EDIT:
I DO think that men and women have equal rights to pleasure. The problem I have is not mainly that the men I've been with lack knowledge, but that it isn't taught, anywhere. There are no courses even for adults who wish to learn about what to do. Atleast not many courses. I've read about two, and they were both for couples, not people in general.
I don't say that women know how to do everything properly and men suck. But as a mainly heterosexual (heteroflexible) woman it's quite hard for me to know how men feel about sex, especially when no one wants to talk seriously about it.
The main problem is communication, about sex, in school as well as in society. People are too shy and if I try to tell someonw how I want it in bed, (because the problem isn't that I make my partner guess how I want it done without telling him) The answer I get, if any, is that he doesn't know how to do it, and that I have to be a teacher and wait several months before I can get anyting out of it, and that is if he listens. Many poeple don't.
Feminism is great, done right. I appreciate reading about the fight for equal pay for equal work. There is much talk about that, and about clothing, pink, blue... About rape, consent, affirmative action, freedom of being who you want to be, menstruation, pms, contraceptives, weight, commercials, the patriarchate, etcetera. But I lack something.
I DO think that men and women have equal rights to pleasure. The problem I have is not mainly that the men I've been with lack knowledge, but that it isn't taught, anywhere. There are no courses even for adults who wish to learn about what to do. Atleast not many courses. I've read about two, and they were both for couples, not people in general.
I don't say that women know how to do everything properly and men suck. But as a mainly heterosexual (heteroflexible) woman it's quite hard for me to know how men feel about sex, especially when no one wants to talk seriously about it.
The main problem is communication, about sex, in school as well as in society. People are too shy and if I try to tell someonw how I want it in bed, (because the problem isn't that I make my partner guess how I want it done without telling him) The answer I get, if any, is that he doesn't know how to do it, and that I have to be a teacher and wait several months before I can get anyting out of it, and that is if he listens. Many poeple don't.
Feminism is great, done right. I appreciate reading about the fight for equal pay for equal work. There is much talk about that, and about clothing, pink, blue... About rape, consent, affirmative action, freedom of being who you want to be, menstruation, pms, contraceptives, weight, commercials, the patriarchate, etcetera. But I lack something.
DISSAPOINTMENT Nr. 1
The other day I was looking for a magazine. I wanted some inspiration, suitable for women, couples, men, but with a firm foundation of equality. And it had to be about sex; pleasure, inspiration, tips and tricks.
I felt it would be unnecessary to buy a magazine for young women. Cosmopolitan, SOLO and the others were all the same. "80 sex-questions you never dared to ask" "How to make him interested in you" "Hot short story inside". It seemed new, but it was just repetition. I already knew the "sex fact no one knows" about how the clitoris isn't only 2 cm big. I already knew the "new" technique of cunnilingus, writing the alphabet with your thounge. I had these magazines to thank for this information, sure. But I didn't need reading about them for the fifht time.
Anyway, I wasn't interested in fashion, makeup, or interviews with pop idols, which covered the remaining 85%. I was looking for sex, and sex only.
I continued on to "Tidningskungen" a really big site from which you can subscribe for all kinds of diferent magazines; Donald Duck, football-magazines, sailing-magazines, photography, interior, mental healhth, yoga, 110 magazines about cars and motorsport, 54 magazines about food, 23 gossip magazines, 61 magazines about science and history... and finally I found the category I was looking for "Erotica".
DISSAPOINTMENT Nr. 2
The headline hit me in the face together with the three magazines pictured. "Men's and Erotic Magazines" it said.
"In our range of Men's magazines you find testosterone-filled inspiration in the form of interesting articles and professional photo essays written for men of all ages. Here you'll find magazines like King, and Cafe delivering the latest in fashion, technology and eroticism. Reading to fit your partner, male friend, or yourself.
If you like erotica that leaves little to the imagination we have magazines like Bizaree and bestsellers that combine eroticism with inspiring articles like Playboy and Penthouse. We have the subscription you need. We have the latest in eroticism's many areas and also offer magazines for those with special interests.
Treat yourself with a subscription with the best of erotica today!"
What was even the difference? Their erotic magazines vs. Men's magazines. I had no idea. The ovely photoshopped and half naked pornstars didn' really apply to me as a heterosexual female.
