2nd best part of the election debate...

It was held right near where the sex docs are held, so after it was over I walked over to see if I could catch the end of the film and the discussion moderation by the one male nurse who grew up in an Italian neighborhood and then became a sexologist!

As it turned out, I got there right as the discussion was starting, so I grabbed some (free) pizza and sat down.

At that moment, the one male nurse (who's in his 70s) was explaining his history and orientation and outlook on sex.

"I've been penis-vagina monogamous with my wife for 30 years," he was like, "Though I would say I am more oriented towards group massage and group sex, which she tolerates."

He also said that he started this when he was in his 30s, and since the documentary was about the sexlife of women over 65, he affirmed something that had been said in the group about how he mostly had sex with people around his age because of the connection, though when he first started getting into group sex, he went as young as 19 and as high as a couple in their 60s.

One participant (a [white] woman in her late 20s) said she thinks older couples are lovely, but then she couldn't help her reaction when they interviewed an older lesbian and they panned to her partner, "And there was this woman with a flappy throat and bright, garish lipstick. I mean, I'm happy for them, but on some level, I couldn't help that I was disgusted, and I was angry at myself for thinking that."

Another participant (another [white] woman in her late 20s) was from a local advocacy group from the aging, and was saying that they had only started to consider sex recently. On the one hand, a lot of older folks got VDs really easily, since they grew up in times with less sex ed. On the other hand, sexual intimacy is an important part of people's lives, but the very set up of nursing homes can hinder it.

"First of all it's the shared rooms, and then you have, you know, beds with metal railings, and cords everywhere!", she was like. "It's a liability issue."

At that the male nurse agreed, and said it ruined quality of life for a lot of people, out of a fear of a rare danger.

"It's like how they won't build playgrounds for kids anymore," he was like.

At that point, I hopped in to the discussion and agreed, and said that just like the kids then get fat and get diabetes, the older people might be dying sooner because they can't fuck.

A little after that, the girl from the aging advocacy group said that in their retirement home there's a 70 year old who has a 26 year old boyfriend.

"I mean, I don't get it, but it's nice," she was like. "Though I wonder, what do they talk about?"

The male nurse also talked about how he dropped acid and smoked pot with his nieces and nephews when they were teens, but now whenever people ask him at family gatherings what he's been up to and he tells them what sex panels he's been on, "they scurry away", and at that he made a motion with his knarled hands wriggling outwards like cockroaches running from the light.

"And I don't mind that they're private, but they used to be so open, and they've drawn back from that openness, like clams closing tight shut."

He also mentioned that one time he was on a sex panel about masturbation with a woman with severe cerebral palsy, and a woman with less-severe cerebral palsy.

"The woman with severe cerebral palsy had to have specialized sex toys made so she could control them when she masturbated," he was like. "Fortunately she had a supportive husband."

Somehow, too, during the discussion, someone brought up that online in the (straight) kink community, all the men are dominant and all the women are submissive, but that's because it's a public space. Around the city, though, there is 1 professional male dominatrix for the women, and at least 30 professional female dominatrixes (dominatrices?) for the men.

Anyhow, on the walk to the subway station after the doc discussion I strolled and chatted with a regular attendee, this early 20s scifi/fantasy fangirl who's into BDSM with her sci/fantasy fanboy boyfriend, and I was asking her what's new. She and her boyfriend were recently featured in a short film by an art school attendee where they were engaged in "needle play" (her putting long, sharp needles into his back in artistic arrangements, and then pulling them out to let him bleed) and light bondage. She and her local pagan group also recently rented temple space.

After that, me and her got into a discussion about fundamentalist pagans! I guess there's a portion of them that are very much "my way or the high way" and are trying to return to the original practices of the original founder and are always trying to convert non-pagans or pagans who don't agree with them. But, just when she was saying that, her bus rolled up, and so I walked to the subway stop a half-block away.