When I Get This Feeling…I Want…Sexual Healing.

"Most western sex is necrophilia; one dead body having sex with another dead body" - Joseph Kramer.

When I read this quote today, I was in absolute agreement with it. No brainer. Sex is dead. Long live intimacy! 

Many years ago now, I came across a book by a female performance artist and former sex worker Annie Sprinkle. At the time, I'd never heard of Annie nor come across her work, but this book, entitled "Annie Sprinkle's Post Porn Modernist" changed my life. Annie spoke to me about her sexual evolution in ways that were heartfelt, humorous and sometimes heart-breaking too, but then such is life. Her vivid descriptions of her up-bringing, adolescence and her journey (or perhaps deep dive) into the explorations of what it is to be a liberated sexual being were so incredibly inspiring. Annie seemed to have banished shame! This intrigued me. 

I have been fortunate enough to meet Annie, and at this meeting I was rapidly introduced to the magic that is Ms Sprinkle as a room full of people were taken into energy orgasm streaming right next door to a room of policemen and women, policy makers and officials deep into bone dry conversations of the cerebral type. The orgasmic noises filtering through the thin walls with increasing volume were just so delicious, and I can tell you now I sincerely wished I'd attended 'the other' break out session at that conference! 

From this meeting, this conference, a litter of ideas were birthed, giving rise to the Sex Work Re-Assessed Conference here in the UK in 1998. This joint project led by myself and two colleagues from The University of East London (Dr's Wendy Rickards and Merl Storr), came about after that trip to Los Angeles, where seeing so many create and change so much by giving a massive platform to that which is often unsaid was utterly inspiring. Perhaps in those days, funding was internationally more available, people were talking more about this stuff and there was a real buzz around sexuality, not a 'dry' buzz but more of a wet slippery one! Sex workers were speaking loud and proud and this is what they were saying…

But what is sex? what is sexual expression? Who gets to decide, and who gets to legislate? Personally speaking I don't ever want to witness a repeat of 'Operation Spanner' where in December of 1990, 16 gay men were given custodial sentences for consenting BDSM activity. Key word there = CONSENTING! So, the issue with sexuality for me lies in the distortions around it, and the value judgments which are seemingly inextricably tied to it. A bondage of a different kind! 

For me, it doesn't really matter what you do in bed, it's more about how you do it. As Joseph Kramer so succinctly puts it above, many of us are dead or dying from the waist down when it comes to the fine and exquisite art of truly 'love' making. Neither the hearts and flowers Mills and Boon kind, nor the opposite kind of the style you may find in a fetish club, for both can be equally besieged with a lack of true connection to the self and the other in my view. No, Joseph has nailed it (no pun intended!). 

For me, the three keys are breath, communication and presence. Being brave enough to really speak about what turns you on and off, where your energy is flowing and stuck, and truly making the first forays into stopping with the acting and starting to become the key player in your own pleasure maps. Following a path of Red Tantra has led me into the body in ways I could never have previously imagined. Without having to use fantasy as a tool to get off, one becomes able to use presence as the greatest erotic aphrodisiac on the market, and the good news is that it's free! All of the add-ons can be fine of course, but even then, if we default to major fantasy without fully remaining present to who is in front of us, what we are sharing and how we share it, then it's game over. If you're lucky you get a great O-gasm, if not, a somewhat deflated feeling that you've sold yourself short somehow. 

But what if you don't sell yourself short? What if you don't make love as one 'dead' body to another? Then, does it matter if you are paid for it or not? If you're tied up or not? If it's a one off or an ongoing thing? No! The whole point is, that you are truly alive and inhabiting your body, your sexual self and your personal erotic map in absolute and utter presence, and that my dears, is where the nectar truly lies. In integrity. 

So let's hear it for all of the Sexual Pioneers, healers and adventurers out there making this world sexier one way or another. I for one am grateful for each and every one of them. 

