These Misunderstandings Between Us

MY INTRODUCTION TO YOU

Disclaimer:

This blog entry is for consenting adults and is not meant for anyone who is in crisis mode, unwanted pregnancy, rape, suspecting an STD or domestic abuse. I am not qualified to deal with that in a written blog. For those who have stumbled across this blog and need urgent help, go to your nearest doctor or hospital. Even if your doctor is not fully comfortable talking about certain subjects he or she should be professional enough to direct you to the right professional. You also have the right, normally, to ask for a service provider with a gender you feel more comfortable speaking with. Go now! I promise it will be better than going it alone. This blog entry is aimed at heterosexual sex. I do not feel qualified to talk about sex between those with other sexual orientations though the premise of this entry is applicable to everyone.


I write now from a place where men love and respect women; and where women listen to men offering their full respect. I write to you both.

This blog entry is meant as sex education for adults. As well it is an observation on what I think men and women misunderstand about each other. How we learn about sex, and from whom, has a lasting effect on the rest of our sexual lives. Because sex is taught, or not taught at all, in any consistent manner it is rare, I think, that we actually meet people we are sexually satisfied by or compatible with. Yet, when we are not satisfied rarely do people understand why or how to negotiate getting what they want. We too often leave it up to our partners to 'just know' what to do but how can one be expected to know what to do when one never learned? How can one possibly know what turns another person on when no two people are the same? Sexual pleasure is intricately intertwined with our emotional experiences. When we are sad or worried we may not be thinking of sexual engagement. But the other side of that coin is that we may not enjoy sex at all unless a specific salient memory is in place. Perhaps we saw, smelled, or tasted something that sexually aroused us at one time. That memory (or object) may need to be in place before we can feel sexually gratified or satiated. The impact upon our sexual lives is directly related to how we learned about sex, from whom and was the experience even one which we wish to remember or repeat? The ensuing influence, as we struggle to engage in relationships with people we want sex from, can have sad, sometimes detrimental, and an ongoing impact upon our lives. It may surprise women to know that men are just as likely to complain about sex from women as women complain about sex with men. Men have the same intimidation's, insecurities, worries and concerns as women. In that respect we are even. What is different is how we become aroused. And men will never figure us out if we leave porn to teach men about us. We need to teach men. But we can not teach men until we are the masters of our own bodies.

Advice columns are filled with advice seekers scared to talk to their children, husbands, wives and partners about sex; wanting advice on how to go about 'the talk'. Sexual talk becomes euphemistic: 'the birds-and-the-bees', 'the talk' or some other coined phrase. This itself should give us clue as to the level of discomfort we impart onto those we are trying to educate. When we find infantile words to describe our genitals, (wee-wee, Vajayjay), or even worse, vague, (that's were babies come from), you are now a woman, (once menstruation begins), we have coded the language in such a way that insecurity, ambiguity and tons of room for getting it all wrong are sure to result, and follow us in the subsequent years when we attempt to put things into perspective and into practise. I understand the temptation to keep things vague. There is this unfounded assumption that direct and frank means all hell will break loose but at the same time would you want an academic teacher teaching math or science with euphemisms or in a vague manner? Why so sex? I posit that the more vague sex becomes the worse trouble people get themselves into. Informed consent should be the goal we all reach for when consenting to be sexually engaged. Informed about our own bodies, informed about the person we wish to be engaged in sex with, and informed of the consequences, (pregnancy, disease, etc.), thereinto.

I spent a good twenty-five years listening to much of the ways in which people engage in sex. Nothing surprises me though I don't feel wearied by the subject. I've listened to men, women, gay, straight, lesbians, sex workers, the indiscriminate, and those that don't know how to say, no. I've listened to Lotharios, Don Juana's, to people who've never orgasm-ed to those that orgasm three times a day, everyday, with snacks in between. I've heard the stories of people who engage in sex and hate the activity to those that love it and feel unloved. I've listened to women with three children tell me they believe babies come from "where you pee". I've heard men talk about the blow jobs they deserve and think cunnilingus is "just nasty". I've heard women who have never engaged in cunnilingus declare that 'it's nasty' and never want to hear it suggested by their partners. I've been privy to married couples telling me they've never looked at each other naked. I've met women who define themselves as lesbian yet make their livelihood trading sex with men. I've learned that many cultures and religions, because of the importance placed on virginity, has produced gobs of people who engage in anal sex because it runs no risk of pregnancy and allows people to marry as technical virgins. I've heard women lament they can't breast feed because their breasts are for their male partner and he wouldn't like it. I've heard the stories of women who've been fucked by their brother, and brothers who have fucked their sisters, girls who have fucked the kids they babysat and parents that fucked their kids. I know people who have never had sex with the lights on. I've listened to the raped, the violated and to those men and women that don't know how to keep unwanted people, touches or attention away from their bodies. I've heard, too many times, men and women declare: He won't let me: (chose one), use a condom, say no, orgasm, have vaginal sex - only anal, have sex when I want to. I've learned that the less people talk about sex the more perverse and less enjoyable it becomes. That people engage in sex with people they don't want to be with just to feel close and to get touched. I know people who think of sex as a necessary evil and orgasm in the same way they defecate--they put their penis in the intimate folds of another warm body, ejaculate and quickly remove themselves from the actual evidence of intimacy. It's a necessity like eating and pleasure is not a part of the equation.

