For the past 15 years, America has been rocked by a sexual revolution unequaled in the history of the human race. A mere decade and a half ago we were an un-awakened puritanical society haunted by the twin specters of sexual guilt and sexual ignorance. Today we are the freest sexual society in the history of the world.
Sexual Women: Everything They Want to Know About Sex — And Aren’t Afraid to Ask!
From the standpoint of sex, there are no secrets anymore. Every month of the year a hundred new books on the subject of sex are printed — many of them with detailed color photographs. Anyone with the price of a movie ticket or access to a home video recorder can watch every variation of human sexuality acted out in living color and stereo sound, again and again. For those who want to go even further, there are “sex surrogates” to lead them step-by-step through whatever isolated areas of sexual ignorance may linger.
So, as a result of this new and unlimited sexual freedom, everyone now knows everything that they need to know to find sexual happiness and fulfillment — right? Well … not quite. Somehow, somewhere, something went wrong. The divorce rate has spiraled upward faster than the inflation rate. Impotence and frigidity strike more men and women as each night goes by. Worst of all, we seem to be in the midst of an epidemic of sexual dissatisfaction. In the 1980s, sex is easier to find than ever before — and much less fulfilling. It seems that nowadays everyone is doing it more and enjoying it less. But as with every major problem. the big unanswered question is why?
I think I know the answer. The vast knowledge of sex that most people have acquired today is a very limited and very superficial kind of knowledge. It’s what might be called a Popular Mechanics understanding of human sexuality. You know how it goes: “Slide the right leg slowly over the left leg, and then, carefully raising yourself on your left elbow, firmly place your …” and so on.
That was okay in the beginning, when we were letting the first flicker of sexual enlightenment shine on our lives. but today things are different.
Now that all of us have more or less survived the sexual revolution, what we need to know is not so much “What happens?” as “Why does it happen?” and sometimes even more importantly, “Why doesn’t it happen?”
This feeling of mine is amply confirmed by the 50,000 letters I have received from my readers over the past two years. About half the letters are from women, and the questions they ask — the things they most want to know about sex — are just exactly the kinds of things that we have been talking about. Men and women are different, and sometimes they just don’t understand each other’s sexual problems, desires, and needs. I believe that in sharing some of the most typical questions women ask me, men will better be able to understand what it is women want from a healthy and satisfying sexual relationship. Let’s take a look at some of the letters and see.
The question that tops the list is an excellent example. In a touching way, this letter from a young wife shows the gap between sexual expectations and sexual reality. For reasons she doesn’t understand, sex after marriage seems to have taken a surprising turn:
“I don’t know if it’s my fault or my husband’s fault, but between us we have one big sexual problem. Before we got married we had a lot of sex together. We did it almost everywhere. You know, in the car, on the beach, on a sailboat — anywhere we felt like it. Not only did I almost always have an orgasm, I had sensational orgasms! Even after we got married, I went wild nearly every time we did it, and that was almost every night. But now we’ve been married three years, and I haven’t had a single climax in the past six months. Oh, I can still get there by masturbating, but when I make love with my husband — nothing happens! What happened to me? What went wrong? And the big one: What can I do about it? To say I’m desperate would be an understatement. …”
“Sometimes it’s easy for a woman to have an orgasm with a stranger whom she doesn’t care about, but with her husband she has to be in love.”
The explanation is simple, the solution a little more difficult. Sex before marriage — and outside of marriage — has the lure of the forbidden, that extra zing of getting away with something illicit, something dangerous. This woman describes it well when she talks about doing it in the car and on the beach. The extra ingredients of fear, tension, and danger are like the pep rally before the ball game. They give the nervous system that little extra jolt which can push a woman head-long into orgasm. There’s a charming Italian proverb that sums it all up: “You don’t really know what sex can be like until you’ve done it … in a tree … underwater … or with a jealous husband pounding on the door.”
But in her own home in her own bed with her own husband night after night, she has to arrive at the moment of orgasm under her own power — she can’t hitch a ride anymore on the forbidden, the dangerous. or the exotic. That’s when real love and deep emotional attachment to your partner make a difference. Sometimes it’s easy and exciting for a woman to have an orgasm with a stranger whom she doesn’t care about, but in order to have an orgasm with her husband she has to be in love.
