Have a question? Email erin@nerve.com. Letters may be edited for length, content and clarity.
Dear Miss Information,
Early in my dating career, I settled for casual, sex-focused relationships when I wanted loving, committed ones. Now I want to stop being a slut and start being a girlfriend, but I'm accustomed to a certain pattern: sleep with the person first, build an emotional relationship later. My guy friends tell me I need to hold out. But when I hold out, I end up being the "best friend." I can't find a healthy balance.
Currently, I have a crush on my neighbor. I kissed him the third time we hung out, and he said, "I liked that, but I have a girlfriend in my old town and I don't want to be bad to her." He wants to stay in NY, but she doesn't want to come here. It's essentially doomed. We hang out almost every day, text constantly and go on date-like excursions. He cooks for me, has met my family, and even drops in on me at work. I don't know what to make of him. He doesn't put the moves on me, but will bring my favorite movies over to my house at 11:00 p.m. Once I tried to cozy up to him on the couch. He didn't push me away, but got really red and awkward about it. WTF?
He's only been in really long relationships. I'm wondering if this has something to do with it. I am not accustomed to courtship, so I don't want to delude myself that he's interested when I haven't seen the lustful signs. Then again, most of my other experiences have been sex-centered train wrecks, so it makes me interested in further pursuing this person who appreciates spending time with me and treats me like a gentleman.
What do I do? Continue to hang out with him as ambiguous buddies, feeling sexually frustrated? Pursue someone on the side in the fashion I'm accustomed to, even though my interest remains solely in my neighbor? Push a confrontation regarding our relationship, even though it might ruin all the fun? Or simply cut him off? — Too Much Sugar from My Neighbor
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Dear Too Much Sugar,
Too much sugar? Sounds like too little sugar, sweetheart. What we have here is not courtship. This is "Let's all sit around and wait while Captain Halfass summons up the pomegranates to cheat on his girlfriend, leave her for good, or tell you he no longer wants you around."
I understand we're a long way from the days of calling cards and smelling salts and scandalous slivers of exposed wrist. Initials carved on trees have been replaced with hideous MySpace graphics, and it's hard to discern what constitutes dating and what does not.
Let's break courtship down to its most basic elements:
- Two people, both of whom are available.
- A reciprocal interest between the two parties.
- An intention to get to know one another in pursuit of an agreed-upon goal.
Now add up your score. By my count, you're one for three. Yowza.
I appreciate your desire to move toward a healthy balance of sex and love. It's smart as all get-out. But I think you might be going too far in the opposite direction — mistaking someone's lack of availability and hesitation as a sign that you're building something concrete. You're not. It's about as stable as a little pig's house. If he renews his commitment to his sweetums, all those months you spent watching DVDs and building the straw house will come tumbling down.
You need to see other people. Once you experience what's it's like to have someone genuinely interested in you, you'll forget all about this bozo. I realize the last thing you want to do is make plans with someone else when you're so sprung. Here's a trick to help you out: Make your seeing him conditional on going on dates with other guys. One date for every three times you hang out. Focus on having fun, not finding a baby father. Don't hide it from Halfass. He needs to know that you are not putting your life on hold while he dinks around.
One more thought: A gentleman is someone who treats a woman with respect, whether he sleeps with her on the first date or the twelfth. He doesn't cheat on his girlfriend, whether it's out-and-out fucking in a hotel room or "cheating light" like your Netflix buddy. You might want to think about upping the caliber of peeps you hang out with rather than putting all the onus on yourself. Yes, you've made mistakes in the past, but that doesn't mean you have to keep punishing yourself by putting up with crap behavior now. You're a hot property. Own it!