Somewhere in the above paragraph is you, me and the rest of the world. (Your education level does not exclude you from this list nor do your race, religion or eating habits).

Many people consider sex a private matter and many people have a difficult time talking about or even listening to others talk about sex. This phenomena is never due to sex itself but rather how we have originally learned about sex and the comfort level that was conveyed to us. Who are you going to talk to about sex if what you want to do you imagine is wrong, or weird, or abnormal? Who do you talk to? Your doctor? He or she probably learned sex in the same lame way you learned about sex but your doctor has also probably heard way more sexual stories than the Average Joe  and should be professional enough to guide you to the appropriate person you need to see. Your parish priest? He isn't supposed to be having sex and if he is, he's doing so under a guise of deceit and shame. (Any sex that is hidden or lied about, by default, is deceitful and riddled with some form of shame). Your trusted mother? Good luck with that. A prostitute? A family member? There is no right or wrong person but it should be someone who doesn't have a glass ceiling in terms of what they won't listen to once you reach a specific activity.  Or who because of their profession or belief system is required to stick to a script that forbids a particular activity or brings in concepts of sin with anything to do with sex. "I'll talk to you about oral sex but I draw the line or condemn you to hell at incest or homosexuality". It has to be a person who can listen to it all and it should be a person who will not give crazy advice, ( I heard jumping up and down in an elevator after unprotected sex will prevent pregnancy), but if they don't know the answer to something can direct you to the correct person who will know. If you get the wrong person two things can happen: You'll feel worse than you did before asking and you are even more likely to walk away even deeper into your isolation than before. Talking about sex should be, by default, fun and funny. All of your concerns and questions should be taken seriously, you should always be given information on how to engage in sex, the sex of your choice, in a safe, healthy and respectful manner, but you should also be having fun.

There are entire cultures that learn about sex through porn. In these cultures real breathing women are not presumed to be good women if they give any indication that they are sexual on any level so asking mom, sister, female gym teacher or guidance counselor for information does not exist. Because men in some cultures are thought to be the teachers of sex to women, a source for learning must be had, but if it doesn't come from any real living woman it must come from somewhere and it is usually porn. Women wouldn't be so vehemently opposed to porn if it actually presented women in scenarios that were plausible and had anything to do with real women and how our bodies respond. And the other problem is that young boys, being shown porn, do not have the luxury of a running commentary given by a woman who stops the film for further discussion and whom offers a counter interpretation of what one just witnessed. They say porn is for men but I seriously doubt this. I doubt it because I do not believe men ache inside for a woman who enjoys being humiliated, shared, passed around, fucked until she is raw or who wants him to jack off in her face or who wants foreign object rammed up her rectum. I am positively certain men are not looking for women who fake orgasms. The man that does want this from a woman is not a man that loves women. He hates women- he's a misogynist. The fact that this is such a common theme in porn makes me believe that misogynists make most porn and that the Average Joe (you), not knowing what true misogyny looks like, has become seriously confused along the way. If the objection that you wish to insert here is that men are visual I would agree but what he sees and is turned on to should be in the hands of women, not misogynists. Can we agree on that? I mean otherwise you are asking women to degrade themselves AND compete with women that don't really exist.

There are men, who are dropped off with prostitutes by their father's, to learn about sex. In the romantic imagination this scenario requires one to believe they have dropped their son off with a Pretty Woman  for a few hours but the odds are it was Aileen Wuornos that you left your son with. And if you survived the Aileen Wuornos Method To Good Sex I would suggest that you learned a method that didn't convey well to others. (I knew a man once whose father went this route. He sent his son back to the 'old country' where first time sexual experiences were traditionally done with prostitutes. His son went, met with a prostitute, left the encounter and was so traumatized, that he decided to throw himself off the deck of the ocean liner he was returning home on, and instead hit the deck below leaving him permanently paralyzed from the neck down). 

