Category Archives: Education

READER SAYS: My Sex Drive’s Out of Gear

First things: Here’s where I remind you people that I’m not a doctor. I have no degrees in any medical or scientific discipline. I’m schooled in common sense and street smarts, and that’s it. In more blunt terms? Take my words for what they’re worth – an interested party offering an opinion, nothing more. In other words? I’m not liable.

All right, so, a reader emailed me. When she hooked up with this guy, it was all sex, all the time. Playtime was gold, and she couldn’t get enough. And then? Nothing.
Suddenly, she’s got zero sex drive. As she says, I am 100% uninterested. It is absolutely uncanny. I have no desire – not towards him, or ANYONE, male or female. If I even wanted to cheat right now, I wouldn’t be able. I used to be this voracious sex creature, all my life – and now, I’m just a sexless zombie. I was on The Pill for a while but I was certain it was fucking up my natural “sexy” hormones, so I stopped about 2 months ago in favor of condoms, basal thermometers, herbs, and moon cycles, which has in fact made me feel a lot better— just NOT SEXY!!!
So, then her question is, What I need to know is, how can I transform myself back into the hormonal sex-on-the-brain tigress I used to be?
Oh, here. Let me just wave my magic wand. POOF. There, that should do it! Oh, it didn’t work? Damn.
The thing about feeling sexy is, it tends to be an indicator of all the other things going on in your life. More on that in a minute. The problem with having that “I’m too sexy for this shirt” feeling dissipating on you is, we’re surrounded by sexuality all the time. The media tells us we have to be beautiful. Society tells us constantly that they judge our books by our covers. Our relationships are supposed to be value-rated by how hot the sex is. The pharmaceutical companies have gotten in on the act with Viagra and Cialis and all those other fun little drugs so we can be sex gods for all the wrong reasons.
The little dark secret that no one wants to talk about is that feeling sexual can go up in smoke pretty fucking fast. There isn’t one thing that could be causing your problems, it’s many.

  • Fatigue (overwork, lack of sleep)
  • Depression (seasonal moods, moodiness)
  • Diet (lack of iron, lack of protein, etc)
  • Underlying relationship problems
  • Worries (money, school, future, life)
  • Fitness (not enough cardio, etc)

And more. Let’s look at your specifics then.
Your relationship has changed for a number of reasons. Your guy’s in a new job that leaves him being less of the guy you used to know – a guy who was creative and passionate and now is a guy in front of a computer, doing a draining and uninspired job.
You were on birth control, something that is well known for affecting sexual sensitivity as well as sex drive. But you fucked up, honey. You went all knee-jerk and stopped taking the pill smack-dab in the middle of your cycle, and you had NO medical consultation before doing so. For anyone else thinking of this: Don’t. Stopping the pill in the middle of your cycle is borderline dumb, because it’ll fuck up your cycle, but worse, it’ll really mess with your hormones. Unfortunately, many chicks don’t know this because the medical information that comes with pills is written in fucking medical/legal-ese.
Pills really do a number on us. Guys will never, ever understand how much pills can fuck us up until we decide to be cruel and shoot them up with estrogen overloads. Here’s an example from my own life, all right?
I started my cycle a day late back in January. It’s five months later and my period has still not returned to normal. I changed it by a SINGLE DAY, and I’m still paying the price. The medical professionals say, “Oh, it takes three months for your system to get back on track.” Know what that’s called? The lowest common denominator. They take all the data from all the chicks who’ve gone awry on their cycle, and they find average length of recovery, and that’s the magic number. Trouble is, every number has exceptions. Hi, I’m Steff, and I’ll be your exception.
No matter what else you talk to your doctor about, you need to tell him/her you did this. Go and ask what it may have done to you. The trouble is, doctors don’t tend to believe too much in pills causing depression and things like that. My doctor was sort of disbelieving when I said I was depressed by way of my pills last fall. Gradually, he came to understand it had to be the case. Since then, I’ve been trying different pills, but I’m still less sexually sensitive than I was, and my sex drive is lower.
You say you don’t eat a lot of meat, and you’re really healthy diet-wise, and maybe you don’t spend enough time with yourself, and perhaps you’re antsy about your future, and all of that. Hell, you even say your relationship has changed because your guy’s not the same. That could do it right there.
Well, sexy comes from caring for ourselves and putting ourselves first – not relying on others’ perceptions of us. We need to exercise, take the time to make ourselves look nice, spend quality time alone, and show ourselves the respect we deserve. Somebody wanting us seems like it should make us feel sexy, but it just doesn’t work that way. We can’t rely on outward situations to provide us with our sexuality. It comes from within.
You’re obsessing about it because it’s something you can’t understand and can’t get to the bottom of. That’s not helping. That’s like guys who worry about whether they’re going to get hard and be able to perform – it exacerbates the problem. But how do you get out of your head?
Talk to someone, and by “someone,” I don’t mean some faceless chick half-way across the country, on the internet. I mean a doctor or therapist and see where it’s going.
The trouble is, not all doctors will see “not feeling sexy” as a medical issue. I think it is. I think you’ve got things going on in the background that are figuring into the equation. Worse, I think quitting the pills cold turkey has probably done quite the number on your hormones, the fall-out of which might take a little while longer to reset itself because you’re so young and hormones aren’t exactly on your side these days anyhow.
The long and the short of it is, this isn’t something you should be fucking around with on your own to solve. Talk to someone and see if there’s possibly something underlying that’s causing it. Spend some more time alone doing things you love, and make fitness a priority. Get sexy for you, not for him, and value how it feels for yourself, not because it’s rejuvenating your relationship.
As women, we tend to forget ourselves in relationships, and the effects of that (especially combined with estrogen upheavals like pill neglect) can be pretty profound on our self-images.
The thing is, we’re lied to. We’re told that getting into relationships is how to feel complete, how to become whole. A lot of the time, though, the relationships we choose are wrong for us, and the result is, the relationships make us less whole.
Sometimes it’s just life doing a number on us, and we want to blame our relationship so we don’t have to face life.
It’s complicated. Herbs and supplements and all that shit are likely not going to solve your conundrum. The IMPORTANT THING to remember is, it’ll work out. You’ll come back to yourself, you’re just taking the long way of doing so. And when things do come back to normalcy, remember, the best sex is still to come, ‘cos sex improves like all hell when you hit your late 20s and 30s, girlie.
Good luck with that. Anyone able to offer personal insight in this situation? Thanks.

