The Friday Sex Blog [Virgins and Whores]

Early Christian leaders were forced to establish the absolute purity of the mother of Christ because of their attitudes toward women. Eve had tempted Adam in the Garden of Eden and therefore women were view as vessels of sin, which was passed on to their wombs at conception. The pains of childbirth and menstruation were the curse of Eve (fuckin’ slut!), and according to influential Christian saints, the closeness of women to all that is vile could be seen in the “feces and urine” of childbirth.

In comparison, Mary, who had not conceived like other women, was the second coming of Eve, put here to redeem the mistakes of the first. In many ways, Eve was the fleshy mother of humanity (slut!), Mary its spiritual mother (good girl!).

Mary would quickly become an object of worship in her own right. The first recorded prayer to the Virgin dates from about 390 b.c.e.; her cult reached its height around the 16^th century. In popular worship, however, Mary may have lost her virginal status. She has often been given the attributes of pagan mother goddesses, all who came before Mary. Mary’s most striking pagan metamorphosis, however, occurs within the orthodox doctrine, because she is identified with the Church, and the Church is the bride of Christ. In that way, like many other goddesses that preceded her, Mary becomes the bride in an incestuous marriage with her own son. She is regarded as an ideal of feminine perfection but the church has never used Mary to represent women, but rather to shame them in comparison.

The Friday Sex Blog [Pussy]

Feeling a little irritated in the airport? Just say, ‘cunt!’ everything changes.

-- Eve Ensler, Vagina Monologues

Pussy, cunt, chocha, toto, twat, beaver, the jade throne -- whatever you call it, the vagina has had a pivotal role in human history. Yet despite its crucial historical location, you might as well have been talking about the dark side of the moon when talking about what we knew of the vagina. This changed somewhat during the late 1950s and early 1960s when William Masters, M.D., and Virginia Johnson devised an experiment that allowed them to observe directly what happens deep inside the vagina during sexual arousal and intercourse. They had women masturbate to orgasm using a camera-equipped plastic penis, complete with a special light to illuminate the mysterious, lightless interior.

Masters and Johnson reported that the vagina is “a potential rather than an actual space.” Its soft, velvety walls (yummy) are collapsed together, touching each other. However, during the first stage of the sexual response cycle, shortly after initial sexual stimulation, two things happen: the vagina begins to lubricate and to expand. According to researchers, vaginal lubrication is the first physiological sign of arousal in women: within 10 to 30 seconds after stimulation begins, the researchers found, little beads of fluid begin forming all over the vaginal walls, giving them the appearance of a sweat-beaded forehead. The little beads rapidly spread to form that deliciously smooth, glistening covering men love so much.*
As a woman becomes increasingly aroused, the deepest two-thirds of her vagina begin inflating, almost like a balloon -- lengthening and expanding in what Masters and Johnson described as a “tenting” effect. The uterus and cervix pull slowly up and back, out of harm’s way. (Some women have retroverted, or tipped, uterus, causing the cervix to stay where it is, suspended in this widening vaginal cavity -- where a man’s penis may batter it, sometimes painfully, during intercourse.)

During all this, the vaginal walls dramatically change in color form their usual purplish red tint to a distinctly darker purplish hue. This is the result of vasocongestion -- the damming up of blood that’s the central event of sexual arousal.

As sexual excitement reaches the plateau stage (the second stage of the sexual cycle), the outer third of the vagina swells as it engorged with blood, to the extent that it actually narrows the vaginal entrance by up to 50 percent. (The deeper part of the vagina is expanding; the outer part is narrowing.) Masters and Johnson called this outer third the “orgasmic platform,” and it was this area that reacted most dramatically during orgasm. At the moment of climax, this whole outer ring begins spasmodically contracting at 0.8-second intervals, anywhere from 3-15 times. At the very highest level of sexual excitement, some women experience a sort of superorgasm: the orgasmic platform explodes into a spastic contraction lasting 2 to 4 seconds (knocking them knees), then downshifts into the 0.8-contractions of “normal” orgasm.

After, during the third (“resolution”) phase of the sexual response, the orgasmic platform rapidly drains of blood, the vaginal opening expands, and the inner, distended part of the vagina shrinks back to its original state.