Shakti Tantra, Sarah Rose Bright, Joseph Kramer, Barbara Carrellas, Annie Sprinkle, Betty Dodson et al. Thank you for being there sexing up the planet! 

Self Pleasure Versus Masturbation

Good evening all and welcome to 2014! My second post of the year sees me contemplating an altogether different subject, the subject of pleasure and how you get yours.

I was well into my fourth decade before I first heard the term 'self pleasure', and when I did, I admit that it didn't sit comfortably with me. It reeked a little too much of good-girl-squeaky-clean syndrome and somehow seemed a bit 'icky'. Personally speaking, I'd always preferred my fucks to my made loves, my cums to my climaxes and my wanks to my self pleasures. And I'd always chosen words like cunt over vagina, pussy over the euphemistic lady-garden and perhaps the worst one ever, front bottom!

So for me, coming across the phrase 'self pleasure' was a tantric exploration as much about the semantics and their message as it was the form and structure.

Many of us grew up either being told that it would make us blind, it was dirty or it was just something for dark, silent corners that we all knew about but no-one ever discussed, perish the thought. And yet we also knew from an early age, damn this feels good! So for me tantra blew the lid off all of that negative collective consciousness around sex and sexuality, intimacy and the body, and as someone never too backwards at coming forwards, I didn't even know how much further I could go!

I'm still a tiny bit twitchy when I use the phrase self-pleasure as it's just not really me, but I'm getting better at it, you could say that the 'L' plates are off and I'm on the road but not there yet, wherever there is. However I also feel that masturbation sounds so damn clinical, so somewhere in between the two I guess I sit on the proverbial fence waiting to see upon which side I 'cum' down (pardon the pun).

Some of my heroines, women like Betty Dodson and Annie Sprinkle really broke through so many taboos in their work. Betty's famous books Sex For One, Celebrating Orgasm and the like, and Annie's absolutely seminal Public Cervix Announcement really broke the mould when it came to smashing the silent barriers of shame, guilt and fear.

Using her own body, Annie offered up to her audience the chance to see and discuss the deeper, darker, mystical caverns of a woman's body, pleasure and psyche. Her openness encouraged that in others. Her work inspires me to this day and I salute her contribution to sexual progressive thought, feeling and action. Annie's book 'Post Porn Modernist', was one of the first books I ever bought, read cover to cover and have treasured ever since. 

I'm more comfortable with the term self pleasure since discovering tantra, as I can now relate it to the many different ways of experiencing pleasure, and I guess the key for me has been one of taking my pleasure back for me. It's not about me giving it to anyone else, performing or feeling obligated to some reciprocal deal in the bedroom, but how I can give and take pleasure by really owning it, understanding it and revelling in it. Self pleasure could actually be about anything, eating, sleeping, running, gazing into the eyes of your beloved, running a soft bath, resting, whatever it is so long as the intention is there to pleasure the self. In receiving well, we learn to extend that and in turn, to give well, and I'm not sure its possible to give well if you can't receive well. How can we ever hope to do that whilst masturbating silently, quickly and under cover of darkness? So yes, I am beginning to love the term, and to relish my private moments of bliss, and in those moments, masturbation seems far to limited a terminology. 

The french call orgasms 'la petite mort' or 'the little death' and it's true that in my personal moments of ecstatic bliss I probably come closest to that infinite zero point of nothing-ness, the primordial soup, the essence of a small death. The website Beautiful Agony is worth a browse and Clayton Cubitt's highly erotic 'Hysterical Literature' project is just another orgasm waiting to happen to be quite frank. Beautiful, erotic and intelligent, it also opens doors into how we witness pleasure and where that witnessing can take us. There's so much out there, go explore and have fun! It's all about the bliss and nothing about the shame. 

Get orgasmic, its good for you! 

For more teachings on tantra and sexuality, I highly recommend Shakti Tantra

Bluebeard's Key

Evening all - today sees your hostess Claudia contemplating morals (again I hear you gasp!)

