Miley and Me

I don’t profess to have too much in common with the multi-millionnairess Miley Cyrus. After all, she’s half my age, got more money than she could possibly want and has a confidence in herself that sends my jaw dropping to the ground.

However, there are three commonalities between Miley and me.

1.       When her sexuality was awakened she wanted to let everyone know how good she felt – as did I.

Sexuality is important. When it’s missing from your life, the light goes out, no matter how hard you compensate with other means of peacefulness, tranquillity and hopefulness. If, like me, you’d spent years of being a sexual being but never feeling particularly sexual, then you’d understand both Miley and me. Discovering the overwhelming brilliance of sex and the power of your own sexuality is an awakening beyond anything else in life. You want to stop people on street corners and say “I’m alive! I’m sexual! I’ve seen the light and I never, ever want to feel any different”.

I’m alive, alive, alive.

When you discover your sexuality, all other ills or traumas or obstacles in life appear surmountable. The liberation of discovering your sexual prowess can’t possibly be underplayed. It’s enormous.

And whilst we’re on the subject of Miley, can we please remember that she is “of age”. The pressures that are placed on these child stars mean that they have a propensity to mature sooner than their chronological years, and that might mean their sexuality matures quicker too. So yes, she may only be 20 years old, but she’s been around for over a decade.

2.       When she realised the enormity of the glories of sexuality, she wanted to cross boundaries and challenge her comfort zone – as did I.

Once I realised I was a sexual being, I wanted to explore my sexuality. Rightly or wrongly, I felt that I’d suppressed the real sexual me for too long and I wanted to make up for lost time. I wanted to celebrate my sexuality with my lover, and within reason, I wanted to see how far I was prepared to go sexually.

I suddenly realised that if two people were completely in tune with one another sexually, you could try anything, and you could also tell one another how you felt about sexual experimentation.

I started slowly – a naughty photo message, given and received. Tits and cocks at first, then open pussy oozing juices and cocks erupting with cum. I then discovered a love of porn – shared, explored together until I became more confident to discover websites for myself.

And so the journey continued – a discovery of the self and of togetherness. Bottles, dildos, fists all welcomed into my cunt, stretching my mind as well as my body. Kissing and fucking other women in front of my lover – something I hadn’t thought I’d ever experience. Having sex under trees with trains rocking by. Grabbing genitals under tables when penetrative sex was unattainable. Offices sprayed with sexual juices. Having sex in front of other people. Oh, and water sports! Oh how I loved water sports!

And twerking. Lots of glorious, wonderful, arse-splayed twerking, knowing that something rather delightful was “cumming” up behind you.

Yes, I challenged my comfort zone to discover who I was, and I haven’t finished the journey.

If Miley wants to cross boundaries and explore her sexuality, then who am I to suggest she contains it within the privacy of her own home? I didn’t.

3.       When she appreciated the importance of her sexuality, she wanted to empower other women to enjoy, express and own their sexuality – as did I.

Miley Cyrus has been truly reprimanded for her forthrightness. I would agree with some commentators that she has to be careful. I had the pleasure of exploring my sexuality with a much smaller audience than Miley but I felt so invigorated by my sexual experiences that I felt a real and urgent desire to share this with the wider world – hence this blog.

Women of all ages need to be reminded that they are sexually capable, that we shouldn’t be inhibited by the somewhat misogynous traditions of sex, that we should celebrate our sexuality. Those of us who’ve had this awakening have a duty to empower others.

I am a sexual being. I like sex. I like sex in various ways. I love the feeling I get from being a sexual being. I want others to know just how capable their bodies and minds are in relation to sex. 

I want people to experience that satori moment that can only come from sex. Maybe Miley feels the same way.

I want to be sexual.

So was I offended by Miley’s twerking? Obviously not. If I’m perfectly honest, the thing I found most unappealing about her infamous twerking display was the way she stuck her tongue out! (Oh and the music wasn’t exactly to my taste!)

There’s another commonality between Miley and me, come to think of it, and it’s to do with the public persona. Admittedly, Miley’s sexual awakening happened in front of far more people than my own but the same principles applied.

Miley Cyrus was Hannah Montana: the all-American Disney sweetheart who entertained young girls with her saccharine performances of pop. She was a blonde-haired beauty who attempted to be a “normal” teenager in spite of the fact that she was this superstar, and she led a double life. (As did I).

People couldn’t differentiate between Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana. They thought the actress was the character, and to some extent still do. Because of this, the sexual awakening of Miley somehow became more shocking. It was unexpected. How could Hannah Montana, I mean Miley Cyrus, be this sexy, fit woman who flaunted her sexuality in front of our faces?

My own situation was slightly different. Due to the circumstances when my sexuality was awakened, I couldn’t tell anyone. It was a secret. However, I know that many people in my life would have been totally shocked that the sweet, gentle, caring, loyal woman that they thought they knew turned out to be a raving nymphomaniac with an insatiable desire for cock!

As it happened, I remember meeting a friend about six months into my sexual awakening. We went out for a meal. She sat down in front of me and looked into my eyes and said with a certain amount of incredulity, “Are you having an affair?”

I looked at her, ready to deny everything but realised that it was pointless trying to deceive a woman who had known me for my entire adult life, and was also a very sexual woman. How could she possibly have known? I hadn’t casually mentioned my lover during our conversation. I didn’t think I looked any different, other than possibly putting on a bit of weight. How could she have known?

According to her, I looked more relaxed and liberated than I had done in years. She said I looked sexy, that my boobs looked bigger or at least more pronounced, and I distinctly remember I wasn’t wearing a low-cut top at the time. She said I seemed happy, contented, assured.

And I was.

