Colin Aulds, An Article, The Honest Liars, and Orgasm Equality!
I'm writing this today because a guy named Colin Aulds, one of the Honest Liars, wrote a fab Orgasm Equality article in Weekly Gravy called, "How To Make Her Come...Before She Goes (Forever)," and I want to give him props for it, send you that way (Go check it out!!!!), give a little history, and tell you why I was so excited about it on an Orgasm Equality Movement level. I'm gonna be all long-winded about this though, so let me start.
First - Haven't heard of the Honest Liars? Haven't been to their site or listened to their podcast? That's your loss 'cause these dudes are getting into some issue that need digged into. They investigate radical honesty - being deeply honest with yourself so that you can engage in more healthy and honest relationships (They say all this better than me probably btw). They point out how hard that is to do because there are very few models for this kind of honesty out there in the world. We just don't grow up with it. They also make no bones about the fact that bringing that kind of honesty into your life can be painful and hard and could even break up relationships - but it is worth it.
I think they are way on point with that message, and I also think it has everything to do with Orgasm Equality. The culture surrounding female orgasm is so non-honest about the realities of the female body and the female experience that we men and women don't even know what honest looks like. It's just not modeled for us. So, getting to a more honest place when it comes to lady-gasms, with ourselves and in our sexual relationships, can be painful - but it's worth it.
So, my point is that their work and my work are meant to be good friends.
I met Colin when I (well let me first just admit that I regularly google my name and also 'science sex and the ladies'...like a lot. But in my defense, I would never find articles and stuff about SSL if I didn't. So, I googled 'science sex and the ladies' and saw the something called The Honest Liars Podcast had mentioned the movie. Obviously, I dropped all my actual work and listened immediately. I loved it. I loved it because these guys, Colin Aulds and Adam Talbot, were talking really thoughtfully and openly. They had read an Alternet article that came out about SSL. One of them (I think Adam) had then checked out my movie, and they also had invited a female friend to add her point of view.
Anyway, listening to them was awesome because I LOOOOVE hearing people talk about these ideas, but also because these dudes were really trying to grapple with some of the more controversial aspects. It was super refreshing to hear. Plus, I particularly liked that at times they mentioned the possible filmmaker of the movie that might be listening, and I actually was. That's just kinda funny to me.
So, I immediately wanted to contact them, and because I'm me and because they seemed truly open to discussion, in the email I corrected some of the things they had said about the science presented in the movie. I also gave my two cents about some statements Colin had made about feeling like (and I'm paraphrasing) that there shouldn't be any problems if a man and a woman just came together and communicated well. You know me. I have all kinds of things to say about there not being a level playing field, and that it's much more complicated than that, etc. etc.
To my great excitement, they emailed me back and were super receptive to discussing stuff. We ended up doing a Skype interview for their podcast on the 4th of July that became a 3 part series. Um, I REALLY liked doing that podcast. It was fun and they were really thoughtful and interesting and I think we had some top notch discussion. Podcasts are awesome because I feel like it's a way to get feedback and challenges on the spot so we can really talk out the minutia and subtlety in a way that is often too hard to do in writing.
Now we're back to Colin's article. Okay, so since then Colin has kept in contact with me from time to time, giving me a heads up when he sees something I might be interested in. Then in January, he wrote the article in question. I read it, and I was like, 'hell yeah!' It made me feel like Orgasm Equality had won over this man - and that made me feel really hopeful because this man, I think (and I hope I'm not stereotyping you too much, Colin), is a sorta alpha guy who was openly skeptical about a couple of my assertions going in. Now, when I say alpha - don't get me wrong. He's not some dumb meat head or anything. He's a smart, thoughtful, open guy. It's just he seems like he's also a guy's guy - he gets along with other dudes easily and probably spent a lot of his youth doing traditionally dude things with other dudes. He's the kind of person people always think this movie is not for, but to me - he's exactly the type of person it's for...a person who is skeptical, sure, but open and willing to ask hard questions in order to get the answers that make sense to them. And then when he is on board, that alpha part is a huge asset because he, with all that alpha-ness has the potential to influence lots of others.
Seriously, this podcast was fun as shit. It was like everything I ever hoped would happen while I'm talking with people about this. They asked me straight forward, skeptical questions about it. And we talked about it. I'm not in this for people to just smile and nod and then leave believing whatever it is they want to believe when they came in. The things I assert about lady-gasms and about the reality of sexual encounters between women and men are not, like, obvious. So, honestly, if you don't question me or have some thought about it, I feel like something isn't right - like you don't care or you don't get the gravity of what we're saying, or you don't believe me and you want to just stop talking about it and move on. Maybe that's not true all the time, but it feels true. I want to get grilled. I want to get down to the nitty gritty. That's were the magic happens. That's where things start getting more clear - and that's what felt so cool about this podcast.
I'm super happy I met Colin and Adam. Honestly they had no reason to listen to me going in. The strongest assertions SSL makes fly in the face of pretty much everything society has been telling us about female sexuality since we popped outta the womb, and their experiences, like most dude's, probably tended to not jive with what I was saying anyway. But man, when I read what Colin had written in his article I felt like he had really gotten behind aspects of the Orgasm Equality argument that he had really questioned coming into our discussion - and that is crazy cool.
It means we can talk this stuff out, it means alpha dudes are our allies (He's already in the the Orgasm Equality Allies list as part of Honest Liars, but I added Colin and Adam's actual names into their entry), and it means there is a lot of hope for us ladies, our 'gasms, and our sexual encounters.
Big ups to you Colin, Adam and the Honest Liars!