Whew!

These findings point to one erroneous, but common, misconception men have about the vagina: that it’s deep, hammering penetration that drives women wild. Much of this misconception is the result of male-oriented erotic material that emphasizes the imagery of deep penetration: spikes, spears, lances, swords all plunging to the hilt.

But the truth is that for most women, the deepest two-thirds of the vagina are practically numb to the touch. Researchers have found that deep inside, the vaginal walls have few nerve endings. By contrast, the outer third of the vagina and the vaginal opening are exceedingly sensitive to touch.

On the other hand, more recent research have established that some women do find deep vaginal penetration incredibly pleasurable, reporting that it triggers a “deep” orgasm that’s different from an orgasm touched off by clitoral stimulation. Because the vaginal walls have so little feeling, sex researchers believe that some women enjoy the deep muscular contractions of the uterus and muscles of the pelvic floor (this can also be due to the more recently discovered “clitoral wings” that form a semi ring extending close to the anal area). Other women seem to be especially responsive to firm pressure on top of the front wall of the vagina, also called the G-spot.

I guess what I’m saying here is that basically when it comes to sexual enjoyment -- and sexual equipment -- all women are alike… but also different.

Love,

Eddie

*Note: for the sake of brevity I am using the accepted “stage model” of orgasm. I have problems with this stage-model (as do others) but I am using this model now only because it’s more convenient for my purposes today.

Check out the video to see a demonstration of the various vaginal moans:

The Friday Sex Blog [Sexuality]

Note: I've been extremely busy fund-raising and writing proposals in an attempt to secure funding for my project.

Sexuality

Yes, there was a basic attraction that was true enough. But there was also a wild beast-like hunger for every inch of your body, every secret niche and shameful part of it, every smell. It yearned to throw you under me on your belly and fuck you from behind, riding you mercilessly, relishing in the musky smell wafting from your ass, glorifying in penetrating your reddened cheeks, your helpless cries and tangled hair -- in ruthlessly taking your offering…

You are a sexual person since before the day you are born – from the womb to the tomb. Part of a healthy sexual attitude includes understanding sex as a positive aspect of life. Maintaining an affirmative sexuality and expressing sexuality in a manner that improves your life is necessary for developing the capacity for intimacy.

This perspective is vastly different from the traditional double standard that most follow. Anti-sex conditioning and negative attitudes regarding sexuality -- especially that sex is “dirty,” that men and women are sexually different/ incompatible -- creates sexual dysfunction and separates us from our basic nature. Sexuality is a normal way for you to express your human need for touching, sharing, and pleasuring. This need is equally valid for men and women.

The good news is that you can undo the conditioning and increase your sexual awareness and comfort. This does not mean that you have to feel sexual and perform at any time, in any situation, with any partner. That is the sexual pressure placed by tradition on the shoulders of men. It is a dehumanizing perspective of male sexuality. Equally dehumanizing is the traditional imperative that females should not to be sexual at any time, in any situation, or with any person other than her husband or intimate partner-- and even then not be carried away with passion. I am amazed at the vast numbers of women going without sex these days.

Yes, you can learn to be comfortable with your sexuality and more accepting of yourself as an essentially sexual person. The wonderful truth of the matter is that you have the choice to be sexual at a time and in a manner where you can truthfully celebrate healthy sexual expression.

There are many ways we learn about sexuality, but the most primal one is through touch. The touching you received from your mother and father as a child is important; so is your own touching to explore your body. Before the age of six months, children discover the positive sensations of touching their genitals. Was playing with your penis or vulva accepted by the parent as normal and healthy, or were your hands slapped while being told: “No! That’s dirty!”?

My point here is not to get into a blame game for sexual dysfunction; your parents were acting out according to the sexual scripts that were handed down to them. It has only recently emerged that childhood sexual curiosity and exploration are a healthy part of human development. However, it is my belief that as adults we can learn to undo negative sexual conditioning and build a healthy sexual awareness and sexual self-esteem.

There’s a lesson for all of us in a child touching herself that we need to heed. The child is experiencing positive, pleasurable feelings, not genitally focused sexual arousal.