The transition from the wholesome to the whore! People can’t cope with that, which is why they use derogatory phrases to accentuate the contempt for someone else’s sexuality. Neither Miley nor I are whores. We’re just people who rather dramatically discovered our sexuality and bloody loved it.

Take Madonna, for instance. When she shot to fame, she wore her sexuality on her bodice right from the word go. When she “flaunted” her sexuality, some people were shaken by her explicitness but they weren’t completely surprised. It was expected, and therefore she could get on with exploring and expressing her sexuality without too much dissent. It wasn’t until she became an “older woman” that people started to be more shocked at her antics, begging her to wrap her beautifully toned body in an outfit more befitting for a 50 year old. Says who!

No, the real issue about Miley Cyrus is that people were troubled by her sexuality because of the misconceptions they’d built in their minds about who she was, and were astonished at the contrast between the twerking temptress and the treacly teenager that they’d welcomed into their homes through the glorious medium of television. They were worried that their offspring, who had loved Hannah and had wanted to dress like her and who’d filled their bedrooms with all manner of purple “Hannah” range of goodies, would suddenly want to change their ribbons for rabbits or their T-shirt for a G-string or their Disney ears for dildos.

(Perhaps aforementioned parents should consider the virtue of allowing their own children to be so absorbed by the commercialisation of young children such as Miley Cyrus. If they hadn’t played the Hannah Montana merchandise game, then their children might not have been so fixated on the Miley and would therefore have been shielded from her sexual awakening.)

So, yes, I understand Miley. I understand her predicament and I understand her desires.

Good luck Miley, but do be careful.

Kissing Kittens

I need to clarify a potential misunderstanding to readers and to friends who I’ve spoken to in recent months about something quite dear to my heart; girls kissing.

Recently, I was in a restaurant, when it was pointed out to me that two women behind me were sharing a moment of intense passion through the glorious art of snogging. They were totally uninhibited and were fully connected through the loving act of kissing. (And for those who think I may have made a typo, I really did mean the “art” of snogging and not the “act”. There is an art to snogging. There’s an art to kissing that makes certain kisses utterly revolting because the perpetrator of the kiss has never embraced that art of kissing.)

Returning to the two women in the restaurant, I turned round to see them coming away from their lipstick embrace but still holding onto one another and looking at each other with a certain amount of eagerness that reminded me of the lustiness of passion. The kiss had conjured up a feeling elsewhere in their bodies that required immediate fulfilment.

Within five minutes, they’d left the restaurant, and I hoped they lived near enough to be able to run up a flight of stairs and dive into a passionate session of love-making.

It’s a joy to see people being passionate, well, within reason of course. For some, society dictates to us what we should or shouldn’t feel comfortable with. Our own ideas and thoughts also ‘dictate’ to us what we should feel comfortable with. Some of us stay in this comfort zone throughout our lives. Others amongst us challenge our thoughts and possibly change our opinions on what we wish to see and what we wish to do ourselves.

And so it is with lesbianism and me.

I’m not a lesbian. I’m not entirely sure that I’m bisexual either. I’ve enjoyed participating in bisexual acts and I really, really love looking at women who are sexually turned on, who are dressed in erotic and evocative clothing. I adore seeing a woman pleasuring herself. In many ways, I find this more of a turn on than seeing a bloke doing it for her. And I love looking at other women kissing one another.

In fact, I’d go as far as saying that if I had a choice between watching a heterosexual couple kissing, a couple of men kissing, and a couple of women kissing, I’d probably choose the latter as the most sexually exciting for my own commitment to voyeurism.

Perhaps I am one of these women who is blessed with a slightly increased level of testosterone than is usual for my gender, whereby I can enter into the alpha male fantasy of watching women enjoy one another sexually. All I know is that I am extremely turned on by women having sex and women kissing in public, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with envy or a desire to participate.

In fact, what I really want to do is watch women having sex whilst I have an erect cock in my hand or even better, in my mouth. In other words, and possibly less crudely, I enjoy watching women having sex as a heterosexual woman.

Now that doesn’t preclude me from indulging in such pleasures if the mood and the environment allows. For instance, one of my strongest orgasms once came from merely holding hands with a friend in a very intimate and sexual way. There was no touching of the genitals. There wasn’t even any kissing but my orgasm arose and sat there in my nethers for an extremely long time. One touch at that point and I would have erupted. One touch, and I did!

Essentially though, for my own sexual pleasure as far as penetrative sex goes, I want a man! I love the fulfilment of cock and I love to hold a man in my hand and in my mouth. I have no great desire to enter into another woman’s pussy. It really doesn’t excite me that much. I love to look at pussies. I love to see photos of excited cunts but I don’t necessarily want to touch it myself. Is that weird?

I do want to touch women’s breasts. I love breasts and I love the fullness of my own. I love kissing and I’m not discriminating about who I kiss. If the mood takes me, I’ll kiss a woman as readily and happily as I would kiss a man, but I don’t necessarily want to lift their skirt, or unzip their trousers and feel my way into their panties, in the way that I want to do this to a man.

Some might say that this is all very confusing, and probably indicative of a woman who has latent lesbian tendencies, but I know who I am, and I know my heterosexuality is far stronger than could warrant a life without the sexual stimulation of cocks. I love cocks. I could suck on a cock any time, any day, within reason. However, I can’t deny and I won’t deny that I am gloriously fascinated and delightfully turned on by seeing two women in the fullness of their sexuality with one another.

As I said, this hasn’t always been the case. There were times when I was somewhat appalled at the prospect of sitting in a room with two women snogging one another. There was a further time when I was okay with it happening but somewhat indifferent. There was another time when I actually wanted to join in. There have been times recently, when I wanted to kiss a woman just for the thrill of being kissed and giving kisses. There have been times when I’ve happily stuck my fingers in another woman’s cunt and I’m not saying that I’ll never do that again.