After reading an article this morning which raised my blood pressure to unhealthy levels, I could not help but find myself jaw dropping-ly amazed by the blatant hypocrisy that seems to rule our societies major financial and governmental systems. What could have incensed me so much I hear you ask - well, it was the news that a number of porn stars have recently found that their bank accounts have been shut down on the grounds of "compliance issues." You can read the article here. Compliance issues here representing the 'improper morals' of the client, in the case of the bank subsequently receiving and handling money presuming to be made from pornography.

F**K me! Was I getting this straight I wondered? The banks, notorious for investing their money in arms and warfare, unethical trading, large scale corporate corruption both from within and without, were refusing to take money from porn stars on the ground it is 'immoral'? Am I missing something here?

Chanel Preston (pictured above) makes porn and enjoys it. It might not be everyone's cup of tea but it operates within the realms of adult, consenting, co-operative sex. It does not pretend to be anything other than it is. You either love it or hate it, avoid or ignore it, use it to enhance your sex life or reject it, wish you could do it or are frustrated by the often joyless representations of women's sexual power in it, or some other variable of response. So how did the banks, with their squeaky clean record of investing our global finances (spot the irony) then become our moral arbiters? And what is it about sex that still shakes us up so much.

All of this got me thinking, and led me as these things often do, down a fork in the next road where I came across a delightfully frank article where my long time heroine and inspiration Annie Sprinkle (pictured below) was discussing the taboos around paying for sex.

I believe that we are still incredibly hung up about paying for sexual services despite the fact that we think nothing about paying for almost every other aspect of our personal desires and needs. We pay for alcohol and drugs to relax us, we pay to enlist the services of people whose skills we need at any point in our lives, we pay to experience the lives and cultures of others, we often pay to work or perform, and we pay for just about every need we have without too many questions being raised. We are human beings conceived in sexual bonding, and it's fair to say that the exploration of our own sexuality then continues all the way through our lives - the good the bad and the ugly all entering the fray, for most of us that is. How is it then that we still balk, moralise and intervene on the issue of the buying and selling of sex?

For me, it's the Bluebeard's Key of our lives - the key to the door we are given but told not to peek into, never to venture in for the rivers of blood that will be unleashed if we dare to cross the forbidden threshold. "Here, I'm offering you this in trust but you must not let your curiosity reign supreme." Discipline (but not paid!) must be found or the devil may cavort!

It's curious to me that should I have a sexual desire or need that I could never openly admit I may choose to pay for. Honest, clean negotiation? What's wrong with that? At least the bank aren't my caretakers or judges on the matter at hand. At least the choice is mine. Sex, the most normal drive and urge in the world, so distorted, so misrepresented, so repackaged and re-sold to us that we even believe the mythology now. That everyone else is having better sex than we are and that it's wrong to pay for it.

Give me one good reason why?

For centuries women have been getting into trouble for daring to unleash their curiosity or their need - Eve, Pandora, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Bluebeard's wife and so many many more, all of them/us doing little more than expressing a desire. What then of women's sexuality when it is unleashed and expressed?

Whilst sex remains the Bluebeard's Key, we will never change things and it's most certainly time to change things. Unlock the door and dare to get the pleasure you deserve!

Let's turn it into a pleasure zone! 

Why my work is important to me.

A therapist today suggested that I write out a list of why my work is important to me. The premise for this suggestion was to appease the concerns and deepen the understanding of my work, and its place in my life, for someone important to me who was/is struggling with what I do (Tantric Massage Therapist & Healer). It also comes on the back of several experiences of sex worker prejudice I've recently encountered, both obvious and subtle and the difficulty I've realised there is in finding ongoing support networks and forums for those of us who do work directly with the body and sexuality. Supervision is important, but so is peer directed sharing and it's not easy to find it. Why is that?

Feeling despondent this evening after a tough day where I've really felt the fifty shades of sexworker phobia, I was blessed to find in my Facebook news feed this article by the very articulate Pamela Madsen. This went some way to restoring my faith that there is a tide of change, that people are willing to step out there, courageously, and light the way for this change to happen.