The biggest complaint I have heard men lament is that they wish the women they love would initiate sex more. Women don't initiate sex with men who aren't into foreplay (unless it's a booty-call), (and you won't be called back if you are selfish in bed). No one has your number on speed dial if you think just showing up with expensive shoes on is all that is needed. Women lay there, because they are bored and want the whole ordeal over with. They lay there because they are uninspired. They are uninspired because they don't know where the control panel is on their own bodies, and they don't know how to take over and teach you what to do. Women have also been taught that you, the man, are supposed to know what to do, and if nothing is going to plan, we stare at the ceiling and think of the Queen. Or we make mental notes about our future spent blocking your calls. If men don't ask and women don't direct, and vice versa, that is what sex is like; an event where minutes are counted, and men get to cum but never do so with fireworks. That kind of encounter means men have sexual tension released and women can get on with their day. When no one is saying anything about their sexual needs and no one is asking, no one is having great sex. Cumming does not mean great sex. What I've just described is having a warm body near to fulfill a sexual urge. That's not great sex. Great sex is something I want to repeat. Great sex deepens relationships. Great sex means I do not have time or the desire to think of the Queen.

(A note about sex and culture:  Some cultures teach women, and men, that sex is solely for procreation and not for fun. I can not get into the details of that here. You should however consider this when talking to your partner about sex. Not everyone learns about sex the way you have and sex is not uniformly perceived, thought of or enjoyed the same around the world). Everything on a man's body is right out in front and external. You have to touch your dick every time you take a piss. That right there makes you have a head start. Most women, (with no specific age limitation), were taught to not even acknowledge that there is anything below the navel except their feet. We are taught that only professionals should be down there and even the professions have guidelines about how often it should be looked at - once a year! Women have a lot of mishegoss to get rid of (as well do men). We can help each other. I can not stress enough how important and liberating it is, to sit naked with each other and really poke around and ask questions and experiment with what feels good and what doesn't with the one you love. It is also a bonding experience. People naturally feel more comfortable getting naked and letting go with someone who knows all the nooks and crannies and whom they can trust. You would be surprised by how many women have never explored their bodies and have never masturbated. Even alone in a room, all by ourselves, with no one looking, women often feel uncomfortable touching their own bodies. We, we women are well on our way but we have a ways to go before the legacy of having learned that our own bodies are not ours to control comes to an end. Men are crucial to supporting and learning alongside us as we explore the various ways in which to relearn how to successfully be together. You have much to teach us about your bodies too. Take time to talk about sex with your partners. Make it light and conversational. You are simply trying to gather information and learn what makes your lover tick. The very best place to talk about sex with your lover is pretty much anywhere where you are both relaxed, feel safe and are fully dressed. Negotiations need to take place when both people are in places of empowerment, not when one person is half clothed and vulnerable. You also do not want to create a psychological connection between your bed and arguments or dissatisfaction. That's Moira's Rule.

For a moment: Think about all the men and women whose first encounter with sex was rape from a stranger. Now think about all the men and women whose first encounter with sex was through incest.
Think about all the women who were teased in high school and had their breasts grabbed. Think about all the young boys who were called faggot and sissy, and all the young girls who were called dykes, and bull dykes. Think about all the black men who think they are being given attention by a woman of a different race only to hear she wants to know if his dick is really bigger. Think about all the women who think they are being loved when suddenly they are told by their partner that he or she always wanted to fuck a woman/man of (name a race).  I want you to think about this because I want you to really understand all the possible things that can be brought to the bedroom, that make things complicated. Even you, you who reads this and has decided you are normal with no horror stories in your background… even you are suspect by someone else with different ideas. Whatever you think is normal is abnormal to someone else. And someone's abnormal to you is normal to them. You think doggy-style is normal? Some groups of people consider this abnormal. You don't mind having sex with your love when she is menstruating? There are others who would see you as an abomination. So give up your notions concerning normal or abnormal and instead focus on, does this feel good, or not. Focus on: Where is your clit? Ask him: Do you like your testicles licked more or less than having you penis sucked. Say things like: Would you watch me masturbate, and then after, can I watch you? Cumming is the end result of great sex but how you get to that conclusion is what makes sex great.

