fan of the fur and burnin love, living in sin, jen sincero, sex advice

Dear Jen,
I was at a dinner party the other night and the topic turned to sex. I’m a fairly conservative guy and have never really done anything that would be considered kinky (unless you count 69ing as kinky) but was intrigued by some of the things people were talking about.

I was fairly educated on the majority of topics, but had never heard about this business of dressing up like stuffed animals and having sex. I was at once horrified and intrigued and you are the only person I’m telling this to (and even this is difficult). Apparently people dress up in full animal costume, cut holes in the appropriate places and go at it.

Where would I find such a costume? And how on earth do I bring this up to the person I’m dating? I’m single at the moment, but am really hoping to try this out at some point and am sure I’ll scare a prospective partner away. Thanks for your help Jen!
- Feeling Goofy

Dear Goofy,
I was walking on the beach the other day, getting lost in the meditative sound of the waves like the good hippie I am, until all of a sudden I was gripped by panic – what if a sneaker wave comes up and drags me out into the middle of the ocean to my watery death? This happened to a friend of mine, or rather to her little boy, or rather it almost happened…they were walking down the beach, he closer to the water than she, and this massive, solitary wave came out of nowhere and pulled him out to sea. He was miraculously able to latch his skinny little boy arms around a rock and hang on until the waves returned to normal, but it was a mighty close call. And as someone who doesn’t live on the Oregon coast (where there are rocks aplenty to cling to) and who could easily get her ass kicked in an arm wrestle with a six year-old boy, I was suddenly terrified.

Meanwhile, if I’d never heard of sneaker waves, I wouldn’t have known to be frightened. And that’s the way it is with about 90% of our fears – we learn about them and then either choose to take them on or choose to focus on something else. We could all walk around freaking out that the earth will get slammed by something large and hot flying around in space or that our appendixes might burst at any second. There’s enough material out there to spend a lifetime doing nothing else. Meanwhile, it’s only the quality fears we need to pay attention to, which are the ones our instincts, not our minds, flare up about. That’s what instincts are for. It’s their job. But the mind is a meddling, insecure, over-achiever that demands we pay attention to it and all it’s whoop de doo ideas.

If you were just going along, doing what felt right, natural and made you happy, and didn’t know that dressing up like Scooby Doo and doing the wild thing was something to worry about, you’d just do it because it felt good. And none of your instinct alarms would go off. But you were raised in a society that for some reason has decided that all sorts of things that make people happy are bad and should be hidden, ridiculed or not allowed to marry.

As I was poking around the internet looking for some sites to send you to to educate you on your new-found fetish (you are a furrie, btw.) I found a great quote from dear old Dan Savage that made me laugh out loud (as usual):

“As far as we're concerned, there's nothing wrong with getting off on fursuit sex or fucking stuffed animals or anything else that doesn't involve grave bodily harm, real animals, children or Ann Coulter.”

There are entire websites, chat rooms, conventions, videos and costumists dedicated to perpetuating a furrie lifestyle, and lots of prospective partners out there who would love you to poke around beneath their furry flaps. Here are a couple I found:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,11000-2007140884,00.html
http://furries.meetup.com/

♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠♠

Dear Jen,
What’s the deal on being in love more than once? I've had the can't eat, can't sleep, head over heels type of love and it ended. Abruptly. While I now know it’s for the best and have moved away from that situation, I can't seem to find it with someone else.

Since then I've done the safe guy relationship, the no-strings-attached relationship and now I'm in the friend-turned-lover relationship realm. While I’ve cared deeply about all of these guys (and especially the one I’m with now), I can't help but feel that I won't have that same passion or head over heels feeling again. I don't think I'm still hung up on this guy – it’s been a year and a half, we've both dated other people and I still care about him, but I understand that we're not good for each other. So what’s the deal? I know I'm young, but is there hope?
- Where's the Love?

Dear Love,
There are lots of words in the English language that sort of seep into each other and it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. For example: “love/ lust,” “being nice/lying” or “gay/only do it when I’m drunk.” I’m not discounting the fact that you were probably really in love with this guy, but being addicted to passion can be a dangerous thing. Especially if, like you said, yours was centered around someone who wasn’t very good for you.

Passion and love are sold both separately and together, but as anyone who’s been married for any length of time can tell you, the latter is way more important. Because the former wears off like…lipstick on a whore? Cheap weed? My ability to come up with a third analogy?

For example, here are some of the things I was passionate about at some point in my life:

Cigarettes
Leif Garret
Stuffed animals
Really hot crazy guys
The Who
LSD
Writing music
Math
My blankey

With the exception of a few, I never think about any of them anymore. And the ones that still apply aren’t nearly the all-consuming forces they once were. Except for one, and it isn’t math

So yes, some guy will blow your skirt right up over your head again at some point in your life, but to expect him to come around every year and a half is a tad grabby. That kind of putting-your-keys-away-in-the-refrigerator kind of distraction is hard to come by.

When he does show up, hopefully it’ll be love/friendship (rather than drama/dysfunction/hot make-up sex) that keeps you together. And when the passion wears off and the skirt starts to fall, which it will, you need to get to work and keep it spicy. Because that fire in your groin isn’t going to light itself.