Consolidation

I am consolidating all of my blogs into one single spot:

pinklippariah.blogspot.com

Female Ejaculation, a real Humpday on it!

dr.g-spot

The porn industry has a relentless ability to make even the most natural of sexual phenomena sound utterly disgusting. Take for instance, “gushing” and “squirting”, both are words the porn industry has coined in order to capitalize on the occurrence of female ejaculation in some women.
But unlike the almost freak-show imagery that these two oozy gerunds evoke, female ejaculation is more common and quite a bit less disgusting than it sounds.
First reported on in 1950 by Dr. Ernst Gräfenberg, female ejaculation was hardly worth investigating in the eyes of Dr. Gräfenberg’s collegues.  Most scientists and medical researchers assumed the “expulsion of fluids [released] at the acme of orgasm” described by Dr. Gräfenberg was just stress-induced incontinence.
Decades later, as pornographers began raking in the cash for encouraging their female actors to embrace orgasms no matter how monumental the waterworks, sexologists were still debating over whether female ejaculation was even real.
In fact, many sexologists accepted as fact the urination hypothesis posed by Dr. Gräfenberg’s colleagues, while a few others suggested that female “ejaculate” was simply a build up of vaginal lubrication that appears to squirt due to chronic muscle contractions during intense orgasms.

Dr. Heli Alzate, a physician and professor of sexology at Caldas University School of Medicine at Wake Forest, suspected a little bit of both.  “The ignorance and/or confusion still prevalent among women about the anatomy and physiology of their sexual organs may make them mistake either vaginal lubrication or stress urinary incontinence for an ‘ejaculation’,” reported Dr. Alzate in 1986.
Although Alzate’s comment shows skepticism about the reality of female ejaculation, his argument brings to light the fact that our culture’s refusal to encourage women to embrace and proactively seek to understand their own bodies and sexual response systems could be at the heart of why no one could find any answers to the female ejaculation questions.
Even today, although female ejaculation has been accepted as a real sexual phenomenon, sexual researchers are still grappling with basic questions about the subject.
To the surprise of just about everyone in the medical community, recent chemical analyses of female ejaculate showed that the substance shares some chemical markers with male ejaculate. The most notable of these markers being an enzyme previously believed to belong only in male prostate glands.
This discovery bolstered the current G-spot craze of sex guidebooks and lifestyle magazines, but only rarely is female ejaculation ever nominally discussed. It’s research about female ejaculation that has lead to knowledge about G-Spot (a.k.a. “female prostate”) orgasms, but the ejaculation part is still ignored by mainstream culture.
G-spot stimulation is known to cause a sensation similar those of a full bladder, that much even Cosmopolitan magazine will admit.  But when few sources are willing to let girls known that that feeling is most probably happening because you are on the verge of ejaculation, which is completely natural and not the same as urinating, women might hold back and hinder the flourishing of a perfectly good orgasm for fear of committing an embarrassing faux-pas.
Dr. Gräfenberg’s colleagues were close with their hypothesis, but the fact is that the sensations of female ejaculation are not symptoms of “stress induced incontinence” and a little “squirting” shouldn’t have to cause for embarrassment.

According to a 2007 interview with Tiana Lynn, a porn star known for her “squirting” abilities, women interested in experiencing ejaculatory orgasms should use a few fingers curved up toward the G-Spot (if your on your back, the G-Spot would be on the top of your vaginal canal about two inches in), relax, maybe add clitoral or whatever other stimulation you like, and try enjoy the sensations free of self-conscious doubt about what is or isn’t happening. Lynn suggests that a newbie urinate before trying, so as to clear the air of any possible confusion.
For some women, such stimulation will provoke ejaculation, and for others it won’t. Whether or not G-Spot orgasms with ejaculation are actually any “better” than clitoral orgasms is highly debatable, and frankly, pretty unimportant.
But the chances are that what Tiana Lynn described would feel pretty nice either way.

_____

this hasn’t been edited by my lovely editor leigh yet, but after it is, that version will be in the texan tomorrow.  catch ya later!

