SEX: it's icky

What your sex life looks like to everyone else: strange and weird.

I was recently directed to an article called "Sex and the Fat Girl" where the writer points out that *gasp* fat people have sex too, and you shouldn't think it's gross or wrong. I agree wholeheartedly that no-one should think a sexual relationship between two consenting adults is wrong, but let me let you in on a little secret: sex is gross.

It doesn't matter what you look like or who you're doing I think we can all agree that real sex is not something most people actually want to look at or think about. It's all messy angles, awkward noises and uncomfortable looking movements. No one really wants to look at or think about real sex. Well, unless you want to talk about how bad and evil it is...in which case I feel you should be getting laid yourself as you spend far too much time thinking about other people's sex lives, but I digress. Real sex between real people is not what we think about when we think about sex. No, we think about ads and pornos and when we are confronted with real sexual activity that doesn't immediately mesh with those views we freak out.

We are so used to overly packaged and carefully orchestrated sexuality that we forget that reality doesn't look like that.

Old people doing it: gross, teenagers: gross, tall people: gross, men: gross, women: gross, any real person doing it: gross.

Sex is awesome, fun, wonderful, and something no person should feel ashamed for doing with another consenting adult, but really I don't want to think about other people doing it and I sure as hell don't want to watch another person doing it...unless of course I'm doing it with them too!

Awesome Book Review Friday: Fun Home (A Family Tragicomic)

This week's book is Alison Bechdel's Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. It's a graphic novel, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a worthwhile read.



Alison Bechdel, the writer and illustrator of "Dyke's to Watch Out For," paints the story of her childhood, more specifically the relationship between herself and her father, while using her childhood home as a frame. She writes in a liner and yet non-liner fashion. Some chapters start at the beginning of one point and then end, while other are turned inside out starting at the end, returning to the beginning and then continuing on back to the end. The result is a beautiful, honest and painful autobiography.

Alison narrates the story as an adult giving new insight into her childhood relationships. It is by no means a fun or easy story to read, as there are clear and painful scars that she carries, but it is an insightful tale of a girl growing up with a closeted and abusive father and becoming a woman who comes to terms with her own sexuality.

It is an important book because it unflinchingly looks at issues many wish childhood didn't include such as sexuality, gender restraints, masturbation, abuse and suicide. Even more importantly it examins the ways we begin to realise as we grow up that our parents are people and have lives and feelings we can not comprehend. Alison Bechdel exposes her difficult childhood and it is a potent reminder that childhood isn't anything like how we depict it. That it is a difficult and scary time, but it is also the time that helped us to become who we are.

This book is a definite read, despite all the sadness it leaves you with the positive message that you will overcome all this, and you will be better for it.