SexyPrime, a blog by Susan Crain Bakos

Girl-on-Girl: Just To Please Him?

Photo Credit:  "Color" on Photobucket 

I had an interesting conversation about the new sexuality in the city the other night with Richard Anton Diaz of Sexy Spirits, Palagia, founder of One Leg Up and some friends. 

What is the new sexuality?

Women are in the midst of our own private sexual revolution.  Bi-Girls rule the downtown scene and prevail at sex clubs and sex parties where the single female is sought after by many couples.  Cougars are on the prowl; and we are thought to be sexy and sophisticated while older guys after Kittens are old guys chasing young girls.  Women have amazing new sex toys, including vibes so beautiful, they are object d'art. 

Yet Palagia sounded a dissenting note when she said, "The female fantasy is not girl-on-girl.  Women admit to me that they fantasize having two guys but do it with another girl to please their men."

I don't think all bisexual women are doing it to please men.  For years, swingers have been telling me that the bisexual wife calls the shots--and that women who aren't bisexual usually aren't enthusiastic about swing parties.  Moreover, girls tell me that they like playing with other girls--OR go there in their disappointment with boyfriends, not to please them.

(Palagia also said that, in her thirties, she is now "tired of teaching men" and understands why so many women give up on them, at least for a while.)

Here is a common scenario:  Two twentysomething editors I know, roommates, fell into one another's drunken arms one night, after weeping/commiserating over their failed relationships.  They had sex, declared themselves lesbians, were advertising for "a boy to join us in a threesome" on craigslist within three months.  They told me about their need for cock in a crowded, noisy bar one night.

"Why do we want cock?"  and "Why do we need cock?"  they kept asking me.  "We love each other!  We're happy together!  Why do we want cock?"

I answered loudly:  "Because cocks are so much fun to play with!"  The bar grew silent; our drinks were free the rest of the night.

In another three months, the girls were iving in separate countries.  One is in a relationship with a man; the other has remained happily on the Sapphic path.

I don't think bisexual behavior in women is all about pleasing the guy.  But what do the rest of you think? 

By the way, I read on Page Six in The New York Post today that Lindsey Lohan and her GF Samantha Ronson are fighting.   Rumors have her "going straight back to guys" if the two split.  Now what do you think about that?

The other part of the new sexuality, the evolution of men--we'll discuss another day.

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

Do You Know That Female Orgasm Was A Psychiatric Problem Until 1952?

“It has long been my unassailable belief that orgasmic women can change the world. By this I mean that a woman who is unfettered sexually is unfettered politically, socially and economically and is unstoppable,” Dell Williams in the introduction to her autobiography, Revolution in the Garden: Memoirs of the Gardenkeeper.

Last week I was an invited guest to a workshop on female sexuality at Eve’s Garden, a lovely art-filled erotic boutique on West 57^th Street, the Manhattan sex toy shop that was the first of its kind when Dell Williams opened it in 1974. (“Eve was scapegoat; I wanted to restore her good name,“ she says, explaining how she decided on the name.) She was born in 1922 when “Women didn’t have orgasms. Not officially.

“Women had the vote but we still didn’t have orgasms. Women had ‘hysterical crises.’”

What’s an hysterical crisis?

It could be fainting, loss of appetite, strange feelings of heaviness in the way lower “abdomen“--or a series of involuntary contractions that, in descriptions of the day, sounds suspiciously like orgasm. Yes, women’s sexuality was categorized as a medical condition by The American Psychiatric Association until 1952--when Dell Williams was thirty years old. Her own sexual awakening didn’t happen until she was fifty. That’s what led “a nice Jewish girl from the Bronx”, also active in the women’s movement, to open a sex toy store built on the belief that “Regular orgasm is vital to a wholesome lifestyle--it enhances our health, our appearance, our self-esteem, our ability to function effectively.”

Dell is one of my heroines; and she will be yours too if you read her book. I was thrilled to meet her at the workshop--and disappointed when the speaker gave her (and another interesting woman) so little time to talk to us. The audience was a mixed bag--women in their twenties/thirties, a couple in their late thirties, a man who looked about that age, some older women. We wanted to hear more from Dell. The speaker, who does this for a living, was warm and engaging, but way too in love with the sound of her own voice and committed to the agenda of her notes to engage in open dialogue.