When it comes to the second thing that women most want to know about sex, their interest suddenly shifts to the amorous responses of their partners. The ups and downs of male potency get a lot of female attention. This 24-year-old woman puts it succinctly:
“Maybe this question is too complicated to be answered in a letter, but it really has me perplexed. Why is it that men sometimes become impotent? Well, maybe a better way to ask it is, Why do they sometimes suddenly become impotent? My husband and I have been married for about four years now, and on about half a dozen occasions he just hasn’t been able to get an erection. Sometimes I think it’s my fault, sometimes I’m angry at him, and then sometimes I just don’t know. Can you help me understand what’s happening?”
First of all, congratulations are in order for the man, who only slipped a cog six times in four years. That’s a pretty good record. Having an erection is a lot like the old saying, “You have to have a million dollars to be a millionaire, but you can be poor without a cent.” You can have a non-erection anytime without even trying, but having an erection requires a lot of very complicated things to happen with split-second timing. Any distraction can block the extremely complex pathways of the reflexes involved and cancel the erection — at any stage of a sexual experience. That distraction can be as simple as a knock at the door or as complicated as the fear of not being able to have an erection. Even the routine problems of everyday life, such as a bad day at work or a plunge in the stock market, can cause enough disruption of the delicate sexual reflexes to make trouble. Of course, there are a few rare exclusively physical reasons for impotence. Diabetes, for example, can seriously cripple sexual potency. Taking all that into consideration, one can say with assurance that a man who only misses six times in four years is doing very, very well.
Men may have to learn how to cope with some women’s lack of knowledge on the subject of the male anatomy. It is difficult for a woman to understand why the man next to her, who says he wants to make love, can’t achieve erection. Obviously, she has never had an erection and doesn’t know just how easily the penis can be provoked or discouraged. Of course, the reverse is also true. Too many men are not sympathetic with the problems women have regarding birth control, pregnancy, menstruation, etc. When it comes to sex, you’re dealing with a most sensitive issue, and both partners have to learn how to respect each other’s feelings. Good sex depends on it.
One of the things that seem to concern a lot of women after the first few years of marriage is unexpected — they never imagined that sex could become “boring”! This young wife wants to know what’s going on:
“I’ve heard about this sort of thing happening, but I never thought it would happen to me. My husband and I have been married for a little over six years now, and it seems that he’s gotten tired of sex. I mean, we used to do it every night and now sometimes he goes a week or even longer before he wants some. My mother told me that after a year men get bored with sex, so maybe I’m lucky it lasted this long ….”
Nobody asks a question like this unless they want a straight answer. It’s almost impossible to find a man who is bored with sex. You can’t get bored with sex, because sex is an instinct built into every human being. It’s governed by hormones and nervous impulses and imprinting far beyond the control of any individual. Although it may sound a bit harsh, the truth is that men can get bored with their partners. It isn’t the sexual relationship that dies out over the years — it’s the social relationship, the emotional bonds between a man and a woman. That’s the reason the usual advice for reviving a tired sex life between husband and wife is so far off the mark. Amateur sex experts toss around suggestions such as having the wife dress up like a belly dancer or asking the husband to eat whipped cream off her navel. This is the kind of advice that makes fun of both men and women and prevents them from dealing honestly with a very serious problem. What couples in this situation really need to do is overhaul their entire emotional relationship. When that’s taken care of, the sexual pieces of the puzzle will fit together perfectly.
The next thing women most want to know about sex wasn’t even on the list ten years ago. In those days, by comparison, sex was a simple matter. Now you almost have to be an expert in preventive medicine before you consider turning out the lights. This question comes from a young professional photographer who’s worried:
“I’m scared and I don’t mind admitting it. I’m 26 and I’m not married and I certainly like to have fun. I’ve had a lot of sex with a lot of great men but I’ll tell you one thing: There’s no weekend or one-night stand in the world that’s worth waking up with one of these terrible new diseases! So here’s the question — how do I manage to keep up my reputation as a swinger and still stay healthy?”
