Category Archives: sex tips

Unleashing Your Vixen: Using Notes Pt. 2

This is the first installment of my new series, Unleashing Your Vixen. Please check that out before you read this. The next installment will probably be on Thursday at some point. That’ll have actual moves in it. This is sort of a tease towards that.

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Ah… smell that? That mix of spring and long-stemmed red roses and perfume dangling on the wind? It’s spring (well, unless you live in New York, you sorry bastards). More importantly, it’s Valentine’s day.
I have issues with Valentine’s day and I’ll share that with you some other time. For now, though, it’s a nice thought that more people will be getting laid tonight than any other night of the year. Far be it for me to rain on your love parade.
In keeping with the Unleashing Your Vixen notion, these are a couple small ideas to put in the arsenal of their education. Preliminary to moves is the act of initiation. Vixens must take initiative from time to time — if not half or more of the time.

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So, you’re on a first date, it’s going well. He’s cute, he’s sexy. Every time he smiles, you imagine what it might feel like to glide your tongue along the edges of those pearly whites. But you’re just a vixen in training. You don’t want to be the good girl who gets a kiss at the door tonight. Nah, right now, you wanna lay a smacker on this guy and see how challenging you can make it for him to have to walk to that door in two or three hours.
But how do you make the first move?
Have you ever noticed that guys almost always head to the john before they start making out with you on the couch? There’s like this switch: They usually relieve themselves before they get all worked up. It’s a pragmatism thing. So, you go before that happens.
Wanna be cute? Put some vivid-colour Post-It with a cute little double-entendre like “Help yourself!” on your prominently-placed bottle of mouthwash.
I mean, if you’re dating and you don’t have a prominently-placed bottle of mouthwash, then you’re doing it all wrong. Tasty kisses are nice, but only when it’s chocolate, wine, etc. Mouthwash is key. Guys’ll help themselves to the mouthwash 90% of the time anyways, but a little note? An itty-bitty green light? I doubt there’s many fellows out there who’ll pass up that chance. Now you just wait.
The “take me now” note always works nicely, in all its varying states. Another fun way to use notes to break the ice when you don’t know how to say what it is you want – say, for example, you’ve been in the relationship for a spell, a couple weeks or month or something, and you don’t want to wade through all the niceties and cuddling and such. You want sex, you want it hot, and you want it now, but you’re not confident enough yet to answer the door a little moist and oily fresh out of a bath, and naked, when he rings. So, a smaller step is needed.
You’re at home, you’re having a nice meal in. Just put a note under the plates at dinner, and ask him to clear the table for you while you step into your bedroom for some silly reason. Try something like, “If the dishes are working for you, continue, but if you’d rather be taking me doggy style, come and get it.”
You can be as dirty as you want to, but the fact is, a little dirty with a little nice is always sexy, always classy, and always lets you feel like you’re as bad as you need to be, without crossing too many lines in your so-called ethical sand.
Hell, you can include a note in your Valentine’s day card that has a list of things you love your partner doing to you. “Things I love that you do to me: Nibbling the back of my knees, biting my inner thighs, when you switch to a more aggressive thrust as you get closer to climax, when you nibble my ear while fingering me…” and anything along those lines. Exchange cards in a restaurant. Let him get all flustered and aroused. Take it a step further and put a couple things on the list that you’ve never done to him, but wouldn’t mind trying, and see where that takes you.
Being a vixen or a rockstar lover means doing little things like this. It means taking initiative sometimes to let him know that you’re wanting this as much as he does, if not more. Too many guys are left feeling like their lovers fuck them out of obligation, not desire, and your job as a vixen is to lower that average. Let him know. Let it be unmistakable: Sex is what you want. No, he is what you want.
Being a vixen, yes, it’s about the moves, the know-how, but it’s also an attitude. It’s a confidence you need to find in yourself, an awareness of the sexy being you have inside, and it’s a desire to let that part of you shine. It’s not about being a size four or wearing a Chanel dress or being a barstar at the club. It’s more real, more innate than that. Being a vixen is about being strong when you need to be, being demure when it’s called for, and knowing what cards to play and when to play them. Being a vixen doesn’t happen overnight, but one night can drastically impact your progress and really spin you in the right direction. Taking small steps like this could be a crack that springs a raging river from the dam that has been your sexuality up till now. Embrace the fissure, and don’t worry, it bursts wide open faster than you might expect.

