Category: SEX THERAPY

Fear of Sex, Lasting Longer, Performance Anxiety, Preorgasmic Women, Sensate Focus

Posted on

A handy history

Condemned, celebrated, shunned: masturbation has long been an uncomfortable fact of life. Why?

by Barry Reay

A handy history

The anonymous author of the pamphlet Onania (1716) was very worried about masturbation. The ‘shameful vice’, the ‘solitary act of pleasure’, was something too terrible to even be described. The writer agreed with those ‘who are of the opinion, that… it never ought to be spoken of, or hinted at, because the bare mentioning of it may be dangerous to some’. There was, however, little reticence in cataloguing ‘the frightful consequences of self-pollution’. Gonorrhoea, fits, epilepsy, consumption, impotence, headaches, weakness of intellect, backache, pimples, blisters, glandular swelling, trembling, dizziness, heart palpitations, urinary discharge, ‘wandering pains’, and incontinence – were all attributed to the scourge of onanism.

The fear was not confined to men. The full title of the pamphlet was Onania: Or the Heinous Sin of Self-Pollution, and all its Frightful Consequences (in Both Sexes). Its author was aware that the sin of Onan referred to the spilling of male seed (and divine retribution for the act) but reiterated that he treated ‘of this crime in relation to women as well as men’. ‘[W]hilst the offence is Self-Pollution in both, I could not think of any other word which would so well put the reader in mind both of the sin and its punishment’. Women who indulged could expect disease of the womb, hysteria, infertility and deflowering (the loss of ‘that valuable badge of their chastity and innocence’).

Another bestselling pamphlet was published later in the century: L’onanisme (1760) by Samuel Auguste Tissot. He was critical of Onania, ‘a real chaos … all the author’s reflections are nothing but theological and moral puerilities’, but nevertheless listed ‘the ills of which the English patients complain’. Tissot was likewise fixated on ‘the physical disorders produced by masturbation’, and provided his own case study, a watchmaker who had self-pleasured himself into ‘insensibility’ on a daily basis, sometimes three times a day; ‘I found a being that less resembled a living creature than a corpse, lying upon straw, meagre, pale, and filthy, casting forth an infectious stench; almost incapable of motion.’ The fear these pamphlets promoted soon spread.

The strange thing is that masturbation was never before the object of such horror. In ancient times, masturbation was either not much mentioned or treated as something a little vulgar, not in good taste, a bad joke. In the Middle Ages and for much of the early modern period too, masturbation, while sinful and unnatural, was not invested with such significance. What changed?

Religion and medicine combined powerfully to create a new and hostile discourse. The idea that the soul was present in semen led to thinking that it was very important to retain the vital fluid. Its spilling became, then, both immoral and dangerous (medicine believed in female semen at the time). ‘Sin, vice, and self-destruction’ were the ‘trinity of ideas’ that would dominate from the 18th into the 19th century, as the historians Jean Stengers and Anne Van Neck put it in Masturbation: The Great Terror (2001).

There were exceptions. Sometimes masturbation was opposed for more ‘enlightened’ reasons. In the 1830s and 1840s, for instance, female moral campaign societies in the United States condemned masturbation, not out of hostility to sex, but as a means to self-control. What would now be termed ‘greater sexual agency’ – the historian April Haynes refers to ‘sexual virtue’ and ‘virtuous restraint’ – was central to their message.

Yet it is difficult to escape the intensity of the fear. J H Kellogg’s Plain Facts for Old and Young (1877) contained both exaggerated horror stories and grand claims: ‘neither the plague, nor war, nor smallpox, nor similar diseases, have produced results so disastrous to humanity as the pernicious habit of Onanism; it is the destroying element of civilised societies’. Kellogg suggested remedies for the scourge, such as exercise, strict bathing and sleeping regimes, compresses, douching, enemas and electrical treatment. Diet was vital: this rabid anti-masturbator was co-inventor of the breakfast cereal that still bears his name. ‘Few of today’s eaters of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes know that he invented them, almost literally, as anti-masturbation food,’ as the psychologist John Money once pointed out.

The traces are still with us in other ways. Male circumcision, for instance, originated in part with the 19th-century obsession with the role of the foreskin in encouraging masturbatory practices. Consciously or not, many US males are faced with this bodily reminder every time they masturbate. And the general disquiet unleashed in the 18th century similarly lingers on today. We seem to have a confusing and conflicting relationship with masturbation. On one hand it is accepted, even celebrated – on the other, there remains an unmistakable element of taboo.

When the sociologist Anthony Giddens in The Transformation of Intimacy (1992) attempted to identify what made modern sex modern, one of the characteristics he identified was the acceptance of masturbation. It was, as he said, masturbation’s ‘coming out’. Now it was ‘widely recommended as a major source of sexual pleasure, and actively encouraged as a mode of improving sexual responsiveness on the part of both sexes’. It had indeed come to signify female sexual freedom with Betty Dodson’s Liberating Masturbation (1974) (renamed and republished as Sex for One in 1996), which has sold more than a million copies, and her Bodysex Workshops in Manhattan with their ‘all-women masturbation circles’. The Boston Women’s Health Collective’s classic feminist text Our Bodies, Ourselves (1973) included a section called ‘Learning to Masturbate’.

Alfred Kinsey and his team are mainly remembered for the sex surveys that publicised the pervasiveness of same-sex desires and experiences in the US, but they also recognised the prevalence of masturbation. It was, for both men and women, one of the nation’s principal sexual outlets. In the US National Survey (2009–10), 94 per cent of men aged 25-29 and 85 per cent of women in the same age group said that they had masturbated alone in the course of their lifetime. (All surveys indicate lower reported rates for women.) In the just-published results of the 2012 US National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, 92 per cent of straight men and a full 100 per cent of gay men recorded lifetime masturbation.

There has certainly been little silence about the activity. Several generations of German university students were questioned by a Hamburg research team about their masturbatory habits to chart changing attitudes and practices from 1966 to 1996; their results were published in 2003. Did they reach orgasm? Were they sexually satisfied? Was it fun? In another study, US women were contacted on Craigslist and asked about their masturbatory experiences, including clitoral stimulation and vaginal penetration. An older, somewhat self-referential study from 1977 of sexual arousal to films of masturbation asked psychology students at the University of Connecticut to report their ‘genital sensations’ while watching those films. Erection? Ejaculation? Breast sensations? Vaginal lubrication? Orgasm? And doctors have written up studies of the failed experiments of unfortunate patients: ‘Masturbation Injury Resulting from Intraurethral Introduction of Spaghetti’ (1986); ‘Penile Incarceration Secondary to Masturbation with A Steel Pipe’ (2013), with illustrations.

‘We are a profoundly self-pleasuring society at both a metaphorical and material level’

Self-stimulation has been employed in sexual research, though not always to great import. Kinsey and his team wanted to measure how far, if at all, semen was projected during ejaculation: Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy, Kinsey’s biographer, refers to queues of men in Greenwich Village waiting to be filmed at $3 an ejaculation. William Masters and Virginia Johnson recorded and measured the physiological response during sexual arousal, using new technology, including a miniature camera inside a plastic phallus. Their book Human Sexual Response (1966) was based on data from more than 10,000 orgasms from nearly 700 volunteers: laboratory research involving sexual intercourse, stimulation, and masturbation by hand and with that transparent phallus. Learned journals have produced findings such as ‘Orgasm in Women in the Laboratory – Quantitative Studies on Duration, Intensity, Latency, and Vaginal Blood Flow’ (1985).

In therapy, too, masturbation has found its place ‘as a means of achieving sexual health’, as an article by Eli Coleman, the director of the programme in human sexuality at the University of Minnesota Medical School, once put it. A published study in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology in 1977 outlined therapist-supervised female masturbation (with dildo, vibrator and ‘organic vegetables’) as a way of encouraging vaginal orgasm. Then there is The Big Book of Masturbation (2003) and the hundreds of (pun intended) self-help books, Masturbation for Weight Loss, a Woman’s Guide only among the latest (and more opportunistic).

Self-pleasure has featured in literature, most famously in Philip Roth’s novel Portnoy’s Complaint (1969). But it is there in more recent writing too, including Chuck Palahniuk’s disturbing short story ‘Guts’ (2004). Autoeroticism (and its traces) have been showcased in artistic expression: in Jordan MacKenzie’s sperm and charcoal canvases (2007), for example, or in Marina Abramović’s reprise of Vito Acconci’s Seedbed at the Guggenheim in 2005, or her video art Balkan Erotic Epic of the same year.