"Mommy, what's a blowjob?"

One of the all-time fave sex conversations I had with my mother transpired when I was about eight years old.
We were watching a video of Steve Martin’s “The Jerk” one day, and there was a joke about a blowjob. Mom howled with laughter, wiping tears from her eyes. She was a sucker for Steve. I didn’t get the joke. I furrowed my little blond brows and turned to scrutinize her.
“Mom, what’s a blowjob?”
“Hmm?”
“A blowjob, what is it?”
“Oh, that’s when a woman sucks on a man’s penis, dear.”
“Ew! Why would she want to do that?”
She shrugged and said, “Ah, you got me, sweetie. You got me.”
This casual dismissal of blowjobs made me think they were insane. “She sucks on his pee-pee?” was the thought running through my head. “How icky. EW.”
She rewound the segment, played the joke again, and this time I giggled, too, with a hint of revulsion.
I was more of a Fudgsicle girl way back when.

An Intro to the Cunt's Take on Abortion

The Guy knows I’ve thought about abortion a couple of times this week, and he coincidentally found a pretty horrific story in the New York Times about abortions in El Savador on the same day I happened to buy the Mike Leigh film “Vera Drake” on DVD.
It’s an interesting time for abortion.
On January 22nd, 1973, Roe v. Wade was decided in the American Supreme Court, which ruled, essentially, that a woman’s right to privacy superseded a state’s law on abortion, thus legalizing the highly controversial practice.
That means, being 32, abortion has been legal for my entire life. Yet I can recall being a child and seeing the “Dr. Death” propaganda waved in front of Dr. Henry Morgentaler, who was a legendary abortion activist. I was a staunch Catholic as a kid and perceived abortion to be “killing babies.”
Now, though, I perceive it as a necessary evil in a world where mistakes – and yes, crimes against women – can transpire. Should I find out I’m pregnant tomorrow, I’ll be at the clinic Monday. I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve used the so-called “morning after” pill three times, the first being back when I was about 20. I even remember the condom breaking, that one catalyst that forced me into that situation. I take the birth control pill now, and use the condom as well. I’m vigilant. But if something were to happen, I’d go to a clinic and deal with it.
Because it’s my body, because it’s my choice, because it’s nine months of my life that’s at stake, because I know that my genes are likely to mean a kid may have too many medical problems in their youth, because there are too many reasons for me not to have a kid. Because.
I feel for men who believe that it’s their kid too. I feel badly that they might think they should have more of a say in the matter. But until they’re able to have a distended belly, all-over bloating, utter discomfort and unease for a nine-month period, until they’re able to “squeeze one out,” the choice needs to be that of the female.
I can say a lot of shit right now, and I’ll have many men on my ass as a result, so I’ll keep it short and not so sweet. Men have great intentions. They want to be daddies. They want to bring a kid in the world. Ultimately, the majority of them take their responsibilities too simply, and the women tend to have to do most of the cleaning, cooking, and whatever the hell else the Soccer Mom of the Year tends to do. It’s the way it’s always been, and while dads are getting more involved and taking on more, they’re kidding themselves if they think it’s all evened out now. There are exceptions, of course, and yes, I’m speaking in generalities, but generalities being “the norm,” we know this is largely true, so please spare me the arguments on this. There are exceptions, but let’s look at the norms, all right? For the sake of argument.
When some guy – a boyfriend, a lover, whatever – says he wants the kid, he’s going to take care of it, there’s not a whole lot to go on there. Intentions don’t make the world go round, and promises are made to be broken. When it’s 18 years to life, one doesn’t wish to take a gamble, not when one knows who’s to pay the price when it all goes belly up. She will.
When the religious right and all those other bubbleheads get on their soapboxes to proclaim the sanctity of sperm and the amorality of abortion, they’re forgetting that the world isn’t some idealist’s wet dream. Ideals are for fools, and reality is for the rest of us. Yes, kids can be put up for adoption, but there are already kids out there needing parents – they’re just not the cute and cuddly little things in pink bunny slippers that every yuppie this side of suburbia’s got designs on. Let’s take care of those already neglected before we bring more into the picture. Yes, there’s social assistance for mothers who can’t make the finances work, but it’s not enough. Yes, everyone claims they’ll be there for the women when the women need help, but three years down the line, she’s going to be all alone, and she essentially knows it.
The thing that makes me most mad about this whole anti-abortion thing is this: It’s Christians leading the charge against it – whether it be El Salvador, Guatemala, or here in our own backyard – and they seem to have missed that very, very important part in the book of Genesis. God allegedly put an apple on a tree, and told Adam and Eve it was there, and the choice was theirs as to whether to eat it. He said there would be consequences for their actions, the expulsion from Eden, but He chose as a Creator to give them the option to decide what they would do with their life. Consequences would be doled out in the afterlife, and purgatory would be the resting ground for debts to be paid. Them were the rules set out by the Big Cheese oh so many millennia ago.
So, here we are, thousands and thousands of years after these alleged events, and these fucking Bubbleheads have decided that God’s choice to allow us the freedom of choice just isn’t good enough for their little right wing mission.
I love how they want to adhere to the Bible when it suits them, yet throw it out the window when it means they have to live in a society that doesn’t adhere to their little cookie-cutter mentality of Utopia.
Get over it. Choice, according to your beliefs, was divinely given. Man cannot usurp it, is what the Good Book claims. Or is yours a faith of convenience after all? Oh, the hypocrisy. Fuck, I hate hypocrites.

