7 questions you always wanted to ask a sex coach

By Danielle Fox

When we polled our readers earlier this month on what they’ve always wanted to ask a sex coach, they flooded our DM’s with questions, concerns, and complaints about their partners’…techniques.

One thing to note: whatever is going on in the bedroom isn’t a “just you” issue, per se. According to the Cleveland Clinic, 43 percent of women and 31 percent of men experience some type of sexual dysfunction during their lifetimes, including low libido and low confidence. And so many readers submitted the exact same questions and the same deepest darkest secrets. You’re normal. Sex can be weird! Let’s talk about it.

Below, Gigi Engle, SKYN sex and intimacy expert and certified sex coach and author of All The F*cking Mistakes, answered questions submitted by HelloGiggles readers. Don’t see your concern below? Check out the rest of our State of Female Pleasure package for more sexpert advice.

How do I tell my partner that I’ve been faking my orgasms without hurting their feelings?

Your partner may have hurt feelings but the important thing is to assure them that you like everything they’re doing and you were faking orgasms because things felt good but you just felt you weren’t going to get “there.” Offer to show them exactly what feels good for you with gentle guidance.

How do I stop faking orgasms without offending my boyfriend?

Having an open conversation with your partner about this can be challenging. Sex is an emotionally charged thing and many of us lack the vocabulary to communicate our needs. Let your partner know that you want to try some new sex things together. You want to show him new ways to touch you and to have more orgasms. Tell them you love your sex life so he feels good about himself and then offer some guidance. When it comes to faking, if you feel like you’re not going to get there, offer some gentle guidance. Maybe you could use some more oral sex, or a toy during sex. Make those suggestions to him.

How can I be more comfortable in my body during sex?

Masturbate, masturbate, masturbate. When you get in touch with your body and internal energy, you start to feel so much more comfortable in your power. Having control over your own orgasm is empowering and will help you feel good when guiding someone in how to touch you. Body confidence is not something that happens overnight. Look at yourself in the mirror naked and tell your body how much you love it; how it takes care of you, gets you where you need to go, and is strong for you. It does not matter what you look like. You’re beautiful and sexy and powerful.

What can I do to get my partner to explore other fun sexual options? Ex: BDSM.

Make a sex menu. You write down three things you want to try and then have [them] write down three things [they’d] want to try. Then, swap lists and see what you both are interested in. This gives you a pressure-free way to learn about your partners desires and to share your own. Introduce [them] to new things slowly—maybe start out with a new lube or small sex toy. For BDSM specifically, you don’t need to go buy a bunch of expensive gear. Use a tee shirt as a blindfold and a necktie as handcuffs. It’s really not as complicated and scary as some people tend to think!

I can’t orgasm at all! Is there something wrong with me?

There is definitely nothing wrong with you. This is super common! Orgasms are 90 percent mental and 10 percent physical. So, you need to be in a positive headspace. If you believe you cannot come, your brain tells your body you can’t come, and then … you don’t come! The first thing to do is to step outside of this negative feedback loop. Take orgasm off the table for a while and focus on pleasure. Buy some sex toys (SKYN Vibes is my go-to). Take time to masturbate and see what you like. Don’t worry so much about orgasming and eventually orgasms will come.

How to move past (unknown) mental roadblocks that make it hard to orgasm with a partner?

Being present and in the moment can be very challenging when life comes at you. It’s key to remember that sex is important and life is always going to be busy. Breathe into your body and try to be more intentional. Watch some porn to keep you focused or listen to an erotic story while you’re having sexy time. Sometimes we need to ignite all of our senses to stay in the moment. Treat sex like a meditation: It’s a time to focus and breathe and enjoy.

How do you deal with extraordinary clitoral sensitivity?

Try different touch than straight up clitoral rubbing. Touch the labia, the mons, and vaginal opening. Try layering the labia over the clitoris when you use a sex toy on a low vibration setting. Sometimes having a barrier can provide comfort. You can also circle the clitoris rather than putting vibration or a tongue directly on it.
You might also benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy in tandem with working with and OBGYN. There may be an underlying medical issue that should be addressed. Seeking the help of a well-rounded team of professionals who are there to work for you is a grounded way to get the orgasms and sex you deserve.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

February 6, 2020February 5, 2020

What I learned talking to 120 women about their sex lives and desires

I spoke with widows, newlyweds, monogamists, secret liaison seekers, submissives and polyamorists and found there was no such thing as desire too high or low

By Katherine Rowland

Male desire is a familiar story. We scarcely bat an eyelash at its power or insistence. But women’s desires – the way they can morph, grow or even disappear – elicit fascination, doubt and panic.

In 2014, as experts weighed the moral and medical implications of the first female libido drug, I found myself unsatisfied with the myths of excess and deficit on offer, and set out to understand how women themselves perceive and experience their passions.

Over the course of five years, I talked with 120 women and dozens of sexual health professionals. My reporting took me from coast to coast, and spanned conversations from a 22-year-old convinced she was sexually damaged to a 72-year-old learning how to orgasm. I spoke with widows, newlyweds, committed monogamists, secret liaison seekers, submissives and proud polyamorists.

I also dropped in on psychotherapy sessions, consulted sexologists, went inside the battle to get “female Viagra” FDA approved and profiled practitioners blurring the lines between sex work and physical therapy. In Los Angeles, I sat with a group of determinedly nonplussed sex coaches as they took in a live flogging demonstration, while in New York I stood among a thousand women whipped into a fist-pumping frenzy by a guru who declared the time had come for them to reconnect to their sensuality.

Against the background claims that women are disordered patients who require a pharmaceutical fix, or that they are empowered consumers who should scour the market for their personal brand of bliss, I found that there was no such thing as desire too high or low. Rather, desire contains as many tones as there are people to express it.

Low desire isn’t a symptom

In five years of conversations, I heard frequent variations on a common story. Somewhere in the mix of parenting, partnering and navigating the demands of professional life, women’s desire had dimmed to the barest flicker. In place of lust, they acted out of obligation, generosity or simply to keep the peace.

“What’s wrong with me?” many asked of their medical providers, only to come away with confounding answers. “Your flatlined libido is perfectly normal,” they were told. “But it’s also a medical concern.”

Just what constitutes normal stirs intense debate, in part because female sexuality shoulders an immense weight. It’s where observers have long looked for clues about human nature and for proof of immutable differences between men and women. The chief distinction, we’re told, is that women are less desirous than men.

And yet, low desire is often cast as an affliction that women are encouraged to work at and overcome. Accordingly, some women I talked to consulted therapists to understand why intimacy was tinged with dread. Others tried all manner of chemical interventions, from antidepressants and testosterone supplements to supposedly libido-rousing pills. A number of women accumulated veritable libraries of spice-it-up manuals. No matter the path, I heard time and again how women compelled themselves to just do it, committed to reaching a not necessarily satisfying but quantifiable end.

Low desire is a healthy response to lackluster sex

However, as women further described their malaise, their dwindling desire seemed less the result of faulty biology than evidence of sound judgment. It was a consequence of clumsy partners, perfunctory routines, incomplete education, boredom and the chafe of overfamiliarity.

In short, it was the quality of the sex they were having that left them underwhelmed. As one woman put it: “If it’s not about your pleasure, it makes sense you wouldn’t want it.”

Straight women are struggling the most in their erotic lives

While all women, regardless of sexual orientation, experience dips in drive, the utter depletion of sexual interest might be more common to heterosexual women, because their desires are less clearly defined to begin with.

“I spent most of my life with no sense of what I want,” one straight woman in her late 40s told me. Another, also in her 40s, reflected that she and her husband “did sex the way [she] thought it was supposed to look”. However, she said: “I don’t know how much I was really able to understand and articulate what I wanted.”

For both women, along with dozens of others that I spoke to, dwindling desire was an affront to identity. It exposed the limits of what they had expected of themselves, namely that they should settle down with one man and be emotionally and physically content from there on out. Their experiences mirror what researchers have uncovered about the so-called orgasm gap, which holds that men are disproportionately gratified by sex.

The picture subtly shifts when you look at which women are enjoying themselves. A 2017 survey of more than 50,000 Americans found that lesbians orgasmed 86% of the time during sex, as opposed to 65% of straight women (and 95% of straight men). Investigators speculate that lesbians and queer women enjoy greater satisfaction because of anatomical familiarity, longer sexual duration and not revering penetration as the apex of erotic mingling.

I would further surmise that queer women are often more satisfied because, unlike a lot of straight women, they have fundamentally considered the nature and object of their desires.

There’s nothing funny about faking it

The subject of faking it tends to seed jokey reactions, which frame the issue of female pretending as a slight to the man’s self-esteem. When she fakes it, he is the wounded party: her absent climax becomes his loss.

According to one well-trafficked 2010 report, 80% of heterosexual women fake orgasm during vaginal intercourse about half of the time, and another 25% fake orgasm almost all of the time. (When CBS News reported on this study, the headline opened with “Ouch”; there was no editorializing on shabby male technique – all the focus was on the bruising consequences of women’s inauthentic “moaning and groaning”.)

Faking it was ubiquitous among the women I spoke with. Most viewed it as fairly benign, and I largely did too. That is, until the subject cropped up again and again, and I found myself preoccupied with an odd contradiction: as women act out ecstasy, they devalue their actual sensations.