On film and television, masturbation is similarly pervasive: Lauren Rosewarne’s Masturbation in Pop Culture (2014) was able to draw on more than 600 such scenes. My favourites are in the film Spanking the Monkey (1994), in which the main character is trying to masturbate in the bathroom, while the family dog, seemingly alert to such behaviour, pants and whines at the door; and in the Seinfeld episode ‘The Contest’ (1992), in which the ‘m’ word is never uttered, and where George’s mother tells her adult son that he is ‘treating his body like it was an amusement park’.

There is much evidence, then, for what the film scholar Greg Tuck in 2009 called the ‘mainstreaming of masturbation’: ‘We are a profoundly self-pleasuring society at both a metaphorical and material level.’ There are politically-conscious masturbation websites. There is the online ‘Masturbation Hall of Fame’ (sponsored by the sex-toys franchise Good Vibrations). There are masturbationathons, and jack-off-clubs, and masturbation parties.

It would be a mistake, however, to present a rigid contrast between past condemnation and present acceptance. There are continuities. Autoeroticism might be mainstreamed but that does not mean it is totally accepted. In Sexual Investigations (1996), the philosopher Alan Soble observed that people brag about casual sex and infidelities but remain silent about solitary sex. Anne-Francis Watson and Alan McKee’s 2013 study of 14- to 16-year-old Australians found that not only the participants but also their families and teachers were more comfortable talking about almost any other sexual matter than about self-pleasuring. It ‘remains an activity that is viewed as shameful and problematic’, warns the entry on masturbation in the Encyclopedia of Adolescence (2011). In a study of the sexuality of students in a western US university, where they were asked about sexual orientation, anal and vaginal sex, condom use, and masturbation, it was the last topic that occasioned reservation: 28 per cent of the participants ‘declined to answer the masturbation questions’. Masturbation remains, to some extent, taboo.

When the subject is mentioned, it is often as an object of laughter or ridicule. Rosewarne, the dogged viewer of the 600 masturbation scenes in film and TV, concluded that male masturbation was almost invariably portrayed negatively (female masturbation was mostly erotic). Watson and McKee’s study revealed that their young Australians knew that masturbation was normal yet still made ‘negative or ambivalent statements’ about it.

Belief in the evils of masturbation has resurfaced in the figure of the sex addict and in the obsession with the impact of internet pornography. Throughout their relatively short histories, sexual addiction and hypersexual disorder have included masturbation as one of the primary symptoms of their purported maladies. What, in a sex-positive environment, would be considered normal sexual behaviour has been pathologised in another. Of the 152 patients in treatment for hypersexual disorder in clinics in California, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Texas and Utah, a 2012 study showed that most characterised their sexual disorder in terms of pornography consumption (81 per cent) and masturbation (78 per cent). The New Catholic Encyclopedia’s supplement on masturbation (2012-13), too, slips into a lengthy disquisition on sex addiction and the evils of internet pornography: ‘The availability of internet pornography has markedly increased the practice of masturbation to the degree that it can be appropriately referred to as an epidemic.’

Critics think that therapeutic masturbation might reinforce sexual selfishness rather than sexual empathy and sharing

The masturbator is often seen as the pornography-consumer and sex addict enslaved by masturbation. The sociologist Steve Garlick has suggested that negative attitudes to masturbation have been reconstituted to ‘surreptitiously infect ideas about pornography’. Pornography has become masturbation’s metonym. Significantly, when the New Zealand politician Shane Jones was exposed for using his taxpayer-funded credit card to view pornographic movies, the unnamed shame was that his self-pleasuring activities were proclaimed on the front pages of the nation’s newspapers – thus the jokes about ‘the matter in hand’ and not shaking hands with him at early morning meetings. It would have been less humiliating, one assumes, if he had used the public purse to finance the services of sex workers.

Nor is there consensus on the benefits of masturbation. Despite its continued use in therapy, some therapists question its usefulness and propriety. ‘It is a mystery to me how conversational psychotherapy has made the sudden transition to massage parlour technology involving vibrators, mirrors, surrogates, and now even carrots and cucumbers!’ one psychologist protested in the late 1970s. He was concerned about issues of client-patient power and a blinkered pursuit of the sexual climax ‘ignoring … the more profound psychological implications of the procedure’. In terms of effectiveness, critics think that therapeutic masturbation might reinforce individual pleasure and sexual selfishness rather than creating sexual empathy and sharing. As one observed in the pages of the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy in 1995: ‘Ironically, the argument against masturbation in American society was originally religiously founded, but may re-emerge as a humanist argument.’ Oversimplified, but in essence right: people remain disturbed by the solitariness of solitary sex.

Why has what the Japanese charmingly call ‘self-play’ become such a forcing ground for sexual attitudes? Perhaps there is something about masturbation’s uncontrollability that continues to make people anxious. It is perversely non-procreative, incestuous, adulterous, homosexual, ‘often pederastic’ and, in imagination at least, sex with ‘every man, woman, or beast to whom I take a fancy’, to quote Soble. For the ever-astute historian Thomas Laqueur, author of Solitary Sex (2003), masturbation is ‘that part of human sexual life where potentially unlimited pleasure meets social restraint’.

Why did masturbation become such a problem? For Laqueur, it began with developments in 18th-century Europe, with the cultural rise of the imagination in the arts, the seemingly unbounded future of commerce, the role of print culture, the rise of private, silent reading, especially novels, and the democratic ingredients of this transformation. Masturbation’s condemned tendencies – solitariness, excessive desire, limitless imagination, and equal-opportunity pleasure – were an outer limit or testing of these valued attributes, ‘a kind of Satan to the glories of bourgeois civilisation’.

In more pleasure-conscious modern times, the balance has tipped towards personal gratification. The acceptance of personal autonomy, sexual liberation and sexual consumerism, together with a widespread focus on addiction, and the ubiquity of the internet, now seem to demand their own demon. Fears of unrestrained fantasy and endless indulging of the self remain. Onania’s 18th-century complaints about the lack of restraint of solitary sex are not, in the end, all that far away from today’s fear of boundless, ungovernable, unquenchable pleasure in the self.

Complete Article HERE!

Posted on

The Dark Heart of Homophobia…redo

The massacre in Orlando necessitates this reposting…

I’m riding the bus when we come to a stop near a local high school. Five teenage boys get on. They’re all jocks—football, probably. Their jackets are emblazoned with varsity letters and they appear to be fresh from practice. Each carries an oversized duffel.

They are boisterous and full of menacing bravado. The bus is immediately overwhelmed with a rush of testosterone. As they move toward the back of the bus, they purposely jostle everyone in their path. They’re rude and crude and every other word is fuck.

The bus lurches forward, and my fellow passengers instinctively know not to make eye contact. The older women clutch their belongings tight to their bosom. Everyone is tense.

The pack mentality emboldens the young men, who are flush with their newly discovered sense of male privilege. Hormones rage in their adolescent bodies, yet there is an awkward childishness about them too. They are alpha, but only in as much as they are part of a pack.

They have off-color comments for everyone around them. Girls are singled out for the most abuse. They make insinuations about their sexual prowess, while pawing at their groins. The women blush with embarrassment.

Despite being loud, obnoxious and brutish, they lack conviction. They giggle too much, indicating self-consciousness. It’s apparent that, at their core, they are still very uneasy about themselves, and have yet to grow into and own the alpha maleness they mimic.

The bus approaches the next stop, and several of us get up to exit. A nerdy boy with glasses and a violin case accidentally trips over one of the teen’s duffel bags. This is the spark. The jocks erupt, lunging at the offending kid. He is easy prey. He’s petrified, but his survival instincts kick in, and he quickly maneuvers further up the aisle. I grab his shoulder and push him toward the door ahead of me. He makes his escape.

Now I’m in the line of fire. The rear door is only a couple steps away, but I stand my ground. The jocks size me up. I’m not an easy mark; I’m older and more dominant than any of them as individuals, but they trump me as a group. I may even be dangerous. In a split-second, the teens reevaluate the situation and instead of coming at me, they try to take me down with their best verbal shot: “You motherfucking fag!”

I move to the door. This could end very badly for me, but I will not show any weakness. Adrenaline courses through my bloodstream. I alight from the bus, holding the door open so I can briefly yell back. “Hey, thanks for the recognition. Oh, and for your information, its father-fucking, brother-fucking and/or son-fucking fag, never mother-fucking. Get it?”

By the time the jocks realize what’s happened, the bus is in motion, and I am safe.