Sensuality is the basis for sexuality.

The child feels she’s entitled to the warm, comfortable feelings of sensual touch. Genital exploration and stimulation are a natural extension of sensuous touch.

That’s the gist of it all. No one, or no book, can teach you nor force a sexual response. No one can teach you how to become sexually aroused and have an orgasm. The potential for sexual response is natural. What you can learn is awareness of sensual and sexual stimuli, how to nurture and cultivate sexual desire, the importance of clear and direct communication, and active involvement in giving and receiving pleasure. You have to be open to your sexuality, not inhibited by the obstacles that interfere with healthy sexual expression.

The most common obstacle to uninhibited sexuality is goal-oriented sex. That’s not sensuality, but a fast food version of sexuality. I call it “Mickey Dee sex.” No wonder so many women pack it up! (Use it or lose it, bitches. LOL!). Goal-oriented sex -- sex in which the ends (orgasm) supersede the process (sensuality) -- leads to a lot of emotional wreckage. The list is exhausting: performance anxiety, peer pressure, forced sexual response, use of sex as a weapon in an argument or power struggle, use of sex for manipulation -- and on and on the list goes.

Sex is not a performance to prove something to yourself or you partner, it’s not a spectator sport in the sense that it’s not a competition to see who can have the best orgasm, or last the longest, or anything like that. You hear people talking about sex in the most degrading manner: “I did that bitch,” “Girl, I did that ma’fucca so good he gave me his PIN number.” People seem to focus on technique as if being a sexual acrobat can make them a good lover and that’s so much bullshit.

In any case, that’s not sex, it’s rutting. In fact, it’s not even good rutting. I’m all for rutting, as long as it’s a good rut. Otherwise, I’d rather jerk off.

Sexual awareness is about being open and receptive to affectionate, playful, erotic, and intimate touch. The essence of sexuality is giving and receiving pleasurable touch.

Sensuality is not something you either have or do not. It’s a range of attitudes, behaviors, and feelings which reflect you as a sexual person. Remember: sex is a good thing

::Martha Stewart smile::

Sexuality is a major part of who you are as a human being and your personality. You are responsible for your sexuality; express it so that it enhances your life and intimate relationships.

Love,

Eddie

The Friday Sex Blog [Women Who Gotta Have It]

Pandora's Box

Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.

-- Mae West

I’ve been reading some literature on women’s sexuality and I’ve come across some interesting findings. For too long, mainstream research has dealt almost exclusively with how often and how successfully young (but not too young), white, middle class, able-bodied, heterosexual couples consummate the act of sexual intercourse. Following a male bias, it almost exclusively isolates sex as physical and intimacy as emotional. It focuses exclusively on a few inches of mucous membrane in which achieving orgasm is described in terms as if it were mountain climbing, complete with ropes and hammers.

What this leaves out is what newer research shows and what women have been telling us for too long: what’s most important about sex, I have heard woman say countless times, is a sense of connectedness.

I would like to summarize some of what I’ve been discovering, but that will have to wait. For today, I want to elaborate on some findings via a personal experience.

Perhaps some of my readers remember an incident I reported regarding a former lover’s difficulty with sex. I had written that she had developed a tension in the body that was centered in her genital area and which made sexual penetration extremely painful for her. Eventually, working together, we were able to ease that tension, resulting in a sexual opening or awakening for both of us. For her, it was liberation from strict and repressive morals, for me it was the dawning of an awareness to the range of women’s sexual responses.

My friend, who I will call Pandora, was raised in a strict, conservative, and religious home. At the time of our relationship, she was 30 years-old and recently divorced. Her only lover was her former husband, part of a marriage of nine years.

I was in my mid-twenties, during the height of an era of sexual liberation and exploration. I discovered early on, that women would be more open to me if I were honest about my intentions and open to my emotional life. Pandora, though conflicted, took me as a lover, though she had mixed feelings.

Looking back, I can better understand how we were able to open to one another and reduce the tension that made sex so painful for her. The first time I attempted to enter her, it was almost impossible. She was tight to the point that sexual penetration was almost impossible. She cried the first time -- partly because of the physical pain, partly (she later intimated) because of shame.