Joseph Kramer, the subject of the article, is a well known pioneer in the field of human sexuality, as are Betty Dodson, Annie Sprinkle, Barbara Carrelas and so many more teachers and truth seekers, sexual renegades and heart-touching healers and I salute them all. Sincerely I do, for they have helped me make sense of my life and my journey so far.

As a former escort and sex worker (I still identify as a sex worker though my work is now significantly different than it was back then), my life has followed a clear and distinct thread, that being a willing, and sometimes not so willing exploration of sexuality. I've experienced many different aspects of the sex industry; escort work, call girl, street sex worker, phone sex, I've played in fetish clubs. Tried many different types of relationship too; open, closed, vanilla, kinky, dysfunctional, co-dependent, independent and more. At around the age of 30, I met a man who was to become the father of two of my children and step father to my third. My explorations continued through that relationship by mutual consent.

That lovely man, with whom I still maintain a very treasured friendship and co-parenting role, knew all about my background pretty much as soon as we met, and it was he who first encouraged me to travel to the USA to a conference there which was to change my life. ICOP (International Conference on Prostitution) gave me a means with which to bridge my former sex work experiences with my life as it was post-sex work, and to connect with my sexual politics in general. I met so many fabulous women and men there who were to continue to influence me to this day, many of whom have become friends and ongoing contacts in the world of sexual freedom advocacy and sex worker rights campaigning. They are pretty inspirational people. They do really important work. Carol Leigh, I salute you! Too many to mention individually, I salute you all! I'm deeply honoured to be walking in the footsteps of such incredible innovators and such courageous spirits. Devoting your life to change, especially in the field of sexuality, is not always an easy choice, but it's a truly valuable one.

So, my work is important to me for several reasons, the first and foremost being that through my direct experience of so many aspects of sex work, I came to notice that there was something really missing in the arena of sex and the fulfilment of desire. I recognised as a post-forty year old sex worker, as opposed to a rather naive 18 year old one, that I could dialogue in different ways with my clients, who were now my peers rather than my significant elders. What I began to see was that there was something my clients were desperately seeking and not getting in their relationships (with themselves as much as the 'other') but the problem was that my own autonomy in work could not be fulfilled and therefore my creativity in my work was stunted. I was being sent on jobs I didn't want to go on, having to allow my boundaries to be defined by the agent, rather than my own judgment, by expectations of the set and setting over the desire to find something deeper and yet it was obvious my clients often wanted a deeper connection too. Don't get me wrong, this was far bigger than the "my wife doesn't understand me" syndrome, but reached out into the very evident need for intimacy, human connection and touch, a kind of 'I don't just want to fuck, I want to feel and be felt, hear and be heard, change and be changed' mentality. An opportunity was presenting itself to me, but I wasn't quite sure where to go with it.

As I'd now trained in massage, I began to see a way in, however it was only in discovering Tantra that I simultaneously experienced the marriage of the sensual, spiritual and sexual which finally gave me the voice I needed to step into my life work in a way that feels natural, powerful and healing for me. Tantra has allowed me to make perfect sense of my life, my own healing journey and my deep and ongoing commitment to sexual transformation and freedom. My work involves full body (including genital) contact, and that my friends, in 2012, would seem to still be a highly charged area that touches and triggers people's individual fears pretty deeply, and still sees the accusation "whore" being flung around as if the label 'whore' is a dirty word anyway! After years of working with agency for sex worker rights, I really object to the word whore, slut, slag, tart or any other such defamatory label being used as an insult. So what if you/I am...you've no right to judge. EVER. Slut shaming in 2012? Get over it!

