light-bulb-424I have been doing The Rebuttal now for two and a half years. I have written about many different topics. Families, human development, a particular money wasting CEO, language, children, sport, ranting – somehow I find something to write about. I was chatting with a friend a few nights back and I told him that one day I was bound to run out of things to write about. He said, “Nah, there is always something.”

He was right in a way. But to date I have taken basically the same themes and written about them in different ways. Some of these have been interesting and have generated a great deal of discussion. Others that I thought were really relevant generated no discussion. Possibly because everyone agreed with them or possibly because the writing put the reader to sleep,  probably the latter. But the question remains what else can I write about?

Well there is SEX. I have not touched on SEX.  I am British and sex does funny things to British people. More so than any other nation I think. I was brought up on a diet of Benny Hill, Dick Emery, The Two Ronnies and the Carry On movies. There was actually a stage play called No Sex Please We Are British. No one pokes fun at sex more than the British because no-one is more uncomfortable with sex than the British and it is how they cope.  And no one copes with sex worse than the British. My favourite British scene from a comedy is Monty Pythons the Meaning of Life. Who can forget the Catholics across the road dropping babies at will because the Pope wont let them use contraception and the Protestants neighbours complaining about the number of children that the Catholics had. The dialogue goes something like this:

Protestant husband: Those Catholics they breed like rabbits. Thirty years we have been married and we only have two children.

Protestant Wife: Yes dear but we only had sex twice.

And that pretty much sums up the British and sex.

But what about the deaf and sex. Is it worth writing about?

Before sex there is pre-sex. Not foreplay but finding someone to have sex with. As a young whipper snipper I liked chasing skirt, so to speak. It was the highlight of my week to get into the bar and chase the skirt. Of course being deaf chasing the skirt is essentially different.  I could  have limited my self solely to the Deaf community but, hey, there are lots of fish in the sea.

Pubs and nightclubs are loud and not conductive to hearing well with hearing aids. They also make it difficult to talk because they are so loud it is hard to monitor ones voice and be understood. The answer for me was to be DEAF and as DEAF as possible. I never went without paper and pen. I loved going to bars with deaf mates because we could sign and signing in the middle of the bar is a great way to get attention.

There were nights where the hunt was unsuccessful and there were nights when it was successful. More nights not successful than successful but I guess that’s essential otherwise it would tend to become boring. That was my reasoning anyway. You have to boost your self-esteem somehow. When I was successful it was often awkward. Why? Because hearing people, most of them, indeed most people generally, like having sex in the dark. Maybe it is because humans in general are embarrassed about their bodies. The media promotes the perfect body, rippling muscles and silicon pumped breast. Very few of us can compete. The answer is – do it in the dark!

Usually the scene is at some woman’s flat or house. I still lived with mum and dad so that was a no go zone. There would be more wine had, perhaps pizza, coffee a bit of sofa fun and inevitably you would end up in the bed. If you are deaf and about to have sex with someone for the first time you can, if you want, leave your hearing aids on. Many deaf will chose to leave their aids on rather than suffering with the embarrassment of fumbling to take them off.  Hearing aids are a bit like underwear, the last part to go and usually taken of hesitantly and self consciously.

BUT they can sometimes ruin the ambiance.  Sex is exercise and inevitably you sweat. At the crucial moment WEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOEEEEEEOOOOO and I guarantee any hearing person who knows nothing about hearing aids and their tendency to whistle at the wrong moment will quickly flick on the bedside lamp and want to know, “What the hell is that?” Cue the heavy breathing. “pant ppant .. just my hhhhearing aaiid.”

Then of course you have partners who like the ears. They like to nibble the ear or slosh their tongues about in the ear. A rubber ear mould and electronic device is not really conductive for this sort of sport. On goes the light and the red faced partner will apologise,  “What ever was I thinking, I am so so sorry“  One particularly keen partner  after tasting rubber (in my ear) did this and then asked if I would, “Like some music to set the mood again.”  More apologies ensued and I think we gave up about that time and decided that sleep was the best option.

And of course you have to communicate during sex. “Not there“, “That hurts“, “Oh yes” – all of these little communication tricks tell us whether we are doing the right things. You can hardly switch on the light every time you want to say something so that your partner can lipread you.  A purely fictional, comical with an element of truth scene might go something like this:

Light on:  I like that

Action resume for five minutes:

Light on: Can you do what you were doing again

Action resumes for five minutes:

Light on: Do we have any condoms

It pays to work out the communication strategies beforehand, but hey its spontaneous. What do you do?:

“Now before we start if you like something tug my left ear. If you don’t pat me twice on the head. If your ready two tugs ..“

It doesn’t work like that! But hell we work it out somehow. I know I did, lots of times.

So there you have it.  The Rebuttal’s first ever soft porn article. Well really I think its a valid social comment. Being British it was quite hard to write but I hope the reader does not take offence and can, like me, see the funny side.