Discussing sex with your partner should get you thinking about other things. I am going to list topics that come to my mind but you will most likely have your own agenda unique to your relationships.
How do I demand fidelity from my partner if I do not provide my partner with any sexual intimacy? How do I demand fidelity from my partner if I can not or refuse to sexually satisfy her/him (give them an orgasm?) What if my partner demands a sexual activity that I am not comfortable with? Why am I not comfortable with the act? Is it painful? Does it remind me of something I don't like? Is it because I've never tried it before and it seems scary? Do I think it is morally wrong? Do I think it means my partner is a pervert? Am I sexually attracted to my partner? On a scale of 1-10 how much do I trust my partner to be truthful with me about anything? - The answer to that may give you a clue about your sexual comfort with your partner.

A Word About HIV Testing: The time to find out about your HIV status was yesterday. There are no more excuses, and you are not the exception to any rule. Knowing that your sexual partner is HIV- has a huge impact upon one's sexual activity and comfort level. If you have ever had an STD of any kind I am sure you were surprised when you learned you contracted the STD. I am equally sure that in hindsight, the person you contracted the disease from, had they had a sign declaring they had such and such a disease, would not have been someone you would have had sex with. The exact same way you may have contracted syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes, or whatever it was you were told you had, is the exact same way you can become HIV infected. Do yourself a favour and get tested already. The yearly check-up you get from your doctor DOES NOT INCLUDE AN HIV TEST! HIV testing in the United States and Mexico, (and I am sure in most of the world now), requires a specific form to be signed and can not be performed without your consent. You have to be clearly informed that you are being tested. If you can not remember if you were HIV tested the odds are you weren't.  Honestly? People who refuse to get tested are just annoying. Don't be annoying. Get tested.

Now, let's talk about sex.


SHOW & TELL ME MORE

There are two parts to women's sexual and reproductive anatomy - I will refer to it as Side A and Side B. The A side, if you are not clinically familiar with it, requires you to go ask your girlfriend for a show and tell session. Go make some popcorn, get comfortable, bring refreshments, a sketch pad if necessary, and the woman that you love and trust. Do not under any circumstance bring your cell phone into the room. Everything on the A side you should know by name, know its function and know what your tongue, fingers and penis can do with it. The A side is your control panel, so to say, for everything that happens on the B side. Both you and she are in control of this panel. Put your favourite music on, lay back and depending upon the time of day you are doing this, have a flashlight handy. Touch her, spread things apart. Get in close and take a good look. Stare at it until it looks boring or hysterically funny.

You think I look funny?

You should be doing the same thing with your dick and balls. Let her roll them around and poke stuff. Ask questions. I used to think a mans' anus was on the other side of his balls and that the sole function of testicles was to keep his anus hidden from view. Everyone has crazy ideas at one time or another about sexual things. I also didn't know why sometimes a man's testicles were close to his body and at other times they looked like an archaeological find of slingshots in mid stretch with stones still attached.

Side A looks like this:

Side A (drawn by your parents)

From the top: The mons pubis (or mons veneris) or in plain English 'mounting the pubes' as in pubic hair.

Urethral opening: That is where you pee from and not where babies come from.

Labia minora: Minor (thinner, smaller) lips
Labia majora: Major (thicker) lips. Labia minora do not have hair growing from the skin.

Hood of clitoris: from your angle, you looking in, it is like your foreskin but only at 12 o'clock. Pull the hood back gently and voila! The Clitoris. This is the start button on the control panel. If you don't know where it is, don't use it, or care for it, you're in for a lifetime of the ooh, aahh, yeah baby sound effects loop. The Clitoris is your friend. It likes you. And when you are not around to play with it your loved one should be keeping it in shape by using it without you.

The Fourchette (French for 'fork') as in fork in the road. No woman has ever been heard to utter, "He never pays enough attention to my Fourchette". She will however, if she is dry or you are a klutz feel pain there because the area, the skin there, is thin and can be prone to tearing. The space between the Fourchette and the Perineum (north to south) is where obstetricians cut or it is torn when during childbirth the baby's head requires more room in which to exit the vagina. If your beloved is seen making this gesture to you, after you've reviewed your homework, you should be eagerly ready to find your way to the fork in the road.

This Will Be On The Test

The Anus or rectum is where we defecate from. I've include this second picture because for some weird reason the first picture didn't want anyone to know where your dick is meant to be inserted. (Your parents probably drew the first picture). It's that big bulls-eye at dead center called the vaginal opening. The entire area from mons pubis to, just shy of the anus, is called the vulva.