The teens thought better of physically attacking me, so they did the next best thing. It’s what most threatened males do: they tried to diminish the threat by calling into question my masculinity.  And they do it in that time-honored way—by inferring I was a defective male, a queer, and a sissy. Trouble is, I am queer, and I owned it—right in their faces. On top of that, I stood up to them and even had the temerity to publicly shame them. So that had to be unsettling to them on several levels.

How did the derogatory epithet fag become the quintessential means of destroying the male ego? Why has the only somewhat less offensive slur, “that’s so gay,” become emblematic for everything stupid, negative or girly? These questions get to the root of our culture’s deeply ingrained homophobia.

I contend that homophobia is rooted in a fear and hatred of women. It’s no accident that when we want to denigrate a man we call him a pussy—the same word we use to refer to female genitals. In our culture, men are superior to women—it’s the oily by-product of male privilege. A man who falls short of this lofty ideal, or, god forbid, assumes a passive role in sex, cheapens the “privilege” for all other males. This is a particularly sensitive issue for ostensibly heterosexual men.

This prohibition is so deep-seated in our culture, one can trace its roots back to the Bible. Leviticus 20:13: “If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death.” In biblical days, women were nothing more than chattel. For a man to behave like a woman—particularly in a passive, receptive sexual way—back then was an even greater insult to the male privilege than it is nowadays (which explains the whole capital punishment thing.)

Women are also objectified as sexual objects before men dominate them. A woman is not so much a person as she is a collection of parts—tits, pussy, ass, etc. A heterosexual man, familiar with and practiced in this dynamic, will not tolerate another male objectifying him as a sexual object, either real or imagined.

These cultural triggers are exceptionally easy to trip. With very little effort at all, we can debase a man simply by suggesting that there’s a whiff of the feminine about him. In turn, the slandered male is burdened with proving the contrary, which often leads to overcompensation. To deflect suspicion, some men affect a macho bravado so as to appear even more masculine than their peers. And how better to do that than to suggest someone else is a pansy?

Omar Mateen, is this what happened to you?

God will punish those involved in homosexuality': Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen's father Seddique Mateen
God will punish those involved in homosexuality’: Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen’s father Seddique Mateen

I can say for certain that all those boys on the bus had been, at one time or another, accused of being a fag. It’s exceedingly common in sports for even teammates to insinuate a fellow athlete is not performing up to expectations. Each of them must have known the sting of that reproach. Some may even have had self-doubt about their own sexual tendencies. That’s why they hurled at me what they knew would hurt any other self-respecting male the most.

What they didn’t count on was that I had, long ago, inoculated myself against this poison. I own, even revel, in my queer sexuality. An insult doesn’t work if the one insulted self-identifies as the slur.

Institutionalized homophobia, on the other hand, is more insidious. The dominant culture enshrines male privilege and, like the boys on the bus, punishes anyone who attempts to undercut the paradigm. Discrimination is so widespread, ingrained—and sometimes so subtle—that many non-gay people don’t even notice most of it. But those of us on the receiving end of the bigotry are keenly aware.

It’s a particularly acute problem for young people who know they are different, and different in a way that isn’t tolerated of by the dominant culture. They are much more vulnerable because they have yet to developed the emotional resources to counteract the oppression. They don’t yet realize that it’s society’s problem, not theirs. Their peers mercilessly persecute them. And for the most part, authority figures don’t even try to stop the torment. That’s why young gay people commit suicide at a rate of about seven times that of straight kids.

You may have noticed that I’ve framed this presentation in terms of the natural world. Dominant and submissive behaviors in other species often have sexual overtones, especially in other primate species. A dominant male will harass a male subordinate until he submits and presents his rump. This establishes a pecking order in the troupe: a subordinate male is submissive and the dominant male is in control.

Some straight men see gay men as a threat, instinctively fearing a supposed challenge to the established order of things; who is in control. It’s basically a struggle for dominance and troupe status. A gay person who is a productive member of society, who is indistinguishable from his heterosexual counterparts, ups the ante. He’s a threat to anyone who believes what he may have been told all his life—that gays are perverted, miserable, lonely people who live short, desperate lives.

Institutionalized homophobia impacts so many aspects of our culture. It may be obvious how it skews our notions of sex and sexuality, of who can do what to whom and when. But did you know that it is often an underlying cause of much male sexual dysfunction? It also contaminates national policy in terms of public health issues, military readiness and the rights and freedoms we afford our citizenry. The business sector also suffers. Harassment and intimidation of gay workers result in loss of productivity costing businesses millions every year. But the most tragic is the toll it takes on individual relationships. Families are torn apart, friendships end, and people sometimes are killed or kill themselves over a futile and misguided attempt to uphold the status quo.

Posted on

A Politically Incorrect Guide To What ‘Good Sex’ Means For Women

By Anonymous

In the interest of honesty, I’m going to be discussing these issues from the perspective of a straight woman, because I am one. I hope that there will be a non-straight woman out there to follow this article up with thoughts about what pleases them, but I just can’t speak for them. So let’s do this.

man:woman love

It often feels like women are expected to give some extremely technical answer when it comes to what we like — that we have a body that’s more like a piece of software, and it’s all about entering the right code and getting the right result. But the truth is, as different as we all are, the answer is very general. Like anyone else, women like to have orgasms. Women like to feel wanted and cared for and paid attention to. On a more technical level, women like a man who knows how to use his hands, tongue, and penis (often in combinations) to the point of orgasm.

But women don’t always need to have an orgasm. While there are a lot of women who can achieve orgasm, and do it multiple times in one sexual encounter, that doesn’t mean that every woman needs to have one to enjoy sex. There are a lot of girls who feel the pressure to “perform” in relationships because the guy will get weird and down on himself if she doesn’t come screaming. There are many times that I personally have not reached orgasm during sex, but still totally enjoyed the experience. I know that I’m not exceptional in that regard, and it doesn’t mean that the guy isn’t talented.

Now, I know that this shouldn’t be politically incorrect, but somehow it’s become a taboo thing to say because we’re all supposed to be “liberated” women who can engage in just as much casual sex as a guy, and don’t need to attach strings to them emotionally to make them worth it. This is bullshit. I can only go off the girls I know and the sex I’ve had, but I have found in my experience that 90 percent of the time, women need some kind of emotional connection with the guy in order to really enjoy sex. It’s not that the act of sex doesn’t feel good, it’s a combination of a) not knowing someone well enough to feel comfortable explaining what you actually need to get off and b) wanting more out of a sexual encounter than just “put the penis in the vagina, say thank you, leave, perhaps send a muffin basket.” There is a lot of media directed at women that emphasizes the idea that we should and even COULD embrace being “sluts” or have sex “like a guy,” but most girls I know can’t relate to this. For a lot of us, a real connection is synonymous with a decent sexual experience.

But even when you are with someone you know, trust, and are very attracted to, that doesn’t mean that the orgasms are just going to start flying fast and loose. First of all, men need to get over their fear of toys. There are some girls who will always need a vibrator during sex if they want to orgasm, and there’s nothing “wrong” with them. There are other women who enjoy using one from time to time because it makes for a face-melting, unlike-anything-else-you’ve-experienced-in-your-life orgasm when combined with the right guy and the right moves, and they should not feel weird about it. There are women who like using any range of toys that involve the butt, and they are no less wife-able. Guys have this weird paranoia that any toy that comes into the bedroom is going to question their masculinity or “replace” him, but this is absurd. The toy is not in place of him, it’s not a supplement because he inherently isn’t good enough. It has nothing to do with him, and we should let go of the idea that everything regarding a woman’s sexuality does. You have to embrace whatever things enhance sex for you, otherwise you’ll always end up frustrated and not enjoying yourself.

Another thing that has become strangely incorrect to say, even though we all know it’s true, is that a lot of women really like rough sex. It doesn’t mean that they are having rape fantasies every time they close their eyes, but the “no means no” talk definitely doesn’t always apply in the confines of a lot of relationships. We’ve become absolutist about what it means to have consenting or even “feminist” sex (ugh), but a lot of women I know could not be more turned off by the idea of a guy asking politely before doing everything. Obviously this is something that a couple has to establish beforehand, but you are naive if you say that people don’t give off body signals that say more than their words do in the bedroom. A lot of women have said “no” to their boyfriends but leaned into him slightly because they want to be “taken,” and that doesn’t mean he did anything wrong. For many people, politics in the bedroom just aren’t sexy. It’s not how their sexual encounters function on a regular basis. If you’re really that worried about it, get a safe word like an adult.

