Month: March 2017

Growing up in a sex negative culture, a lot of our sex education comes from whispered conversations at sleepovers and porn. Understandably, as a result of this, myths abound in the mainstream understanding of sex. This list, by no means exhaustive, is meant to deconstruct five commonly heard myths at sex toy stores.

1. Anal sex is supposed to be painful.

Nothing in sex is “supposed to be” painful unless you want it to be. Sadism and Masochism have so many amazing places to be exercised but the anus and rectum are not that place. Pain is an important way that your body talks to you. Pain could mean tearing, and tearing could lead to fecal matter getting in other parts of the body, or infections, and just in general, really not fun things. Numbing creams are problematic for this reason. Just as a general rule, if something is painful and/or you are not enjoying it, stop! As we say at work, the butt is an equal opportunity orifice. We all have tons of nerve endings in the anus and rectum. Whether or not you have a prostate, anal sex should be pleasurable for all involved. The G-Spot can even be stimulated through the butt. Enthusiasm from all players is key. It means relaxed muscles and awakened nerve endings. The other necessity is lube. Contrary to what porn may have taught you, saliva is never an adequate substitute for lube. Arguably all sex acts should involve lube (which I’ll discuss later) but since the butt is not a self lubricating part of the body, lube is not optional. Go out and grab some silicone lube if you’re using condoms or body parts, a thick water based one if you’re using silicone toys. Once you have enthusiasm from all players and a good lube, try fingers first, maybe a plug, or some other toy that is safe for anal use, take it slow, stop if you’re not enjoying it, come back to it later, or not.

2. Vibrators desensitize.

This comes up most often when people pick up the Magic Wand but I also hear it about vibrators in general. I find the easiest way to think about this myth is clapping. You know how when you clap for a long period of time your hands start to go numb but shortly after you get feeling back in them? That is the same of all of the nerves all over your body. Yes, they can get over stimulated but that doesn’t mean they’re getting blown out, just taking a nap. Sometimes though this myth is phrased a little differently. “Won’t vibrators ruin me for ‘real sex’,” “Won’t I become dependent on a vibrator to get off?” And an endless number of slightly differently phrased but essentially very similar questions. When you grow up being told that sex and sexuality are something to be ashamed of it’s no surprise that celebrating it with toys feels shameful to a lot of people. If you feel like you’re “getting dependent” on your vibrator to get off maybe analyze why that is. Is it because it’s playing a role in your sex life that you’re afraid or too uncomfortable to ask your partner(s) to play? Or, don’t analyze it and just enjoy using it. Talk it through with your partner(s) that you want to use a toy because it’s awesome and not to say anything about them or the sex you’re having. Vibrators and humans do very different things. Which leads us into our next myth.

3. Incorporating toys or lube into partnered sex means that someone is deficient in some way.

While all misconceptions about sex are unfortunate, this one in particular stands out as a prime example of our society’s issue with communication regarding sex and sexuality.

Due to  our miscommunication, we harbor insecure feelings and shame attached to our sex lives. Cock rings aren’t only used by people who are trying to delay ejaculation and there is nothing wrong with  wanting to delay ejaculation. Drawn out orgasms are awesome. Vibrating penises are awesome. Making your partner come, once or multiple times, is awesome. Vibrators aren’t only used by people that can’t get off with their partner(s) or can’t get their partner(s) off. Unless you have a human that can move so fast they vibrate or have inexhaustible strength vibrators are not competition. And even if you are fooling around with a superhero, vibrators are still amazing. They free up the hands, bodies, minds, to do other stuff. As for lube, no one is an unending geyser of lubrication but here we are specifically going to talk about people with vulvas. The amount of lubrication bodies make depends on many random factors such as: Where you’re at in your cycle, what you ate for lunch, how well you slept the night before, whether or not you paid your phone bill, the chances of your favorite contestant being voted off The Voice, etc, etc. Expecting your body to make the perfect amount of lubrication every time you ask it to is unrealistic.

4. The G-spot doesn’t exist.

In utero the cells that make up our genitals exist before they take on any configuration. This means that no matter what your genitals look like they have a lot in common with everyone else’s. The clitoris and the head of the penis come from the same tissue. The same goes for the outer labia and the scrotum, the clitoral hood and foreskin, the ovaries and testes and the list goes on. This also means that the cells that make up the spongy tissue that makes up the G-Spot exists in every single body. For people with penises those cells make up the prostate and for those with a vulva, the G-spot. So, yes, the G-Spot most definitely exists. However, this does not mean that everyone enjoys or can orgasm from having it stimulated.