Dear Miss Information,
I'm a bisexual girl who badly needs pornography. I need to find out how to get it without having to pay for it or contracting nasty diseases on my computer. Finding pictures and videos of penises entering vaginas is easy, but finding hot girl-on-girl stuff is really hard. My definition of hot girl-on-girl does not include tweaked-out bleached-blonde leather-skinned skinny girls sucking on dildos or looking at the camera while fingering each other with talon-like nails. Call me naive, but is there any porn or soft porn where the girls might legitimately appear attracted to other girls? I've tried to talk to male friends who know the ins and outs (so to speak) of porn, but their eyes just sort of glaze over and we end up watching the girl-on-girl I described above. Please help! — Really Need Real XXX |
Dear Really Need Real XXX,
I'm turned off by bad porn as much as the next person, but can we stop it with all the "real this" and "real that"? Those ladies are real. They're not big-boobied apparitions or dairy-show exhibits sculpted out of margarine. They're legitimate females who just don't happen to appeal to your tastes. Sorry to be such a killjoy over something stupid like semantics, but I think it's important to make this distinction. Otherwise we'll have people on the other end of the spectrum telling you that anyone who doesn't wax their hoo-hoo or get palm trees airbrushed on their toenails is not okay. We're all real. Every one of us. Even when we're fake.
On to the fun part. To recap, you're looking for adult audio-visual that fulfills the following requirements:
- The players must not look like mainstream porn stars.
- They should appear legitimately interested in the proceedings.
- It should be free, as in 'no charge' and no spyware.
#1 I can hook you up no problem. Easy. #2 is more difficult. The same things that make a porno flick good — solid lighting and camera angles, multiple retakes, actor direction and positioning — can also make it really tough on the players. It's no tiptoe through the tulips, as Ron Jeremy says in his autobiography. When a girl's got three cameras pointed at her labia and two pimply-faced gaffers underfoot and she's getting clumsily licked by her third chick of the day, you're not exactly going to get Shakespeare-caliber emotion.
#3 is even harder. There are quite a few free sites out there, but it's a bit like the Wild West in terms of the lawlessness, potential for bullshit and viruses, and general disorganization. You can be cruising along watching something fabulous only to get cut off at the critical point with some stupid ad for penis pumps or an online casino. A lot of it's also not curated. Everything from trannies to people dressed up like tigers to stuff that's not even technically porn, like women getting eyebrow waxes, but feels incredibly unnerving just the same.
One of my favorite sites is BurningAngel.com, which I've talked about before. There's also SuperCult, HotMoviesForHer, and a whole mess of selections over on the official site of the 2008 Feminist Porn Awards. All these sites are paid, but the costs aren't excessive and you're supporting a good cause. You can't bitch about underrepresentation and then be unwilling to put any money behind it. The silicone moguls have legions of fans and huge media corporations on their side. They can afford to give that shit away for free. Until they're in that position of power, the little guys have us.
If you're still worried about the meter running every time you fire up the ol' vagina, try a user-generated site like YouPorn, or go even more grassroots and dig around on the photos and erotic stories sections of The Swingers Board or Craigslist Casual Encounters, all of which are available gratis. The people might not be as pretty and the production values not as sharp, but the "realness" is a sure bet.
Readers, what are your favorite non-mainstream girl-on-girl sites?
©2008 Erin Bradley and Nerve.com
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Commentarium (33 Comments)
Great advice for the first letter for one date-to-three hangouts ratio, should apply to any relationships and pseudo-relationships that do not look like they are going anywhere, but you keep seeing the guy anyway. I am monogamous by nature and tend to get stuck on "40 percent good" men myself and end up on "men-improvement" route - you don't want to be there! Setting a rule like that helps.
Check out Violet Blues Blog for more info, she's chock full of usefull information in that regard, at http://www.tinynibbles.com/. I also like Eon McKai's stuff, It's not just girl on girl but the look is neat. Also don't forget Tristan Taormino's work for people who really enjoy what they're doing on film.
And you're right, Erin, that's worth paying for, think of it like buying organic groceries :)
I like Bella Donna for girl on girl. Also try pure TnA for free porn.
After a couple of months, the relationship usually settles into what it's going to be, and if he hasn't asked you for more than friendship by now, he isn't going to. If you're going out with other guys and he knows it, he's even less likely to. Then, five years from now, when you're getting married to someone else, he'll get really drunk and wail on about how he lost his opportunity and now it's too late. The only way out of this equilibrium is some sort of disruption now. What I suggest is that you do start going out with other guys. If you find someone better than the neighbor, great! If not, lean on the neighbor as a friend for support. As in, "Why do I always find guys who are jerks? I wish I could find someone available just like you!" If he doesn't go for that one, give up.
A good site which would fullfill most of this girl's requirements is:
http://www.cam4.com/Female
Not all the girls on there are gay, but many are bi.
