works. What do you see the group dynamics? You have community halls and you go down and have community talks, etc. We don't have that in our communities anymore. We're very, very sheltered, you know, more cocooning. So by having a group, what happens is I'll talk about myself and it will actually give them ideas to research themselves, to understand themselves, to talk about it, maybe not in the group, but at least they feel comfortable enough because I spend so much time on myself, that they, you know, from stories to how I delivered my child, that they can kind of relate. And in a group, you know, a lot of them feel, you know, it's fun. It's like a girl's night out and sometimes we have good conversations about taboo issues. Like, one of my favorite ones is like, how did we learn, you know, why is our administration cycle called the Curse? And that's how we were taught. And it shouldn't be called a Curse. It should be called a celebration of womanhood. So I think the dynamics, like for women when we get them in a group, is that they realize that they need to do education is such an issue. And when I work with couples, you know, they don't tell me their individual stories in a couple, but they start communicating between themselves, which is the whole key why I'm there. So they go, you know, I make it feel very comfortable. Maybe they'll, you know, purchase some body paint, but they'll be like, you know, beginning the opening of, you know, having some fun. You know, it's just opening up all those communication gates. I wonder if part of the dynamics isn't a sense of, hey, it's okay. Like, there are other people doing this and I don't feel alone. I don't feel I'm some sort of deviant by caring about the stuff. It turns out that people who look just like me and have similar concerns about debts and family and et cetera, also think about this stuff. Oh, absolutely. So there's a kind of normalization, if you will, of thinking about sexuality and talking about these, what are taboo topics? Oh, I think, absolutely. I think most people, you know, they have things in the back of their mind and then they don't know how to express it, but by saying it's okay, then they can start expressing it. I have a lot of people after they go to a home party, email me directly and ask me for different things. You know, not just products, but information. You can send them from anywhere from therapists to communities, like Swinger communities to play parties, which are BDSM parties. You know, everybody has their different quirks. So I think if we keep shelving it, like it's been done in the past, what happens is we have a lot of problems with problems being divorce rate, infidelity, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that when they go to a party, they kind of, first they're very close, but my, you know, very close and very sheltered. And then once we, I start talking and making them feel really comfortable by not going, directing all my questions at them by really talking about me and my relationship, my marriage and what I think myself works for me. They feel a little bit more open. I give them a stack of information as well so that they can do their own research. I also got a sense from looking through your website that a lot of the information that you offer to them is very pragmatic. Like a lot of people who are, there seems to be two categories of people who are in this kind of business. One group are just sort of pushing kind of a, like you mentioned, the sleazy stores. The other group really emphasize very heavily this kind of pathologizing of problems where they are, you know, offering therapy and so forth. And it isn't that there aren't some people who need therapy in this area. But it seems to me that the thing that struck me was that somewhere in between that and that you're not offering, you know, a dirty little sleazy place, obviously. You're offering something very, well, tasteful doesn't even, I mean, I had a warm fuzzy feeling of you well instead of just, oh, this is tastefully done like it's some sort of artistic thing. But I also had a sense that you were very pragmatic. Like I saw advice on your website about the right kind of foods to eat and cleanliness and very down-to-earth, everyday kinds of things that I didn't think about affecting my sex life that much until you put it in that context. Is that something that just came from your own experience? No, actually it was from traveling. In other cultures, like in Africa, if you get into the tribalistic cultures, like I was in Kenya and Uganda, women are considered queens during certain times of their life span. For example, a pregnant woman, I was pregnant in Africa and it was the most positive experience you could ever imagine. Everybody thought I was so beautiful. I was like queen bee everywhere I went. My husband like literally worshiped me because we're carrying a child. Women who go into metapause in Africa in certain tribes are actually considered like the leaders of the tribe. So they celebrate those type of, you know, changes in women as very positive and then also the diet. And, you know, dealing with metapause there was very different than here. Here we get labeled as, you know, psychological, you know, women are getting very quote-quote bitchy, etc., where there it's actually a big celebration. Even like time of the month is considered, you