Babes, if you are ever giving a presentation on any subject and a member of the audience is a pioneer in your field, give that person a little time to address the group.

During the “tell us your name and a little bit about you as we go around the room” phase, Dell said:

“When I was active in the women’s movement, I forgot about sex, until I helped co-ordinate the first Women’s Sexuality Conference for N.O.W. [National Organization for Women]. I took Betty Dodson’s workshop on self love. I saw that the vibrator was a liberating tool for women.”

I can’t read my scribbled notes on what the speaker had to say, but I remember it as being women’s sexuality rooted in relationship yada, yada, yada. At one point, a woman volunteered this comment: “In 1974, I was married with three children and had never had an orgasm.” Later she said, “I had my first orgasm in bed with my husband after a group of couples got together to smoke pot and watch porn. I was so stimulated from the pot, the porn, the sexual energy in the room.”

Shortly after that, Dell told one of her own orgasm stories:

“When I masturbate, I say I am going to the goddess. Sometimes I worry about being too loud when I come. What must the neighbors think? I live in a Manhattan apartment! Recently, I was visiting upstate; and I heard a woman’s scream coming clear across the lake. I knew she was having an orgasm. The sound sailed proudly and joyously across the water. A woman’s orgasm is life-affirming.”

I was sitting on one side of Dell, a pretty young woman on the other side. As Dell described the sailing orgasm, the young woman and I exchanged delighted smiles. We need more of this--talking about sex across the generations. The conversation brings us together, all goddesses (though I hate that word) in our own lives, each, no matter her age, having to overcome some obstacle in claiming her sexuality.

Orgasm. “Partake of it daily,” Dell says. Yes!

 

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

Let's Talk About Men and Porn!, Part Two

Photo Credit:  "Sexy Couple" on Photobucket

 

Three email questions from women on the men and porn post.  (Babes, I really wish you would post these comments to the blog and open up the discussion.)

1.  Is there a difference between a man masturbating to his imagination and masturbating to porn?

Where does he get the images in his "imagination?"  Sometimes from memory, sometimes from fantasizing sex with your best friend or even your mother, sometimes from, as Rebecca would say, his "sexual Rolodex," in this case, his inner porn file.

Women like the idea of him using his imagination vs. porn because they can pretend his mental images are more romantic than they probably are.  Some women and a few therapists/researchers have concluded that men who watch a lot of porn require increasingly harder material to become aroused and ejaculate.  That may be true.  Or not.  I am searching for reliable porn studies and will get back to you on that.

2.  Why do many women "endorse masturbation" but feel angry and resentful about men masturbating to porn?

Two reasons: 

The desire many women have to control sex in the relationship. 

Historically in nearly every culture, women have controlled men through the withholding or dispensing of sex and men have controlled women through the withholding or dispensing of money.  The Sex/Money status quo has been shaken up rather a lot in our time, but the mentality still persists even in empowered women.  The belief that he should not be doing anything with his dick that you don't approve is endorsed by The Relationship/Therapy Industrial Complex--all those therapists and workshop leaders and relationship coaches and authors and their emphasis on "working on the relationship."  (Yech.  One of my least favorite terms.)

So.  You will let him masturbate but only in the approved way.

A lot of porn is truly degrading to women.

Who wants to believe that her wonderful BF is turned on by double anal penetration or several men jerking off on a woman's face?  That is the inherent conflict in his porn/her relationship.  The porn makes you angry because you personalize it; and your resent its powerful effect on him.

A woman in her thirties recently told me that she and her girlfriends are turned off to sex and find men in their age group both "flat and lacking passion and oddly misogynistic."  She asks:  Does porn make them hate women or do they watch that porn because they hate women?

Most men don't hate women.  Let's ask them why they watch some porn we find offensive.  Guys, thoughts on that?

3.   Doesn't Western culture construct female sexuality--and isn't porn part of the construct?

Doesn't every culture construct and constrict female sexuality?  And male sexuality, though in different ways?

Yes, porn does seem to play a part in how women define their sexuality now.  The "girls gone wild" phenomenon--young women dressing provocatively and acting out sexually--was likely inspired in part by porn and fueled by x-rated imagery on the web.  You, however, are smart enough to make your own choices about your sex life.  You might decide it would be fun to have sex in your stilettos because you saw it in a film, but you don't have to do that or anything else.  I would assert that organized religion has constructed and constricted female sexuality more than porn has (or ever could.)

