Part 3 (2/2)

It's certainly the only time-honored pleasure that won't get us pregnant, give us STDs, clog our arteries, land us in jail, become addictive, raise our blood pressure, or run up our credit-card bills. Talk about good clean fun.

It's also a great way to get rid of menstrual cramps, tension headaches, and insomnia. (Though in college, a lot of us found it really reenergized us if we had to pull an all-nighter, too.) h.e.l.l, it even burns calories. And if we like to use a toy or two when we play, why, we're even helping the economy.

One could argue that it's good for the old mental health. Back in the nineteenth century, vibrators were actually prescribed for women suffering from ”hysteria.” Granted, I'm not one to put much stock into the theories of Victorian medicine. But if a woman is getting all bent out of shape because the world is pus.h.i.+ng her b.u.t.tons, telling her to lie back and push her own for a while certainly ain't a bad idea.

True, the Catholic Church, among others, does think we'll burn in h.e.l.l for it. But look at it this way: In the Middle Ages, the Church also opposed using forks.

But beyond all that, treating our c.l.i.toris as Disneyland is also a form of self-education.

Recently I spoke with psychologist Harriet Lerner, author of the book The Dance of Anger. For two decades, Lerner has been trying to ”raise v.u.l.v.a consciousness.” Why?

”Most parents still raise their kids with some variation of 'boys have a p.e.n.i.s and girls have a v.a.g.i.n.a,' ” she says. ”To this day, most parents continue to say 'v.a.g.i.n.a' when they mean 'v.u.l.v.a.' Many educated parents report that they have never heard the word 'v.u.l.v.a'-including a large number who think the term refers to a Swedish automobile.”

(Oh, great.) Such misinformation breeds confusion, to say the least. As Lerner notes, ”It's extremely disorienting and shaming to girls to discover a major source of pleasure on the outside for which there is no name, which doesn't exist.”

It's no surprise then that a friend of mine who worked on a women's health project found that women who don't touch their bodies are often clueless about them. Some women don't even know that the urethra-where we pee from-is separate from the v.a.g.i.n.a. Some girls are going through the Kama Sutra page by page with their boyfriend but don't have the slightest idea about how to have an o.r.g.a.s.m. Some aren't using tampons or birth control because they're too squeamish. Given the epidemics of teen pregnancy, chlymidia, and AIDS, their lack of self-knowledge is dangerous.

And so, masturbating is also a way of de-alienating ourselves from our bodies, of literally taking our s.e.xuality into our own hands and figuring out for ourselves Which Way is Up.

Which is a good thing. For we really can't feel comfortable s.e.xually with other people if we don't feel comfortable with ourselves first. And if we don't know the way around our own private theme park, how is anybody else supposed to?

It we're not familiar with our own bodies and pa.s.sions, every touch can leave us feeling vulnerable, threatened, or bewildered. And every lover who makes us feel good has power over us, holding a monopoly on our own pleasure. The more we're literally in touch with ourselves, the more informed and in control we are. It makes it just that much easier for us to say either yes or no with self-a.s.surance. Talk about ”self-help.”

Besides, as Woody Allen once said, ”Don't knock masturbation. It's s.e.x with someone I love.” And self-love, for women, is particularly crucial and hard won.

So why shouldn't sisters be doin' it for ourselves? My grandma used to say, ”If G.o.d hadn't wanted us to touch ourselves, he would've made our arms shorter.” Now there's a thought, coming from a ninety-one-year-old.

The challenge now, of course, is to find some good, female-centric slang that allows us to rap about it.

Obviously, there's ”letting your fingers do the walking,” ”self-servicing,” and ”petting the kitty.”

”Strumming the happy banjo” has a certain folksy appeal, though it does sound a little like having Gomer Pyle in your pants. ”Visiting Disneyland” has a wholesome, family-friendly ring to it-and it would certainly give new meaning to those ”I'm going to Disneyland!” commercials.

”Having a Calgon moment” has a certain je ne sais quoi. ”Gettin' happy with yourself” is pretty much to the point, though still oblique enough to qualify as a euphemism. Ditto for ”engaging in a hot-b.u.t.ton issue.”

”Surfing the Net” is well suited to our generation (and, h.e.l.l, who needs a Pentium processor to operate the software?).

”Pus.h.i.+ng your b.u.t.ton,” ”taking care of yourself,” and ”giving lip service,” all give the boys a run for their thesaurus.

My personal favorite, however, is ”voting Republican.”

While ”voting Republican” might not strike a lot of people as being in any way synonymous with masturbation, when you consider how self-serving a lot of the party's right wing is, voting for them and jerking off really aren't that dissimilar, are they? So, that one gets my l.u.s.ty, liberal vote. Next time you go to a store to purchase a vibrator, make sure you hold it up and announce as loudly as possible, ”I'm gettin' ready to go vote Republican!”

That should give you a fine, cheap thrill even before you get home with the goodies.

Part II.

Playing Well with Others.

Chapter 8.

Our Booty, Ourselves.

He said he liked to do it backwards.

I said that's just fine with me- that way we can f.u.c.k and watch TV.

-LIZ PHAIR.

Okay, is there anything that hasn't been said publicly about s.e.x yet?