On the one hand, this performance is an ode to the importance of female pleasure, the expectation held by men and women alike that it should be present. But on the other, it strips women of the physical and psychological experience of pleasure. Spectacle bullies sensation aside.

Women aren’t looking for a magic pill

One might think from the headlines that equal access to pharmacopeia ranks high among women’s sexual health concerns. After all, men have a stocked cabinet of virility-boosting compounds, while women have paltry options. But this was not my takeaway.

While some women opined that it would be nice to ignite desire with a pill, few saw the benefit of boosting appetite if the circumstances surrounding sex remained unchanged. While desire was frequently tinted by a sense of mystery, its retreat was rarely presented in a black box. Almost across the board, women spoke of their sexuality in contextual terms: it changed with time, with different partners and different states of self-knowledge.

In 2018 an article in the Archives of Sexual Behavior surmised “Research has not conclusively demonstrated that biology is among the primary mechanisms involved in inhibiting sexual desire in women.” Rather, the authors said, body image, relationship satisfaction and learned values intervene to shape women’s experiences of lust. Even though FDA-approved drugs like Addyi and Vyleesi are marketed to suggest that desire dips independently of life circumstances, those involved in drug development are certainly aware of these other influences. The strength of their impact on women’s minds and bodies may even be contributing to the challenge of developing effective pharmaceuticals.

In the case of Viagra and its competitors, it’s assumed men want to have sex, but physically cannot, and so a feat of hydraulics allows them to consummate the act. But for women, the problem is more, well, problematic: they might be physically capable, but emotionally disinclined. Insofar as that is the case, we need to attend the reasons behind their reluctance.

Desire comes from liberating the erotic imagination

In the course of my reporting I attended a training session known as SAR, for Sexual Attitude Reassessment. The two-day workshops designed for sexual health professionals are intended to inundate participants with sexual material in order to highlight where they hold biases or discomfort, and they showcase a lot of explicit content.

The session I attended featured media depicting a gay head-shaving fetish, a medical-latex threesome and a wincing scene involving male genitalia, a typewriter and a miniature cactus. It also included frank confessionals from people whose bodies and lifestyles don’t necessarily accord with the culture’s rigidly gendered and ableist stereotypes – such as what it’s like for a trans woman to experience pleasure, or how a little person (the preferred term for adults with dwarfism) self-stimulates when his or her fingers cannot reach the genitals.

The idea, beyond highlighting all the “inscrutable, mystical loveliness” of sex, in the words of one facilitator, is to get participants to seek out what turns them on or disgusts them, or both.

In my recollection, the word “dysfunction” never surfaced in the programming. Rather, sexuality was framed in terms of accessing delight and accepting nonconformity. The subject of low desire was not viewed as a matter of sexual disinterest, but rather a result of how, owing to the greater culture, women hold themselves back, condemn their fantasies, foreclose on what they really want and sell themselves short on the idea that sex and love must look a certain way.

Women push themselves toward physical encounters that they either do not want, or for which they have not allowed desire to adequately develop. I came away with the impression that sexual healing had little to do with tricks or techniques, and almost everything to do with the mind, with sensing an internal flicker of I want that – and feeling empowered to act accordingly.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

January 13, 2020January 13, 2020

21 Things Scientists Discovered About Sex In 2019

By Kelly Gonsalves

Given that sex has existed as long as the human race has, you’d think our scientists, doctors, and psychologists would have collectively figured out all there is to know about sex by now. But the truth is, there are still many, many aspects of human sexuality that are a big, unexplored, confusing question mark. The good news is, 2019 has been quite the year in the world of sex research. Here are a few of the most fascinating findings we’ve made this year:

1. Women are still struggling to talk about what they want in bed.

In 2019, more than half of American women were still struggling to talk about what they want sexually. A study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found 55% of women in the U.S. reported experiencing situations in which they had wanted to communicate with a partner about how they wanted to be touched and what sexually turned them on but decided not to say anything. About one in five women didn’t feel comfortable talking about her sexual desires at all, and one in 10 had never experienced sex in which she felt like her partner valued her sexual pleasure.

2. Just saying the word “clitoris” out loud is linked to better sex for women.

Yes, it really matters that much. As we’ve known for a while, the clitoris is the key to sexual pleasure for people who have them—but mainstream narratives and norms around sex prioritize P-in-V penetration as the main act of sex, despite the fact that the majority of clit owners can’t get off from that alone. Further proving how important the clit is, the same study cited above found that just being comfortable using the word “clitoris” is associated with greater sexual satisfaction and being less likely to fake orgasms. The researchers said their findings indicate why it’s so important for us as a society and as individuals to start talking openly about our sex lives. When you’re comfortable talking about sex—including the specific body parts where you like to get touched—you’re way more likely to convey that to your partners and then get the type of stimulation that actually feels good for you.

3. Not all orgasms are good.

Orgasms are not the definitive marker of good sex, as it turns out. In another study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, researchers found 55% of people had experienced a “bad orgasm,” including orgasms that physically hurt, orgasms that didn’t feel as pleasurable as past orgasms, or orgasms that happened in sexually coercive contexts, such that having the orgasm led to intense psychological turmoil.

4. People in relationships really are having less sex.

Experts have been talking about a so-called sex recession for the last year or so, in which several different data reports have been showing people are having less sex these days than in generations prior. One multiyear study published in the BMJ this year found the majority of the dip is happening among married people and cohabiting couples. Some of their key findings: In 2001, 38% of women and 30% of men in serious relationships had no sex in the past month. In 2012, that number jumped to 51% for women and 66% for men in serious relationships. What’s more, even sexually active couples were having less sex than usual: In 2012, just 48% of women and 50% of men in serious relationships reported having sex at least four times in the last month, meaning about half of couples are having sex less than once a week.

5. But millennials don’t think they’re in a sex recession.

Cosmopolitan conducted a nationally representative survey on over 1,000 people. Their findings showed 71% of millennials feel “personally satisfied” with how much sex they’re having, and 62% of millennials think their friends are having “plenty of sex” too. So maybe it’s all relative?

6. Commitment and better sex are linked.

Researchers surveyed hundreds of couples in several weeks of couples’ therapy to ask about their commitment levels and sex lives each week. Published in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, their study found commitment and good sex were definitely linked: Having good sex one week was associated with couples feeling more committed to each other the following week. The reverse was also true. Feeling more committed to each other one week was associated with the couple having better sex the following week. The two seem to feed off each other.

7. People who love casual sex are more committed to their relationships when those relationships are consensually non-monogamous.

If you think people who love casual sex are inherently less committed in their relationships, think again. A study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found that, in consensually non-monogamous relationships, enjoying casual sex (i.e., “sociosexuality”) was associated with being more committed to your relationship.

8. Childhood trauma is associated with less sexual satisfaction in adulthood.

People with more traumatic experiences in childhood tend to have less satisfying sex lives in adulthood, according to a study published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy. Why? Experiencing trauma as a kid is associated with experiencing more daily psychological distress and with being less mindful, two qualities that may affect one’s ability to engage and feel pleasure during sex.

9. More than half of seniors are unhappy with their sex lives.

You know what you hear about people having less sex as they get older? That might be true, but it might not be because seniors want less sex. A study published in the journal PLOS ONE found 58% of men and women between ages 55 and 74 are not satisfied with their sex lives. In another study published in the journal Menopause, 78% of the more than 4,000 postmenopausal women surveyed were sexually inactive. Of these sexually inactive women, the top reasons for not having sex were not having a partner to have sex with, having a partner with a medical condition making sex out of the question, and having a partner dealing with sexual dysfunction.

10. These three key factors reliably turn women on.

A study of 662 straight women identified three factors that made women more likely to experience sexual desire for someone: intimacy (i.e., feelings of closeness and deep affection), celebrated otherness (i.e., seeing yourself as a separate entity from your partner instead of seeing yourselves together as a single unit), and object-of-desire affirmation (i.e., being told you are desirable).

This is an oft-repeated myth, but findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences have officially disproved the idea that men are “more visual” than women are when it comes to sex. The researchers reanalyzed over 60 studies, each of which had hooked up men and women to fMRI machines while showing them porn to try to see how their brains reacted. Gender was the least predictive factor in determining how activated a person’s brain was while viewing the erotic material.

12. One in four women experienced pain during their most recent sexual experience.

In a study of over 2,000 women published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, researchers found nearly a quarter of women had experienced pain the last time they’d had sex. Of those who’d experienced pain, 49% didn’t tell their partner about it. Those who’d experienced little to no pleasure during the sexual experience were also three times more likely to not tell their partner about the pain.

13. Vaginal dryness and atrophy begin in perimenopause.

During and after menopause, hormonal shifts tend to cause the vaginal walls to become thinner and lubricate less. Known as vaginal atrophy, these changes tend to cause vaginal dryness, which predictably leads to more difficulties having sex. (Nothing that a little lube can’t fix, of course.) However, a new study published in the journal Menopause has found that these symptoms of vaginal atrophy, vaginal dryness, and the sexual pain that comes with them may actually begin in perimenopause—the period of time right before menopause hits, around ages 40 to 55.

