TremulousHand

Reading through your answers so far, I see multiple points at which you try to separate both your own views and the views published in the American Conservative from many of the uglier views pushed by Donald Trump and others who represent the current mainstream of conservative thought in the US. And yet, there are writers like Rod Dreher talking again and again in the American Conservative how books like Jean Raspail's Camp of the Saints makes many good points, if crudely expressed, and there was the laughable tweet put out by the American Conservative feed from a just a few months that tried to provide cover for the racism and nativism of people like Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson. For those that missed it, the tweet was "There are far, far more offensive views than Donald Trump or Tucker Carlson. If Trump and Tucker are racists, then what do you call those other people." The answer of course is other racists. As someone left of center, I used to read the American Conservative fairly regularly as a way of challenging my views and avoiding epistemic closure, but it's become harder and harder as both the Republican party and people espousing conservative ideology not only out in the world but in your magazine have become increasingly comfortable and emboldened in framing American culture as a clash of civilizations with clear racist overtones. What responsibility do you have as an editor for counteracting this tendency and how well do you think you're doing?

I think it's worth separating it into two issues. Meeting your needs and meeting his needs.

Think seriously about what your needs are. It feels like a lot of the disgust you are talking about is disgust with yourself for not being able to enjoy the kind of sex life you want because of your injury, something that's completely out of your control. It is frustrating to know what you want to be able to have and feel like you can't have it.

But I think you should turn it around and think about what kind of intimate contact you do enjoy. What causes you pain? I'm assuming it's penis-in-vagina sex. If so, what happens if you take it off the table? Are there other kinds of sexual contact that don't cause you pain? What about masturbating? What about having him eat you out? Clitoral massage? What about just a deep back and neck massage? A rocking make-out session?It may be worth experimenting a bit on your own just to take the self consciousness out of it to figure out what makes you feel good, and then using that to build out and explore other things that feel good.

There's a tendency to think of penis-in-vagina as the ultimate goal of sexual contact and everything else is just foreplay, but that's absolutely silly. What if you and your husband had an evening where you had a couple of drinks together, made out a bit, he gave you a toe-curling back massage, and then you gave him a blowjob. That would be a lovely evening full of physical and emotional intimacy, but it also wouldn't trigger any pain from your pelvic injury. It requires a bit more creativity and a bit of recalibrating what your expectations are of sex, but your injury shouldn't prevent you from feeling fulfilled.

If you're having a hard time doing things with your husband, do things by yourself until you feel comfortable and confident enough in what you want to share it with him.

A bit about your partner's needs:

Men are pretty easy going. They like vaginal sex, but they've all been improvising putting their dick in things for pretty much their whole lives. He may be a bit disappointed if you tell him that you don't know if you'll ever have vaginal sex again, but if you express an openness to doing other things, the disappointment isn't likely to last, especially if you can have a frank conversation about what other things might be satisfying. At a more obvious level, this could include blowjobs and handjobs, but there are other things too. You could wear a sexy dress or lingerie and have him masturbate for you. You could whisper dirty talk into his ear while he masturbates. You could get a fleshlight, either for you to use on him, for him to use on himself, or both. You might also think a bit about exploring kinks. Lots of kinks are fun and are sexual without necessarily involving vaginal sex.

I don't really know what will work in your specific situation, and I hope some of what I said was at least somewhat helpful, but I think the fact that you recognize that you want to change your situation for both your sake and his is a good first step.

Some of the states that appear to have been doing the best with vaccine distribution, based on percent of population vaccinated, are New Mexico, West Virginia, North Dakota, and Oklahoma. Having personally had a lot of experience living in several of those states, I don't really think of them as national leaders in health care accessibility, so I have to admit I was a bit surprised. Is there something those states are doing or other factors that are helping them do better than other states?

I'm curious about whether there is a way to see what breeds are contained in your database. We tested our dog a couple of years ago, and the results came back husky, blue heeler, and Russell terrier, with some broader things specified. At the time, I had just learned about Catahoula Leopard dogs, which she is practically physically identical to. More broadly, to what extent is dog genomics based on traits versus breeds? Will a dog with blue coloring always come back as partially a blue heeler?