Sex Advice With An Edge
The researchers surveyed more than 8,000 people in Finland, all either fraternal or identical twin pairs or siblings. They asked participants about their views on recreational drug use and sex outside of a committed relationship. Twin studies help scientists tease out the role of nature versus nurture because identical twins usually have the same DNA sequences, but fraternal twins have only about half of their DNA in common.
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Sex/Life is our latest Netflix show craze, and it’s got us thinking more about… ahem… our sex lives. There are plenty of ways to enhance yours – be it through toys or new positions – but how do you know what’s actually working best for you? This is where a sex diary can help. No, seriously – hear us out.
Maybe you’re in a relationship and after the initial buzz of lockdown sex died down (come on, what else did we have to do in quarantine?, your sex life has a got a little less exciting. Or maybe things with your SO are seriously longterm, and you’re looking for a way to spice things up. And even if you’re looking to document your own solo pleasure, there’s benefits here too in keeping a sex diary.
Ultimately, it’s for your own enjoyment and to get better acquainted with how you feel about your sex life. Here’s what you need to know.
Journaling is often recommended as a way to go inwards, self-reflect or even to let worries and situations go. Depending on how you feel about your sex life, a journal can be a good way to do these things.
It might seem weird at first, given that the main window we have for talking about sex is drunkenly with a trusted friend, but think about how freeing it could be. How often do you share the nitty gritty details of your sex life? Let’s be real, real sex rarely is the way it looks on our screens (including you, Sex/Life). It’s easy to feel like your experiences aren’t “normal”, whatever that actually means.
Kate Moyle, sex and relationship expert at sexual wellness brand LELO tells us: “Journaling is a commonly used tool in therapy for externalising, building self-awareness and helping to reflect on experiences, thoughts and feelings.
“Writing to yourself in this way can also highlight to you where you might be placing certain judgements, assumptions or ideas, which when it comes to sex can have a really big impact on our sex lives and experiences. Writing them down either in the moment or returning to then can really highlight some of both the internal and external factors which might be impacting us sexually.”
A journal is a private way to dissect these thoughts, which might even make talking about them later with your partner or friend easier. Or just keep it for yourself – in a fun way, it’ll be like a little log of your sexual adventures.
We’ve spent the last year in isolation, and for some single people, the idea of getting back out there sexually will be daunting. Kate says journaling can help you process your thoughts around sex, as well as the act itself.
“Processing, externalising and exploring our thoughts and feelings, particularly when it comes to sex which we might feel is more challenging to discuss with others, can give us a chance to work out where we are at and how we’re doing. We can get so caught up in the moment when it comes to sex, that we may need a bit of space in order to do this properly which sex can offer.
“How you use a sex journal is unique to you – it’s not prescriptive. For others it can also offer a form of self sex education, learning about themselves and what they like and don’t like in a way which doesn’t necessarily involve a partner,” she explains.
“Whenever you want to,” Kate says, but warns to not go in “immediately after sex as you also have your partner and their thoughts and feelings to respond to”. Doing this could create anxieties in them about what you’re writing – not ideal.
The act of journaling is meant to be helpful in essence, rather than being yet another tool to self-criticise.
Kate says: “The aim of this type of journalling is not about judging performance or a way of assessing yourself, it’s a means of reflecting and being able to self-learn and process. Sex is a subjective experience but for too long we have been looking for objective ways to try and measure it to see how we are doing – and this is what journaling shouldn’t be about.
“It might be helpful to notice how you feel writing, and what comes up for you and to learn what’s working for you sexually and what isn’t. This isn’t just in terms of physically what you are doing but emotionally and psychologically where you’re at.
That’s entirely down to you and will differ depending on how you’re using the journal. Some people won’t want to look back, others might even find some enjoyment in doing so.
As long as you’re using the journal in an uncompetitive way and as a “tool for learning”, Kate says it’ll likely help your sexual wellness. “When we feel that we know more, it can contribute to feeling more confident and when it comes to our sex lives this can be really positive,” Kate says.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
By Eva Wiseman
Welcome to the summer of love. The Whoring 20s, Shot Girl Summer, the smell of meat and lotion. A bus passed by yesterday, its side painted with an advert encouraging passersby to “vax, wax and relax”. The new sexual revolution is here, and all it took was a deadly pandemic and a year indoors. It’s true, it’s coming, look, there!
Big women swaggering through a pollarded boulevard, feeling themselves like they’ve never feeled before, suited men singing soul songs under their breath, teenagers standing so close they’re talking in each other’s voices. There’s a picnic by the swings where someone has served themself with mayonnaise on a soft baguette. In the supermarket, women stand mesmerised by the erotic hum of a freezer, and someone inhales the cut flowers with a heavy-lidded smile, and a man gruffly counts peaches. A parking attendant kisses his own lips, the tune of an ice-cream van sounds drunk and yearning. When did everyone get a body? When did everyone descend from the live-work space of their minds and knock through to the basement of those hips, that hair?
Yes, sex is back. For a while there it was touch and go whether it would survive the night, having evolved, devolved over the years into a new kind of touchless touch, many young people choosing to pursue relationships online rather than on sofas. But now, having had time to consider our futures, time to swipe our phones with thrice-washed hands and a new professional grade level of attentiveness, having come to new realisations about touch, loneliness, the pandemic-imposed limits of our new lives and the self-imposed limits of our old ones, the world is ready for its return.
For some, this will simply mean more. It will mean stepping out of the house, a prick in each arm and another in the thigh for luck, and slipping straight into a stranger’s dress, a colleague’s bathroom, the idling Volvo of a dad waiting for the end of Year Six streetdance. Good luck to you comrades, congratulations. But for many, the end of our lockdowns will result in a different kind of sex. New kinks have bred in isolation – a genre of Covid porn is thriving on certain laptops, and fantasies are feverish and confused, dystopian, dreamlike. The danger of touch, the forbidden thrill of brushing past an ungloved wrist, masks no longer only for the unvanilla – sex has changed shape. As has dating. Those months on apps, when people were forced to engage in different kinds of communication beyond just meeting in a bar and thinking this’ll do, are (according to a report Cosmopolitan commissioned from the Kinsey Institute) leading to more considered interactions. They predict “the death of the one-night stand”, and a grand move away from destructive dating habits, towards more experimentation, more thoughtful commitments, more pleasure, and fewer people settling for less – a whole resetting of sexual expectation.
Of course, for many of us, it won’t be easy. Not because we’re not sexy and attractive. No, not that at all. We are all insanely attractive right now actually, thank you, incredibly soft and awkward in our beauty. Everyone is gorgeous and no one is OK. So it will be difficult in the way that all attempts at resocialising are difficult, as we step gingerly into the wild, looking backwards with a scared and red-eyed wonder before trotting cautiously towards the trees. How does a “kiss”, what is to “sex”, who is “hand”, a whispered hiss of questions will echo around the clubs at 2am, two people will insist on time-outs during dinner, just to quickly revise the rules about what is meant to happen next.
The trick will be to weaponise this awkwardness, and transform it into a series of exquisite tensions. It is a chance to be naive again, to purr as a person presses your back like a cat on Instagram or a David Attenborough cub. People are excited simply to sit across from a person they admire, simply to pull the window closed or wetly kiss their cheek – each drop of this excitement must be noted, harnessed and claimed as adorable. There will be people who want to lie fully clothed on top of the covers and breathe at each other. There will be people who want to use all the knowledge accrued from twice-daily Zoom meetings to direct erotic films with high production values and a plotline about office politics. There will be people who unload all the therapy they’ve had across the year on to their partner’s bed and roll around on it. There will be someone for everybody, once they’ve worked out how to say hello, I like you.
It’s going to be a good summer. It’s going to be an interesting summer, with moments of pain, and the sometimes bastard thoughts that make us human. It’s going to be hot, but in ways that occasionally burn, a humid bewildering kind of heat. It’s going to be the summer of complicated, radical, ageing, queered, distanced, unlikely love. Welcome, enjoy, and please wash your hands.
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By William Park
King Louis XIV of France was obsessed with fragrance. Cut flowers adorned every room in Versailles, furniture and fountains were sprayed with perfume and visitors were even doused before entering the palace. Whether it was because his personal hygiene was not up to the standards we might expect today, or he just enjoyed playing with scent, Louis understood that smell is important.
Our body odour can reveal details about our health, like the presence of diseases (cholera smells sweet and acute diabetes like rotten apples). “It can also reveal information about our diet,” says Mehmet Mahmut, an olfaction and odour psychologist at Macquarie University, Australia. “There are a couple of studies that kind of contradict, but my group found that the more meat you consume the more pleasant your BO smells.”
Men find women’s body odour more pleasant and attractive during the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle, when women are most fertile, and least pleasant and attractive during menstruation. This might have been useful for our ancient ancestors to detect good candidates for reproduction, suggest the authors of that paper. Men’s testosterone levels might improve their scent, too.
While it can change depending on our diet and health, a lot of what makes our smell unique is determined by our genetics. Our body odour is specific enough, and our sense of smell accurate enough, that people can pair the sweaty T-shirts of identical twins from a group of strangers’ T-shirts. Identical twin body odour is so similar that matchers in this experiment even mistook duplicate T-shirts from the same individual as two twin T-shirts.
“This is important because it shows that genes influence how we smell,” says Agnieszka Sorokowska, a psychologist and expert in human olfaction at the University of Wroclaw, Poland, “so, we might be able to detect genetic information about other people by smelling them.”
Your HLA profile is very likely to be different to everyone else you meet – though some people, like your close relatives, will be more similar to you than others. From a genetic point of view, it is an advantage to have a child with someone who has a dissimilar HLA profile. “If you have a partner who is genetically dissimilar in BO and immune profile, then your children will have a better resistance to pathogens,” says Sorokowska.
These women put the T-shirts worn by men with the most dissimilar HLA profile first and last the most similar. So they were able to identify the men, and preferred the men, with the best match in terms of immune system genetics. They didn’t know that was what they were doing, of course – it was subconscious.
The specific mechanism that causes HLA-dissimilarity to result in a better-smelling BO is not known, says Sorokowska. “But it is thought that HLA results in the production of certain substances that are digested by our skin bacteria that produce a certain odour.”
Do humans use genetic information hidden in body odour to choose their partners? It would seem not. In a study of almost 3,700 married couples, the likelihood of people ending up with a HLA-dissimilar partner was no different to chance. We might have a preference for certain smells, and there might be a genetic reason for that, but we don’t act upon smells when choosing who we marry.
“But even though HLA does not influence choices, it influences sexual wellbeing,” says Sorokowska. People with congenital anosmia (the loss of their sense of smell) have poorer relationship outcomes, suggests Mahmut in a study with Ilona Croy at the University of Dresden, Germany.
Couples who had high HLA-dissimilarity – which presumably happened by chance – had the highest levels of sexual satisfaction and the highest levels of desire to have children.
This link was more strongly seen in women. Women partnered with HLA-similar men reported more sexual dissatisfaction and lower desire to have children. Though when evidence from multiple studies is taken into account, the effect might not be conclusive.