know, incredibly celebration. You know, the girls' first period is actually a party. Victoria. When I was there I was like, why can't we take this back to Canada? This is the way I should have been taught when I was a little girl. And I can't believe that we still shun pregnant women here, like breastfeeding in public. You know, there's certain things like, in Africa you can breastfeed whenever you want. It does not matter. And that was a really positive experience for me. So I think that's where really my flaws came from, was from seeing other women in different tribes and how, you know, they're so celebrated here. And as part of their celebration, has that practical side to it, such as cleansings and certain kinds of foods and that kind of thing? Well, then I started doing a lot of research. I'm still working on all my metapausal information because my mother is going through metapause and different diet because we're eating so much preservatives here. We have a huge sugar content problem here, and that's probably why we have a lot of diabetes, where in Africa, a lot of the things are very organic and even in Japan and in the East because they don't have hot flashes. Oh, really? Yeah, and the reason why is because of their soy content and the lack of preservatives. Our diet here is incredibly high with preservatives, which is actually sugar and yeast-based, which causes a lot. I'll tell you right now, Monistan and Kinesin, their profits are going up every single year because it's a quick fix to yeast infections. To get rid of yeast infections is to balance a diet and to balance a diet is based on making sure that your sugar content on certain times of the month should be lower. So for example, we eat a lot of fast food here and that's heavy in sugar content and starches, et cetera. So by having more of a natural diet, I'm not saying all health food, it's just the way you cook something. Like cooking in just vegetable oil isn't always the best. You should start using sesame seed oil to extra virgin olive oil to different types of powders. When people are putting powders on, there's all these different added flavors. Some of those have too much preservatives. You've got to start reading the content. So it's so important for women to get a diet set up and there's so many websites and I really encourage a lot of people right to me and I say, oh, well, check out this website and check out this one. And then exercise is also an important part. Dealing with not just metapause, but dealing time of the month can be a lot of problems, yeast infections, et cetera. So, I mean, it all should really be based on our diet first. Not a quick fix because we don't have statistics, by the way, on those things if we use them every two or three times a year. There's no information on that. And those are called quick fix and their profits are going up and up and up. It's no different than one of my articles that I wrote was about bladder control and the problems I had. So I tell you what, a doctor here prescribed me on Prozac. I have a child and I'm going to be on Prozac. On Prozac for bladder control? Bladder control because I was very depressed, you know, because I was really self-conscious about I had to wear a pad every day. So this is, and bladder control issues are actually caused because I had the baby. My pelvic muscle actually got very weak so it couldn't support my bladder. No one taught me that you can do exercises. The kegels. Yeah, kegels. The fly, because that's actually a muscle. It's no different than working on the gym. So that's where I said, no, no more drugs, no more. I don't do any sort of, I try not to even take aspirin or cold medications because I don't know the effect of all that in the future. So yeah, kegels, no one taught, no doctor taught me about kegels. Yeah, I learned about them from other women. Exactly. And that's what I teach also with other women in the home parties. It's like how, you know, the breathing techniques to go with kegels as well and that you can do them very discreetly, whether in your office or, you know, on your cooking dinner, et cetera. And it's just a really important exercise and breathing and relaxing technique. We've talked a lot about how women are sharing with each other things that do affect their sexuality. What's your take on the kinds of things that are hindering women, you know, in terms of being more aware of their own sexuality, their own sexual feelings. I have a sense that you've done a lot of self-examination. I imagine that in some of your parties and so forth over the last two years, you've also picked up on other things. Oh, you know what I find with women and even men is that they always want the quick fix, like solve me now. And I cited it to them, look, it's not going to be a solve me now. The situation is called education. And you have to develop that yourself. So if you, you know, have issues, a lot of their issues, they don't even know how to express it. And a lot of that, they don't want to express it, but if you continue to educate like self-help, you know, you've always got to improve yourself, right? As we grow older, not just with our sexuality, but, you know, our learning curve with work, our learning curve on cooking, raising our children, you can't just say, that's it, I've stopped learning. So if you want to understand your sexuality, you've got to get