Amphibious

by Erin Murphy

My daughter wants to take
a framed oil painting to school,

a nude with loose breasts and a belly
ripe as the full moon. Why? Because

we’re studying frogs, she says,
and it’s a frog. I cock my head

to consider the angle of the draped arm
but can’t get past the female form.

My daughter, though, is swimming
in amphibians, bringing home

scribbled pictures of tadpoles sprouting
splayed feet. At night, she sleeps

in the bedroom I painted pink,
her shelves lined with confectionary

teapots and cups. By day, she wants
to be her brother when she grows up.

Lately, she’s morphed into
a creature who’d rather squirm free

than be held. O, how we see what we
want to see. My daughter, looking at

a nude, sees a frog for show-n-tell.
I look at her and see myself.

“Amphibious” by Erin Murphy, from Dislocation and Other Theories. © Word Press, 2008. Reprinted with permission.

I love seeing people talk about how affectionate and loving Barack and Michelle Obama are. It was mentioned on Oprah last week, as well as on The View:

Whoopi said: “You know what I think is really exciting is that there’s gonna be some action in the White House. These are not two people who move in separate lanes…I think there’s gonna be a whole lot of whoopee going on.”

Sheri agreed: “I thought President Obama was gonna pop her on the rear-end…he loves his wife!”

What I think is so interesting is that people are making these assumptions based on how they see the Obama’s interact. John Gottman is famous for studying what makes couples tick (or not), but I think on some level we can all sense when people are truly happy with each other, truly connected emotionally and spiritually.

I hope the Obamas will continue to enjoy a healthy and fulfilling sex life, even with all the pressures of being President and First Lady. I hope that it might inspire all of America’s couples to find comfort, connection and pleasure with the one they love!

Many of us have heard of endorphins and their affect us –

Endorphins are released when you are involved in strenuous exercise that allows your body to go beyond physical pain and its limitations and it may leave you with a euphoric high.

Here are a list of Ways to Release Endorphins. Can you guess which one I tend to recommend?

I am a reluctant blogger. I much prefer face-to-face and one-on-one interactions. I need to hear a person’s tone of voice, notice their posture and hand gestures, sense their hesitation or anxiety. For all of our “communicating” we barely look into each other’s eyes anymore. Eye contact is a form of non-physical touch, and we could all do with more touching in our lives.

I am teaching a class tonight at E-Sensual Woman on the importance of touch and how our earliest experiences of touch profoundly affect our sex lives as adults. As Aline Zoldbrod PhD writes in Sex Smart: How Your Childhood Shaped Your Sexual Life and What To Do About It:

When you are examining your feelings about being a sexual person, you should first notice how you feel about giving and receiving touch. Touching isn’t sexual per se, but touch is the foundation upon which your ability to enjoy sexuality is built; it is vital to loving and to sexual expression. To have skin contact with a partner and to feel the warmth of his (or her) body remains an essential component of many kinds of love relationships.” (p. 15).

As our world becomes more and more gadget-centered, we can’t neglect the importance of touch. Whatever technology we invent that is supposedly going to make “connecting” easier or faster … nothing can replace the power of touch to truly connect us to those we love.

Your homework for today? Reach out and touch someone.

Bravo to new mommy Amy Poehler for creating and hosting Smart Girls at the Party which celebrates tween girls “who are changing the world by being themselves.”

Take that “Hannah Montana!”

Not to hate on Miley Cyrus, but after watching “Hannah Montana” the only thing my daughter aspired to was getting rich and riding in a limo.

She’s not into Miley or Hannah much anymore. We quit tivo’ing those kinds of shows because, frankly, she’s too busy exploring outside to watch them. In fact, when she turned eight in September, she asked for a microscope and books about bugs!

But some days she asks if she can be a scientist/biologist/veterinarian and be a rock star. I tell her that she can do anything she wants to do. She’s my “Smart Girl!”

Kudos to Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, two of our “sexiest people alive,” for showing the world that breastfeeding is natural, nurturing, and wonderfully intimate.