Thinking about analogous anatomy isn’t just important for understanding that the G-Spot exists in all bodies. It’s also important in understanding the ways in which different bodies get off. Imagine we lived in a world where every person with a penis was expected to orgasm from having their prostate stimulated alone. I think we can all agree that’s a pretty ridiculous expectation to have. Yes, some people can orgasm that way, but not everyone, and it’s definitely not expected of them! And yet we expect this exact thing from people with vulvas! The G-Spot and Prostate get engorged when that person is aroused. This means that for most people clits and penises need to be stimulated before G-Spots and Prostates. This expectation that the G-Spot is always geared and ready to go has contributed a lot to the myth that G-Spots don’t exist at all (not to mention a lot of bad sex!) Doctors claims that the G-Spot doesn’t exist didn’t take into account the role of the clitoris or that most people aren’t turned on while at the obgyn! It’s real. We all have a G-Spot by one name or another. However, whether or not you enjoy it being stimulated or can orgasm from stimulating it is totally up to you, your body and your preferences.

5. If you enjoy prostate stimulation you’re gay.

Imagine if someone said that not liking having your elbow touched means you’re lactose intolerant. That’s a ridiculous remark. When you detangle this myth from all of it’s cloaked homophobia and misogyny, that’s what this myth is, ridiculous. The prostate gland, as we touched on in the last myth, is spongy tissue with an abundance of nerve endings. If you enjoy having your nerve endings stimulated then prostate stimulation might be for you! I know some of you are thinking that it’s more of an issue of putting something up your butt. To be clear no one is forcing you to put anything up your anus and never should but being interested in doing that is not some secret way your body is telling you that you’re gay. Your sexuality and what nerve endings you enjoy having stimulated are  unrelated. Now about that cloaked homophobia and misogyny. Inherent in this myth is that being gay is something to be ashamed of. People are worried that enjoying prostate stimulation translates to being gay.  If you dig a little deeper this myth is covered with misogyny. Those that are afraid to put things up their butt are reluctant because they don’t want to be penetrated. Not wanting to be penetrated is your choice but when it’s because being penetrated is seen as being “feminine” and by feminine you mean degrading, maybe it’s time to reconsider. I don’t want people to come away from this thinking that the only way to get rid of their internalized homophobia and misogyny and/or be a true ally is to put things up their butt. That’s not what this is about. Just maybe try to distance butt feelings from preconceived notions of masculinity and sexuality.

Anal penetration within the context of heterosexual couples is not terribly taboo — but when the penetrative roles are reversed, the act remains controversial.

Pegging, a term coined by sex columnist Dan Savage in 2001, refers to the scenario when someone adorns a strap-on to penetrate their partner, usually anally. The sexual act dates as far back as — well, as far back as whenever someone decided sticking an inanimate phallic object up someone else’s hole looked fun.

Strap-ons are familiar territory for most queer folk, but for many straight men, the thought of their female partner(s) stimulating them anally is a sensitive topic. 

Professional pervert and “philosopher” the Marquis de Sade wrote about the act in 1795, Williams S. Burroughs in 1959, eventually making its way to cinema in 1970 and porn in ’76 — where it would stay in the smutty shadows for the remainder of the century. Pegging would continue to be referenced by mainstream media in small ways, but the first prime-time break came in 2015 with the popular television show Broad City.

The episode featured the female protagonist’s male love interest asking her to peg him, going as far as to reveal a customized strap-on. Despite the comedic nature of the show, pegging itself was not made out to be the punchline. The joke — clarified by Broad City co-creator Abbi Jacobson — was the plot line in which her character attempts to wash her partner’s expensive, handcrafted dildo in the dish washer, thereby destroying it. “We were very careful because we didn’t want it to be misconstrued that that preference [pegging] is looked down on,” Jacobson said, as reported by Vulture.

The episode attempts to attach normalcy to the act, as male-bodied anal stimulation is still thought of by some to be a domain reserved solely for homosexual men. Many think anal pleasure is a decision homosexual men make out of necessity rather than their own volition (males have only one entry point, so…), but anatomical evidence proves that heterosexual men are biologically designed to enjoy it, too.

The prostate, often referred to by experts as “the male G spot” and located within the anus, is actually a highly erogenous zone, and when stimulated, can intensify its host’s orgasms. Additionally, prostate stimulation is also used as medical procedure to reduce inflammation. Studies have also found that continual prostate massages are believed to slightly reduce men’s risk of prostate cancer.

But despite the scientific evidence that anal stimulation is not only normal, but natural — heterosexual men and women still have reservations about butt play.

“My current partner would definitely not be into it. He’s really grossed out by butt stuff of any kind,” says Ashley, 23, who identifies as bisexual.

