African sex

So I’ve been missing for awhile again. This time I’ve been exploring the wilds of South Africa on Safari, living a Survivor episode rather than watching one. I’ve got so much to blog about, so expect some flurries of my erotic musings over the next few weeks as I catch up after a month away.

I went on safari at Mkuzi Falls (stayed in abject luxury a la Meryl Streep in Out of Africa), dappled my feet in the Indian Ocean in Pennington, went to the coolest crocodile farm in the world (home to Henry, the largest croc in captivity), saw pengiuns and baboons (I kid you not) living wild 20 minutes apart in Cape Town, and got to enjoy the hospitality of South Africans, in their three largest cities.

Needless to say it was a very cool trip.  The more I travel, the more I see that everyone has got the same unquenshing curiousity about all things sexual. At home, I am often stopped by my neighbors, people in grocery store line ups, and by random phone calls from people with questions, all wanting to be better in bed, and having concerns about whether or not they are normal. The older and wiser (ha!) I seem to get, the more I understand that we all the same. A message about sameness is certainly needed in the racial divide that South Africa is. Four distnict racial group, with very little intermingling between them. But as an outsider, they all seemed open, welcoming, and socially similar. Sure the Zulu men I met (Hi to Jabulani, my guide) had some views about sex that would make most feminists cringe. And an overall they HIV rate of 40%, so safe sex takes on a whole new meaning. And I think it would be heart renching to fall in love with someone outside your racial group. But people are people. That message keeps coming home for me. And when I tell them what I do, (crazy, mis-guided sex therapist), everyone’s reaction is the same. Sex?  We are all interested, curious, and driven.

As for my own sex life, in Africa, where the rising sun coming up over the bushlands in what is the cradle of humanity, sex seems very primitive. This is where we came down out of tress, and learned to huddle together to escape the night predators. Make babies, nurse our babies, and try to raise them in a dangerous environment. Sex outside with lions howling in the distance, under a cloudless sky ranks feels as raw, and wild as you would imagine.  I likened it to the movie Jurassic Park. Snarls and swooping things all at the outskirts of the lodge ready to pounce. Slightly dangerous, but oh so hot.