Unleashing Your Inner Vixen: Breakout Moves Pt. 1

I bet Isaac Newton was the bomb in bed. I bet he was sitting under that tree, fantasizing about hiking up Mathilda’s knickers the night before when that apple came toppling down out of that tree.
After all, Newton’s famous Third Law of Physics, “Each action must have an equal and opposite reaction,” should be every lover’s credo.
Recently, I wrote a little piece I playfully called “Fishies: Wake Up and Smell the Pheromones,” about “dead fish” lovers who lie there. Woman On Bottom wrote, asking:

So… the chick is on bottom, the dude is on top and they’re having sex. He’s thrusting like nobody’s business. The age-old question remains: what is she supposed to be doing? Scratching his back? Moaning? Wrapping her legs around him? Rocking against him? Talking dirty to him?
How does she avoid this whole “dead fish” syndrome guys always complain about? What skills should she posess? And, is there a difference in the “woman on bottom”‘s job from fucking to lovemaking?

Well, Bottom, it was funny you should ask. I was kicking this idea around for a few days before you asked, and since then, I’ve just been giving it some thought.
See, the problem with a lot of women in your position (hardy-har) is that you simply fail to realize the potential that being on the bottom offers. What, you can’t move your legs when you’re under there? Sure you can. You ask about scratching – hell, yeah!
The normal, healthy, sexually active male will be in his glory if he thinks he’s inspired you to become this sexually insatiable beast who just can’t get enough of his lovin’. If you’re digging your nails into him, moaning, and locking your legs around his hips, well, he’s gonna think you’re having a good time. More importantly, he’s gonna think he’s The Man, and that’s gonna get him more involved too.
Being on the receiving end of true desire always, always feels incredible. If your man’s never felt that desire, it might explain away a lot of changes in his behaviour, or a reduced focus on his appearance or attention to you.
I’ve encountered what happens to men when their women fail to get involved sexually, and the outcome is always this sad, seemingly fractured man who simply seems to have ‘something missing’ in him. Sure, passion.
It’s really, really, really important women learn how much they can offer sex, even if they’re stuck on the bottom. By changing that up, showing you’re interested, it’s likely you’ll take it to the next level and learn a whole schwack of new positions.
Before any of this goes anywhere, you’ve got to understand Newton’s Law. Every little thing he does to you should provoke a reaction to him. If not, then why’s he bothering? Every little thing you do to him will also provoke a reaction. This is the sexual circle. One reaction gets another gets another gets another gets an orgasm. Something like that, but there’s a few more moves in there, I think.
Your first step in releasing your inner vixen? Kegel exercises. Now, I just don’t care enough to keep looking until I find a site that agrees with my views, so keep in mind, that site thinks men don’t really have to do Kegels, that women offer more by learning them – WTF? YES, MEN HAVE TO DO KEGELS. Shit, man.
Yes, guys, learn to do Kegel exercises because we want you to be able to break the mold and enter into the 15+ minute zone of loving, thanks. We want every one of you to be a rumoured super-lover-man that Sting is, and HE does HIS Kegels. Jesus Christ. Oh, the work I have yet to do!
But I do digress. Every time you squeeze your vaginal muscles, he’s going to feel it. More importantly, every time you squeeze them, you know you’re contributing, you’re impacting things a bit. Most importantly? Great exercise for the abs.
If you want the best reason of all for being a rockstar lover – it’s the exercise. You’re supposed to get 30-minutes of exercise a day, right? Well… what if I told you that you could have better abs, a tighter ass, a stronger lower back, tight inner thighs, and improved endurance, all from 30 minutes of exercise every day, without ever, ever having to leave your bed? You’d call the FCC and try to bust my ass for fraud, I’d bet.
But it’s true. Fuck your way to a better ass, says I. Hell, it might even help your bust if you do enough with your arms. Yep, Tony Little can take his Gazelle and shove it, man.
The next step towards Rockstar-Loverness:
Put on an aural show. Start moaning and gasping a little. It’s interesting, I think there’s enough fodder to do a couple postings on the importance of moaning. You go back and you look at this site, you’ll find the second or third posting I did was about moaning and such. It annoyed me. But then, right after posting that, I was talking with a lady I know and she told me about the bad old days when she was in an sanitarium in the Czech Republic for “sexual dysfunction.” There was a woman there who’d used to be a real tiger in bed. She and her husband moved into the city, and her sexual enjoyment went to nil, and it’d been years since she orgasmed.
What did they discover? She had to scream when having sex. They moved from a quiet countryside farmhouse into a small, thin-walled apartment, and she went from screamer sex to silent sex, and lost the orgasms to go with it.
It got me thinking. I started to wonder if the silent sex I was having was somehow psychically reinforcing any of the old hang-ups I had from my Catholic youth, et al. Since then, during the sex I’ve had (including masturbation, actually), I’ve made myself be much more vocal, and oh, my God, it’s just so much hotter! I was really surprised that I’d feel less self-conscious as a result of it, but that was the case. I started feeling more dominant, confident, and willing to do what it took to make myself really enjoy the moment — moreso than ever before. It was a conscious effort for the first five minutes, but then it became natural, just putting a voice to all those things I’d already been feeling.
So, here I was, always championing the “shut up and fuck me” approach, but I’m a big girl and I can admit my personal discovery that moaning audibly, inserting dramatic gasps that really convey my surprise or delight, muttering a bit to my lover, etc, really allows me to get into the moment and be a player. I think it’s the conscious shunning of all that repression and backwards sexual thinking I’d had foisted on me since my youth.
I think you really need to open your mouth a little and get involved. If you just lie there, silently, every single time, you’re going to find it easier to slip into a rut. But if you groan, moan, or gasp whenever your lover changes a move or something, it’s the early warning system to your pleasure or pain. It clues your lover in: “She wants more of that. Wow, I’m hot.”
Unleashing your inner vixens & rockstars will continue next time around, and I’ll divulge a few specific newby moves for converting the boring old Missionary Position into the start of a whole new thang for you. For now, really focus on the Kegels and the notion of having a voice during sex. They’re small things, but they’re huge, huge foundations for this thing, this new lover, that you’re building here.
NOTE: The photo is of a position some call the Bamboo. It’s a slight deviation from the Missionary Position, and, uh, a real good time, if you know what I’m sayin’. There are a couple other slick positions like this for the starting rockstar to engage in, starting in the Missionary, on bottom. That’s next time.

