Sex advice with Danny Civilized

So the last few days I've received some sex questions via text message and while I'm in no way trying to encourage people to send me questions (seriously, I have enough trouble keeping track of my currently non-existent sex life, I'm perfectly happy not being involved in yours), it's not in my nature to not attempt to answer. And if I've already answered the question, why not share the wealth?

I am not a medical professional or certified sex educator, my answers are based on extensive reading, working as a peer sex educator, and when I genuinely don't know, deferring to professionals who do know.

Random question, but if I were to use an anal douche would I fill it with water?

Mixed feelings here. Generally I wouldn't recommend douching or enemas to begin with, but if you are going to I would probably recommend water unless you know what's in the enema fluid you buy. Some kits contain laxatives that induce shitting (because for real am I going to say defecation?) while others are for more gentle cleaning. As with anything, know what you're putting in your body before you put it in. The rectal lining is fairly permeable to chemicals and things since a huge part of the lower colon's function is reabsorbing water (this why being on the receiving end of unprotected anal sex is one of the riskiest behaviors for exposing yourself to STIs). 

The rectum also is not meant to have hard stuff up in there which is why during anal play you go slow and use lots of lube. For similar reasons enemas and anal douching aren't usually recommended for normal activity because they have the potential to cause micro-tears to the rectal lining. Most brands of enema kit or anal douches say to use their product at least 30 minutes prior to any activity in part to help with this, it's a similar concept to not brushing your teeth at least an hour prior to performing oral sex.

But at the same time, I recognize that for some people poo is ew and they don't want that as even a remote possibility. You can help things flow so to speak, by eating a well-balanced diet with lots of fiber and water. Usually a shit followed by thorough shower about an hour before anal play is enough. But if you use an anal douche or enema kit, make sure you follow the directions and definitely don't make it a daily habit.

On to the next question!

Sometimes after I masturbate my penis stings for a little while, like in the urethra. Eventually it goes away and I have tested negative for any diseases. It only happens sometimes. Does this ever happen to you? Do you know what I'm talking about? Should I see a doctor?

This is one of those questions where I repeat several times that if you aren't sure and are still concerned, go see a medical professional.

If you regularly test negative for a variety of STIs or UTI (urinary tract infections) or trauma, and the stinging feeling isn't an intense burning, you probably don't have anything to worry about. To help the sperm survive in the vagina, semen is slightly basic which can occasionally be an irritant to the soft mucous lining of the urethra. This usually manifests as a need to pee after ejaculation and most people with penises experience this to some degree after ejaculation. A variety of factors from diet to hydration to how many times you've jacked off in the past few days can have effects on this, similar to the things that can cause changes to consistency. If you have no weird discharges and have tested clean, it's probably nothing. 

In very rare instances men can be allergic to their own cum, but that usually shows up like a flu after they shoot. Definitely doesn't sound like the case here, but in the interest of comprehensive information I'm including it.

There, the most complete answers I can give to these questions. Don't make me regret posting this, and for the people who have asked me questions, sorry I used your anonymous questions without permission. If you found any of this post to be heteronormative or trans*exclusive, please let me know and I will try to correct it.

Shit, when did this become almost 1300 words?

So this blog post is partially inspired by this lovely list of questions posted by my friend Eli after attending a facilitators gathering, partially inspired by some of my own experiences, and partially inspired by some critical self-reflection.

And I want to preface this post by saying that as an able-bodied, mixed/white, queer man there are certain privileges that I have that allow me to think about and discuss issues of privilege and oppression work in such a way that I am not triggered because it does not personally affect my life. I am able to mentally or physically walk away from a given situation/conversation if I don't like it and the repercussions I will face will be having to deal with one upset person at a later time. This is a privilege I have because of my identities.

Which brings me to today's topic. I've been thinking about the nature of friendship and connection between myself and my communities. I'm what you call... well-networked. I'm highly extroverted and motivated to maintain relationships with people. I have a policy that if I think of someone more than twice in a day no matter how long it's been, I will reach out and contact them in some way.

My Strengths Quest profile shows that my top trait is Woo, which means that I excel at winning people over and making strangers like me, that in essence I'm the opposite of shy (quite the turnaround from the kindergartner who hid behind his mother and cried when she had to leave). It's a strength of my personality that I long ago learned to use to my advantage.