Remember:  There have never been more choices for women in porn of our own.  Have you checked out Candida Royalle's Femme Productions?

 

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

Let's Talk About Men And Porn!

Photo Credit:  "Woman Sexy Green Steps" by AusBlonde on Photobucket

 

While we're waitng for Rebecca's Friday post--[Slight delay due to my pressing for a few details.]--I will answer a reader email question about porn:

"What do you think about men using porn when they are in a relationship?"--A, 25, living in Ireland.

I get this question at least three or four times a week from women all over the world.  A explained that she and her BF had "a porn incident" a few months ago but asserts "everything is fine now."  Her girlfriend, however, just discovered that her "wonderful new boyfriend" has been "jerking off to porn" for years and years.

"What does this mean?"  A asks.

It means they are guys.  They masturbate.  Mostly in the modern age, they masturbate to cyberporn, a lot of which is ugly and not to our tastes. 

Women, especially young women, often believe that a couple in a relationship should not masturbate.  They view self-pleasuring as a failure of "intimacy"--even "cheating."  An American wife in her early thirties recently wrote that she gave her husband an ultimatum:  "His hand or me."  He chose her.  So he is forced into the role of lying, cheating husband now--with his own hand.

A, everything might be fine now, but your BF is no doubt sneaking his porn fix behind your back.

Porn is a relationship issue when:

• Masturbating to porn takes up most of a man's sexlife time.  His partner is frustrated beause they aren't having sex very often.  She feels neglected and sexually abandoned.
• The man is getting all his sex education from porn.  Guys, just a few points:  The girls in porn films are faking orgasms.  Anal sex isn't something you just "slip into."  They had enemas the night before the shoot, wore a butt plug for hours to open their anal sphnicter muscles, squirted syringes full of lube up their anuses.  But it still hurts when a large cock rams hard and fast into her asshole.

What do I think about porn in relationships?

Being in a relationship doesn't mean you own one another's sexuality.  You should complain if your needs aren't being met, if he masturbates to the point where he has little or no interest in having sex with you, if he tries to act out porn fantasies you find distatsteful in your bed.

You don't have to look, dress, behave or fake like a porn star.

But you can't tell him he isn't allowed to masturbate as long as he's in a relationship with you.  Let's talk about sex toys tomorrow.  Remember, Babes, the sage words of Lori Perkins:  "In the lastest sexual revolution, men got harder porn but we got better vibes."

The Walk-By Make-Out Session

 Photo Credit:  "Red Rose" on Photobucket

I had drinks this evening with Bridget, a tiny, sparkly brunette in her early 30s.  Of course, we talked about men and sex--but also about the differences between dating and mating in New York and L.A.

"New York is a drinking town," she said, "because you don't have to drive here.  In L.A. I've seen bartenders arrested for over-serving.  That term doesn't exist here."

I signaled for another round and asked, "Do you mean people don't have drunken hook-ups in L.A.?"

"They have to drive to one of their homes and get drunk there before they hook up."

Ah, spontaneity.  Apparently it's one of those things that only happens in New York.

"That and dating for dinner.  In L.A. there are so many pretty boys with no money.  Actors, artists, playwrights, indie film makers.  You expect to go Dutch or pay if you're working and he's not.  But here..."  She sighed.  "Girls expect guys to pay.  They date for dinner.  I am not working right now; and I hate to admit that I'm doing it myself.  But I try not to accept dinner from a man who doesn't sexually attract me."

If L.A. babes don't date for dinner as often as New York babes or hook up as frequently--what do they do when they go out?

"The Walk-By Make-Out session," she said.  "Kissing, touching, hands in hair--in public.  I like making out at a bar.  It's fun.  Sometimes that's all you want; and it's safer than sex."

Oh, yes, the flirtatious touches grown suddenly serious, the hands in hair, tenderly at first, brushing the strands off your face before he kisses you, then urgently both hands entangled, pulling.  And the kissing...teasing his lips with the tip of your tongue, sucking each lip, surrendering into his open mouth with a moan.  The public make-out session with a stranger is a sexy indulgence.  So is going home alone. I like the man to walk me outside, hail the cab, give me one lingering good-bye kiss--and then turn away. 