"wax the hoo hoo"?
redtube.com may have girl/girl that suits your reader. Moste Erotic Teens (MET), too
Sapphic Erotica is a paid site with hot girls that don't look like porn stars. Not that I would do this, but Pirate Bay has all of the videos (and tons of other porn) free.
Sugar,
How can you be turned on to a guy who can't man up, break up with the long distance GF, and pour some sugar on you? His weak-ass behavior is pathetic and you putting up with this nonsense isn't any better. If you want an available gentleman who'll rock your world, go get one. We're out there and we don't act like this.
For example, recently I was exclusively dating Woman A. Then on a business trip, I met Woman B. Chemistry and flirting with Woman B was off the charts. Though I didn't allow anything physical to take place with Woman B, I realized that I used to have that chemistry with Woman A, should've still had that chemistry with Woman A, and didn't want to be exclusively dating Woman A without such chemistry. I came home and broke up with Woman A. Though the future with Woman B is uncertain, we men take responsibility for our actions, make decisions, take definitive action, and move forward.
No risk, no reward.
http://www.abbywinters.com/portal/
Anyone else think the "neighbor" in the first letter might be gay?
ACE,
What is it with you men and making decisions based on "instant chemistry"? Don't you know that whatever kind of chemistry you have instantly will probably have changed in some way in a couple months anyway?
I much prefer to get to know someone, than to make decisions based on first impressions/first lust.
Just me, a bi woman
ELC,
For me, great chemistry is a pre-req to move from casually dating many women to exclusively dating one woman. Still, I agree with your point about taking your time getting to know someone. For example, being a giver, having a good attitude, and having integrity are character traits that require time to consistently observe in a potential girlfriend. The healthiest relationships I have seen are always between two people who share such traits and know how to keep the sparks flying.
Regarding good girl-on-girl porn - Unlike most hetero guys, watching two girls get it on doesn't really put the Wonka in my Willy. But I still enjoy watching the entire catalog at www.ilovepopwhore.com. Tatum Reed is the site's polestar, and she hits all the bases - girl-on-guy, girl-on-girl, three-ways, and even the occasional gang bang or fetish shoot. She's got a very genuine, girl-next-door-developed-highbrow-tastes persona, and it shows in everything from the background music to the hot Agent Provocateur lingerie. Freakin'-A, when I look at her delicate underthings, I can't decide if I want to tear them to ribbons or put them in a softly-lit display case in my living room. Anyway, she's not all girl-girl, but definitely worth a look. She has a lot of free samples on her website, but if you'd like to take a quick peak at the members site, let me know at integrateid@gmail.com and I might be able to arrange a brief lending of the necessary credentials. Rock on, E.
abbywinters.com gets rave reviews.
kink.com has some good stuff, if you want to pay for it. The performers don't look like porn stars, appear to like what their doing, and that company is supposed to be one of the best to work for. They also have a large selection of free videos and pictures.
I think the bi gal would definitely love www.abbywinters.com
Their whole philosophy is natural women truly enjoying themselves and each other.
Dear Miss Information,
Feedback on the bi-girl looking for porn: this isn't "porn" as much as erotic photos, but BlissWarrior on myspace has some very foxy, very real photos.
Take a tour of abbywinters.com. It's a site with everyday girls from Australia.
These "chemistry" notions just drive me mad, and yes, especially men who make life altering decisions based on "chemistry".
I just wrapped up a 2 year relationship where both me and the guy admitted several times that for both of us it was the best sex of our lives.
There was no chemistry to begin with, I actually forced myself to go to bed with him for the first couple times to break dry spell and nothing special was happenning for the first month or so, until we both got comfortable with each other and started playing around and then proceeded playing happily for two years - I am not going to get into details, but we could have written our own sex manual. We could have gone on for another 10 or 15, but there was nothing going on outside the bedroom between us, so I've made the decision to move on.
Don't assume anything based on "chemistry". It does not exist and you don't know how well you are going to get along with the person in the bedroom until you actually get there.
Immediately thought of Abbeywinters.com as apparently did a load of other people. I'll join them in heartily endorsing it....normal-looking girls who actually seem to be enjoying themselves beats the pumped-up, overdressed stupidity of most mainstream porn anyday.
Also thanks for the other suggestions. I think I foresee even more internet in my spare time.....dammit.
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