The Joy of Sex (13 page)

“For women … the G-spot is in the ears,” said author
Isabel Allende, but his blood too can be roused by the right tone. Mutual vocabulary is essential; tastes are highly individual, and largely non-negotiable, and what one may feel is arousing, the other may think is too crude, clinical, or aggressive.

With a new partner – or with an old partner but a new word – whisper and calibrate the response; if there is a flinch, don’t use it again. If it’s you who’s flinching, say so and together work out an arousing alternative. There are more than 250 words for penis in the English language and 200 for clitoris; if none of these play, like the couple in
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
, christen John Thomas and Lady Jane yourselves.

If you aren’t comfortable
talking dirty but want to be, practise key phrases while you are self-pleasuring alone. If you aren’t comfortable talking dirty and don’t want to be, relax; there is no requirement.

technology

Has had a bad press, due to addiction,
cyberaffairs, and so on. But don’t blame the medium; its opportunities outweigh its problems, and in any case, whenever there is a new human development, it comes with down- as well as upsides. So long as you are not using the
Internet as a bolt hole to escape real relationships, technology is a good idea for the same reasons that
phone sex
is: it offers a new take new possibilities, and fills a need in a world where love can be forced to span oceans.

Obvious is that the Internet is a key resource for inspiration and ideas. There is a wealth of material out there:
erotica,
help lines,
online
counseling, and special-interest
websites for every taste and a few undreamed of; particularly charming is the one that tells you how to make your own
sex toys from melons, balloons, and empty bottles of washing-up liquid. Online coverage of sex is expanding so quickly that it would be pointless to attempt a listing; simply surf.

This is not a book about finding a sexual partner, so let’s pass over Internet dating except to repeat the usual warnings about safety, which are these. However close one may feel to someone one has been chatting with online, treat them as one would any blind – unseen and unknown – date; that is, with care. Don’t give out details; don’t meet alone without safety nets; don’t take it personally if, on meeting, there is no chemistry and they run off into the night. Reputable dating sites say all this in their guidelines – read, learn, and bear in mind that the nature of the Internet creates speedy yet false intimacy that may cloud your judgment.

Using new technology for erotic purposes, on the other hand, is the ultimate in safe sex – no exchange of body fluids involved. Text message,
e-mail,
webcams,
teledildonics can all be used to wind each other up to fever pitch during the working day prior to extended evening action, to navigate more extended separations, and to play out dangerous or impractical fantasies without risk. For word-based text and e-mail, the key is in the description (where you are, what you are wearing, what you are doing to yourself, what you would like to do to the other). Don’t be held back by fear of spelling and grammar – it’s irrelevant and in any case too much
control over the protocols of language can not only inhibit but come across online as just too manicured. Yet equally, don’t aim to
talk dirty – in black and white it can seem harsh or simply silly. Instead just say what’s happening, moment by moment, what you are doing, imagining, wanting, above all, feeling.

Feedback may not be instant, so bridge the gaps between sending and receiving; she in particular has to learn to keep herself at pitch despite pauses until climax is imminent.
Vibrators really come into their own here.

frequency

The right frequency for sex is as often as you both enjoy it. You can no more have “too much” sex than you can over-empty a toilet cistern (
see
excesses
), though he can cut his short-term
fertility by having too many ejaculations, and you don’t want to make intercourse such an anxious business that you have to stick to a daily timetable. Two or three times a week is a statistical average; new couples have it much oftener, established couples typically less. Some people do stick to a pretty regular schedule – others like intensive weekends at intervals.

The people who stick strictly to coital orgasm are usually opting for fewer climaxes than those who mix coitus with oral, manual, and other plays, because these increase the number of climaxes most men can get in a session. You should devise your own mix, in the light of your own responses: if one partner needs more, the accessory methods are useful to supply their needs and match them to yours.

Frequency falls off normally with age (
see
age
), but there is no age when you won’t, on some special occasion, surprise yourself. Don’t be compulsive about frequency and don’t panic about surveys, which are often based on respondent exaggeration. Realize there will be times when one of you just doesn’t feel like it – through preoccupation, fatigue, or a traumatized response to important life events like birth or death – and don’t enforce a timetable on your partner or on yourself. If it’s still not happening, check the physicals, medications, fatigue, stress, and so on, then wonder whether anger or resentment is the root cause. It isn’t any kind of failure to ask for expert help (
see
resources
).

priorities

Not a problem when we start a relationship; everything gets moved aside in the name of sex. As we settle, it is sex that gets moved aside. The
Kinsey Institute says that contemporary women have less sex than their 1950s counterparts because they have so little uncommitted time in their lives; a finding that would ring true for many.

Deciding to prioritize sex may be guilt-inducing; we don’t want to compromise other commitments and put our pleasure before our duties. But actually, once one realizes that sex is not an indulgence but a necessity, it all becomes easier. Keep a diary and see what can be canceled or put on hold. Book in one night a week and one weekend a month. Don’t aim to make love but just to talk, embrace, be together; sex will happen if it’s meant to. Usually, given time and space, it is meant to.

