The Interview

Ruby has had an interesting few days lately...

A journalist writing for a local newspaper interviewed me. Yes, you read that right, interviewed me. Says he's writing an article about some of us more adventuresome and sexually edgy people in the area and how the more vanilla couples could perhaps learn a thing or two from us. Nice.

When he first contacts me, we exchange a few emails and he wonders how to fit something about pegging into the piece. Before we speak on the phone he contacts an "academic sex expert" (who turns out to be a local academic who teaches about sexuality). So when I find myself on the phone with this man, who by the way has a gorgeous deep voice, my first question for him is what did the "sex expert" have to say about my particular proclivity?

She had never heard of it.

My first reaction is that if you spend your time with your nose in the books instead of out in the real world, that's the kind of education you end up with. When I tell him this I actually phrase it as "..instead of in the trenches" and immediately regret it because I am trying to lend some legitimacy to the subject and somehow the word 'trenches' leans heavily into potentially sordid territory. But I go on. Ms. Academic Sexpert obviously is not the kind of person who has immersed herself in the subject of sexuality to the point of exploring some of the more unusual sexual activities that people enjoy. I'm willing to bet it wasn't her major. And that she doesn't know who Dan Savage is.

But okay, whatever. There are actually a lot of people who have never heard of the word "pegging" and have not even encountered strap-on lesbian sex, either. It's quite possible to have missed all that if you don't watch porn. More rare for a sex educator, but possible.

So Mr. Sexy Voice continues on hesitatingly and says that actually Ms. Academic Sexpert said it probably had something to do with...(wait for it)...homosexuality.

Heavy sigh (that was mine, not Mr. Sexy Voice Journalist's).

I tell this man to listen carefully.

"The area of your body that you enjoy having stimulated has no bearing on the gender you prefer to do the stimulating."

"Can you repeat that, please...slowly?" He asks. Sure. I do exactly that, enunciating each word, envisioning it in print in the local newspaper.

We talk, Mr. Sexy Voice Journalist and I, for quite a while. About orgasms ten times more powerful than normal ones. About role reversal and intimacy. About where my interest in pegging began (I don't know, actually...I have always been rather anally obsessed, but I censor the word 'obsessed', not wanting to sound too out there). About motivating factors that would persuade a woman to peg a man. About this website, which he's been perusing. That one gives me pause. Which parts drew him in after the journalist in him had located the informational stuff? Did he read the erotica? Did he enjoy it?

He asks great questions. I can hear the fascination in his voice. Before we hang up I can't resist telling him that he has a really lovely voice.

You see, Mr. Sexy Voice Journalist, when women hear a low, rumbling voice like yours, we think of all kinds of things. Here at Pegging Paradise, we wonder if his moans would be as full and resonant as his voice is.

When I deliver the compliment he accepts it gracefully. Yet it feels like my sincere praise of his vocal chords puts him in a place he's not used to being in with interviewees. I enjoy his unsettledness. We hang up.

The article is due out on Valentine's day and I can't wait to see how he chooses to describe pegging in a local newspaper. He interviewed 3 other women, too. Roylin Downs, of Kama Sutra Closet (where I will be teaching February 16th!), Joan Price, author of "Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud About Senior Sex" and Andi Epstein, teacher of tantric sex practices.

That interview...was fun.

If all interviews are like that, sign me up.