SEX DIARIES: New York Magazine’s ever-enchanting Sex Diaries, in which anonymous New Yorkers track all their sexual encounters for a week (and they can be totally crazy/fascinating for reals!) features a lesbian this time, The Lesbian Music Producer in an Often Sex-Free Relationship, and the readers revolt on the lack of sex in the sex diary, the quality of the diarist’s relationship, and the true meaning of “taco night,” amongst other issues.
The familiar:
DAY FOUR, 9:15 a.m.: Incredulous expressions from fellow passengers when Jen kisses me good-bye as I exit the train? Check.
9:30 p.m.: When I give her a brief rundown [of friend I had coffee with today], including the fact that we’ve had “relations,” [my girlfriend] makes a passive-aggressive statement about how sex must be a prerequisite for being my friend. This irritates me for a number of reasons. I decide to let it go.
The sad:
DAY FIVE, 1:50 pm: I wonder how to reconcile being madly in love with someone who often shows no sexual interest in me. Do I have a lack of self-esteem?
1:23 a.m.: Editing on the couch. Suggest sex to Jen, who whines, “Nooooo, I’m tired!” Brain-to-mouth filter fails, and I mention that my sex diary is completely devoid of sex. Argument ensues.
The comments (there are over 180 right now):
“I have a hunch that the gf has had a steady stream of relationships with men in which she just laid there. Lesbianism, it seems, takes some more effort and creativity.”
“I’m just going to wait for the commenters to talk about something off topic to entertain me because clearly the diary didn’t keep me from the boredom that is my job.”
“I found this oddly…. boring.”
“When are lesbians going to learn that getting involved with a woman who involved with a man 2 seconds before being with you is not going to work? Those women, obviously fickle are not there for keeps.”
“Wait, women don’t like getting their boobs touched by their current sexual partner? When did that happen?!”
Single working women and working moms with young kids are especially drowsy: They tend to clock in an hour and a half shy of the roughly 7.5-hour minimum the human body needs to function happily and healthfully… Women are significantly more sleep-deprived than men.
So Huffington and Leive are hosting a one-month sleep challenge that they’ll be blogging about on their sites. And here’s the thing – what Huffington and Leive are really talking about is sexism, not sleep. (@huffpo)
H&M: Both H&M and Wal-Mart throw out unused clothing people don’t buy; but in order to be sure that people can’t wear the clothing they threw out (and therefore weakening the power of their brand), they destroy the items by shredding and cutting holes in them. This means a charity desperate for winter coats for a coat drive could get 400 new ones, but instead those new coats are shredded and disposed of. (@nytimes)
UPDATE: JOURNALISM WORKS YOU GUYS! Due to the outrage over this story, “clothing retailer H&M has promised to stop destroying new merchandise that it can’t sell at one of its Manhattan stores. The chain said it will instead donate the garments to charity.” GEE, YA THINK?! (@huffpo)
Buzzfeed has a rundown of the best stories on this issue. (@buzzfeed)
THE REAL WORLD: Mike from The Real World: DC is interviewed by the Metro Weekly and has interesting thoughts on the intersection of church & sexuality as well as biphobia within the gay community. (@metro weekly)
RACE: “Of course I have an opinion about a recent opinion piece authored by Rev. Dr. Clenard H. Childress, Jr., senior pastor of The New Calvary Baptist Church in Montclair, NJ; but, I don’t think anyone from either side (pro-gay or anti-gay) will like it. I agree with Dr. Childress: the LGBT community is definitely trying to hijack the Civil Rights Movement.” (@sisterstalk)
TWITTER: By endlessly typing 140-character messages, Stefanie Michaels, Amy Jo Martin, Felicia Day, and others have gained millions of Twitter followers. It’s a new kind of fame–twilebrity–with its own rules, risks, and pecking order. (@vanity fair)
Broadsheet reacts to the Vanity Fair piece: “Grigoriadis may be on to something when she succinctly nails Twitter as a “worldwide experiment in extreme narcissism or a nifty tool for real-time reporting.” But the fact that she chose to illuminate this point by focusing on high profile “nice girls — the Internet’s equivalent of a telephone chat line staffed by a bunch of cheerleaders” is possibly the lamest thing since Playboy’s 1995 “Girls of the Net” issue.” (@salon)
RACE: The Future of Whiteness in America: Communities of culture have a history of being undercounted by the census, so advocates are pushing to make the upcoming census as accurate as possible, which means we may see numbers indicating what many already believe is an inevitable reality — by 2050, whites will no longer be the majority. Racialicious asks if the Newsweek author’s idea that one day soon race will not be synonymous with destiny is a bit premature. (@newsweek, @racialicious)
I WANNA BE A SUPERMODEL: German women’s magazine Brigitte has declared it will no longer use professional models in its fashion shoots. But reaction to the first all-amateur issue has been mixed, with observers criticizing the magazine for not going far enough to fight anorexia. (@spiegel)
I haven’t slept well/enough since October of 2001, the month my first kid was conceived. Hell yeah I need more sleep! Now, how do I get more exactly?
