All posts tagged: Sex

My Search for the “Oh Yes!” When Sex Was a No-No

Sexual education in my conservative, southern, Christian upbringing was strictly on a need-to-know basis: I needed to know what I should avoid. An entire sexual revolution swirled around me, giving not thought at all to my existence, yet it was I, I, who madly sought it. My curriculum was carefully curated so that I might be informed, but still avoid the rising tide of desire. Too much information would no doubt trigger the awakening of the wanton sexual temptress hell bent on besmirching my family name with gonorrhea and out-of-wedlock children that ignorance had allowed to lay dormant. I dubbed my sexual curiosity my white whale — an obsession that consumed every waking moment I spent away from the Bible or Knight Rider, sure to lead to my undoing. I had to use context clues for everything else. I asked my parents where babies came from when I was six. They gave me a splendidly clinical “a-man’s-sperm-meets-a-woman’s-egg” spiel. “How? They rub stomachs or something? Does he feed it to her?” It wasn’t until a year …

Moo Sexy: Getting Out of My Comfort Zone for Love

By Robin Gelfenbien

Ten years ago, my boyfriend, Greg, and I are lying in bed on a lazy Sunday afternoon when he says he needs to talk to me about something. My mind instantly goes into overdrive. OMG. He’s cheating on me. He has an STD. He’s breaking up with me. Maybe all three! Thankfully, it’s none of these things, but it’s the last thing I expect to hear. “You don’t make me feel special,” he says. Whaaaaaat?! I think. As the shock takes over, my heart breaks. Over the past year, I’ve done all kinds of things to make him feel special. I’ve written him love notes that I hide in his dresser and in his bathroom (not under the toilet seat). I’ve cooked him dinner when he’s the far better cook. On his birthday, I gave him specific hard-to-find gifts that he’d casually mentioned months earlier in conversation. I’ve even folded his laundry despite the fact that he possesses the one quality I find sexiest in a man: He can fold a fitted sheet. I’m truly …

A Sexpert’s 5 Tips to Mind-Blowing Sex After Menopause

By Domina Franco

We think about menopause as a time when our sexuality slows down or becomes more of a struggle — while this is true for some people it also doesn’t have to be if you want to flip the script. It’s true: lowering levels of estrogen during menopause means less blood flow to the vagina causing a decrease in vaginal lubrication. This makes sex at best, less than appealing and at worst, downright painful. Bladder control, medication side effects, stress, anxiety and even sleep disturbances during menopause can seriously affect one’s sex life. On the other side, post-menopausal sex is likely to be more relaxed. Knowing pregnancy isn’t a concern anymore can greatly improve the expression of sexuality and intimacy. Just make sure you keep using condoms until your doctor confirms you are no longer ovulating! Menopause aside, our culture needs the constant reminder that sex is not just penetration. Furthermore, sex really shouldn’t be so goal oriented towards orgasm. It’s counterproductive to consider sex in such a heteronormative, big O-oriented way. It’s important to honor …

What is an Orgy Dome? This Midlife Couple Finds Out

By Nina Lorez Collins

Burning Man is a festival — really a temporary city — that appears for one week every summer in the Black Rock Desert of Northern Nevada, and then disappears. Started in 1986, it’s a lot of things — at the very least a hugely wild art and community gathering, a place where exchanging money and commercialism of any sort are prohibited. Participants (70,000 last year!) live in tents and trailers amid fierce dust storms, ride around on bikes, and admire ginormous sculptures on the playa. Clothing is optional, electronic music blares all night long, and drugs and alcohol are plentiful (if kept hidden from the police, who are there to keep everyone safe). Imagine Mad Max meets Alice in Wonderland, and you’ve pretty much got it covered. Of course, these ingredients lead to some wild adventures… On the third or fourth day, biking around in the hot desert, we passed the famous “Orgy Dome,” a place we’d both heard about, but never discussed. We stood, we stared, we felt uncomfortable, and then we rode on. But …

The Case of the Bad Panties

By Alice Bradley

In 1992, I was 23 and the girl who had sex on the first date, if not before. Not coincidentally, I was also drinking too much and dating a lot of low-wattage losers. After a few drinks, I found myself far more interested in what my date was like with his clothes off. To get him to shut up, my underpants came down. But this strategy was getting me nowhere. I was beginning to suspect that it might be better to date people who didn’t bore me into having sex. It was around this time I was asked out by someone I actually liked, a person in whom I potentially could invest time and energy. He was a gentle, shy creature, the type who might be scared off by my willingness to — well, by my willingness. How to keep myself from jumping him pre-appetizer? The beauty of my solution lay in its simplicity: I would wear a pair of panties too embarrassing to reveal to him. The panties in question were a pair of …