14. Better sex ed improves LGBTQ kids’ mental health.

Sex ed is important for supporting people’s sexual health and helping people navigate sex safely. But it also has important mental health benefits for people in the LGBTQ community, according to new research in the American Journal of Sexuality Education. The study found kids who received sex ed that was inclusive of people with diverse genders and sexual orientations tended to have less anxiety, less depression, and fewer suicidal tendencies.

15. Open-minded people are more likely to cheat.

A study published in the Personality and Individual Differences journal found the personality trait most associated with cheating was open-mindedness. In other words, people who are more open to new experiences and people tend to be more likely to cheat as well. Seems obvious, but open-mindedness is also correlated with being more welcoming, more creative, more sexually liberated, and more extroverted. So…uh-oh?

16. There are at least some psychological components to why some people struggle with their sex drive.

Researchers interviewed about 100 couples where one partner struggles with sexual desire and about 100 couples with no such struggles. Published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, the study identified a few common traits among the partners who struggled with desire: They were more likely to pursue sex simply to avoid negative consequences (like a disappointed partner) and less likely to pursue sex to experience positive outcomes (like orgasms and connection). The findings also suggested they may “have difficulties recognizing and responding to their partners’ sexual needs due to having fewer sexual needs themselves.”

You can’t make this stuff up! A study published in the journal Sex Education found female students who had taken a sexuality class that discussed the orgasm gap tended to have more orgasms and better orgasms after they took the class than before.

18. Parents have better sex when they like each other.

Yes, researchers talked to 93 couples and found those who complimented each other more and had higher opinions of each other tended to have higher levels of sexual satisfaction in the relationship. It might seem obvious, but many long-term couples (especially parents) will readily admit that just because they’re married and in love does not mean that they always like each other. That means couples should never dismiss the importance of making sure actual feelings of affection and positivity still live on in their relationship.

19. Postcoital dysphoria affects men too.

Postcoital dysphoria refers to inexplicable feelings of sadness, frustration, or distress after having otherwise pleasurable sex. Some people assume that women are more likely to be emotional after having sex, but a study published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy found 41% of men have experienced PCD, and 20% experienced it in the last four weeks.

20. How you feel about your genitalia affects your sex life.

Feeling self-conscious about your vulva or penis might actually affect how much pleasure you’re experiencing during sex. A study published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy found people who felt more confident about their genitalia tend to have less stress about their “performance” during sex and better sexual functioning, which includes getting turned on easily, having more vaginal lubrication, and being able to orgasm with ease.

21. Sexual desire is buildable.

For couples, experiencing sexual desire today makes you more likely to experience sexual desire tomorrow and have sex tomorrow, according to a study published in the Archives of Sexual Desire. That means couples who want to improve their sex lives should consider starting small: Just adding a few moments of heat and turn-on daily, even without having sex, will build up sexual desire over time.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

January 8, 2020January 8, 2020

Clitoris, Clitoris, Clitoris:

It’s Not a Dirty Word and I Think Kids Should Know What It Is

By Jackie Gillard

It may seem shocking and vulgar to some, but teaching appropriately aged children of all genders about a body part existing only for a woman’s sexual pleasure isn’t just about a woman’s pleasure.

Almost all Canadian school sex-ed curricula avoid discussions on pleasure and focus on reproduction or risks, in either clinical information or warnings to our kids against all the “bad” things that can happen from having sex.

Even naming body parts often excludes the clitoris — it’s labelled in only a few suggested curricula. Yet sexuality educator Nadine Thornhill, PhD., emphasizes, “A child’s knowledge of all sexual body parts — including the clitoris — and understanding what feels good physically versus what doesn’t, are vital components of ensuring children truly comprehend what consent is all about.”

It’s a concept that can be difficult to grasp if you belong to the school of thought that heterosexual sex is about a man “doing” something to a woman; it’s not, and never should be classified as such.

A man asking if he can “do” those things is only one facet of consent.

If a woman doesn’t understand what feels good to her, is her agreement truly consent? Does she actually care or even know she’s not obligated to participate in any kind of sexual interaction that is not pleasurable for her as well? These concepts apply to men, too.

In the age of #MeToo and #TimesUp, men need to comprehend that a woman’s body does not exist simply for their pleasure or reproduction.

The idea that only men are sexual and women are reproductive is incorrect. Both genders are reproductive and both are sexual. The taboos around sexual enjoyment only perpetuate a disservice to both — women grow up feeling shame for bodily agency and sexual enjoyment, while men grow up not fully understanding the sexuality of their partners or how to satisfy them sexually.

We can’t possibly continue to uphold a secretive cover to women’s bodies and their pleasures. Our kids shouldn’t grow up believing anatomy like the clitoris and its functions are dirty, gross or simply a mystery they may go looking to potentially dangerous sources like the internet to have explained.

As parents, it’s our job to ensure we instill in our families a healthy sexual education based on gender equality and fact.

A few years ago, the creation of three-dimensional models of both the inner and outer clitoris taught me — at the ripe old age of 46 — what this integral part of my anatomy looked like inside.

I was born in the sexual liberation decade of the ’70s, yet didn’t even know the correct name or function of a clitoris until my early twenties. Interestingly, I had full comprehension of what my reproductive system looked like, as well as the inner and outer anatomy of mens’ sexual parts, when I was a teenager.

For those unaware, the clitoris actually is formed during gestation from the same tissues that becomes a penis in men. In fact, scientific studies have confirmed that the penis and clitoris have many similarities; enough to have some refer to the clitoris as the “female penis.”

Sadly, the penis and the clitoris are treated very differently by society. Modern culture still blushes at the mention of the clitoris and is generally lacking in even the most basic information about it. I consider myself a feminist, yet I too failed to name and describe this integral part of a woman’s sexuality with both my kids during every one of our open and honest discussions of sexuality.

Only a few Canadian provinces list the clitoris in the curriculum for naming genitalia, and it seems only Quebec discusses the concept of sexual pleasure with high school teens, at the interpretation and comfort level of the teacher leading the classes. My own daughter had a teacher in Grade 4 who only discussed girls having vaginas and didn’t even name the vulva, let alone the clitoris.

Contrary to what I believe to be the erroneous fear that teaching kids about the clitoris will somehow push them towards premature sexual activity, studies have shown honest discussions about sex actually have the opposite effect.

Curiosity is often what motivates youth to experiment sexually, and coupled with a lack of knowledge, can lead to unsatisfying, unpleasurable or even painful or negative sexual experiences for both genders. In the Netherlands, the sex-ed curriculum includes topics like sexual communication and differences between porn sex and real sex. Pleasure is discussed in the context of comfort with one’s own body and communicating personal sexual desires to a partner. The outcome? The Netherlands reports three times less sexual violence than America and has a lower teen pregnancy and STI rate.

At the bare minimum, those with a clitoris should know its name in the event of clitoral health issues. Like any other part of the body, the clitoris can require medical attention. Sadly, bodily shame about problems “down there” prevents some women from discussing issues of concern with even their own doctors.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

December 19, 2019December 19, 2019

‘How do I clean my penis?’

Growing up, no one ever gave me the rundown on how or what I should do to keep my penis clean […] I’ve never read any reliable answer beyond washing it with water. Do I use soap? Any soap? How normal is smegma? If my penis gets itchy from smegma should I go see a doctor? If so, my GP or a urologist? — Anonymous

By David King

Key points

clean under the foreskin, using soap, but not too much
smegma is normal
if you have any concerns, see your GP.

It’s a shame some people think talking about cleaning and caring for our genitals is embarrassing or taboo. We probably know more about hair care than penis care.

The penis is simply another part of our anatomy, so cleaning should be relatively straight forward.

If you’ve been circumcised, where your foreskin was removed soon after birth, your penis will look something like the one in the diagram (below, right), with the head (or glans) always exposed.

But if you have a foreskin (below left and centre), there are some extra things to think about when washing, which we’ll get to soon.

Foreskin facts

But first, some foreskin facts. From around the time you turn five, your foreskin separates from the head of your penis, bit by bit. This allows you to pull back your foreskin (retract it). In some boys, the foreskin can stay partially stuck to the head of the penis until puberty.

You should never forcibly pull back your foreskin. That’ll be painful, you could bleed, you could scar, or have other complications.

OK, now for the washing part

Once your foreskin separates easily from the glans, gently retract and clean underneath the foreskin with each bath or shower. Then, after washing, pull the foreskin forward to its normal position.

When it’s time to dry off, retract the foreskin again so you can dry the head of the penis with a towel. Then, you guessed it, pull the foreskin forward to its normal position.

It’s OK to clean with soap whether you have a foreskin or not. But generally, too much soap is worse than none at all. Excessive cleaning removes essential body oils that would normally keep our skin moist and reduce friction. If you have sensitive skin, you can use a soap-free wash from the chemist.

What about smegma?

Smegma is a thick, whitish discharge consisting of a build-up of dead skin cells, oil and other fluids under the foreskin. And it’s very useful. It protects and lubricates the penis.

Some people have oilier skin than others and tend to have more smegma. So some smegma is normal, but if you have too much or it becomes smelly, you may need to clean more.

Things to watch out for (and when to see your GP)

If the head of your penis becomes painful, red, itchy and has a discharge, you may have a treatable condition called balanitis.