In my bedroom, my toys are waiting.  The big Hitachi Magic Wand, my Rabbit vibes, JimmyJane's Form 6....and so many more.  I come and come and come..........and sleep rather blissfully alone.

(Check out the vibes at Babeland.)

 

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

A Girl-on-Girl Sex Story

Photo Credit:  "A Touch of Red" by 4Passion on Photobucket

 

Sexy blonde Sarah, 25, is the only female bartender at my hangout bar Primehouse on 27th and Park in Manhattan.  She is adorable--smart, funny and feisty.  One of the bartenders has not been very kind to her, but I won't mention his name.

Last night Sarah was off duty and we finally had a chance to talk.

I asked her if the customers hit on her and she said, "Yes, sometimes, but not in an aggressive way."  She added, "Women as well as men--and couples.  I get a lot of propositions from couples."

And then she told me about her one and only girl-on-girl encounter which happened in Chicago where she was living at the time.

"I was with my guy, in town from San Diego, and we met this girl at a sushi restaurant."  (Pause for the giggle on that one.)  "She was so sexy.  Tight little body.  Big boobs.  Little waist.  I was immediately attracted to her.  She and I went back to her place while my guy went to buy some wine and beer.

"She and I started making out and it was like nothing I'd ever experienced.  I'm pretty sure she was a girl virgin too.  It was the hottest sex experience of my life, 45 minutes of high energy kissing, caressing, fondling ...."

They were more or less dressed when The Boyfriend returned, but his first question was:  "What's gong on?"

I told him and he said, "That's hot."

"He wanted a threesome and so did I," Sarah said.  "But she balked because she'd realized he knew her boyfriend--and she didn't want a guy who knew her boyfriend to see her naked!  She asked me to stay the night with her by myself.  I didn't feel right about doing that to him.  But we did end up sleeping together."

Sarah didn't see the girl again--or her boyfriend either.

"He just disappeared.  He wouldn't return my phone calls.  Finally I did get him on the phone and he said that his friend wasn't speaking to him and that his friend wasn't getting along with the little sexy blonde girlfriend either--and that their relationships were strained or broken--

"AND IT WAS ALL MY FAULT!

"'You instigated the sex with her.  None of us are comfortable with each other anymore."

Ah, yes:  woman as seductress, slut, harlot, temptress, relationship/friendship wrecker--the sexually wicked woman with the apple and the twinkle in her eye.

When that accusation is tossed out, you've learned much more about the accuser than the accused.  He (or she) may be masquerading as an urban sophisticate or sometimes even a therapist, but he (or she) is a judgmental ass with more than a few sex negative attitudes.  Sarah, he wasn't good enough for you.

Babes, never let anyone pass judgment on your sexuality.

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

You Will Do Me Right!--And LOVE Doing It!

Photo Credit:  "Rose" by Keefers on Photobucket

 

Why do some people choose marriage partners who are also their sexual matches--while others are frustrated and dissatisfied with married sex and ask the sexpert they meet in bars:  How can I get him (or her) to give me what I want in bed--and do it with enthusiasm?

Yesterday I went downtown to meet some girls at my hang-out bar Primehouse on 27th and Park Avenue where the young and beautiful people do gather, especially on Thursday nights. Stunning blonde Julie, 33, complained about her lack of a love life.  Her two married friends, pretty and lively brunettes, complained about the lack in their love lives and wanted to know:  How can I get him to perform cunnilingus more often--and love doing it?

For the past 25 years, I've been getting that general question:  How do I get my partner to do [fill in the blank]--and love doing it?

When I wrote for Penthouse Forum in the late 80s, early 90s, the men wanted to know how to get their wives "into" blow jobs, anal sex, new positions.  (Ah, the innocence of the times!)  As the years went by, women asked the question as often as men and the fill-in-the-blank was typically cunnilingus.  Many, so many, magazine articles have been written with advice on how to get what you want in bed.  (I've even written a few myself.)

But here is the real truth:  You can get her to suck your dick or him to eat your pussy--but you cannot make her or him love doing it.