-mary

Wait, wait, WHY do you write a stupid sex column?!

i don't like them, but at least they'll talk about sex openly

So it has been a while since I’ve posted on here because a) I had a little break from work which was nice, so I didn’t blog much a few weeks ago and b) then I got a job and c) i started a new blog where I feel a little more comfortable being myself (i.e. not talking about sex stuff and not feeling obligated to be completely accurate and professional sounding).  But, Humpday is going to run again this summer and here is the first edition.  It’ not what you are expecting, rather, it is a sort of Mission Statement about what Humpday is and why it is not silly.  I don’t know exactly… but it was requested by some higher-ups for fears that I will scare the summer orientation students.  Poor babies.  Lo!  Here is the unedited (raw!) version.  I’ll post the link below the fold tomorrow morning.

Peace homies!,

Mary
___________________

“But why does it have to be about sex?”
Once I started writing a weekly sex column called Humpday last January, my mother begged me to answer this question at least once a week. She claimed to understand my desire to write, but couldn’t understand why I was compelled to write about sexuality.
When I got to the UT campus my freshman year, I felt sorely unprepared to be a sexually responsible student. After growing up in a conservative Texas suburb and attending a religious private school for over a decade, the information that I had been taught regarding sexuality and sexual health was brief and confusing to say the least.
I knew birth control existed, but I wasn’t quite sure where I could actually get any and conflicting reports on the efficacy of condoms made me reluctant to trust them. Moreover, the perennial inner battle I had over whether I was “weird” or not for being fascination with taboo sexual topics made all of the misinformation even less palatable.
Friends and Dawson’s Creek could only teach me so much and by the time I was eighteen Oprah and Dateline had so thoroughly horrified me that I thought I was going to get pregnant and die if I dared act on any sexual impulse. But despite all of this confusion and fear, sex was still inherently interesting to me.
I ended up applying to be a Healthy Sexuality Peer Educator for University Health Services and I joined the Campus Coalition for Sexual Literacy soon after. After receiving thorough sexual health information and comprehensive training regarding sexuality, I felt like I should share it.
Looking back now, I can remember sitting in my room, dreaming about sex, but being too afraid to have it with anyone and petrified at the shameful solo option of staying in and masturbating. The thought that maybe other people felt similarly conflicted about their sexuality plagued me, and Humpday was my small answer.
So, mom– it has to be about sex because no matter how much we want to deny it, sex isn’t going to go away. Nor will sex become magically less complicated if we simply ignore it.
The choice to have or not have sex is completely personal and my intentions in writing Humpday are not to sway anyone to have sex or not. But maybe if we can shake a bit of the shame and mythical dirtiness off of our conceptions about sexuality, we can open up a dialogue where medical facts can exist peacefully beside personal moral convictions.
Oh, p.s. mom—Humpday is back for the summer.

Did she just piss on me? Female ejaculation!

Recent research on female orgasms and the dogged persistence of censorship parties in Great Britain have brought us some interesting information about female ejaculation.  Here is the article I read about the subject (via Jezebel): article!.

Now I haven’t experienced female ejaculation, nor have I heard about it from a friend or anything… But I have heard about “squirting” on a few other academic and more unsavory occasions.  Here is the lowdown:

It is “pretty rare” only because I think lots of people don’t even know when it happens and it can easily get confused with all of the other secretions present at orgasm… especially between heterosexuals not using a condom (cough… semen steals the show… cough cough).  Anyhow… at the point of orgasm some women have reported a secretion and the contents of this secretion (yes it has been tested… which sort of freaks me out.. how is it “caught” hmm?) is not urine; although it does appear to be released from the urethra.  So it’s not urine, but tested samples carry an antigen specific to prostate glands.  So the female prostate, eh?  Yes!  And some women (also known as the ever-precious G spot) don’t have one… or it is far away or out or reach (like many tall women’s clitorises… or clitori. I don’t know the plural of clitoris..).  

So does squirting mean that the orgasm was better?  How can we all start squirting?  Well it has not been shown that women who squirt experience “better” orgasms… mostly because that is near impossible to measure.  But if you are interested in checking to see if you are a squirter, I’m pretty sure you can with a partner and perhaps even better by yourself (;-P). 

Here are the steps suggested in the New Scientist report:

“Start with whatever techniques are normally best for arousal, for example stimulating the clitoris.