What I am saying is that like everything else in life, sex is fluid (if you’ll excuse the pun), and as it is with attraction, things change, feelings come and go, what is acceptable and appropriate one day might not be as wanted or desired another.

In the meantime, perhaps I am ready for a little more voyeurism than I’ve been affording myself of late, and in order to fulfil a need in my life, I would certainly start with watching women fuck one another rather than looking at men and women having a good old session.

Michael Douglas and Safe Oral Sex

For those of us who’ve been affected by sexually transmitted infections (including HPV – human papillomavirus), the interview with Michael Douglas in this week’s Guardian newspaper was quite intriguing. In it, he implied that his throat cancer could have been caused by performing oral sex.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/jun/02/michael-douglas-oral-sex-cancer

Whilst later in the week, he appeared to be retracting these comments, it certainly has created interest and one suspects that there might be a few alarm bells ringing in the heads of those that lovingly and delightfully indulge in fellatio and cunnilingus.

We tend not to talk about this important aspect of sexuality because, for some bizarre reason, we don’t like to admit that kissing and sucking the sexual organs of our partners or lovers is so delicious. So the thought of popping off to the clinic to discuss it in great detail might be somewhat off-putting to many, yet it is something that we really ought to do.

The reality, though, is that many people who are sexually active do participate in fellatio and cunnilingus without any negative health repercussions.

I adore both. I love nothing more than filling my entire mouth with a wholesome, large and erect penis that, with joyous practice, slides down comfortably without the gagging reactions forcing an abrupt end to the proceedings. It takes time to get it right and the old adage practice makes perfect is completely right.

Likewise with cunnilingus. I’ve had lovers who think that the mere fact that they’re prepared to stick their tongue inside my vagina will do the trick and force an eruption of my bodily fluids. But just as we need to learn with our fingers or our cocks, so too do we need to learn with our tongues. It’s not enough to go in and go out again without exploring every corner of this fascinating and enthralling part of the body.

Whether you are the recipient or the provider of cunnilingus, it’s really important to talk it through with your partner. Tell them where to go. Explain as they are doing it precisely what is happening to your body. Get them to lick inside and outside, exploring the form of the body with that delicious line of expectation that hides the wonderment of woman’s hidden parts. To be honest, I’m juicing up at the thought of it. Oh to be licked and kissed like that – pure delight.

Enough of that though. We need to return to the health message. The overwhelming delights of this sexual experience can turn into a horror if you do end up with an infection – at worse cancerous growths.

We need to be safe. We need to respect the safety of others and we need to be very aware that our sexual behaviour can impact significantly on ourselves and the lives of our sexual partners.

My own experience is something that I would like to share with others because it’s a reality and shows just how negligent we can be about our own bodies and their healthiness, either wittingly or not.

As a person who has indulged in polyamorous behaviour, I took a hell of a risk. I knew that my lover had another sexual partner, and at the time, albeit reluctantly, I too was having sex with another person. We continued in that manner without ever once going to a clinic to check that our sexual health was intact, assuming (rightly or wrongly) that our other sexual partners were only having sex with us. To this day, I don’t know whether that is the case. What I do know is that we took unnecessary risks, and with an understandable lack of honesty with our respective partners, we placed them in similar jeopardy.

At the time, however, two issues took precedence for me.

Firstly, I wanted to have sex with this man no matter what. My desire for his “un-condomed” cock was driving my mind far more than any amount of knowledge about safe sex. If I had to share that unprotected cock with another, then fine. That’s what I’d have to do, and that’s what I did – often.

Secondly, I was in a relationship that wouldn’t cope with the truth of me having sex with another. My lover was in a similar situation. My partner and my lover’s partner couldn’t be told that we were in a sexual relationship that didn’t use condoms and had plenty of fellatio and cunnilingus. My lover was adamant that I shouldn’t tell my partner and that his shouldn’t be told either.

So there was a choice. Tell people (our partners) the truth, stop having sex with my lover, start having protective sex with my lover without the joy of aforementioned oral sex or stop having sex with our respective partners.

Circumstances meant that the latter was the option that we took, and for years, whilst maintaining a policy of polyamory (and practice too unbeknown to me) to all intents and purposes we only had one another as a sexual partner.

But even this isn’t and wasn’t safe. The fact that my lover had another lover during this time was totally unknown to me. Wrongly, he assumed that I would find this difficult. Wrongly, he chose not to tell me, possibly because I would have wanted him and me to check ourselves out at a clinic, for all its embarrassment. But even if we were monogamous, we should still have probably got the all clear as we both knew we had been in a relationship with other sexual partners whilst indulging in glorious sex together.

We were utter fools.

The situation changed once more when he decided he wanted more permanent additional lovers in his life. Telling me that he was having protected sex with both of them, I happily indulged in unprotected sex, thinking, stupidly, that I was safe.

Even if he had been wearing a condom with his other lovers, he was still more than likely to be giving them cunnilingus, which meant that I was still potentially at risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection, as was he. Even if he hadn’t been having oral sex with these other women, the fact that he came straight from them to me meant that there were times when I was sucking the sexual juices of those women from his cock when I gave him an instinctive blow job prior to him showering them off him. Funny really, because I can remember how he grinned as I told him how good he tasted. Perverse? Maybe but not to me.

The point is that if you choose to have sex with multiple partners, then all of those involved need to be seen at a clinic regularly. I know to my cost that this should have happened and didn’t, and it’s something that I bitterly regret and hope that I don’t regret it in the future even more than I do right now and even more so than I did this time last year.