*As for El Salvador and Vera Drake, I’ve more thoughts on those. I’ll get back to that another time. Abortion’s being messed with in a major way, and Bush is on a mission. Well, la di da. So am I.

RANT: The Dumbing-Down of the Modern Femme

I can’t help it, I like Oprah. I even have the 20-hour 20th Anniversary DVD set, but I blame GayBoy for that, since he picked it up as an Xmas gift for me.
So, there I was, watching it, and who should she have on? Pink. The chanteuse who belts out that anti-mainstream track, Stupid Girls. Oprah invited her onto the show based on the brilliance of that track’s video, (you can play it here) which mocks the mainstream perception of what the complete woman is these days.
The gist of it is this, we live in a most ludicrously plastic time. This cult-of-celebrity shit goin’ round just pisses me the hell off. I could go and pepper this fucking rant with a hundred celebrities’ names and get myself some major hittage, but I won’t stoop that low.
God forbid I should piss off the power-bloggers (IE: Pink is the New Blog, Go Fug Yourself, Gawker, and more), but who gives a shit? How can people today care even remotely as much as they do about what Mr. Fucking Britney Spears is doing with his life? Does it matter?
The answer to that is an unequivocal NO.
I can’t understand the obsession. Can anyone explain this to me? Probably not. People are becoming so vacuous and vapid and shallow that it’s a wonder the world has any future, seriously. Cure for cancer? Not fucking likely! A better world? Fuck no! A better cellphone? You betcha!
But I’m getting off-track. What pisses me off most of all is what’s happening to the chicks of today’s generation.
I’m a fierce feminist, baby, in my own way. I don’t resent men a bit. I don’t want to see masculinity erode as the price of my attaining a stronger position in the world. I think I can have my cake and eat it, too. (And I do, it’s chocolate and caramel. Tasty.) I’m smart, I’m sexy in my cute little way, and I live my life with my integrity on my sleeve. I capitulate to no one, yet understand compromise is a way of life. I know how to get what I want, how to say what I mean, and how to behave in a non-threatening, yet intelligent manner.
Too bad the same can’t be said for the younger chicks coming up behind me. What the FUCK is going on? I blame Britney Spears, Madonna, and anyone else who’s put their fucking beauty before their brains in the last couple decades.
Like Pink said, “Sexy and smart aren’t oil and water.” You do NOT need to dumb yourself down to sex yourself up.
As long as men have a choice between a non-threatening chick who’s gonna laugh at their jokes and a smart chick who can bring some edumacatin’ to the table, there’s going to be a dichotomy of choice. The guy who chooses the latter’s always going to be the better choice for you, and don’t forget it.
Now, I don’t run around flexing my big IQ all the day long, but I can flex it when I need it, and I never, ever abandon it in favour of making a less-threatening impression.
I could have, back when I was the Queen of First Dates. I know I intimidated more than a few guys, but they got what they deserved. I said I wanted an intelligent guy who wasn’t threatened by my intelligence, yet THEY showed up on the fucking date. What, did I stutter? You wanted smart, so long as she isn’t smarter than you? Keep going, bub, this ain’t your stop.
We have a generation of Bubblegum Girls on our heels. The ones who think cleavage speaks louder than creativity, that breast size matters more than brains, that plastic surgery is the path to perfection.
Got news for you: There is no perfection.
The Guy’s not one of these losers who can’t handle smarts. But then, he’s pretty darned smart himself. Put us in a hat store and they’re gonna have some trouble sizin’ us up, I bets. He referred to me as “flawed” when listing all the things he liked about me. I furrowed my brow and quizzed him, “Flawed?” I think he was worried I was taking it the wrong way, but I was somewhat amused, since I’ve no illusion on my shortcomings. Still, he explained his thinking and introduced me to something that has previously eluded me: The concept of Wabi Sabi.
No, no, not the green stuff you mix with soy sauce for sushi, that’s wasabi. This is the Japanese principle of imperfection being the definition of beauty. That is, it’s in our uniqueness, our flaws, our subtle imperfections that our true beauty lies. The guy cited Sophia Loren as an example – weird eyes, large nose, strange jaw, dominant cheeks, but you throw it into a bowl and give it a good mix, and you have one of the most stunning beauties of this past century.
But tell that to our vapid Western society. Tell that to they who wield the airbrushes of the world. Tell that to Gawker, to Vogue, to the music video industry. Tell them that the scar on my right nostril gives me character or uniqueness. To them, it’s a reason to go under the knife and be “healed.” Tell them my intellect makes as large an impression as my big green eyes or my smiling lips or my verging-on-ghetto bootay. Today, it just don’t work that way.
While other girls wanted to be Madonna, I wanted to be Janeane Garofalo. I nearly died laughing last week when the Guy and I were talking about the “Allowed To Fuck” monogamy exlusion — that one person we can fuck outside the relationship, if the opportunity arises. His choice? Janeane Garofalo. My response? “Shit, I’ll join you.” (I haven’t decided who I’d choose yet. Hmm. So many choices, so little time. My answers were not finite, Guy!)
Garofalo’s cute, smart, sexy, funny as hell, and she doesn’t take shit from no one. Did I mention the killer smarts? And, like me, she wears glasses instead of contacts. She’s flown in the face of a Hollywood that demanded she conform, yet she’s held her own. Sure, she’s thin now, but she wasn’t always, and she did it for herself, not for the industry.
It’s bad enough that the media’s perpetuating these stereotypes – and even escalating them, but to have today’s young women participating in these negative trends usurping them of their righteous feminine powers is a fucking travesty.
Respect yourself. Be who you really are. Use your brains. Speak in your own voice. Don’t dumb shit down for a guy who doesn’t deserve what you have to offer.
And men, if you’re tired of the vapid beauties, fucking well SAY something about it. You may enjoy looking at the images, but are you enjoying the lack of brains that come with?
Can we, for once, return to the long-ago fantasties of sexy librarians and teachers with yardsticks? Chicks with brains who knew what they were doing when they dropped their drawers? Is it really such a terrible thing, self-knowledge and the ability to express one’s self? Must I and my peers continue feeling like some sort of carbon-dated example of what women once were?
‘Cause, shit, honey, I’ll tell you one thing: I go under the knife for no one. I am what I am, it is what it is, and you’d better get accustomed.