Figleaf Answers Q's on Male Masturbation

Figleaf was kind enough to look over all the questions posed by women in regards to male masturbation of late, and compiled a hefty response for y’all.
I enjoy Fig’s site a lot since it offers a lot of what I enjoy to read: Intelligent discussion about sex. It’s a nifty thing to have him guesting here. Thanks, Fig.

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READER WRITES: Ok, it doesn’t really turn me on, but it certainly doesn’t turn me off either. I did accidentally walk in on my husband while he was masturbating in the shower. I scared the hell out of him. I apologized and now I don’t peek around the shower curtain unless I know that he knows I’m in the bathroom. After all that’s his time and not really any of my business.
FIGLEAF: So first of all I’d like to say cool, you didn’t jump him when you caught him (neither jumping all over him for doing it, nor jumping his bones.) Real masturbation is a personal act.
J.P. Donaleavy, author of The Unexpurgated Code, a tongue-in-cheek book of etiquette for English social climbers, recommended that upon encountering someone masturbating you should say “I see you’re in good hands” and withdraw. It’s actually the best advice there is. Now I did say that real masturbation is always a personal act. If that were the end of it I probably wouldn’t have started writing this at all. Read on.
You say watching masturbation doesn’t really turn you on or off. That’s actually pretty cool because unless you’re the one masturbating it’s really none of your business. 🙂 There’s also masturbation for two and that’s a whole ‘nother topic.
Watching someone masturbate *for* you can be pretty exciting. Exciting for them because they’re doing it for you. Exciting for you because they’re doing it for you. If they’re shy there’s the excitement of seducing them into doing something you know will give them pleasure. If you’re shy there’s the excitement of safely crossing a few boundaries. If you’re not even a little bit curious there’s still the excitement of learning how *they* touch themselves so you can do it yourself next time.
If they’re reluctant there’s even the possibility of excitement that comes from saying “I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.” If you’re adventurous there’s the possibility that it’s just another form of foreplay that can lead to one of you throwing him or herself on the other and fucking their brains out. If you’re into dares, suspense, and delayed gratification there’s the excitement of playing chicken – of seeing if one of you will crack and jump the other’s bones before one of you comes. If you’re polite there’s even the excitement of watching each other get closer and closer and saying “after you…” “no, after you” “oh no, I insist” which of course can prolong the moment till both your eyes are rolling.
Heck, even if you’re just lazy there’s the excitement of knowing they’re doing most of the work! 🙂
The bottom line, though, is that while real masturbation is always a neutral (to a spectator) personal act it can become charged when you invite yourself into it. It’s surprising how that personal act, even one you might find personally distasteful under other circumstances, becomes a mutual act that can be every bit as intimate and erotic and fulfilling as the closest, deepest coupling.
READER: I’ve met a man who doesn’t like to masturbate, and I’m dead curious to hear opinion on that. I’m sure he’s not the first and won’t be the last, but I’m very sorry I may never have the pleasure of watching him do the deed…or giving him a hand…
FIGLEAF: There’s an old joke that 99% of men masturbate and the other 1% are liars. It’s not really true. More of us enjoy masturbating than care to admit it, but just as there are plenty of women who for one reason or another don’t masturbate, there are also plenty of of men who don’t either. (Figures vary but it could be as high as 20%.) If your partner is one of those then you might have your work cut out for you.