Sexual health is important, and I don’t know whether Michael Douglas and his wife have other sexual partners. In many ways, it’s an irrelevance. One slight non-sexually related infection or benign existence of the HPV in her could have been a causal factor to his cancer. However, if you are having sex with more than one person or if you have very good reason to believe that your partner is having unprotected sex of any form with another, then I implore you to get yourself checked out as you do carry a greater risk. What you might find can be alarming and frightening but it’s far worse than sitting around waiting for whatever potential infection there may be to grow into something far worse and potentially untreatable. An arrogant belief that everyone is safe is wrong, unfair and downright irresponsible.

Polyamory should always come with a health warning – the main one being an emotional health warning with the potential of a massive, damaging and long-living impact on your feelings and self-worth. Polyamory can be safe, though it’s impossible to get away from the fact that you are more at risk of infection by the very nature of probability than you are in a monogamous relationship. Monogamous relationships aren’t immune from infections. It happens.

Just be safe. Check yourself out and deal with the consequences and the downside of the most brilliant aspects of life – our sexuality.

PS – I still fundamentally believe in polyamory.

How to teach about Pornography

What the teacher can’t say about pornography but I can

Yesterday there was a report from the Children’s Commissioner about pornography. It said that pornography is everywhere, which is a slight exaggeration. However with the presence of the internet it is far easier to access pornography than it was even a decade ago.

Let’s not forget though that pornography has been around for years and the reason that it’s so financially viable, even these days with so much free access to it, is because many millions of people get some enjoyment from watching other people fuck.

Confession time: I love pornography and I miss pornography. As I’m currently in a state of enforced celibacy I’ve deliberately chosen not to do much trawling and traipsing through these internet sites. Why? – well, there are a few reasons for this.

Firstly, pornography turns me on. Normally, I love to watch other people enjoying sex, and I have loved doing some of the things that I’ve seen other people doing. However, when I can’t do that for myself, it can be a bit depressing to see other people enjoying themselves in a way that I’d quite like to be doing. I’m insane enough without adding to my stupidity and loss.

Secondly, whilst I frequently looked at pornography alone, I preferred being able to share it, even if the person with whom I was sharing it wasn’t in the same room, building or even town as me. Being able to send a link to another person(s) so that we could both independently and collectively enjoy a particular site gave me an immense amount of pleasure.

Thirdly, it reminds me of what I am missing. Sorry, but that’s the truth. I shall overcome…….cum, cum.

But what is it about pornography that gets people going, in more senses than one? Why are people so hung up on its damaging influence without acknowledging the positive aspects of pornography? If it’s so bloody awful and gruesome, why are so many very sane and perfectly normal people frequent visitors to sites? What is wrong with admitting to being a sexually excited and excitable person and that pornography can be a part of that excitement?

This report that has come out suggests that we talk to young people about pornography. I haven’t got a problem with that. I think we ought to but I think we ought to look at the entire notion of sex and relationship education in a completely different way before we get onto the specifics of pornography or any sexually related issue. I also think we ought to consider what our message about pornography is going to be before we make even more stupid mistakes in the alleged name of educating our young people about sex.

“Just say no”, “Don’t get pregnant” “Keep it in your trousers” are all messages that teenagers have heard for decades with no real variation in the basic message of “Don’t fuck”. We perpetuate the myth that sex is bad by using words like “dirty” or by hiding away from our own sexuality amongst other adults. We tell young people that sex is not for them when their own bodies and minds are already beyond the point of abstinence, instead of giving them the appropriate message that sex is such a bloody wonderful experience they should put off penetrative sex until their minds, bodies and souls are ready to embrace the enormity of its wonderment.

We subvert the joys of sex by not being able to talk about it freely and openly, whilst simultaneously and hypocritically using sex to sell products. Guess what, young people see through this. Why, they say, should we not have sex if it is such a good thing that you lot are more than happy to indulge in?

Why am I saying all of this? For one key reason – we can’t talk about pornography properly until we have reviewed our thoughts on relationship education altogether. If we continue with this “sex is dirty” mentality, then the natural progression is that pornography is the devil-incarnate of that dirtiness. However, if we are more honest about the importance of sexuality and the positive aspects of being sexual, then we can also look at pornography in a slightly different and more honest light – that many millions of people enjoy it and they do so for a very good reason. Sex is bloody good.

If I was a teacher, this is what I would like to be saying about sex and I would hazard a guess that this more honest approach to sex is what young people would like to talk about too.

Firstly, I would talk to you young people about respecting themselves and other people. I would spend time talking about relationships, about trust, honesty, openness – in platonic relationships before you get onto the nitty gritty of sex. This would be an on-going part of relationships education. I would give them different scenarios and ask them to consider how they would feel and how they would respond. I would also ask them to look at the mixed messages our society gives about sex, for example certain newspapers running stories about sexual depravities or condemning professionals for teaching sex education to five year olds whilst simultaneously selling their paper and their internet site by having beautiful buxoms adorning their front page, not page 3!

Then I would make sure that every young person knew of the range of sexually exciting things they could do before they indulged in the delights of penetrative sex. I’d tell them all about the wonderment of cunnilingus and fellatio - cunt kissing and blow jobs to the less informed. I’d explain the joy of simply lying next to another naked human being, enfolded into one another, possibly cupping cock or tits as an extremely arousing thing to do. I’d tell them that before they get anywhere near exploring other people’s bodies, they should know their own and that they should masturbate to see what happens to their bodies and what works for them. Therefore, by the time they get to be with other people, they will have a far greater understanding of what they like and what they don’t like. I’d strongly advocate the notion of young women knowing what their sexual parts look like and what happens when you hit the clitoris or rub it for yourself. I’d ask young women to consider inserting more than a tampon into their vagina so that they can feel what other people in the future would feel.

