Friendship

What a painful thing it is to realize that I live in a society that devalues friendship. Especially hetero-sexual friendship. Friendship is a source of love and acceptance and communion. And yet, women are encouraged to see other women as mere competitors, and men as potential providers and mates. And men, they are encouraged...
Read more »

Silken on Sex #68:  Today’s topic is erotic spanking, one of my favorite forms of foreplay. Over the years I’ve gotten to know several men and women who enjoy being spanked, paddled, and flogged, and I must admit, I do love indulging them. In recent months I’ve had the pleasure of making the online...
Read more »

My friends Amy and Boris are having marital problems, mainly around their sex-life. Interestingly enough, Boris is the one who came to me about it, instead of Amy. When asked, he described a pattern of formulaic sex that had dwindled to a once-a-month frequency, at best. He said he’d tried talking to her, had...
Read more »

Opposable Thumbs: Because of our opposable thumbs, we human beings have unique capabilities. Our muscled, contrary digits allow us to pull, twist, manipulate, and grip; to use tools, to control, even “civilize” our environment. There is, however, one essential human quality that does NOT respond well to this wondrous digital opposability… Love. Love is...
Read more »

The book lies open. It has been open for weeks, open at the same page she left it on New Year’s Day, page 147. It has usurped the place once reserved for her sculpture The Caged Gifts, resting as it does on the gold brocade chair near the foot of her bed. She doesn’t...
Read more »

In this episode, Silken answers a question from a friend asking if she knows what it is like to be in a relationship and still feel loneliness, and if so, how to fix it.  She shares her thoughts on her friend’s marriage, intimacy and complacency, as well as what it means to be a...
Read more »

And so ends a year that was both the worst and the best in my life so far. Three cancer diagnoses, two deaths, surgeries, illnesses, and a near-death experience for me — in ways it felt as though we were the Children of Job, a family cursed. For the most part, we chose not...
Read more »