Before We Ever Met, He Tattooed My Name on His Hip

By Lu Chekowsky

When he got my name tattooed on his hip, we hadn’t met yet. He was 50. I had just turned 30. He had a big job in the city at a law firm, lived on Long Island, and wore tailored suits to work. I assumed he was rich. He sounded rich. I was working as a telephone dominatrix from my ramshackle apartment deep in Jersey City and had just filed for bankruptcy. His voice was measured, wise. I liked him more than the others and more than I was supposed to. My voice on the phone, was confident, lulling — often just a whisper. It was one of my trademarks and how I controlled them. I was good at it. The other women on the line thought the guys would spend more money on you if you yelled at them. They were mostly wrong. One of my best clients, a shy music professor from England who had six pet rats, left me five stars and this comment on my site one time: “I’d sell my …

He’s 25. I’m 53. What Could Go Wrong?

By Marcelle Karp

“Make my day go from good to great and tell me you don’t mind that I’m 25, not 45.” Oh, this old trick. Present yourself as a Gen-Xer when you’re really a millennial. I understand of course; my age, in the universe of dating apps, is a moving target. I have the slightest amount of empathy. Slight enough to answer him back at 1:30am instead of falling asleep. Like middle-aged humans do. “You’re closer in age to my daughter than you are to me.” Dating-wise, the formula I’m fond of applying is half my age plus seven. I’m 53. Even with my Bumble age — 46 — this 25-year-old doesn’t make the cut. Unless I make an exception. We’re playing the same game, after all. The liberal age gap. He generously adds 20 years to his age, I’m mindfully lowering mine and we’re both hoping that somewhere along this sliding scale we’ll each get what we want. “I find you very sexy. I don’t care about your age or mine. I want to get to …

The Precarious World of Online Dating After 50

By Susan McPherson

“You’re cute, do you have a younger sister?” “Hi there, what is your sexual appetite?” “Can I fist you? Women in their 20s and 30s don’t like to be fisted?” “How bout a full-body massage in exchange for a shoulder rub? “No way you’re THAT old” “I have mommy syndrome and would be heaven going down on you” That’s just a random, word-for-word sampling of the text messages I get from my online suitors. No kidding — these are their opening salvos. You’d think men would have matured by this time. In fact, the opposite is true. To be honest, I never would have imagined that I’d be single post-50, without kids and attempting to date in New York City. But, alas, this is my predicament. Independent, financially secure and very, very single. And it’s challenging. I often equate quality single men over the age of 45 to the endangered species list updated nationally by the government. Where are they hiding? Certainly not on the dating apps/sites I have tried over the last two-plus years. …

How to Throw a Party for Your Pussy

By Stacy Morrison

I want to talk about sex. Though my friends will tell you I always want to talk about sex. Anyway, my freshman year in college, I went to a fraternity party and met many people, both male and female, who would go on to become my dear friends. I also met a really good-looking guy who caught my attention; he was shy and yet, once engaged, very direct and smart. I ended up upstairs with him in his loft bed, peeling out of my Norma Kamali snap-front dress with that satisfying pop pop pop, trying not to hit my head on the ceiling as I did so. We laughed a lot, and we had fun. Truth be told, I can’t remember exactly what we did sexually – if we went “all the way” or not – but I am positive we had a lot of fun. The next night, I went back to that same fraternity with my dorm hallmates and circulated around the party. I saw my previous night’s lover across the room, waggled …

Getting Free from the Stigma of Pretty

By Melinda Alexander

I have a pussy. I also have uneven saggy boobs, a substantial belly and a pretty face. And while I can’t say anyone ever directly took those things from me, I’ve only recently begun to feel like they are MINE. I grew up with a feminist mother, but I also grew up in Los Angeles where everyone seemed beautiful and thin and highly valued for it — including me (ok, maybe not thin but close enough). I was smart and funny and magnetic, but pretty was by far the most praised — by loved ones, by strangers, by boyfriends and by the girls at school who hated me because, “I thought I was the shit.” I remember being interested in my appearance at a young age, and in looking back during all the painful unpacking work I’ve done, I can’t help but wonder how much of that was actually innate and how much was social expectation — a desire to be “good,” to be validated. But I was more than just pretty; I was sexy — …