Allie, a 22-year-old straight woman, was also skeptical heterosexual men would be readily up for the task. “What I would assume, is that most straight guys would not be comfortable doing that. You have to find someone who was really comfortable with their sexuality.”

What about the boys?

20-year-old NYU student “Max” was not familiar with pegging. His brows remained furrowed while the specifics were explained to him. Afterwards, he was still unsure whether he would try it, but added, “If I did try it, I wouldn’t tell my friends.”

Yet not all straight men were vehemently opposed to pegging. In fact, it was art student Maddie’s male-identified partner who approached her about the possibility of penetrating him, apparently having done it before and enjoyed it. Maddie leaped at the opportunity.

“I loved fucking him in the ass and he loved it too,” she said of the experience, “it was empowering and sexy to see him get off from penetrating. It was really interesting to me to find his ‘spot,’ like I do when I have sex with women and I think it made him feel really vulnerable.” He is very comfortable with his sexuality, she believes and attributes to, in part, the fact that two of his brothers are gay.

After she pegged him, Maddie said she felt powerful. “It felt like I was able to express a feeling in a new way, like learning a new word for a way you’ve always felt.” A pretty glowing review.

But not all straight men are as comfortable as Maddie’s former partner with the notion of backdoor entry.

“Eric”, a 30-something heterosexual publishing exec, thinks that a strap-on would just be a gateway for the fleshier, real member the toy represents. When pressed on why he believes that, he responded heatedly, “Look, men penetrate and woman are penetrated, that’s the way it’s always been!”

An interesting proposition. He continued to explain that men and women have ingrained sexual roles. This sentiment — or at the very least reservations about disrupting the status quo of penetration — was echoed by college student Leah. “I don’t know, it’s just that I don’t feel comfortable doing that to someone else,” she said cautiously, seeming as though she did not want to offend parties who did enjoy pegging.

While Eric and Leah may be troubled by the role reversal pegging presents, for others, it’s exactly what drew them to the act in the first place.

Jordan Mannix, 21, said she was first introduced to pegging through the Broad City episode. She was approached by a man who wanted to try it, and Mannix raved about the experience. “It was such an interesting role reversal. Like it’s such a novel experience. I was just thinking about how crazy it was that I was fucking someone, like hell yeah!”

On the evening of November 2nd, a crowd of roughly seven gathered in the basement of a NYC sex shop called Pleasure Chest on the Upper West Side. Basked in red light of a neon sign reading “Sex is back”, they have come to attend a pegging workshop entitled “Bend Over Buddy: Anal Pleasure for Him.”

The basement lacks sufficient ventilation, so the room is quite warm.

“I’ve had a lot of sex,” Nico, the employee who led the workshop, assured the audience. The two hour workshop covered the literal in and outs of pegging; from how to broach the subject with a hesitant partner to the mechanics of the act itself. A variety of strap-ons, harnesses, and lubricants were displayed on a table to be referenced (and reviewed) during the presentation — the ultimate product placement. A worksheet was passed out which which allowed people to categorize specific sexual acts based on personal levels of comfort, promoting conversation on intimate and sexual boundaries.

After the workshop ended, the majority of the audience shuffled out quickly. The workshop was primarily technical, so politics were left out. However, talking to Nico afterwards, she seemed to possess added opinions about the stigma surrounding pegging.

Nico, a Latinx trans woman, believes the biggest reservation cisgender heterosexual people — those who identify with the roles society assumes of them at birth — have about pegging (other than cleanliness) is how it challenges the concept of gender roles.

“Queerness is pathologized,” she said, her face glossy with a sheen of sweat, “is that something that’s structural? Yes. [It is] something that we subliminally view, that queerness is dirty. That queerness is wrong. Things are changing, but queerness is terrifying to society.”

She believes that people are afraid that by engaging in an unorthodox sexual behavior that flips ingrained gender roles, they will somehow become queer, as queerness can best be understood as a philosophy and identity that rejects sexual and gender binaries altogether.

Whether this fear of subverting sexual stereotypes is rooted in homophobia — I’ll leave that call to the academics and Twitter critics.

However, it is further proof that gender roles define (read: confine) not only public spaces, but our most intimate and private spaces, as well. Many would reject a sexual exploration and deny themselves potential pleasure based on an outside, societal factor. So cemented are our ideas of “who penetrates who” that we’ll willfully ignore our biological capacities for satisfaction. Because what exactly is taboo about pegging?

Unlike other kinks like bondage and fantasies which introduce entirely new dynamics into the bedroom, pegging takes a concept we know well and simply reverses who’s doing the thrusting. The deep upset over this reversal is the true take away: that we have confined ourselves with learned notions of what it means to be a man and a woman having sex.

*Written and reported in part with Nina Rettenwander.