To evolutionary biologists the emphasis on female choice makes sense. In nature, females tend to choose males, as it is the mother who invests the most in raising children and therefore has the most to lose by mating with a genetically inferior male. The female must be discerning in her choice, so looks for clues as to a male’s quality. This is why males are often colourful, perform dances, sing songs or offer gifts in nature – they have to prove their genetic quality.
The link between BO preference and genes spurred a fashion for T-shirt speed-dating and even “mail odour” services. But the evidence to support the idea we can make good dating decisions based on smell is unclear. We might say we prefer something, but in practice it would appear we do not make choices based on that preference. Why not?
One reason might be that real-life scenarios are too complex to use scent information accurately. Our other senses can distort the information we take in from smell. Based on body odour alone, we can make accurate assessments of other people’s neuroticism. But when shown a photo of that person alongside a sample of their BO “they got confused”, becoming less accurate, says Sorokowska. “And we are not able to rate neuroticism from faces alone.” She says that BO is more accurate for judging neuroticism, but faces are easier, and often we just do what is easiest.
In another study, married women brought in their husbands’ T-shirts and single women brought in a platonic friend’s T-shirt and these were mixed up with more T-shirts from random men.
“Did partnered women end up with someone whose BO they preferred to others?” says Mahmut. “Not necessarily. There was no overwhelming evidence they put their partner at number one.” In this case, the women had not chosen a husband who had the BO that smelled best to them.
In a separate study by Mahmut, strangers’ BO also smelled stronger than married men’s BO. He speculates that this might be because “there’s some evidence of a correlation between high testosterone levels and stronger BO. We know there is an association between a reduction in testosterone and getting older, which might be due to the things going on in a married man’s life as he gets over 40 – prioritising children and things like that. Men who are in relationships, and more so those that have had children, have lower testosterone.
So, we know that we give off information about our reproductive quality in our BO, and we know that we can detect it, but we don’t act on it. Should we?
“If your sole interest is finding a partner with good genes, then perhaps you should pay attention to their smell,” says Sorokowska. “But for most people that is not the most important thing, and most people don’t do it.”
Mahmut agrees: “The usefulness of scent has somewhat decreased. We spent tens of thousands of years disguising what we smell like.”
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
By Jaimie Arona Krems and Michael Varnum
F. Scott Fitzgerald famously called the Roaring Twenties — which happened on the heels of the 1918 flu pandemic — “the most expensive orgy in history.” Now, as more and more Americans are vaccinated, some are saying all the sexual energy pent up over the past year will be unleashed, with Yale sociologist Nicholas Christakis predicting a summer marked by a surge in “sexual licentiousness.”
Women, however, might face backlash for exploring their post-vaccination sexuality. In a new study, we found that women — but not men — continue to be perceived negatively for having casual sex.
This stereotype persists even as casual sex has become increasingly normalized and gender equality has risen in the U.S. and much of the Western world.
Specifically, both men and women assume that a woman who has casual sex must have low self-esteem. But that perception isn’t based in reality. So what might be driving this unfounded stereotype?
Although the idea that women’s sexual behavior is linked to their self-esteem is a common trope in film, television and even some relationship advice sites, we documented just how entrenched this stereotype is across six experiments published in Psychological Science.
In one experiment, we asked Americans to estimate the correlation between people’s sexual behavior and their self-esteem. We described those people as being a man, woman or simply as “a person,” without providing any information about their gender. We then described that man, woman or person as having a lot of casual sex, portrayed them as being a serial monogamist or provided no information about their sexual behavior.
We found that Americans tended to associate monogamy with high self-esteem, especially for women. More striking, they associated casual sex with low self-esteem — but only for women.
This belief was surprisingly widespread, and across our studies we found that both men and women hold it. We wondered: Was this stereotype the product of sexist beliefs? Could it be due to participants’ political ideology or their religion?
But time and again, we saw that this stereotype transcended a number of markers, including the extent to which someone held sexist beliefs, their political views and their religiosity.
However, people might believe that women don’t want casual sex in the first place. For example, people might assume that women have causal sex only because they’re trying and failing to attract a long-term relationship. In fact, such beliefs do seem to influence the stereotype about women’s self-esteem.
Specifically, the more that Americans believed that women don’t actually want casual sex, the more these Americans tended to associate women’s casual sex with low self-worth.
This finding inspired another experiment. We wondered what would happen if we told participants that a woman was actually perfectly happy with her casual sexual lifestyle. Might that change their beliefs?
But even this factor didn’t seem to stop the stereotyping. Participants still saw these women as having low self-esteem. And they even perceived a woman described as having monogamous sex — but who was deeply dissatisfied with her monogamous sex life — as having higher self-esteem.
Here’s the kicker: Among our participants — the same ones who showed this stereotyping — we found virtually no association between their self-esteem and their own sexual behavior.
These findings are similar to those of psychologist David Schmitt, who conducted a survey of more than 16,000 participants drawn from all over the world, and also found little association between self-esteem and casual sex. And in our study, it was actually the men who reported having more casual sex who also tended to have slightly lower self-esteem.
So why do people hold this negative assumption about women who have casual sex — especially if it doesn’t hold water? The short answer is that we currently do not know, and associations between sex and self-esteem in the real world are complex.
Some people might wonder if the media is to blame. It’s true that women who have casual sex are sometimes portrayed as being somehow deficient. But this doesn’t tell the whole story. Even if popular media perpetuates this stereotype, it still doesn’t explain why people would feel compelled to portray women this way in the first place.
Another possible explanation is that the stereotype extends from reproductive biology, in which men have historically had more to gain from casual sex than women, who — since they risk getting pregnant — often have to bear greater costs, on average, than men.
Yet today, newer technologies — like birth control and safe, legal abortion — allow women to have casual sex without being forced to bear some of those unwanted costs. Perhaps, then, our Stone Age brains have simply not yet caught up.
Whatever the origin of this stereotype, it’s likely to foster prejudice and discrimination today. For example, people perceived to have low self-esteem are less likely to be asked out on dates or elected to political office.
This stereotype might also have led to seemingly well-intentioned – but ultimately misguided — advice directed toward girls and women about their sexual behavior. There is a cottage industry built around telling women what sort of sex not to have. (Searching for books on “friendship advice” on Amazon yields fewer than 40 results, but searching for “dating advice” returned over 2,000.)
In Western society, women are rarely disparaged for breaking glass ceilings to become leaders, professors, CEOs and astronauts.
So why do they continue to be denigrated as they become increasingly open and willing to go to bed with others at their own whim, of their own accord?
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I’ve always assumed it’s normal to waste your life wondering if everyone’s having more sex than you. It seems there are these “numbers” we’re supposed to hit in order to achieve sexual adequacy. I’m not sure who comes up with them—whether it’s Cosmo, scientists, Samantha Jones, or Satan—but they’ve infiltrated the culture. For instance, in my 20s, I read an article claiming healthy couples have sex three times a week. I filed this away as fact, somewhere in the junk drawer of my brain, for over a decade. But now I’m 35, in a long-term relationship, and I’m pretty sure whoever wrote that was either bad at math or the leader of that NXIVM sex cult.
According to the internet, if you’re single, going a handful of months without sex makes you an incel gargoyle. And yet, having sex multiple times a week with different partners is too far in the other direction. It’s a delicate balance— you should have enough sex to prove you’re a hot, empowered girl-boss, but not so much that you become a slut from hell, desperately trying to fuck away your childhood trauma. But with all this mixed messaging, will someone just tell me: How often should I have sex?
In my 20s, I kept an actual calendar of how much sex I was having. If I went a few weeks without smashing, a siren would go off in my brain, alerting me to send frantic “sup?” texts to my phone reserves (“Adam Ponytail,” “Jake L train,” “Fingers,” etc.). Not only did being sexually prolific validate my worth as a sex object, it also made me interesting. Arriving at a party without a hilariously tragic sex story felt akin to a comedian walking onstage without material.
When I met my boyfriend, we had so much sex that I developed a limp. Somehow everything from making English muffins to organizing my desktop became foreplay. But the first time we hung out and didn’t have sex, I immediately thought: “We’re doomed.” In those early days of manic infatuation, even literally crippling amounts of sex felt insufficient. Now, nearly four years into our relationship, I still sometimes find myself Nate Silver-ing our sex life. If we have sex three days in a row, we’re winning the game! If we don’t have sex for more than a week, we may as well swan dive onto the concrete slab called “The L.A. River.”
It’s a common belief that sexual frequency is an indicator of a relationship’s strength. But famed couple’s therapist Esther Perel disagrees. In her book Mating in Captivity, she describes toxic relationships that breed steamy sex lives and deeply loving relationships that lack sexual passion. Maybe that’s why the most popular erotic novel is about being sexually bullied by a sulky businessman?
When I fall into a shame spiral, I often call my friend Ryan. He and his boyfriend have been together for six years. They’re one of the strongest couples I know, and yet, being hot and vaguely famous hasn’t spared them the sexual stress of your average monogamist. Ryan confessed, “Honestly, as gay men, I thought we were immune to these problems—I was like, light a candle for straight couples! But, it’s a tale as old as time: We had sex regularly for the first couple years, then it gradually became once a week. Then, starting year four, we’d have dry spells that would last up to six weeks.”
For Ryan and his boyfriend, these sexual droughts felt too awkward to acknowledge, like when your date has something stuck in his teeth. Ryan explained, “It’s as if there’s a pressure valve in our relationship. When we’re not fucking, the pressure keeps building. Sex becomes this bogeyman looming over us. But then the second we break the dry spell, we’re like ‘Oh my God! We went a whole month without sex, wasn’t that crazy?!’ Suddenly we’re able to talk about it openly.”
I’ve been there. If you’re in a sex slump, once you finally rail it’s like resetting the clock—“Okay phew, we’ve got a week before it gets weird again!” Of course, if you’re able to address it before paranoia sets in, it makes the whole thing less threatening.
“What I’ve learned is that you can’t catastrophize,” Ryan said. “In the past, my boyfriend and I created our own private narratives about why we weren’t having sex, which inevitably leads to a K-hole of anxiety. But the narratives you write say more about your own issues than they do about the relationship.” In the mutilated words of Joan Didion: “We tell ourselves stories in order to not have sex.”
Unfortunately, writing disturbing narratives is my specialty. For instance, in all my relationships, I’ve preferred that my partner initiate sex—it makes me feel wanted. When they don’t, my story quickly becomes: “I guess I’m literally Shrek and they’re disgusted by my presence and I should sleep outside with the raccoons.” When in reality, maybe they just, like, have a headache? When our dark imaginations overpower our curiosity, sex can easily become a proxy for myriad insecurities—that we’re not skinny enough, smart enough, or that our podcast is failing.
But even if you’re somehow evolved enough to create a healthy dialogue around sex, it still doesn’t answer the essential question: How often should you bang? What are the magical Goldilocks numbers that tell us when to panic, feel smug, or check into rehab?