In an ongoing monogamous (or mostly so) relationship, you can negotiate almost anything.  Quid pro quo sex is dependent on each partner meeting the needs of the other with some degree of regularity and even enthusiasm, feigned or real.  Witness the popularity of Dr. Ian Kerner's books:  She Comes First and He Comes Next.  I do love Ian.  He's young and cute and has made the best ever case for men going down on women.  But he is all about quid pro quo sex.  She comes so you can.  You give to get.

I said to the pretty brunettes:  "Babes, you either love eating pussy or you don't.  It's like sucking dick.  Some of us love it.  And I do love it.  Others don't."

There's no substitute for the real thing:  passion for the parts.

The conversation moved from the specific--the sex act they're not getting--to the general--the thrill that is gone.

After suggesting that they might discreetly get elsewhere what they're not getting so well at home, I asked, "Was the sex good when you got married?"

One woman acknowledged that it was not.  I hear this a lot from young and dissatisfied spouses, both husbands and wives.  Men say:  There are girls you fuck and women you marry.  Women say:  There are boys for fun; and men for marriage.  I call it the "Hook-up/Button Up" Syndrome in women.  She hooks up for sex, but if he is marriage material, she buttons up, playing proper for the first few dates and lying about her numbers.  In our sexually repressed Puritanical culture, that makes a weird kind of sense--BUT!

The ones you fuck and the ones you marry--Really?  I don't think so.  Marriage is damned hard.  If you don't go into it with sexual passion for one another, I don't know how you can stand each other a few years in.  Remember the 20/80 rule:  Sex is 20% of a relationship--unless the sex is bad; then it's 80%.

Men who love getting their dicks sucked have traditionally married women who stop sucking them shortly after the wedding.  There's a lot we can learn about sex from men.  But this is not one of those things.

 

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

Dirty Girls, Lusty Ladies, Outspoken Broads

 In doing thousands of interviews with women (and men) about sexual behavior all across the country over the past two decades, I have concluded that too often we limit ourselves.  (And I'm not just talking about partner choices.)  We hang out with people who are just like us; we read about people who are just like us; we go to blogs written by and for people who are just like us.

Babes, you can learn a lot by reading and listening across the generations--and, for that matter, across the full range of sexual experience.  We have much to tell each other. 

For example, this week I discovered Sue Katz:  Consenting Adult, a terrific blog!  She writes for aging Boomers.  But she is an Auntie Mame offering spirited comments and opinions on matters affecting younger women too, like Botox and cosmetic surgery.  (Girls are Botox-ing at 30 now.)  She is such a fresh and original voice.

I also went to The Happy Ending Lounge downtown to an "In The Flesh Reading Series," organized by Rachel Kramer Bussel.  If you live in Manhattan, you must get to one of these free monthly readings of erotica.  (The next is July 17; mark your calendar.)  Most of the readers and listeners are in their 20s and 30s.  But whatever your age or sexual persuasion, you will enjoy the readings.

I chatted with the legendary erotica writer Cecilia Tan and with some Dirty Girls, including Aimee Herman.  She sold me a book and CD; and I will get back to you shortly with a report.

Don't limit yourselves!  Read across the generations and sexual persuasions.  And, yes, a straight woman can get excited about gay porn too.

 

 

 

 

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

Why Men Say "No" To Threesomes

 
 

I got a little more insight into that today in a wide -ranging conversation--everything from the state of literary fiction to "candy boys"--with Min Jin Lee, author of FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES, the best-selling novel now out in a beautiful paperback edition.

"In researching this book, I asked a lot of questions.  What men told me about threesomes was so interesting that I had to include it.  They are afraid they can't satisfy two women."

Lee, who writes well about sex, says that people were surprised that she included sexual scenes in her novel because she comes from the conservative Korean American community.

"Sex is an important dimension of life," she says.  "How could I ignore it?"

We commiserated over the fact that male authors who write explicit sex scenes are considered bold, even literary--while women authors who do so often are not taken seriously.

FREE FOOD FOR MILLIONAIRES has garnered excellent reviews.  I would only add to the chorus:  Read this book because you will love it.

And she is right on target about men and threesomes.  They are most enthusiastic when the two women are bisexuals and they can play voyeur most of the time.

What are the sex scenes that you love in novels?

 

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime