Actually I want to expand on my New Years resolution (which is to have more sex). What will follow is a rant about sex. You may read it or you may not, it's up to you.
I am sick to death of living in a society in which women are socialized to consider their sexual needs secondary to those of men. Not only is it a sad and telling indication of the extent to which women are disenfranchised (and the extent to which they have been forced, duped, or otherwise compelled or tricked into buying into their own disenfranchisement), but on a personal level, it makes sex less fulfilling for me when I realize that sometimes I can't even trust my partner to tell me the truth about what they want. It's a hell of a privilege to be given the opportunity to satisfy someone else's sexual needs (because doing so is more fun than basically anything ever) and time and again, I have been faced with situations in which my female partners, whose sexual power and independence has been attacked incessantly and from all sides since long before they even become sexually mature, have the belief that they don't deserve sexual satisfaction unless they offer it to me, or that they are responsible for my sexual needs, or that they "should" do anything that doesn't give them full enjoyment. I don't want to be a party to feeding or reinforcing that kind of self-neglect, and I feel like I'm responsible for doing precisely that when I engage in a sexual encounter with a woman who is thinking about my enjoyment before her own.
All I want out of 2009 is a sexual partner, or series of sexual partners, with enough of a sense of self-empowerment that they tell me exactly what they want when I ask them, without feeling ashamed of it or feeling indebted to me for offering to satisfy them. Basically, I only want to be offered sexual satisfaction by women who really, genuinely, authentically desire the opportunity and enjoyment of giving it to me. Having a sexual encounter with someone who's subverting their own desire for the sake of mine does nothing good for me at all and, to be honest, makes me feel a little dirty afterwards.
I have to say that 2008 was a year of magnificent improvement for me in this regard. I was offered the opportunity to have sexual encounters with women who approached me on a truly equal footing, and who respected me (and themselves) enough to reveal to me what they really desired. Now that I have an idea of what that feels like (and hopefully an idea of how I can help create that kind of a dynamic), I'm hoping to cultivate it more in my life, and hopefully influence others to do the same.
