Options to Romance by Eric Francis, part two, L-Z Photo of Tia by Maria Henzler, Luscious Photo. Options to Romance and "alternalove" are copyright ©1999 by Eric Francis and Planet Waves Digital Media, all rights reserved. Have we missed your delight, perversion or fetish? Drop us a line. BACK to Part One Links. Here is a list of sex-positive links officially endorsed by Eric Francis. Most of these pages have pages with links to other pages. These are not porno sites, and there are a wide variety of noncommercial, compassionate web pages on the theme of sexuality, most of which are pretty erotic, if you ask me.
Susie Bright Homepage
All About Sex
Radical Honesty
Betty Dodson Online
Sexuality.org
The Solo Homepage
Loving More Magazine
Love Without LimitsMarriage. I don't know what this is, and I am not convinced it even exists. Reputed to be a sacred, lifelong, legal bond between a man and a woman, it is still illegal for homosexuals to marry, so in my mind it is so discriminatory as to be a legal nullity. It rarely lasts a lifetime, though the divorce statistics are driven ever-upward by people who do it five times. According to Love Radical C.T. Butler (author of Food Not Bombs), when he researched the State of Vermont's marriage law, he came up with some archaic statute, still on the books, that said essentially, "At marriage, the man and the woman will become as one, and the one will be the man." This is also known as "civil death," in which a woman traditionally loses her independent citizenship and becomes Mrs. John Smith. If I were an attorney, I would like to test out a case of a woman suing for divorce under the 13th Amendment to the federal constitution.
Masturbation. What a great one to land between Marriage and Monogamy. Masturbation is pleasuring, and making love to, oneself. Maybe it's not a coincidence that masturbation was deemed a psychiatric disorder and a means of causing physical degeneration by the married, white, male, aristocratic High Priests of medical science, and by the white, male church fathers, and that strict prohibitions against this activity were leveled particularly upon women. The word was defined till recently in the stalwart Oxford English Dictionary as "self-abuse," with no reference made to the deeply pleasurable, life-affirming, emotional exploration and psychic release that it can be. Please see monogamy, below.
Monogamy. Previously believed to be a one-on-one relationship, this is, according to me, the state of being sexual only with oneself. It is living as one's own lover. This is, in my opinion, the most basic primal sexuality, and it is homosexual. Therefore, the primal level sexuality of human beings is homosexual. I am aware that there is a rumor circulating which suggests it's possible to be monogamous with another person. This is simply not so. "Mono" means one. For many purposes, one is enough. The fully authentic masturbator is conscious that the experience of selflove is a genuine sexual union. This can include fully expressed orgasm before a mirror as a kind of ritual practice. Such experimentation can lead to some very cosmic experiences, and a passport to exploring exciting new dimensions of selfness.
Nipple clamp. Plastic or metal clip used on the nipple during sex or s/m play. It is intense stimulation at the point of the spectrum where pleasure meets pain, and the experience of being clamped can lead to a submissive emotional posture.
Orgasm. This is an experience of surrender. Everyone knows that it's called the "little death" in French, but it's really an affirmation of life. It is a form of release of ego consciousness or mind control, into a space of bliss, or the self experienced as bliss. Most people describe orgasm as ecstatic, which really means "moving," so it's another way of saying the spirit moves. The surrender is to oneself, but this can be emotionally colored or thematically enhanced by the presence of another person, or other people, who themselves can experience the surrender or ecstatic state by empathy [see: compersion].
.......There are lots of kinds of orgasms, though several distinct species I have noticed include: solo orgasms, partnersex orgasms, and witnessed orgasms in which the other person is just watching. The feeling of orgasm can be very different depending on whether a male or female is present, or one or more people. It is fun and healthy to experiment.
.......If you suspect you have never had an orgasm, you are not alone. I suggest you get yourself a copy of Sex for One by Betty Dodson, and check out her fine video, "Celebrating Orgasm," which features a variety of women of all ages having their first orgasms in one-on-one sessions with our sexual grandmother.Partners. This is a word they use frequently Out Left, where there's lots of space and the air is groovy. It replaces "boyfriend," "girlfriend," "wife," "husband," "him," "her," and "that." It actually sounds pretty cool when people from places like Boulder or San Francisco say it with an authentic egalitarian ring.
