2010 concluded a complicated decade for sex. But honestly is there ever a decade that is not complicated for sex? I don't think I ever heard the term "sex addiction" as much as I heard it this past decade. Someone must have decided that if we didn't like your sexual behavior it was so much neater (and better public relations) to called it a disease! And if your too big libido and sexual desires was a disease - we could cure you, redeem you, forgive you and watch you play golf again or get your own television show!
Now, don't send me tons of email about sexual addiction being a true disease - I get it and I believe it.... But I also understand how we use the term sexual addiction to package up behaviors that we simply are not comfortable with - such as extra-maritial affairs and the use of paid sexual services. Those are societal norms not a disease.
Did you make your sex tape yet? It's not too late! 2010 was the decade of the Sex Tape! From Paris Hilton "1 Night in Paris" to well - just about everybody else! And if getting your fifteen minutes on the internet was too trendy for you - threesomes and the oh so shocking "Girl Kiss" became the rage of every awards show in America! 2010 was the decade of the Lesbian. From the "L Word" to more and more women exploring their sexuality with other women.
What to say about all of this? I think it is clear that we are wanting to be seen more and more as sexual beings - and I think that this is a good thing. If we stop hiding - we have the opportunity to take away shame! People are stretching their boundaries - and wanting to show themselves while showing the rest of us - that sexuality is full of rules waiting to be broken or that sexuality has no rules except to be between consenting adults.
2010 was also the year where elder sex started to get a bigger profile in the media! Yah for Gray Sex! Not only were older people having sex more and enjoying it - they needed lessons on how to have safer sex! We need AARP to send condoms along with those cards on your 50th birthday. Just because you can't get pregnant anymore doesn't mean that the over 50 crowd couldn't pass along those nasty STD's! Apparently those folks over 50 had the biggest spike in STD's in the country!
Female arousal also came onto the scene in a big way. Whether it was the desire to have a "pink pill" to cure feminine lagging libido issues or the difficulty that Zestra an organic, female arousal gel was having getting media to give it advertising time! 2010 was the year when the media let us gals know that it was just fine for male arousal products to play on our television screens - but female arousal was best left in the closet!
Sex firmly came out of the closet in 2010. It is the the decade that sex toys came to Oprah, Pure Romance replaced Tupperware Parties for where the girls gather for fun, sex blogs filled the internet, and sexperts launched practices to help all of us find our sexuality in a bigger and better way than ever before.
When the discussion of bondage came up on The Today Show just a few weeks ago - and Weeds featured not one, but two sexy spanking scenes - I knew that we had turned some kind of sexual corner.
I can't wait to see what 2011 brings us. Hopefully, more self acceptance, more pleasure, and the knowledge that sexuality is as simple as being human.