I tried dating a celibate girl once and realized sex is important to me. When I told her this she told me I wasn’t really a lesbian but a “gay boy”….
Haha, what?
I wouldn’t be able to do that either. And a lot of time when people realize how important sex is to me they think I’m using them for sex. Like pretty much everyone says that to me at one point. Sometimes I think they have secret conventions about it. Why they never see that sex and intimacy in general along with the companionship is all important to me is beyond me. They all go hand in hand for me.
i know right?! what is how i responded? and then i did a hair flip because it seemed appropriate and ridiculous.
But I agree all of those things go together! you know like when you bake a cake you can’t leave one thing out and expect it to be tastey
WORD, edene. Word
Double-word.
Triple word, esp. on the cake bit. like cake, a relationship needs some milk and eggs if ya kna wha i meannn…
“she told me I wasn’t really a lesbian but a “gay boy”
you made me lol… thank you.
I get being celibate but a gay boy… wait, wouldn’t that mean you like boys then?
hey wait that would mean that wouldn’t it? just in case you all wondered i dont like boys. i very much like women
Great article on Mike- his points on religion were spot on. Glad to see someone so well spoken also calling out the bullshit that is bi-phobia.
One of the commenters from the sex journal has a point, a woman coming from being with men might be a little too lazy for the job. But that’s not always true. I’m bi, and honestly I’m quite lazy when it comes to men, but give me a woman who truly excites me and I become action jackson. And the other commenter who said those women aren’t “there for keeps” was being quite offensive. I think there ARE women who stray from straight, start dating women, and realize they’re not all that into the sex part of the deal (or don’t realize it and continue on thinking they actually are into women) and then they become part of that lazy “fickle” group. Whenever a girl complains to me about a girl who has/does date men, who sucks in bed with women, or refuses to please them, I can’t help thinking that’s just a straight girl who happens to be infatuated with a woman.
All I can think about on that sleep thing is the “shane’s gonna do ariana huffington” thing from the l world, when everyone kept thinking she meant she was gonna give her the business, when really all she meant was she was gonna do her hair.
I used to shop at H&M months ago, but then they got all hoity toity on me, so I started shopping at forever 21, which has changed over the years and continues to knock me off my feet. Anyway so yeah, I’m not a fan of them or wal-mart, and I especially don’t like them now. That’s beyond ridiculous. And if you can’t get with helping the world, I can’t get with you.
Oh, haha! Just read the update part. Just the manhattan store? Way to feed us just so we’ll shut up! At least they’re responding to our outrage. It still shouldn’t have taken our outrage, and I still won’t be shopping there.
Speaking of biphobia within the gay community; I was having a conversation with this guy I’ve been talking to for a little while, and finally got him to admit he’s not exactly comfortable with me being bi. And then he said the girls I’m involved with it are probably fine with it. I said “are you kidding? A lot of lesbians hate bisexuals”. I reminded myself of how much bullshit goes on within this community. Remind me to read mike’s interview wehen I’m not mobile?
theres like a lot happening in this daily fix and now I have too many tabs open
I love anything that advocates for more sleep. seriously. even when I’m not studying or at school, my sleep sched I completely whacked.
I also agree that there’s a lot going on in this daily fix. I like it.
I keep reading this as “Women Need More Lesbian Sex”.
That’s the gay agenda at work, Anna. That’s the gay agenda at work.
LOL
It’s like this one time over the summer, I was at home and sad and acting straight, my friends back in the city texted me: ” HAPPY BIRTHDAY. WHEN ARE YOU COMING TO HANG OUT?” And I read it a couple times before I realized it did not say “WHEN ARE YOU COMING OUT?”
LOL. That’s hilarious!
wow at h&m and walmart throwing out clothing and then going out of their way and cutting holes into the clothes…sad and disturbing to know people do things like this
but i’m guilty because i’m an h&m fan
sooo…idk
I had bookmarked Diaries for quite a while and read a lot of them, and sometimes I felt envious. Always read with fascination and horror, then disgust overwhelmed me and I couldn’t bare knowing all those intimate details on someone elses life. To much information, by far. I like to maintain the illusion that other people are kind, caring, honest and not a heap of insecure, sex-obsessed maniacs like myself.