It’s more common if you have a foreskin. And the bacteria and fungus that cause it like the warm and moist conditions under there.

Skin disorders, infection, poor hygiene, friction from sexual activity, and using too much soap all cause the condition.

You can clear a mild case with good hygiene and simple treatments, such as an antiseptic or antifungal cream. You can buy these from any pharmacy. In addition to the medication, the cream itself helps protect and moisturise the inflammed skin.

If you have balanitis you may need to be more careful than usual to avoid urine irritating your inflamed skin. Retract your foreskin when you urinate. Dry the head of the penis gently after you finish.

If your penis is still inflamed after a week of these simple measures it’s best to see your GP. They can then investigate other causes, such as psoriasis or an allergy.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

December 2, 2019December 2, 2019

Why So Many Women Aren’t Enjoying Sex as Much as They Could

The messages you hear about sex while growing up have consequences in adulthood, a study suggests.

By Claire Gillespie

For many of us, sex ed doesn’t end in high school. It’s not unusual to have to do some serious work decades after the first mention of the birds and the bees––often to try to repair the harm that was done back then.

That’s the focus of a recent study, published in the American Journal of Sexuality Education, which asked nearly 200 women to share the types of messages they’d received about sex and sexuality when they were growing up. And the vast majority of them had only negative experiences to report.

Think of all the crappy messages you’ve received about sex and your body over the years, and you’ll relate: you shouldn’t have sex before marriage, having sex during your period is disgusting, masturbation is shameful. Those messages may come from direct conversations with parents, educators, or religious leaders, or they may come from the mass media, such as Facebook, YouTube, or chat rooms.

Wherever they stem from, their impact can be long-lasting. It’s not too much of a leap to connect negative messages about sex to difficulty reaching orgasm, body image issues, a lifeless libido, and less satisfying sex in general.

For the study, participants were asked to share memorable messages they received about reproductive and/or sexual health, and their responses prove just how crucial those early messages about sex are.

One participant said they “…wish that I wouldn’t have been taught about sex as if it were a bad thing, from my school.” Another revealed that her first encounter with shame around sex came when she had chlamydia in her early 20s, and the reaction of a family member made her feel “ashamed and disgusted.”

Several participants shared negative experiences connected to strong religious-based abstinence messaging around sex. “‘Don’t have sex. If you have sex, you’re going to get pregnant and we’re going to kick you out.’ This was my sex talk from my parents,” said one. “This stuck with me for years and still does.”

But the sole aim of the study wasn’t to remind women of just how much negativity they absorbed about sex. Study authors also share different ways to combat any unfavorable lingering feelings. When the women were asked what helps them develop more positive attitudes to their sex lives, here are the four main takeaways.

Having open dialogues about sex

Many participants said the “main catalyst” for a more positive attitude toward their own sexuality was having honest conversations with friends and family, as well as hearing more discussions about sex in society in general. One participant said she had “lost some of the shame associated with menstruation and sexual health” as a result of “growing older, educating myself, and falling into fairly liberal, well-educated friendship circles.”

Getting more (and better) sex ed

Many interviewees said their perceptions of sex, health, and their bodies improved thanks to further education about sex, menstruation, fertility, and reproductive health. “This education was often initiated by the individual and included conducting independent research, asking questions of friends, family, and medical practitioners, and reading further into topics on websites, blogs, and in books,” the researchers write.

Becoming body positive

A big part of sexual empowerment for the study participants came from working on developing body comfort and acceptance and autonomy. “This paradigm shift toward empowerment often stemmed from participants educating themselves about their bodily functions,” the researchers write.

“My perspective about menstruation and reproductive health has changed over time,” said one participant. “I now see them as amazing biological functions that are a testament to how impressive the human body is, thanks to friends who have empowered me to embrace my own fertility.”

Ditching gender stereotypes

The women in the study felt more positively about their bodies, sexual health, and sex in general when they questioned traditional beliefs about womanhood and femininity, as well as challenged stereotypical gender roles.

It’s undeniable that young women need positive messages about reproductive and sexual health as part of their upbringing. Perhaps a good starting point would be for every parent, educator and religious institution to get a copy of this study.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

November 5, 2019November 5, 2019

How female sexuality is finding its voice

By Remy Rippon

After centuries of secrecy, female sexuality is finally finding a voice, with women entering a new era of enlightenment and fulfilment thanks in part to the booming wellness industry.

Considering how long females have graced this earth, it’s astounding to think it was only 21 years ago that scientific research discovered something fundamental about that crucial female sexual organ, the clitoris.

In 1998, Melbourne-based urologist Dr Helen O’Connell published a groundbreaking paper debunking the long-held belief that the clitoris was merely a small glans, proving instead that it extends up to nine centimetres long underneath the pubic bone. The findings set a more accurate representation for medical professionals, sexologists, educators and womankind of the inner workings of one of the most complicated areas of the female body.

Revolutionary as the research was, however, there is still a lot we don’t know about female sexuality. At least 50 per cent of women don’t orgasm from intercourse alone and some don’t experience orgasm at all. While science made great leaps, the taboos surrounding female sexuality are still stuck in a time warp.

But change is afoot. In 2019 vaginas are big business and the female gaze is casting its eye over the US$30 billion sex industry. A recent report by trend forecasters J. Walter Thompson Intelligence, coined the term vaginanomics – an emerging market addressing women’s sexual fulfilment, which runs the gamut from aesthetically pleasing sex toys, female-positive porn and an increasingly open conversation led by fact and research.

Once a topic only discussed with your inner circle (or frankly, not at all), female sexuality is now seemingly all around us. And we have the wellness movement to thank for it. Having stocked our wardrobes with a lifetime supply of sportswear, our pantries with activated everything and our schedules with an endless roster of workouts, the final frontier of wellness has set it sights on another heart-rate-raising activity: sex.

“We need to be open to the idea of more a holistic model around sex. For us to feel healthy and happy we need to be enjoying a healthy sex life, too … having a healthy relationship with our sexuality is a good start,” says Australian sexologist and Authentic Sex podcaster Juliet Allen.

All this pillow talk is also being championed by some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Love her or loathe her, Gwyneth Paltrow has fuelled a positive conversation about sex and has become the closest thing we have to a grown-up incarnation of Dolly Doctor. Want to know the ins and outs of orgasmic meditation or how water can improve your sex life? It’s all in her book: The Sex Issue: Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know about Sexuality, Seduction and Desire.

While the tome isn’t without is fair share of Goop-isms (sacred snake ceremony, anyone?), in the foreword Paltrow addresses the selfconsciousness we harbour around sex: “Women talking about sex – about what they like and don’t like, what they are getting and not getting in their intimate relationships, the toll of sexual trauma and how they heal – has a tendency to make people (both men and other women) extraordinarily self-conscious and uneasy,” she writes, continuing: “Whether tantra or BDSM or threesomes or vanilla are your thing will never be the point; knowing yourself, all your options, and how to ask for and pursue what feels good to you, is.”

New Yorker Eileen Kelly created Killer and a Sweet Thang, a sex-demystifying website which promotes an open and honest dialogue around sex, for similar motivations. What started as a Tumblr for Kelly to offer peer-to-peer sex education – information which, she says, was off-limits in her Catholic household – quickly transitioned into a popular Instagram account and website serving up real-world sex advice and coming-of-age titbits from more than 100 writers. “Whether you talk about it or not, sex is constantly around you in advertising, in movies, in magazines – you can’t escape, so we might as well have a conversation about it,” the 23-year-old founder says.

Elsewhere online, a lack of reliable information around female sexuality has ushered in a new wave of honest, female-created and approved content. OMGyes, a one-time-purchase site with the seal of approval from actor Emma Watson, is a research-backed education resource with a singular objective: female pleasure and orgasm. “The more we talk about it and learn about it, the better it gets. And we made OMGyes to accelerate that shift – with new scientific research and a frank, honest showcase of the findings,” says program director Claire Kim, who notes that Australia has the most subscribers per capita.

The site’s not-safe-for-work video tutorials demonstrate a host of techniques and cliterature – prepare to add adjectives like edging, signalling and orbiting to your bedroom vocabulary – but uniquely, they feel as safe and inclusive as if you were hearing this information first-hand from a friend.

With OMGyes Kim wants “more people to see and feel the way the current generations are releasing those old taboos. Many ways of thinking that have been passed down aren’t really good for anyone. And we’re so excited that, maybe, we can shift culture so the next generation can enjoy pleasure more.”

Millennials and Gen Z are driving much of this shift, which could be credited to logistics – excellent information and purchasing power is at their fingertips. According to the 2018 Global Wellness Summit Report, it’s thanks to young people that “sexual pleasure brands are strongly aligning themselves with wellness, and sex is fast shedding its taboo status”.

In fact, the sex and tech worlds are now happy bedfellows, with the newest haul of toys being designed by women, for women. A report by Technavio released last year notes the sexual wellness market is set to grow by almost US$18 billion by 2022. The most buzzed-about products – everything from vibrators, clitoral stimulators, devices for Kegel training and pelvic floor exercises – rival beauty brands with their aesthetically pleasing packaging and whipsmart innovations. Lioness, the world’s first smart vibrator, even collects data from your experiences and links that information to your smartphone.