Sex in Stairwells: The Unlikely Place Where I Got My Groove Back

By Alix Courtney

I almost don’t go on the OkCupid date with Andy. Something about him seems bland — the round smiling face in his photos, the messages that are flirty but not quite witty. It seems ill-fated that I enter his number incorrectly into my phone and he has to hound me via email to nail down a plan: 7 p.m., wine bar downtown. Am I wasting my time? But I want to put as much distance as possible between myself and the ex, and I’ve decided that other men make the best unit of measure. Since the breakup last month, any blank space in my mind gets filled with the same dismal diatribe: That after years of trying to mend my wicked, commitment-phobic ways; of abstaining from casual sex and dead-end drama (oh glorious drama, sweet nectar of youth) so that I could be pure and unencumbered when I finally met someone worthy of love, I was ultimately dumped by that pretentious hippie when it “got too serious.” The injustice! The outrage! The embarrassing, pointless heartbreak. …

Food and Sex: Should We Give In To Our Cravings?

By Alexandra Jamieson

Taste. Lick. Suck. Bite. This thing we do, every day, all day long, is a driving desire in life. We work for it, think about it, crave things to consume. The innocent act of eating can sound so lustful. And, eating food is, at its core, incredibly sexual. Birds and bees pollinate flowers, the sexual organs of fruiting trees and plants, and we eat the results of these unions. In fact, eating is the most intimate thing we do with other people…in public. We humans are pleasure-seeking machines. And there isn’t a dang thing wrong with that. We take nourishment into our bodies at every meal, just as we take another person into us when we have sex. (Or enter into another, or just rub against each other like furtive bees on the hunt for more pollen.) We humans are pleasure-seeking machines. And there isn’t a dang thing wrong with that. But we often experience debilitating perfectionism, guilt, shame, heavy judgment and downright fear around food and our cravings for it, our bodies, desires for …

Prince Taught Me My Dirty Mind Was Just Fine

By Carolyn Edgar

Opening night of the 1997 Prince tour at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia. (Photo: Jon Stark) When I heard Prince’s first album, For You, I was a chubby 12-year-old girl with thick thighs, an ample rear and a dirty mind. I was an honor student whose tendency to correct my teachers and point out their flawed logic in class got me called to the principal’s office for insubordination. I was the girl the boys in school either ignored or called fat, while men in cars drove behind me as I walked home, shouting out of cranked-down windows what they’d like to do to my pre-teen ass. I sat next to my dad on the sofa every weekend, watching sports with him while quietly lusting over the quads and abs and glutes of my favorite players. As the youngest of six kids, I read everything my siblings read, from their biology textbooks to porn magazines, and I listened to all the music they listened to, from hard rock to jazz to pop to easy listening to …

Owning My Desire: Why I’ve Always Been Unashamed of My Sex Drive

By Stacy Morrison

You wake in the middle of the night, your arms around me, body pressed against mine, and you stiffen immediately. I reach back with my palm to cup your cock, wanting to see how hard you are. Slowly, I arch my hips back, back and up, to make way for our connection. My eyes are still closed. I lick my fingers, make them nice and wet and moisten myself, then lift my top leg and slide it back, to rest it on top of your legs. You put your hand on your cock and point it toward me, I steer my hips toward you and we come together, slowly. The connection is blissful and wildly erotic, such slow movements, like hanging in dreamtime. I wrote that scene for a lover. A lover I met on the internet. And we wrote dozens and dozens more, sending little erotic vignettes back and forth to each other in a single Word document, adding to it over time. We wrote the scenes to entertain us for all the time …

My Chat With a Sex Columnist, 21 Years Later

By Margit Detweiler

Anka Radakovich, second from left. (Photo Credit: Skytower Publishing) Anka Radakovich was an ‘80s and ‘90s “it” girl. As a sex columnist for Details magazine and the first ever sex columnist in media, she made her mark traipsing through New York documenting wild and wacky sex and dating proclivities — her own and others. As a wide-eyed 20-something, I interviewed Anka in 1994 for the Philadelphia City Paper after she released her book The Wild Girls Club: Tales From Below the Belt. Now a certified sexologist, Anka just released her third book in paperback, The Wild Girls Club, Part 2, Tales From New York To Hollywood. I figured 21 years later, we had a lot to catch up on. Margit: When you were writing for Details, I followed your byline like crazy — you were the super hip club girl sexpert that was cooler than I’d ever be. Anka: Those were exciting times. Working at Details was a dream job! It was a time when everyone read magazines, and Details was the hot magazine. There …