Another group of men feel that masturbation is sort of a second choice or a substitute for sex and so they’re going to feel a little reluctant to give up an “opportunity” to play in order to rehearse some more.
Finally, most of us are pretty shy about admitting we masturbate. There’s the usual conditioning against touching yourself, with overtones of “If I admit I do it you’ll imagine I don’t think you’re satisfying me.” Something else to keep in mind is the conditioning we get early on that being seen masturbating is perverted because of the perverts who sit jacking off in their cars near playgrounds and such.
Yes, it’s sort of silly, but so’s imagining you’re not every bit as sexy in dumpy sweatpants as in lingerie.
Two things to try, one theoretical, the other very pragmatic.
Theory: Remind him that no matter what kind of delicious, arousing, eye-popping, or otherwise remarkable sex is depicted in industrial porn, 99.999% of male actors eventually stop doing that, pull out, and masturbate till they ejaculate because… well, I’m not sure why they do, but they all do it. So if porn stars can do it, you might suggest, then so can he.
Pragmatics: Tell him you’re going to masturbate for him. Ask him to watch but not touch. When he’s pretty far along suggest it would really, really turn you on even more if he’d touch himself too.
One of those should work if he’s one of the 80-85% or men who know how to and enjoy masturbating. If he’s one of the others, well, you can ask him to practice, or you can *help* him practice, but I can’t promise it’ll work. Sometimes when we say we don’t like to masturbate we’re actually telling the truth. 🙂
READER WRITES: I’d like to know the kind of things that make it feel good – is it better with lube or spit, or just with the hand? Does the pressure of the hand make much of a difference? For those with foreskins, does tugging that down over the head feel pleasurable in and of itself?
AND…
Does any of it weird you out? Why? I love watching men masturbate – I find it quite delightful seeing how they take care of themselves, and noticing their overall reaction. It’s harder to pay attention when my mouth’s at play!
What’s your reaction to it? Do you find it hot, or not? Why or why not? It turns me on, watching one of my partners masturbate. I find it less impacting watching it in porn, but still interesting.
AND…
Have you had any negative experiences with it? What’s your reaction to finding a lover doing it when he thought you were asleep / not around? Only the one. With a previous partner, I woke up one night to find him standing at the side of the bed and masturbating over me. That disturbed me at the time, and disturbs me now. Interestingly, I have no problem with my current partner jacking off while I’m asleep, and he has no problem with me doing the same. So I think that was a personality issue rather than an action issue.
AND…
Closing opinion: watching men masturbate is a) hot, and b) gives me pointers to add to my own skill-set. I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to move my hand as fast, though!
FIGLEAF: This is really good to hear, you know. Another thing men are raised to believe (and a lot of women for that matter) is that women don’t like to watch. I think it’s more correct to say women don’t like to feel uncomfortably or involuntarily out of control, as you did when you woke to find your partner masturbating over you, or as others do when an aggressive man exposes himself and expects you to be turned on. Nice guys may take that a little too far and not be comfortable showing you anything at all. If you can convince him you’re comfortable with him doing it (it might take some convincing) and if he understands that you want to watch and learn so you can do it to him too, he may eventually grow more comfortable with the idea. (Repeated Hint: ask him if it would turn him on to watch you.)

As for technique, I don’t know what to say. I don’t have direct experience with other men but based on the ways my own partners have confidently but not always successfully taken me in hand I get the impression different men like different strokes in different places. But that’s just another argument for asking your partners to show you. The one other generality I can add is: Men tend to like way, way more pressure than women do. I think this has a lot to do with why women think we touch too hard and men think women touch too gently.

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Back to me! Thanks for the contribution to this series, Fig. Much appreciated.
As for the reader with concerns she might never stroke fast enough, well, I’d focus on the details you can master — firmness of grip, length and placement of stroke, that sort of thing, and master those. A good long stroke, teasing the balls, all these things could probably compensate nicely for the lack of speed (which some guys say can be a really nice change of pace, literally, anyhow). What do you think, Fig, readers?
Oh, and please notice the fabulous specimen touching himself in the photo? He’s playing with his testicles. Don’t forget to make friends with the boys — gently. Just playing with a guy’s balls can do some pretty incredible things to his desire. Just be gentle, that’s all. A little kiss here, a little stroke there…

Lights, Camera, and… Action?