HIV: Are You Shitting Me?

Africa is the canary in the coal mine, folks. AIDS is an epidemic on that continent, and this Western perception of “it can’t happy here” is bullshit. AIDS was born there (arguably), it spread around the world, and it’s growing faster in Africa than any other place.
But it will continue its spread. Things will get worse. COUNT ON IT. The only weapon we have against AIDS is education, but we all know that ignorance is as epidemic as the virus.
More than 6,000 people die of AIDS each day on that continent, where 25 million people presently suffer from its wrath. In two years alone, the portion of adults in South Africa with AIDS jumped from 13% to 20%, from 1997 to 1999. There is no country in the world facing a greater threat from AIDS than South Africa, and ignorance of the problem has not disappeared.
In this BBC story from today, we see how a political power-broker in South Africa is accused of raping a woman known to have HIV, in which he did not use a condom. He instead showered after the encounter, believing that would negate the virus’s ability to infect him.
This is an “educated” and “successful” man, and he believes this shit. This is a continent in which education is nowhere near where it needs to be, where superstition and age-old cultural beliefs trump modern knowledge. A place where the Catholic Church (fuck them and the horse they’ve ridden in on) is still militantly campaigning to not have condoms distributed freely in an attempt to stave off the spread of AIDS & HIV, which some experts say might well have spread to a quarter of the continent’s population by 2020.
We in the West are far too ignorant of Africa’s problems. We like to think this disease’s problems will stay confined to the jungles and savannahs of the Dark Continent. But they won’t. In this day and age of world-wide air travel and international immigration, this disease is coming to a body near you, if it hasn’t already.
Educate yourself. Have protected sex every time. The few people I know with AIDS or HIV can tell me almost with certainty which encounter they believe caused it — calculated risk? Not so calculated, it would seem.
Test yourself and your partner, and demand to see the evidence, before engaging in “bareback” sex. I’ve never been promiscuous mainly because AIDS and HIV scare the living shit out of me. And rightfully so. The Dark Continent tells of a dark future for us all, if vigilance and education aren’t increased.
America is taking ignorance to new levels — allowing for states to have “opt-in” sexual education, like in Kansas, where if a student has not received a signed permission slip from a parent, they will not be taught sexual education. Ironic, isn’t it, when it’s the students whose parents won’t consent to such education who are most in need of it?
It’s time we put our so-called quest for morality away, and focus instead on educating ourselves about the possible transmission of this disease. Just the other day, some fuckhead politician in the States was talking about the transmission of the virus through tears. (Not likely to happen, Bubba.)
The topic of AIDS and HIV are ones I’m very passionate about. The ignorance of Africa as a problem on more levels than one is another I’m passionate about (one word: Darfur). But they depress me and I avoid writing about it, because I want to do it well, and to do it well means finding the facts and figures that can be used to shock awareness into people. I will, however, aspire to it over the coming weeks. It’s time people get their fucking heads out of their asses and learn about this. The spread of AIDS here in the West IS increasing as the spread of education has been reduced in the past half-decade or so. Teens are more ignorant than ever, and it’s the politicians’ faults. Women are contracting the disease faster than they ever have, and the dangers are not diminishing.
Use condoms. Always get tested. Be aware. Educate yourself. Never, ever touch blood without protection provided by latex gloves or what have you. Be vigilant. And stay uninfected.