As we came to know one another better, she related a sexual history that made it easy for me to understand her sexual unease. She grew up in a family in which sexual pleasure was considered sinful. As a result, she was a virgin when she married her husband. Her husband controlled almost all the aspects of their sexing. She would wear what he told her to wear. The lights were turned to the level that he liked. They had to have sex like clockwork at a certain day of the week at a certain time. For Pandora, sex meant only one thing: a responsibility -- mad rush to orgasm for her husband.

With me, because of my natural curiosity and penchant for exploration, sex was a little different. I wanted (as I have always wanted) her to “open” to me -- to be fully present surrendering the deepest recesses of her sexuality to me.

Yes, I have issues.

My desire to be engulfed by her cunt compelled me to talk to her, hold her, and kiss her in places she had never been kissed before. Oftentimes, especially in the beginning of our relationship, we talked more than we fucked. When I told her that many women don’t respond to sexual penetration alone, she was shocked. She didn’t believe me. All her life, she was taught and experienced sex from a male-dominant point o view that caused her confusion when she didn’t respond in the way her husband wanted her to respond.

And it wasn’t that he didn’t kiss her, or didn’t perform cunnilingus on her -- he did. The thing with Pandora was that it seemed that everything about the sex act was geared toward achieving the big “O.” She needed to be related to, to be utterly complete fucked. My willingness to talk to her openly about sex (I used to love to tease her by using “vulgar” terms, such as “pussy,” “cunt,” “cock,” etc.) served to open her up. And her sexual exploration became the erotic ground on which we built our sexing. We would visit sex shops and browse through them, looking at and laughing at the different toys. I would explore her body, and slowly, she came to trust me enough to tell me what she liked and didn’t like.

Eventually, Pandora took charge of her own sexual awakening and once she opened to me, there was no holding back. I still remember the moment her pussy yawned open for me, hot with sexual desire, slippery with her want. I think she yelled something out, I don’t remember what, but we laughed about it later. I would often tease her that we had created a monster.

Pandora would explain that all her life, she was trying to conform to what she know saw as a male model for sexual pleasure and when she “failed” to conform to that model, the message was that there was something wrong with her, that she was frigid, or sexually defected. What she discovered, was that what was missing from her sexual life was a sense of connectedness. When she eventually took control of our sexual exploration, she became my guide for the map of her body. This was a liberation for both of us.

Love,

Eddie

The Friday Sex Blog [Sexual Healing]

I entered her and, obeying an impulse, I pushed into her mind as well, establishing a blistering mental circuit. Not knowing what I was doing, I pushed at it with all my strength. At the moment of contact I had an impression of two streams of crackling energy knitting together, entwining, tightening, forming a kind of liquid knot that grew increasingly complex, twisting in and of itself, and my focus became more limited to completing that knot, to finding its ultimate expression, until even that intent was swallowed into a blaze of sexuality.

I was with a woman once who was extremely unhappy. I didn’t realize this fully until we were together. I had sensed that she was unhappy previously, but didn’t realize the extent of her melancholy until we spent some real time together. And it wasn’t that she acted sad or anything like that. It was an energy, a deep sadness that ran through the core of her.

Long story short, we were in the throes of passionate lovemaking when I sensed that the closer she neared orgasm, the further inside she retreated. She was there with me, feeling me, but she was also in her own world, where I didn’t exist. I slowed down my actions and spoke to her softly, bringing her back to me. Lying still, I looked deeply into her eyes and forced her to make that conscious contact with me. With just a little coaching, we began to breathe together, slowing down our movements as we reconnected. I wanted her to go to that place but with me, not alone, but with me.

And that scared her…

But gradually, we were able to reconnect and by synchronizing our breathing, we were able to move together, slower at first, but building up our movements. And eventually we went there together again and again -- building up the intensity until we both experienced a Big Wave orgasm that blew both to smithereens. But we did it together -- grabbing on to one another while being blown through the fuckin 5^th dimension or wherever the fuck we went. It felt as if we were being transformed at a molecular level.