There are no two vulva's that look the same and what a woman's vulva layout looks like is no indication of its functionality which is why you need to go get the flashlight and go check out what your beloved looks like. Here is a sample of vulva variety. They run the gamut really.

Side A

Side B, everything that's internal and which you can't see, is no less important. When a woman gets a pelvic exam the gynecologist can see all along the vagina corridor to the tip of the cervix. That's all s/he can see. Fallopian tubes, tonsils, teeth, eggs, none of that is visible and the vagina ends at the cervix which means your impulse to see how much can be stuffed in there should be contemplated in the same way you want me wondering how much I can shove into your urethra. Doesn't seem so interesting after all, does it? It's a vagina, not Mary Poppins' Magic Carpet Bag. The wall of the vagina can have various textures, rough, smooth, bumpy, all of which mean nothing other than no two are the same.

Various Vulvas

Side B looks like this:

The Ovary (A). This is the egg factory. There are two ovaries because each month, alternating, an egg drops out of the sac and gets grabbed by the Fallopian Tubes (B) which has teeny tiny hair follicles inside, which ever so gently coax the egg along to the Uterus (D). The uterus is a muscle that looks like a pear. If you get pregnant that egg attaches itself to the inside of the uterus and as the baby grows that uterus muscle stretches and stretches (9 months worth of stretching) till such time that it can stretch no more and its time for the baby to be born. If you are not pregnant, all of those nutrients and fertile skin that got all psyched up and ready to grow the egg says to themselves: Better Luck Next Time! and rid themselves from a woman's body in the form of her menstruation or Period.  The Cervix (E) is the opening to the uterus and also the end of the vagina. Upon pelvic examination the cervix looks a bit like donuts except the hole is so small only about the diameter of a hair could enter or your microscopic sperm. You do not want anything going past that hole other than disease free sperm otherwise you can

kind of like your cervix

cause a woman a lifetime of grief. The other side of that hole is reserved for VIPs with medical degrees. It's like that appliance you bought that comes with a sticker that reads: no serviceable parts beyond this panel. The Vagina (F) is where your penis disappears to after you stick it in the bulls-eye hole on Side A. The vagina is a muscle too and it shares a side (recto-vaginal septum) with your rectum. That's important to know because sometimes women learn they have an STD because they experience discharge and oddities in their stool and not the vagina. This is because STD diseases can often seep through the vaginal muscle wall and into the rectum. Some men say that they can feel the cervix when they penetrate women. If you can't this is not a reason to start worrying about the size of your dick which I will discuss later. (But in case you're already sweating bullets, that section is called Size Doesn't Matter!)

The Bartholin's Gland (G) is where the lube dispenser is. But just because it is there does not mean it is dispensing lube. Some women become wet, (lubricated), from this gland on their own. Many do not which is why foreplay is crucial. With foreplay, (oral sex, fingering), you activate this gland and the women then becomes lubricated. You want a woman lubricated because without lubrication your penis upon entry inside her feels painful like its been wrapped in cotton battling. Remember your control panel and begin exploring the on button. From the diagram of Side B one would be hard pressed to figure out what (C & H) are referring to so you will have to go back and look at Side A to re-orient yourself: C&H are the Labia Minora and Majora.

HOW TO MASTURBATE

The better you get with diddling yourself the better you will understand your own body and be able to convey to your lover how to bring you to orgasm. I would suggest for the first time diddler that vibrators not be used. Why? Vibrators are not subtle and you want to learn the subtleties of your body; vibrators provide a much stronger vibration than your hand and fingers can provide and it is possible to get so used to the intensity that they provide that reaching an orgasm without one becomes next to impossible. Too, your goal in bed is to have sex with your lover and for he or she to bring you to climax and no one feels more left out when you arrive with your own box of tools. This is not to say you shouldn't own a vibrator its just to say that one should use them wisely and in an inclusive way rather than showing up demanding that electrical sockets be handy.

You look funny too.

Somewhere between birth and death we learn that touching ourselves is wrong. We come into the world exploring our bodies, touching ourselves, deriving pleasure from the activity and then someone bigger than us comes along and says: Knock it off! Then we get really old and we start touching ourselves all over again. (People near the end of life, with dementia, say, are often seen fondling their genitals). Playing with yourself is a normal, instinctual activity. There is no one way to do it and doing it insures you know what gives you pleasure.