I know this may sound a little heavy but it’s far more honest than what we are doing now, and all of this is supposed to encourage young people to know themselves so that they don’t prematurely rush into something that they’re not ready for.

I’d talk about female ejaculation and orgasms and tell young people that they do exist. Our misogynistic approach to sexuality has to stop. We don’t pee boys, we ejaculate. If I could rule the sexual education world, I’d almost be inclined to say that you really shouldn’t have penetrative sex until you’ve experienced an orgasm for yourself – but that’s probably a bit too controversial.

And I would tell young people to wait, and wait, and wait some more until they can fully appreciate the brilliance of sex with another person, ensuring that they are ready physically and emotionally for the experience to be the best it can be. Throughout all of this, I would continue to reiterate the importance of respect, and I’d talk about how to maintain, finish and review relationships in a compassionate and considerate way.

So how does this all relate to pornography? Well, if you’ve had a sex-positive approach to relationship and sex education, then you can look at pornography in a far more enlightened and radical way. It’s not good to keep perpetuating the idea that pornography is dirty stuff that only revolting old men with dirty minds indulge in. It just isn’t like that.

This report that I mentioned at the start of this piece concludes that some young people are at risk from looking at pornography and that in some cases this can lead to deviant and abusive behaviour. But this is only one aspect of pornography. The other side of the coin is that it is incredibly enjoyable and a wonderful part of our sexuality.

Our young people are looking at pornography and I don’t think it’s fair on them to reprimand them for being inquisitive, especially when they’re getting all sorts of mixed messages from society, from schools and from their peers.

We should make it explicit in our sex and relationships education that pornography can be a source of much amusement and enjoyment as part of a loving and sexually positive relationship. At the same time, we should also let them know that there is exploitation in the business and that not all sexual experiences are exactly as they are seen on the internet. We should say to them that they may see some unusual activities and we should enable them to talk openly about things that they find uncomfortable but equally we should enable them to be open about things that excite them – if necessary challenging them on certain issues.

I’m not a sexual deviant. I’m an honest person who wishes she could be honest about her own sexuality and wishes that other people could be free to do the same – within reason. None of the subjects or content that I’ve mentioned here should be done without a full understanding of the needs of young people. A very clear idea of what young people know, what they want to know and how they feel about discussing such issues should always be carried out first, and a view on safe-guarding and child protection should always be at the forefront of the minds of those facilitating and enabling such discussions.

But please, please, please consider how honest we are being about sexuality. Please consider whether we really want another generation of people who don’t know how to handle relationships honestly and considerately. Please let’s not have another generation of people who shy away from their sexuality, ashamed by their alleged vulgarity when the reality is that they are only wanting to do what is natural, and please let’s have a little rethink about the truth about pornography before we all rush into schools saying that porn is a sin and the devil will be awaiting if you click the bad button on your computer.

The Spirituality of Sex

This week the Pope said that nuns should be “spiritual mothers not spinsters”. He called for them to have “fertile chastity” and to be like Mary – who, of course, was a virgin according to the scriptures.

Well this got me thinking. What exactly does it mean to be spiritual? Am I spiritual? What is it about other people that make them appear to be spiritual? What can I do to be more spiritual, if that is something to which I aspire?

Someone once asked me, “At what time in your life do you think you were happiest?” My response was “now” or rather the “now” when I knew that I was cared for, and that for every ounce of lovingkindness I afforded to those I loved,  it was returned in equal measure. This, in turn, gave me a spiritual warmth that made me feel that everything would be ok in my world and in the world of others – known or unknown to me. Even with the inevitable hiccups of life, I, and those I cared about most would be more than ok.

So what was special about that time in my life? What ingredients gave me the feeling of serenity, of distinct and memorable moments of Satori, of feeling as though what I was doing for myself and others was as it should be?

I was enjoying a beautiful, healthy relationship of respect, consideration, affection, intimacy, trust, honesty and thoughtfulness – from both sides. I was working on something that I felt completely fulfilled by. I was doing something that I felt would benefit others, not just for my own self-satisfaction and absolutely nothing to do with financial gain. I was spending time listening to incredible music, going for walks in diverse and sometimes unexpected environments. I was being creative and appreciating the creativity of others. I was reading and writing extensively on a range of different, and sometimes conflicting, subjects. I had moments of such intense clarity that I didn’t need anything else in life other than that all important sense of who I am. I knew that I would be more than contented if I never ate the finest food or had the finest clothes ever again because I had become so attuned to my own self, who I was and what that meant to others. I was living day in day out in the now and loving nearly every minute.

It wasn’t all plain sailing. There were huge issues in my life at the time that needed to be dealt with, and still do. There were hurdles to overcome. There were barriers in the way of an even greater sense of wellbeing, but to all intents, I was content.

What I also had was a very healthy sex life. It was, and still is, an incredibly important aspect of who I am. I indulged in many a sexual act that I hadn’t even conceived of. They were naughty things that other people did – not my cup of tea at all. But as I learned more about myself, who I was and released some pent-up and much ignored inhibitions, I realised that these sexual acts were not “acts” at all. They were an integral part of who I am, and it was this acknowledgement and practice of my sexuality that added to my general sense of spirituality and wellbeing.

I was, and am, a far better person when I am sexually active because there’s something about the spirituality of sex and intimacy with someone you adore and who adores you in return that completes me. It doesn’t kill – it completes!