Add
children and the whole thing becomes both more difficult and more essential. Difficult because it’s inconvenient to incorporate sex into family life, essential because it needs to happen in order to keep love fueled and the family together. Sex can’t be put on hold until the children are grown; if it is, the relationship may walk out the door at about the same time as the offspring fly the nest – or worse, well before. So act now. With toddlers, who for safety reasons one can’t simply ban from the bedroom, enforce an early bedtime and buy a baby monitor. With older children, fit a lock to the bedroom door and state clearly when you are uninterruptable. If caught in flagrante, stay calm – children will take their cue from your emotions, and if you are unembarrassed they will be untroubled. Alternatively, leave them with grandparents, friends, or sitters while you take serious and extended private time. Ignore any qualms here; sex will make you a better parent, not a worse one.

seduction

If used in the traditional definition of the word – “to entice someone into an act that they will probably regret” – not good. The ultimate seducer,
Casanova, incidentally, was enticed, pressured, and forced just as much as he did the enticing, and not only regretted but sometimes actively resented his sexual liaisons.

If used to mean “to woo someone into sex when you both want it,” much better; a validation manifested in the willingness to make the effort. Attention, compliment, clear intention, light touch, a drawing in and drawing on, the assumption that one person is willing to woo, and the other is worth the wooing; all this is in itself immensely persuasive.

In an established relationship, always at least try to respond to seduction. Men have less choice here – if they really don’t want to, they often simply can’t – but neither sex will be seducible in the context of a looming deadline or a screaming child, though both he and she can still offer affection and open arms. You should at least be willing to touch and kiss for a few minutes to see if your body will respond; it often does, even if you are convinced it’s not going to. It should be added that it’s not a partner’s duty to have sex, nor their right to demand sex – and both sides should be willing to take no for an answer.

In a new or potential relationship, reacting to seductive moves is a different game. Rules vary from culture to culture, but a sound guideline is to say yes if you want to and, more important, if you are sure you will still be
comfortable with the decision the morning after and when sober. Never say yes if you feel out of control (
via alcohol,
drugs, emotional blackmail), out of guilt or duty, or if you can’t practice
safe sex. If a new partner insists on physicality earlier than you want it, their pleasure is more important to them than your comfort and they are therefore not worthy of you. All this applies to him just as much as to her. Say a clear no and trust to your instincts.

There are currently some charming
websites on the
Internet offering “seduction skills” that are really camouflaged training courses – usually for him – on how to be more socially competent, how to find out what a woman wants and then genuinely and affectionately deliver; the result of such training is likely to be an increased ability to commit and to make that commitment work. There are also some truly appalling websites for him and for her, and even some books, that talk of “victim” or “prey” and then suggest manipulations such as “make her feel insecure” or “don’t call, make him sweat.” This is abusive, whichever sex does it.

The
Barefoot Doctor says, instead: “Humbly, confidently make your desires known to all relevant parties, then let go and wait.” That would work well for most of us.

bathing

bathing

a splendid overture or tailpiece

Bathing together is a natural concomitant of sex and a splendid overture or tailpiece. Taking an ordinary bath together has a charm of its own, though someone has to lean against the plumbing. Soaping one another all over (rinse off before penetration or risk allergies to the lather, particularly for her) and drying one another are “skin games” that lead naturally to better things; after intercourse, a bath together is a natural, gentle comeback to domesticity or work. There are now luxurious large baths and Jacuzzis on offer, as well as hot tubs for outside, year-round bathing entertainment.

Actual coitus is possible, and fun, in the shower if your heights match; a showerhead is often the only convenient point in most houses or hotels for attaching a partner’s hands. Don’t pull the fixture down, however – it isn’t weight-bearing. Movable shower attachments also offer possibilities for water stimulation, but don’t aim it forcibly into the vagina – water under pressure, like air, can do internal damage.

No ordinary domestic or hotel bath is big enough for intercourse without punishing your elbows. Besides the novelty, there isn’t much point anyway. It’s easier with her on top, and sex toys can be bought waterproof for use by the one outside the bath on the one in it.

Sex and outdoor
bathing is a different matter, but check local customs and laws. The whole idea of intercourse in water is that it’s like weightlessness or flying – a woman who is too big for all those Hindu climbing and standing postures becomes light enough to handle, and one can prop her at angles no acrobat could hold. Meanwhile, there is the sea, after dark, when it’s warm enough – on a gradually shelving beach one can have enough privacy even by day, and even re-emerge clothed: spectators will take it for lifesaving. A pool has extras like steps and useful handholds.

Water doesn’t hinder friction, though its relative chill may mean that it takes some brisk rubbing to get an erection even in a very eager male. It might be a good idea to insert before going in, if possible, or for the woman to wear a
diaphragm; seawater could trigger infections and chlorinated pool water might just possibly be an irritant, as it is to the eyes. You can have excellent straight intercourse lying in the surf if you can get a beach to yourselves, but sand is a problem, and keeps appearing for days afterwards. A floating mattress is effectively a water bed, but it’s hard to stay on it without concentrating.

We have heard of people combining coitus with swimming, and even scuba diving, but they gave no practical details. Underwater coitus, if more than a token contact, would use up vast amounts of air because of the over-breathing that goes with orgasm.

Sadly, water sex isn’t fundamentally safe sex;
condoms can slip off or be affected by the water, heat, or chemicals, while
spermicides may wash away and water-based lubricants simply dissolve. To enjoy any of the above approaches safely, you both need to be infection-free, contraceptively protected, and sure of your fellow bathers.