SEX SHOPS HAVE COME A LONG WAY

A few years back, the only way to purchase a vibrator was through the mail or in some seedy cum encrusted store inhabited by creepy men watching films in the back. My first foray into self exploration had me calling up my married ex-boyfriend, explaining the situation to his wife and asking if she wouldn't mind loaning him to me as an escort. We walked along 42nd Street in Manhattan (back when 42nd Street was the ground zero of seediness  I bought my first dildo. It had a vibrator attached and I picked it out only because I didn't know any better about all there was to offer. When I got it home and actually played around with it it took me a few sessions to realize that the dildo part of it was useless to me and that the part that vibrated was the good part. I ended up using the penis part of it just to hold on to and guide the vibrating base around. Sex stores have come a long way since then and they are no longer places that a woman wouldn't be caught dead in. Most large cities now have stores that one can enter even as a woman alone without worry. They can often be found in gay communities run by gay men and women who are over joyed to show you around the store helping you to find just what you are looking for free of embarrassment. In New York City one can still go to Eve's Garden which is completely run by women and where, the last time I went, men were not allowed unless accompanied by a woman!

Vibrators vibrate so that one can stimulate Side A. Dildos penetrate and are most often used with Side B. They run the gamut in size, shape, intensity, material, colour, etc. You want something you can manage easily. If it is to be used on you, your preference should be that you own the device. What I mean by this is sex toys, like real penises and vagina's, should be cleaned or capped with a condom if used on more than one person. Things that enter the rectum should not enter the vagina or mouth for health reasons unless cleaned first. Mouth, vagina, ending in rectum = OK. Rectum to mouth or vagina= not OK. Draw schematics and place over your bed if necessary.

How To Masturbate. This is one of those activities that has no right place to happen and there is no one way to perform it. For some it is the bathtub, the shower, the bed, the car in traffic. For others it involves water, spit, lube, or cooking oil. (Remember though that cooking oils destroy condoms and only lubricants safe for latex should be used). For first timers, be someplace you feel safe and warm. Light candles. Create an environment that seems right to you for masturbation. Get naked. Run your hands over your body and experiment with what feels good and what doesn't. Using coconut oil, (or some other type of gliding oil), is useful here. You want your hands and fingers to glide over your body in a sensual way. A word to the wise: Your first orgasm may feel scary to you. That is not abnormal. As you come close to climax the feeling should intensify and for some that intensity is overwhelming. It feels like you are about to lose control and that can be scary for some. Nothing bad is going to happen and your goal is to stay with that feeling until you orgasm. It can be disconcerting for some but it is normal that both men and women have been known to cry when having an orgasm. Letting go is difficult for many of us and practice does make things more perfect than they were before.

WHERE'S MY ORGASM?

Lets begin with ratios. If you orgasm 100% of the time when you are having sex, and your partner is at 75% or less, somebody is getting the short end of the stick and my question would be: If you are the 100 percent person why don't you care that your partner isn't at 100% like you? Huh?

I recently had a women come to me who was my age, married twice and the mother of two children. She revealed to me that she did not like sex. She described it, with her face twisted in incredulity, as something she didn't care if she ever experienced again. In her experience it was not what others claimed it to be. As we talked she finally asked: How would you even know if you had an orgasm? There is only one way for me to even answer that: You'd know it if you had one. There is no other sensation that it can be confused with. But let me say this: It struck me as heartbreaking that a woman, married to two different men, delivering two children, in her 50's had never been with a man who had noticed if she was having fun or not. I'm not going to write, nor do I think, that it was his fault because I don't think men know what they are doing any more than we do. It is not the responsibility of men to make sure we are sexually satisfied but it is their responsibility to be concerned if we are enjoying ourselves or not and to learn how to satisfy their partners. Women need to be able to explore their own bodies so that they understand what feels good and what doesn't and then convey that to the men in our lives. The biggest problem with porn is that men never see foreplay played out. And without foreplay most women do not become sufficiently lubricated, sufficiently turned on and the experience is akin to dentistry. Porn teaches men that women become sexually ready just because a man showed up with a hard-on (a stiff dick). It also teaches men that women are stimulated by a hard dick inside them and nothing else. Porn does a disservice to both men and women. To you and me. It is rare that women achieve an orgasm solely through penile penetration. RARE as in a very small percentage.