And forget exploring the dark, often-irksome depths of the web: the e-tailers promoting these goods are beautifully curated and, dare we say it, cool. Co-founded by ex-magazine publisher Monica Nakata, online store Par Femme aims to “destigmatise the whole consumer purchasing decision around sex toys”. “Sexual empowerment is such an important step in empowering women overall,” says Nakata.

On the site, white cotton basics sit alongside editorial-worthy imagery of sex toys and candid discussions and reviews. Nakata notes the fact that as the sex and wellness industries have converged, conversation has opened up to “a wider audience group than ever before and reinforcing the idea that it’s nothing to be ashamed of. In the past, sex positivity was something we didn’t really hear about, and now it’s actually becoming aligned with body positivity,” she says.

Women, it’s time to bring your O-game.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

November 4, 2019

Event aims to increase ‘cliteracy,’ open conversation about female sexuality

Female sexuality activist and psychology professor Laurie Mintz (left) and “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” actress Rachel Bloom (right) answered questions from the audience about the importance of the pleasure of sex for women at a campus event.

By Emily MacInnis

Sexual pleasure and accurate sexual information are essential for healthy relationships, a psychology professor said at a campus event Thursday.

The Campus Events Commission hosted “Becoming Cliterate: An Evening of Conversation between Rachel Bloom and Dr. Laurie Mintz” on Thursday evening. The event featured a conversation between Bloom, the actress and writer known for “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” and Mintz.

Mintz is the writer of “Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters – And How to Get It” and a psychology professor at the University of Florida. With her work, she aims to sexually empower women, she said.

The event took on a Q&A format, in which Bloom and Mintz took questions from the audience about women’s anatomy and cultural attitudes toward female sexual pleasure.

Both Bloom and Mintz said sexual pleasure was fundamental for personal fulfillment.

The clitoris is vital for women’s sexual pleasure, Mintz said. Nearly all forms of women’s sexual pleasure, even if not from direct genital stimulation, are connected to the clitoris in some way, Mintz said.

The clitoris has thousands of nerve endings, and serves only as a source of pleasure. The vast majority of women require some form of clitoral stimulation to orgasm, Mintz said.

However, like many men, many discussions of women’s sexuality neglect the clitoris, suggesting instead that women should be able to orgasm without it being stimulated, Mintz said.

This widespread misinformation damages the self-esteem of both men and women, Mintz said. When a woman cannot orgasm from penetration alone, both partners might believe there is something wrong with them, Mintz said.

“Men (may) feel emasculated and not as worthy when they don’t make a woman orgasm – they want to, but they’ve been misguided and don’t know how,” she said. “The problem is the culture – it’s not women, it’s not men.”

Pornography may also be to blame for this spread of misinformation by portraying sex in which a woman instantly reaches orgasm through penetration, she added.

Many people refer to women’s genitals as a whole by “vagina,” which is anatomically incorrect, Mintz said. By calling all of women’s genitals the name of the part that gives men the most pleasure, society devalues women’s sexuality, Mintz said.

“We are linguistically erasing the part of ourselves that gives us the most pleasure,” she said.

Bloom added that although “clitoris” is an anatomically correct word, it is often seen as taboo.

Bloom recalled an experience she had when she was producing and starring in “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.” In one episode of the show, they wanted to include a line in which a character stated women’s sexual pleasure comes from clitoral stimulation. However, the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates television and other broadcasts, objected to the line.

They were only able to include a reference to the clitoris when a character spoke about it as part of the content of a science textbook, Bloom said.

“We had to make (the context) super scientific,” she said. “We didn’t have to do that for ‘penis’ or ‘vagina,’ just with a word that pertains only to pleasure.”

The FCC’s regulations were an example of the stigma against discussing women’s sexual pleasure, Bloom added.

In order to combat misinformation and negative attitudes toward women’s sexual pleasure, Mintz advised women to be assertive in bed with their partners. Women can practice this by being assertive in other aspects of their lives, she said.

Sergio Corona, a fourth-year geography student, said he liked how Mintz and Bloom acknowledged the misconception that all women can orgasm from penetration, as well as the shame women and men may feel.

“I’ve had girl peers that said they have had that shame (of not being able to orgasm from penetration) – it’s a hard misconception to break,” Corona said. “(Mintz and Bloom) smashed that misconception and said it’s about having an equal conversation as equal peers.”

Valerie Juntunen, a fourth-year psychology student, said she liked the nonjudgemental manner in which Mintz and Bloom discussed sex.

“I loved how it was framed in a sex-positive manner … and promoted healthy relationships,” she said.

Remy Small, a second-year theater student, said she thinks Bloom’s and Mintz’s frank discussion of sex made it easier for people to talk openly about women’s sexuality.

“Even in a liberal place like California, people are afraid to talk about it because of its connotations,” Small said. “I think (Mintz and Bloom) created a safe space for everyone – everyone was encouraged to ask questions.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

September 14, 2019September 14, 2019

ANDRO/GYNE

By Cayla Rubin

ANDRO/GYNE is an intimate photo essay that without words and through an alluring, artistic lens, gives voice to a large group of strong individuals that deserve a platform in mainstream discourse. The mysterious black and white, nude photo series juxtaposes a man and a woman who has undergone a mastectomy without reconstruction. This passion project is shining a light onto the taboos surrounding reconstructive surgery through illustrating the power that resides in vulnerability.

Recently, certain silicone breast implants were recalled due to the fact they are known to cause lymphoma. This prismatic photo story explores the fluidity that resides in femininity. The power the results from choosing health, and being confident in that decision, versus feeling the need to transform oneself because of underlying mainstream beauty pressures is effortlessly portrayed.

You are very quick (and correct) to point out that gender and sexuality do not originate in the breasts. Why do you think that society places such a huge importance on breasts?

Breasts instantly communicate to the male gaze the fundamental desirability of the female: her ability to produce children and provide sexual gratification. The degree to which the semiotics of breasts is defined in our culture by the male gaze became glaringly apparent to me when I lost mine due to cancer.

The sexual and nurturing power of the breast is not part of that definition, especially in the US. Rather, that power, which is the feminine power in the equation, is controversial. Bra-burning, rappers flashing or grabbing their breasts, the rows over public breast-feeding and the bizarre practice of strippers covering their nipples with tassels all attest to this.

Culturally we like breasts to be large and prominent but devoid of active female sexuality, i.e. nipples. It is total objectification. Showing cleavage is sexy. Showing nipples is slutty.

Oftentimes, doctors who prefer breast reconstruction following mastectomies push the narrative of “restoring femininity.” What are better hallmarks of femininity that we should place more value on?

Ultimately femininity is part of sexual identity and drive, regardless of your assigned gender or physical appearance. When women are objectified it serves to negate their sexual agency. So the cultural ideal of a woman, as defined by a male objectifying gaze, is a woman who is a recipient and mirror of male desire but has none of her own.

The hallmark of a feminine woman, to me, is her sexuality, and until we come to terms with that, culturally, nothing will likely change.

What offended me in the discussions with doctors around reconstructive surgery was that it was solely focused on how others experience me sexually and completely left out how I conceive of and experience my sexuality. Having lumps of numb silicone installed in my chest will not do anything for my sexuality. If anything it will detract, because it would destroy the recovered sensitivity of my chest.

The subtext in much of this discussion was that I would not be able to have sex, if I did not have breasts. No doubt many men would pass on a woman with no breasts, but they might also pass for any number of other reasons. In the end, those who pass me up are not relevant to the vitality of my sexuality.

Why is it important to picture both a man and a woman in this photo series, rather than placing the sole focus on the woman?

For a couple of reasons. We wanted to contrast femininity and masculinity to offset my femininity in a way that is readily understandable, posed next to a classically beautiful male. The nude couple is a classic genre, and we wanted to have the series work within that genre and at the same time push the boundaries of the genre. We wanted the scars to be fully visible and yet not be the main focus. We wanted the focus to be on me interacting fully as a woman, in spite of the scars, and age for that matter.

But it also had to do, more generally, with the narratives around cancer survivorship. Especially with breast cancer, it tends to be all about the lone “cancer warrior” overcoming tragedy. I don’t see it that way. I am not a survivor. I am alive in every sense of the word and, to me, being alive is all about my relationships and connections with others. Foivos happens to be a talented actor and performer, so he had the chops to do this, but he is also a good friend. I wanted that human connection and dialogue in the photographs, because that is how I know that I am alive.

What do you believe should be considered the root of female sexuality?

As with any person’s sexuality, the root has to be how you yourself experience and live your sexuality, not how others try to define it. LGBTQ people know this very well, but living a lifetime as a cis woman, I had never fully realized how much social norms interfered with my sexuality. Losing the breasts was enlightening in many ways, because it forced me to engage with my femininity and sexuality in a whole new way, liberated, in a sense, from the objectification that had been part of my life from the time I grew breasts. Rather than detract from my sexuality, the surgery led me to reclaim it as my own.

What is one thing you wish more people knew about breast amputation?

Just one thing? I would have to say that reconstructive surgery is more complicated than most people think. The amputation itself is a relatively simple and easy surgery for most people. The pain and complications start with reconstructive surgery, which, by the way, is typically a minimum of two surgeries and often more than that. Many women are very pleased with their results, but many women are not. The reconstruction will allow you to remain within the normative boundaries for a cis woman, but finding your center as a woman will take work with or without reconstructed breasts.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

September 5, 2019September 5, 2019

What Do Your Sex Dreams Really Mean

And Should You Pay Attention To Them?

