Blame it on developing early or having had access to HBO as a kid, but I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t, for lack of better phrasing, fascinated with sex (family members of mine, now would be a good time to put on your ear muffs). It wasn’t that I was planning on having sex so early; I just wanted to fully prepare myself for the inevitable chance that it would happen one day. And having never had older siblings, I set out to educate myself the only way an indoor-cat kind of over-achiever knows how: I studied. As a pre-teen I devoured the puberty books my parents stealthily left on my bed, memorizing the diagrams and text like I was preparing for a test (which I later aced in high school health class). In high school, having seen too many episodes of Sex and the City, I bought my first vibrator, and in college I fulfilled my Resident Assistant educational programming requirements by hosting sex toy education classes.
Most of the limited sex education we get in our lives is about the big important stuff. STIs. Pregnancy prevention. What your Fallopian tubes look like. The rest is that Cosmo crap about helicopter sex moves and 135 different ways to perform fellatio, which is pretty much useless unless you’re in a heterosexual relationship with a partner who likes having chocolate drizzled all over his man parts. Which leaves us with a dearth of practical information about how to actually enjoy sex once we start having it. So to kick off Feminism Month, Meg has agreed to let me take the reins on a mini-series about sexual exploration within relationships, and how to make the most of what I consider to be the great reward of monogamous relationships.
So let’s go. Ask the questions that have been swirling around in the back of your mind but you haven’t gotten up the nerve to ask. Ask about things you think nobody else wants to talk about. Ask the things you’ve been otherwise too embarrassed to talk about in real life. (Ways to initiate? Orgasm advice? Sex toy recommendations? Lay it on us.) We’ll round up our answers later this month, along with insights from the staff and a few of the most downright useful things I’ve learned on this journey so far.
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Photo: Kara Schultz