So, after years of working under pseudonyms for fear of judgment, isolation, family rejection or suffering and more, I am now working under my own name and beginning the process of really starting to say to the world "this is who I am" and this is what I do. To me, a body, nakedness, truthful sexual expression and integrity are all such valid and soulful aspirations that I fail to see how what I do can remain so vilified. My experience of it is deeply healing, what I see, my friends, or rather my 'tribe' as I refer to my sexual pioneering 'family', are all doing such amazing work, and I fail to see how that can be wrong.

The World Health Organisation's definition of health is as follows:

"Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity"

In this spirit, I see health around me in the intention behind the work of these people whom I admire, and in my own intention that's really clear. My work is important to me because I believe that I am absolutely using my life experience to create healing opportunities for those who may be struggling to find their own 'health', and ultimately I cannot imagine doing anything less.

This post is dedicated to the memory of Robyn Few, founder of SWOP, USA and tireless advocate for sex worker's rights. Robyn will be sorely missed. R.I.P xx

Boys who do Girls who do Boys...

Good evening readers....today you find your divine hostess Claudia with a rare night to herself, no lover, no responsibilities, nothing to do but dream and ponder. What to do? Watch a bit of Anna Span chick porn? Or maybe create myself a bit of Tantric healing space all for me...or perhaps a movie or two. First off though I find myself, for many a reason contemplating boys who like to dress as girls or rather, men who love to cross dress. It strikes me there are many of you out there, I've known several and certainly every chance I ever got to attend a fancy dress ball or party, the numbers of men who love to dress as women were generally off the radar! Yes guys, given half the chance it would seem you love nothing more than the feel of nylon and silk against your skin, and who can blame you?

Us women get to play with our appearance on a regular, well daily actually, basis. Hair, trousers on our more masculine days, power dressing when we feel the urge, heels or flats, soft skirts or layers on our more floaty days, and what do you get? Trousers! And not in many varieties either, no wonder our clothes and our freedom to try out our different aspects through our apparel appeal to you, you poor inhibited beasts!

One of my ex lovers used to have a passion/fetish/unmet need for dressing up in womens clothing but felt terrible shame in doing so. Personally I didn't have a problem with it per se, I mean look at Grayson Perry and Eddie Izzard and how incredibly possible they have made it for men to express themselves differently, yet it's sadly fair to say that for most average men wanting to try wearing womens clothes, a fair bit of abuse and prejudice may be encountered pretty soon along the way. Public venturing? Not for most of you. Pioneering women such as the amazing Miss Vera (pictured below)

have made it possible for some men to begin to explore, without criticism or judgment, their feminine drives and desires, to try it on for size if you like, and to really explore this side of themselves, whilst sexual pioneers such as my heroine Annie Sprinkle continue to work tirelessly towards a new sexual revolution that encompasses a holistic approach to the free expression of our erotic selves. So, whether you want to look like this

in your boy girl dress, or like this...

what is it that would stop YOU from feeling free to do so? to admit to your desires? to play with them free from guilt, shame or fear? Wouldn't it be great if we could foster that permission and stop judging and attacking those who wish to simply explore their sexuality more fully. We can change the world one moment by one moment, one person by one person. I find myself more comfortable in the company of sexual renegades and adventurers. Long may we reign!

Sexual Freedom & breaking the bonds

What does "sexual freedom" mean to you? It's been coming to my attention for years now that we are so bound by our ideas of ourselves and our ego-centric senses of identity that most of us don't even know we're captive any more. We have sex for so many reasons; duty, obligation, guilt, fun, love, money, stuff, approval, pressure, connection, release...and yet all too often we often don't even truly SEE our lovers any more, yes ladies and gentlemen, we are both prisoner and jailer at the same time!