But the biggest problem generally stems from the fact that guys think they know about women, but most of the time, they really don’t. It’s no secret that porn has ruined men’s vision of what women enjoy during sex, but the problem is that, when they finally get around to having sex, girls are often really bad about telling them what they need to do. (We are betraying each other when we don’t educate men, let’s not do this anymore.) I have been with men who had all the swagger of a true casanova, because they were packing an above-average unit and were pretty good looking — and they were TERRIBLE. They thought that their looks and their dick were enough to get them an A+ in the sex department, as long as they just went really hard and slapped your ass every once in a while. In my experience, uncircumcised dudes have been better off the bat because they are more naturally sensitive and relate to the sometimes-unpleasant intensity that a clit can experience. They know that harder does not always equal better, and that soft, rhythmic motions can often be the key to a mind-blowing orgasm. But there are cut dudes who get it, too. They’ve just been taught right.

The best thing you can teach a guy, if you only impart one piece of advice before passing him off, is that if something is working — DON’T STOP IT. There is nothing worse than guys who get the perfect stroke going and then suddenly change paces or decide to start doing something crazy in an effort to show off. You can craft the perfect man in bed, and will have the kind of sex that makes monogamy seem like something to look forward to and not something that will bore you to tears, but it takes work.

If we can remember these things, and learn to laugh at ourselves (weird things will happen during sex, and there’s nothing worse than feeling like you can’t just roll with the punches), we can have some good sex. But first we really need to know what ‘good sex’ means for women, and it’s something that takes a while to learn. But don’t worry, I believe in you!

Complete Article HERE!

Posted on

Look, I can fly!

Name: Wayne
Gender:
Age: 26
Location: Philadelphia
Hey Dr. Dick I have a little issue that has stumped me, my doctor, and numerous urologists. I figure there’s no harm in asking one more person. I have never, not once, been able to cum normally. (I suppose there is a normal way, considering every other guy I’ve ever met has been able to do it that way.) The only way I have ever achieved orgasm is by laying on my stomach, putting pressure with a slightly closed fist on the spot where my dick meets the rest of my body, and sliding back and forth. Weird aside — this was a way to lift myself up off the floor and “fly” as a young kid, then one day I found out that it was pleasurable. I know – weird little boy. But this is anonymous, right. Anyway, fast forward to my twenties and becoming sexually active and now I have a concern. I want to be able to cum by having intercourse or just jacking off. But I’ve never been able to. I can come very close, but the deal just doesn’t happen. (Never have a problem getting hard.) Any thoughts? Thanks for your time. Wayne

hint of hair

Interesting masturbation technique you got there, my friend. While it is unique, it is not the most distinctive style I’ve even encountered in my career. Someday I oughta write a book.

What’s most amazing to me about what you write here is that this predicament of yours has stumped all the physicians you’ve consulted. I suppose that says volumes about how informed most physicians are about human sexuality.

Simply put, Wayne, over the years you’ve habituated your body to respond pleasurably to a particular stimulus. Ever hear of Pavlov’s dogs? Right! What we have here is exactly the same thing, only completely different. 😉 You apply the stimulus — laying on your stomach, putting pressure with a slightly closed fist on the spot where your dick meets the rest of my body, and sliding back and forth. And your body responds with an orgasm.

Most all of us, both female and male, discover the joy of self-pleasuring accidentally. Your first encounter with masturbation, although you probably didn’t know that’s what it was called at the time, was through your boyhood attempts to fly. And fly you did! As you suggest, most other people discover self-pleasuring in a more conventional way, through touch. Thus the more “normal” — and I use that word in quotes — means of getting one’s self off…manually.

Your unique style of self-pleasuring is completely benign, but it doesn’t really lend itself to partnered sex, as you say. I mean, how awkward would fucking be if you had to get off your partner and on to the floor to cum? So is there a solution? Sure there is. And it’s not a particularly difficult nut to crack…so to speak.

Let me tell you about a former client of mine. He was about your age when we met several years ago. He presented a similar concern to yours. He learned to masturbate in the same position as you, lying on your stomach, but he got off by humping a pillow in that position. Try as he might, he never was able to get off any other way. This was driving him crazy. He couldn’t date anyone, because he was too embarrassed about the whole pillow thing.

outlookOver the next 4 or 5 weeks I helped my client learn a new way of self-pleasuring that would lend itself to happy partnered sex. The object was to rid himself of the need for the pillow altogether and we did this is incremental steps. Luckily my client was a horny little bugger. He masturbated at least twice a day, sometimes even more frequently. I decided to use his natural horniness as part of the intervention.

My client had to promise me that he wouldn’t masturbate in his traditional way for two weeks, absolutely no pillow sex for an entire 2-week period. If he failed to keep his promise, he would have to start all over from day one. At first he couldn’t see the purpose in this moratorium, but I insisted. By the time I saw him next, the poor boy had blue balls for days. So he was primed and ready to go. His next exercise was to change position for his first masturbation after the weeklong moratorium. He could masturbate with his pillow, but he had to lie on his back. He was not permitted to roll over on to his stomach. This wasn’t immediately successful, but his pent-up sexual energy finally carried the day and he got off in the first new position — on his back — since he learned to masturbate.

I gave him a new exercise the following week. While on his back, he could use the pillow to rub himself, but only to the point where he was about to cum. At that point, he was to put the pillow aside and finish himself off with his hand. This was only slightly more difficult than the previous exercise. And within two attempts he finally got himself off with his hand for the first time in his life. The rest of his therapeutic intervention was simply following this behavior modification course of action till he didn’t need the pillow at all.

I assume you see where I’m going with this, Wayne, right? You could do this same sort of intervention on your own to learn a new and more traditional way of masturbating, but you’d probably have more success working with a qualified sex therapist.

The firm desire to change a behavior or habit is the most important aspect of the process of change. Second is denying yourself the convenient and habitual stimulus — in your case, your flying masturbation style. This will drive you to find a replacement means of getting off — a more traditional manual style. Weaning yourself off one style of masturbation incrementally till you are successful in replacing that style with another is the most efficient means of behavior change. I encourage you to give it a try.

Good luck

Posted on

The Dreaded Lesbian Bed Death

Name: Karen
Gender: Female
Age: 36
Location: Portland
I have a really big problem. I can’t keep a girlfriend because once I’m in a committed relationship I lose my desire for sex. I don’t mean it slacks off; it just totally stops. I’ve always been this way. I can have casual sex with women, but when things get serious sex goes out the window. This has been the demise of every relationship I’ve ever had. I’m currently dating this really great woman, but I’m afraid my problem will drive her away too. Is there anything I can do to stop this from happening?

Whoops, looks like another case of dreaded LBD…Lesbian Bed Death.

Lesbian Bed Death

Ya know it’s pretty common for lovers in long-term relationships to gradually lose interest in sex with each other. But lesbiterians are particularly susceptible to this malady. Some couples, but lesbians in particular, end all sexual expression between them; yet stay very committed and loving toward each other. Thus the somewhat humorous term, “lesbian bed death.”

You Karen, apparently suffer from a particularly nasty case of LBD. May I ask, is this an issue for you because, and only because, it kills off all your relationships way too soon? Or are you concerned about this because you yourself are uneasy about the complete cessation of sex once you nest? The reason I ask is, if your only reason for changing is to please someone else, even someone you like a lot, the likelihood that you’ll actually change is considerably less than if you yourself desire a change.

Let’s say you really want to change for yourself, but you just don’t know how. I’d advise working with a sex positive therapist. If you and I were working together, for example, I’d want to get to the bottom of what triggers your attitude shift toward sex when you nest. Is there some disconnect for you between sex and intimacy? If there is a disconnect for you, you’re not alone. People with self-esteem issues, or body issues, people with extreme scruples about sex, the kind that translates into guilt and shame often have a similar disconnect. And gay and lesbian people who have not resolved their internalized homophobia will frequently have a sex and intimacy rift.

Lesbian Bed Death2

Sound familiar? I would guess so. Reversing this is unhappy trend is not an insurmountable task. But it will take a concerted effort to heal the rift that you may have between your sexual expression and intimacy needs.

You say you’re met this really great woman and you want this relationship to last. FANTASTIC! Is it safe to assume that she has a healthier appreciation of sex then you? If she does, I suggest you engage her in your healing process. However, you gotta be totally up front with her about your past pattern of disconnect. Marshal her sex-positive energy to help you resolve your issues. She will need a heads-up on the impending sex shut down so she can help you resist it. With her help, the two of you could move through this.