Well, actually, yes. Never mind that people regularly say p.u.s.s.y on HBO now, or that it's now possible to use the words b.l.o.w. .j.o.b and House subcommittee in the same sentence. For all the t.i.tillation in the media today, our nation's understanding about women's s.e.xuality is still about as flimsy as a thong from Victoria's Secret.

I mean, for starters: What is it with s.e.x in the movies? First, there's not nearly enough of it. Second, how is it that screenwriters can master the intricacies of computer hacking or thermonuclear warfare, yet have no clue about foreplay? I can't tell you how many scenes I've watched in which a guy (usually thirty years older than his leading lady) hikes up a woman's skirt and brings her to o.r.g.a.s.m in the same amount of time it takes to thaw an Eggo waffle in the microwave. Or in which a couple reaches mutual o.r.g.a.s.m in perfect synch. Or in which the woman comes gasping demurely instead of clawing her lover's back and screaming like an auctioneer. Hel-lo, but do people really think this is realistic, let alone technically possible? According to Shere Hite, only one-third of us gals ever come from straight intercourse, and we certainly don't just cruise around like a well-lubed convertible all the time. We need our motors warmed up, our spark plugs sparked, and someone's head under our hood for a good long while, please, before they take us out for a ride.

Second, what's up with all the women's magazines? The way they write about s.e.x, you'd think it was a la.s.so-something mostly to help us rope a guy and reel him in. ”His G-Spot: Find It, Touch It, Watch Him Wors.h.i.+p the Ground You Walk On,” says Cosmo, in a typical coverline.

His G-spot? Excuse me, but last time I checked, it wasn't the girls who needed a road map to find their way around someone's genitals. And, frankly, why should we worry about a guy's G-spot? With only two-thirds of us capable of o.r.g.a.s.m at all, shouldn't we be more concerned with our own little Chipwich?

Yet worst of all is the s.e.xual sanctimony that lurks just beneath the surface. s.e.x is so fundamental, any primate can do it. Cole Porter wrote a song cataloging all the boinking that goes on in the animal kingdom. But let a girl have a little party in her panties and our culture goes bats.h.i.+t. When all the soft-core fantasies and commercialism are stripped way, Americans still tend to view women's s.e.xual activity as slightly pathological.

Watch a little Jerry, Jenny, or Ricki, and you'll hear so many people calling s.e.xually active women ”b.i.t.c.hes,” ”ho's,” and ”s.l.u.ts,” you'll think you're back in seventh grade, putting on Lipsmackers in the bathroom.

Or read the recent backlash books: A Return to Modesty, by Wendy Shalit; or What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us, by Danielle Crittenden.

Both argue that we gals should ”regain” our ”power” by reviving a long-lost art: c.o.c.k teasing. According to the authors, men are s.e.xual pigs; the only real reason we gals roll around with them in the mud is because we've been tricked by feminists into believing that we're s.e.xual free agents who can f.u.c.k just like guys. (This must be news to the feminists, who are usually accused of prudery.) And because we roll around with men in the mud, the books argue, men no longer respect us or want to marry us. (Which must be news to the thirty-two-billion-dollar wedding industry.) For true, lasting intimacy and love, the authors contend, women are better off demurely dangling our s.e.xuality in front of men like a doggie biscuit until they salivate, roll over, and beg-with an engagement ring in hand, of course.

Now, c'mon: Does s.e.xual blackmail really seem like a good recipe for true love and intimacy?

What's missing from all of this blather is an understanding about what truly motivates women s.e.xually. Clearly, the world still doesn't get it. In the wake of the new millennium, our culture still a.s.sumes that women have s.e.x for really only one of four reasons: (1) to have babies, (2) because we're ”in love,” (3) because we're s.l.u.ts, (4) because we're only semiconscious-that is, we've been influenced by peer pressure, have low self-esteem, don't know any better. Or, oh yeah, we've been tricked by feminists into thinking we can boink like boys.

Yeah. Well. We gals have s.e.x for all sorts of reasons that are often very nuanced, complex, or even ba.n.a.l. We have s.e.x because we're h.o.r.n.y. We have s.e.x because we're bored. We have s.e.x because we're pa.s.sionate and insecure and curious and needy. We have s.e.x because our hormones are so turbo-charged that we feel as if pheromones are boiling off our skin in a vapor. We have s.e.x for n.o.ble reasons and stupid reasons.

Since I don't want to betray any of my friends' trust, I'll offer myself up as an unspectacular example. (I'll probably regret confessing to this in print, but okay): I once slept with a guy because he looked like Jon Bon Jovi, he knew how to read tarot cards, and we had almost identical record collections. Now, does this sound to you like a particularly brilliant reason to sleep with someone? Nuh-uh, not to me either. Not now. But when I was eighteen, it seemed like an act of genius. I'd been reading a lot of Rimbaud and I guess something about the situation struck me as daring and fantastically romantic and sophisticated. I was very cavalier about it. And it made me feel great. So: Was I a victim or a vixen? Was I forfeiting my ”power” or abusing it? My reasoning might have been silly, but was it ”immoral”?

To a.s.sume that women sleep with people simply because we're ”promiscuous” or ”have low self-esteem” is as ridiculous as a.s.suming that the only reason we don't sleep with people is because we're ”responsible,” ”pure,” or ”prudish.”

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