Pod. This would be like, four couples get together and have a committed relationship. It has definite science fiction possibilities.
Polyfidelity. As opposed to"infidelity," this is the idea of being in harmony with multiple partners, originally thought of as a sexually fidelitous group of partners all of whom are on equal terms (or, all of whom are primary partners). Along with the word compersion, this idea was developed in the Kerista intentional community in the 1970s, where the members lived polyfidelitously and shared money.
Polyamory. This is the word for the modern out-of-the-closet lifestyle in which practitioners admit to having sexual and affectionate relationships with more than one person simultaneously. It was coined by a man named Oberon. These relationships take many different forms, but the important distinction is between situations where the information is out and clear, and those involving what is called "cheating," which really means secrecy, violating commitments, lying to oneself and to others. Polyamory is an umbrella term that covers a variety of forms of human connection. For example, there are forms of relationship in which three people relate, or in which two couples relate. More common are "intimate networks" involving a community, or virtual community, of people within which there are any number of non-secret cross-relationships. This seems to be a rather natural way for people to relate. In all forms of polyamory, the implication is that the relationships are conducted in the open rather than in secret.
Pot. Marijuana. Works alternately as a sexual stimulant and sexual depressant. Depends on what kind you get, how you use it, and your psychic and spiritual constitution. Remember, the best pot is always free. The homeopathic works describe cannabis indica (a common strain of marijuana now cross-bred with most decent herb) is a remedy associated with an adolescent identity crisis -- the basic search for the self. Its properties, as reported by the homeopaths, include psychic mobility, euphoria (sense of total well being), creative stimulation, paranoia and fear of drowning. There is a massive shall we say grassroots political movement to legalize the stuff.
Primary Partner. In current polyamorous coinage, the first order or highest rank among one's multiple relationships; one's main squeeze, if you will. There could also be "secondary" and "tertiary" relationships as well. There are vocal elements in the poly community who oppose any such distinctions as reflective of inequality, and conduct their multiple relationships on equal terms rather than in a pecking order (please see: polyfidelity).
Raw-dogging. Fucking without a condom. Apparently a literary reference to frankfurters.
Reich, Wilhelm. Austrian-born social theorist, medical doctor and psychoanalyst, one-time brightest student of Dr. Sigmund Freud, the appropriately-titled Father of Psychoanalysis. Known for his iconoclastic -- that is, systems-busting -- ideas, Reich proposed a psychoanalytic theory in which all neuroses and psychoses were powered by an engine of sexual distortion, repression or frustration. In other words, he felt that repeated sexual release was the key to mental and physical healing, particularly deeply disturbed people. Reich was one of the few founders of psychoanalysis to take sex as a real rather than a symbolic experience, and to propose the use of sexual stimulation in the healing process. A highly controversial figure who was sure his ideas would save the world, he died in federal prison (after a brutal legal battle with the US Food and Drug Administration over his proposed, and apparently successful, cures for cancer) nearly half a century ago; his notebooks were burned in the New York City trash incinerator. His books survive, and are still in print, in English translations.
Religion. This is a cosmology, conspiracy or philosophy of nature which generally dictates that humanity is against nature, because the vast majority of religions preach, teach and symbolically imprint that what is natural is evil. I am specifically talking about sex and human love, though I could come up with a dozen other examples without even having to do research, including the (apparently ongoing) debate over whether the world is round or flat. Most religions, particularly Christianity but many in their own covert way, preach that love for "God" is more important than love for other people; that the body is an instrument of Satan or dark forces; that it was created by the denial of God; that its desires will lead away from fulfillment; and that in response to all of this, we need to feel guilty and repentant. Most religions grant an excmption to sexual dogma within marriage, which psychologically forces people to wed, thus playing into a different agenda entirely. Most people have not examined religion itself as the cause of all this misery. If God is real, then we don't need a church to worship in, we don't need complicated and contradictory morals, we just need to be loving and mindful.