I continued. I googled. "Erotic magazine women" "sex magazine" "Eroticism women" "Erotica couples". At best I was presented with novels or short stories, but no magazine were to be found.
My conclusion was that they don't exist, atleast not in swedish. I guess it's because women don't read the non existing erotic magazines for women. So now what? I needed something to read, and although I previously had excluded books, because I wanted something more sporadic and easily digestible, they would have to do.
DISSAPOINTMENT Nr. 3
I went into a sex store, a modern one, which advertises itself towards men and women alike. It even changed it's name from Martinshop to Mshop to welcome women. It sounded promising, but it wasn't.They had porn, and lots of it. Mainly the usual stuff. They also had about three books. "50 Shades", "The Big Sex Book - for women who have sex with women", and "Champagneflickan - A swedish stripper tells her story"
The Big Sex Book seemed really good. But I wanted to check what else I could find before deciding. Maybe there was still hope of finding something small and new, suitable for sporadic reading. I went on to the biggest online bookshop I could think of.
I did find a lot of promising books. I have not read them yet, so I can't be sure they fulfilled my wishes, and I'm still mad about the fact that if women want to read magazines about sex they have to choose between men's erotica or womens magazines containing 85% other stuff than sex.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why is it, that over and over again, pople forget about one thing: We need to combine feminism with pleasure. And I don't talk about contraceptives, or consent or abortion or menstruation. We already have discussions about those things. I talk about hands on pleasure. Not the things surrounding it.
We can talk about contraceptives, abortion and menstruation all we want (It's great that we do), but without the pleasure part women will never be more than baby-factories or tools.
When was the last time you heard a political discussion about womens pleasure?
When was the last time you heard one about menstruation?
I consider myself relatively young, and my education as somewhat modern. Yet I never had proper sex ed in school, and even though we learned about consent and the reproductive organs, and condoms, and how pornstars all live a terrible life (which isn't always true), we never actually learned to have sex.
In school you are taught about life. You read math to be able to educate yourself further as well as go to the grocery store. You participate in gymnastics class to keep your health. You learn how to vote. My class even learned what happens when you pour water on burning oil - to avoid making that mistake at home. Heck! - We even have domestic science.
So how come we forget about one of our most basic human needs (unless it's part of something related)?
I learned about sex through previously mentioned girls magazines. Neither my parents or my school taught me. And I did so because I had an interest in it. So is it surprising that, when I met my first, or second, or third, or even fourth boyfriend, whom all wanted to get laid but never cared to read about how to do so, I got dissapointed?
There I was, having learned everything I got my hands on, and from masturbation experience - about how to get the most out of it, and I got nothing in return.
The years went by and I exchanged my repetitive magazines for google, short sex stories and politically correct sites like UMO and RFSU. I also tried encouraging my boyfriend to read about sex, to learn about it, but he was happy with sex the way it was. It was just like his porn.
Eventually we broke up, and I was free to sleep with whoever I wanted. So I did, because I felt like doing so.
After being in a relationship for four years you'd have though that society had changed around you, and that the men around you had grown up to be responsible and caring, with an evolved sense of equality even in the bedroom. But oh no. They were as clueless as ever. And just to be clear, I don't mean to say all men are jerks. Most men I've been with do try to satisfy me. They just don't know how, because they have never been educated properly.
Eventually we broke up, and I was free to sleep with whoever I wanted. So I did, because I felt like doing so.
After being in a relationship for four years you'd have though that society had changed around you, and that the men around you had grown up to be responsible and caring, with an evolved sense of equality even in the bedroom. But oh no. They were as clueless as ever. And just to be clear, I don't mean to say all men are jerks. Most men I've been with do try to satisfy me. They just don't know how, because they have never been educated properly.
Did it turn me on, having to be a teacher every time i wanted to feel something? Anything? Of course not.
Luckily, one of the many people I slept with actually wanted to get better. He was nothing more than a fuckbuddy, but a really good one. Unlike the others, he actually tried to learn something, and he encouraged me to tell him if he needed to change anything. The first time we had sex he managed to give me no less than three clitoral orgasms. The other guys rarely made me experience even one. Apart from this he introduced me to anal - which yet again was a sign of the knowledge he had gathered, whether it was by listening to exes, or reading. And what turned me on the most was his confidence, unlike my previous partners who only managed to turn me off, baceause of their insecurity and cluelessness.