• Next move on to the female prostate, or the G spot – it’s probably the same thing. If the woman is lying on her back, this is directly above the uppermost wall of the vagina, or nearest to her tummy. This area should be stimulated with one or two fingers making a “come here” motion.
• It is normal if the woman feels like she needs to urinate, as the prostate tissue surrounds the urethra, the tube through which urine leaves the bladder. She should ignore it and keep going.
• With time and practice, a woman may experience orgasm and ejaculate.”

Personally all that stuff sounds great whether I squirt or not.  

UPDATE!!:

“there is increasingly evidence that it doesn’t come from the urethra (because there’s not really a way that the fluid can get into the bladder, which is where it would come from if it came out of the urethra) but from the skene’s glands, teeny weeny glands close to the vaginal opening that provide lubrication for sex.” (THIS IS INFORMATION I TRUST BECAUSE IT CAME FROM LOCAL SEXPERT GULI FAGAR!

Sorry Humpday was late and not really a formal Humpday… But I got a job. I have a desk and a chair and a phone and a computer and a badge and stuff… it’s pretty cool.  I have to make the coffee and do other menial things, but I also get to write!  Yes!  Not sex though… I don’t think Buda, Texas is ready for my opinions on sex.  But maybe someday!  I’ll try to keep up as best I can.  But if you want more raunchy shit then maybe try my other blog.. which will be getting pretty raunchy later tonight!:

pinklippariah.blogspot.com

love, 

Mary!

The Rants Have a New Home

Hey Everyone,

I feel like this is a bit of a strange place for me to put my own personal rants and “pissed off” posts… So I have moved the personal posts to this address:

pinklippariah.blogspot.com

Humpday will still be updated, no worries, but it will be unrelated to my own personal issues… because they don’t matter.  

Updates will probably remain weekly and will be related to sex and sexuality and NOT RELATIONSHIP stuff.. remember that. 

 

Peace, 

Mary

Me Vs. Kelly Vs. Beyonce or Wow I’m Pissed Again

I have been doing quite a bit of driving lately, and due to the dreadful care I take of my cd collection and my refusal to purchase anything for my godawful automobile (like an iPod dock), I listen to a lot of radio.  This is silly of me.  Because I hate so much of what is on the radio… and I hate it for a million reasons, like for the sake my ears and my dignity, but the top reason is because I cannot stand half-baked lyrics, especially when they are ridiculous.  For some twisted reason I got stuck in a cock tease anthem sandwich and then was hit in the face with that stupid “if you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it” song and then… for all that is good and holy in this awful world, i had to hear britney spears sing about fucking anything (no, not fucking(adj.) anything… but fuuuucking (verb) annyyything.). 

The cocktease sandwich: Kelly Clarkson’s “I Do Not Hook Up” & Fergie/The Black Eyed Pea’s “My Humps”

So here I am.  In my car.  At first I thought Clarkson’s song was going to be about helping someone through alcoholism (opening line: “oh sweetheart, put the bottle down– you’ve got too much talent”).  But au contraire– instead it is an anthem for girls everywhere to “not be cheap”.  Alright, why does this piss me off?  How could I be offended by a song that empowers young girls to not let just anyone in their pants?  Well– I’ll tell you why this is not empowering: because you can hook up not be “cheap” (and you can keep your pants on and be a lush just the same).  I am so sick and tired of hearing this shit, this kind of dialogue that is so tired and annoying that I almost can’t verbalize or type out why it bothers me.  It is yet another example of misogyny parading as feminism.  Oh you go girl! You’re hard to get– you’re not eassssssyyyy.  When who the FUCK gets to decide what “easy” even means?  And why something like that matters?  Why does who and how fast you sleep with someone have to be correlated with your worth as a human being.  IT DOESN’T and this song is bullshit.  

Oh yeah– and to make matter worse, check out the video.

And then there was Fergie… my lovely lady lumps.  Well, I at least like this song a bit more than Clarkson’s.  But stillllllll…. And I won’t go into a heady diatribe, because the stupidity of this song is just as obvious as how much it sucks: i’ll trade my sweet ass for shopping sprees! omg omg omg true love! 

cough stupid cough

No Riggy No Dingy (seriously, some old lady told me this once. !.)