out there and say, look, where do I start by reading on the Internet or books or understanding myself and education? Education is the key. Now when you say education, are you meaning just simply what other people have to teach you? I have a sense that you also mean something around experimenting with your own desires. Exactly. Education is learning. So learning means like, you know, sucking in information, I call it. Information is always out there, but we've got to go in and pick it out. You know, you can say, most women complain, they complain, I don't get an orgasm from my husband during penetration, I don't get this, I don't have enough finances, I don't have this, where all our problems could be solved if we just educate ourselves on understanding how things work. For example, let's just talk quickly about finances just in the sense, because that's one of my biggest stresses with women. Believe it or not, a lot of women can't have orgasms because they're so worried about money. And I say to them, well, let's understand how you can get that solved, you know. Read some books about how to properly balance budgets or something. If that's the first step, if you could relax and balance a budget, then maybe that could be the next step on understanding, you know, why you're so tensed up. Because women's orgasms are all in their mind. So they can actually turn themselves off sexually and get themselves so stressed out. So a lot of women, the first thing, when it comes to finances, and believe it or not, I actually do a lot of bookkeeping and taxes for people that's very separate, which I started years and years ago. I don't do that now, but at least I give them some information, like, you know, there's books called The Wealthy Barber and things from people I've even read. To understand all that, you have to read, you know, you have to educate. Because by educating you will relax about your stress, anxieties, worries. So this seems like a very holistic approach. It is. I thought about interviewing you. I had no idea that we would talk about bookkeeping. I know. But it is. I mean, it is the kind of stress that goes on. And add to that the layer of expectations about being a good girl versus, you know, the horror and all of these kind of cultural... I know. And it is really sad that our culture has said, you know, good girls don't do this. And then, unfortunately, there's, you know, that's kind of why prostitution is still around. Prostitution will go away as a society if we make it go away. But obviously, there's still land for it, which, you know, I'm not saying that women should submit to, you know, their men on the issues that they have. But the problem is the fact that a lot of them don't... There's lack of communication in couples. And they don't even understand it. So they just look outside. So if we can bring the communication back, you know, and also take away all those ideals, like good girl, bad girl, you know... And I mean, sometimes I even have... I have negative opinions on the porn industry alone and people, and I deal with them directly. But I think a lot of it is, you know, putting women in, you know, in ugly situations. I mean, there's some very tasteful things out there, which are very educational, but there's some stuff out there that actually should be banned. So that's very, you know, demeans women and thank goodness our laws are coming a little bit harder on those people. I wondered if you could talk just a little bit before we go here about... You mentioned that the sex toys became important to you in part because of being in a place in your life where you were mourning, but you still were a sexual person and you didn't feel good about being in a relationship. Have sex toys... Did you have kind of odd feelings about them at first? Did they symbolize different things to you when you first started looking at them? And how has that kind of changed in your experience? And do you think more generally that women are a little more afraid of sex toys or are they more open to them than men are? Well, they're starting to get more into them. My experience with sex toys, well, first, you know, I kind of did, I'll be honest with you, I thought about it as a substitute for a man because I didn't think it was fair to be, you know, get into a relationship or to just have a relationship based on sex. You know, because you can hurt somebody's feelings that way. So when I first started using them, yeah, they were a little uncomfortable, but then a lot of times, because my little boy was, you know, he was pretty young, so a lot of times it was in the bathroom. And that was one of the biggest problems with toys was because a lot of women forget to then leave them in the bathroom and children find them. So one of the toys that we actually have looks like a toothbrush holder, because it's kind of embarrassing. So a lot of times, you know, it was the bathroom and etc. And then when I had such heavy bladder problems, I started doing a lot of just clitoral stimulation because during an orgasm, those muscles, the pelvic muscles work a lot faster. So, you know, I wanted to make, I didn't want to wear a pad every day anymore. You know, I was 20, I was like 27, and I had to wear a pad for the rest of my life. That's kind of, I thought I would have to be. And I was like, oh, how embarrassing. You know, because you always worry about