The Courtesan's Sex Tip of the month: How to get what you really want for Christmas

I found this very useful tidbit on the Ambiance website:

Most people, even those with very passionate love lives, all have a sexual fantasy that has gone unfulfilled. For example, there may be a toy you've always wanted to try, or a position that's intrigued you, or a fantasy role play that you've never acted on. Have you considered the holiday season as the perfect time to introduce the idea to your partner.

Just as most of us give ample hints as to other Christmas gifts we desire, these are no different. A creative way to drop the hint is to leave a book on the subject (with a bookmark in a telling spot) next to your bed or somewhere else where your partner is sure to notice. Or, if you have a close friend who you can talk openly to, have a conversation with him or her on the phone when your partner can hear you. (And butter them up in the conversation, too: "She would look so hot. . . ." or "He would simply make me melt if he. . .") These can both be conversation starters that makes your partner aware of desire.

Or, you could also throw subtlety out the window and simply email a link to a product on a website . . . may we suggest Ambiance.com?

Now those are some good ideas and I do applaud the idea of getting the "presents" you want at the holidays (or, in fact, year 'round), but here's another thought. . . . Get in the habit of talking openly and honestly with your partner (SL and/or RL) about your wants, needs. Most women don't speak up enough about their sexual desires and most men don't push it. So we tiptoe around each other in a state of sexual frustration. Silly, isn't it?

If you are too shy to be up front, well then the hints work, too. Here's a big way to drop a hint. Take him to an adult video store and point out the videos that demonstrate what you want. (Take one or two home and watch them together, you'll get the action you want!) Or take him to the adult toy store and point out the "toy" that looks like fun. (You can even buy him the toy you want and suggest he use it on you.) Or, rather than just strategically placing the bookmark, read the whole erotic passage that turns you on out loud to him. I bet he'll be heading your way and undressing before you can say: "doesn't that sound like fun?"

Two things to always be aware of: (1) if you want sex from your partner be affectionate! Snuggle up. Pinch his ass. Touch him in intimate places. Whisper that secret fantasy in his ear. I lay you odds he'll respond. And (2) pay attention to how he touches you. Most of us touch our partners in ways we want to be touched ourselves. If you pay attention you can decipher the clues he's sending out and respond accordingly. Then when he's all turned on by your responsiveness, tell him what you like. Few of us can read our partner's minds; there is nothing wrong with up front honesty about sexuality (no matter what your mother told you about "good girls").

Good sex is reciprocal, you will get as much as you give. Here's wishing all of you a fantastic season of "giving"!

Oh and, Santa, if you are reading this. . . Ambiance is my favorite toy store, too.

Sex not most important thing in SL?

Thursday, Nov 8, 2007, Eric Reuters published a piece called "Study finds sex, gambling not major Second Life" on the SL Reuters News Center that tells us not as many people are interested in cybersex as we all thought:

If there’s no “goal” to Second Life, no monsters to kill or experience points to collect, why do so many people log on and spend so much time there? Everyone has their theories, but a new academic study suggests cybersex and gambling are less of a lure than is often assumed. Noble Pierre-Etienne (Second Life: Wolkam Winger) and Angelica Ortiz (Second Life: Angelyka Klata) surveyed 657 residents about their Second Life usage. Only 13.6 percent said they “often” or “always” practice cybersex, and 2.2 percent patronized casinos regularly. The data was collected shortly before the gambling ban, Pierre-Etienne told Reuters.

“It’s not a perfectly representative sample, but that’s not the goal,” Pierre-Etienne said. He advertised the study through various blogs like Wagner James Au’s New World Notes. “You’ll find more Swedish people in our study because it was discussed on Swedish blogs.”
Pierre-Etienne is submitting the data as part of his thesis at the Toulouse Business School on the marketing potential of virtual worlds. His partner Ortiz, a native of Mexico, is examining the same data from a psychological perspective for the Swedish National Institute of Public Health.

“The data shows the most engaging activities in Second Life are shopping and socializing,” Ortiz said. There’s a direct correlation between overall usage and participation in cybersex, with the more committed users more likely to digitally consummate. “I think people want to try everything,” she said.

Regina Lynn, who writes about Second Life relationships for her “Sex Drive” column at Wired.com, isn’t surprised. “I think romance is much bigger than cybersex in Second Life,” Lynn said. “Just like there is more flirtation and come-hither and ooh-la-la in a bar than actual going home with someone to have sex.”

I see a couple of things here that these intrepid researchers may have missed. For one thing, if their demographic is skewed to Scandinavian countries (like Sweden) maybe we ought to pay attention to the fact that there are fewer hangups about sex in RL in those places. Maybe those people who are able to have sex without guilt in RL don't need to have sex in SL. No one seems to be asking the question why have sex in SL? To which, of course, the answer is you don't need it in SL if you are getting satisfactory sex in RL. I would bet on a close correlation between those who have virtual sex and those who live in more puritanic social groups that frown on extra- or pre-marital sex. Let's survey only Americans or Brits (who are the ones I have found most likely to want SL sex regularly) and I bet those percentages rise.

Here's another interesting tidbit: I've met more romantic men (the kind who like to take you dancing, romance you, and flirt first) from New England (Boston in particular) than from any other place. The Californians I've met are pushier (wanting slave or BDSM sex, but always trying to talk their way out of paying for it), and Midwesterners split along genderlines: the men don't want/like virtual sex (and sometimes not even real sex) while the women are out there swinging in many directions.