When we came to, we both had tears in our eyes and she cried for a long time while I held her.

The Friday Sex Blog [In Praise of the Female Ass]

Free yo ass, your mind will follow...

The female ass, that most unorthodox of altars, to be worshiped on one’s knees.

Indeed,the ancient Greeks revered the buttocks as being an aspect of the divine and portrayed them enthusiastically in exquisitely sculpted marble. With the coming of the centuries-long Christian war on Eros, however, the depiction of the nude figure became a crime, thrown into the shadows (along with anything having to do with evolved human activities) of the repressive Dark Ages.

Then, in the fifteenth century, Renaissance artists once more raised the bottom to loftier heights only to have it once again banished by the prudish Victorians, who found the body so revolting, they considered even bathing immodest.

Today, the bottom has once again been salvaged from the repressive excesses of religiosity with dress designers now decreeing that the ass should once again be the focus of attention, and no dedicated fashionista can afford to neglect the view from the rear -- or this newfound, well-rounded appraisal of it.

Buttocks date from time immemorial. They appeared when humankind conceived the idea of standing up on their hind legs and remaining there -- one of the most crucial moments in our evolution since the buttock muscles then underwent considerable development. More importantly, this act resulted in the freeing of our ancestor’s hands and the engagement of the skull on the spinal column was modified, which in turn allowed the brain (specifically the prefrontal cortex) to develop. Therefore, it would not be wrong to point out that our buttocks were at least partially responsible for the early emergence of the brain and certainly influenced its evolution. Our asses, it follows, freed our minds.

The Friday Sex Blog: What Sexual Revolution?

Photo: the lovely Alexandria

As the ostrich when pursued hides his head, but forgets his body; so the fears of a coward expose him to danger.

-- Akhnaton (c.1375– c.1353 BC) Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty

We live in a culture that appears to be enthusiastic about sex. According to pollsters most people enjoy having sex and lovemaking and do it regularly. Countless women’s magazines blare the word “sex” on covers, barking out “sex quizzes” for everything under the sun. Novels, television shows, and movies purportedly explore the nuances of erotic life. The largest money-maker on the internet is -- you guessed it -- pornography. Otherwise bored housewives saturate the internet with revealing photos of themselves (whether real or fake is irrelevant). Explicit sex entertainment (especially in the Deep South) is a billion-dollar industry. It would appear to the lax observer, that sex-positive attitudes are prevalent in our society.

But appearances, as they often are, can be deceiving. The very rationale for my Friday sex blogs is my contention that most people in our culture are highly ignorant of, and ambivalent toward, sex. In opposition to our natural erotic nature exists irrational fears about our own sexuality. Social scientists have begun to call this irrational fear of sex, erotophobia, and I have touched on this subject in previous blogs. I see this as a largely unrecognized condition and its impact on our lives and culture goes largely unnoticed.

Take the time to examine any aspect of human sexuality in our culture and you will be confronted with sexual fear. Consider the widespread discomfort many people experience even talking about sex. Though the media assaults us daily on the sexual exploits of celebrities, most of us have enormous difficulty talking openly and frankly about the subject. It seems we suffer from what some researchers call a “sexual language barrier.” I would add that most people feel more comfortable swapping spit (and other bodily fluids) than sharing words about the event.

Children are the first casualty of erotophobia. They pick up quickly on the adult discomfort with sexual language. As one prominent sex researcher, John Money puts it: “… no child can grow up without becoming acquainted with the taboo on talking about sex. No matter how open the conversation may be at home, or among peers, every child discovers sooner or later that certain everyday sexual words are absolutely forbidden in school, at church, on television and elsewhere.”

Most parents feel uncomfortable giving their children even basic sex education. Many children come of age without knowing the correct names for human genital organs, for example. We’re so ambivalent about sex that, in a society that supposedly values intelligence and self-awareness, almost every female will reach adulthood without knowing the name of her erotic pleasure center, the clitoris.

In a similar vein, most teen-aged boys masturbate regularly yet hear not a word from their parents about this crucially important sexual behavior. Most parents I have known would rather commit hara kiri than openly discussing masturbatory pleasure with their children.