the smell, etc. And so by doing a lot more clitoral, and I do a lot of Kegel exercises, I work my abs out a lot. And then just with clitoral stimulation, my mind is actually wrapped around masturbation as exercise. So by wrapping that around, I can now deal with dating and if I do meet someone, you know, I am single. I always look, but, you know, I have a lot of fun and, you know, I meet lots of new people, but I don't like getting involved in emotional level until I find the right person. So masturbation to me has changed solely into exercise. How about in terms of disease prevention? Is that aspect of it as well, the safe sex aspect? Well, because I'm in the industry and I do sometimes work, I don't do talent like, I'll be on set to do a scene like changing toys, cleaning them, etc. And I do get tested on a regular basis because I'm part of the industry and I'm not saying I would ever perform, but they have really strict standards in the industry for filming and to be on set, etc. And we also work with, you know, some people down in the United States that I just automatically get tested and I find a lot of other people don't know themselves that well when they're doing an examination in Canada. To get an AIDS test here, it takes up to two weeks. Women are fairly lucky because they go in for their annual PAP so they automatically get tested for HPV, which is really common right now, which causes cervical cancer. It's the virus that contains genital warts. Other diseases like chlamydia and gonorrhea, you can get a quick fix for that, but that doesn't... To me, there isn't enough education out there. I mean, once you go in there and you ask for it, but I think the thing is most people don't want to ask for it. I mean, they're still very embarrassed. I actually have a lot of clients that buy high-end quality condoms from me because they have herpes and plexus, too. And, you know, it's a very embarrassing situation if they're single and they have to meet someone, but, you know, if you talk to them and say it's communication, so important. I mean, I noticed that in Africa, too. You should see the amount of AIDS and other diseases there is appalling. So I think myself being single, a lot of that comes up into issues. I mean, I don't even go there without the whole condom issue, etc. I mean, not even just that. I mean, there's a new... I'm sure you've heard of the dental dams as well for oral sex. Those are so important as well. You just got to be safe. I just look at it like, you know, I have a son and I'm the only parent and I want to stay here for a really long time and be really healthy. So I'll do everything out of my power to stay that way. That sounds good. Anything else that you'd like to add? No, just as long as we mentioned where I'm going to be talking, what I'm going to be talking about is how to introduce products and couples because it's going to be in a bar situation. We're going to do some really good humor on it and make sure that we, you know, talk about communication and show them some fun sites and stuff. I'm also going to tell them a couple of exciting porn stars because I get to meet all of them and talk to them a lot down in the States. So it's going to be humor later in the evening but the first part, we're really going to talk about why you would want to even think about bringing sex toys into a relationship. Like it's really going to be a beginner couple, you know, fun, very, very, you know, non-threatening. That sounds good. And that's going to be at the upper deck on Gorge Road and what time? Well, I'm going to be there at seven. Eight. And then the real humor stuff will come around 11 o'clock when everybody's fairly relaxed. So plan a nice evening. Show up if you want to experience all of it. Show up between seven and eight. I'm going to have some draws there so you can win some, you know, really, really tame prizes, you know, we'll have some magic rings and some games and things. There will be products on sale so you can also buy or you know, if you don't feel comfortable at that time, you can always, you know, tell me and I can, you know, ship over from Vancouver. So, you know, it's just really going to be a lot of education about different products and, you know, different, you know, it would be fun, like, products for relationships. Well, that sounds good. Well, I very much appreciate you talking to us. Well, thank you so much. All right. And enjoy your time in Victoria. You're listening to First Person Plural on CFUV Victoria's Public Radio 101.9 FM 104.3 cable and on the internet cfub.uvig.ca Giving sociology an edge! I was reminded again of the story about Garfinkel that we told in the first episode of First Person Plural. Garfinkel is a UCLA professor who teaches sociology. He's a rather famous student of Talcott Parsons and he used to give his graduate students an assignment to go out and go to get on board an empty bus and ask, or a fairly empty bus, and ask somebody for their seat, which is against the norms. And all of his graduate students came back to this class and said, we didn't do the assignment. We chickened out. They would go, they would try, and they would start sweating and feel so nervous and so forth that they could not ask somebody for their seat. And Garfinkel said, oh come on, it's just asking somebody for their seat. It's not going to hurt anything. And he sent them