The answer to that one is easy — you don’t. With the advent of herpes simplex type II and the awesome acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), everybody has to shift sexual gears if they want to stay healthy. Syphilis and gonorrhea are bad enough, but they are bacterial diseases and easily treatable with antibiotics. However, herpes and AIDS are viral diseases and, as such, are incurable, and for all practical purposes, untreatable. Once you get them, you’ve got them until the long hoped —for miracle cure comes along — if it ever does. So sex with strangers has suddenly become copulatory Russian roulette — pull the trigger and see what happens. The best advice is to know your sexual partners, pick them wisely, keep the numbers down to a minimum, and hope for the best. One of the great ironies of modern times is that these two new diseases — both products of the sexual revolution — are the best arguments for monogamy ever to come down the pike. Straight arrows almost never get them.
Obviously, feminine curiosity doesn’t stop there. A 22-year-old journalism major wants to know what a lot of other women want to know — the truth about sex and drugs:
“Every time I pick up a newspaper or a magazine there seems to be another article about drugs, and they all say something different. What’s the real story? What effects do drugs like marijuana and cocaine have on sex? Do they really make it better and more exciting, or is that just someone’s fertile imagination?”
Well, it’s a little of both. It’s no secret that cocaine and marijuana are the “in” sex drugs of the moment. For a lot of people they seem to have replaced the oldest aphrodisiac of all, alcohol. The physiological effects of coke and pot are very different from that of alcohol. Alcohol slowly puts the brain to sleep. That gradually decreases the sexual inhibitions and makes everything a little looser and wilder. Marijuana has a similarly relaxing effect and also distorts perception a little, which softens the impact of all that goes on. Cocaine does it another way: It cranks everything way up, including the sexual drive. There’s only one problem. These are drugs, foreign chemical substances, and they are bad for your body and your mind. Besides that, they are fiendishly expensive and against the law. There are better and cheaper and more practical ways to snap up your sex life — like falling in love, for example.
Here’s a 26-year-old interior decorator who doesn’t mince words. Obviously her question has occurred to a lot of women; it has to do with the way men feel about oral sex:
“In this day and age I think I can come right out and say what’s on my mind. Here goes. I love oral sex — that is, when it’s done to me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s almost as good as doing it the regular way. Maybe I’m just freaked out on it, I don’t know. But what I still don’t understand is, What does the man get out of going down on me? Unless I’m doing the same thing to him at the same time (which I’m usually not), how can he get any satisfaction from what seems to be driving me out of my mind?”
It’s a good question, and the answer to it is a fascinating one. The first attraction that cunnilingus has for a man is the element of counter-stimulation. It’s no secret that a huge number of women find oral sex tremendously exciting. Every man learns very quickly that the more he turns his partner on, the more she will turn him on. So there’s a big incentive for him to give her what she wants, where she wants it. If it’s cunnilingus, that’s it.
But there’s another factor that’s even more interesting. The female sexual organs in mammals are a center of extremely primitive stimulation dating back millions of years, even preceding the human race. In every modern woman, just the same as in her ancestors, the skin of the labia as well as the foreskin of the clitoris are full of a variety of super-specialized glands that secrete all sorts of strange and exotic chemicals. Most of these substances have never been carefully analyzed, much less understood. The few studies that have been done have identified some as powerful airborne scents known as pheromones. In animals, at least, these substances can have an immensely powerful aphrodisiac effect. When a man performs cunnilingus he is exposed to a whole gamut of mysterious and powerful chemicals, and it’s very likely that they have a profoundly stimulating effect on him sexually.
As women have become more sexually liberated — and liberal — they have begun to speculate about the same kinds of things that men have been speculating about for years. This letter from a 27-year-old account executive is one of many that come right out and ask about sexual stimulants:
“I don’t know how many women have asked this question, but I know that most of us have wanted to ask it at one time or another. Is there such a thing as a safe and reliable sexual stimulant? What I’d really like to have is one that works in both men and women. It would sure make life a lot easier!”
Or more difficult, depending upon who used what on whom. As if we didn’t have enough trouble already, think of the pandemonium that would ensue if millions of people every day dumped a powerful sexual stimulant in the after-dinner coffee of some carefully selected member of the opposite sex. Actually, there is a whole fistful of sexual stimulants that almost anyone can utilize. Basically they fall into two categories, the exogenous aphrodisiacs and the endogenous aphrodisiacs. The exogenous type assumes that you or your partner want to do it, but something is standing in your way. It may be fear, timidity, fatigue, or moral scruples. “Exo” stimulants unblock the inhibitors and let the pent-up sexual impulses take over. They include such things as a double martini, Thai sticks, or a line of coke. For obvious reasons, the exo aphrodisiacs find the biggest takers under the age of 40.
