Comments on: Zoe Margolis Breaks Up With Britain

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:44:45 +0000

Well, this was an eye opener. My perception is that sex has a much more uptight bent here in the states than in England. I always perceived us to be descendants to a bunch of puritanical prudes who thought England was just too naughty and religiously regulating for their own tastes (pretty ironic considering Europeans think of us as very religious). Even my mother-in-law, whose father was born in England and visited family there a few times, said we Americans were pretty uptight about sex. But I guess the English are much more into privacy and find just merely talking about sex to be racy. Fuck, just don’t talk about it. But I suppose when you have a culture about stiff upper lips and suffering through tragedy with a stoic face, I guess bad sex is pretty tragic and must be suffered with quiet dignity and silent pain. I suppose here we would complain very loudly and graphically to our mani-pedicurist about how awful our hubby’s clumsy attempt at fisting and he didn’t use enough lube or wait long enough before trying to shove past the widest part of the hand in.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:10:22 +0000

That’s very interesting to see her take on the state of sex here in the states. I would offer the counterpoint to that though as it depends highly on where you are in the states.

I’m located firmly in the Bible Belt (Georgia to be precise) and my wife and I opened up a small, women-friendly, sex-positive novelty store called Silver Stars Sensual Boutique in an Atlanta suburb. We are now locked in a battle with the city as they have shut us down because we promote ‘items that could be used for sexual purposes’.

We’ve been great community leaders involved in numerous charities and events. Hell, we were even invited to join the Chamber of Commerce which came out and did a ribbon cutting at our store which was featured in the local paper!

But the powers that be have decided that sex is just something that the community can’t handle, so they’ve come in and forced us to close.

I wish Zoe the best and hope that she finds the liberation that she is looking for here. And New York may be just the right choice to do that. But down in the south, many are anything but sexually liberated.

By: Michael B

Michael B — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:59:21 +0000

I think anybody with a conscience, or even common sense, would consider what happened to Zoe to be shitty beyond comprehension, and that she felt that she had to move here is a shame. But as smart as she is, I have no doubt she’ll have an amazing time and much success here.

After reading Zoe’s article, it sounds like the real stumbling block is being on an equal footing with a potential partner, learning about each other at the same rate, when there’s so much about her out there. And that readers of the blog tend to be on her “no” list, (although she implies that Americans familiar with the blog might have better standing than the British men–the whole more relaxed about sex thing) just seems a shame. I don’t mean that in a “Dude, [female celebrity] just got a divorce, high-five, we have a chance!” sort of way, but it got me to thinking.

If Zoe is understandably reluctant to bring up the blog, I wonder how she would feel if she met an enlightened American male who kept it to himself that he recognized her, or her work? Eventually the “I have to tell you something” conversation has to happen, given enough time. Fessing up could kill a great thing too early.

I’ll probably never meet the woman, and only know her through the blog, but it sucks that she’s got to deal with all this. Relationships are complicated enough.

Best of luck to her. Sincerely.