Stop Taking Sex So Seriously!
Sex is natural, beautiful and fun, so why does it create anxiety, guilt and fear?
I spent last weekend in Montreal celebrating my birthday. I love that city, with its European flair and its appreciation for blatant sexuality. Strip clubs peacefully co-exist next to retail stores like H&M on the main drag, St. Catherine Street, and nobody even thinks it's ironic that the street's named after a saint.
Sex and displays of sexuality are so prevalent that they need two sex shops to satisfy it all. One of the shops is a toy store. It has DVDs, BSDM props, vibrators, dildos, penis pumps, Venus butterfly toys, anal sex toys, and a dizzying array of blow up dolls and body parts. Sex Toys You'll Both Love
The other store is mostly a clothing store, with the biggest selection of role playing outfits I've ever seen. Naughty school girls, nurses and cheerleaders lined up next to fishnet dresses and a fabulous array of stripper outfits. This store also carried the full line of Kama Sutra products along with creams and pills to stimulate the clitoris and enlarge the penis.
In a stroke of brilliant luck, my visit happened to coincide with the largest gay pride parade in North America. As a Tantrika, I absolutely love to witness all variations of sexuality, especially when they are displayed in an atmosphere of joy and acceptance as was the case on Sunday. I posted some of the pictures on my Facebook page if you want to see them (they're in the Gay Pride photo album). Tantric Sex 101
Between the parade, the sex shops and the strip joint I visited, it really got me thinking about how repressed Americans (and perhaps especially in the Northeast where I currently live) are. We take something that is so natural, beautiful and fun and turn it into something that creates anxiety, guilt and fear. What is up with that?!
I came up with some suggestions to turn that around and take the beauty and fun back into not just sexual experiences but our sexual identity. I invite you to try one or more of these suggestions… just for the fun of it!
1. Walk around your house naked for at least an hour, every day for a week. Look at your naked body in the mirror without judging it to be imperfect. Admire your own form. Flex your muscles or grab your breasts and give yourself a mirror kiss. Yes, it'll feel silly at first… that's the point.
2. If you're a woman, go to a strip club (alone or with your partner) and just practice admiring the beautiful bodies of the dancers. I'm not saying you should go to get turned on by them, I'm suggesting you admire the beauty of the female form. And maybe, just maybe, bust a move at home.
3. Take a close look at your private parts and look for what's beautiful and/or unique about them. Use a hand mirror and try to look with an artist's, rather than a clinician's, eye.
Discussion
While I agree that really good sex is deeply personal, I guess I have slightly different ideas about how sex could be regarded. I've stated in other blogs about how I don't care for strip clubs anymore after dating a dancer and getting to see a much clearer look of that life...but I have also met exotic dancers that really aren't all caught up in the drugs, emotional baggage, and the power plays/struggles. These few are intelligent young women, completely comfortable in their skin, and enjoy performing like this on stage...maybe it was my years as a dancer that help me really appreciate the beauty in that.
I actually can envision relationship healthy porn as well, something that is more educating than objectifying...but changing the core market will be difficult. However, there are many women who enjoy playing dress up and catering to fantasies (and probably get theirs catered to as well) and it has nothing to do with them feeling objectified but free from restraint.
I have felt that us Americans as a whole have always been to prudish and strict about sex. Not in a "we should all just go out and bang away" kind of a thing, but that it should be opened up and addressed without so many qualms and reservations. Some may balk at this analogy, but I kinda see it like how we view alchohol versus many european places. We deny and deny and deny and deny until the kid turns 21, and then its a free for all (not for everyone) where there is binge drinking, intoxicated driving, and an abuse of alcohol as a means of self-medicating. In many places in Europe parents kind of "ween" their children into understanding what it means to drink, and they are given license to purchase at an earlier age, possibly because they are more mature in their choices regarding alcohol because of an earlier introduction to it.
We Americans are really good at repressing. I'm not saying that people should jump out of their comfort zones or start doing things that they find morally wrong, but this is where I get bogged down...I haven't the foggiest notion of how we could even start promoting a healthier awareness of sex and sensuality.
I agree with what DancingontheHill says towards the end..."If the suggestions of this post don't appeal to you, fine, find what does appeal to you and make sex more fun, that's the main idea here."
I was in a long marriage, with little sexual variation, or excitement, for years. Since the divorce, and especially after the healing process, I've found that sex should be exciting and something a person looks forward to, not a duty, or a chore. My new love is an amazing lover, he's teaching me all sorts of things but the most interesting thing he ever said to me was that American women have lots of hangups about sex that European women don't have. He's only had a small number of relationships in his life, but the best were not Americans. If the suggestions of this post don't appeal to you, fine, find what does appeal to you and make sex more fun, that's the main idea here. Hangups aren't fun.
Have done all four, except for not as long and I didn't kiss myself in the mirror. I would agree with what most open marriage people have to say about being more sexually aware of yourself and your partner. Knowledge is power in this case, but that doesn't mean that you have to try anything you don't want to.
I agree with bookmama sex is serious because it is such a deeply personal thing. While I agree with some of the steps about being more comfortable and carefree with your body in a relationship, I think strip clubs are about objectification and creating unattainable fantasy that only hurt not help.
I'd love to try #1, but good luck if you have kids!!!
I think sex is beautiful, natural, and fun. Nevertheless, I would not enjoy going to a strip club. The experience would just make me unhappy, grossed out, depressed, less interested in sex. I actually find the list of role-playing costumes at the sex shop above repulsive and sexist and would avoid the place. Sex shops often include items that make me feel bad as a woman; I avoid looking at them.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't like feeling like things are being pushed at me. I don't want to be told I should think these things are beautiful and fun. That's not at all the way I feel. It's not about guilt or repression in this case, it's about women being objectified.
