Controlled Reactions . . .

Okay, today I do remember one of the things I was thinking about last night at 3 am. I'll tell you a little about it, and see what you think. Probably, you'll just tell me to go back to bed.

If you know a little about history, you might know that here in Chicago is the site of the first controlled nuclear reaction. (And those of you who know a little about sleep disorders might wonder why I still have insomnia when I'm thinking about physics in the middle of the night, but I digress.)

So what they did down there at U of C was to stack up a big pile of nuclear material and then push and pull these graphite rods in and out of the stack to heat it up and then slow down the reaction. (And now, with that explanation, you're probably wondering if I'm an unemployed technical writer. Oh right - digression again.)

Me, I was thinking how grown-up sexuality is a lot like that experiment. Not the fake, Gossip Girl or whatever show kind of sex, but sexuality of people on the north side of 30. The great thing about blogs is that they give a wide audience of people access into the very personal thoughts of people that might be just like them.

And in reading these blogs and seeing all these sexual variations, I was thinking lots of people are finally free to explore the things that turn them on in the same way those scientists did, and they write about it. They can take a very strong response to an emotion or idea that inexplicably turns them on, like maybe jealousy, or violence, or rape, and then personally explore it on a controlled basis as they try to understand their fetishes.

So me and Mike, we took a history of jealousy in his previous relationships, a history that inexplicably turns him on when he thinks about old girlfriends cheating on him, and we eventually started exploring it through controlled experiments. What would it be like if Mike saw a guy kiss me, what would it be like if I touched a guy - that kind of thing. And then if the reaction gets too hot, we push in one of those graphite rods (pardon the pun) and stop the experiment for a while to analyze the response.

And the great thing is that lots of other people are out there doing the same thing. Perhaps people who experienced abuse are exploring it and controlling it as an adult through the BDSM lifestyle. And believe me, I know more than a few girls with rape fantasies they have acted out. The great thing about being a grown-up is finally having the courage to stop and face your fears, and then finding out that maybe you wasted a lot of time and anxiety on something that wasn't so scary in the light of day.

And now, Oprah and her inner child have to get some sleep. Nighty night.