Good luck

Posted on

Sexual assault is any sexual contact without consent

Name: Lola
Gender: Female
Age: 37
Location: Tennessee
I have been married for 13 years. We have had a pretty healthy, fulfilling sex life. My husband does not like to admit to his insecurities but i think he has some insecurity about his penis size and lately, his problem with not lasting very long. He has developed an obsession with stretching my vagina and pulling my labia. He knows I don’t like it. The other night, he introduces a dildo he has secretly purchased. I have enjoyed dildos, even larger ones, in the past, but this one was ridiculously too big. It was over 12″ long and the circumference was as big as a baseball bat. I told him that it was hurting and that it was impossible. He forced it in me. I was crying in pain and he tells me later that he hasn’t been that aroused in years. I am hurt. It hurt me physically, I bled a little, but it hurts more emotionally. What do you think is wrong with him? He has never hit me or been abusive with me, in the past.

sexual assault

Jeez darlin’, that’s fucked up…big time.

Here’s the thing about men who have sexual insecurities. They can and often do project their perceived inadequacies outside of themselves and then act out. And almost always this projection and acting out is aggressive and abusive.

I suppose you know that what we’re talkin’ about here, Lola is sexual assault, right? I mean let’s not mince words. Your husband assaulted you. It was premeditated and worst of all he took pleasure in it. This is extremely disturbing, because, despite his non-aggressive past, he has just upped the ante exponentially. You know what they say about domesticated animals that inexplicably develop an aggressive steak. Once they get a taste for blood there’s no trusting them ever again.

I think your old man has severe anger issues. Issues that if left untreated will…not maybe, but absolutely will…escalate into more aggressive and abusive behavior. Your guy needs help. He needs to know that he stands on a precipice. That he is making a cognitive and affective connection between violence and pleasure and this is very dangerous for all involved, especially you, Lola.

campus-sexual-assault

You don’t mention that he had any remorse about this assault. This too is disturbing. Because you can’t precisely pinpoint the cause of his acting out, you’ll never really know when you’re safe and when you’re not. I encourage you not to treat this lightly. Confront him about this. Make it clear to him that he has violated the bond of trust between the two of you. He may try and shift the blame for this incident to you. But remember, you’re not at fault. Insist that he seek professional help immediately. Anything short of him doing that will nullify your relationship.

No waffling on this, Lola! You do not want him to get the message that this incident can be winked at or overlooked. Your wellbeing hangs in the balance.

All unwanted, forced, manipulated, or coerced sexual contact or activity is sexual assault. Sexual assault is not about sex, eroticism or desire; it is about power, control and abuse.

Good Luck

Posted on

The Real Reason Men Lose Their Erection When Using A Condom

by Raffaello Manacorda

Men Lose Their Erection When Using A Condom

That Awkward Moment When…

If you’re a man, you’ve probably experienced this. Everything is perfect, the foreplay is going great, and the stage is set for a throbbing, mind-blowing, heart-shattering lovemaking. Your erection is strong and powerful, and feeling it turns you on even more.

And then, that moment comes. Your lover looks at you sweetly but squarely in the eyes, and with a soft but firm voice says, “We need to use a condom.”

This makes perfect sense. The risk of STIs and/or pregnancy is real. So you’ve got to wear that condom.

But our genitals don’t understand logic. And, sometimes, it only takes a few seconds of this pause for your penis to soften. Her being sweet and comprehensive only makes things worse: something inside you tells you that you won’t be able to do it if you wear a condom.

I’ve gone through the same process. I used to consistently lose my erection whenever a woman asked me to wear a condom. It wasn’t pretty. I hate to admit it, but a couple of times I even lied to a partner, telling her that there were no condoms in the house, while I actually had plenty. I just was too scared of sexual failure. Boy, am I grateful that no one got an STI or got pregnant because of that dirty little lie of mine.

So why on Earth does this happen? Why do we men lose our erection because of condoms?

The Real Reason Condoms Turn Men Off…

You might try to fool yourself and others with explanations such as:

  • That you don’t feel enough pleasure with a condom.
  • That a condom squeezes your penis too much.
  • That the pause “takes the romance away”…

But deep in your heart, you know that those are not the real reasons.

As for sensitivity and comfort, you know well that your penis is not all that sensitive. In fact, the harder it is, the less sensitive it is. And as for the non-romanticism of the 2-minutes pause, you have fantasized or have been in way less romantic situations, where your erection stood strong and implacable.

So WHAT is the real reason why you lose your erection? And what can you do about it?

To answer this question, the first thing you need to understand is that your main sexual organ sits in between your ears or, if you prefer, inside your chest. It is your head and your heart that turn you on (or off).

So, the reason why we men lose our erection when a woman asks us to wear a condom is that some deeply uncomfortable thought and/or emotion arises in us in response to that request. And what might that thought or feeling be?

Although every man is different, that uncomfortable thought is virtually always a variation on the same theme: she asking you to wear a condom carries the message that she does not accept you inside her body. And this can be truly devastating for a man.

Some Truths About Male Sexuality

Men love to feel invited, welcomed, by a trusting lover that opens up to their force and thrust. When the body of a woman is welcoming, wet, inviting, this is a huge turn-on for a man. When the body and soul of a woman tense, close up, tighten – this is a turn-off.

Men deeply crave to feel accepted, welcomed, and trusted.

The request to wear a condom challenges that. It can seem to convey the following messages:

  • If you don’t wear it, I won’t let you inside me (you’re unwelcome)
  • I don’t trust you to be healthy, or to control your ejaculation (you’re not trusted)

This is the subterranean thought that runs into most men’s mind, and makes them lose their erection.

Understanding it is the first step towards liberating your sexuality from this blockage.

As a man, you need to realize that, even if you wear a condom, you are welcome and accepted. That she wants you just as badly. In fact, she wants you so badly that she wants to be fully trusting and surrendered. And in order for that to happen, she needs to feel safe. This conviction will take some time to build, but once it’s there, it will never leave you. Condoms won’t be an issue anymore.

In order to get there, the best thing to do is start practicing, both by yourself and with a partner.

Practicing By Yourself

Get familiar and friendly with condoms. Buy a pack of condoms and start experimenting. Wear a condom and play with yourself.

Now, I know that the condom instructions say that you should wear it only when you are fully erect. The reason they say this is that if your penis is not fully erect, then a condom can potentially slip away, which is not cool. But for now, you can forget about this. You are alone, and you can wear a condom even if your penis is completely flaccid. In fact, you should practice this skill. Wear a condom on your soft penis, and then stimulate your penis so that it becomes hard.

Familiarize yourself with the condom, and lose your aversion to it. This will be really useful once you practice with a partner.

Practicing With a Partner

This is potentially going to be scary, so you’ll need to set a firm intention: you won’t back off. You will wear a condom no matter what, whether you end up having intercourse or not.

Next time you have the opportunity, do not wait for your partner to propose using a condom. Once you have enjoyed your foreplay long enough, go ahead and say the magic phrase: “I’ll put on a condom now, just in case.”

That means that, whether you are going to penetrate your partner or not, you can wear a condom anyway and then continue with whatever you were doing. At some point you may even forget that you have a condom on.

Your partner also has a role in this. You can ask her to support you in a very simple way: by doing with your penis exactly what she would do with it if there were no condoms. Touching it, sucking it, teasing it—just as if that condom did not exist.

And now, if the moment is ripe for both of you, still wearing your condom, penetrate her. Don’t worry if your erection isn’t that strong. In that case, just make sure to hold the bottom of your condom with your fingers to make sure it doesn’t slip away. But do get yourself to the point where you can penetrate her while still wearing a condom.

This moment is a threshold, and after that, the rest will be much easier. The more you feel that things are going well, the more natural it will become to continue making love with a condom. You will notice that it isn’t all that different from not using it, and that wearing a condom will give both of you more confidence and a feeling of safety. Since you are practicing here, refrain from ejaculating inside your partner, even if you are wearing a condom. The purpose now is to gain confidence with condoms—not necessarily to have the hottest lovemaking of your life.

Every man on this planet should be able to make love with a condom, if necessary. We owe it to ourselves, and we owe it to our partners, men or women. Asking a partner not to use condoms just to protect our sexual pride is not an option. If two lovers decide to not use condoms, let that be a conscious decision, rather than a slippery workaround of a sexual blockage.

Have fun!

Complete Article HERE!

Posted on

What Makes These Dominican Children Grow Penises at Puberty?

By Michele Debczak

guevedoces

In the Dominican Republic, the phenomenon of children who were raised female appearing to swap sexes at puberty is so common it even has a name. Guevedoces roughly translates to “penis [or “balls”] at 12,” and it’s the result of a rare enzyme deficiency that delays crucial steps of male sexual development until puberty.

When guevedoces are born, they appear to have external female genitalia even though their genes and internal reproductive organs are male. Parents assume their children are girls and raise them as such. But when these children begin producing large amounts of testosterone at puberty, their testes descend and they grow a penis—in addition to all the other changes that come along with male adolescence. 

Sexual development normally begins in the womb, and the same is true for guevedoces. Whether the fetus has one X chromosome or two, for the first several weeks of development its genes follow the same blueprint for both sexes. Then, sometime around the eight-week mark, the sex chromosomes get to work. For males, the undeveloped gonads become testicles and they start to release male hormones, including testosterone. In a structure called the tubercle, an enzyme called 5-alpha-reductase converts the testosterone to a stronger hormone called dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which is necessary to develop external genitalia. It’s this hormone that turns the tubercle into a penis; without it, it develops into a clitoris.

The rare enzyme deficiency found in guevedoces leaves them unable to develop external male genitalia in the womb. They still produce plenty of testosterone, which triggers the development of internal structures like the epididymis and vas deferens, but the lack of DHT makes the babies appear female at birth. It’s not until the second surge of testosterone these children receive at puberty that they grow testes and a penis.

The condition is thought to be genetic, tracing back to the female founder of a small village in the Dominican Republic’s mountainous hinterland. Outside of the nation, it’s incredibly rare.

For some guevedoces, being raised as female wasn’t an easy experience. “I never liked to dress as a girl, and when they bought me toys for girls, I never bothered playing with them,” Johnny, who had grown up as Felicita, told BBC Two, which features these kids in the second episode of the series Countdown to Life: The Extraordinary Making of You. “When I saw a group of boys, I would stop to play ball with them.” When Johnny, now 24, began to undergo physical changes, he was taunted at school and called nasty names by his classmates. He’s had a number of short-term girlfriends since going through puberty and dreams of one day getting married and starting a family. Another child named Carla began the process of transitioning to Carlos at age 9; he can be seen receiving a smile-inducing haircut in the photo above.

Most people with this condition live out their adult lives as men, but some choose to undergo surgery and remain female. The discovery of this disorder in the 1970s led to the development of a best-selling drug called finasteride, which is commonly prescribed to treat benign enlargement of the prostate and male pattern baldness. (You may know it by the brand name Propecia.) The drug mimics the enzyme deficiency by blocking the action of 5-alpha-reductase.

You can learn more about this rare condition and the people who have it on the BBC Two series Countdown to Life: The Extraordinary Making of You.

Complete Article HERE!

Posted on

8 lessons for my sexually uneducated teen self

By Scott Roberts

modern_teen

By what I can only assume was an issue with the timetable I ended up having sex education at least three times during my years of education at middle and high school (yes I went to a ‘middle school’).

And for all their effort I remember being confused, uninformed and altogether none the wiser when the teaching staff tried to inform us about the goings on of the birds and the bees, (a saying I actually still don’t fully understand the significance of. Birds don’t have sex with bees as far as I’m aware).

Having a partner who’s part Dutch and who received (in my opinion) the best sex education in the world, thanks to the Netherlands government, I’m taking the time to look back on my sex-ignorance and highlight some of the key things I’d wished I’d known back then.

1 – Porn is not an accurate representation of real bodies or real sex.

I could quote a load of statistics but I think it’s well enough known that my generation are among the first to grow up in a world where pornography is in such easy reach. I can hardly blame my education for being a little slow on the uptake of something relatively new, but for future sex ed it seems essential to incorporate teaching on how we should perceive pornography as fantasy and not based on real sex lives. It also seems more important to bring parents into sex ed to try and bridge the generation gap that the internet has caused.

2. How to properly check yourself.

I remember plenty of talks on what to do to prevent STIs but I cannot remember ever being told what’s healthy and good and what I should look out for in my own body. I learned more about my own body by visiting my GP for an MOT than I did from a whole series of sex education lessons. Even Youtube provided better sex ed than my school ever did thanks to guys like Riyadh K uploading videos on how to check your testicles for cancer – we were never told that in school.

3. Pleasure is one of the most if not the most important part of sex.

Pleasure was completely missed out of our sex education curriculum. There was such a strong emphasis on the adverse effects of sex and the dangers; the risks of STIs and unwanted pregnancy, that its main purpose was more or less completely ignored. An understanding of the body and pleasure seems essential if you’re going to teach sex ed. There is something intrinsically British about being embarrassed when communicating about our own bodies and all the weird and wonderful things they do. That needs to be swept away.

4. Some men have sex with other men and some women have sex with other women.

As a gay man (well, gay boy at the time) I was excluded from most topics covered by our sex ed. Everything catered to a heterosexual norm and the sex lives of gay people, let alone the relationships of gay people, were left well alone. Thank the lord for Queer as Folk.

5. The specific things you can do as a gay man to help protect yourself.

I only learnt of the real dangers for me as a sexually active gay man through taking some initiative and going to a clinic. I had no clue about hepatitis jabs and emergency HIV treatments and windows of infection. I learned a lot through being able to ask questions of someone I could trust who knows what they’re on about. I also found that going to a clinic completely reversed my expectations which were based on the stereotype of sexual health clinics being sleazy and disgusting. I found it to be a place where I could freely ask all the questions I had which weren’t being met by the teaching at school, (big up Worthing sexual health, woo!).

6. Relationships are a big part of sex education too.

There was so much focus on the physical that the emotional side was almost forgotten. All of the emotional side of things more often than not were put down to hormones. Those pesky hormones were responsible for everything! Nobody attempted to delve deeper into the way we were feeling emotionally and why we were driven to think that the Smiths really did understand us like nobody else did.

7. Consent. A topic that as far as I can remember was not even covered.

The darker side of things including abuse and rape was not touched on, which seems absolutely ridiculous. Teaching consent is essential, especially in an age where pornography is distorting the idea of what is perceived as acceptable and unacceptable in a healthy sexual relationship.

8. Confidence is the most important part of your body image.

In our teenage years we spend so much time obsessed with wanting to look good and fighting Mother Nature who has destined us to be spotty, greasy-haired, squeaky-voiced slobs. Accepting body image and being confident with your own body is probably one of the lessons that comes with age but it certainly would have helped having some reassurances from school forcing our eyes away from the skinny catwalk models and the chiselled muscle men that we were thinking we should look like.

I feel like this may have just turned into a list of failings of our education system. But maybe it isn’t ALL bad and maybe things are changing. If you had a similar experience or if you had a totally different experience of sex ed let me know your thoughts!

Complete Article HERE!

Posted on

8 Sex Positive Things You Can Say To Your Kids That Have Nothing To Do With Sex

By

leaves

“Sex positive” is, I am pleased to note, a term that has been gaining more attention in recent years. A social and philosophical response to repressed, limited, and often judgmental attitudes toward sex and sexuality, the sex positive movement emphasizes that “good sex” is defined as safe, informed, consensual, and whatever else it also is beyond those things is best left up to the people participating in the act. That’s it, and I think that’s awesome. As a parent, I am already doing my best to encourage sex positive attitudes in my children, who are 4-years-old and 19 months — despite the fact that they have absolutely no idea what sex is, and I don’t have plans to get into what it is with either of them any time soon. No, this is not a contradiction, and it’s not hard to do.

What it comes down to is this: Sex positivity rarely exists in a vacuum. It’s usually part of a larger life philosophy that believes all people are entitled to happiness and respect. I have found that there are broad areas of overlap between the body positive and fat acceptance movements, feminism, and the LGBT community. As such, there is so much a parent can say to their child that lays the groundwork for them to have happy, healthy, and fulfilling sex lives (when they’re ready) that don’t necessarily have a thing to do with sex.

“Your Body Belongs To You.”

your body

So not only does no one get touch you without your permission, but you decide what happens to it. If you teach little kids that this is true in the non-sexual streets, they’ll be more likely to automatically believe it once they grow up and get between the sheets.

“If They’re Not Having Fun, You Have To Stop; If You’re Not Having Fun, They Have To Stop.”

latest

Totally stolen from “Thomas” of Yes Means Yes, but when someone else writes something so well and so succinctly why reinvent the wheel? This concept of consent and mutual happiness doesn’t have to have a thing to do with sex to A) be great life advice, or B) set the scene to talk about and understand sexual consent later in life. To quote the original piece once again: “What I said will mean a lot of things in a lot of contexts; but it will always mean the same thing. Regard for one’s partner is a basic component of respect.”