The New Drug to Increase Women’s Libido is No Viagra

By Diane di Costanzo

(Graphic: Nancy Gonzalez/TueNight.com) Polar Vortexes aside, February was a steamy month for us gals. On Valentine’s Day the silver screen turned Fifty Shades of Grey, debuting a movie that’s been called Mommy Porn, a genre seemingly purpose-built for women who’ve come to associate feeling “hot and bothered” with spending too much time baking, steam-cleaning carpets or trooping around Disney World with cranky kids. Three days later, Sprout Pharmaceuticals announced it had resubmitted for FDA approval a drug designed to increase sexual desire in women who suffer from what’s called Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder or HSDD. (1) If the third time’s a charm and the FDA approves it, Flibanserin will be the first drug of its kind, hitting the market some 17 years after Viagra debuted in 1998. (2) There’s just so much in this last sentence that it’s worthwhile taking a moment to — at the risk of sounding modish — unpack it. If you frequently resort to any of these dodges because you can’t muster the lust for sex — and not because, say, you’re …

The Recently Divorced Dude — Is He Dateable?

By Judy McGuire

Welcome to of our new advice column where we try to answer all of your confounding “What The…?” questions. We’ll be getting advice from experts, but we may not always have the best answer. Feel free to share your own advice in the comments below . Q: I really like this man and would like to date him seriously. We’ve been friends for a long time — decades in fact, but he was married and therefore off-limits. Not anymore! Everyone tells me not to be his first post-divorce girlfriend because it won’t last. Myth? Truth? Signed, Rebound or Romance? A: Upon dissolution of his relationship, the long-married man could behave in a variety of different ways. Some go completely apeshit-horndog, sliding their penis into any and all willing receptacles. After decades of mundane marital life, they can’t believe they’re suddenly in demand. They see vagina around every corner. They are the binge-eater at the buffet, gorging themselves on an abundance of boobies and beav at their collective fingertips. After all, these once longtime married guys (usually) haven’t …

50 Shades of Sexy X-Mas Gifts

By Rachel Kramer Bussel

Whether shopping for a friend, a lover or yourself, these fun gifts are both sweet (sometimes literally) and sexy, plus they work for anyone who could use a little pampering (or paddling). 1. Fantasy Fondue How better to indulge than with edible chocolate fondue? This tantalizing treat comes with a mini paintbrush so you can turn yourself (or the object of your affection) into dessert. It’s “virtually fat-free,” but when you’re licking chocolate off someone’s skin, does that really matter? $18, bootyparlor.com 2. Whip Me Stockings You won’t have to say a word to signal that you’re in the mood while wearing these. Emblazoned with “whip me, bite me, eat me, tease me” down the leg, these seamed stockings leave nothing to the imagination. Kink up your next date or be the talk of the holiday party. $70, agentprovocateur.com 3. Bettie Page Paddle I’ve always enjoyed paddles that offer a smile with their sting, and classic kinky pinup Bettie Page can offer inspiration to the spanker and spankee with this quilted paddle. Available in round …

She Said, She Said: Let’s Talk About Sex!

By Stacy and Margit

(Illustration: Mark Gardner) So, SEX. Why does it still feel like a taboo topic? It’s only taboo if you’re female, because women aren’t supposed to like sex or say they like sex OUT LOUD IN PUBLIC. (I mean, the saying in public, not the sexing in public.) I LIKE SEX. There, I said it out loud. Except for at midnight when I’m super sleepy. I have always identified very strongly with the fact that I have a very strong sex drive — and I can’t say that’s always been well-received. By men? By other women? No, not by men, unless they were vaguely threatened (or annoyed) by it. Or he were my boyfriend and felt pressured (it’s happened). It comes off as bragging in women, it’s just “not done.” We’re back to that funny generational thing too: The Boomers right above us were the hippie free lovers that busted out on the scene in nude dogpiles; the ones they always show on those “Remember the 60s” Public TV fund drives. But our parents were usually …

The Next Magic Mike, Coming to Your Computer (Yes, We Went There)

By Twanna Hines

Clip from the movie Hard Times (Courtesy Tahir Jetter) Television is over. According to the 2013 US Digital Future In Focus report, Americans watch nearly 40 billion videos each month. If big-budget streaming series like Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black or House of Cards whet your appetite, be sure to check out lesser-known hits like The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, The Trivial Pursuits of Arthur Banks, Husbands, and F to 7th. Now, Brooklyn-based filmmaker Tahir Jetter brings us Hard Times, a new webisode project chronicling a broke personal trainer’s experiences as a male exotic dancer. The New York University Tisch School of the Arts graduate’s short film Close. premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, and he expects to release Hard Times online in November 2013. While stories about men who pay female sex workers are as old as an expired condom, stories about men selling their schtick are less prevalent. Nothing short of courageous, such storylines include oft-ignored women who pay men to strip and much more. If there was any question about the audience for this film, strip …