Sexual energy is creative energy and properly channeled and acknowledged can be a most blissful and healing thing to fully experience, so what stops us? Media ideas of beauty can be intimidating, social notions of romance can create disillusionment, familiarity; does it really breed contempt or is it a platform from which to truly get to know our lovers and their pleasures? The more I dive into my Tantric journey, the more I realise how vast the range of both experience and pleasure is, how different our bodies are and how varied their/our needs. I used to be afraid of the term 'sacred sexuality' fearing it would lead to a kind of disowning of my more carnal side, my archetypal (or actual!) 'whore' or playful 'slut', however given the right teacher/teachings, just as with any other spiritual discipline, light, dark AND shadow can be fully embraced and played with. Enough of the guilt of being a sexually active, liberated woman in pursuit of hot sex! Enough of the judgment and labels...time to re-claim our power, and that goes for men too. Not power over but power of self expression in healthy, respectful, playful and celebratory ways; truth-telling!

Many cultures have historically known this, and here in the west, where I'm from, we have the gift of exploring many aspects of our sexuality with a great deal of freedom too, however there are things we need to bypass first - the erotic police invest in the suppression of sexual energy knowing its potency is great and its potential for liberating us phenomenal. Yet who 'polices' our sexual expression in truth? Mostly we do a very good job of this ourselves. Our 'phnaar phnaar' attitudes and 'Carry On Up The Khyber' mentality keep us protected, safe from the fear that we may not in fact be "getting it right". Once upon a time there were temples of sexual healing and the women who worked in them were considered Priestesses and highly revered, and yet now, so few work with sexual energy in this healing way, and yet there is change coming.

Sacred Intimacy is a phrase becoming more frequently heard as women and men long for something different, desiring of healing our sexual wounds and our erotic nature, which can be so many different things. I recently met a woman who works within the UK National Health Service and was so deeply saddened to hear how many women she comes across with great trauma and shame locked into their bodies and souls. Women afraid to look at themselves, who will not even touch themselves and who have disowned themselves from the waist down. Women who believe their genitals to be ugly rather than a thing of great beauty, and I'm sure there are as many men suffering the same disconnection. There are as many different types of vajra (cock) and yoni (pussy) as there are hair types, eye shapes, noses, bodies yet we persist in subscribing over and over to the myth of 'sameness' and aspire to some kind of non-existent sense of perfection. Breaking out of that is POWER-FULL and liberating. Allowing ourselves to truly love our bodies as they are, and to learn to name our pleasures is just as potent. BREAK THE BONDS and find the true expression of your sexual self...I promise you, you cannot fail to enjoy the ride, even if a little bumpy at times....

Sacred Whoring

What does the word 'whore' conjure up for you? Have you experienced it as a derogatory label being hurled at you as some justification for another person's anger? Have you been judged for your sexual expression, or your dress sense? I'm asking as it's a word I quite like these days, like 'cunt' and 'bitch', words I once feared, perhaps as I too was locked in what it felt to be on the receiving end of their judgment rather than their potential for liberation.

These days, I am less and less apologetic about who I am in the world and how I choose to express myself, and my activism has taken on new perspectives as a result. When I was younger, it was fair to say that I hated much of my experience of sex and my personal circumstances were very different back then. Now however, I have much more in common with many of the tantra clients I see (the age gap has narrowed!) and my awareness of just how much healing is needed around sexuality has grown enormously and it is my conclusion that "Houston...we have a problem"!!

The first thing I notice is how nervous many men are around women. Granted I'm there in a certain capacity and some nerves are to be expected, however, it's more than that and I'm suspecting that many men aren't at all sure of us women. Secondly, when new clients first arrive it's fair to say the majority seriously do not know how to touch, be touched or communicate with a woman. I don't say this to judge, more to raise awareness of how much work there is that can be done by conscious sexuality educators - healing work that can ripple out into the world which can only improve the relationship between the sexes as far as I'm concerned. How ironic then that so many anti-sexwork lobbyists assert the opposite and hold us accountable for buying into the damage that's done in the name of gender differentials; simplistic reductionist arguments that fall at the first hurdle.

One of my all time heroines, Annie Sprinkle, pictured below, has consistently worked from this premise.