back out again and they all came back again and said, I just couldn't do it. I got up to the point of doing it. I tried. I couldn't do it. So he decided to take them out to the bus stop. He put them all out of bus stop right before him. He went to the next bus stop. They got on the bus, sat in the back of the bus. He got on the bus and he was going to show them how he could do it. So he walked up to the person and he reports that he broke out in a cold sweat. His palms were sweating. He could barely get the words out and he realized how much this was a difficult assignment. The reason it was a difficult assignment is that we have belief systems, norms, if you will, to use the sociology word that tell us it is right to do one thing and wrong to do another. Based upon the usual behavior that is expected of you in culture but we internalize it so much it becomes a part of our consciousness, if you will, so much that we actually have physical reactions to breaking these norms. Certainly sexuality has a lot of normative behavior around it in North American cultures. I felt I was doing this interview in a way that I don't normally feel nervous on the radio or talking to someone. I listened to the tape later I don't think it showed that much but it was really interesting for me at the time to realize how much I was measuring my words how much I was having to talk myself out of holding back. It just was taboo to talk about sex toys and to talk about clitorises and vaginas and phallic symbols and vibrators and pornography and so forth. I guess, you know, being raised Southern Baptist there is a great big pool of normative expectations sitting somewhere in my brain that were just firing off like crazy while I was talking about this. So it was for me personally an interesting experience to do this interview. I mean before we even get into talking about the interview itself I could see where just the act of talking to someone else especially in a public forum like radio did a lot for me personally to kind of re-examine those taboos and I think that's what appeals to me most about Laska's approach with the parties and with the internet chat and with her telling her own story I don't think she examined this in any kind of depth that I as a sociologist would examine it but I think she kind of instinctually knew if her business was going to expand and thrive it was going to have to be done by breaking some taboos by getting people to start talking to each other about this thing that is on most of our minds most of the time. And I don't have to go along with that I've talked about the plumbing and heard other people talk about the plumbing 10,000 times I'm as well informed as I care to be about the subject given that I'm not going to medical school anytime soon. What I haven't heard about is the process by which sexuality is negotiated both in the specific and the general case I don't hear about how it is determined what healthy sexuality is I've heard perversion marked 10,000 different times not consistently but I've heard it marked that and says that's perverted that's just wrong that's just pornography that's just unnatural okay well sometimes they'll justify it at least on that level they say we mean unnatural we mean appealing only to perient interest but basically what the anti pornography crowd doesn't get well let's extend it what the bourgeois crowd doesn't get is that making something as broad as sexuality into something that one just naturally knows about is pathetic it's to disavow the possibility it's to disavow the possibility that discourse could have anything to do with how it's constructed or negotiated the last word being the key one I like the word negotiated that's interesting because I don't think you're just talking about between partners I think you're talking also about the negotiation that goes on sort of internally trying to understand our own sexuality well externally as well what are sexual ethics what should they be the general discussions inform the specific ones invariably if we're going to be inculterated we might as well be conscious of the inculteration and in fact shape it knowingly instead of running away like frightened rabbits whenever we hear the word vagina this is something that ties in censorship and freedom of speech which is an issue to make who are you supposed to go to as an example in this society for a half way informed discussion of sexuality physicians stick to the plumbing psychologists and other quasi-religious figure heads are worthless parents are beneath consent now tell me why they're worthless don't just say worthless let's talk about that a little bit I mean I don't think that they're worthless to everyone because they're apples of the social control army and that's their first or inviting you to take place in a discussion or even discussing how such a discussion could take place they're into telling you what the norms are and making it clear to you that you had damn well better stick to them yeah my favorite word among psychologists that drives me crazy and this might be psychiatrists as well is promiscuous that's a word that's used in diagnosis in the diagnostic manual I'm always left wondering exactly who is promiscuous and interestingly enough it's usually women and gay men promiscuity among men having multiple partners is considered a good thing a natural thing but