Which means I have a lot of friends, and even more acquaintances. Which can be draining for some people. People see that I have 1100+ Facebook friends and balk, and admittedly, I probably couldn't tell you who some of the quieter ones are. Does that mean I don't care? I don't think so. To me, it means that at some point I cared about you enough professionally, academically, personally, by extension of my relationship with someone we know in common, that I got to know you. So even if you stop me on the street and I have no idea who you are, you're still important enough to me that I will make the time to reconnect with you. You're worth that time. You will always be worth that time.

Now, as is often the case with someone as widely connected as I am, there are many people I know who I don't necessarily agree with politically, socially, either in base belief or way of approaching the world.

I believe strongly in an anti-oppression framework that seeks to dismantle the social structures (ideologies) that cause and support racial, gender and other inequalities. I'm not always super forward about this, but I make no attempts to hide it. Some of the people I know (and thankfully this group is fairly small) disagree outright. I consider these people ignorant to reality. Some of the people I know are the kinds of people who introduced me to this and continue to educate me through their words, actions, and experiences. I consider these people an inspiration. Some of the people I know don't know about any of this and are happy to live their lives within the status quo. I consider these people lucky to live in such ignorant bliss and it's beautifully painful for me every time I have to disturb that happy little bubble. Some of the people I know at base agree with the long term goals of anti-oppression work, but disagree with the language and the route such activism has taken. I often call these people problematic because while we agree on outcomes, the kinds of statements these people make can be extremely hurtful to the safe space of individuals and communities of marginalized identities. The way they express their views often comes across as polarizing to those doing the kind of anti-oppression work I'm involved in.

This often gets them labelled as racist or misogynistic or otherwise ostracizes them from the work towards equality that they do believe in. I've seen them on the internet labelled as such things like "liberal dude bros" and "fedoras" and "_______-apologists" because they usually fit under the demographic of college-educated, liberal, straight, cishet men.

I often find myself in positions where I can understand the logic that they're coming from. I don't agree with their points outright because while they may be true in the philosophical sense, they are often at odds with the lived experience being brought up. Which given the way that the discourse around marginalized identities values experience creates a fundamental ideological difference of opinion that no amount of explaining or argumentation can bridge beyond a surface intellectual level where you end the conversation by saying "I see where you're coming from, but I still disagree."

Because the difference is one of experience and you cannot teach experience, you can only ever teach ways of respecting the differences that those varied experiences create. And since my default is to side with marginalized identities, sometimes the way to respect those differences is to know when to shut up and leave. Is that always helpful? No. Will it prevent you from further alienating those whom, at base, you agree with? Yes.

And yes, I'm biased and I apologize if the description above fits the kind of interaction we've had together. This is post is not meant as an attack, merely an exploration of the ways I interact with people.

The point that I've been working toward this entire post is that sometimes I find myself asking (or being asked) how I can be friends with such people? If I find their way of interacting with issues and communities that I care about deeply intensely problematic, how do I call such people my friend?

I think part of it is that I always try to approach situations and people non-judgmentally. Quite frankly, it takes a lot to elicit a strong emotional reaction out of me. Usually you have to build up a history of fairly toxic interactions for me to dislike you. I have a very high tolerance for a lot of bullshit. Which is not the same as not recognizing it as bullshit.

But I also find myself separating people from their actions. I can dislike, even hate what you do. If you're flaky or rude or intentionally mean, then I dislike your behavior. Sometimes even enough where I feel it warrants removing myself from any and all situations where I will encounter such behavior from you. If that means removing myself from your life, so be it.

What I'm realizing in myself though is that if I actually stop and think about it, I can never actually dislike a person as a person who has selfhood and I think that's something important to recognize. It's not necessarily something to advocate for everyone; sometimes bad experiences or behaviors from someone are inseparable from them as a person and where I have a high enough tolerance that I have yet to be unable to distinguish a difference between the two, not everyone has that ability or can afford to have that ability and simultaneously ensure their own safety.

We may disagree on everything. I may hate your views for being poisonous to the communities of which I am a part. But I will never let that mean I hate you as a person.

I don't really know if I was going anywhere beyond this, but for now, the ideas are out there.

Why does my racial identity matter?