Annie knows that we need more love and more sex in the world and uses her unique point of view and skill to bring this out in her own inimitable style. Her sexuality knows more variety in its expression than almost anyone I can think of and I adore her! As sex workers, Annie and another of my heroines Scarlet Harlot, inspire me to bring the same gifts through my own work, so when I meet a man who is clearly awkward and inexperienced around women, I see it as my challenge and a labor of love to reduce his anxiety and with kindness and compassion teach him about how to communicate sexually. Not all men ask or need to know but many benefit for sure.

Some clients approach making love as if fixing the broken mechanics of an industrial drill - with as much sensitivity as an ox at work and as much awareness as a bull in the proverbial china shop. It takes guts and discretion to gently coax a man into a softer way of being without at the same time making him feel emasculated; that's not the point after all. My clients get my respect from the outset and I expect the same, and that includes every part of the contact whether verbal or physical. I simply expect respect. These are not fixed states. I'm more than happy to be called a whore by a lover unless the word is being used with underlying violence of one sort or another.

Sex workers can teach men a great deal about love, pleasure and intimacy. We can earn a good living, get some kicks along the way and besides all of that, let's not forget.... 

A BLOW JOB IS BETTER THAN MOST JOBS!

The problem with sex

What's the problem with sex? Your divine Hostess Claudia came to ponder this question after several recent happenings led her fertile imagination and sharp intelligence to become alarmed by what is going on when we think sex, talk sex and have sex.

First off, I noticed that many men simply do not know how to pleasure a woman and have not the faintest idea what foreplay or arousal are designed for. Gentlemen...banging away like an industrial road drill against a woman's pussy or clit will not, and I mean NOT, garner you any favours. Most men don't even seem to think the clitoris is important. Male readers I invite you ~ share your thoughts. Do you know where it is? Do you know how to tease and arouse it? If not, here's a picture to assist your navigations!

...Or perhaps this may be a better way to find out?

Right then, now that we've got the biology out of the way, what's happened to our sex lives? There seems to be so much guilt, shame and fear associated with sex that we've become either paralysed or over invested in fantasy at the expense of true passion or sensuality, and let's not forget that sex is meant to be fun! I have a theory that somewhere in all of this lies a deeper problem, our issues with 'gender' and the way we allow gender to define us in a most limited fashion.

Thinking about this got me considering how so many men have not learned how to express their femininity, and conversely so many women have not learned how to express our masculinity. Men who feel drives other than 'macho' sometimes desperately crave the touch and feel of women's clothes and underwear or the expression of a more 'submissive' role in the bedroom. They may find the only way to let this out is by secretly dressing up in private, occasionally finding a someone or some others with whom they may share this 'secret'; defining themselves at it's most extreme as 'sissy' and risking ridicule and more shame for doing so.

Paradoxically when a woman expresses her masculinity, she is often labeled a 'ball breaker' or a Bitch and may be labeled by men and other women for rejecting the more easily accepted 'softer' feminine qualities like family, marriage and nurturing.

Artists such as Eric Stanton and Robert Crumb (and many more) have been illustrating the allure of such women for aeons yet these qualities are often highly desired and reviled at the same time; I want a Dominant whore as a lover but not as my wife....

This separation of masculine from feminine, and this limited labelling creates both desire and fear at the same time, yet often a desire associated with taboo. Meanwhile women and men are not getting the sex we want or need as self and other imposed restrictions limit our sexual freedoms. It is a rare pleasure to meet a man in touch with his feminity without being emasculated and a woman in touch with her masculinity without becoming 'hard'. In the bedroom the pleasure of discovering this flowing in and out of attributes can lead to an immensely pleasurable and horny experience. The extremes (woman as 'victim' or 'bitch', man as 'sissy' or 'macho') then ease up a little and the willingness to play and to adventure and explore become a whole lot more fun. I for one don't wish to be swinging between extreme polarities, nor do I wish to find yet another man struggling for....oooh let me see.....minutes (!) to find out how to pleasure me.