Men and women are more likely to want to initiate and offer sex when they know they are going to achieve the same outcome of pleasure. When someone consistently gets shortchanged the shortchanged individual becomes more and more likely to need their teeth pulled to get anything out of them. In order for sex to not feel like a fracking expedition at my expense you should plan on devoting 20-40 minutes (not seconds) for the female body to become fully aroused and ready to receive your penis. Men become frustrated when they are aroused with no outlet but women become frustrated when you continually ask them to engage in sex that goes nowhere for them. We are not enjoying ourselves sexually if we are not aroused. If you are not committed to ensuring your partners' arousal then you are limiting the level of enjoyment that can be obtained by you both.

What about quickies? What about I'm gagging for a shag and you're not? Those scenarios happen in all relationships. When you trust someone and know them well you negotiate and say what you want and the other person agrees to what you want or says otherwise. These things happen. What shouldn't happen is you getting satisfied more than me. I once had a boyfriend who said: If I orgasm, you have to orgasm. Well that sounds like a great boyfriend but the reality was that sometimes I wanted to go to sleep. So sometimes he got what he wanted and I got what I wanted which was to go to sleep ASAP and I wasn't interested in him going the full 9 yards. I wanted the quickie so I could go make out with my pillow.

A woman, when she orgasms, her vagina contracts, and her cervix has an involuntary contraction that actually causes the cervix (that little donut with the teeny tiny hole) to contract so violently that the cervix bends down and dips its little donut head into your little pool of semen. The motion is a little like the movement of a bird at a fountain of water; he drinks, comes back up, and then lowers again for another little drink. All of those contractions and spasms on Side B of a woman are triggered when she has an orgasm and contribute to the same level of enjoyment that you are having. Why anyone would want to deny that pleasure in their partner would be a curious question. This is not just about making babies it's because you want to make love to someone who is enjoying themselves as much as you are. Most of us, when going to the kitchen for a drink, will ask our beloved, while we are up, if they want something too. And so it is with intimacy: If you are up and already in the kitchen it is only polite to ask if there is anything your partner might want too.

SIZE REALLY DOESN'T MATTER

You compare, but we don't

Guys worry all the time, perhaps in the same way women worry about their breast size, about the size of their penis. I suppose there are women out there in the world that do care, but I have never met one that did. It's what you do with your penis that we care about. I have heard a few women with a preference for a thick penis (large circumference at the base). Again this is due to our anatomy. We don't really care about your size because most of the nerve endings in our vagina/vulva area are in the clitoris and in the first one third of the vagina. So when you are in our vaginas we don't have much of a sensation to you being there (in the vagina section). But if you have a thick base it will increase stimulation somewhat at the opening to the vagina. Be a conscientious lover and I promise no one is looking at the size of your penis. And trust me, women do not think of being impaled as a turn-on.

Piggy in the Middle

Some women do have opinions about circumcised versus uncircumcised penises. You and I know there is no difference but some women have never seen one and it looks odd to them. When it is erect one can't tell the difference but flaccid, there is a visual difference. Visual, nothing more.The trick here is keeping the skin in, under and around the head of your penis clean and fresh. The United States, it seems, has the most non-religiously circumcised men in the world but the majority of men in the world are uncircumcised.
Don't worry about the size of your penis. We aren't and neither should you. Period.

PORN

We can not under estimate the impact porn has had on our lives. I am not going to address porn in this blog entry from the perspective of the human sex trafficking industry. What I do want to address is the impact porn has had on our sexual relationships. What we are expected to perform, expectations of what we are to look like naked, and that all of it should look camera-ready.

Let's begin with faking an orgasm. Men, and unfortunately women, will tell you that women can fake orgasms because there is nothing to see as with a mans' ejaculation and women will tell other women: He doesn't know the difference. OK, if the guy is blind or has some other sensory disfunction, maybe. If all you hear is: Ooooo, ahhhhh, yeah baby and I repeat it like it's on a loop or you catch me looking at the ceiling, my watch, or the books on my shelf, I am faking an orgasm. You know how when you ejaculate, you can't help it, it's involuntary? It is the same with a woman having an orgasm. We too have involuntary jerks and contractions and they happen so you can see them if you are looking. You can see the blood rush to our faces and we get an apple red blush and look all rosy. For some the nipples get erect but rarely do we have the need or inclination to blurt out 'yeah baby' unless we are trying to be funny and feel exceptionally corny and satiated. We watch porn too and sometimes we get faulty information about what you want to hear and see too.