Advice for Young Lovers

The sun was rising by 6a.m. this morning, and spring seems to be all around. A comment was left by an 18-year-old male, and I thought about when I was 18, the first time I made love, and how disappointed I was. I thought about the things I wish I’d been told back then. These are them.
Everyone tells you not to rush things. As a female, this is doubly true. Men can begin having sex younger and have positive results sooner, provided they know what they’re doing, but for women, more than 30% will not orgasm until well past their 20th birthday.
The best advice anyone can ever tell you about sex is this, it’s not about the orgasm.
Sex is about cartography and geography. Sex is literally the lay of the land. It’s about discovering your partner’s body – all of it. It’s about knowing how he or she reacts when you kiss the back of their knees, what favourite odd spots on their bodies you can suck and bite and have them shudder senselessly.
It’s about being in the moment, reacting to every little thing your lover does, either vocally or physically. It’s forgetting about end results and expectations. It’s here, now, and nothing more, regardless of what you might wish to make of it.
Sex is a language, and like any language, it takes time to learn the subtleties that distinguish an amateur from a master. Like any language, one can spend their entire lives improving their abilities and exploring ways to use the words. Writers become greater as their lives extend, orators become more powerful every speech they deliver. So too do lovers command skill as time passes.
Women take longer to identify with their sexual selves. As a young male lover, you need to be brave enough to talk to your woman before you have sex. You have to make a pact to tell each other when something feels comfortable or not, you need to express your fears and apprehensions, and if you have boundaries, you must state them, and they must be respected. You need to never take it personally when something’s not working. It’s biology, not you.
Women also take longer to be aroused. If she isn’t wet, she’s likely not aroused*. You could use lubricant, but then you would be jumping the gun. If she ain’t feeling it, honey, it ain’t happening. The more aroused you make her, the more you’ll realize how awesome it feels to take someone to that place. Take the time to really make a journey of it.
As a young female lover, you must lower your expectations. At first, things might hurt, but then they begin to feel incredible, if your lover has skill. Think of it as getting your ears pierced. Sex, like wine and blue cheese, can sometimes be an acquired taste for a young woman, but you need to get past the fear and apprehension. If you don’t feel like you can trust your lover, then you have no business sleeping with him.
In no place in our lives is trust more important than between us and our lovers.
You have to trust that if you said, You can do anything you’d like to me, that they would know where to stop.
You have to be patient. You have to know that the best sex of your life will not come until after the age of 25, if not after the age of 30. You have to know that sex is the physical manifestation of emotion. It’s spontanaeity, need, desire, passion, love, lust, curiousity, creativity, and eagerness balled up into one experience. It can be overwhelming when it’s great, and for new lovers, that can be intimidating and shut you down. Do not be afraid of the feelings, let go. Embrace it.
Making love is the physical act of making yourself vulnerable. When it comes to day to day life, we tend to try to avoid vulnerability. We do everything we can to not reveal our fears and failures to others. When making love, there’s nothing you can hide. It’s all there. You might as well give in to the moment and embrace the exposure vulnerability brings with it.
As you grow up, you realize the old cliché is true. If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. The more you’re able to make yourself vulnerable in everyday life, the richer your relationships of all kinds shall be, the deeper your experiences with others will be. Perhaps you’ll be hurt easier more often, but the depths and richness of other relationships will far exceed the pale of a cautiously lived life. So too with sexual experiences. The more you trust each other and open up, the greater the sexual reward.
I’m old-fashioned and I don’t believe people should have sex until they’re 18 or so. I’m a pragmatic person, though. Whenever I do something new, I educate myself about it. I read everything I can, I learn what I need to learn, and I do what I need to do, and I do it well. The only time that didn’t happen was with sex, as I first slept with a lover at 17. As time went on, I educated myself and learned more. It changed everything for me.
The best thing you can do is head to your local independent bookstore that focuses on psychology and sexuality and scour the sexuality section for a book that speaks in a language that you relate to. Then, learn about the biology of the human form, not just what the bits and pieces are called, but how they will respond to your touch. I think it’s better to do this in a bookstore because there’s so much misinformation and opportunism on the web. Just my two cents.
But don’t take the authors’ word for what makes great sex & great loving. Take your lovers’ word. Every person’s body responds differently to touch, and you absolutely must know from your lover what is or is not working for them. You cannot just assume what you’re doing is working, since that twitch or shudder may be from discomfort. Ask. Let them tell you what they feel about what you’re doing, and again, do not take it personally.
It’s not about you. It’s about them. Never forget that.
If you cannot speak about sex with your partner, then your communication on everything else will be shit as well. You must be able to express what you want and need, because these are the things that are true to your core. If you cannot express these things, then what of any consequence, I ask, can you ever express?
And when you learn to be patient, to communicate, to react to each other, to trust each other, then you will be on the road to reaching sexual satisfaction together.
Don’t forget, it’s nice to feel pleasure yourself, but it’s incredible to know you’re providing it for another. Learn to enjoy the experience of giving, since that’s what separates the good lovers from the great: Generosity.

*There are SOME women with lubrication difficulties who sometimes never really emit the same signs of arousal as another woman might, so again, communicate and follow the signs. Does she look like she wants more of you? Does she look ready to take it a notch further? Use your powers of deduction, Sherlock. Better yet? Ask.