“Penis. Vulva. Labia. Vagina. Breasts. Testicles.”

penis

Using grown up anatomical terms for all of a person’s various bits and bobs does a couple of sex positive things. It enables your child to talk about their body specifically, which can enable them to be specific and clear if there’s a problem. It also puts “bathing suit area” body parts on the same level as “arm” or “foot,” which we have collectively decided are not parts that require euphemisms. None of our body parts are anything to be secretive or ashamed about. Yes, of course, children should be taught that “vulvas are private” or “only you or a doctor is allowed to touch your testicles,” but that’s not going to be conveyed by giving those parts cutesy names and getting all jittery when someone talks about them.

“Love Is Love.”

indifferent

Kids will ultimately not find non-heterosexual relationships confusing at all (just ask same-sex parents). If a kid has never met a gay couple before, they might be a bit surprised by the idea the same way my kid was surprised the first time he saw purple M&Ms. But after, like, five seconds it’s like, “Oh. So this is the same basic concept as literally any other relationship/M&M I’ve ever encountered in my young life. Cool. Whatever.”

This was perhaps best conveyed by this little chap a few years ago…

Point is, letting your kids know that anyone can fall in love with anyone else doesn’t have to be a “very special after school special” conversation “when they’re old enough.” Anyone who thinks kids can ever be “too young” to be aware of non-heterosexual romantic relationships, by asserting that, is essentially just admitting, “I think there’s something wrong and bad and dangerous and upsetting about non-straight people.” Do you not feel that way? Then do yourself, your kids, and the world the favor of unburdening yourself of the idea that kids need to be grown up and holding onto something sturdy before they find out that some kids have two mommies. This is something anyone who understands what love and relationships are can understand. This sets the stage for your child to know acceptance is not for a select few, but for everyone.

“To Each Their Own.”

i'mma be me

This is basically one of the central tenets of sex positivity, but, again, doesn’t have to be limited to sexual attitudes. It’s never too early to tell your kids, “Look, different people are made happy by different things. Different people believe in different things. And sometimes those things may seem strange to you… and that’s fine. You don’t have to do what they do any more than they have to do as you say or believe.” I cannot count the number of times a day I have to tell my son, “You do not get to tell your sister how to play with her toys. It doesn’t matter if you think she’s playing with it wrong. There’s no right way to play with a truck.” Some day he might even get it!

“Everyone’s Body Deserves Respect.”

i respect you

The life blood of the sex positive movement is the idea of mutual respect. Of course, the idea that everyone deserves respect is a core tenet of, like, common human decency and hopefully everyone strives to instill this value in their children regardless of their desire for them to be raised with sex-positive attitudes. So I’ll take it a step beyond “everyone deserves respect” and talk about emphasizing the idea that every BODY deserves respect. Kid bodies, adult bodies, your body, other people’s bodies, disabled bodies, fat bodies, thin bodies, black bodies, women’s bodies, etc., and any intersection thereof. We can’t define a “good body” simply as one that is pleasing to a viewer. A good body is one that enables the person who lives inside of it to do things and be someone that makes them happy. Body positivity is going to be clutch in laying the groundwork for sex positivity.

“You Are Loved And Valued.”

you is kind

Sex positivity is nothing without self-esteem. Also kids thrive on the stuff, so it’s a good idea anyway.

“I Am Here Whenever You Need Someone To Listen.”

i'll be there

Complete Article HERE!

Posted on

Talk Dirty to Me: The Why and How of Hot Aural Sex

Want to have better sex? Speak up!

By JoEllen Notte

talk dirty

The more I talk to people about sex, the more I see that so many of them struggle with the very same things. High up on this list is sexual communication. Whether it’s navigating consent, ensuring that they get what they need, or being a better partner, an awful lot of couples come up short because their approach falls somewhere between mind reading and charades. I’d like to offer a better way. My suggestion? Dirty talk.

Dirty talk is hardly groundbreaking stuff, but according to a 2011 poll by Adam & Eve, nearly one-third of people never talk dirty, while another 33 percent only do so sometimes. So I’m going to come right out and say it: If you and your partner aren’t talking dirty, you could be missing out. Here are some key reasons why you should let the filth fly – and how you shy types can get the conversation started.

 

Complete Article HERE!

Posted on

Men in Relationships Assume Their Girlfriends Don’t Want to Fuck

by Gabby Bess

According to a new study, this could be a good thing.

men-in-long-term-relationships-dont-think-their-girlfriends-want-to-fuck-them

Sex is complicated, not least because it generally involves two people with varying wants and needs that don’t always match up—and aren’t always obvious. In the context of evolution, heterosexually speaking (sorry), men are characterized as pursers who are always down to bone down. Women, on the other hand, are considered more selective. Because of these caveman instincts, research has suggested, men—when dimly trawling bars or Tinder for mates—tend to over-perceive just exactly how interested a woman is in having sex with them so they don’t “miss out” on the rare opportunity to spread their seed.But does that perception last once these males enter into a long-term relationship? That’s the question Amy Miuse, a researcher at the University of Toronto who has the fun job of studying couples and sex, asked in a recent report. “All of the research on perceiving desire has been done on initial encounters; people meeting for the first time. In those studies, men tend to over-perceive the amount that a woman is sexually interested in them than the women tend to report. What we were interested in is what happens when people enter into an established relationship,” Miuse tells Broadly.

Muise and her team asked participating couples to complete individual background surveys about their sexual desire and subsequent surveys over a period of 21 days. For the most part, the lovers could accurately assess if their partner was in the mood or not. But the researchers discovered—surprisingly—that men in relationships consistently tend to think that their partners want to have less sex than they actually do. The reason for this, Muise said, is that latent under-perception of desire could have long-term benefits. While believing that your partner doesn’t want to have sex with you (accurately or not) could be a bummer for you in the short term, the researchers found that the partners of under-perceiving men reported higher relationship satisfaction and commitment.

It’s not entirely clear how under-perception bias explicitly leads to these positive associations, but Muise speculated that aside from the fact that it could lessen unwanted pressure on women to have sex, Muise says under-perception bias could also stop men from becoming complacent. “There’s still some more work to be done to figure out exactly what’s going on there. But one possibility is that perhaps when men are under-perceiving, they’re much more motivated to do things to entice their partner, make their partner feel good, and express their love and commitment to the relationship. And women are feeling more satisfied and committed as a result,” Muise says.

“For example, taking it outside of sexual desire, if I overestimate how much my partner loves me, I might just think that I can sit back and I that I don’t have to put in a lot of effort into the relationship because they’re already so much in love with me that it doesn’t really matter what I do. But if I were to under-perceive that slightly then maybe that can keep me a little bit more motivated to keep my partner’s interest,” she says. Under-perception bias could also serve to help minimize the risk of rejection.

Importantly, however, Muise explains that the tendency to under-percieve sexual desire isn’t gender specific. In most cases it corresponds to the partner with the higher sex drive. “The bias occurs in who tends to be more interested in having sex,” she says. Because of this, Muise theorizes that under-perception bias could be a mechanism to balance conflicting levels of sexual interest and maintain harmony in the relationship. “Theoretically, this would help to maintain the relationship overtime, but to have that evidence we would need to follow couples for a longer period of time,” she says.

Complete Article HERE!

Posted on

But to be young was very heaven!

This is the first time I’ve asked a question and my boyfriend said this is a great place to go, soo here goes…
I recently went off of the anti-depressant medication Lexapro, and what’s fantastic about it is that my sex drive has gone way up. The downfall is since I started that, it’s hard for me to get hard and to come. Now that I am off of the medication, I can come easier and everything feels better and my boyfriend is happy, but it’s still really hard to get hard and stay hard. My boyfriend says he doesn’t mind when I know he does, and it is a really big hit on my confidence and self-esteem. Here’s the kicker, I am a 17-year-old teenage boy.
Is this permanent? Will it, in the future, be easier to get and stay hard the longer I am off the medication? I don’t know if this is normal or not, but I remember before having absolutely no problems. Help? Thank you so much!!
-Very Shy

Well, Very Shy, what I can say for certain is that anti-depressants, as well as a host of other commonly prescribed medications, and even some over the counter meds, can and do have a major impact on a person’s sexual response cycle. Let me begin by asking you; how familiar are you with the concept of a sexual response cycle?