To answer this once and for all, I turned to my friend Dr. Zhana Vrangalova, sex researcher and professor of human sexuality at NYU. Zhana told me, “In my mind, the only way to answer that question is to ask yourself: How often do you want to have sex? Sex matters differently to different people. Some people are happy having it once a year. Some couples want sex several times a week, even after 20 years. Both can be healthy.”
It sounds obvious: Just fuck as much as you want, duh! But it’s not so easy. Often—for women, in particular—desiring sex is so linked to being desired, that it can be difficult to separate the two. Sometimes I can’t tell whether I actually want sex, or if I just want to want it, or if I feel guilty for not wanting it, or if I just want my boyfriend to want it so I don’t have to melt my brain trying to answer these questions.
According to Zhana, healthy desire is a combination of “how often you’re spontaneously horny, and how often you want to have sex for other reasons that are in line with your values—for instance, because you’re single and want to explore your sexuality, or because you love your partner and know that sex brings you closer.” Basically, pushing yourself to have sex doesn’t have to be bad, so long as it’s authentic. It’s like working out—sometimes you’d rather die than go to the gym, but once you’re there you’re glad you bought a smoothie and went home.
Zhana continued, “Anxiety is an unhealthy incentive to have sex. Autonomy is extremely important to our wellbeing, so feeling pressure—whether it’s internal or external—is antithetical to desire, because it feels inauthentic. Basically, if the reason you’re having it is that ‘I think everybody else is having more sex than me,’ then that’s a problem.” (Sounds like someone’s not having enough sex, tbh.)
Of course, fixating on numbers fails to address whether the sex is actually, ya know, good. Looking back, it’s creepy to think how marginal enjoyment was in the equation. For instance, in my mid-20s I was in a relationship where we had tons of sex—it was rapid, joyless, and yielded more UTIs than orgasms. Success!
Essentially, when evaluating your sex life, ask yourself: Does being sexually successful mean zombie fucking your life away to fulfill an arbitrary quota, or does it mean being honest with yourself about your desires, and getting a Xanax prescription? Choose your own adventure.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
A couple in their 30s, married for 10 years, sit across from each other in my office with tension and despair written on their faces. When I hear their story of sexual disconnection, it sounds all too familiar. Ben’s story is one of frustration that they only occasionally have sex. Sara’s story is also one of frustration because she’s at a loss as to how to fix this between them. They both agree that when they do engage in sex, the encounter itself goes well enough. Yet that doesn’t lead to another roll in the hay for quite some time.
Another familiar scene is the group of men meeting for happy hour, bemoaning their lot as married men who’ve accepted the “fact” that women lose interest in sex after they’ve been married for a few years.
Anecdotes abound, yet the mainstream understanding of why sex in long-term relationships diminishes suffers from an astounding lack of information about female sexuality—and it doesn’t have to be this way.
Yes, some women do say, “I don’t care if I ever have sex again as long as I live.” I think the truth is more likely, “I don’t care if I ever have the kind of sex, or the circumstances under which I’m having sex, again.”
In sexuality, knowledge is truly powerful. So let’s unpack the real sources of all this distress.
First of all, we need to name the thing many people don’t want to name: The negative messages that girls are bombarded with since they found out they were girls have created enormous barriers to feeling sexually comfortable. Even today, there is still a staggering number of “Good girls don’t _____” messages, all designed to modulate what might come naturally:
Have you ever heard a cliché of “Girls will be girls” the way you hear “Boys will be boys?” Never. Yet the truth is, all people are products of their culture. Even women who feel like they know better than to buy into these negative messages they heard growing up can still nonetheless be affected by them.
The good news is, the lingering impact of negative messages can be softened. The first step is to identify the messages you got as a child from your parents and peers, including social media. How did those messages affect how you feel about sex? About your body? The next step is to reflect on how these messages might still be affecting you and find a way to minimize their continuing influence. That can look like talking to your partner or friend about these experiences, reading books on female sexuality, or seeking the help of a therapist.
Additionally, so many women have been exposed to inappropriate sexual comments and touch, sexual abuse, and sexual assault. The impact of these experiences is enormous and long-lasting, usually interfering with the ability to enjoy sex. There are effective strategies to release trauma’s hold on you (the best first step here would be to see a therapist), but this context cannot be ignored in any conversation about the idea that “Women just aren’t interested in sex.”
Likewise, a crucial misunderstanding when it comes to female sexuality—and a major source of sexual frustration in couples—is the idea that sexual desire just pops up for everyone in the same way. When it doesn’t happen this way in a relationship, there’s usually a lot of confusion and blame.
There are actually two basic types of sexual desire: spontaneous and responsive. We’re very familiar with the spontaneous type. You know, those who walk down the street on an average day regularly struck with a desire for sex. They seem to be up for sex most anytime. Sexuality researcher Emily Nagoski, Ph.D., tells us that about 75% of men are members of this group but only about 15% of women.
Because women often aren’t exposed to what is more typical of female sexual desire, they often end up saying, “What’s wrong with me?” or falsely concluding, “I’m just not a sexual person.”
Many women have what’s known as responsive sexual desire. For people with this type of desire, the context of the moment is critical to your openness to the idea of sex. If you’re tired, preoccupied with a work project or a troubled family member, stressed, or feeling blah, interest in sex is going to be hard to come by. These are not just factors affecting your interest in sex; they are central. There’s nothing wrong with you for not being interested. You just need a change in context.
A common experience for responsive people is that desire shows up after arousal. This is normal. It’s just not advertised. What this means is that you have to change the question from, “Am I feeling frisky?” to “Am I open to engaging in touch?” With physical touch, arousal may well show up, followed by, “Oh, now I feel very glad to be here, doing this!”
Most people don’t even know responsive sexual desire exists—even the very people whose desire works like this. I was once describing responsive sexual desire to my husband, and he said, “That’s interesting. That’s not what you see in the movies.” Exactly. The media, a major provider of sex education, only depicts spontaneous sexual desire.
As it turns out, spontaneous people often find themselves in relationships with responsive people. I’ve found this often to be true in same-gender couples as well. So these groups need to get to know each other.
When I explain responsive desire to Ben, his jaw drops and doesn’t close for a while. Whereas Sara is nodding vigorously, “That’s me. That’s me—I’ve just never known how to explain it.” Likewise, when I explain that Ben likely walks down the street with every sixth thought being a sexual one, her eyes pop out of her head.
A consequence for many women growing up today is that sexuality wasn’t about them and their pleasure. With inadequate information about sex, many young women are often left to apply to themselves what they learn from their experiences with men—or the movies. If men just dive into erogenous zones at the outset of a physical encounter, then that’s what must be the way to have sex. However, when desire tends to follow arousal, a direct focus on erogenous zones can feel like an unwanted advance. Their bodies aren’t yet ready to be stimulated sexually.
What to do? Change the context. If you’re like Sara and have responsive sexual desire rather than spontaneous, what is the context that makes you feel open to physical touch? Instead of saying, “I’m not in the mood,” try asking yourself, “What could put me in the mood?”
Perhaps a conversation that would help you feel less stressed, a shared glass of wine or cup of tea, a foot massage, a hot bath, reading some erotica, having your partner wash the dishes and put the kids to bed. There’s a bridge between where your head is at the moment and where it could be—you just have to build it.
This is also a couple’s project. If you’re a spontaneous guy in a relationship with a responsive woman, find out what turns her on—and off. Do you approach her in a way that’s enticing to her? Do you send her affectionate or sexy text messages? Think of your early days of flirting—you showed interest and enthusiasm for everything about her. You paid attention to her. If she’s tired, do you offer to take on tasks to give her a break?
What about unresolved conflict or repetitive bickering? For those like Sara, this is a huge buzzkill. Many a time, a Ben type approaches his partner for sex several hours after they’ve quarreled, and she looks at him as if he’s sprouted a horn and gives him a look that says, “Are you [insert your favorite four-letter word] kidding me? I’m still furious with you!” Try finding a better way to resolve conflict so there’s not simmering resentment in the air.
When we understand responsive desire and the way it works, it exposes the myth that women lose interest in sex. Sure, most women probably do lose interest in the kind of sex they’ve been expected to enjoy—late at night when they’re ready to go to sleep, regardless of what else is going on for her.
Enjoyable sex happens in a context that takes you into account.
Getting back on that track of having a pleasurable sex life isn’t about the stars aligning just right. It’s about educating yourself, understanding what negative messages and experiences may be affecting your relationship, and understanding exactly how you and your partner’s sexual desire works. Equipped with that knowledge, you can work together with your partner to create a context in which you can both enjoy sex more fully.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
Sex is a topic that can spark many complicated feelings. Even the most sex-positive folks can find themselves feeling confused and uncertain when reflecting on the arousing, erotic mental images — otherwise known as sexual fantasies — they conjure up in their head.
It is easy to get caught up thinking your innermost thoughts are deviant. But, chances are even your most taboo fantasies are normal and healthy. In fact, evidence suggests that those who have sexual fantasies experience less anxiety and a greater sense of self-esteem.
Daydreaming about sex is completely normal, and acting on a shared fantasy may even help spice up a relationship. Just make sure that you establish consent and boundaries with your partner, and are following all local laws around nudity and sex.
Below you will find examples of some of the most common fantasies people experience — and how to act on them safely.
Multi-partner sex involves sex with more than one partner of the same or different genders. Sex with three partners may be called a threesome and more may be called an orgy.
A 2017 study published in Archives of Sexual Behavior involving 274 Canadian university undergraduates revealed 64% of participants had some interest in multi-partner sex.
Another study published in Personality and Individual Differences involving 788 British adults found that men specifically may fantasize more about multi-partner sex. Male participants of the study were more likely to fantasize about sex with multiple people and with anonymous partners. Meanwhile, women’s fantasies were more likely to include same-sex partners and famous people.
Rough sex is a sexual act that is aggressive, animalistic, and perhaps somewhat violent. It is often depicted as more passionate than other kinds of sex, but can also be associated with unhealthy abusive sex. Though, rough is not inherently dangerous or abusive.
BDSM, which encompasses much of rough sex, stands for bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism and masochism. BDSM encompasses many different kinks — often considered atypical sexual practices. Dominant or submissive sex often involves the consensual assuming and relinquishing of power between those involved. It can involve tying your partner up, spanking, and an entire spectrum of other behaviors and emotional entanglements.
Some people are aroused by light restraint, others by intense physical pain.
Psychological roleplay — like that between a teacher and student or a boss and employee — may also be considered BDSM as it involves an exchange of power.
Justin Lehmiller, a social psychologist whose research focuses on sexuality, discovered this fantasy is wildly popular when doing research for his book on the science of sexual desire called Tell Me What You Want. He surveyed 4,000 Americans and found 93% of women and 81% of men had fantasized about being sexually dominated. Further, 85% of men and 76% of women had fantasized about being sexually dominant.
Voyeurism is arousal caused by watching an unsuspecting person or people engaged in a private intimate or sexual act. A small 1991 study found 54% of men have voyeuristic fantasies. Meanwhile, a 2006 Swedish study found that of 2,450 adults surveyed in 1996, 7.7% had reported becoming aroused watching other people have sex.
Exhibitionism is on the other end of voyeurism; it is the act of becoming aroused by others consensually watching you have sex or by exposing parts of your body to unsuspecting participants. Both of these kinks can be considered problematic if one is unable to control their urges, if the fantasy causes emotional distress, or if legal issues arise.
You probably won’t be able to act on this sexual fantasy. In the US, and many other countries, it is illegal to watch or tape anyone having sex without their consent. Additionally, public nudity is illegal in most of the US, although the definition of nudity may vary by state.
Sex in public is another popular fantasy that may fall under exhibitionism. In Lehmiller’s same survey, he found 81% of men and 84% of women were aroused by a public sex fantasy.
It’s important to note that acting on this fantasy is often illegal. Though actual guidelines vary by the municipality — for instance, public nudity is legal in areas like Denver where people of all sexes can go topless — sex acts in public are illegal in all 50 states.
Despite their similar names, roleplay and cosplay are distinct fantasies:
Unfortunately, there has not been a great deal of research done on the topic of sexual roleplay or cosplay. An issue in the International Journal of Roleplaying suggests this is because sexologists consider it to be an “insignificant factor of foreplay,” and therefore, is not explicitly included in research questionnaires.
Romantic sex is different than many fantasies because there is no specified definition — what is romantic for one person may differ for another.
In theory, any kind of sex can be romantic. Romantic sex is “…a sexual relationship in which there’s an emotional and erotic connection. It could be long and slow and sensuous, it could be tantric sex, it could, you know, have some BDSM involved in it,” says Deborah Fox, a clinical social worker and certified sex therapist.
Tantric sex, for example, is slow and doesn’t fixate its end goal on orgasm. Instead, the goal of it is to focus on the entire sexual experience and any sensations it brings up.
Lehmiller reports finding romantic sexual fantasies more popular among younger respondents of his survey. He also found 91% of straight men, 88% of straight women, and 87% of gay and bisexual men and women, fantasize about their current romantic partner — making partners the most common person respondents fantasized about..
Gender-bending is when a person challenges societal expectations of their gender. Modern American examples of it trace back to 1920s vaudeville and can be linked to present-day drag shows. People of all sexual orientations can practice gender-bending. It’s important to note that this is different from transgenderism, which is when someone has a gender identity or gender expression that differs from their assigned sex at birth.
Homoeroticism is a fantasy that involves sexual acts with members of the same sex. It can be — and is often — experienced by people who identify as heterosexual, not just homosexual or queer.
In fact, a 2019 paper published in Social Forces suggests 3.6% to 4.1% of men and 7.6% to 9.5% of women report some level of same-sex sexual or romantic attraction.
Further, sexual desire is not an either or situation, nor does it define your sexual identity. For example, a heterosexual cisgender woman who is in a sexually fulfilling relationship with a cisgender man can still have fantasies about other women.
Fox thinks of sexuality as a spectrum, or a bell curve. On one tail of the curve is being completely straight, and on the other tail is being completely gay. Most people fall somewhere in the middle.
“People might identify as straight, but they can have a little titillation about you know, imagining, or even engaging [in same-sex sexual acts],” says Fox. “Some heterosexual people do have sex with the same gender person occasionally…having that homosexual fantasy, I don’t think it necessarily means anything about their identity in and of itself.”
Trying out fantasies with your partner is exciting and thrilling. But, before you start, there are important aspects of experimentation you should ensure are in place for utmost safety and pleasure.
The most important thing to establish when having sex with partners is consent. It shows a partner you respect them and their body, and a sexual act without consent is assault.
Consent is explicit, non-coercive permission to engage in a certain act, in this case, one of a sexual nature. It can be revoked at any time. It is the most vital aspect of healthy sex.
Consent is not merely “no means no” — but more of a “yes means yes.” It looks like:
To have the safest possible experience, you must be transparent about what it is you want and don’t want. This can include:
The basis of these boundaries is consent, which can be relinquished at any time. It is important to get permission before trying anything new, or even if it’s something you do regularly.
To avoid transmitting any STIs, ensure you practice safe sex with a condom or other barrier.
Other forms of birth control like an IUD or spermicide do not protect against STIs; inform your partner beforehand if you may be carrying one.
Sex is intimate and should only be experienced somewhere and with someone who you feel safe with.
Understand vulnerability must be embraced when having sex, and do not say or do anything that may make your partner feel judged. Take it slow, especially when trying new things. Voice any concerns or thoughts you may have throughout.
Sexual fantasies are nothing to be embarrassed about. Desire is a key part of sexuality and having fantasies is normal, common, and healthy.
Just because you have a fantasy does not mean you want to act on it. But if you do, it is important to establish consent, respect your partner’s boundaries, use proper protection, and make sure you are following local laws around sex and nudity.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
by Gabrielle Smith
Remember mood rings? Sex flush is kind of like that. Except it’s your body changing color because of a very specific mood: Arousal.
Sex flush is a normal part of the arousal cycle. It can happen during solo or partnered sexy times to all genders. There’s no need to feel shy about it. In fact, it can be quite hot! What’s better than being so attracted to your partner(s) that the warm and fuzzies show up on the outside?
Here’s the full scoop on nature’s rosiest reaction.
Usually, sex flush becomes noticeable when skin reddens or becomes more pigmented as you get aroused. In some, this change in color appears in blotches, and for others, it looks like a full-body, get-down glow.
Sex flush can happen anywhere on your body. But your face, back, and chest are the most common places for it to make an appearance.
Those with a lighter complexion are more likely to experience sex flush, as well as folks who have been diagnosed with rosacea. Sex flush is often less noticeable in those with olive-to-darker skin tones.
It can also be referred to as “sex rash” because, well, it can look like a rash. Don’t worry, though! It usually fades after an hour or so. If your rash is painful and long lasting, though, you should consider visiting a doctor.
You might be too distracted to notice, but we all go through a predictable set of emotional and physical changes when we get turned on. The fancy name for these changes is the sexual response cycle.
The stages of the sexual response cycle don’t exactly have to go in order, and some are completely absent (ahem, I’m looking at you, “orgasm”). Sex flush can happen at any point during this cycle, but it often intensifies during orgasm.
Here’s how the sexual response cycle breaks down.
You ever watch your partner(s) get dressed in the morning, eyes skimming the curves and contours of their body? Then, suddenly, you’re wondering how bad it would be if they were late to work just this one time…
Welcome to phase one! Desire sets in when you get that little tingle in your nether region, pointing you towards the object of, well, your desire. That could be a partner(s). It can also be your not-so-secret stash of sex toys.
The physical signs of desire are:
Phase two typically entails the action. It’s also called the “plateau”. Despite the less than scintillating name, here’s when the buildup begins. Phase two typically lasts the longest, especially if you get creative. Arousal leads directly to phase three, the orgasm.
The physical signs of arousal are:
Ah yes, the big O. Some say they see stars, some accidentally profess love. This phase is the shortest of the four, typically lasting anywhere from a few to 30 minutes.
The physical signs of orgasm are:
And with all crescendos, there must be an ascension. This is when your body begins to return to business as usual. Erect genitals begin to settle, your heart rate goes down, and you’re delightfully fatigued, torn between the need to run to the bathroom and pee or enjoy all of your post-sex bliss.
Absolutely nothing! As mentioned, sex flush goes away in an hour or so. If you’re feeling self-conscious about it, put on a robe, keep the lights dim, or consider taking a shower to cool off.
If your partner(s) points it out (hopefully out of concern, not judgment!) reiterate that it’s totally normal and non-contagious. Actually, they were likely the cause of it!
If you continue feeling insecure about the redness, talk to your partner(s) about it. Getting your feelings out in the open increases understanding, and can bring you closer. Plus, a caring partner(s) will ease your worries.
If you’re experiencing more than just redness of the skin, or any skin discoloration that lasts longer than 2 hours, you might not actually be experiencing sex flush, and it may be time to book an appointment. It’s better to be safe than sorry, after all.
While your mind may naturally leap toward common sex-imposed situations like STIs and pregnancy, you’re not likely to show signs of either of those immediately after sex.
You might be having a negative reaction to lube, sex toys, or latex condoms (or, maybe your partner(s) has a cat, and your body is not happy about it.)
If it is something other than a sex flush, be on the lookout for any concurrent symptoms, such as:
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
By Lucy Litwack
From art to culture, education to pornography, the female perspective on pleasure in all its forms is little discussed or truly understood. And yet, from general happiness and confidence, to deepening and nurturing our relationships – and a fundamental appreciation of ourselves – knowing and owning female pleasure and sensuality can be life-changing.
It’s one of the true gifts of being a woman. Our capacity to experience it is innate, universal and human – and it’s never too late to start exploring its extraordinary possibilities. It’s why, through Coco de Mer, I wanted to create a Home of Pleasure – a safe place to discover its potential; with a brand built by and run by women for women. I believe that pleasure done well fires all the senses; that sight, sound, taste, touch and smell are a system greater than the sum of their parts – and as women, we need the opportunities to explore fully the fun, joy and endless possibilities of our sexuality.
The expression of female pleasure is often criticised or scandalised
In conversations around pleasure, men are seemingly always confident in their voices. They have been taught about pleasure through formal education, the media, and society as a whole for their entire lives, while female pleasure is rarely acknowledged. Even language shows a male bias with a lack of a female equivalent for the word virility. Instead, the expression of female pleasure is often criticised, or scandalised, while the male counterpart is regarded, simply, as a fact of life. Is female pleasure the last real taboo in our society and what is to blame?
Democratic access to, and use of, technology is bringing new challenges that historically did not exist. This impact of access to pornography and other content demands new educational approaches. I believe that this rise in online pornography and the subsequent lack of relevant sex education in schools is a big contributor to the issue. Children of all ages have access to online pornography and other sexually related content in a way that past generations did not – and children are being exposed to this content at increasingly younger ages. The impact of highly sexualised content, including porn, is that young people, could mirror porn-typified roles during intercourse, instead of more balanced sexual gender-dynamics. Few could argue that the majority of porn offers a skewed, unrealistic and often damaging view of sex.
The benefit of a good sexual education goes way beyond classic birth rate statistics. It has been proven to lead to more healthy gender dynamics, less domestic violence, increased sexual health and well-being, and less depression. It needs to be taught that intimacy is about pleasure and communication, not just sex.
Intimacy is about pleasure and communication, not just sex
For an adult who can distinguish between fantasy and reality, pornography can be a pleasurable addition to their sexual life. However, nowadays as many children learn about sex through pornography ,it can lead to situations which are neither safe nor pleasurable. As the majority of pornography is focused on male desire, it can lead boys and girls to underestimate the importance of female pleasure. Girls assume the focus of sex should be on the boy’s desires – and boys are highly under-informed regarding young women’s sexual needs.
This lack of respect for women’s pleasure puts women at a disadvantage in other aspects of life. We’ve raised a generation of girls to have a voice and take control, to expect equality in other aspects of their life – both at home and at the office. Now it’s time to demand the same equality in our personal lives and in the bedroom.
Female pleasure is integral to female empowerment and I have seen the hugely positive impact it can have. When a woman is allowed to explore her desires and embrace the complexity of sexual pleasure in an environment that is welcoming, empowering and indulgent (and without fear of being judged) it can hugely boost a woman’s confidence and, at the same time, lead to a more equal relationship with men.
This lack of education around female pleasure is leading to an increasingly large orgasm gap in heterosexual relationships. The lack of conversation around female masturbation means that women are also less likely to orgasm alone. The complete opposite is the case for men – this isn’t only an accepted practice but something that entire movies have used for comedic value! While there has been a recorded increase in women buying sex toys and exploring their fantasies, we can’t disregard that many still assume needing lubricant is a personal failure, not reaching orgasm from penetration is something to be ashamed of, and pain during sex is normal.
It’s time to demand the same equality in our personal lives and in the bedroom.
The nature of female pleasure is complex and changes through the various stages of a woman’s life from puberty to adulthood, pregnancy, and menopause; and yet, like masturbation and periods, menopause is something that women so rarely discuss. Despite the fact that over half of the population will go through the menopause and all its associated issues during their lifetime, doctors only have three hours training on the topic during medical school. It has been around for thousands of years – the Greeks first named it – and yet it is still a societal taboo. Rather than thinking of ageing as a negative for a woman (the cliché of a silver fox and a cougar), we should be realising the potential for sex to improve hugely asa woman gains experience and confidence. This lack of communication combined with inadequate education isn’t just causing an absence of satisfaction for women but is actively impacting their mental and physical health. We need to combat the harm being done to women by a society that provides so little support.
We need to give female pleasure the platform that it is so often lacking in the media and in educational spaces. Only through representation can conversations be had that inform women and allow them to accept that pleasure by nature is ever-changing and untamed and should be embraced – imperfections included. This is a huge part of my mission.
At Coco de Mer, we hope to create a space for conversation and education through frank contributions to wider conversations, evenings of education, selection of products centered on female pleasure. It is this self acceptance, the sense of fulfillment, and the confidence, joy, and improved health that comes with education and uninhibited explorations of pleasure that I want to deliver to women. Pleasure and sexual fulfillment shouldn’t be regarded as luxuries; more women need to regard their own sexual satisfaction as a necessity.
Think about what sexual empowerment means to you
Is it about more orgasms? Is it about self-confidence? Is it uninhibited exploration? Only you can define what pleasure means for you so take the time to think about what it is that you want. Make a list of the things that bring you pleasure; set your sights on something you want to experience; take an erotic education class, or read a book that could offer you new insights into your desires. Set your own goals, be it trying something new, honing your orgasmic experiences, or even just being more open with your partner. Don’t be scared of being judged, or worry about being embarrassed. Insecurities can block pleasure, but confidence and desire is sexy so embrace the complexity of sexual pleasure.
Have the talk; communication is key
The number one way to get what you want is to ask for it – both in and out of the bedroom. That may be working out what you want from yourself and your own relationship with pleasure or what you need from a partner. Be honest but also try to focus on the positives – what you DO want rather than what you don’t. Look at areas of your personal pleasure journey you would like to expand – that could be exploring fantasies, trying new things, or even just taking more time to dedicate to yourself. Not sure how to start up the conversation with a partner? Try working it into your pillow talk or foreplay when you’re both relaxed and open, and ask plenty of questions.
Invest in self-pleasure
It can be hard to tell someone what you need when you are not even sure yourself. Investing in a sex toy can be a great way to experiment with sensations and understand your own desires and what gives you pleasure. Knowing what works for you is a great starting point for you and a partner to expand your sexual boundaries and explore new sensations together. When masturbating, 95% of women reach orgasm more consistently and faster, and by introducing toys to your regular sexual activity you can see a real difference in your level of satisfaction. Loving yourself is the first step to a happy and satisfying relationship with a partner.
Explore sensations beyond your routine
In the pursuit of pleasure there can be a huge benefit to trying something new. Start small, where you feel comfortable, and then grow with it at the pace that is right for you. Perhaps start with wearing lingerie that increases your feelings of power and confidence. Try exploring sensation play and pushing boundaries to discover things that ignite passion for you – this could be introducing soft bondage such as silk blindfolds, feather ticklers or restraints, or incorporating taste and smell to excite. When you lose one sense, the others are heightened – so lightly stroking the body with a soft feather tickler while your eyes are covered with a silk blindfold can be very pleasurable.
Have fun!
It is important to remember that the serious “perfect” sex we see on screens or read about in erotic novels isn’t real. Real pleasure is messy, it can be silly and lighthearted and even a little embarrassing at times. What is important is keeping your sights on real experiences and your authentic state of being. Make sure you laugh things off and let things go when they don’t go exactly to plan. It’s ok to be imperfect. Pleasure is good for you – enjoy yourself!
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
Put simply, erogenous zones are extra-sensitive areas of the human body that generate a sexual response when stimulated.
They’re located all over, from your eyelids to your ankles. Though sexual in nature, your body’s response might not necessarily be an out-and-out orgasm – it could be subtle arousal or even deep relaxation.
To get you acquainted with these subtle and not-so-suble pleasure points, we asked Mia Sabat, sex therapist at sexual wellbeing audio app Emjoy, and Marlena Segar, sex and relationships educator and community manager for the Healthy Pleasure Group, to share their tips for locating and stimulating 36 erogenous zones:
‘We’ve likely all experienced the feeling where someone has touched a part of your body in just the right way, and it’s felt so good that it may have sent a shiver down your spine,’ says Segar. ‘That would be an erogenous zone. An area of the body, that when stimulated sends signals to the brain that translate as pleasurable sensations.’
‘Everyone’s erogenous zones are slightly different, both in location and sensory response.’
The sensitivity varies from individual to individual, according to the concentrations of specific nerve endings in that particular area. ‘Everyone’s erogenous zones are slightly different, both in location and sensory response,’ she continues. ‘They’re also context-specific. Exploring both where on your body you want to be touched, and how you want to be touched is the only way to discover what you enjoy.’
Here, we’ve picked out 32 erogenous zones – from the obvious to the overlooked – with advice on how to approach them. Numbers 1-20 are shared spots; 21-28 are specific to women and people with vaginas; while 29-34 refer to men and people with penises.
The scalp is full of nerve endings, and is especially sensitive just behind the ears and on the nape of the neck. ‘Start by gently stroking or running your fingers through your partner’s hair, always starting at the roots and maintaining a consistent motion and pressure to simulate the scalp directly,’ says Sabat.
The earlobes are made up of thin skin, which typically means increased sensitivity. ‘Some enjoy a gentle kiss or nibble on the earlobe, while others might prefer more intense sensations, such as sucking, pinching, biting or pulling,’ says Sabat.
It might be a little ticklish, but your armpits are chock-full of nerve endings. ‘Caressing, kissing and even licking this area can be equal parts playful and erotic,’ says Sabat. ‘Approach the area with a gentle-but-firm touch, using circular motions and long strokes for maximum pleasure.’
This area lends itself to increased sensitivity thanks to the thin, soft skin that makes up the area. ‘Stroking the region, starting just inside the inner shoulder, and moving gently down to the inner elbow can be overwhelmingly pleasurable,’ says Sabat.
The intersection of the spine and pelvis, known as the sacrum, is a highly sensitive spot. ‘Treat your partner to a gentle massage, or engage with temperature and sensory play with objects like ice, feathers, warming oils, and silk to elicit an incredible response,’ says Sabat.
The lower stomach is filled with nerve endings that become more and more concentrated towards the genital area, ‘so it’s a great place to show affection and attention,’ says Sabat. ‘You can tease and stimulate this area with a very wide variety of techniques including kissing, gentle biting, and temperature play.’
It mightn’t be the first spot that comes to mind when you think of erogenous zones, but the inner wrist is incredibly sensitive, says Sabat. ‘Feeling your partner’s heart rate increase as you caress this area will turn you on, too,’ she explains. ‘Stroking or kissing this area, especially in public, is a great way to signal that you’re feeling sensual.’
Your hands are full of nerve endings – in fact, they’re one of the most sensitive areas of your body. ‘Take your partner’s palm in your hand and gently trace along the edges and lines of their palm with your fingertips,’ Sabat suggests, before kissing or tightly sucking their fingertips.
In a way that’s similar to the inner wrist and arm, caressing and kissing the skin behind the knee can be incredibly erotic thanks to the thin, nerve-packed skin, says Sabat. ‘Gently run your fingers over this area, or engage with it during penetrative sex by touching, stroking or applying pressure,’ she says.
Yep, you guessed it – your feet are full of nerve endings, too. ‘Stimulate pressure points through massage, focusing on the arch and pad of the foot as these spots help increase blood flow and promote arousal, before working your way up to kissing and caressing the area with your lips,’ says Sabat.
This area is best stimulated through massage, says Sabat, and massage oils can make this experience even better. ‘I recommend a gentle but firm pressure, using your hands to massage each toe individually, focusing on the sides of the toes to engage with the most sensitive points,’ she says.
It’s unlikely to be an area you’ve thought about before, but the inside of your ankle is an under-stimulated spot that’s sensitive to touch. ‘Focus on stroking either side of the Achilles tendon – more of a caress than a massage, as the area is quite sensitive,’ says Sabat. ‘If your partner likes the sensation, kissing the area can also be highly erotic.’
An underrated sensory spot. Stimulate the brain and the body will follow. ‘Engage with alternative forms of pornography, like audio erotica, that immerse your mind in an experience, or craft your own sexy fantasy,’ says Sabat. ‘Make it a habit to engage with your mind first in intimate moments.’
This less-explored region is packed with nerve endings. ‘Start by playing with the buttocks,’ says Sabat. ‘Stroke the entire area and place your hands on the folds where the legs and buttocks meet, then slide your fingers along the fold, from the inner thigh to the outer area, before caressing the outside of the anus.’
The nipples are very sensitive because of their thin, highly responsive skin. ‘Many like this region to be stimulated with strokes, licks, kisses and gentle nibbles, but they’re also responsive to sensory play, so don’t be afraid to break out the vibrator, ice cubes, silk, or feathers,’ says Sabat. ‘However, be careful with overly-warm sensory products to avoid discomfort, and note that their sensitivity can change daily.’
Your lips are packed with more nerve endings than your fingertips, says Sabat, but with much thinner and more sensitive skin. ‘Trace the outline of your partner’s lips with your finger before using your teeth to gently pull on their bottom lip, engaging in an intense kiss,’ she suggests.
A key erogenous zone, your neck is also incredibly sensitive and highly responsive to stimulation. ‘Place your hands on either side of your partner’s neck while kissing them, or stroke the back of their neck lightly with your fingertips to send shivers down their whole body,’ says Sabat. ‘Kissing and licking this area can also be highly pleasurable – start at the base of your partner’s ear and kiss or lick down to their collar bone.’
The skin on your inner thighs is delicate, warm, and full of nerves, says Sabat, so show this spot some attention, especially when leading up to oral sex. ‘Caress, kiss, lick, and even dig your fingers into this area gently to give your partner a range of sensations – being sure to caress the whole area, from inner knee, to upper-inner thigh,’ she says.
Given its close proximity to the genitals, teasing the groin – the area that connects your abdomen to your lower body and legs – can be electrifying. ‘Packed with nerve endings, it’s an exciting spot to kiss and caress when exploring your partner’s body,’ says Sabat. ‘Tease them further by running your fingers over their underwear before slowly moving in to touch their skin.’
Massaging, caressing, kissing and licking the breasts indirectly stimulates the nipples, triggering the same area of the brain as the genitals, says Segar. ‘Starting with the breast rather than going straight for the nipple can help build arousal by drawing out the stimulation,’ she says.
Also known as the mons pubis, this area is the fleshy part just above the clitoris. ‘It’s the perfect area to indirectly stimulate the clitoris and encourage blood flow to the genitals,’ says Segar. ‘Try massaging in circular motions and experiment with light and firm pressure.’
The clitoris is packed with more than 8,000 nerve endings, and is the only human organ designed entirely for pleasure, says Segar. ‘The most sensitive part of the clitoris is the glans – located at the top of the vulva above the urethral opening, usually covered by the clitoral hood,’ she says. ‘Slow circles tracing around the glans or running your fingers either side is an effective way to gently stimulate the clitoris.’
Also known as the inner lips, the labia minora contain numerous nerve endings that can be extremely pleasurable to touch, says Segar. ‘Gently run your index and middle finger along both the inside and outside of the lips,’ she suggests.
While the exact location will vary slightly from person to person, the A-spot can be found around four to six inches above the entrance to the vagina, on the front wall. If your fingers aren’t long enough to reach this pot, use a toy – especially one with a curved tip – to stimulate it, Segar suggests.
This erogenous zone is sometimes capable of inducing female ejaculation. ‘You can reach the G-spot by placing one or two fingers inside the vagina about two inches up, using a beckoning or ‘come hither’ motion against the front wall,’ says Segar. ‘The texture often feels a bit rougher than the surrounding area, which is usually a lot smoother.’
The cervix sits at the deepest point of the vagina, so stimulating this area will often require a toy to reach, says Segar. You can also reach the C-spot during penetrative sex, especially in the woman-on-top position. While not everyone enjoys deep penetration, she adds, this position puts the receiver in charge of the movements.
Often overlooked, the V-spot refers to the opening of the vagina, which is packed with nerve endings. ‘Using a toy, a finger, or the head of a penis, slowly circle around the vaginal opening,’ she says. ‘You can also experiment with very shallow penetration – only going in an inch or so – to enhance the sensation.’
The glans – also called the head or tip – is the most sensitive part of the penis. ‘Using lube, run your fingers and thumb from the urethral opening down the head, spreading your hand open as you do, until your palm touches the head,’ says Segar. ‘Bring them slowly back up and repeat. Start with light pressure that you can increase as preferred.’
This is the elastic band of tissue on the underside of the glans, and looks similar to the frenulum that connects your tongue to the bottom of your mouth. ‘This tiny area is extremely sensitive to touch,’ says Segar. ‘Running your thumb up and down the frenulum can be extremely pleasurable, though be cautious not to overstimulate.’
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the foreskin is packed with nerve endings. ‘As the foreskin retracts when the penis is erect, using a hand to move it up and down the glans can be an extremely enjoyable sensation,’ says Segar. ‘For circumcised people, there are toys that can mimic the feeling of the foreskin as well as adding enhanced sensation.’
This is one of the most sensitive areas of the body, so go carefully. ‘Start with some gentle cupping and light strokes or kiss and lick them,’ says Segar. ‘You can experiment with increasing the pressure and type of stimulation, such as tugging or squeezing, but this is definitely not for everyone.’
This is the area of skin that stretches from the scrotum to the anal opening. ‘Running your fingers up and down this area, particularly when you are close to orgasm, can increase the intensity of your climax,’ says Segarr. ‘It is also possible to indirectly stimulate the prostate by playing with this area.’
Located inside the anus, the prostate can be a source of immense pleasure. ‘Using lots of lube, gently trace a finger around the anal opening to relax the muscles,’ says Segar. ‘When you feel ready, slip a finger inside and gently move it approximately two inches upwards and use a ‘come hither’ coaxing motion. If you’re struggling to reach, anal beads or a butt plug can be a really fun addition – just make sure your toy has a flared base.’
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
If you stumbled on a magic relationship lantern and a sex genie popped out and said, “I will grant you one wish,” what would you ask for? There’s a good chance many of us would wish for reliably hot sex.
Sex, when it’s good, can be powerfully satisfying. It’s a joyful, life-affirming experience that touches all aspects of our humanity: physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental. Unfortunately, for many of us, it doesn’t happen as much as we’d like it to. Or else it’s Groundhog Day in the sheets: It happens way too often, way too predictably.
Part of what makes sex challenging is that we’ve been discouraged from investigating or understanding it since early childhood. Rare is the child encouraged at the dinner table to discuss positive and negative messages they received about their body in gym class or asked open-ended questions by a loving parent, like: “And how did you feel when that nurse got mad at you for calling your vulva (or penis) by its proper name?”
By the time we’re adults, any positive sexual experiences or sensations we have can seem like “magic” because our minds have been conditioned to short-circuit, go blank, default to predictable judgments about sex and bodies, or react to the topic of sexual feelings, erotic sensations, pleasure, and our “private parts” with confusion. Often, we don’t understand the factors that go into our positive (or negative) sexual experiences because we haven’t felt fully free to spend time exploring and understanding these factors, or getting the support we need to work through our mental and emotional blocks to doing this.
And if we don’t know what makes sex good (or not so good) for us, how can we foster and nurture the external and internal circumstances we personally require to support the sex lives we want?
There’s a shorthand for all the complex, interlocking factors that contribute to our experience of sex at any given moment: “sexual context.”
Our sexual context encompasses all of the elements—internal and external—that influence our sexuality at any given moment. On a macro level, it encompasses our ever-shifting environment, the sensory stimuli that surround us, and our conscious and unconscious internal world. On a micro level, it’s our immediate surroundings and state of mind: beeping sounds in the street that distract us from our lover’s kiss; the stress and tension that makes it hard to relax and savor touch; or the music, candlelight, and prolonged eye contact with our spouse that allow us to exhale and let go.
Context encompasses where we are and how we feel about it as well as who we are and how we experience ourselves. It affects our perception of sexual cues, our sensations, our arousability, and much more.
To begin exploring what contributes to your ideal sexual context, try this:
Since most of us won’t stumble on a magic relationship lantern or sex genie in this lifetime, consciously understanding the different contextual factors—internal and external—that support and contribute to our personal experience of enjoyable sex is one of the most accessible and realistic paths to sexually empowering ourselves.
By Jess Joho
They say the mind is the biggest, most powerful sex organ in the body. But, uh, don’t try visualizing that mental image too vividly or literally, unless you’re into that sorta thing?
Instead, imagine your favorite fictional crush pressing you up against a wall, or think back to the hottest sex you ever had in your life. Now stop imagining, because this magical place where all your desires are possible and acceptable exists. And literally anyone can tap into it.
While sexual fantasies are by definition not “real,” their effects on your sex life (especially when explored during masturbation) are — shall we say — palpably physical.
“Engaging your imagination rather than relying on visual porn for example helps to build, enhance and strengthen your erotic mind,” said Dr. Britney Blair, co-founder and Chief Science Officer of the sexual wellness Lover app. “You can bring that imagination to life when you want to prime the pump on your desire or push yourself over the edge to climax while solo or with a partner.”
“It’s incredibly liberating, recognizing our own power to design the scenes and situations that turn us on.”
To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with porn or other forms of erotica. But there’s something especially powerful in orgasming to smut that couldn’t be more personally tailored to what you like.
“In our minds we’re not confined to our studio apartments or our current sexual partners. There are no rules or judgments. Not even the laws of physics apply,” said Gina Gutierrez, co-founder of the popular audio erotica app Dipsea. “It’s incredibly liberating, recognizing our own power to design the scenes and situations that turn us on and to scrap the ones that don’t work for us.”
Don’t take our word for it, though. There’s science to show exactly how real the effects of a healthy erotic imagination are.
In a landmark 2016 study, Dr. Nan Wise — neuroscientist, sex therapist, and author of Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life — mapped the brain’s response when subjects merely imagined pleasurable stimulation on their genitals. Just by thinking about it, the pleasure centers in their brains “lit up like a Christmas tree,” Wise said.
“The mind is really the recipient of all the body’s sensations. So there’s this empirical evidence of a huge connection between the mind and pleasure,” she said.
While everyone can benefit from using their imagination as a sexual aid, it’s an especially potent practice for women and others who society has conditioned to feel ashamed about their sexuality.
“We have to do more work to lay down the connections, the neural pathways, between the genitals and the brain’s sensory reward regions,” said Wise. “Using your imagination to masturbate not only gives us the information about what stimulation we need, but also actually strengthens the connections between our genitals and the brain.”
Beyond that, getting off to our own sexual fantasies tackles another negative effect that patriarchy can have on women’s sexuality.
“We’re socialized to think of ourselves as the objects of other people’s desires, like we need to borrow someone else’s idea of pleasure” said Wise. That’s why learning how to be the subject of our own desires, to embody the pleasure we conjure up in our own mind, can be so empowering.
Everyone with a brain, genitals, and desire is already equipped to masturbate to their own sexual fantasies. And while the practice does come more naturally to some, it only takes little guidance and patience to unlock the endless possibilities tucked inside your erotic mind.
A major key in setting your mind up for erotic success is to ensure your environment allows your brain to feel fully relaxed, safe, and free from distraction.
Pick a time and place where you’ll have full privacy without needing to worry about any interruption, whether from roommates or notifications. For most people, that place will naturally be the bedroom. But put some effort into also making it a true fortress of sensual solitude, like by locking the door, setting your phone to airplane mode, putting on an eye mask, or maybe even using some essential oils and putting on your favorite sexy playlist.
Blair even recommends purposefully scheduling these more exploratory kind of session and making them habitual. So maybe it can be something you add to your nightly ritual before bed: Brush your teeth, do the skincare routine, put on some pajamas, then let your mind wander as you touch yourself.
Of course, priming yourself with the right mindset is vital to unlocking your brain’s full fantasy potential.
One of the biggest hurdles to exploring our erotic imaginations is actually the engrained social shame many of us have picked up (even subconsciously) through sexism, homophobia, social stigmas, religion, etc.
“It’s important to know if that is coming up for you, you’re not alone. But there is no such thing as a wrong or right fantasy.” said Blair.
Treat your imagination as a judgement-free zone. To be fair, clearing or redirecting your mind away from feelings of shame is easier said than done. But certain exercises can help (which we’ll get into more in the mind-body connection section below).
