In my business it isn’t strange to meet porn stars. Despite that, it was still such a surreal experience meeting Nina Hartley. There are many reasons for this: meeting someone famous for the first time always humanizes them to a certain degree. A lot of celebs put on a show when they meet people to maintain their facade, but when you are meeting someone famous who is about to do three nights of sex based workshops for you, you meet a side of them that is ultimately very personal and surprisingly relatable, and you’re shocked at just how much they can influence you in such a small period of time.
For starters, this is the best picture in American history. After the photo above was taken she posed for a photo with my co worker and grabbed his crotch. My eyes burned wide with jealousy and I said “I didn’t get THAT kind of special treatment!” She immediately ran back to me, grabbed my crotch and posed. After a beat, she looked down to what she was holding (see: every inch of my dick and balls), and with a firm jiggle announced “Ooo, I like you!” Thus my look of euphoria mixed with utter embarrassment. I don’t blush easily, but that managed to do it.
The first workshop was on oral sex. The store was packed with men and women of all types, straight and gay. It was a great workshop and personally very affirming, because everything she said is essentially what I try to echo here: sex is about finding someone’s orgasm, not giving it to them. The same rule applies to yourself. Explore your sexuality, see what you respond to, not what you think you’re supposed to like.
The second workshop was about spanking. Again, filled the store, and again it was a lot of fun. I unfortunately had a massive migraine caused by the stress of my moving situation (which as of today is 95% over because I found out that I got the apartment that I was going for. Moving to the Lower East Side at the end of the month, hooray!). People were volunteering to bottom for Nina and I had planned to, but the thought of being slapped around when your head feels like there are two hippos attacking each other inside of it made me sit it out. Bummer.
The third night was the night that caught me off guard. It was about Threesomes, and I was sure that I wasn’t going to hear anything that really would affect me in any way. I also assumed that given the nature of the workshop we wouldn’t fill the place, but sure enough we were packed to the door.
Listening to her talk about monogamy, swinging and polyamory was beyond interesting. I myself have always been in monogamous relationships, but I realized several years ago after my last serious one ended that I had been ruled by that very concept. Jealousy was very common in my life back then, and small things would set me off. I think back to times when I was possessive and jealous without expressing to him why I was feeling the way I was, but most of all I look back and see myself not asking myself why I was feeling the way I was. I basically let the concept of monogamy control my life and thus our relationship. I realized after we broke up that that was my hang up and my insecurity causing that, and it really had nothing to do with my partner at all.
Communication is important for any healthy relationship, and three years ago I realized that my most solid relationship has to be the one I have with myself. If a relationship with another person is a house and your relationship with yourself is half of the foundation, you’d better make sure you can support all of the lumber, floorboards and nails that a house requires. It’s important before you enter any relationship outside of the one with yourself that you are confident with yourself and you know why you react the way you do to things that are ultimately out of your control. No matter how much you love someone, you will never be able to control them (and nor should you be able to), so instead you should work on a partnership rich with communication and openness.
I was sad to see Nina go. She is an amazing energy in this world. I asked her to please come back and she told me that she’d be happy to. I asked her what other workshops she’d like to do and without turning back she said “Anything!” and left the store.
I don’t know that I will necessarily start having threesomes. It sounds fun to a point, but I really like to focus on making one person happy. And although I don’t care if people are in open relationships, I am too busy to fuss with more than one person at a time. On any given day I have a hundred things to do, the last thing I need is to be juggling boys. But who knows. I am now at least open to the conversation.
By the end of night three, I had an amazing internal conversation with myself. Meeting someone as bold and confident and unabashedly human as Nina makes you look at yourself. You think about everything you’ve done and everything you want to do and you start to wonder what those things are based in. Why you do those things or why you think you want to do them. It’s a very special person that can make you ask yourself a very important question that I think we should all ask ourselves more often:
“Who am I?”
Looks like she had a hand full;)