On the other hand, the endogenous aphrodisiacs assume that the desire is there but the capacity needs a little nudge. These stimulants work directly on the sexual organs or on the sexual centers in the brain. They include such exotic chemicals as yohimbine, strychnine, ginseng, and of course the male sex hormone, testosterone. Testosterone does work, but it can do bad things to both men and women unless it is administered with great care by a doctor who has had vast experience in such things. Although strychnine is a deadly poison, it has been used for over a hundred years in minuscule doses to stimulate the sexual centers of the nervous system. The only problem is that a tiny miscalculation can quickly send you to the next world, where sex presumably will be replaced by harp solos. Yohimbine might help, as might ginseng, although the effect of both is probably largely psychological. (Of course, a psychological effect is fine — if it works.)
“It’s almost impossible to find a man who is bored with sex. But the truth is that men can get bored with their partners.”
There is a third category of aphrodisiacs that works both ways — from the outside in, by zapping the inhibitions; and from the inside out, by directly stimulating the sexual center in the brain. There are only two “exo-endo” aphrodisiacs in existence. One is pornography. This particular sexual stimulant works a little better with men than with women, but as women become more aggressive sexually they respond more to pornographic stimulation. The other exo-endo aphrodisiac is the mutual sexual stimulation that comes from an exciting emotional involvement with someone you love. There’s nothing like it for breaking down sexual barriers and inhibitions and actually increasing the production of hormones by the endocrine glands. The real aphrodisiac — no prescription required — is massive doses of love and affection.
There’s another aspect of sexuality that women are starting to think seriously about — sex and physical fitness. This 28- year-old dental assistant poses a fascinating question:
“I realize that in this day and age no one needs an excuse for having sex. I mean, just doing it is excuse enough. But I wonder if it’s really essential for a woman to have sex? If a woman didn’t have intercourse for a long time, would it do her any harm?”
The answer depends on what you mean by “a long time.” If it’s a question of a month or so, perhaps not. But a healthy woman who goes without sex for six months or a year can run some unnecessary risks. The human body is a very complicated combination of organ systems interacting in extremely subtle ways. Sexual intercourse and, more specifically, orgasm make a lot of very important things happen. From the standpoint of physical fitness, it increases blood circulation, promotes muscular activity, and exercises the joints like jogging never could.
But sex is vital in more profound and subtle ways. Frequent sexual intercourse actually triggers increased activity of the pituitary gland, stimulates, the thyroid gland, and increases the secretions of the ovaries and adrenal glands. This means that women who are active sexually will probably find it easier to maintain their normal weight, will usually avoid menstrual abnormalities, and are likely to have skin free from blemishes — all as a result of abundant endocrine secretions. They will also have much more physical energy than women who neglect this essential part of their lives. And last but not least, for reasons which are obvious, they will tend to smile a lot more.
Ever since the beginning of recorded history, Women have had the reputation of being the more practical sex. The reason is obvious. When men have sex, they concentrate on the moment. Women are always thinking of their periods and nine months ahead. Birth control seriously affects the quality of lovemaking, and men should take more responsibility in making certain that the kind they use is reliable and not injurious to the woman’s health. With that in mind, this letter from a 24-year-old fashion designer speaks for itself:
“I really enjoy sex, but I don’t look forward to getting pregnant until I’m married. So you can understand that the whole subject of birth control is very important to me. What I need to know — urgently — is what method of birth control is really the safest and most reliable. I’ve tried most of them, all the way from the IUD to keeping my fingers crossed until my next period. So if you can just kind of summarize the situation I’d sure appreciate it.”
Well, here’s the real story. There’s a big difference between the theoretical effectiveness of a birth control method and the way it works out in the bedroom. For example, birth control pills are super effective contraceptives — approaching about 98 percent reliability — if a woman takes them with absolute regularity. If she skips a few pills, the reliability goes way down, nearly to the level of wishful thinking. On the other hand, condoms only work dependably about 78 percent of the time — because of things like spillage, breaking, overflow, etc. But condoms, if used all of the time, are more reliable than the Pill when used 80 percent of the time. So the important thing to remember is: The reliability of the method is a direct result of the reliability of the user.