Blair suggests that, while exploring sexual fantasies in your mind, try to distinguish between when you’re having a reaction versus a judgment to a certain scenario. Judgments often come from values imposed on you by something or someone else, while visceral reactions can be an indication that your mind wants to explore it further — especially if it’s something your never thought you’d be into.
It’s easy to get scared off by an intense response to a fantasy, and write that off as being too weird or outside the norm for your taste. But if you give yourself a second to assess where that response is coming from, you might actually find that the intensity comes from a part of you that you’ve never tried tapping into before.
“Everything is okay in the world of fantasy. No fantasy is a crime.”
Or maybe not, and that’s fine too. The point is, if you feel safe doing it, just try leaning into parts of your erotic mind that feel challenging and see where it goes.
“Everything is okay in the world of fantasy. No fantasy is a crime,” said Blair. “Whatever turns you on in your mind is totally healthy. Your fantasy doesn’t say anything about you except that you are lucky to have a rich imagination that you can use to have an exciting and enduring erotic life.”
That’s another major benefit of sexual fantasies versus traditional porn, too. You don’t have to worry about any ethical concerns, because your imagination can’t hurt you or anyone else. You’re in total control.
“You imagination is a completely safe space,” said Dipsea’s Gutierrez. “We can play out fantasies that are risky or illicit that we would never actually want to happen in real life. In our minds we’re free to experiment without consequences.”
While the whole point is to tap into the unique potential of your own mind, a good jumping off point is to explore whether the most common sexual fantasies spark your interest. Researchers have labeled them into different categories, though there’s a world of possibilities within those labels as well.
Dr. Blair described these categories as multi-partner sex like group sex or threesomes; power, control, or rough sex; novelty, adventure, and variety; taboo and forbidden sex; partner sharing and non-monogamous relationships; passion and romance; and erotic flexibility like homoeroticism or gender-bending.
Jess O’Reilly is a sex educator, author of The New Sex Bible, and Astroglide’s resident sexologist. She explained that through each of these fantasy categories you can help identify the specific core erotic feelings that get you into a heightened state of arousal.
“Oftentimes, they relate to fantasy, escapism or subverting otherwise ‘negative’ emotions. You might find that sex is really hot when you feel powerful, submissive, challenged, mindful, or playful,” she said. “You may also find yourself aroused by feelings that you don’t naturally associate with pleasure, like jealousy, inadequacy, fear, and even humiliation can be exciting.”
What our brains often gravitate to most is pure novelty. What gets you off in a fantasy can actually be the total opposite of your real-life sexual orientation or even completely removed from you, as an abstract scenario happening to someone else entirely.
So don’t be weirded out if you learn that you’re as horny for that fish-god monster from The Shape of Water as the Academy Awards were in 2018. Or maybe you’re one of the many women who enjoys a rape fantasy — which, as Dr. Wise points out, in a fantasy context is the opposite of a real-life rape since, “you’re choosing to have the fantasy and who’s overpowering you. You’re in complete control.”
One other general rule of thumb Wise found is that while men tend toward more visually-oriented fantasies centered around preferred body parts, women tend to focus on overall scenarios. However, it’s impossible to distill the endless possibilities of human sexuality into neat categories. Which is why you also shouldn’t get discouraged or ashamed if none of these common fantasies do it for you.
“Our capacity for imagination is limitless,” said Wise. Don’t feel pressure to confine yours to a specific label.
The truth is that, while other obstacles might make it hard initially to give yourself permission to explore sexual fantasies, using your imagination is a very natural and innate part of being human. Who doesn’t fantasizing about getting up from their desk in the middle of a hard work day and quitting, or spend time daydreaming about how they’d furnish their dream apartment?
“We make Pinterest boards and save Instagram photos, collect and catalog all these things that we like. I recommend starting to do that for your sex life,” said Gutierrez. “Become more mindful observing what attracts you to someone. The moments where you feel sexiest. What you want to say out loud during sex but hesitate to. Then the next time you want to use your fantasy for pleasure, you know exactly where to draw from.”
Everything in your life can become part of your horny mood board.
Everything in your life can become part of your horny mood board.
We all have that one fictional character or public figure — whether from books, tv, movies, video games, or even politics and the internet — that just does it for us. Begin there, expanding into a specific sexy scene that got you going or whatever comes to mind when you think of that person. Heck, maybe you’re like me and realize that a silky, authoritative voice is actually your kink, leading a bunch of non-erotic popular podcasts to become your go-to spank bank material.
Audio erotica can be a great place to start if you don’t want to take the training wheels off yet to explore sexual fantasies of your own making. Unlike visual porn, audio erotica still exercises the muscles of your erotic imagination, asking you to fill in the details and paint the full picture. While we always recommend Dipsea, there’s also plenty of free ways to try audio erotica like r/gonewildaudio and Girl on the Net.
Once you’re ready to bring yourself more to the forefront of the fantasy, begin with a memory of the hottest, most visceral sex you’ve ever had. Really ground yourself back in that moment by recalling your senses: What position were you in? What did the person’s lust feel like? Were you sweating? How exactly did they touch you?
Touch yourself while pulling from all the erotic mental material you’ve curated, and don’t be afraid to really get your whole body involved in mimicking the sensations you’re creating through your mind. Maybe that means masturbating while you’re on all fours, or matching the tempo of the fantasy, or even dry-humping a pillow. Don’t put any pressure on yourself to orgasm throughout any of this, though, and instead just zero in on embodying the experience of your imagination.
“It’s about giving yourself full permission to explore all our internal pleasure places, and how we experience them in both our minds and bodies at the same time,” said Wise.
Through her research and other studies in the field, Wise has ultimately found that, “This distinction we make between the mind and body is really a very arbitrary one.”
One of the best ways to embrace this in a way that engages your erotic fantasy life in is through something called mindful sex.
This increasingly popular branch of sex therapy describes a bunch of different practices and exercises that add a layer of sexuality to mindfulness, to help you stay present in your body while experiencing pleasure, train your mind to focus on whatever arouses you, and engage in a non-judgmental curious sexual mindset. Try out basic exercises like pleasure mapping (which Dipsea has a guide for), mindful masturbation (which you can read about here), and sensate focus (which you can read about here).
Wise also suggests a very simple exercise for getting your imagination more connected with your genitals on a neurological level: Just start by tapping or pleasurably touching your genitals, then stop, then think back on the sensations you felt while touching them. Try to recall and summon them back in your body: What did it feel like in your body when the stimulation was building, then dissipating?
At first, it might not feel like much at all and the pleasure may be pretty mild compared to what you’re used to while using more immediate erotic visual aids like porn.
“But you’ll slowly start to develop a better connection to that pleasure sensation channel in your brain,” she said.
While sexual fantasies are a great way to enhance self-love, learning how to engage with them during partnered sex can also do wonders to get people over the edge and into orgasm.
At this point though, you might be wondering: Is it even OK to fantasize about other situations — or maybe even other people — while having sex with a partner?
“It doesn’t matter where you get your appetite, as long as you’d come home to eat.”
“Yes, it’s an unequivocal yes! Because thinking about stuff is not the same as doing it,” said Wise. As the famous saying goes, “It doesn’t matter where you get your appetite, as long as you’d come home to eat.”
It’s totally normal for your mind to desire novelty, especially if you’re not in a new relationship anymore. In fact, Wise found that one of the best ways to ensure a couples’ longevity is precisely this kind of openness and understanding that people need to fuel their erotic imagination with new stuff.
“If we can get over these kind of hang ups, get past this fear of our partners having a fantasy about somebody else while they’re with us, and instead use it as an opportunity talk about: What would you like? What haven’t we tried? What are you afraid to tell me? Because that’s hot. That’s really hot,” said Wise.
Or maybe instead of thinking about someone else, you’d simply rather use your imagination during partnered sex to transport you both to a setting or scenario that heightens your arousal even more.
In the end, what you do with your erotic imagination is up to you. You can share it if you’d like — or keep it all to yourself. That’s what’s so great about sexual fantasies you cut from your own cloth: They’re all yours, and no one else’s.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
By Erin Magner
While the history of women and pleasure is fraught with stigma, it appears we’re in the midst of a pleasure revolution. Now, female-identifying founders are creating pornography, sex toys, sex-education platforms, and erotica, all of which normalizes and celebrates a woman’s right to get off. Not only are consumers turned on by this building movement—the global sex toy market alone is expected to be worth $35 billion by 2023, up from $23.7 billion in 2017—but investors, too, are shuttling millions of dollars into sexual wellness start-ups such as Dipsea, a sexy short-story app, and Unbound, an e-tailer selling sex toys and other bedroom accessories. In short, there’s never been a better time than now for having a vulva and loving to orgasm.
So how did we get to this place of openness when, just two decades ago, Samantha Jones’ unapologetic pursuit of big Os on Sex and the City was considered radical? While there have been many twists and turns throughout the history of women and pleasure, it can be argued that the modern movement’s roots first planted in the 1950s. Back then, attitudes toward sexuality were still, in many ways, informed by the repressive Victorian era—when society demanded a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude toward female desire. Yet in 1953, sexologist and biologist Alfred C. Kinsey, PhD, published his landmark (and controversial) book titled Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, which shed light on women’s then-rarely discussed habits regarding masturbation, orgasms, and sex before marriage. (Spoiler alert: Among the 6,000 women interviewed for the book, all of those activities were highly popular.) From there, the world slowly but surely opened its eyes to women as sexual beings.
Four years following the release of Dr. Kinsey’s book, William Masters and Virginia Johnson began their pioneering work on the physical mechanisms behind sexual arousal at Washington University in St. Louis. Their most groundbreaking findings are still frequently cited today, like the four stages of sexual arousal—excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution—and the idea that women are able to have multiple orgasms. “Even the very suggestion that sexual pleasure might be important for women and not just men was massively radical during those times,” says Zhana Vrangalova, PhD, professor of human sexuality at New York University and resident sexpert for sex-toy brand Lelo.
As the history of women and pleasure progressed, a succession of cultural milestones continued to help champion the idea of non-procreative sex among women. First, the birth control pill hit the market in 1960, which officially allowed women to have sex without the prospect of pregnancy. Helen Gurley Brown’s book Sex and the Single Girl (1962) gave advice for sex and dating as an unmarried woman, and a group of Boston women later self-published the seminal Our Bodies, Ourselves (1970), which provided evidence-based information to teach women about their sexual anatomy. Then as the hippie counterculture spread a message of free love, leaders of the second-wave feminist movement encouraged women to take an active role in their own sexual experience. You know, like men had been doing for centuries beforehand.
Despite all of this progress, however, Dr. Vrangalova points out that the framework for female pleasure in the 1960s and early ’70s was still largely based on a male perspective. “Given that the ’60s were a time when women were still very much second-class citizens, the way sexual pleasure was conceptualized was the way men, rather than women, thought about pleasure,” she says. “There’s no doubt women participated, but it seems like they adopted the male-driven vision of sexual pleasure, rather than focusing specifically on female pleasure. This was an inevitable product of the times—even scientists across diverse fields believed that whatever findings were true of men were also true of women, more or less.” For instance, at this point in the history of women and pleasure, there was still a pervasive view that women, like men, should be able to reach orgasm through vaginal intercourse alone.
