I learned about sex in gym class. I had a very thorough and clinical gym teacher who taught me all the appropriate anatomy and terminology. She was highly motivated to scare us into abstinence and thus showed us several graphic child birth videos. There was very little in the lesson plan that involved relationships, love, self esteem or shame. Those lessons came later and were harder learned.
Talking about sex is somehow taboo. Over the years I have had different boyfriends or friends with varying degrees of sex talk tolerance. Some avoided the topic altogether, while others had a limit to the amount of detail or the subject matter that they were open to discussing. I have had very few free and uninhibited discussions about sex. At book club or girls nights out the natural evolution of our conversations would often migrate to sex, with the depth of subject matter directly correlated with the amount of wine we had imbibed.
Recently, as part of research for an article I am writing for a gentleman’s magazine (topic: what men can do to get more blow jobs), I invited a panel of interesting, smart and varied women, to a formal Blow Job Panel. Each woman was informed of the purpose of the meeting. The response was overwhelming. Perhaps it was just because I had invited the right group of gals, but they leaped at the opportunity! I later learned that when they shared with other female friends what they were up to that evening, their friends begged to attend as well. Husbands were psyched, as they hoped the meeting would cure their blow job droughts.
As I prepared for the evening, I had worked on a question list, based upon my five top ways a man can lay out the welcome mat for more felatio. I was curious how freely the topic would be discussed and to what degree attendees would share. To help create the mood I went to the wine store to stock up prior to the gathering. Noting that many of the wine names were apropos for the evening, I excitedly purchased wine with names like “Swallow”, “Gnarly Head” and “Purple Cowboy”. The wine vendor noting the trend asked me “Is this for a bachelor party?” “Something like that”, I told him. I even put together all of the ingredients for Blow Job shots!
There were six women in attendance with varying comfort and skill levels with blow jobs. As we dove into the subject material, I was amazed at the desire that they possessed to talk and talk and talk. The meeting lasted four and a half hours! As we moved from point to point, often with me, as moderator, sitting back and letting the conversation wander where it would, I realized that these women were loving the fact that they could talk freely and without shame about something that, universally they reported was something they had rarely if ever had the opportunity to discuss before.
We found connection in our common experiences. We were amazed at how similar our first experiences were and how despairing it was that most of us went forward into this aspect of our sexuality blindly, without any peer support or teaching. Where we were expected to learn these things? Was this something I should be teaching my daughter when she came of age? Or like me and the rest of the panel, just let her figure it out herself when the time came?
For most women, unless their husbands regale them with compliments, they will go through their sexual lives with nagging doubts about their ability or skill sexually. Not only are women self conscious about their bodies but about how well they perform. Many women never learn how to garner their own pleasure from sexual intimacy; instead, they play a role for the pleasure of their partner.
I am not sure anyone from the panel ran home to blow their husbands. That wasn’t the point of the evening. What we all came away with was a shared sadness over the lack of opportunities like this one, to share and commiserate, for the simple purpose of quelling our fears and doubts and boosting our sexual confidence. Keeping the doors closed on open sexual discussion keeps us in the age of women without sexual power. Removing the negative stigma of talking openly about sex can only empower women and prevent the inevitable shame and guilt and self-doubt so many women are plagued with throughout their sexual lives.
It is hard to accept that sexual lessons are ones we must learn by trial and error or pathetically by watching porn. We can be taught to understand the mechanics of the act- what parts go where, but we aren’t taught the emotional weight of the decisions made to participate in them. I hope to spare my daughter moments of shame, these I feel are the most damaging. How can she avoid them successfully unless I also teach her the skill of sex and how to take care of her heart and her own sexual fulfillment? I would love to scare her into abstinence, but the greater likelihood is that she will be entering this realm long before she or I are ready.
The blow job panel was a smashing success. There was hysterical laughter and uninhibited sharing. Empty bottles of sexually connotative wine littered the kitchen. We grew closer as a group, appreciating this gift we had given each other. We wrapped up the meeting reluctantly, each with many more long held questions we were eager to ask. The consensus was that we should do this again. Although we had all been indoctrinated with this new found sex talk freedom, the sad reality is that we will be hard pressed to find it anywhere else.