Reproduction. The perceived role of reproduction in sex varies enormously on the ideological and spiritual levels, and the moral battle over whether there can rightfully be fucking for pleasure (rather than for procreation) continues till this hour. Since "sex" cannot be strictly defined as male-female vaginal intercourse, then the large majority of forms of sexual contact are not reproductive in nature. These are usually the hotly controversial forms of sex: masturbation, oral sex, anal sex, same-sex sex, and out-of-wedlock sex. Church law, and very frequently, state law, are written in such a way that prohibit or discourage these activities; good luck.
Responsible nonmonogamy. This is another word for polyamory. I am not happy with either term, but at least this is more clear, and it implies the ever-important concept of responsibility for people with hangups around their parents or the government; I number among them. Look, ma, I'm being responsible. The basic concept is having relationships with more than one person in a responsible manner. Responsibility to me implies not having secret feelings, secret encounters or secret other relationships, and there are the ever-present health matters that enter the picture at the same moment sexuality does. We take our lives into each other's hands, so we might as well live that way.
Rimming ('rim job', officially 'analingus'). Any form of anal-oral contact; usually, licking, nibbling and/or kissing one's partner's asshole, or the rim of the asshole. It is part of sex play for some heterosexual, gay and lesbian partners. This can range from the kiss to the long tongue stroke across the territory to the full-on delve into this secret garden. As far as I can tell, rimming is one of those forms of sex that is more taboo to talk about than it is to do. You could call it an unspeakable pleasure. Robert Anton Wilson reported in 1972 that the practice was so rare that Alfred Kinsey didn't feel a need to include it in his famous 1947 report on make sexuality. It does, however, show up in the novel Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs, which was the subject of an extensive obscenity lawsuit.
......In any case, most who have experienced this on the receiving end have thrown off their reluctance, skittishness or shame (if they had any to begin with) and gotten into what is an unquestionalbly profound experience of receiving core-level sexual sensuality. It is relaxing in a way that is impossible to describe. Many discover it is a gratifying experience to go down on their partner's ass, both because it gives so much pleasure and because it is a deeply personal, sensual and erotic way to explore sexual response, and, well, get into a person.
.......As for anal hygiene. I find it interesting that rimming occurs in a culture so steadfastly devoted to avoiding acknowledgement of the anal region, and in a part of the world so obsessively fastidious about germs and feces. But our culture is also deeply anal retentive: we are a bunch of control freaks, and there is something very healthy in the way of the receiver's releasing her/his self-control around this activity, as well as letting go of body shame.
.......As far as the ass being an elimination organ as well as a sex organ, the same is true of cocks and cunts and that doesn't bother most people. Unprotected rimming is, anyway, is technically considered a form of risky sex. As for healthier rimming, with or without a dental dam, it's a good idea to keep the anus clean. (While Americans are allegedly sterility freaks, we have lousy anal hygiene, practicing the 'dry wipe' where other cultures have bidets or even shower after bowel movements. Even if the anus is not your sex organ of choice, chances are it's right next to one that is.) Whatever you do the rest of the time, giving the asshole a good cleaning with soap and water, or witch hazel (the bidet in bottle) is a nice idea before oral-anal contact, and some prefer enemas, though many people would rather go for it au natural; hopefully they have a well-organized immune system and a hygiene-conscious partner.Romance. Attempting to replicate the love that occurs in a fairy tale, movie or trashy novel in the physical world. It is related to attempting wild stunts of television and the movies, ranging from juggling chain saws to jumping across a canyon in a motorcycle, in your back yard. Romance is the form of love sanctioned by the Roman Catholic church, and is thus suspect on its face; it is subject to investigation.
Sacred Sex. Still working on this one, but in short, conscious sexuality, though usually with religious themes and metaphors, sometimes involving pleasuring rituals, and an aspect of the so-called Tantra movement. It sounds good, and no doubt, the sex rituals of days of yore, the encounters with the temple priestesses or priests, and the initiations that might have been practiced in those environments, make for some exciting fantasy scenarios. Inagine the torchlight on out-door marble scenes, the sense of silence and of time opening up, surrendering to a fusion of physical and divine bliss... Linguistically, and philosophically as a modern issue, my problem is that 'sacred' is of the same root as 'sacrifice'. If anything, sex with spiritual overtones would seem more like an offering. Further, 'sacred' literally means 'within the temple', as compared to 'profane', which means 'outside the temple', so by declaring some things sacred, you would be declaring everything else profane, which is not a good idea. In other words, why hold sex as sacred wen we can hold it as healty and normal? I cannot help but notice that 'sacred sex' is an anagram of 'scared sex', and as a result both terms have precisely the same numerological value. Spiritual sex, as i see it, is sex with love involved. Love implies a space of shamelessness, and in that space, bodies could touch without the fear of hurt or attack. We really need to start here.
