A Sexologist in West Virginia
And Washington D.C, and Maryland, and New Jersey…
The past week and a half (or has it been two weeks, I’ve been so batty I have lost count) have been, shall we say, busy. I have been the traveling sexologist. I’ve been in 7 states in the past 4 days.
I did a Fellatio 101 party for a group of women in D.C who found me on youtube. I did a Female Orgasm workshop at The College of New Jersey which was a bittersweet milestone for me as a sex educator because it was the first time people had to be turned away because the audience was so huge. Approximately 35 people stood in the two doorways to listen in from the hallway. I did a How To Feel Sexy Naked workshop for a residence hall at another college and was blown away at how the women lifted each other up and empowered each other. I was giving a sex presentation every single night- some nights more than one presentation!
It was a very busy week+, and to top if off, my car shit the bed and poor Tyler had to drive me all over the eastern seaboard to these events and wait in the car until I was finished.
So after I had a 88 hour work week, and Tyler spent his nights after work carting my ass around, we enjoyed an extremely peaceful and relaxing weekend in West Virginia.
We stayed in a secluded cabin that backed up to a beautiful mountain and stream, with a wood burning fireplace and a heart shaped Jacuzzi tub. Some moments were adventurous (we did a lot of hiking), some were hot (the sex slip n’ slide made an appearance), and some were romantic (we drank an entire bottle of wine on the first night was cuddled in front of the fireplace and listening to Frank Sinatra radio on Pandora). I didn’t have too many sexological observations because we didn’t really encounter any other human beings on this trip, but on the second night- (again in front of the fireplace but this time drinking an entire bottle of whiskey instead of wine) we had an extremely interesting sexological conversation.
Basically, Tyler won’t get married. Ever.
And when I told him that I want to because I want a way to formally declare and recognize our relationship, and that it’s “normal”, and I want health insurance, and security in the future, he says that he’s surprised I care about being “normal” when I’ve been anti-establishment my whole life, and he’s surprised that I, as a feminist, would fall into the brainwashing of believing that marriage brings any kind of security when people divorce and/or walk out on and/or cheat on and/or mistreat their spouses everyday, while others stay in love and true and loyal and never divorce and a piece of paper won’t change how he loves me or make him more or less likely to stay, just a more expensive and bigger headache of a breakup if we ever want to part company, and blah blah blah for 4 hours over a bottle of whiskey.
A lot of me agrees. But at the same time I want it. And yes, I think marriage is cliché and passé and conformist, but I still want it for all those reasons I mentioned and more- the making of a “family” (although he refers to me, him, and Carl as a family now), the security of “forever” (although I’ll never have security- if either one of us want out, we’ll get out, and promises before God and his mother won’t stop us). We already share a residence and money, so what will marriage provide that I don’t already have? Maybe I just want a big party and have my relationship be recognized as significant by the world so I can get his health benefits and not be considered the flavor of the week because I’m “just” his girlfriend and not his wife. So we discussed getting a marriage license for the legal benefits, but not tell anyone. We discussed having a big party, a love ceremony, but not get a marriage license. This point was getting closer to the end of the whiskey bottle so I don’t know how it was left, but I have a lot of thinking- personally and sexologically- about what marriage is, what it means, and what it means to me.
Contact sexologist Jill McDevitt:
www.facebook.com/JillAtFeminique