Acknowledging this fact I now ponder about whether I can be spiritual without the completeness that sexuality brings to me, and these interesting comments from the Jesuit Pope made me wonder once more. Can he or the chaste maids that he addressed ever be truly spiritual if they’ve never experienced the completeness of that moment of mutual and simultaneous orgasms that take you beyond this world into an unknown place where only you reside? Can the Dalai Lama, the Buddhists monks of the East, the catholic priests who are essentially good people, ever truly reach their moment of Satori and gain a true understanding of enlightenment if they’ve never known what it is to be physically, sexually, spiritually close to another human being?

Their answer would lie in what I said about fine clothes and food. They’ve gone beyond those needs, and they’ve also gone beyond the desire for sex. They have transcended those earthy needs and become non-attached, without need other than the basic needs for sustaining their existence – food, water, shelter. They are dependent on nobody. That is where their spirituality is.

Well, good for them. I’m glad they’re contented. I’m glad that if I asked them the question “At what time in your life do you think you were happiest?” they’d be able to answer “now” instinctively because their “now” is free from all the excess baggage that so many of us carry about in our complicated lives. I’m glad for them that there’s no aspect of co-dependency that seems to inflict the rest of us.

So for me, should I give up my sexuality and see it as an unnatural and dangerous desire in order that I reach this level of serenity that is expected of these people of faith, or should I accept that sexuality is an integral part of who I am and acknowledge, without craving it, that sexuality is a significant part of my personal spirituality?

It all sounds perfectly feasible. I opt for the latter and accept that I’m a sexual being who needs intimacy in my life – and this gives me the spiritual brilliance that I adore. Only there’s a problem. If we are to be non-attached, if we are to be at one with ourselves without the need for others, then clearly sexuality can’t be a vital element of our spirituality because, without being too blunt about it, you need another person for sex. I know you can masturbate for the physical gratification of orgasm but it really isn’t the same, however much we convince ourselves that “an orgasm a day keeps insanity away”.

It just doesn’t add up. You can’t have sex without a sexual partner. You can’t get a sense of spiritual wellbeing just by sex either. There has to be a significant connection between you and another human being – well, that’s the way it is for me anyhow. And this in turn, brings another thought to mind. Can you really be spiritually well without being slightly dependent on other people being an integral part of your life?

We all need our moments of being alone. We all need the serenity of the oneness with ourselves. We all need to follow our own paths and not be persuaded to veer off in another direction just to placate the whims, needs or hopes of another human being but we also need those other people too. The priests, the ones that have foregone so much of life to achieve this serene sense of spirituality are the lucky ones in many respects. They aren’t reliant on sexuality for the spiritual wellness, and many of the great texts from both east and west say that this is truly the essence of spirituality. So if that is the case, then is my sexuality anything to do with my spirituality or something completely different?

Yet, I return to that question. When was I happiest? The answer keeps returning to the same time, the same response. I was happiest, I was well, I was more spiritually aware, I was more ME when I was sexually fulfilled – accepting my sexuality, living, breathing, loving it. And the spirit of my sexuality was dependent upon another person.

As for now, if my personal sexuality makes me a more spiritual, person, if that sexuality is an integral part of me and my wellbeing, then how do I maintain a different sort of spirituality without sex? How do I function with one part of my soul locked? How can I appear to be, to myself and others, fully functioning without sex? How can I possibly be desirable to others, sexually and platonically, when my sexuality is missing? And if this is the case for me, isn’t it the same for others too? If someone has lost their sexuality, by choice or by being forced into the situation through bereavement or separation, then how are they to function without this basic need? Can anyone, even the lovely nuns that listened to Pope Francis’s address this week, really be the spiritual wonders that the world expects if they haven’t experienced the utter and overwhelming joy of sexual intimacy? And is it really any wonder that others appear more spiritually exciting than those of us forced to abstain when they have their sexuality in place?

I’m not the only person who sees this correlation between sex and spirituality. I’m not the only person who tackles with the dichotomy of what we get spiritually out of giving and receiving through sexual intimacy with others compared with the alleged spirituality of abstinence. I endeavour every day to change my opinion about sex and to embrace the emptiness of chastity in the vain hope that I will finally realise that the truest enlightenment can only come from within and can’t ever be dependent on another human being.

But quite frankly, I’m yet to be convinced because sex is so damn important, and of course for many, such as Abraham Maslow, is seen as a basic human need. Well if that’s the case, no wonder those of us who desire sex don’t function completely without it. Is there really such a thing as fertile chastity? Can we really be self-actualised, fully functional people, able to accomplish transcendence all on our own – all without sexuality? Can we really BE, without other people? I know the answer is complicated and contradictory.

As for me, I live in perpetual hope. And in itself, that gives me some sense of spiritual wellbeing.

Celebrating Beyonce Aesthetically

Beyonce Knowles is an extremely beautiful woman. Even if you are not sexually excited or stimulated by her curvaceous and near-perfect body, surely you can see the aesthetic attraction of it. If I had the body of this woman, I would certainly want the world to know how proud I was of its form and would happily wear some of the outfits that she seems likely to be criticised for wearing.

An article in the Guardian newspaper last week explores the issue of Beyonce’s sartorial choices and says that, "You have to wonder what one of Beyoncé's biggest fans, Michelle Obama, would tell her daughters about this outfit."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/apr/19/beyonce-risque-world-tour-outfits

Well, here’s my helping hand should the conversation arise between Michelle, Malia and Sasha.

Girls: Mummy! Beyonce is showing her nipples!

Michelle: Well, actually girls, she isn’t showing her nipples at all. There’s no nudity and there’s no raunchy cleavage. What we can see is a demonstration of the female form, which many deem to be extremely attractive.

Girls: But isn’t it rude?