“The ’60s were a time when women were still very much second-class citizens, and the way sexual pleasure was conceptualized was the way men, rather than women, thought about pleasure.”
—sexologist Zhana Vrangalova, PhD
Thankfully, in 1976, sex educator Shere Hite’s book The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality re-emphasized the importance of clitoral stimulation in reaching orgasm—an idea put forth by Dr. Kinsey two decades previously. (It wasn’t until 2005, however, that researchers led by Australian urologist Helen O’Connell, MD, would actually create a full map of the clitoris’ internal and external structures.) Then, in 1982, a book titled The G Spot and Other Recent Discoveries About Human Sexuality, brought this then-little-known erogenous zone—and the concept of female ejaculation—into the public consciousness.
But soon after, new discoveries around women’s pleasure began to cool off, a phenomenon that Dr. Vrangalova attributes to the early days of the HIV/AIDS crisis. “Unfortunately, that swung the pendulum on sexual pleasure—male and female—back toward the more conservative end of the spectrum, and America entered the Dark Ages of abstinence-only sexual education,” she says. “This had the incredibly harmful effects of sexually crippling an entire generation of Americans with lack of information, increasing fear of sex and STIs, and increasing stigma around pleasure, especially if it was outside of long-term committed relationships.”
Fast-forward a decade, however, and pleasure once again started to creep back into the zeitgeist. But even in 1999, when Sex and the City was must-watch viewing, 40 percent of women still claimed to experience sexual disfunction, characterized by a lack of sexual desire and difficulty attaining arousal.
According to public-health researcher Katherine Rowland‘s new book, The Pleasure Gap, this feeling of sexual dissatisfaction still endures, despite all the strides that have been made during the past 60-plus years. “Among the women who I spoke to, the persistent low desire was heavily associated with the idea that sex should revolve around penetration as the main course, with maybe a polite prelude of a foreplay, rather than thinking about sex as a broader universe of intimacy,” Rowland previously told NPR. “It’s the combination of a larger culture that privileges male sexuality over women’s, a culture that doesn’t teach women that pleasure belongs to them. A lack of anatomical self-knowledge. And feelings of sort of persistent danger and women being often censored and censured for expressing their desire.”
Yet on all of these fronts, the tides have been slowly turning in recent years, thanks in large part to the rise of the digital age. “The internet and smartphones enabled unprecedented access to vast amounts of sexual pleasure information and to all sorts of alternative and more liberal sexual values and lifestyles,” says Dr. Vrangalova, who notes that online porn and erotica helped to normalize the concept of “a women’s right to pleasure.”
Furthermore, the #MeToo movement of 2017 set the stage for the current pleasure revolution. “There are a lot of women who relived their traumas during #MeToo…it wasn’t a linear path,” says Alexandra Fine, sexologist and CEO of next-gen vibrator company Dame. “But it does ultimately feel like it empowered women to reclaim their sexual pleasure as their own and to speak more openly about it.”
It’s that open dialogue around sex that’s leading women to get curious about their own pleasure patterns right now—and that’s clearing a path for companies to create products and services that help them get to know their own bodies. “[At Dame,] we’re hearing so many stories of women being really honest about what their sexual experiences are in an unfiltered way that wasn’t available before,” Fine adds.
As knowledge gaps continue to emerge around women’s sexual pleasure, organizations like Allbodies—a digital sex-ed platform—are stepping up to fill them. Allbodies co-founder and doula Ash Spivak says there are still many vulva-owners who feel alienated by conventional pleasure wisdom, either because they’ve previously experienced trauma or by virtue of the fact that everyone’s body works differently. “We have so much emphasis on orgasms in general as being the pinnacle, but pleasure is a spectrum,” she says. “There’s so much room in there to really play around and that’s really never been taught.”
“We have so much emphasis on orgasms in general as being the pinnacle, but pleasure is a spectrum. There’s so much room in there to really play around and that’s really never been taught.”
—Ash Spivak, Allbodies co-founder
There are also plenty of institutions that aren’t yet ready for an open dialogue around female arousal at this point in the history of women and pleasure. For instance, Facebook still doesn’t allow advertising for sex toys—although it does allow ads for sexual-health companies, like those promoting erectile-disfunction treatments for men. And Fine says targeting this is the next frontier of the pleasure revolution.
“This conversation around advertising policy is a really interesting place where it’s showing up,” she says, noting that Dame sued the New York City MTA in 2019 for refusing to run its vibrator ads in the subway. Changing this reality is part of her bigger mission for Dame. “If we can’t have public discourse around sexuality because we think it’s inherently inappropriate, then we’re pushing sex to the shadows. And the things that happen in the shadows when it comes to sex harm women.”
Fortunately, research is continuing to unveil nuances of the female sexual experience, which can only help to erase shame and popularize the idea that there’s no one-size-fits-all path to pleasure. One 2019 study, for instance, debunked the idea that all orgasms are positive experiences—some women do, indeed, view them as negative at times, particularly when they feel coerced into having sex or pressured into climaxing.
Brands are even contributing to our collective knowledge. Dame, for instance, asks members of its Dame Labs community to test its prototypes pre-launch and then uses feedback to fine-tune each product. For instance, Dame engineers were surprised to learn when developing the company’s first internal vibrator, the Arc, that testers considered the toy’s external sensations to be even more important than its internal stimulation properties—even though testers said they would purchase the toy to use internally. The engineers edited the design accordingly, and as a result, pleasure won.
And while pleasure is a right entitled to all people, vulva-owners certainly included, Fine, for one, believes there are even bigger health gains to to glean from knowing as much as possible about the female sexual experience. “I really believe that sex is part of our wellness—it’s literally what creates our life,” she says. ‘Why would we think it’s not constantly impacting [us]?”
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
By Alexandra Ossola & Natasha Frost
Most people in lockdown, as 75% of Americans are at the moment, are probably experiencing big changes to their usual routine. There’s no office commute, no school bus shuttle; there are no parties to attend, no group dinners to plan. It’s unsurprising, then, that for a lot of people, those changes may also be affecting their sex life.
For some, less sex during the pandemic is a given—for those who are self-isolating while single, making their usual sex lives too risky, or those whose partners are away or sickened by the virus. Meanwhile, those with the option of having more sex might well be taking it: Condoms may become the next item to be in short supply worldwide, while some have speculated that maternity wards will see an uptick in mothers giving birth nine months after the lockdowns began.
But if you’re not feeling in the mood, well, you’re not alone. On Twitter, users lamented that “general panic and despair” had led to the sudden disappearance of their libido, as one put it. Others described feeling “unappealing” or wanting to cuddle and eat snacks instead. In a poll of just over 9,000 people from NBC News, only 24% said the coronavirus outbreak had positively affected their sex lives (28% were neutral and 47% said it had affected them negatively).
Online, sex researchers and therapists acknowledge that people could really go either way. “After all, we know from a mountain of psychological research that two people can respond to the same situation in very different ways and that the factors that increase sexual desire in some can drive it down in others,” Justin Lehmiller, a sex researcher at the Kinsey Institute, wrote in a blog post.
Wondering what’s going on? There might be a few reasons why you’re feeling different about getting busy.
“For plenty of people, when they get stressed out, sex is the farthest thing from their mind,” says Heather McPherson, a sex therapist based in Austin, Texas. Between worrying about elderly parents, figuring out how to exercise at home, and managing a new routine, “a lot of things can point toward not doing it, because you’re so focused on surviving,” she says. Meanwhile, “stress and anxiety and potentially losing your job will potentially take a toll on all relationships.”
Still, in such unusual circumstances, it’s hard to know which behaviors are most common, McPherson says. “We don’t really have good measures to go off.”
Some people may see the opposite effect altogether: “For some people, when anxiety and stress goes up, their libido kicks up,” with sex serving as a coping mechanism. This is the phenomenon dubbed the “apocalyptic hornies” by Men’s Health, perhaps contributing to a 17.8% increase in US site traffic to PornHub on March 24, compared to an average day.
Writing in Psychology Today, sex therapist Diane Gleim suggests that it all comes down to a delicate balancing act: “A person’s sex drive needs just enough anxiety/tension/uncertainty to get activated but not too much anxiety/tension/uncertainty or else the person can get overwhelmed, flooded, and then sex drive goes underground,” she writes. “Think of it like the Goldilocks principle: not too much (anxiety), not too little (anxiety), but just (the) right (amount of anxiety).”
One of the few studies into the relationship between trauma and the libido, published in the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, looked at the effect of the massive 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, China, on the reproductive health of 170 local women. Researchers found a marked decrease in women’s satisfaction with their sex life: Before the quake, 55% of women surveyed said they were satisfied, falling to 21% afterwards. They had less sex, too: Before the quake, every woman surveyed said they were having sex at least once a week, and in the week immediately after, 89% said they had not had sex at all. Even a month later, 32% said they were still not having sex.
If US history is anything to go by, a downturn in economic prospects is similarly bad news for the nation’s sex life. That’s according to studies on the nation’s birth rate: During years of prosperity, such as the 1950s, the US birth rate soared. Its greatest nadirs, meanwhile, coincided with times of economic hardship: the Great Depression of 1929, the 1973 oil crisis, and the 2008 recession.
Between 2008 and 2013, for instance, nearly 2.3 million fewer babies were born in the US than would have been expected if pre-recession fertility rates had persisted, according to one study from the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy.
Some of this may be pragmatic, of course—who wants to have another child when they can barely afford the ones they have? Still, while birth rate isn’t a perfect measure for how much sex people are having (especially after 1960, when the pill went on sale as a contraceptive), it’s one of the better indicators widely available.
In long-term relationships, it can be hard to keep the mystery alive at the best of times. That goes double when you’re stuck together in the confined space of your own home, with few opportunities for independent activities or time apart.
Too much closeness, in fact, can actually hinder the kind of intimacy we look for in sex, sex therapist and relationship guru Esther Perel writes in her book Mating in Captivity:
It is too easily assumed that problems with sex are the result of a lack of closeness. But … perhaps the way we construct closeness reduces the sense of freedom and autonomy needed for sexual pleasure. When intimacy collapses into fusion, it is not a lack of closeness but too much closeness that impedes desire.
Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness. One does not exist without the other. With too much distance, there can be no connection. But too much merging eradicates the separateness of two distinct individuals. Then there is nothing more to transcend, no bridge to walk on, no one to visit on the other side, no other internal world to enter. When people become fused—when two become one—connection can no longer happen. There is no one to connect with. Thus separateness is a precondition for connection: this is the essential paradox of intimacy and sex.
During this interminable period of intense stress and anxiety, it’s hardly surprising if you find your libido vacillating from one extreme to the other. Sex therapist McPherson said many of her clients had found themselves settling gradually into a new routine after a few weeks in lockdown. As human beings, “generally, we’re pretty resilient,” she says. And when it comes to sex in quarantine, there’s one undeniable upside: “You certainly have enough time to do it.”
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