The result was overwhelming. After 90 minutes of heaven on earth I was shaking, quite literally, from endorfins and happiness, to exhaustion and muscle soreness. A smile was covering my face and it was impossible to hide it. And you know what? This partner was the most satisfied of them all.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, many of you know I didn't choose to stay single, but instead work on my last relationship, and this was the reason I was looking for magazines the other day.
We had now figured out that what is lacking - is knowledge and confidence. And to give him some boost we thought we'd read a magazine together. Nothing too heavy and demanding. Just something to pick up at random.
But no such magazines are to be found. Because there is no market for women. Clearly women have sex, because there is a market for sex toys, right? Things designed to put in your vagina or stimulate your clitoris.
And you may think sex toy companies are different from other companies, but you are wrong. They, like all others earn money on your dissatisfaction. If you're unable to orgasm on your own, surely their products can help you.
I have nothing against sex toys, and I agree thay can be of great aid, as well as a fun complement in ones sexlife. Those who follow my blog surely know that. But peope tend to see sex toys from two perspectives only: either they're the work of the devil and should be illegal because they ruin the religious foundation on which so many societies are built. Or they are heaven sent, feministic tools with which we can take action in our own hands, and be the sole rulers over our orgasms.
But let me introduce my perspective.
The vibrator was originally a tool designed to treat hysteria among 19th century women. At the time no connection were made between this and sexuality. The vibrator was purely for treatment and not considered a sex toy. Simply speaking - the men who were unable to satisfy their wifes got tired of the "hysteria" smyptoms, and therefore created a machine to do get rid of them, to do the job for them, so that they still didn't need to satisfy women, or change the culture around womens sexuality.
(Note that I am too upset, to take into account that many of the men didn't know better, and were themselves victims of social structures)
For those of you who might or might not tell me that I am a typical, angry, feminist who just haven't got enough cock - you're completely correct. I have not got enought cock, or fingers, or thounge, because clearly you don't know how to use them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
What amazes me in today's society is the lack of insight and understanding of our sexual history. But when I try to talk about it, open people up about it, I have no one to talk to.
When me and my boyfriend, as an attempt to solve our troubles, went to a couples' therapist, one of our main questions were sex. I tried explaining the problems we had, but as soon as I mentioned a word like "breasts" "cock" or "masturbate" our therapist almost seemed to winch uncomforably. He was, despite his profession, much too shy to talk about what couples do in the bedroom.
Actualy, whenever I try to talk about sex I get one of the following responses:
- A great, positive interest with the sole purpose of making the male listening to me horny.
- An insecure expression and taciturnity.
- Judgmental questions and much commenting on how I am wrong or even slutty to have had 25-ish sex partners, and that I must be really insecure in myself to have reached such a high number.
------------------------------------------------------------------
I have tried and tried again, and failed and failed again, to make people talk about womens pleasure. And I am sure that the reason I am not living a satisfactory sex life is not due to 1. A troubled past, 2. Having gotten stuck in a bad pattern when choosing partners, 3. Overlooking the "fact" that good sex comes automatically when you love someone, or 4. That I am too young, and it will get better with age and experiencence - If seven active years are not enought, nothing will be. Number 5 is not the answer either: I have not practicesd too little on my own body to know what I like.
Frankly speaking, how much I may write this article to find and answer to my own problems, it's mostly beacuse I think there are more women, and surely men as well, out there feeling the same way as I do. I just don't know about them yet.
So If you would do me just one favour; share this article. It may have been written because I have troubles of my own, but that doesn't mean it's not applicable on society. And maybe, just maybe, a teacher will read this and include some of my information in his or her next sex ed class. There are many teachers out there. I am not asking for the impossible.
P.S.
Stop "encouraging" women by telling them that it's perfectly normal not to be able to orgasm. I know you are just trying to help, but you're making it sound as if they shouldn't try. All the same - stop telling women who are able to orgasm both once and twice and via a range of pleasure zones that they are lucky or unique.
- Linnéa Johansson