Self-esteem. Literally, holding oneself in esteem. Given how important everyone feels this is, it's curious to me that so many people work so hard to make everyone else feel like shit. It would appear that self-esteem is self-generated, but is also the result of undoing and healing the attacks we have suffered in the past, as well as surrounding ourselves with loving people who support what we are and what we need.
Serial Monogamy. This is what most people actually do. It is not the monogamy of "till death do us part" fame, though it is somewhat a mockery of this; it is usually the monogamy of "let's hold out as long as this lasts," or "till we can't stand each other any more." For some reason, this seems to be considered more ethical than polyamory; after all, you're just with one person. Perhaps I just have good taste and a lot of earth in my chart, but personally, I like to collect beautiful people in my life, not discard them.
Sex. When plants have sex, their flowers bloom and their pollen blows in the wind. While this makes many people sneeze, I advocate a view of sex that recognizes that, try as we may to disrupt the natural flow of life with perfumed everything from dish soap to luggage, we bloom and then the hormones flow and the pheromones fly wildly in the biosphere for all to experience. This is sex, and so is everything else remotely or explicitly sexual.
Sharing masturbation. Masturbating together, or one person watching another masturbate. The world-at-large has yet to acknowledge the beauty of this activity. The mystic quality of the love expressed from one person to herself, from one person to himself, can be experienced and then shared. Selflove has in part become distasteful because it's associated with feeling isolated. There is a whole dimension of sexuality located between solosex and partnersex, and it is the space in which selflove is experienced and demonstrated before another person, or people, as conscious witness, and fully received by all individuals. Sharing masturbation can occur with members of either gender, or in groups, and the tenor or experience of surrender varies with wide diversity. Its essential character is more than cathartic; it is directly self-affirming and life-affirming.
Sleeping with. Terminology accurately describing what most people do when having sex. Euphemism, that is to say, polite expression, for 'fucking' or 'having sex with', this is a term that must go. Listen carefully as you or others use these words, and you will likely hear how utterly stupid they are to describe something that very much needs to be an awake experience.
Slut. A slut is what people call someone besides themselves who likes sex. There is an implied sacrilege, and the spiritual dictate that is being violated is the one that says sex for pleasure is bad, whereas sex for reproduction is good.
s/m. Please see b/d-s/m.
Sperm (short for spermatazoa, Latin for something that will translate pretty hilarioiusly). The great occultist Aleister Crowley used to say that he killed millions of children every day. That was a joke. He was talking about masturbation, and in particular, sperm, those tadpole-like critters inhabiting semen, the fluid men often give out at ejaculation. They represent the mail (or rather, male) half of the genetic material employed in the reproductive process. They are among the very smallest of human cells; each is his or her own, as they deliver different genetic codes that determine the sex of the child. They swim, have consciousness, and are on a conquest for the female ovum, or egg. It is a competitive experience, and only one out of hundreds of millions in a healthy ejaculation has a scarcely remote chance of getting to its destination under the very best of circumstances, and luck. However, as pregnancy happens fairly often, we can see that sometimes it works to play a long-shot.
Sperm-lover. One who loves sperm, probably meant to mean semen, but who knows, sperm are petty lovable. Phrase seen on one of the masturbation URLs as a heading for stories mostly by and about men. A big bunch of these are about men who like to drink their own semen.
Spermspeil [German]. Playing with semen. The only place I have seen this word is in profiles in the America Online member directory, written by German women, looking for friends. Like many other German words, it could pop into English one day.
