dtf

For those gentle readers who are not familiar with the title vernacular: dtf = down to fuck

I'm a firm disbeliever in "sexual economy."

Aside: Joan is pretty much awesome, even though she did fuck that guy from Jaguar to get the account...sorry, rambling spoilers about Mad Men over. Sexual economy is an idea out there that women and men somehow trade things for sex. i.e. he takes her out for a nice dinner, maybe buys her some jewelry, and she's pretty much contractually obligated to have sex with him.

It's also the idea that women who "give up" sex too quickly ruin things for all of us, because then men start thinking that they don't have to try anymore ("try" of course meaning here "spend lots of money or ultimately propose marriage to"). Ultimately, it's bullshit and it robs everyone of the idea that sex can just be a pleasurable, mutually agreed upon act that both people enjoy and don't have to waste a lot of brain power figuring out the pricing gauge for. Although it does make me giggle to imagine two people completely naked and possibly torqued haggling over sexual acts. "A blowjob is at least one pearl earring. I'll let you cum on my tits if you buy the set." (Also, it just makes me think of that Chef song from South Park about prostitutes. You know, the one with James Taylor in it, too. I tried to find a clip of it that didn't include a bunch of other bs, but couldn't. Go forth, denizens, if you really care about it.)

That being said, not relying on a system of checks and balances to dictate when I'm allowed to have sex, I am typically dtf a lot of the time. However, it gets difficult because there are those rare instances when I'm not. Especially since I have the distinct inability to articulate this. It has a bit to do with some issues with black and white thinking (i.e. if I'm not dtf, then I somehow am on the complete opposite end of the spectrum and buying into the sexual economic game, which I dislike and gets me into a crappy mindset to begin with), as well as the old favorite of not being able to articulate what I want. Now-hubby likes to attribute this one to where I grew up, while therapy lady likes to put more of the emphasis on how I grew up. Either way, it's frustrating. I can rarely even state a preference for trivial things like restaurant choice, so being able to say, "I'm not really in the mood for p-in-the-v sex right now, but I could probably take my shirt off and play with your dick for a bit" is almost completely impossible. Therapy lady and I were working on a system where I would count to 3 internally and then just say what I was thinking when somebody asked me to make a choice. Or even if I wasn't asked but had a clear preference one way or the other for a given activity (i.e. dtf vs. not) Sort of exposure therapy, if you will. The idea was the more times people don't say, "that's a fucking stupid way to think and you should be quiet," the better I would become at speaking up.