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| Photo by Sarah G |
Talking about sex is somehow taboo. Over the years I have had different boyfriends or friends with varying degrees of sex talk tolerance. Some avoided the topic altogether, while others had a limit to the amount of detail or the subject matter that they were open to discussing. I have had very few free and uninhibited discussions about sex. At book club or girls nights out the natural evolution of our conversations would often migrate to sex, with the depth of subject matter directly correlated with the amount of wine we had imbibed.
Recently, as part of research for an article I am writing for a gentleman’s magazine (topic: what men can do to get more blow jobs), I invited a panel of interesting, smart and varied women, to a formal Blow Job Panel. Each woman was informed of the purpose of the meeting. The response was overwhelming. Perhaps it was just because I had invited the right group of gals, but they leaped at the opportunity! I later learned that when they shared with other female friends what they were up to that evening, their friends begged to attend as well. Husbands were psyched, as they hoped the meeting would cure their blow job droughts.
As I prepared for the evening, I had worked on a question list, based upon my five top ways a man can lay out the welcome mat for more felatio. I was curious how freely the topic would be discussed and to what degree attendees would share. To help create the mood I went to the wine store to stock up prior to the gathering. Noting that many of the wine names were apropos for the evening, I excitedly purchased wine with names like “Swallow”, “Gnarly Head” and “Purple Cowboy”. The wine vendor noting the trend asked me “Is this for a bachelor party?” “Something like that”, I told him. I even put together all of the ingredients for Blow Job shots!
There were six women in attendance with varying comfort and skill levels with blow jobs. As we dove into the subject material, I was amazed at the desire that they possessed to talk and talk and talk. The meeting lasted four and a half hours! As we moved from point to point, often with me, as moderator, sitting back and letting the conversation wander where it would, I realized that these women were loving the fact that they could talk freely and without shame about something that, universally they reported was something they had rarely if ever had the opportunity to discuss before.
We found connection in our common experiences. We were amazed at how similar our first experiences were and how despairing it was that most of us went forward into this aspect of our sexuality blindly, without any peer support or teaching. Where we were expected to learn these things? Was this something I should be teaching my daughter when she came of age? Or like me and the rest of the panel, just let her figure it out herself when the time came?
For most women, unless their husbands regale them with compliments, they will go through their sexual lives with nagging doubts about their ability or skill sexually. Not only are women self conscious about their bodies but about how well they perform. Many women never learn how to garner their own pleasure from sexual intimacy; instead, they play a role for the pleasure of their partner.
I am not sure anyone from the panel ran home to blow their husbands. That wasn’t the point of the evening. What we all came away with was a shared sadness over the lack of opportunities like this one, to share and commiserate, for the simple purpose of quelling our fears and doubts and boosting our sexual confidence. Keeping the doors closed on open sexual discussion keeps us in the age of women without sexual power. Removing the negative stigma of talking openly about sex can only empower women and prevent the inevitable shame and guilt and self-doubt so many women are plagued with throughout their sexual lives.
It is hard to accept that sexual lessons are ones we must learn by trial and error or pathetically by watching porn. We can be taught to understand the mechanics of the act- what parts go where, but we aren’t taught the emotional weight of the decisions made to participate in them. I hope to spare my daughter moments of shame, these I feel are the most damaging. How can she avoid them successfully unless I also teach her the skill of sex and how to take care of her heart and her own sexual fulfillment? I would love to scare her into abstinence, but the greater likelihood is that she will be entering this realm long before she or I are ready.
The blow job panel was a smashing success. There was hysterical laughter and uninhibited sharing. Empty bottles of sexually connotative wine littered the kitchen. We grew closer as a group, appreciating this gift we had given each other. We wrapped up the meeting reluctantly, each with many more long held questions we were eager to ask. The consensus was that we should do this again. Although we had all been indoctrinated with this new found sex talk freedom, the sad reality is that we will be hard pressed to find it anywhere else.
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