By Vicky Spratt

In certain schools of psychoanalysis, namely that of Sigmund Freud, dreams are considered to be a snapshot of our unconscious desires. As he saw it, while we sleep, we play a tape of things we cannot or, perhaps, would not do while we are awake. Freud saw dreams as the fulfilment of a repressed wish.

This, for anyone who has ever had a sex dream, can make for troubling reading. If you’ve ever woken up from one, particularly if you share a bed with your real life partner, still able to remember everything in vivid detail, you’ll know what a complex set of feelings it can provoke.

Not too long ago this came up while I having a weekend away with a friend. As we sat in a country pub, drinking lager shandies with cards on the table (that we had no intention of playing) and both confessed that recently we’d been having more sex dreams than we felt entirely comfortable with.

If a new study, published in the journal Psychology and Sexuality, is to be believed, there’s a reason why this is coming up so much in conversation. Young women today are reporting having more erotic dreams than they have ever done in previous studies (though still less than men).

The researchers defined an erotic dream as including “sexually motivated actions such as flirting, kissing, intercourse or masturbation as well as watching sexual actions.” They asked 2,907 16-92 year-olds about their dreams and found the highest frequency of erotic dreams among those aged 16-30.

There’s a pretty straightforward explanation for all of this, as the study itself points out. Young women, who have grown up in the wake of the feminist movements of the 1960s and 70s which brought about a sexual revolution, are more open about sex. As a result, they’re more likely to report erotic dreams than older generations would have been at their age.

“

Young women today are reporting having more erotic dreams than they have ever done in previous studies (though still less than men).

”

Back in that small, quiet country pub my friend (who for obvious reasons will remain anonymous) and I both expressed serious concern about what our dreams might mean and how they were influencing our relationships.

“In mine,” she had half-whispered, leaning in across the wobbling table and spilling beer in the process, “I’m always a younger version of myself and I’m getting off with men that age too.”

I confessed that my dreams always involved the same ex-boyfriend to the point where I now felt incredibly uncomfortable and, at several points, had even considered reaching out to him. The whole thing was causing me to reconsider my current, long-term relationship.

Since then, another friend (who also wished to stay anonymous), has told me that she had “started to look forward to turning the light out in bed” because she knew she could drift off into an erotic dream, despite being very much in love with her current partner.

Perhaps that’s because at some point in our lives we’ve all read – or at least heard of Freud – and absorbed the idea that our dreams are our subconscious trying to tell us something.

Sexual desire and guilt are often convergent parts of being human but when it comes to dreaming, about someone else, while lying next to your real life partner they become one and the same.

Dr Dylan Selterman is a senior lecturer at the University of Maryland’s psychology department. His work focuses on patterns of dreaming and how dreams influence our subsequent behaviour. I asked him what he makes of this latest research?

“To be clear, the study doesn’t actually show that young women (or men) are having more erotic dreams today,” he said, offering a word of caution. “The study simply shows that participants estimated a higher percentage of erotic dreams than in previous studies. This could be explained by a number of factors. The current study was recall-based, whereas previous studies used diaries. In general, diary studies are more accurate in terms of frequencies, but the recall-based studies can still be quite useful”.

In his own research, Selterman has found that the content of erotic dreams does affect how we interact with our romantic partners afterwards.

“Specifically,” he says, “socially negative dream content including jealousy and infidelity predicted more conflict and less intimacy the following day, especially for people who either scored high in insecurity or whose relationship was not going well.”

Meanwhile, for people whose relationship was going well he found “if they had a sex dream they felt more intimacy with their partners the next day.”

This reflects the experience of one of my friends. She found that having sex dreams actually made her feel more affectionate towards her partner. She said it made her “appreciate” him more and actually inspired her to have more sex with him in real life. (A colleague also told me she has had a sporadic but recurring sex dream about the same man for over a decade. That man is Eminem and she’s harboured fond feelings for him ever since.)

However, for the other, the opposite was true. She and her partner had become disconnected, she was unsure about whether she wanted to stay in the relationship. Every morning, after one of the erotic dreams she so looked forward to she would feel “empty and guilt ridden.”

Selterman cautions that while there is growing research in this area there isn’t enough to draw concrete conclusions from. When is comes to psychology, he points out, have moved on a lot since Freud.

“I’m not sure that erotic dreams ‘mean’ anything in terms of symbolism or latent content because we don’t have evidence for that,” he adds. “Instead, we likely dream about sex because we think about sex while we’re awake. The continuity hypothesis (which is mentioned in the new research), suggests that dreams mirror our thoughts and behaviours while awake.”

So, I ask Selterman, should we pay attention to sex dreams when we have them or not? “Sure!” he says, “why not! Dreams can give a great insight into our minds and relationships.”

However, insight is not the same as a dream delivering us a veiled message from our subconscious. A sex dream is more likely to be a reflection of something you were already thinking about that day. If it comes as a surprise to you in the night, it might be worth being very honest with yourself about what you want and whether you’re getting what you need when you’re awake.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

August 28, 2019August 28, 2019

The Vagina Bible

This feminist gynecologist wants you to know your body and fight the patriarchy

By Julia Belluz

With her new book, Jen Gunter aims to fight the myths that plague women.

Before the advent of C-sections, every human passed through one. But not everybody knows where it is.

The vagina.

Surveys have repeatedly shown that there’s a startling level of ignorance about female anatomy. Dr. Jen Gunter, an OB-GYN in the San Francisco Bay Area, is on a quest to change that.

On August 27, she’ll publish The Vagina Bible, an encyclopedic guide to vagina-related topics born of what Gunter is calling a “vagenda” to empower people with facts about their own bodies

The book builds on her eponymous blog, which became a viral sensation when she took on jade eggs for the vagina sold on Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle website, Goop. The eggs were being marketed as devices “queens and concubines used … to stay in shape for emperors.” In an open letter to Paltrow, Gunter debunked the website’s claims and noted how sexist they were: “Nothing,” she wrote, “says female empowerment more than the only reason to do this is for your man.

Now officially Paltrow’s nemesis — the actress has subtweeted Gunter with Goop’s response to the doctor’s criticisms — Gunter says, “The basic tenet that I go by is that you can’t be an empowered patient with inaccurate information. It’s just not possible.”

Over the years, in Gunter’s blog posts and, more recently, columns in the New York Times, she’s set the record straight on myriad vagina-adjacent topics: vaginal steaming, abortion at or after 24 weeks, misinformation about the HPV vaccine, and best practices for pubic hair care.

There is so much misinformation, so if what you have been told has been riddled with half-truths and sometimes even lies, it is hard to know the facts. Western medicine has been linked with the patriarchy since the beginning. If you can’t dissect female cadavers, how can you know the anatomy?

Also, we speak with euphemisms to appease societal and religious mores. If you don’t use the words for female anatomy and normal function, then that imparts shame and can also lead to confusion.

Now we also have the “natural” fallacy gaining traction. Multiple influencers and even celebrities and some doctors advance the false notion that “your body knows” and “nature is best.” And if women look up vaginal garlic [yes, this is a thing] on a naturopath’s website and see it in Our Bodies, Ourselves, of course they will think it is a valid therapy when it is not.

Julia Belluz

Do you think the “sex recession” is real?

Jen Gunter

Gardasil 9, which is the one that protects against nine strains of HPV — seven high-risk and the two that cause genital warts — is now approved from ages 9 to 45. If you’re going to vaccinate people, you want to catch the people that you’re more likely to help. The younger you are, the less likely you are to have had HPV. The younger you can get people, the more likely you can protect them from all nine strains. As we age and have sexual partners, we’re more likely to be exposed to different strains of HPV. But the chance that you’re going to be exposed to all of them is low.

So I figured that since I’m dating again, and I personally have never had a positive HPV test, and I have no history of having had an abnormal Pap smear or HPV, I thought, well, I’m in a pretty good category then. The chance that I’ve had all nine strains of HPV is probably low. So I just thought, why not get the shot to protect myself from any of the additional strains?

Julia Belluz

Are there other things that you wish more women did to keep their vaginas happy and healthy — and their vulvas and vestibules too?

Jen Gunter

Well, I wish HPV shots for all my friends. I wish that nobody smoked. That’s a very bad thing. People think about lung cancer and smoking. People don’t think about cardiovascular disease from smoking. It’s also very deleterious for the good bacteria in your vagina. And people who smoke have a higher risk of having HPV-related diseases like cervical cancer, so it’s a co-factor in HPV becoming more aggressive. Not smoking, that would be a wonderful thing.

Condoms. You know, there is a little bit of a drop in condom use, and that is probably due to the increasing use of the IUD. That doesn’t mean that people are having risky sex — they’re actually not. But if you’re switching from a method of barrier protection to a method of non-barrier protection, then you’ll have an increased risk of exposure.

Julia Belluz

Great advice.

Jen Gunter

I wish everybody could talk about the genital tract in the same way we talk about the elbow or the foot. It’s just a body part.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

August 6, 2019August 6, 2019

The Worst Thing About Sex For Nearly A Third of Women

by Kelly Gonsalves

If I asked you what the worst thing about having sex is, what would you say?