Safety is another story. The safest of all birth control methods are the ones that never really enter the body. The condom is a good example — it never enters into the chemical metabolism of the system. The diaphragm is another method that leaves people exactly the way it found them. Techniques such as vaginal foam and suppositories barely affect the surface of the vaginal mucous membrane and for all practical purposes stay outside the body.
The Pill is at the other end of the spectrum — it goes into every single cell in a woman’s organism, including her heart and her brain and her eyes and her liver. If she has a bad reaction, it can hit her like a ton of bricks. It’s well-known that birth control pills have been seriously implicated in such awful things as strokes, blood clots, sudden permanent blindness, and other physiological catastrophes. The coil, or IUD (intrauterine device), is comparable in the sense that it goes deep inside a woman’s reproductive system. It actually is a foreign body wedged in her uterus, which interferes with the implantation of a fertilized egg. It can make trouble in all kinds of ways — causing bleeding and infection, and sometimes even poking through the wall of the uterus itself. It’s worth mentioning at this point that scientific articles occasionally justify the risks of IUDs and oral contraceptives by insisting that the risks of having a baby are greater than the hazards of these invasive methods of birth control. Even if this is true, there are a lot of ways to keep from getting pregnant while there’s only one way, risk or no, to have a baby.
As you can see, the handiest-to-use methods are the ones that bring the biggest risks of side effects. Stopping in the middle of the proceedings to slip on a condom or having the foam leak out half-way through the action may be a nuisance, but the risks of serious side effects are almost nil. What a person really has to do is sit down and decide what chances they are willing to take in return for the convenience and dependability of a particular method. Oh yes, one final word. There are all kinds of statistics about how safe a particular method is. For example, articles have been published saying that the chance of a serious side effect from the Pill or IUD is only one in a million. That may be true, but if it happens to you or to someone you love, it’s one chance out of one. It’s worth remembering that when the time comes to decide.
The changing roles of women bring new problems and new questions. Here’s a professional woman who faces a job-related dilemma:
“This is a question that I never thought I would be asking. I’m 29 years old and a junior partner in a New York law firm — the first woman partner they’ve ever had. I love my job, but there’s one little problem. I also love sex. I mean literally, I love sex — regular sex and oral sex and all kinds of sex. And it’s not just for fun. I need sex. Up to now it doesn’t sound like too much of a problem, right? Well, here’s the clunker. My work is so demanding that I’m lucky if I manage one or two orgasms a week instead of the one or two a day I’ve averaged ever since I left high school. The big problem now is this: I love my job but I also love my orgasms. I’ve worked a long time and given up too many things to get where I am, but I can’t live without sex — and plenty of it. What do I do?”
It’s not an easy question. In an intensely competitive society, everybody has to sacrifice something to advance professionally. Almost always the trade-off is relinquishing emotional satisfaction in return for material rewards. Becoming the first female partner in a giant law firm is a tremendous satisfaction, but it comes at a tremendous price. Having daily orgasms is an incomparable emotional satisfaction — and as with all emotional experiences, there is no way to put a price on it.
The difficulty women have in achieving success in the marketplace — and its effect on their sex lives — is a problem most men should certainly approach with the utmost sensitivity. For men it is a routine expectation to acquire material success through their careers. For women it is groundbreaking. And with this comes added tension — tension that sometimes shows up in the bedroom, where it is least wanted.
These are a few of the things women most want to know about sex. The one element that all these questions have in common is that they are intensely personal. The problems and conflicts of a woman’s sexuality arise from the most profound depths of her personality. Not every solution is the right one for every woman — that’s why every sexual decision has to be weighed so carefully and personally. It’s obvious that understanding human sexuality is a lifetime study that requires honesty, dedication, and, above all, an open mind. But the search. and the sacrifice are worthwhile for one reason above all others. Finding the answers to these and other important questions will go a long way toward achieving what every woman, and every man, wants and deserves: sexual happiness and satisfaction in the fullest sense of the words.
Well, you should always aspire to distant goals, because if nothing else, if you fail, you will be further along than you would have been had you never tried at all. That said, should you wish to delve into sexual women — and not in the way your dirty mind may have interpreted that — the web contains a plethora of wellnes information for them — that being but a single example. We have always found it interesting to note that for a society which does not like to talk about sex, we sure seem to talk about sex a lot. … One other item of note here: September, 1985, when this first published in the print magazine, was roughly 12 years before PornHub launched. So there’s that.