Michelle: Well, unfortunately society has seen fit to make us believe that women’s breasts are rude when in actual fact, they should be celebrated, enjoyed and not perpetually hidden away in secrecy pretending they don’t exist. What Beyonce is doing here is showing that she’s all woman, and that’s something that we should definitely celebrate. This outfit is only “rude” because we aren’t accustomed to women being so forthright about the beauty of their own bodies. I applaud Beyonce for furthering the cause and empowering young women to feel positive about their bodies, especially when they are naturally curvaceous rather than slim beyond healthiness.

And so the conversation might continue with references to sexuality that Michelle, as a sensible woman, would respond to in accordance with the two girls’ maturity - guided by their questions just as all sensible responses to questions on sex should be.

The image of Beyonce here is sexual but it’s only sexual because our society has made it so. Why shouldn’t beautiful women be free to display their beauty, within reason, without the rest of the world thinking they are making an explicit statement about their sexuality? And even if she was making an explicit statement about her sexuality, then what precisely is wrong with that?

We all know that Beyonce has had sex. She has a daughter to “prove” that is the case. We can see, whether she is fully-clad or not, that she has a certain sexual presence and is aware of her sexuality but that doesn’t make her immoral or prone to promiscuity. She is as she is!

If I’m perfectly honest, I like looking at this photograph of Beyonce. I love the fullness of her form. I adore the shapeliness of her breasts and the rather unsubtle insinuation of the size and extent of her nipples. I love her big hips, accentuated by the cut of the piece across the top of her thighs. But none of this makes me want to jump on the nearest man or woman to have full-blown intercourse. It doesn’t make me reach out for the nearest vibrator. I just love the eroticism of it, for its own sake, and whilst in a moment of quiet, I might refer back to such a picture, that is not the point of my enjoyment. It’s just a very beautiful photograph of a very beautiful woman wearing a very beautiful outfit that emphasises her very beautiful body.

I also love the idea that the costume is a sort of 21^st Century piece of art that Klimt himself could have drawn. I like the idea that this is something that he might have used in an updated version of his infamous “The Kiss” drawing, with Jay Z Carter, Beyonce’s partner, clad in a matching robe of glistening gold. In fact, I think I might suggest to the couple that, as a glorious celebration of their togetherness, their personal sexuality and their private intimacy with one another, they should commission someone to do a portrait in the style of Klimt with Beyonce wearing this very outfit.

I’m sick and tired of people criticising beautiful women for being proud of their bodies. It’s so hypocritical too. They put on their puritanical blacks and espouse the trouble for society with an influx of these sorts of images whilst simultaneously delighting in them, possibly enviously looking at every part of the woman’s body, and selling their papers in the process.

When we will realise that female empowerment will never be realised until we are comfortable with the female form? We shouldn’t shy away from our own beauty. We shouldn’t hide our assets for the sake of the comfort of others if we ourselves would like to display them more prominently. We should be able to display our assets more prominently without fear of misinterpretation, without the possibility of someone saying we are only doing this to attract attention from a potentially sexually aroused onlooker.

As a woman, I want to dress in a way that makes me feel comfortable with who I am. In my most sexual days, I guess I wanted people to know that I was happily, sexually active and if that meant I wore a top that was slightly more revealing, then that was up to me – and FOR me! If I choose to wear a top that exposes more of my cleavage when I am without a sexual partner, it doesn’t mean that I’m trying to attract attention in a fit of desperation. I’m merely wearing something that I feel comfortable in. I’ve got big tits. I celebrate the fact. End of.

Beyonce is absolutely right to wear this outfit, and if Michelle Obama wants to talk to her girls about such an outfit, then I hope she might refer to the short piece of advice that I’ve provided.

Let women be women. Let women adore their own bodies irrespective of what it does to other people. Let women choose whether they display more of their wares than some feel is appropriate. Let’s not confuse the joy of eroticism with the joy of sex. (They are different, and I shall explain my opinion on that at another time.) Let’s enjoy aestheticism more readily without being criticised for being a voyeur.

And on a final note, to the author of the attached piece, please don’t continually refer to Beyonce as “Mrs Carter” when you are addressing the issue of her clothing. Whether it was intended or not, it suggests that she “belongs” to someone else and that it’s unfitting of a married woman to bring her sexuality to the forefront of minds other than her husbands.

What is good sex?

Drinking a decent sauvignon blanc in a chic bar in town a few weeks ago, the conversation with an old friend casually limbered towards her relatively new boyfriend and their sex life – as you do!

This younger friend of mine had recently met a tall, muscular, blond beauty (according to her) and had spent the last four months exploring one another’s body with the usual vigour of early attraction.

“The sex is great” she said with a massive, satisfied and slightly smug face.

I rejoiced for her and with her. I like to hear about sex being good. I like to know that people that I care about are fully embracing their sexuality and enjoying the wonderment of this all important facet of being human.

But, in true Zenpuss style, I was also intrigued to find out what constituted good sex for this woman. This was purely  an anthropological enquiry as I am fascinated by peoples’ understanding of this judgement driven statement – sex is good.

“How good?” I asked “What is it that makes this sex good?”

She thought about it for some time, and then said, “Well, he always makes the effort to make me cum before we have penetrative sex, and we have some real enjoyable foreplay. Of course, he doesn’t make me cum vaginally because I don’t really think that’s possible. And whilst he cums quite quickly, it’s really good during the time that he’s inside me.”

Oh dear, I thought.

Without wishing to be intrusive, I had to ask a few follow –up questions.

1.       What makes you think that vaginal orgasms aren’t possible?

2.       Have you ever ejaculated?

3.       Why do you think that having short fucks that last a matter of minutes constitutes good sex?

There were more questions but these were a starting point.