For nearly one out of three women, it’s body shame.

Sex toy company Lovehoney asked over 3,000 people this question. Men’s top concern about sex was when it was over too quickly. But for women, the most commonly reported worst thing about sex was feeling self-conscious—some 30% of women said this.

Why women feel so self-conscious during sex—and how it affects their pleasure.

“Our culture puts a lot of pressure on women to be attractive yet not too sexual—open and receptive to sexual experience but not too knowledgeable or demanding,” certified sex coach Myisha Battle, M.S., explains to mbg. “There is also societal pressure for women’s bodies to conform to an often unattainable standard of beauty. All of this (and sometimes more) contributes to why women feel self-conscious during sex.”

Past research has found body image to be a big roadblock to women’s sexual well-being: Studies have shown feeling bad about your body makes you less likely to advocate for your needs in bed, stand firm in your boundaries, and ask for safer sexual practices. On the other hand, feeling confident in your body—particularly your genitalia—has been linked with being less stressed over “performance” during sex and actually having an easier time getting turned on, lubricated, and having orgasms.

“It’s really challenging to believe in your sense of pleasure when you are constantly questioning whether or not you are living up to standards that the world imposes upon you,” Battle says. “When we don’t feel the best in our bodies, our sex lives can suffer. In my practice I see people who have difficulty with arousal and orgasm as a result of self-monitoring and overthinking. It’s actually very common. When our minds are racing with these thoughts, it can inhibit our ability to tap into physical sensations and dampen our experience of pleasure.”

How to get out of your head during sex.

1. The “M” word.

Yes, it’s about mindfulness—you can’t get away from it!

Mindfulness is deeply tied to sexual pleasure. No matter your gender, if you regularly find yourself feeling self-conscious and anxious about the way your body looks during sex, Battle recommends taking up a meditation or mindfulness practice to be able to monitor your thoughts and learn to release the negative ones.

“Notice when you’re having a self-critical thought. Keep a journal if it’s helpful. You may be surprised at how many times this happens,” she explains. “You can then try replacing each negative thought with a positive one. It takes time and sometimes a lot of effort to come up with something positive, but over time it can be really helpful for cultivating a positive self-image.”

(If you need some ideas for positive thoughts to repeat to yourself about your body, I love feminist life coach and women’s rights lawyer Kara Loewentheil, J.D.’s recommendations.)

2. Rally the troops.

Self-confidence stems from within, but that doesn’t mean the people in your life who love you can’t help you in that journey. Research shows people who talk about sex with their friends tend to have more sexual self-confidence and are more willing to ask for what they want in bed. And if you’re in a relationship, that partner of yours should be worshipping your body—and making it obvious. Another study found people who feel like their partner really appreciates their body are more sexually satisfied, have more desire and orgasms, and are more satisfied with their relationship overall.

3. Develop a body love ritual.

“I also recommend taking some time out of each day to practice body acceptance and self-love. Take a moment to thank your legs for getting you to work, your belly for digesting your food, your arms for helping you carry your groceries, and so on,” Battle says. “We only get one body in this world, and regardless of ability, age, size, or race, every body has the capacity for pleasure and is deserving of it.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

July 2, 2019July 1, 2019

What Do Lesbian Sex Dreams Mean If You’re Straight?

For starters, it’s totally normal.

By Lindsay Geller

You’ve just woken up from a sex dream and, instead of feeling happy and relaxed (thanks, sleep orgasm!), you feel totally confused. Why? Because the regulation hottie in your dream wasn’t your usual Chris Evans or Chris Hemsworth (or okay, even Chris Pratt)—it was a woman. Yep, let’s just come out and say it: You had a lesbian sex dream.

But, wait, you’re straight…right?

It’s a question that makes total sense to ask, especially if you’re one to interpret dreams on a literal basis.

I get it: You enjoyed the dream—a lot—but you’ve never really thought about women that way before. Sure, you’ve helped your friends pick their best thirst trap and ogled actresses’ fit bodies, but you’ve never, in the words of Katy Perry, kissed a girl and liked it. (Obvs, you’re cool with lesbian relationships, you’ve just never felt the desire to be in one.)

But before you go texting every one of your friends to find out if you’re the only one who’s had an unexpected girl-on-girl fantasy (P.S. you’re so not) and spiraling into crisis mode, let experts decode what a lesbian sex dream really means.

First, know what a lesbian sex dream is not.

“Women are often anxious about their lesbian dreams, and they needn’t be,” says Gayle Delaney, PhD, a dream specialist, clinical psychologist, and founding president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. “It’s the rarest of possibilities that you turn out to be a lesbian.” (Not that there’d be anything wrong with you if you come to that realization, but it’s very unlikely the case.)

FWIW, gay men and women have the same horrified reaction when they have a straight sex dream, Delaney says, so it’s not about any stigma but rather the element of surprise

In all her years of analyzing dreams, she’s never encountered someone who identified as straight suddenly realize that they were actually gay (or vice versa) by way of a sex dream.

Psychologist Rubin Naiman, PhD, a clinical assistant professor of medicine and the sleep and dream specialist at the University of Arizona, hasn’t either. “It’s my experience that dreaming doesn’t smack you in the head. I’ve never seen that happen,” he explains.

“I think a woman who has an opening in her heart toward sex with other women or a lesbian relationship would probably have some awareness,” he says. “The dream might surprise her, but it probably wouldn’t shock her.”

Delaney agrees: “People generally aren’t that repressed.”

Still, you might be a bit closer to lesbianism on the sexuality spectrum than you originally thought.

“Most people are on somewhat of a sexual continuum,” Naiman says. “But that doesn’t mean that a woman having this dream is a lesbian.” (ICYDK, tons of straight women get off to lesbian porn, but that doesn’t impact who they choose to date.)

Okay, so what does it mean to have a lesbian sex dream?

I hate to break it to all you dream-dictionary owners, but there “are few, if any, universal meanings to a dream,” says Naiman. The only way to figure out what your imaginary lesbian encounter really means is to ask yourself what it means to you</em

The first step is interviewing yourself about your dream. Delaney recommends asking these questions:

What happened in the dream?
How did the dream feel?
Who’s the woman you’re having sex with?
What does it feel like to be with her?
How does the sex go?

Of course, the answers will depend on your individual experience. That said, Delaney has noticed striking similarities in women’s responses whenever she’s conducted this type of dream interview.

“Almost always, women say it feels wonderful,” she explains. “Some have a more erotic dream, and some have it more loving. But in both cases, the sex goes really well.”

As for your dream’s costar, it’s “likely a woman you know and whom you admire,” says Delaney. Often, she’s further advanced in her career, and might even be your boss. Again, don’t freak out—your dream isn’t an HR violation.

“The relevant part is what this figure plays in your life. She’s usually someone more along your path, whatever that is,” Delaney explains. “This dream means you really have come a ways to be accepted and liked by a woman who plays a role in your life goals.”

There are exceptions to this dream interpretation, of course, but “the vast majority” of lesbian dreams Delaney has heard actually reveal a woman’s career aspirations—not her sexuality

If that seems ironic, or weird, it isn’t. “One of the mistakes we make about sexual dreams is that we reduce it to the anatomical, physical act of sex,” Naiman says. “Symbolically, a sexual connection is a connection of love.”

So, regardless of whether or not your dream reflects your personal goals, it might also be about how you connect to women—and womanhood itself.

“Dreaming is not just about our personal unconscious, it’s also about our shared, social, and collective unconscious,” Naiman explains. He believes the evolution of pro-women movements over time, most recently with #MeToo and Time’s Up, have made their way into that collective unconscious.

And get this—you don’t even have to be actively aware of or involved in these movements to have their underlying effect on society influence your dreams. Translation: Your dream about making love to another woman could simply mean you love women. (I mean, why wouldn’t you? They’re the best.)

Regardless, however your confusing dream went down, don’t overthink it.

“We have to come at the dream—even difficult and frightening dreams—with the presumption that it’s friendly,” Naiman says. “If we don’t, we’re going to lose some of the personal meaning that’s hidden in the dream.”

So, the next time you have a lesbian sex dream (hey, if it happened once, it can happen again), just embrace it. Then maybe tell a boss lady in your life how much you admire her. Spread the love!

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

June 6, 2019June 6, 2019

How right-wing purity culture leaves women with lasting psychological damage and self-hate

By Sarah K. Burris

The so-called “purity” culture in the Christian evangelical community has made millions for churches and Christian swag manufacturers. However, it’s been harming millions of teens across the country who made a vow of chastity before marriage.

Statistics reveal that 85 percent of men and 81 percent of women have sex prior to marriage, so the numbers aren’t looking good for the church. For those who made the pledge but fell short of the goal, damaging implications have followed, The Christian Post reported.

“Amid the rise of the #MeToo movement paired with reports of sex abuse within the Church, individuals whose lives were shaped by purity culture began to push back,” the report said. “They shared stories of how some of the more problematic aspects of the movement, though well-intentioned, caused them to have an unhealthy relationship with religion, relationships, and sex.”