Okay… NEXT I had to endure Beyonce Knowles (excuse me, Sasha Fierce) and her faux pro-woman monotony, “Single Ladies”.  So about a week or so ago my sexual health (II) class got a visit from Mark Regnerus.  Mr. Regnerus is the author of a recent article in the Washington Post, which although it does not “suggest that all young women get married early” it does defend the position and rationality of the young women who are in a genuine search for the MRS. degree while at a university.  So what does this have to do with anything?  

Well, it has a lot to do with everything– marriage and love and all of these things that people feel they must have.  ”If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it”- sort of shit.  If you like something then you should own it.  You should possess it.

So if getting married is your thing, that’s fine.  But what gets at me is the assumption made by songs like this about men and women and their needs.  Sure, I think this song speaks to a population.  However, I think that (surely.. hopefully..) there is another sector of society who doesn’t need to be branded to know they are loved.  And perhaps even more promising– there could be some sector of society that doesn’t need to be validated by someone else’s love in order to feel complete.  Not to put words in Beyonce’s mouth. Her song does not say that she is not going to be satisfied until she finds a man who wants to put a ring on it.  However, that is a valid inference from the rest of the song.  I’m single, I’m strong, I’m beautiful, but don’t waste my time you little shit head because I WILL WALK.  Again, it sounds great and perhaps for some people it is great.  But I think it misses a lot.  

The non committal “relationship” has many perks… but I think women are taught to think that any sort of non-committtal interaction is a indication of slutiness (omg, I am a strong independent woman like Kelly Clarkson– I can’t seep with this asshole!)  when really we might actually have other priorities than boys(/or girls) and rings and setting up house.  Love is complicated and rewarding and I’m not trying to say that sex is devoid of emotion… what I’m saying is that sex and even love need not be forced into the confines of transactions.  Perhaps if women and men stopped analyzing about whose ball is in whose court and if the other has worked hard enough or put out enough to be taken to the next step or whatever… perhaps if all the games and politics were not taken as seriously and the moments and fleeting beauty of raw emotion were embraced as something full of worth instead of denigrated… perhaps then we could get over these sick gender roles that shape love (and “love”) into the boredom and inevitable monotony of american dating/relationships/(gasp!) marriage (as far as I can see it…).  

Random hook-ups, Kelly says she wouldn’t do it– but the googlie eyes she’s throwin’ at that waiter sure makes me think that there might be someone inside her that wants company.  And I think that that voice ought to be given just as worthy of a platform as little miss white gloves with her tight bun and pearl earrings.  

 (And while I’m at it: Oh yeah, Beyonce– the idea of wearing blood diamonds around our fingers as some arcane piss stain to ward the other tom cats away– I’m not into that either)

Summmmmmer Lovin’

 

cute butt... but cute butt's owner could also be the owner of some other less visible accouterment-- wear a condom!

 

A little background: this is the weakest Humpday article I have ever written.  However, what’s done is done.  I will keep this blog up regularly now that school is over, but I can’t promise that I’ll be writing Humpday for the paper over the summer.  We’ll see what happens.  But if you do what it to continue in ernest… send me a comment with some topic suggestions.  You people don’t seem to realize the meagre depth of my sexual knowledge.  I’m always learning, but it is really refreshing to learn about a topic via someone else’s interest in it– so let me know what you’re interested in and I’ll do my best to write about it in a way that helps ya!

Thanks and much love, 

Mary

___

Sleeping ‘til the crack of 2 p.m., lounging poolside without a care in the world and completely losing your mind (and your dignity) from when the sun goes down until the wee hours of the morning: This is what college summers are for.

But amid your enjoyment of the next few months, there are a few points you may want to take into serious consideration before you mentally check out.

1. Despite rampant moral and intellectual irresponsibility, stay sexually responsible this summer. Below is a list of things to take into consideration before you embark on a wet, hot summer.

You can’t see chlamydia, and oftentimes you can’t feel it, either. Chlamydia infections are often asymptomatic, which means that without proper testing people could go a very long time without figuring out from symptoms alone that they’ve contracted it.