November Issue of W Magazine

Are we really surprised that this contest has had zero, ZERO, entries? In another complete waste of tax dollars, an Atlanta abstinence promoter is sponsoring a contest in which engaged couples can win an assortment of prizes and $10,000 cash —- if they give up sex before the ceremony.

The article goes on to say:

The giveaway is among a host of events with a sex-can-wait gospel. Faust, who goes by “Miss Flip,” visits schools throughout the year with a program pressing abstinence as well as teaching conflict resolution and financial management skills.

In 2006, her program, implemented through Rockdale Medical Center, was awarded a federal grant of $455,510 annually for five years (a total of $2.27 million). The wedding prize involves some of those federal funds.

In the past, Faust, a former labor and delivery nurse, has orchestrated mock weddings, contrasting one featuring young moms, money woes and sexually transmitted diseases with another that has a smiling bride walking down the aisle in a flowing white gown.

There are so many problems with her approach and agenda that I don’t even know where to start. But one thing I do want people to know is that plenty (PLENTY!!) of couples who wait to have sex before their “I do’s” have marriage trouble, including sexual problems of all varieties. In fact, my sister just told me about a couple last night that is getting divorced after 12 years of marriage. He was a virgin when they got married, but now his wife is leaving him because he’s not a good enough lover. There’s no “chemistry” she says.

I also know of couples who do have pre-marital sex and actually do make their marriage work for the long haul.

There are virtues to abstinence, of course, but it is not divorce insurance. It does not ensure a great sex life or wedded bliss. To say that it does, creates false hope, frustration and ignorance about the realities of marriage and healthy sexuality.

The marriage-bed is the center of happiness,
a point from which all things ripple outward,
a nest from which all things learn to fly.
It is the sign of return, part of the great rhythm
of the seasons and of the years.
It is the dream of return, the strength and faith
that sing of home.
It is the wren’s nest woven of twigs and string,
the swallow’s nest of saliva and mud.
It is what we return to, as migratory birds
passing over marshes and fields
dream of the end of the journey.
It is what frightens night-devils away,
even in winter.
It is the tree that grows through the house,
the hollow of the tree that has never known death.
It is the crystal of all feeling, the flower of all
understanding, the small containing the large.
It is the nautilus growing its many chambers of love.
It is the sudden outburst of one who has long been silent.
It is the idea that a calla lily can be shaped
like a wineglass on a long green stem.
It is the heart-stone.
It is the name of all names
that thinks it is a star and a rose.
It is a conch-shell rough on the outside,
pearly in its intimacy.
It is a snail rolling over and over
building a staircase.
It is an animal, an almond, a repose.
It is an oyster opening in the full of the moon.
It is a mouth telling a secret.
It is a kiln where clay battles fire.
It is the simple happiness of sleeping on a boat.
These are the walls we’ve pressed back into a circle
in the shape of our merged bodies
And it will take a long time for the waves
spreading from the center of our intimacy
to reach the ends of the world.

From the Writer’s Almanac:

WEDNESDAY, 1 NOVEMBER, 2006
Listen (RealAudio) | How to listen

Poem: “The Marriage-Bed” by Michael Simms, from The Happiness of Animals. © Monkey Sea Editions.

The following headline caught my eye when I scanned cnn.com tonight:

Blind masseurs jump from bridge

It seems that until recently only blind people were allowed to be professional masseurs in South Korea. Now that their health ministry is opening up the profession to sighted people as well, the blind masseurs are protesting by jumping off a bridge.

Fascinating. Were blind people seen as “acceptable” masseurs because they couldn’t see what they were massaging? That implies that people are turned on solely by what they see.

Sadly I guess, most people do equate arousal with what they see — are they turned on by the “hot chick in the mini-skirt” or the “tall, dark and handsome leading man?”

One thing I have learned from working at Sensovi is that we are aroused through all of our senses, not just what we see. It’s also about what we hear, what we touch, what we smell, how we move…

Being sensual is essential to being sexual.