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April 10, 2006

The Web Really is Full of Information

She don't come easy
I am a young, experienced, sexually adventurous female with a raging libido. However, I find I have serious trouble reaching climax and there are times when it really pisses me off! I rarely come when pleasured by another, no matter how devastatingly hot the sex or how skilled the partner. I can only orgasm if pleasured in a very, very specific way, but I'd love to be able to come in any kind of position. Even when I masturbate, I know that I have a limited number of ways of getting myself off, because most methods don't work (for example, I can't come by fingering myself, but I can if I hump a pillow). I've tried every suggestion I've ever heard, but I can't seem to make myself more orgasmic. I envy my friends who can come hard up to three times over the course of a half-hour pounding! Help! CECE

People falsify, sugar-coat and exaggerate their sexual experiences all the time. (In fact, as we've come to see in the literary world, people distort a variety of personal experiences.) Since it's difficult for the average person to collect empirical sexual data, we all feel left out of the loop with what seem like our own mundane responses. You hear about these monumental experiences everyone's having -- girls flooding mattresses! This one guy who took a friend's eye out from across the room! Eighteen hours later and still shrieking like a banshee! -- so it's no wonder you feel swindled.

Some of these experiences are certainly authentic, but as The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex says, "we live in a competitive society, and we need encouragement before we can appreciate our own unique responses." Cece, let me offer you some: I would lose my motherfucking mind if a girl got herself off humping a pillow in front of me. You should be doing porn, or at the very least have your own line of bed linens (go ahead, call it Thread Cunt, I won't sue).

The real trouble is not your orgasmic aptitude, but rather the fact that you've fetishized certain ways of coming to the point of antagonism. As the Guide also says, "When you focus on the end result of a sexual experience, you run the risk of rushing past or even denying yourself some of the more subtle pleasures along the way." Don't forget the journey when you're barrelling towards your destination. And on a personal note, in the 20-odd years since I became orgasmic, my abilities and incentives have changed. You will no doubt find this yourself in the many years you will have to explore your sexuality.

Hot Meals
One thing that I've noted in my mid-age is that whenever I perform cunnilingus I get more aroused than when my partner performs fellatio on me. I get so aroused that I often come -- and the orgasms are wonderfully intense and transcendent. I am circumcised and I fail to feel any stimulation no matter what my partner does. Is this mind over matter? I came, pardon the pun, late to the game of oral sex and I enjoy giving it more than receiving it. Is this common? A PLEASED CUNNING LINGUIST

When it comes to oral, giving and getting are two totally different experiences. Preparing a meal is much different than eating one, but for many people it offers as much if not more pleasure. Persevering with the old food and sex analogy, it's not hard to see why oral sex turns you on to the point of orgasm. I can hardly think of anything on this earth that was created with eating in mind more than the vagina. When sound, it has all the qualities of the most delicious foods: salty, chewy, slippery and a bit acidic. And no need to mind your manners; you can get right in there without a napkin and utensils. Seriously, wouldn't you come in your pants if you could eat all your meals lying down and rubbing your cock on a mattress? Cece, are you with me on this one?

LOVE BITSLove Bits
Even academics should be taken with a grain of salt when it comes to dispensing sexual data: the University of Michigan's School of Public Health recently released the first academic study involving sex-toy use. Though they didn't send their findings out in a press release, the information's been posted online and criticized by sex researchers and activists like Cory Silverberg, a co-owner at Come As You Are, and Dr. Petra Boynton, a sexual psychologist in the UK who also specializes in research methodologies.

The survey, done over the phone in the Seattle area and narrowed down from a pool of 37,000 random numbers to 1,114 people, linked sex-toy use with STI risk: 27.7 per cent of the respondents who used sex toys also claimed to use recreational drugs for sexual enhancement and had multiple partners -- two behaviours that put people at risk for STIs. This information is disquieting, inflammatory and misrepresentative.

First of all, who the hell conducts sex surveys over the phone? Dr. Boynton suggests that this is a totally unethical way to garner intimate information. You offer people no support once you're done going through their personal lives, and it doesn't really give you a random sample, it just tells you that certain people are more willing to pick up the phone and answer personal questions from strangers. It also assumes a lot about people with multiple partners. The surveyors didn't ask people about their STI status, they simply linked behaviours when, really, you could just as easily assume that people who have multiple partners and are willing to be open about their sexual practices are more conversant with sexual protection.

One of the things that galls Silverberg most about the study is this: it assumes that people who use sex toys are a homogenous group. We are not, and some of us -- most, I would hazard to guess -- do not want to talk about our sex lives (or anything else for that matter) with strangers on the telephone. "This is what happens when researchers who don't know a lot about something start asking questions," says Silverberg. "But," he adds with a note of optimism, "at least they decided to ask about sex toys."

Posted by jenny at April 10, 2006 12:52 PM