Don’t Be Naked on Facebook

Please don’t be offended, but you can’t friend me on Facebook. If you see any profile for a Monroe, I guarantee it’s not me. I admire people who give advice like mine and fully identify themselves, but that’s not me. Only a small segment of people connected to me offline know that I share my experience with masturbation and pornography and sexual fantasy online. Honestly, I would be happy to share it with more people, but this is a need-to-know category and if you don’t need to know, you don’t want to know. That’s a healthy boundary.

Why Do Doctors Knock? (And Maybe You Should Observe Boundaries, Too)

Have you had a routine physical exam lately? I need one. They aren’t comfortable, to be sure. You know you aren’t just going to point to your neck, describe some pain, and walk out with a prescription. This is an all-in deal. I’m thinking about my last one. The crazy thing to me, though, was how they gave me privacy to exchange my clothing for a modesty gown. When the doctor knocked, it frankly seemed like a tease. What? He wants to make sure I’ve tucked and accounted to make sure no unnecessary flesh is showing? God forbid he discover what color my boxer shorts are. Oh, wait! He’s about to pull said boxer shorts down to my knees, look my penis over, handle my testicles, and then turn me around and feel inside my anus with his finger. And we both know it. So, why bother with the “Are you decent?” knock? Why bother with the privacy of someone who’s already surrendered it?  The answer is…boundaries, voluntarily-placed walls on what we do, look at, and think about at every moment in time.

Hold that thought a moment. Now consider: there was an episode of “The King of Queens” in which Doug is strong-armed into telling his wife, Carrie, the nature of his sexual fantasies. In an effort to divert attention from the fact that he imagines himself in liaisons with women other than her, he proudly reveals that these daydreams all assume that he’s a grieving widower. The funny thing, I guess, is that her hang-up then becomes that he routinely imagines her deceased. She then proceeds to fill a stack of note cards with her romance novel ideas of suitable topics for his fantasizing. As the show went into a dream sequence that started as Carrie’s suggested fantasy, but—since it was in Doug’s head—then imagined her demise in a car accident heard just off-screen, I found myself wondering how many men watching were squirming at the notion of their wife having the slightest idea what runs through their head in connection with sexual arousal, stimulation, and orgasm. If only our thoughts always met standards of TV network censors (as low as they’ve become).