Or: What Being Multiracial Means to Me

TW: mild homophobia, trans*phobia and racism, mild language

Race isn't something I usually talk about on this blog. It's partly because I had a white suburban middle-class upbringing and identify primarily with (most) of our dominant white culture. In part because of this upbringing, I don't feel a strong tie to any one racial culture enough that I would identify as a person of color (or as having much of "a race" to begin with, which if I'm being honest, is a white privilege). That's a huge part of my experience.

At the same time, I'm often perceived as a person of color. I get the "What kind of asian are you?" questions (since it's well known that I'm a quarter Japanese) and the "I'm so jealous of your perma-tan" (because even at my palest in late-February, I'm still darker than most of my peers) and the "Look at you, little Filipino ladyboy" (because just because I'm kinda brown and gay and dabble in drag apparently means I fit into a whole subset of trans* identities). And, yes, technically by blood I'm mixed race. As my mother revealed to me the weekend after I graduated high school, the white man I grew up knowing as my father wasn't my biological father. My middle-namesake, some man in a grainy  2x2 photograph whom I'd never met or even knew existed until that moment was my father, and he most definitely wasn't white.

Does this mean I have an answer for what kind of not-white I am? No, it means that anything you arbitrarily decide to label me is a viable guess, but since those aspects of my race aren't something I have experienced, that I have lived my life completely divorced from, I literally cannot answer you because I don't know. And I know, that's troubling for some people. The only reason I'm not having some kind of racial identity crisis as I write this post is because I've created other spaces for myself and grounded my sense of identity in other intersections. I can afford to not worry about my race because I've already established my identity as a gay, atheist, queer, English major, artist/poet, runner, leader with a flair for making odd choices in outfit work (to give a few examples).

This is also a huge part of my experience.

When I see friends and activists stand on stage and talk about not belonging, of not being enough one or another, of forever existing between, they're telling part of my story. I see the need for the anti-racist projects in the United States and they're something I care about and am constantly thinking about how I can be a better ally and stand in solidarity with, but I also don't feel comfortable taking up active space in communities of color because the way I experience oppression is primarily as a gay male and not as a person of color. To use some of the language I've been gifted through academia (another privilege of my background, and an opportunity I'm grateful for), my racial being is situated in a liminal space that reifies me as both a POC and as not. Or if you prefer, I'm a bit of a walking , fucking contradiction.

I bring this up because I recently read a Jezebel article about this Cheerios commercial:



In my opinion, it's pretty innocuous and exactly what I'd expect from a Cheerios commercial. There's the innocent child who doesn't know anything about heard disease, but is highly concerned with it because our media does a poor job educating us about the realities of cardiac disease, and there's the parents who are there to explain things only to realize they themselves are the objects of their child's concern. Which, when you put it like that is kind of a bittersweet, fucked up narrative and points out a troubling reality of our culture. But of course, that's not what people are up in arms over. Apparently it's the whole bit about this being a biracial family.

Which is ridiculous because how does the representation of a family in a cereal commercial affect any of us other than potentially showing that there are a variety of valid family experiences? If you're afraid of or offended by that, get out from under your rock.

And I guess the question that it comes down to is: Why does this matter?

Why does my racial identity matter? Why does the racial identity of a fictional television family on a cereal commercial matter?

It matters because our race is part of our story. For many of us, it's integral and (in most cases) inseparable from our experience as a human being because as an American society, it's part of the underlying social narrative we create about people's lives. Even if I don't identify as brown in the majority of circumstances, the fact that other people read me as such means that it still has a concrete effect on my life.

Videos like this one that made the social networking rounds:



Shouldn't ring so painfully (and humorously) true.

I accept my place with the unique set of privileges and oppressions that come with being multiracial while socialized white, and do my best to use my autonomy as a human being to not let these preconceived conditions dictate who or what I will be.

For me, my racial identity will always be complicated. I have no history except those that I have adopted as my own and have adopted me in turn. That's part of what makes me so wonderfully (and problematically) American in the most Melting Pot of ways, and I will do my best to make sure that my experience doesn't impede on or co-opt (see appropriate) the identities and experiences of others.

And it matters because I've asked told you it matters. This, too, is part of my experience, and I am not alone. And if you respect me, or anyone like me who has had similar experiences (and trust me, we've all had similar experiences), as a human being, you will listen to what I say matters.

Dear Anger

Dear Anger,

I am learning from you. We've had a tenuous relationship in the past, I know, but I'm finally starting to realize how much I need you in my life.