With regard to the first, she explained that whilst she had seen porn sites where it looked as though people were having orgasms during penetration, she had never experienced this and thought that it was a bit of an act, akin to the screaming of Meg Ryan at the café in “When Harry Met Sally”. She said that she loved the feel of her man inside her, and it certainly excited her but didn’t bring her to a climax.

I politely and courteously explained that I had, on many occasions, reached orgasm through vaginal stimulation and that it wasn’t a figment of my imagination or the story-telling falseness of a porn video director.

“Well what does it feel like?” she said. “How do you know?”

How you know it’s an orgasm, I wondered. Well it just is!

A vaginal orgasm, I explained, doesn’t feel the same as a clitoral one but there’s something incredibly special about it, even if it doesn’t bring the deepest physical sensation that the clitty cum does. In many ways, the vaginal orgasm is deeper and more soul-lifting than the clitoral one.

It’s a difficult thing to explain to someone who has never experienced it. It’s a slow build, a lasting sensation that reverberates around your body, building and progressing and receding and renewing throughout the penetration. And yet there is still the point of climax where you can feel the delicate and intrinsic movement of cock on vagina wall with such intensity.

What sort of analogy could I use?

It’s rather like a child’s spinning top. You keep pressing down and pressing down to get the object to spin, and as you see the colours swirl into one another you begin to get excited at the prospect of the toy taking off on its own. Once the peak point has occurred, you release your hand from the spinning top and allow the toy to spin round with the force that you’ve given it. It twists and twirls, excites and energises itself through its perpetual movement, and then it gracefully slows down until it’s ready to be triggered into action again by a carefully adept human being.

Is that what a vaginal orgasm is like? To some extent, yes. The build-up is part of the delight and an integral part of the ultimate climax itself, but the beauty of it lasts throughout. It’s the growth of friction that passes by every tiny cell within, bringing it to life in just the same way as a cock reaches climax. Male ejaculation occurs through friction to the point of ejaculation. Why is it so impossible to consider that exactly the same scientific force can’t do the same for women?

“And you’ve experienced this vaginal orgasm?” my friend asked.

“Countless times” I responded. “I’m not suggesting that I cum in this way every time I have sex but very often. You need to engage your mind in the process without deliberately doing so”.

Well now we are onto a completely different learning curve. How can you explain to someone that they have to think without thinking if they have no understanding of such a contradictory concept? And this is why I write. Sex isn’t just a physical thing, and Zenpuss knows this explicitly. The Zen of sex is engaging the mind and the soul together with the body without making a conscious effort to do so. You need to lost your mind at the same time as engaging it. You need to think about the physical feeling of penetration without lingering on that thought to the detriment of the physical act of sex.

So we wandered onto the next subject of ejaculation.

“So what happens when you ejaculate?” she asked.

“Do you really want to know?” I said.

“I’m intrigued!” was her response.

“I need towels, lots of them”.

She looked at me, stifling a giggle or two. Incredulity sprawls across her face as she asks if it’s like the YouPorn clips of cascades of water emitting from a cunt.

The porn sites, full of squirters, are not digitally enhanced or computer generated. The women don’t have a balloon of water shoved up their fanny. This happens.

I explained that through both clitoral and vaginal stimulation, and preferably the two simultaneously, I (or others) can work my body into such a frenzy that it needs to release. The swelling of the organs has a range of responses but one of the responses is a physical build-up of fuck juices. Just as a man needs to release these at the point of climax then so too does a woman.

I gush, I told her. I gush, according to some, an extraordinary amount of liquid. I can do it to myself too. I can lie on a floor, open my legs, finger fuck myself to the point that I am lubricated enough to take a little bit more of my hand, and with the right frame of mind, and the right course of action, I can make myself cum, and in doing so I can spray a hell of a lot of juice out of my body.

This, for me, is an integral part of good sex. I’m not saying that this has to happen every time but I tend to be somewhat juicy and it has become an important part of my sexuality – to be able to release this incredible amount of juiciness that my body appears to manufacture during sex.

“But how do you know it’s not urine?” she asked – the question that so many people insist on asking.

I explained to her that it’s quite obviously not urine. Firstly, I tend to empty my bladder before sex anyway. I got into a habit of doing this as I did initially think that my juices may be urine and I wanted to be doubly sure that I was completely free of that sort of fluid prior to sex. I pointed out that I can pee and within minutes, with the right stimulation, can emit a cascade of liquid. Secondly, without being to blunt about the issue, it doesn’t smell like urine. It has a unique, almost neutral, smell all of its own. Thirdly, I’ve experimented and tested the emissions that prove that it’s not urine, but that’s another story.

And so we came to the final question – the longevity of sex. Good sex offers variety. A quickie can certainly be good sex, especially if it’s accompanied by mutual orgasms of whatever type but quickie after quickie with no possibility of 30, 40 or 50 minutes of love-making before climax is not what I would call good sex. No wonder she hasn’t experienced a vaginal orgasm. In my experience, that takes time. That old spinning top will peter out if you don’t’ give it enough force to speed off on its own.

The reason for talking about all of this is that it’s up to those of us who have experienced sex at its best to explain to the rest of the world what they might be missing. Good sex is good sex, some might say but when you know that good sex for others is only a fraction of what the body, mind and soul is capable of, then you really do have a duty to tell others about the real constitution of good sex.

It’s hard to explain all of this, and sometimes, it’s hard to really portray the all-encompassing brilliance of good sex but I can’t sit by and allow people to essentially experience mediocre sex when they have the potential to have brilliant sex with a person that they care about enormously. Life is too short to accept mediocrity. Life is too short to deny the importance, value and brilliance of sex, and life is certainly too short to deny the truth about female sexuality and all that it entails, which irritatingly and frustratingly still seems to be misunderstood by so many – so many who think they are enlightened in the joys of sex too!