Chlamydia is the most commonly diagnosed sexually transmitted infection among UT students. Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that only about 9.2 percent of college students have chlamydia, the numbers are probably much higher. It’s nearly impossible to gather accurate information because of the lack of voluntary testing on the part of college students.

Many students do not perceive their risk for chlamydia, but anyone who has participated in any oral or vaginal sex is at risk for an infection and should seriously consider getting tested.

2. Taking a hiatus from the creature comforts of city life this summer? Well, there’s one comfort you can’t leave without: Plan B. If you’re going away on a trip somewhere where a pharmacy will be hard to find and your sexual plans are up in the air, it’s best to take some with you.

3. Under-the-sea adventures call for silicone lube. Let’s face it — it’s going to be hot and humid until October, so we might as well figure out a sure-fire way to get raunchy without having to get overheated. Solution: underwater sex.

Ironically, when engaging in underwater naughtiness, it’s a lot easier to lose vaginal wetness, and sex can get a bit uncomfortable due to a drying effect of water on your intimate areas.

Using silicone-based lubes keeps everything slick. Water-based lubes (including spit) will get lost in whatever body of water you’re polluting with your partner. Silicone lube is compatible with latex and polyurethane condoms and is safe to use for any form of penetrative sex.

4. Do what you want. Now that you’ve got health and safety issues in order, you can concentrate on something a little more fun. Take into consideration everything summer really means, including being free from strenuous responsibilities and sometimes being carried away from your typical peer group (studying abroad, for example). 

Imagine the possibilities. Perhaps you’ve been questioning your orientation, or maybe you really want to try a threesome. Maybe you want to be single and just see what comes along this summer. When an opportunity arises that you would be normally are too responsible or self-conscious to cash in on, maybe this time you should capitalize on it.

A Focus on Your Fantasies

This will be in the paper tomorrow.  I have never been more excited to say that I got the Daily Texan to publish a certain phrase.  This phrase is “gang bang”.  I am not exactly a supporter of such things, but I am a staunch supporter of getting to write about them.  Yay?  Also, there is a lot that I simply couldn’t cover in a column about a topic so vast and multi-faceted, so I invite people to post their thoughts.  If you are looking for a soundtrack for this article, please refer to Hall and Oates’ classic, “I Can’t Go For That”.

With that being said, here you go:

It’s 2 a.m. and despite your best efforts you returned from a night downtown only to crawl into bed alone.  You wore very nice underwear, you shaved, you even hid a condom in your pocket.  Nevertheless, here you are, with nothing but yourself. So you bite your lip and close your eyes, and…

             All of the sudden you are overtaken by a fantasy.  Perhaps it is about a prospective or current partner, and maybe it even contains some romantic kissing.  But chances are high that this fantasy also contains situations, sex acts, and partners very disparate from what you have experienced before or even what you are willing to experience in the future.

            For these and many other reasons, people have perpetually been very intrigued and disturbed by the content of their sexual fantasies. When I searched “sexual fantasies” in the UT library catalogue database, seventy-nine relevant titles matched by query.  Of these, about twenty were currently checked out and almost ten more were reported “missing” or “lost”.  As frustrating as this was, it was also telling of the fact that people want to know why they fantasize and if it’s okay, if it they are actually a sign or symptom of a real problem.

            Some people’s fantasies are pretty simple.  In the 1989 romantic comedy, When Harry Met Sally, Sally admits that the recurring sexual fantasy she has had since she was 12 entails little more than a faceless man ripping off her clothes.

            On the other hand, many people’s fantasies are not so easy to admit to.  A married librarian with three kids interviewed by Linda Wolfe for The Cosmo Report, told Wolfe that, “in my fantasies, I’m always a prostitute.”  This librarian was a bit distraught by her situation, but nonetheless it was her “go to fantasy” when she couldn’t concentrate with her husband during intercourse or needed to relax during masturbation.

            Freud would have us believe that all of our sexual fantasies and illicit dreams are the result of repressed sexual desires and deep-seeded psychological issues.  In reality, a person’s fantasies might be symptomatic of little more than a healthy imagination and an active libido. 

            Sexual fantasies are one of the safest places to be sexually uninhibited.  In your mind, there is no one is there to judge you.  If you fantasize about being overtaken by a stranger, you are not actually subjecting yourself to physical harm, because it is all in your head.