Three words: G-Spot, clitoris and liberation spring to mind. We are far too afraid of talking sex it would seem and even more afraid of admitting to feelings and desires that we have learnt to 'disown' and yet I believe these disowned feelings are at the root of all sexual violence and many relationship problems.

What are your views? Do you expect a woman (or a man) to look and behave within very restricted parameters? Do you allow for and celebrate diversity? Do you experiment with boundaries? And how much guilt, shame and fear do you live with as a result?

Sex: What makes it great?

Having spent the last few evenings firmly entrenched in Anna Span DVDs, I've come to thinking about what makes sex great for women. I felt strangely empowered (or was it aroused?!) after watching Anna's productions, and given that I'm generally not at all shy about exploring sex and sexuality, empowerment on top of existing confidence can only be a good thing (though men may wish to run very fast in the opposite direction as my pussy demands more action!)

Having been fortunate enough to have had relationships that have allowed me to fully explore the 'darker' sides of my sexual expression,  has given me the opportunity to be much clearer about what I like and dislike in bed and find the voice to say so. It was most certainly the communication without shame that made these explorations possible from a starting point of fun, openness and courage; the courage to talk out our deepest, darkest fantasies free from shame. Initially of course there's always the fear of embarrassment or discomfort - what if I reveal too much? what if that confession is one step too far? what if judgment enters the playground and leaves me feeling the bittersweet aftertaste of the confessional? So many people are told that what they desire and feel isn't 'normal' but who gets to decide upon this? I know that when I first discovered a partner who could talk dirty and match my own levels of filth, my sigh of relief was probably audible in the next street!

Communication is key for sure but is that enough? As with any aspect of a relationship, getting to know one another's intimate secrets and thoughts takes trust and time, though obviously if the sex you are looking for is a one-off hit, then lust and instinctive attraction take over. Starting from the premise of a general question, e.g., 'what makes sex great for women', I wondered what the answers would be, so I asked about 30 of my girlfriends and their responses were as varied as the number of body types there are in the world. Here are the abridged versions of some of their/our replies, many of which were duplicated:

"women love oral - simple"

"being able to get really pervy and feel utterly loved no matter what"

"raw sex appeal and the feeling of control/lack of control depending on the person"

"ribbed condoms and a man who will stay down for as long as it takes...oh and a nice cock"

"the right drugs and a good imagination"

"double penetration!....and to be able to feel totally at ease so that I can go wild and lose all inhibitions with an unselfish lover"

"love, security and lots of squirting (female ejaculation)"

"talking about what they are going to do whilst doing it"

"teasing"

"start with a massage, free the mind and the body follows"

"communcation"

I have two teenage girls - what do we teach our young girls about sex, sexuality and their bodies? How do we counter mainstream values if those values are limiting at best or repressive at worst? My daughter has already experienced labeling as a slut just because she enjoys sex and is not afraid to get the sex she wants. To me, that sucks BIG time and makes me both sad and angry. Has nothing changed? False images of what it is to be a woman surround us daily, most often in the media and those magazines supposedly aimed at women and young girls, and this can so easily perpetuate a sense of lack, so how do we change their thinking and bring confident, sexually comfortable young women into the world? We keep talking.

Some of my most inspiring mentors have been sexually open, confident women; writers, porn stars, sex workers, dancers, strippers, campaigners and the like. Women I met at the International Conference on Prostitution in LA many years back now, women who first provided a platform for me to express the full range of my sexual experiences. Women like Annie Sprinkle, Carol Queen, Nina Hartley, Scarlot Harlot, Tracy Quan, Cheryl Overs; all inspirational fabulous women who have shaped who I am in some way or another, and here's to the many more I've yet to meet!

For me, what makes sex great changes depending on where I am and what I need in my life at any given time, however it remains true that many of us are afraid to talk about sex in the same way we may talk about any other aspect of our lives and relationships. Why is that?

On that note; what makes sex great for you? please come in and get some good juicy chat going ~ you know it makes sense!