anybody else and my guess is that the reason they get away with using the word without being laughed out of the profession is that it's another one of those things that quote everybody just knows close quote yes and it is and I think there is a certain amount of social control now I want to make a disclaimer here because I know of people who have benefited from sex therapy before but we're talking about I'm not saying that we're talking about the use of sexuality in the social control mechanisms of psychiatry and psychology and it seeps in to the relationship between therapist and client start to say patient I hate that unmarking of the word patient and calling people client because there is a pathologizing of sexuality a pathologizing of emotions that goes on and to use the word client I think is a misnomer because you're treated like a patient very often my guess on the origin of that is that psychologists don't use the word patient because physicians wouldn't let them psychiatrists can use it because there are physicians psychologists can't because the physicians simply don't want them to now psychiatrists are using the word client as well too so are nurses and a bunch of other medical people that's the new but it's optional the issue is the option yeah psychologists don't even have the option my understanding is correct that's again based on my knowledge of the united states but not of canada and I don't think it's exactly true either I think there are places in the united states where psychologists use the word patient but the idea that psychological solutions so-called must be employed here well the idea that answers my question in one sense but begs the question the idea that the only people who would have any questions about sexuality are people who have some sort of illness is kind of implied I mean the only places that you can go to talk to somebody about sex are either purveyors of pornography or physician psychologist psychiatrist I think it's a really kind of I mean the word therapy gets in there quite a bit and I'm not sure that therapeutic is exactly what a lot of people are looking for what they're looking for is information what they're looking for is a place to become comfortable with their own bodies and what they're looking for if they're really sharp is the possibility of negotiating this issue in some kind of democratic manner in some kind of consensus manner not being told what the norms are and told adhere to these but hearing okay what's my part of this do I get a say in this sort of thing either in the general or the specific case so there's a lot of self-knowledge that needs to be expressed and there's also a feeling that it's okay to talk about it it's okay to express it I have this archetype in my mind the thousand-year-old woman who's living in the village this from pre-20th centuries who knows everything about sex and forks out of the information to all the teenagers in the 20-somethings pretty much on demand and she might be compensated for it in other ways and have other jobs besides just that in a small village for some reason I think it's I want to say it's a Russian archetype but I could just be getting things confused I have no idea from but I put it forth here not because I knew that it quote existed close to it at some point but because it's one way that other cultures might have handled it of course I may just have been watching Ruth Westheimer too much or who's the Canadian? I don't know I just call her the Sunday Night Sex Canadian I know she's on the Sunday Night Sex show and every time I see her I just call her oh my god it's Canada's Dr. Ruth and of course Dr. Ruth McKenzie but I don't know what her name is that's really sad because I've actually watched her show a couple of times just to see what was up and I don't know her name or who she is I think the majority of people in the states who watch Dr. Ruth do so because they get into a superannuated Jewish woman talking dirty but it's an approach to the problem other than A, the bourgeois approach which is you're supposed to know that and B, the pathologize everything approach used by psychologists and psychiatrists let's not let them off the hook I'm not sure how they handle it anymore they give you a lot of drugs okay I don't have a problem with that I do I think it's a form of pathologizing things and also they give you a lot of drugs that like curb your appetites it doesn't speak to the consensual issue but it's something anyway although I must admit that I thought Viagra was probably how do I put this it kills me that Viagra succeeded can you think of something in which there's less social need than a drug that makes men hornier no I guess the issue here is utility versus well I think the issue here is whether or not men feel like men I think that that I think that was very much tied up in male identity that the natural progress of men sex drives to curb off after the age of 50 or so was regarded to them as I mean I think it's an aging issue I guess it's what I'm saying that men were aggravated by the fact that they couldn't stay virile up until their 80s and so they invented a pill that would make them feel like they were 18 again that didn't used to be the case it's only recently that people over 60 have been considered normative if they still have sex and I think that in the old days meaning the 1950s and before the