            However, sharing your sexual fantasies can be a really hot dirty talk addition to foreplay with a partner, and depending on what your fantasies entail, it might even be fun to try to act out parts of it.  This could easily include a specific item of clothing that you or your partner wears, maybe a particular social situation (like sex at your parents house or in a public restroom), or it could be something as simple as a new sex position.

            Dr. Joshua Coleman, a psychologist out of San Francisco and author of “The Marriage Makeover”, recommends that people tell their partners about their fantasies because they can serve to “keep the passion alive if it’s a fantasy that your partner can either accept or participate in.”

            Dr. Coleman also points out that your partner might not be as into your fantasy as you are, so compromises might be in order, and maybe just moving on altogether. 

            But before you spill to your significant other that you really fantasize about, I don’t know, being gang-banged by the side of a pool or something– think about why this is a fantasy of yours first.  Sometimes one of the most attractive facets of the sexual imagination is the fact that it is something you would never actually do.  And in fact, when the real opportunity or situation came up, you would more than likely not find it erotic.

            Having a sexual fantasy about something that you think is “really bad” doesn’t mean that you actually want to participate in the activity.  Furthermore, trying to act out a detailed fantasy with someone you are actually in a relationship can be very difficult.  There is a reason so many of the main characters in our fantasies are face-less or random strangers.  But it doesn’t mean we are not interested in the sex we have with real people.

            At their core, fantasies are just fun to have.  They need not be over analyzed and they need not necessarily be acted out.  So keep dreaming—it can turn a lonely night into an exciting erotic adventure all within the safety of your own bedroom. 

 

 

Much Love, 

Mary

 

P.s.– next week is my last Humpday column for Spring 2009. I want to write about something that is interesting.  I am in need of a tip.  Please tip me.  Also, I do not know if this column will continue. However, I have been lucky enough to be invited to join the SavvySexpert radio show on KVRX this summer with my sexy cohort Miss Sarah Watson (because our sexxxxxy friends Anna Lessa Russo and V are going to be out of Austin this summer)… check all that out at savvysexperts.wordpress.com.  We’ll see about the fall, etc. with a return to print.  But, I am afraid my meager intellect will need a bit more time to gain enough experience to make a Humpday worth reading for another whole semester. We’ll see….

She’s in love with a vibrator. Oh My!

 

dear me

A few weeks ago, I happened to watch the Oprah Winfrey Show.  To my surprise, Oprah was not giving away 500 brand new cars or incredibly unnecessary bath products.  Instead, Oprah was talking about teen sexuality.            

            While most of what Oprah and her guest, Dr. Laura Berman, Oprah.com’s resident sexpert, discussed during the show were pretty irrelevant to a college-aged crowd, there was one insight that did stand out as germane to the UT demographic.

             Oprah openly supported Dr. Berman’s controversial suggestion that mothers educate their teen daughters about masturbation and even encourage them to use vibrators as soon as they become interested in sex.  What is important here is not so much that Oprah endorses masturbation and the use of vibrators for young women, but why she endorses it.   

            “For me… teaching [teenage girls] about their own bodies and [about] pleasuring themselves [encourages them to take] the reins of their own sexuality so they don’t ever have to depend on a teenage boy… until they’re ready,” Dr. Berman explained as Oprah nodded in support.

            It’s the sexual self-empowerment implicit in a young woman’s use of a vibrator that Oprah supports.  And the empowerment aspect is what makes this conversation just as important for university students as for the teenagers it was intended to help on Winfrey’s Show. 

            A college-aged woman pleasuring herself with a vibrator can be considered anything from an old hat masturbation technique, to a very taboo and shameful activity depending on which crowd you’re in. 

            However you feel about the use of sex toys, the fact is they are gaining acceptance and popularity at a high rate.  For example, Swedish sex toy company, Lelo, has had an almost 200 percent increases in sales revenue each year for the last few years.  And unlike almost any other specialty market, the sex toy industry has become even more successful during the current recession.

            An open dialogue about the use of vibrators and dildos is common in female-directed media outlets like Cosmopolitan magazine, Sex and the City, and Desperate Housewives.  And I think we can all remember the media stir after Barbara Walters raved about her love of vibrators on The View earlier this year, when she said, “that’s not a luxury, that’s a necessity.”