Now granted this is from an even smaller sample than the aforementioned study and reflects only my clients and friends and my own observations. But I still say that, on the whole, those who go for cybersex are filling a need that is missing in their RLs. SL is first and foremost a social network--but whether you use it to make business contacts, new friends, or to find sex, romance, or the love of your life is all going to depend on your own personal needs. No matter what you need from SL, I say go find what makes you happy and when you find it, enjoy it all you can.

Romantic Places to Go: Heaven and Hell

Looking for a good place to spend some quality time with your sweetie? Try Heaven and Hell. This beautiful sim has it all: fascinating scenery and sex poseballs! Heaven is a series of beautiful gardens and waterfalls with romantic and erotic nooks to explore, Hell is for those into kink and BDSM. Between the two is a nice nightclub with a great dance floor titled (you guessed it) Purgatory.

Going Clubbing

So it is Saturday night and you are bored with the same old clubs. Want to try something new?

Here is a short list of my favorite cool SL places to go and hang out:

Blue Noise: you will be greeted at the gate by the jackel-headed god Anubis in this Ancient Egyptian-themed club managed by the lovely Rhiannon. Watch beautiful female and male dancers strip, play the sploder, compete in "best of" contests for cash prizes, soak and get your back washed in the dance floor spa, make song requests of the DJs, or ask for the VIP treatment from one of the lovely and talented escorts.

Lotus Moon: An Asian-themed club/casino owned by Partial and Lisette. Great dancers, contests, camping pads, a sploder, and a cash giveaway that throws out random dollars to anyone in the club. Check out the special locations upstairs where you can get a private dance from one of the dancers or escorts.

Mystic's Cabaret Gentleman's Club: Best thing about Mystic's place are the contests. Every night is something new with cash prizes. Also lots of slow and sexy dance balls. Lots of pretty dancers, a sploder and dancing camping pads as well.

Ally B's: Not only does Ally offer all the amenities of the usual nightclubs at her Egyptian decor club, but Tuesdays are for Ladies Only! With an all male dancer lineup of studly guys! Not to be missed! Also has BDSM rooms for those so inclined.

They call it the SL effect...

The first thing everyone does in SL is build an avatar. A persona. You, but not you. The six-million-dollar version of you: better, faster, stronger. . . also younger and prettier. All the things that you would like to be. With all the attitude and sexuality you want to display. And why not? This is a game, what is wrong with having attractive pieces. Some of us go farther. Non-humans, gender-shifting, multiple avatars and multiple persona stories. SL is all about role-playing. We can do things we'd never be able to do in real life. Live in the storylines of our fandoms. Participate in wanton sex, slave and master games, consensual violence, BDSM. Buy and sell anything, including not just our bodies, but our souls in some ways.

SL gives us the opportunity to wear complicated masks. To construct stories, behind which we are safe to escape from the complications of RL. But when does that line between RL and SL blur? When you have a mask, no one can see your real face. Or can they?

Being able to operate behind a mask gives us all a freedom that is heady and addictive. You can now be the bad-ass dude or the sexy lady. But when we act out sex and suddenly find we are falling in love, are we falling for the person or the persona? There are, in SL, a gazillion opportunities to make connections, to experience romance that we may be missing or wanting in our RLs. What happens when the RL person behind the mask starts to fall, to have real internal emotional attachment to another SL persona?

Those who say it is just an SL effect, will tell you that the emotions you are feeling are also a fantasy. You are in love in the same way anyone might have crush on an unreachable object of affection. Whether you go with it or let it go, these people tell you it will pass. And that is one way to deal with the emotions you are feeling.

But for some of us the SL persona is not too far removed from the RL persona. And the emotions, the attraction that turns to love is very real. The biological responses are all there . . . why not the psychological ones?

The irony here is that love works exactly the same in SL as it does in RL:

• You meet someone. You find them physically attractive.
  
• You flirt. You talk (most people don't realize that the largest sex organ is the brain--that conversation, flirtatious conversation, is more conducive to positive sexual experience than all the right moves in the world. This goes double in a virtual world where encounters are based, not on touch, but on narrative).
• You date (in the RL world that tends to happen over the course of weeks or months, the ease of access in SL allows that to happen over hours and days).
  
• You get even closer and have sex (in RL this takes while as we generally need to build up huge level of trust or too much alcohol, in SL however this might happen your very meeting).
• You make each other feel good. On a regular basis.
  
• You decide you can bottle and keep that feeling by tying the other person to you permanently (in RL this is marriage, in SL . . . well, people have ceremonies, but permanence ia even more ambiguous in SL)

Here is the problem. While each of us knows exactly what we are feeling, we can never--in SL or RL--know what is going on in someone else's head. Never. We can only trust in the honesty of our lovers.

I know of several RL couples who play in SL. But not with each other. One or the other partner has an SL marriage/partnership/sexual relationship with someone (or more than one) else. In the best cases all parties know and agree to allow it. are honest with each other. In some cases--and these are the ones where someone is bound to get hurt--one partner has backed off to give the other freedom to experience SL love, an SL relationship. Is that love real? I don't know, it may depend on how you define real. Love is a feeling. If you feel love it is real enough. If you love more than one person and you can't be upfront about it, if there isn't an honest attempt to make all the relationships work, you will hurt someone and likely be hurt yourself.

Love, in any reality, is based on trust and honesty. But when you open yourself up and tell honest truths, you always run the risk of being smacked down. When someone you trust is honest with you it can hurt, too. Love runs the risk of hurt because love is worth it--wherever you find it. The risk and the working through are what separates real love, wherever you find it, from shallow fantasy sexual romances.

So, yeah, I believe up-front, sometimes painful honesty. Pretty much all the time.

I also believe that there is more to SL love than just an SL effect.