My position is that women fake orgasms because they don't want men to feel bad that you are not satisfying us, (are you that fragile?), that the effort it would take to teach you about our individual bodies is not worth the effort, (that translates to, we don't know where to begin), because you have given indication that you are not interested in our satisfaction, (this requires soul searching. Is it true?), that we have never had one ourselves and haven't a clue what we are missing (You, the partner should be on high alert if your partner does not seem to be enjoying themselves. When you ask, at the end of sex, if we came too the bubble over our head reads: No. But our mouths say: Yes. Men who can tell the difference between a faked orgasm and a real one NEVER ask that question. And the men who ask, if you said no, would most likely do nothing to turn that around. Or they will ask you, why not  (suggesting it's your fault)? That whole dynamic puts a damper on communication.

If you masturbate for you partner, and make him watch until you orgasm he will be able to see what it looks like and he will look for that same evidence each time you make love. Allow your partner to masturbate for you. Ask them to. Watch what happens to their face, the colour of their skin, their nipples, their legs, feet, the testicles. What sounds do they utter? When your male partner masturbates pay attention to the rhythm he uses to bring himself to climax. Watch how the cum leaves his penis. I write it graphically so that you have the details needed to go off and practise with your partner. When she masturbates you should be looking at all the things she is doing to bring herself to climax and you should be making mental notes. Does she orgasm and ask you to enter her? Many women, right at orgasm, want a man to enter them at climax. They are fully lubricated then and the sensation is pleasurable. This is my opinion, which may not be true for anyone else, but taking into account how women's bodies work, and men's, I think it works best for the woman to orgasm first. It allows for her to become fully lubricated, and the orgasm itself, creates a spasm and a sensation in her vagina whereby she wants something in there (your dick). Men are too pooped after sex to then have to work on giving a woman an orgasm, and while some men may enjoy eating their own cum, I think most men want to taste a woman's juices and not his own. So in some ways there is a logic behind a woman reaching orgasm first. If she doesn't go first the odds drop considerably that she will get one at the tail end unless she gives one to herself.

Porn leaves out foreplay and that is the biggest culprit of porn. It conveys the worst sexual behaviour for men and women to engage in. It teaches men that women don't need to be aroused (physically or psychologically which has implications of rape), and it puts women in the unfortunate position of having to pretend to be enjoying themselves when they are not. As well as trying to live up to the fantastical sexual behaviour of women that really don't exist outside of the porn industry, porn puts unnecessary pressure on women to look and behave a certain way. It puts that same pressure on men to somehow be olympic bearers of the gold medal hard-on.

If you look at porn from the 60's and 70's you will notice two significant differences in how porn has changed. The first is that thirty and forty years ago people had body hair in porn. Men had chest hair (body hair in general), and women had pubic hair. Breast augmentation was not common and you saw breasts that looked like normal everyday breasts. (I may be wrong but I think men shaving themselves free of body hair may have been stolen from gay porn where that is the norm).  The removal of body hair from the genitals moves the eye away from the person and forces us to focus on the genital area. The bare chest (the body builder definition) again causes the eye to focus on the definition of muscle. We become almost detached from our own bodies. Breast augmentation… All I can say is that some women were naturally born with picture perfect breasts, the kind seen in paintings hanging in The Louvre, but most of us don't. There is an unprecedented pressure put on women and men to have bodies that defy gravity and are free of imperfections. This pressure begins with porn. Real men and women with real bodies can not compete with porn. We women get nervous when you want to try out farming equipment on us. It has caused a huge upswing in men who want scrotum's free of hair and  camera ready which means men are looking for women to match their dicks - women who are camera ready. Shaved vulva's do make for an increased sensitivity but there is evidence that it also increases ones susceptibility to disease. Sex is about pleasure and closeness and porn can have its place in intimacy, but when were learn to engage in sex and learn about sex from porn we are learning all of the wrong things about intimacy. Every body is different and unique, male and female, and porn does not offer any sort of instructional advice that is applicable to anyone you care about.

CONCLUSION

These misunderstandings between us, our lack of information, our assumptions, our misinformation all contribute to our dissatisfaction and frustration with our sexual partners.  It is not men that are wrong nor women. We are well advised to sit with one another and relearn and ask questions. Nothing should be assumed. Trust makes for good sex, better sex. Have fun. Ask questions and be open to hearing something different from what you thought. Above all remember that the more you know about yourself and your body the easier it is to convey to another person what it is you want and for you to get what you want.

Its OK to look

All pictures stolen from the internet and I do not own them.