Etiquette for Restaurants: Part 2

This is part two of the basic etiquette for restaurant dates. It began with a rant here, and continued with part one here.
First, a couple addendums raised in part one’s comments:
A. As mentioned by an anonymous commenter after the first posting, if you’re picking your date up, do not call her and tell her to be outside. Do not honk. Do not wait in the car. Go the hell in and get her. Yes, it’s nice to bring flowers if you want to, but try to avoid the clichéd dozen roses, and do not bring carnations. A single rose, or gerbera, or orchid, whatever, is always a nice touch. I could be wrong on this, but I feel corsages are dated and behind the times, and often plain unpractical. I’d stick with flowers for the table. What’s more, if it’s a nice date, she’ll enjoy the flowers more the next day.
B. It’s totally cool and actually good to help a date with a coat. Help take it off, help her get it on. It’s just a nice touch. Unnecessary, but certainly nice. Hand it to the waiter or give it to her to put on the back of her chair, if coatcheck isn’t an option.
Back to bizness. You’ve got wine, you’ve got food, and now you’re dining.
1. How you eat is important. Eat small bites. Use cutlery as much as possible. Cut your food precisely and delicately while being relatively strong and assertive about it. (Press harder with your knife, do controlled movements.) Try to not make noises with the cutlery or against the china. If you’re responding to her question or statement as you cut, make sure you at least glance up to make eye-contact as you’re talking. Always, always show you’re aware she’s present when you’re speaking. And hello? Small bites, please? Chew? With your mouth closed. Do not speak with food in your mouth. Remember in grade two when they said to chew every bite 17 times? Please do that on dates. BONUS: It will reduce the chance you’ll get gas later!
2. If you want a refill of coffee or something, inch the drinking vessel nearer to the edge of the table closest to where the waiting staff will pass it by. An industry professional knows this is the sign for a refill, so you shouldn’t need to shout for them.
3. Never take the last roll, butter, or bit of wine without asking her if she’d like it first. She’ll almost always say no (it’s a date thing) and give it to you, but give her the chance to do so. If she offers to split it with you, say no if you just can’t handle more, & say something like “I’d love to, but I’m set to burst.” Sharing’s nice though. It’s sexy and intimate, and feel free to take her up on the offer.
4. Tear off bits of bread as opposed to gnoshing on an entire piece. Tear it over the plate, so the crumbs don’t pile up on the tablecloth. Butter it as you go to prevent yourself from getting thumbs into greasy badness. If you’re dipping in oil and vinegar, please, don’t double dip, tear bite-size pieces for dipping.
5. If you’re still eating your meal, you rest your knife and fork at 4:00 and 8:00 on your plate, respectively, between bites. Don’t hold your cutlery through the whole meal. Keeping it in your hand all the time – especially for women – tends to look aggressive. Take moments where you focus on your companion. (Goes for both sexes.) When you’re finished and want them to take it away, you set your knives, forks, and spoons used thus far at the 5:00 position.
6. If your server is stupid and tries to take your plate before your companion has finished, then they have clearly missed the basic training course. Tell them you’re not through, and gesture at your companion’s plate. If they succeed and take the plate away, she’ll be left feeling awkward eating in front of you. This goes both ways, so be a man and say something.
7. If she’s getting up to go to the bathroom – it’s not necessary, but it’s extra special classy and will probably get a small grin from her as she walks away from you – you can always push your chair back and stand as she leaves the table. When she returns, you can stand upon her arrival, wait for her to sit, then give her the napkin, or better yet, lay it on her lap. (You can be sexy about it and “accidentally” brush a finger down her thigh as you return to your seat, departing-like.) As I say, this is a real throwback, and is probably a little over the top for most evenings, but if you’re having a more special dinner experience in celebration of something, then yes, go ahead. It’s quite formal.
8. After dinner, your napkin gets folded (casually, in a tidy bunch, whatever, just not tossed down in a heap) and placed BESIDE the plate, not on it.
9. Paying! All the guys want to know this. Going Dutch is fine, but really, if you make more than her – she’s a student, you’re working in an office – then it ought to be on you. If you asked her out and chose the location, then it ought to be on you. If she asked you out, then it should rightly be dutch, unless she’s making your salary look comical. But if you want to feel like your balls are intact at the evening’s end, you probably shouldn’t let her pay, not entirely, but that’s your call. Some women will judge you for not paying. You know I’m right, as much as it galls you. A good move is always to pay, especially if you like her, and playfully ask if she takes trades for a home cooked meal, or tell her she can get coffees later or something. (If she balks at paying anything ever, then she’s a money-hungry minx and you need to be wary, in my humble opinion. Anytime a woman or man feels entitled to something, it’s time to be wary. Me, I like a man to pay, but I’ll always insist next time I do some cooking, and the way I cook, it’s a win.)
10. If it’s old-school car locks and we’re driving for the night and we let you into the car first, lean over and open our lock and let us in. Women, if a guy lets you in first, you don’t have to lean over and let him in, but it’s the kind of small gesture a guy really digs. Ever seen that old Cameron Crowe film Singles, when Keira Sedgwick lets Cameron Scott into his car? He’s bowled right over and is in love from then on. It shows you can not only graciously accept his chivalry, but that you’re woman enough to not feel threatened by reciprocating. Me, I’d always let the guy in. It’s just the right way to act. [Ed. Note: Do people even have these locks anymore? Lots has changed in the four years since this first was posted!]
11. When you’re dropping her off, and this is for anyone dropping a woman off – date or not – always, always wait until she’s gotten inside before you drive away. It’s a sign that you’re concerned about her safety, and honestly, our entrances aren’t always as safe as we’d like.
12. Not related to restaurants, but time to be said. Can we, for once and for all, move past the “don’t call the next day” bullshit? Call. Tell us it was a good time. Even easier and just as good, in the age of email, send her a quick note. “Wow. I had a great time. I’ll call you later in the week. Looking forwards to more with you.” That’s it. “Ooh,” we’ll think, “a guy who doesn’t play games.” You’ll get laid sooner, you know. Drop the bullshit head games. Keep it casual, light, and don’t make promises you can’t keep. Call her later in the week, don’t mention a specific day, but you’ve bought yourself time now. Just a note! A text! A quick email! It’s a lovely way to play.
If there are other dating scenarios you want the etiquette for, let me know via comments or emails. Happy dining this weekend, kids.