I don’t know about you, but January’s traditionally a month I stay home a lot in an effort to get my bankbook back in black after the excesses of the festive season. So, I was thinking, hmm, what little project can I propose for my readers?
In the last posting, I suggested doing performance report cards with each other, checking in with your partner to see how well each of you are doing in the pleasing department. This time, I want to suggest getting into visuals — taping your lovemaking — but with a twist.
We’ve all seen sex videos gone awry, whether it’s Paris Hilton’s tapes getting released to the world at large, or some couple down the street who accidentally turned their video into the rental store instead of the copy of Forrest Gump the family had been renting. Yes, these things can happen, and that’s why you need to be careful.
But you can get hit by a vehicle crossing a street, yet you do that daily. Take the chance, explore it. Be a star, in your own way.
Naturally, a lot of us don’t like seeing ourselves on tape, but it’s an important thing to get over. A sex video isn’t jalways smut, it can be an erotic record of how you feel about your lover, and evidence of how you display it. When incorporated back into the relationship as visual foreplay or a romantic night in, it can help spice your sex life like nothing else, provided you’re willing to embrace it.
Imagine you’re a woman with insecurities, and you’re sitting there, watching a DVD of some sexcapades with your lover, and he starts getting aroused just watching you. This time, it’s not some blonde bimbette with triple-D boobs getting him rigid, it’s you, in all your simple, real, attainable beauty. For once, you’ll feel like the bombshell you deserve to be. Take the chance.
If you have insecurities, then there are some approaches to lessen ‘em. Spend a quiet night planning the activities with your partner. Script it, as it were. Decide some of the things you’d like to do to each other, but don’t worry about order, just go with the flow. If planning it to the T will help you lessen even more of your inhibitions, then go for it, but don’t feel restrained by it.
When you’re getting down to the nitty-gritty, you need to keep a couple things in mind. Technology’s important. What is your camera capable of doing? What kind of lighting will it need? You want to ensure you’ve got a camera that can perform in low-light situations, especially if insecurities are present. The control of the lighting is what differentiates the romantic from the pornographic. Camera angles are important. If it gets you hot, explore your lover’s body with a handicam. If your lover’s going down on you, you can hold the camera and capture it from your perspective. If you like, get your lover masturbating on film. Whatever occurs to you, you can do.
Nowadays, the home sex video can be done better than ever. Home editing technology is more sophisticated, yet more user-friendly than it has ever been. My Mac, for instance, comes with iMovie and iDVD. The first allows you to take different tracks from different digital videos and edit them together for a digital film. Then, you can mosey over to iDVD and lay in an audio track. You can speed things up, slow them down, stretch ‘em, lay in colour filters, whatever turns you on, whatever makes the mood better. I don’t know what Windows programs exist, but I’m sure they’re every bit as simple.
So, here’s the twist, which comes after you’ve done the playing around on camera.

You get together with your lover, put all your different sexy video tracks on your computer, crack a bottle of wine, and as a couple, watch the clips and make decisions about what segments are the hottest, and then you create your own DVD with montages of your lovemaking sessions. Find music that sets the pace for your visuals — if it’s down’n’dirty, something like INXS or Nine Inch Nails might hit the spot. For something romantic, pick any cheesy diva you like. It really doesn’t matter. (Personally, I’d be wanting to find a little classic bassy porn soundtracks from the ‘70s, just for the fun/humour factor.) You can even intellectually elevate the moment by recording poetry or erotic writing and dub that over the tracks, too.

The great thing about doing something like this together is that the creation of it (via the editing) becomes as much a part of the experience as the action performance is. And if you’ve taken the time to talk and “script” what sort of activities you’d like done, then the entire thing, from start to finish, becomes an experience that you’ll always be able to enjoy.
There’s another bonus, too. Like I suggested last time, the performance reviews, they become so much more tangible if you’re sitting there and analyzing your clips and cutting/pasting them together. You can talk about why that move got you so hot, what you’re feeling when your face is screwed up in agonizing pleasure, and how it could have felt just a little better if done slightly different.
As a society, we’ve so many hang-ups about seeing ourselves on video, sexually, as if it’s pornographic and crass. It’s not. It’s a record of how two people express their love for each other. And while it’s easier for something like that to escape out into the world than ever before, it’s also easier to turn it into a beautiful work of art that you can enjoy time and time again as the years pass — just be careful with it, that’s all, and make sure you trust your lover on every level.
Speaking of years passing, every relationship has its phases where the sex might dwindle. If that’s the case, something like this can serve as a tangible reminder for just how good it was, and provide inspiration for getting back to that kind of feeling once again.