Considering your youth, you may have not heard of it at all. So ok, here’s the 411 on that. We all have a sexual response cycle, each person’s is unique, but everyone’s follows a similar pattern of phases.

sexual response cycle

Phase 1: Excitement — this phase, which can last from a few minutes to several hours, includes the following:

  • Muscle tension increases.
  • Heart rate quickens and breathing accelerates.
  • Skin may become flushed.
  • Nipples become harden or erect.
  • Blood flow to the genitals increases, which swells a woman’s clitoris and labia minora (inner lips), and a guy’s cock bones up.
  • Vaginal lubrication begins.
  • A woman’s breasts become fuller and her vaginal walls begin to swell.
  • The man’s balls swell, his scrotum tightens, and he begins secreting precum.

Phase 2: Plateau — this phase, which extends to the brink of orgasm, includes the following:

  • The changes begun in phase 1 intensify.
  • A woman’s vagina continues to swell from increased blood flow, and her vaginal walls turn a dark purple.
  • Her clitoris becomes highly sensitive and retracts under her clitoral hood.
  • A guy’s nuts further withdraw up into his scrotum.
  • Breathing, heart rate and blood pressure continue to rise.
  • Muscle tension increases.
  • Muscle spasms may begin in one’s feet, face and hands.

Phase 3: Orgasm — this is the climax of the sexual response cycle and it generally lasts only a few seconds. It includes the following:

  • Involuntary muscle contractions begin.
  • Blood pressure, heart rate and breathing are at their highest rates, with a rapid intake of oxygen.
  • Muscles in the feet spasm.
  • There is a sudden, forceful release of sexual tension.
  • A women’s vagina contracts. She may experience rhythmic contractions in her uterus.
  • The muscles at the base of a guy’s dick will rhythmically contract resulting in an ejaculation of his jizz.
  • A sex flush may appear over one’s body.

Phase 4: Resolution

  • The body slowly returns to its normal level of functioning, and swelled and erect body parts return to their previous size and color.
  • There’s a general sense of well-being, enhanced intimacy and, often, fatigue. Women are capable of rapidly returning to the orgasm phase with further sexual stimulation and can experience multiple orgasms.
  • Us men folk need recovery time after our orgasm. This is called a refractory period, during which we cannot reach orgasm again. The duration of the refractory period varies among men and changes with age.

With that behind us, I can turn my attention to your specific questions. At any point in this cycle there can be an interruption or break down. Like I said at the outset, some pharmaceuticals, as well as lots of over the counter remedies, can and do impede our sexual response.

You don’t mention how long you’ve been off the Lexapro, but I’ll wager it’s not long enough for it to have completely cleared your system. In that case, a little patience with yourself and perhaps a sense of humor about the whole thing will be the best therapy for you. I suspect that you will regain your sexual footing in time. However, a cockring may help you gain and retain an erection till that happens.

Good luck

Posted on

New At This?

Name: Sita
Gender: female
Age: 19
Location: Delhi
Hi!
I came to know u through the net. I am from India and I am 19 years old. I am married for the past one year and I have a problem. Myself and my husband had sexual relationship which meant only breaking of the hymen but whenever he tries to insert it I cry out of pain and stop him from it. I really do not know how to overcome this problem. Kindly help me please.

The two most likely reasons for this painful fucking are: 1) you’re not aroused enough before the fucking begins, or 2) you have a physical condition that might make fucking painful, even if you are aroused.

I’d be willing to bet that, in your case, Sita, the first reason is the more likely cause of your discomfort. This is often the case with young people having their first go at sex. One can hardly fault them, both women and men in our culture as well as the women and men in yours are not particularly informed about their own sexual response cycle, much less the sexual response cycle of their partners.

Young women new to sex, may not have time to come to full arousal before their man starts trying to shove “it” in. A woman, particularly one who is new to fucking, must come to full arousal before her partner attempts penetration. A man, on the other hand, needs only to have a stiff dick. And if the young men in your country are anything like the young men here in the good old US of A, they pretty much have a hardon 24 hours a day. This obviously makes them ready and eager for the old in and out long before their female partners are ready and eager for the same. If your husband is guilty of this, and I’d bet my last rupee that he is, your body will resist him, even if you want to make a go of it.

I’d also be willing to bet that your culture, like ours, doesn’t value a woman’s sexuality or pleasure as much as it values a man’s sexuality and pleasure. If that’s the case, you’re gonna have to struggle against those cultural forces to gain your rightful place as an equal sex partner in your marriage.

jillin off

Start by being well informed about your own sexual response cycle. If you don’t know what turns your crank, don’t expect your hubby to know what to do.

My first question to you is: are you orgasmic? If not, there’s a whole lot of remedial sex learning for you to do on your own. If you resist doing this, for whatever reason — women are not supposed to do that, blah, blah, blah —you can say good by to ever enjoying sex with your man.

Once you figure out how your body work, it’s gonna be your responsibility to instruct your husband on the subtleties and points of interest of your particular pussy. Touch is very important to most women: often a woman will want to be touched and caressed all over, not just on the sexually charged points of her body like her tits and clit. Take your husband on a little touch tour of your body. Literally, take him by the hand and touch yourself with his fingers. Show him the kind of touch you like in the places you like to be touched. Take your time with this. I can guarantee he’s not gonna get it the first time out.

With your help he’s gonna be able to see your arousal build. He should be encouraged to use his lips and mouth as well as his hands. Make your man work for his bone, darling. If you let him just pounce on you like a sack of rice, that’s how he’s gonna respond to you. If you want him to behave like a lover rather than a conqueror, then you’re gonna have to demand that of him.

If you’re not fully aroused, your pussy will be dry. Use a lubricant to make yourself slippery and to facilitate penetration. If you can’t get commercial lube, cooking oil or saliva is better than nothing at all.

more lube

If you follow these simple steps, Sita, you will have greater success with your fucking. You will experience great pleasure and be a fount of great pleasure for your husband. In the end, it is you who must take the lead in this. Know your own body, so you can give teach your husband about it. Then insist that he must respect and use that information.

Good luck

Posted on

Even Fewer Kids Are Learning Basic Things About Sex Ed

BY TARA CULP-RESSLER

sex ed

The United States, which has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the developed world, isn’t exactly known for its top-notch sexual health resources. But a new study suggests that our country’s sex ed has gotten even worse in recent years.

Even fewer teens are now getting basic sex ed information, like formal instruction about how to use birth control, according to researchers at the Guttmacher Institute who compared sexual health data over a seven year period.

The researchers compared data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during two of the agency’s survey periods: the 2006–2010 survey and 2011–2013 survey. These surveys included questions for teens about whether they ever received formal sex education materials — like how to prevent sexually transmitted infections, how to say no to sex, how to put on a condom, and how to use different methods of contraception — before they turned 18.

In the 2006-2010 survey period, 70 percent of girls and 61 percent of boys said they had received some information about birth control methods. But in the later survey period, those numbers dropped to 60 percent among girls and 55 percent among boys.

As time passed, fewer girls also reported receiving any formal education on how to prevent STDs and how to say no to sex. These declines were particularly acute in rural areas of the country, where teens already struggle with higher rates of unintended pregnancies.

teensexedpressrelease_002

The study’s lead researcher, Laura Duberstein Lindberg, characterized the declines in sex ed instruction as “distressing.” She also pointed out that this data fits into a bigger pattern in the United States. Over the past two decades, the number of teens receiving formal instruction about birth control has been steadily declining, and abstinence-only classes that don’t include accurate information about sexual health have persisted.

“The United States is moving in the wrong direction,” said Leslie Kantor, the vice president of education at Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest sex ed provider. “Sex education can make a real difference in adolescents’ overall health and well-being. The fact that young people are being deprived of information critical to their sexual health is unacceptable.”

Only 21 states and the District of Columbia currently require sex education and HIV education to be taught in public schools. An even fewer number, 18, explicitly require information about contraception in the classroom. On the other end of the spectrum, 37 states mandate that schools should focus on lessons about abstinence.

There’s a lot of evidence that providing teens with accurate information about sex ed helps them make healthier choices. Sex ed classes are actually linked to a delay in sexual activity — suggesting that, instead of spurring teens to become more sexually active, talking to them about sex actually helps them make more thoughtful decisions about their bodies.

“We need to right the ship, get back on track, and make sure all students receive quality sex education that prepares them to make informed and healthy decisions,” said Debra Hauser, the president of Advocates for Youth, a nonprofit group focusing on the reproductive health issues that are important to young people.

 Complete Article HERE!