The Modern Man (& Woman) & Manners

A reader wrote me recently to say that I need to comment more about the modern man’s condition. We both agree that men are caught between what they want to be and what they think they have to be, so they’re essentially lost.
In not so many words, I’ve recently alluded in an email with him that I feel the modern man is some kind of throwback to a troubled Winslow Homer painting, a boat being tossed about a churning sea, straight out of Good Will Hunting. Any port in the storm, boy.
Let it be said: I hate the divide between the sexes as it presently exists. I hate what this so-called “feminism” has done to the modern guy, but I wouldn’t give up any of the advances my sex has made, and I feel there is more for us to achieve, too, but without continuing to erode masculinity. That’s a bigger topic, that’s a fucking book, for god’s sake. We’re not going there. Yet.
That said, there’s absolutely no reason we can’t have old style manners and charm and etiquette make a comeback while we’re striving to find both genders’ new identities.
I hate that etiquette is a thing of the past. I hate that chivalry is practiced almost apologetically. I hate that the black-and-white movies seem to be more an anthropological reminiscence than a cultural record.

“And exhibited here in this celluloid document is the now-extinct Homo Erectus, a classical beast with style and grace not seen in today’s beaten, confused specimens. Note the confidence in the gaze, the subtle mannerisms of gesture, the attentiveness shown with a slight tone of deference yet dominance toward the female of the species. See the strength and prowess he exhibits in stride. The species was noted to have danced precipitously on the edge of extinction in about 1965, as seeming collateral damage in the Battle of the Sexes. Fortunately, the species has held on, if even barely so. Scientists today are working with remnant DNA in an attempt to create a hybrid of the Homo Erectus Pastus and the Homo Erectus Presentus for a species to be dubbed Homo Erectus Potentius.”

Someone somewhere got everyone drinkin’ the Kool-Aid that somehow being polite to women meant you were disrespecting them. This is the most ludicrous bit of irony to ever be swallowed by the masses. By demonstrating respect, you are disrespecting. Say what?
And the funny thing, chivalry went out the window, and since then, everyone’s forgotten what the hell manners are. Look around you! We’re ruder than we’ve ever been. Road rage, aggression, never looking passers-by in the eye, never saying hello, yammering on your fucking cellphone as some person assists you at a counter, not reserving in advance for parties – fewer people than ever understand basic manners at all.
Being well-mannered isn’t just for patsies, man. It’s necessary for the human condition.
We’re a tribe, people. We need to get along. We need respect. We need a code. It gets us through.
I’ll tell you one thing, I’ve declined dates based on manners. I don’t associate with people who lack them. It’s unpleasant and uncouth. Behaviour is the best bit of evidence anyone has as to the kind of person you are. What does yours say about you? Your body language, the way you carry yourself, the way you defer to others, speaks volumes louder than your words. How’s your posture? Do you speak clearly? Do you make eye contact? Do you know the proper way to shake hands?
Men and women today both need to learn better manners. Women need to be gracious and accept a door being held open for them, and they need to return the favour. The only way men will feel welcomed to begin being gracious to us like in the old days is if we reciprocate and we say thank you. There’s no damned reason we ought to feel threatened by chivalry. If so, what the hell does that say about the woman? She’s too insecure to allow for assistance? Pfft.
I practice what I preach. I thank men for holding the door open, I smile. I’ll pick something up for a guy if he drops it. What’s the problem? When did it become a competition? It’s like we’re waiting to see who’ll crack first.
My manners make my life more pleasant. Sure, when I say thank you or have a nice day or make small talk, half the time I get looked at like I’m some homeless bitch begging for a crack fix, and the rest of the time I get these warm, grateful smiles that I’m bringing some old-style charm back into the mix. I make a friend for two minutes and I wander on.
And I don’t care what the world expects, I know what I expect, and furthermore, what I demand. I don’t compromise my standards just because the world’s too fucking stupid to adopt them. And you know what? I’m part of a growing minority. But where do you stand?
So, here’s the deal. This stuff may seem mundane and stupid, but manners count. If you’re on the rise professionally, if you work with the public, if you’re trying to woo a woman just outside of your class, what have you, then you need to know this.
This is my introduction to what’ll be a truncated guide on basic etiquette for dinner dates and such. Some of this is perceived as old-fashioned, out-of-style, and that pisses me off! Gah! That’s so stupid I can’t even see straight, man!
It’s like these people who go to expensive restaurants wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Can’t some things be left exclusive? Sigh. Nothing is special anymore. Jesus.
These will be the kinda things I want my men doing. I’ve been turned off just by a guy who left his napkin on the table during a meal. I’m a hard-ass, but then you’re learning from the right chick, aren’t you? And you know I’m more fun to party with than Miss Manners, so, don’t think this makes you out-of-date.
This will make you retro cool. It’ll give you a classy mystique the other dicks you know don’t have. In the future, I’ll be returning to this topic of the modern man and how he can better find his place in today’s world with today’s woman. The sensitivity post of last Saturday was only the tip of this large iceberg.
Oh, and if you’re thinking, “What’s this got to do with sex?” Well, it’ll teach you how to say pretty-please, for starters, and it’ll get you to the end of the date in one piece. We’ll get to that part another time. It’s a big fucking topic.
Those tips start tomorrow. It may be two more postings. (On restaurant etiquette for men, primarily, with some tips for women thrown in.)