Cait West revealed her upbringing in Christian patriarchy where women were to be submissive to male house-heads. Female children were not allowed to date unless it was a courtship seeking marriage. She recalled being “shamed for normal adolescent curiosity.” Any sexual thoughts meant she was basically fornicating.

“Dating was never an option,” she told The Christian Post in an interview. “I was never taught about sex or sexuality at all. I remember asking my parents, testing the waters, ‘What’s this about?’ And they brushed it aside. I was never allowed to explore or ask questions, so I never thought of myself as a sexual being because of that.”

She learned that women being sexual beings were bad. They weren’t allowed to be sexual. Everything was tied to shame. Even clothing had to be approved by her father, who would gauge the “modesty” of the outfit.

“My father would come to the store with me and judge everything I had on,” she said. “That overt male gaze judging my clothing throughout my adolescence and into my 20’s really shaped how I thought of myself because I never thought who I was from my perspective.”

That shame then turned to anxiety. It wasn’t until she left the faith at 25 that she began to explore the emotional damage that had been done. She called it “emotional, physical and spiritual trauma.”

“I felt very disconnected from my own body because I was never taught about the sexual part of me,” she said. “I didn’t want to think about my own body or explore my own sexuality because it was a dirty part of me I wasn’t allowed to explore. It made me feel weird about living in my own body, and I didn’t realize just how much I hated my own body until I left the movement.”

As a spouse, she now struggles to think of sex as something intimate for partners and not purely for procreation.

“I’ve had a lot of trouble with disassociation in sexually intimate moments because it’s too much for me to be present in my own body because it feels bad,” she explained. “For years, you’re told something is bad — and then suddenly you get married and you’re supposed to be OK with it. It was like I was trained not to have that part of me turned on or be aware of things.”

“I’ve been working through that process of figuring out what those toxic messages were and re-train myself to have agency,” she added.

Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Women and How I Broke Free by Linda Kay Klein walks through the struggle with gender-based shame, fear and the emotional distress that can leave lasting damage to women. She began compiling stories from dozens of friends in the purity movement. All of the women experienced psychological problems related to sex and sexuality.

“My interviewees made different life choices, yet among their stories, I heard many of the same themes,” she shared. “I heard about sexual and gender-based shame, fear, anxiety, and experiences stemming from their shame that mimicked Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder, such as nightmares, panic attacks, and paranoia. Several of my interviewees told me their shame was also creating deep problems in their marriages, particularly in their marriage beds.”

She explained that as girls grow into women they’re still taught never to “inspire” sexual thoughts from men. It makes an easy transition to rape culture, which maintains that women are responsible for the actions of men raping or abusing them. In no other crime is the victim the responsible party. However, conservatives blame clothing or behavior of a victim for the actions of someone else.

“In other words, girls grew up with the message that not only did we need to be pure, but it was our responsibility to ensure that the whole community was pure. That’s a lot of pressure for a young girl!” exclaimed Klein.

But it’s the shame that leaves lasting damage to women who self-impose guilt. She noted the shame is a huge part of the purity movement.

“Shame isn’t bashfulness,” she said. “It is a feeling of our being unworthy, or being seen as unworthy in other people’s eyes, that causes us to disconnect from ourselves, from others, and—from what I’ve seen in my interviews—from God at times. It can lead to emotional isolation which can develop into dangerous levels of hopelessness, desperation, subsequent self-harm, and much more.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

June 2, 2019June 2, 2019

‘I wanted to explore my own pleasure’

– How I rebooted my sex life

By Lucy-Anne Holmes

At 35, I realised I had no idea what I really wanted in bed – or how to ask for it. So I went on a sex odyssey, one orgasm at a time

My story, like all the greats, starts with a disappointing wank. I was on one of the big free porn sites and I saw something that disturbed me.

Now, I was used to porn; I had been using/watching/waiting for it to buffer for years. It was just what you did, if you were feeling aroused and alone, wasn’t it? But on this night, I found myself thinking about a young woman in a thumbnail picture, hoping she was all right. I turned my computer off and thought about my niece, 13 at the time, perhaps soon to be exploring her sexuality and ending up visiting a site like this. It made me sad. This was the sex we were giving our young women and men, and there didn’t seem to be much alternative. What have we done to sex? I thought.

But then I considered myself. I was hardly raising sex to some divine art form, sat there alone with my laptop in bed. In my 35 years, I felt I’d never really got to grips with sex. I had probably only skimmed the top of how amazing it could be. It occurred to me that sex was something that was done to me. I was willing, keen even, but an actor in it, rather than a writer or director of the show. My friend has a saying: if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. I didn’t want to get what I’d always got when it came to sex. But then again, what did I want?

I’d never actually asked myself this before, so I wrote a list. The first thing that came to mind was slow sex. I felt that for a long time sex had been caught up in speedy routines, me often being moved around like an Ikea sofa. I wanted to break sex down to put it back together again, learn how and where I liked to be touched, and similarly how to touch a man. I was a bit terrified of the penis, not really sure what I was supposed to do with it. And I wanted to really explore my own pleasure. I read somewhere that women are capable of 14 different types of orgasm. If this was true, I’d been seriously underperforming. Also, I finally admitted to myself that I didn’t just want to have sex with men.

I set off on my sexual odyssey. It wasn’t as glamorous as it sounds: I was off on a mission, but I didn’t know how to go about it, or have anyone to practise on. One night, I asked a friend if he might like to do some tantric sex with me. It wasn’t my most articulate moment, and I was wearing a cagoule and a woolly hat. To my surprise, he said yes. I bought us both a copy of the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Tantric Sex. A few days later he came over and we had a go, but I needed a lot of alcohol for courage and found it hard to give a handjob while holding a book. I struggled with taking the lead and, after a few more attempts, he “dumped” me.

It was all a bit depressing. I was able to make some pretty exciting stuff happen in my working life, yet when it came to men I was insecure, drunk and frequently hysterical. I looked back on my sexual experiences to date and realised I was incapable of asking for what I wanted in bed (and not so great out of it, to be fair). I also finally admitted just how much I hated, truly hated, my body, the very vessel I wanted to give me pleasure.

It dawned on me that I had been raised to be pretty and passive. Female sexuality had always been presented to me by men. From Page 3 to the majority of porn, it was hard to find an image of female sexuality that didn’t have a man behind it making money, or hadn’t originated from that place. No wonder I was in a bit of a mess sexually.

I continued on my odyssey, learning from each calamity. There were more disastrous handjobs, one where I accidentally laughed as a man ejaculated, and another where the recipient was so blown away by my erotic touch that he started talking about the fuel consumption of his Transit van. Over time though, and with practice, I relaxed and grew in confidence, finally getting to grips (as it were) with the male member and other things on my list. I experienced incredibly slow sex with a lover – really, imagine everything in quivery, breathy slow motion, with me nearly orgasming when he touched my knee. The effect was profound: I cried afterwards and the words “I didn’t think I deserved to be touched like that” echoed in my head.

My masturbatory habits completely changed. Gone was the quickie to internet porn; instead I spent time tuning into how and where my body wanted to be touched. Sometimes a tender touch on my yoni (the tantric term for the vulva and vagina) could move me to tears, bringing back memories of times when, either with lovers or medical professionals, this area was not so cared for. The more this healing happened, the more my capacity for pleasure increased, something that frequently blew my mind. One particularly powerful orgasm felt as though I spent minutes spinning through space and time. Ripples of this orgasm were still ricocheting through my body two days later. I have given that one the name, “the orgasm that could create world peace”.

I went to my first sex festival and loved it. Well, I was pretty terrified at first and may have locked myself in my car on the first night, but once I made it out of there I met other like-minded people and had some beautiful experiences, including with other women who, like me, were feeling that they weren’t quite as straight as they had thought.

I got much better at the important stuff; stating my boundaries and mastering how to initiate and ask for what I desired. I finally trusted my ability to say “no”, and it was liberating. I think because I was stronger in this way, I was able to try things that might have terrified me before, such as sex parties.

Perhaps the richest gift my sexual adventure gave me was empowerment. I learned that my sexuality is just that: mine. I think before, in my passivity, I had been waiting for someone else to unlock it or give me what I thought I needed. Previously I’d just taken it for granted that I was the problem. My body was wrong, I was wrong. So caught up in my shame and failings, I hadn’t stepped back to see that society’s teachings around sex were pretty rotten. With my new sense of freedom and power I stood up to the Sun over Page 3, starting a petition that grew into a national campaign and was (after two-and-a-half years) ultimately successful. The insecure woman I was before my sexual capering would never have had the confidence to stand up publicly on an issue like that.

I would say it altered every aspect of my life for the better. After years of struggling in relationships, I met someone. He understood and supported my adventures. I then fell pregnant and had a baby. That, as you can imagine, shifted everything. I had to start anew, getting to know my body and sexuality all over again.

I thoroughly recommend taking yourself off on a little sexual odyssey. For women, I would say there is almost an imperative to do so if we can. Our sexuality has been suppressed and controlled for so long, it becomes radical to reclaim it on our own terms. Just shine a little light on this area of your life and ask yourself what it is you would like to experience. And do take time to touch yourself with tenderness. We are so hard on our bodies, we push and berate them, yet we rarely give them loving touch they deserve. And it only gets better; I heard recently that a woman has the greatest capacity for sexual pleasure at 70 years old. Bring it on.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!