When I was younger, I thought you were all blind rage, that you would burn through me with the intensity of a sun. And all too often you did, because I let you. Fueled by adrenaline and the flood of hormones racing through a body that wasn't quite ready, you would scream through my mouth, releasing fire that would rival the breath of a dragon. I'm so sorry for that. It wasn't healthy for either of us.

And other times you've been cold and vengeful, an icy core stabbing into the pit of my stomach. Aided by a sick kind of malice, you plotted, petty and cruel, sowing rocks into a garden because we didn't feel like we could grow in our own. That wasn't healthy for us either.

But now that I'm starting to understand you. I need your righteous embrace. You've grown and changed with me over the years and you're no longer the hair trigger part of myself that I once feared. I've found Empathy who uses your fire to forge the sword of action.

Every time I dance, you express yourself through movement, enacting a kind of violence that creates something beautiful for anyone who watches. Your fire pushes me to fight, not recklessly but for the justice our world so desperately needs.

Every time I stand up for what I believe is right, you urge me to push past my discomfort. You see the need for change that I don't see on my own.

People often use that Star Wars quote:


 "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

And while that may be true in most cases, I am no longer afraid. I am no longer afraid of you and I am no longer afraid of myself, because you, Anger, stem from a place of Love. An all encompassing Love that has room even for the darkest souls because it knows they too deserve a chance at redemption.

Anger that there is wrong in the world. Love that seeks to remedy it.

So in a way, I want to say thank you. Thank you for staying with me and teaching me the lessons I've needed to learn. I will not hold onto you, but if we cross paths, I will embrace you and listen to the message you're trying to tell me.

Much love,

Danny

Responding to The Good Men Project and the Friend-Zone

I was recently reading a post by the Good Men Project that basically said the Friend Zone exists for both men and women and sucks to be on the receiving end.

Only somewhat respectfully, I disagree. The Friend Zone should not exist (though, as I'm about to explain, not for the reasons usually cited). Looks like, I'm on blogger now, and I'm still going to talk about this with fairly heteronormative language. I apologize, but it's also a far more prevalent problem in the straight community than the LGB and I'm mostly addressing men.

“The Friend Zone” creates an ontological state (way of being) that completely ignores the wants and needs of other person. “I am/have been Friend-zoned” vs. (as one of the top comments puts it) “He’s just not into you” or “He’s only using you for ______ (usually sex)” for the woman’s counterpart. I want to point out the imbalance in agency implied by this linguistic difference. In both instances, it’s about the man and his feelings, and I think this is a dangerous double standard for the socialization of youth (especially young men). The reason many feminists and those against the concept of a “Friend Zone” react so strongly is that it ignores and marginalizes (most often) what the woman involved wants. It’s not even an option to be talked about, and that’s a problem.

I also don’t like this article because it doesn't propose any kind of solution beyond an overly simplistic “give the friends a chance.” Why not teach young men how and why they should overcome their fear of rejection in talking to women? Why not teach young women to recognize when their friends are interested in them and make themselves abundantly clear that they aren't interested and have no interest in being pursued? Why not set an example by moving ourselves and our discourse to more productive line of thought? Like I’ve said in other posts, let’s use our influence as supposed adults to teach the next generation good communication rather than quibbling amongst ourselves over something that is clearly becoming damaging for both sides.

In other posts, I've talked about how the concept of the Friend Zone comes about because of a sense of entitlement caused by our societal impulse to tell men that if you work hard you can achieve anything. Apply that logic to objects of desire (women) who have autonomous desires that may not include you as the desirer, and we run into problems. If you apply yourself and pursue a friend with no success, it leaves you feeling weak and hurt and powerless and frustrated. Rather than letting this fester, we need to teach our youth to deal with that reality in healthy ways rather than continuing to project their desires on someone who is (at least currently) not interested. Respect that, especially when you interact with them. Or, and especially if they're using you, you need to get out of that situation.

I also don't like Friend Zone because it implicitly makes being a friend a bad thing. I understand that it doesn't feel like a good thing if it's not what you want, but to make it a bad thing devalues the meaning of friendship in general. This is unhealthy. 

Stop it with the Friend Zone shit already. And if you're so stuck on keeping the concept, at least redefine your language to be less damaging.