Our schools teach our children how to paint, make music, play sports, and learn about their bodies in countless non-erotic ways, but neglect erotic education. The focus of sex education in our culture, interestingly enough, is on avoiding disease and pregnancy. The issue of teaching creative ways to experience pleasure is off the table -- completely unknown. The consequence of all this is that most people reach adulthood profoundly ignorant about sex, especially its pleasure potential. Consider masturbation, a sexual act that risks no sexual disease or unwanted pregnancy. Tens of millions of people in our culture are uncomfortable with it. The most comprehensive survey of U.S. sexual behavior reports that half of the people who masturbate feel guilty about it. The researchers believe this percentage underestimates the actual number of people who feel negative about masturbation because those who are highly uncomfortable with it stop masturbating (or, more likely, lie on surveys about masturbation).

Our behavior with our sexual partners also reflects a sexual ambivalence. The average sexual encounter is quick and often routine. Sexual surveys indicate that though there are unlimited opportunities for sex, “… couples level off at about 1 hour a week, 4 hours a month, or the equivalent of about six 8-hour days a year.” This is certainly not a picture of much sexual action.

In fact, most of us have a narrow set of sexual practices -- what I call the “lick-em, stick-em, and cum” school of sexual gratification -- a short sequence of erotic acts that varies little from day to day, partner to partner. We seem to fear any form of sexual experimentation or originality. Conversely, we seek out the new in movies, books, travel, fashion, and gadgets but our sexual expression remains bland and repetitive.

You might be thinking that all this doesn’t pertain to you, my reader. I hear it all the time, “Not me, Eddie.”

Bullshit!

The Friday Sex Blog [The Job Nobody Wanted]

A Brief History of the Vibrator

As far back as 1653, when physician Pieter van Foreest published a treatise on women’s diseases, women’s sexuality has been sorely misunderstood. To be sure, sexually frustrated women were viewed as suffering from “hysteria” (literally, “womb disease”). van Foreest prescribed what would become known as “vulvular massage” -- suggesting that a midwife or doctor could cure “hysterical” women through “the massaging of the genitalia with one finger inside,” using “oil of lilies, musk root, crocus, or [something] similar.”

This was nothing new. In the Western medical tradition, bringing women to orgasm via genital massage by a physician or midwife was a standard treatment for hysteria, an illness considered both chronic and common in women. Descriptions of this treatment appear as early as Hippocrates and in the first and second centuries, A.D. It’s interesting that very little attention has been paid to a medical treatment for a complaint that is no longer defined as a disease but that from at least the fourth century B.C. until the American Psychiatric Association dropped the term in 1952 was known mainly as hysteria.

The fact is that all the symptomology (<-- new word LOL!) described what is consistent with normal female sexuality, for which relief, not surprisingly, was gained through orgasm, either through intercourse, of by means of a massage on the physician’s table. That normal female sexual functioning was described as a disease can be laid at the feet of a society in which sexuality is seen almost exclusively through a male-dominated (androcentric) perspective. Androcentric (<-- new word!) views not only shaped the definition of sexuality, and their consequences for women, but also the instruments designed to cope with these so-called diseases.

The Friday Sex Blog [The Other and Sex]

-=[ Sex, Domination & Resistance ]=-

The term miscegenation was first used in the 1860’s when American journalists invented the word in order to discredit the Abolitionist movement by stirring up debate over the prospect of white-black intermarriage. (On a tangential note, I find the parallels between miscegenation and the current gay marriage “debate” utterly fascinating.) In any case, miscegenation refers to sex or marriage between two people of different races.

Let me start right off by stating that I am of Puerto Rican descent, a people that has one of the highest rates of interracial marriage in the world (I believe only Brazil has higher rates). The funny thing is that Puerto Ricans don’t see it as “interracial.” There’s no “white” Puerto Rican as opposed to a “black” Puerto Rican. We are Puerto Ricans first. In fact, we don’t even adhere to a black/ white dichotomy. This is not to imply that racism does not exist among Puerto Ricans, it does. However, how we view and construct race is drastically different from the way Gringos conceptualize it. But that’s another subject for another day...