Can't Orgasm?




A word of advice?

If you’re a woman, and you’re unable to orgasm,
and you have photos of your family
anywhere near
a place you regularly like to have sex?

Move them. Seriously.



Why? Because psychology is important in sex, and so is shame. If you feel shame, you won’t orgasm. If your mommy or daddy or little nephew Joey have eyes on you with your legs spread and a guy controlling you?
Yeah, good luck with finding your happy spot.

Female Masturbation: An Intro For Newbies

And I’ve been thinking about masturbation. Not doing it, writing about it. I still want to hear more results and comments and emails based on the letter down below, but I think this topic is growing in importance for me.
Yes, guys need to understand more about female masturbation – but so do 40% of the female population who never, ever do it.
Why don’t they? You got me. Hang-ups of every kind, from social perceptions of what masturbation means, to fear, to religious implications, to good old-fashioned second, third, fourth generation shame.
Honeys, listen to me when I tell you this: Get over yourselves.
Oscar Wilde once said “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” Yes, it is, in more ways than one. Let’s put it this way: The orgasm is the ultimate in human sensation. It’s every nerve ending in the human body shuddering its way to absolute ecstasy, then collapsing upon themselves in spent euphoria.
Orgasms, though, don’t just fall out of the sky. The ability to come isn’t just something a woman wakes up with overnight. Female masturbation doesn’t get talked about, aside from jokes about vibrators, and that’s very misleading for a lot of women who have no experience in this area. Masturbating yourself is far less complicated than having to screw up the courage to spend money on a potentially embarrassing sex toy that you may not wish to have found.
If your courage lacks, it shouldn’t. We hear that we need lube, we need vibes, we need all this shit, and that’s all wrong. All you need, girls, is a happy little thought, and the soft pad of your fingers. Shorter nails helps, so you can get more variety of feelings, but so long as you’re working with your soft finger pads, not the tips, but the bit down closer to the first skin folds on the top joint. Like the photo below, you just slide your hand over your mons (that bit below the bottom of your belly, the mound) and into the first recesses of your vulva, the home of your clit. And massage around it at first, not on top of it right away because you might be too sensitive when you begin, but as you massage more, start increasing both the speed and the pressure, and begin going right over the top of the clit. And just keep going until you finally orgasm.
Any female who has not yet orgasmed, who’s approaching it for the first time, might feel fear and confusion. Some strange things happen to the body. At first, you might think you’re experiencing pain. Maybe you think you need to go to the washroom. But there’s a million different ways it might feel, and you need to relax and get past that point.
Then, there’s the issue of moisture. When you finally do orgasm, you will probably produce some form of ejaculate. You will be wet, lubricated, and you might even squirt some out. This is normal. There should be no shame with this, so try to be aware of it being an absolutely common occurrence. If it bothers you, one little visit to the bathroom will make it all go away. But you’ll become comfortable with this as you experience more orgasms and learn to let go.
I sort of discovered masturbation at about the age of 13. I remember being really excited about some George Michael photos I’d found – shirtless, tight shorts, that kind of thing – and I found myself dry humping a pillow. I kept getting up and running down the hall to go “pee” because I kept thinking I had to. Nope, that was approaching orgasm – something that never did happen for a few more years. I went from dry humping a pillow to them putting something solid and round under a pillow so I’d get more pressure, then I, well, let’s leave that one out, but the point is, it took a while to get the nerve up to start rubbing myself. Years, really. As for touching myself “under the panties,” well, that probably didn’t happen until I was 19 or 20. I was only comfortable rubbing over my panties because I thought it was dirty, wrong, and strange to touch my vagina on purpose. It was that moisture, it baffled me for a long time.
Fact is, being uncomfortable with masturbating is normal when you’re a woman. It’s sad that that’s the case, but it’s true. This generation coming up now, they’re the first ones to ever hear about female masturbation, really. My generation, and I’m 32, we never talked about it. Sex and the City has changed that. It’s suddenly okay for women to self-serve. But there are still so many hang-ups that interfere with our ability to orgasm.
And that, my friends, is another program. But here’s a great site with neat statistics on the female orgasm (and some on the male’s).
Come to think of it, I’m a little tense. Maybe I’ll go tend to something. Ahem.