            But when this dialogue takes place, it is behind closed doors.  Sex toys are portrayed in the media as for woman only, and usually they are single or old, and fairly desperate. 

            In fact only a year ago, the sale of dildos and other sex toy products as sex toys was illegal in the state of Texas.  These products had to be marketed as “educational models” or “personal massagers,” and employees at sex toy boutiques were not allowed to discuss or instruct potential buyers on their non-educational uses. 

            The reality is that sex toys are not just silly fun playthings for people who can’t get laid: they are tools.  Tools for self-experimentation, tools for masturbation, and tools that can greatly improve orgasmic satisfaction during partnered sex for both men and women.

            In the month since Oprah proposed that mothers encourage their daughters to use a vibrator instead of finding some teenage boy to get them off, the FCC has received over 1,300 written complaints about the episode.  But maybe the ideas that sparked all of the controversy were really getting at something. 

            Sex toys allow people to be sexual as individuals first, lovers later.  While this may sound a little offsetting, it has the potential to be a very empowering development.v   Sex toys offer people an outlet to enjoy their bodies even without a partner.  And with a partner, the possibilities for increased pleasure when using a toy as a tool are almost endless. 

 

The Truth!

So I am currently trudging through the writing process for my next Humpday article on sex toys. I have been nudging toward this topic and a few different occasions all by people who assume that I would be some kind of sex toy expert. Contrary to popular belief, I am not a sex toy connoisseur.  Therefore, I am having a great and enlightening experience researching this topic.  I came to sex toys with two main issues inhibiting my ability to take them seriously as a viable addition to my own life: a) they are a material reminder of all of the sex I am not having and b) they make me feel desperate. 

Well, let’s face it– I am projecting.  Those are just left over issues over sexuality in general that I have projected onto sex toys.  

After researching sex toys, I have come to understand them as what they are mean to be: both toys and tools.  They are not intended to make the user feel guilty (duh) or to make the future or current partners of the user feel intimidated (oh my, that dildo is much bigger than me!) and they are not supposed to replace sex.  The best news I heard while reading up on sex toys is how useful they are during partnered sex.  Because sometimes, there just aren’t enough hands.  

This all reminds me of something I’ve written about before, a meek woman who, at an orgasm seminar, complained that she could only achieve orgasm when using a vibrator.  She asked the facilitator how to solver her “problem” and Lyn Raridon, the facilitator and owner of Austin’s wonderful sex shop Forbidden Fruit, responded, “so you’re having an orgasm– what’s the problem?”.  Raridon’s response continued with encouragement to incorporate the use of a vibrator as a tool during partnered sex.  Something that was a cool new idea to me, because, give me a break, I’m twenty.  The entire concept of toy as tool is really cool to me and something that I think should be more readily accepted by college aged students.  Because I really, really don’t think that there are many female orgasms happening on this campus, despite the ample moans and yelps (ie. I think they’re faking it, because I’ve seen those thrusts and they are nothing to scream home about).  

So anyhow, I’m excited to see what I end up with.  

Here are some of the cool sources:

A girl who really liked Lelo products. 

A short history of the vibrator. 

OPRAH WINFREY on vibrators and teengirls. 

Hilarious homemade sex toy guide.

And how could I forget: Barbara Walter’s on Vibrators. 

Want some toys for yourself?  Go to BABELAND.  

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In other news entirely, this morning I came across this article by UT professor Mark Regnerus.  I have heard Regnerus speak on another occasion, and we disagree in oh so many ways.  His most recent article for Washington Post, bothered me for many reasons, most of all because he thinks he is reporting on something new and provocative, when in fact, his thesis is tired and obviously hasn’t worked out.  I will remain as I am despite his work to re-browbeat women further into subjugation.  The worst part of all of this is that there is plenty of statistical evidence to support his claims.  However, you can’t measure happiness in statistics, and I will stand by that statement all day long.  I will post further on this topic after he comes to talk to my Sexual Health II class on Friday.  Because I know you all are just at the edge of your seat to know what he has to say.  

Oh yeah, here’s Pandagon’s response to Regnerus.  

Peace out!, 

Mary