opposite problem was the case a lot of people who had physical problems that you might or might not say were sexually related but which manifested themselves symptomatically in sexual ways possibly among others were just told forget it you're getting old that approach was inadequate as well aging is not regarded anymore as the natural thing that happens to you aging is regarded as something you cure I mean I wrote a paper that I presented at the what 2000 ASA called age cures in which I took a look at a particular ad that talked about the symptoms of aging and the things that you could do to cure what essentially most of us have thought of in the past as what happens to you when you get old I mean you're curing gray hair and curing wrinkles and so forth growing old should be something that you enjoy and then we've turned around and pathologized that and now we're selling them cures for something that if they lived in a society where they were respected for their wisdom and encouraged and cared for they would have no pathologies to cure and that has a very real parallel to sexuality if I loved what she was talking about about Africa her experience in Africa where when she was pregnant she was treated like a queen and when you're menstruating it's a special time and menopause is a special time and so forth those kind of supports of sexuality don't exist in our culture and because of that because it's back room instead of front stage stuff it is easily pathologized easily medicalized and then what is essentially a normal reaction to pushing something really important to you aside is treated as abnormal and it makes a few people a lot of money I'd like to disagree with you on one point I think pregnant women are treated indeed like queens in the United States anyway it's made clear to them that as long as they are expecting that they're going to receive all sorts of considerations the thing about queens as with other monarchs is that they are often beheaded and that once the expectant mother gives birth her stock drops considerably in the eyes of those who provide social resources you hear from the pro-choice crowd that their opponents often seem to believe that the right to life begins at conception and ends at birth mothers are treated like queens in the United States only if they do what is expected of a mother single pregnant women trying to work don't get treated like queens they get asked a lot of personal questions they often face getting fired I've had several friends who were pregnant outside of marriage who lost their jobs during their pregnancy unlike any other prejudice it's a hard one to track one never quite knows the individual case but after 10,000, 100,000 a generic large number of cases happen one begins to look for statistical aberrations if only subjectively and begins to think say is there something else going on here I don't know any studies off the top of my head to cite but I'm sure that studies exist that have looked at the kinds of prejudices that women have experienced in work life during pregnancies but the social service angle is also a really good one to mention I've also had friends who were on welfare while they were pregnant one friend in particular talks about how welfare regarded her as the recipient of a baby she was the body the baby lived in medical decisions and medical support was given that favored the life of the baby over her life I want to raise one more issue before we wind this up I've often referred to myself as a closet heterosexual which is my favorite terminology of yours for personal reasons of course I do so because it became clear to me that living in what was an essentially a competitive society growing up as opposed to cooperative there are degrees of course but this was a very competitive society that my sexuality became one more thing that I could discuss or explore emotionally or mentally without making myself a target yes it could be used against you easily I think a lot of men experienced that too I think this is one part of sexuality that feminists have not paid attention to and that is the kinds of pressures that are put on men who want to understand their heterosexuality men are told who they should be attracted to men are told what they should and should not say men are held responsible for things that they couldn't possibly handle now historically men have also kind of ruined it for the other men in the ways that they've handled these issues now that's too gentle men are taking pains to ruin it for other men elaborate women sometimes cooperate and sometimes compete in this area I'm speaking of heterosexual women I don't know how homosexual women work it and I'm not arrogant enough to speculate let them speak to that but I've noticed that heterosexual women sometimes cooperate and sometimes compete when it comes to dealing with males they will compete for the same male or they will cooperate on certain we'll call them policy issues men never cooperate not for long anyway in fact they don't even communicate so maybe that's a better way of phrasing it women communicate with each other about this and men don't and certain cooperation competition issues and certain quote policy issues naturally arise or do not arise as a result of it the reason I bring up the closet heterosexual thing is to point to this to say whose permission do I need to talk about this and why