Swinging (sometimes called 'lifestyle').This is another form of nonmonogamy, but the attempt is sexual gratification within the context of casual social relationships, and sometimes friendships. The emphasis is on sex, usually at organized parties, to the point where one concept from the swinging world is "emotional monogamy." That would mean, you go to a sex party with your wife or husband, you do anybody you want, most anyone can watch, but you don't get emotionally involved with the extramarital partner. Many swingers, however, develop long-term friendships with their swinging partners, which they report are important and sometimes lifelong. Given that, swinging is a form of polyamory that starts with sex and ends up in relationship, whereas purist versions of polyamory generally starts at the relationship end of things and end up (more or less often) at the sexual stage of things. Polys claim to take relationships more seriously. Swingers claim to take sex more seriously. Let's see where they meet. There must be a place.
Threesome. Usually, inviting a third partner into a couple's sexual experience, but really, any experience of three people having sex, all of whom can be of one gender, or different combinations of male-female. There is really just one guideline for threesomes: all parties must have an open heart, or the experience can hurt. If hearts are open, the pleasures are positively endless. Part of being open-hearted is not being possessive; instead, if you happen to feel like you're on the outside at any point during the experience, it's better to just watch, feel, listen and allow the experience to unfold, though if necessary, speak your feelings and ask for more attention. There is a fine line between wanting love, and using your neediness to interfere with the love of others. A long talk before the experience can be a great help, though this is not always possible. This is a great space in which to practice compersion. Get past your jealousy and you will emerge into a whole new world of life and love. Sometimes threesomes just happen, sometimes they take planning; if you desire the experience and it is not 'just happening', ask around. This is not exactly a unique fantasy and there are many people curious about such experiences. Good communication within all the relationships is paramount (though especially the primary relationship), as is knowing what your desires are. For male-female couples wanting to experiment, I suggest exploring experiences with both men and women.
Tit fucking [officially called 'intermammary sex']. Moving the penis between a woman's breasts, often resulting orgasm for the male partner. A form of sexual intercourse that allows bare-skin contact in our age of latex, which rearranges the male-female dynamics in a fun way, and, most important in my opinion, places the fucking action hear the woman's heart and heart chakra. Usually, either partner squeezes the breasts (if they reach) around the erect cock, creating a loving embrace, and the fun begins. Lube can be saliva, or something else from the love kit or pantry. The breasts can be positioned so that the nipples are stimulated as well. The overall arrangement positions things nicely so the female partner's mouth is within convenient reach of her partner's penis when he ejaculates; and the pressed-together breasts make a nice semen reservoir in case male partner wants to drink. [Note. Tom Roberts of Club Relate notes that breast fucking is fucking something (such as the vulva) with a nipple.] See also Breast.
Tribidism. Usually known to be masturbating against your partner's body, this is an old word for lesbian -- "Tribidist." It is, in any case, a favorite and delightful activity of girl queens. When male-female partners do ths kind of thing, it is frequently with the male partner masturbating on the female's belly, sometimes called dry-humping, but it's not always dry, or at least not for long.
Vagitarian. One who likes to eat pussy perhaps to the exclusion of all other sexual activity, but definitely a cunnilingus enthusiast of the truest variety.
Vanilla Sex. Used by people in the sex culture to describe the non-experimental, non-transgressive (i.e., "normal") forms of play, such as heterosexual fucking, perhaps with a little oral sex in there to make it interesting. Saran-wrapping your lover to a chair in the midst of an orgy is not vanilla sex.
Vulva. The entire external female genitalia, consisting of the large outer lips and smaller inner lips (labia majora and labia minora, respectively), as well as the clitoris, and the vagina, the sheath-like inner space to which the vulva serves as a kind of gateway.
Water sports. Playing with pee, including peeing on someone or being peed upon, as well as (in some instances, depending on preferences) drinking urine. Clearly a specialty item.
Zipless fuck. Strictly anonymous, instantaneous sex. In a true zipless fuck, you do not know the name of your partner. Term coined by Erica Jong in her novel Fear of Flying.
Zoophilia. Sex with animals. You may be thinking, "That is shocking," but it's actually quite common and this is not a personal confession. My friend Rebecca, for example, was enticed to have her vulva licked by a then-boyfriend's cat. In more dire situations, or perhaps just based on a preference for less complicated relationships, people engage animals for a variety of activities one thinks of as normally being performed by humans. Ask around; you'll hear stories. Some will be true.++
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