Maybe if you weren't so filthy...

Sex, Self, and the Art of Connection: A Life Unfiltered

Somebody that I know, that I actually mentored, wrote me an email recently related to something that I’d written on Linkedin. It was about a gig that I was struggling to promote (I’m a jazz & blues singer on the side). Ticket sales were low and I was having a moan about the challenge of promoting the show with many people not going out as much as they once had. This email that I received said, “Maybe people don’t like filth maybe your rather blatant stuff about your personal sex-life is off-putting and something that some may feel is sacred for marriage is being soiled by self-centred pleasure and thus not interested.”

I was stopped in my tracks, if I’m honest. Not only because this was a person to whom I thought I’d shown an enormous amount of goodwill, but because it so completely misses the point of what I do, why I share details about my own sex life (which may get filthy from time to time, and YAY for that) and how my music - dirty songs from the 1920s-40s - actually BENEFIT from me being open about my personal life.

Aside from the fact that it’s clear if you’ve read anything that I’ve written that I don’t believe sex should be reserved solely within a monogamous marriage, I also don’t believe there’s anything wrong with self-centred pleasure, which appeared to be what disturbed my mentee the most. C’mon, isn’t so much of sex about pleasuring one’s self as well as one’s partner? Isn’t masturbation, after all, one of life’s greatest self-centred pleasures and a way not only about understanding one’s own body, but about being able to share that understanding with a partner in order to achieve greater sexual satisfaction for the both of you?

And even though it’s clear that the author of the email clearly has her own issues when it comes to self-centred pleasure, I do feel that perhaps I need to set the record straight on where I’m coming from and what Sex Advice for Seniors is all about.