It’s not rocket science, but learning how to orgasm regularly, makes all the difference.

Some of my most vivid memories of sex, especially early in my erotic life, are not of the satisfying post-coitus elated release, but their opposite. Rather, it was the myriad times when I was still learning how my body worked, what kinds of touch triggered what response, how much time it took for arousal to take over, what positions reached deep enough inside–basically the whole ball of wax, which made orgasm work (or not). The times when I was so close but couldn’t quite get over the top before my partner was finished, sent me into a fury almost as intense as what I imagine the orgasm might have been like. So did the years after, when I thought I finally figured out how to achieve orgasm and I only wanted to do the exact same moves in the exact same order, believing it would work every time, except it  didn’t. And it quickly became a sexual rut that didn’t help my marriage much either.

For a significant period of my early marriage, orgasm misses were more frequent than the  orgasmic explosions I so longed for. My frustration turned easily to blame and it didn’t take long for my conflict-avoidant spouse to choose avoiding the whole scene, rather than risk the wrath of not getting it right with me. We spent at least a decade of our sex life among the ranks of millions who approach/avoid sex and keep score on who says no more often.  The truth is that whether they admit it or not, everyone wants to experience the seismic shift and profound emotional and energetic releases associated with orgasm.  And yet, this most intimate transformation remains elusive for many and for some, learning how to orgasm seems totally out of reach.    

In part, this is because of some fundamental misunderstandings of the workings of orgasm and the understandable yet completely unhelpful anxiety that so often accompanies our attempts to create the experience. The most important thing to get clear about orgasm is that you can’t make yourself, or more importantly, anyone else have an orgasm. And in fact, the efforts to cajole and force, only make our orgasmic potential more elusive. Prompting the all too common and vicious cycle where orgasm is set as the finish line and the entire sexual encounter gets tripped up in anticipated performance anxiety and our attention, which is what makes the present moment sexy, is completely preoccupied with whether or not you will find the end.   

The other unintended result is the creation of the sex rut, which happens when we become rigid in our sexual encounters and fixated on trying to replicate some memorable orgasm that happened before, is totally losing the fluidity of the moment you are in.

Orgasmic potential responds more readily to one’s capacity to surrender than it does to willfully trying to elicit it.  Surrender is an interesting state that emerges; it’s where curiosity and openness can lead. These emotional states, by definition, bring us fully present to what is happening in and around us. They allow the body freedom to experiment and feel while giving the mind freedom to roam. The human brain cannot simultaneously process anxiety and sexual arousal. So giving up the mind space of bad body images, worries over genital size, or the most common: being able to achieve orgasm, needs to go away for the body to surrender to finding its way.

The good news is that the more orgasms you have, the more orgasms you’re likely to have in the future. So learning how to orgasm comes with learning how to surrender to and trust your sexual response will not only help develop your orgasmic potential, but will also give you practice of letting go of anxiety. Not surprisingly,  many people have more success achieving orgasm alone than with their partner, but this is worthy practice, because the better you get at honing your own personal turn-on skills, the easier it gets sharing them with someone you love. Think of developing your capacity for orgasm as a  potent form of meditation- even when you don’t achieve bliss, the practice of harnessing our attention is where orgasmic potential starts.

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When it comes to sexual satisfaction, are you being honest about what you really want? 

Ask most any sex therapist what the first question is that comes out of the mouth of a new client and it is most always this- “Am I normal? Is my partner normal? Is this desire, behavior, longing….normal?” These normal questions weigh heavily on our sexuality, partly because we mistake the endless fictional depictions of sex in pornography as a true point of reference, but even more so because we often suffer with our sexual doubts and fears in isolation, even within couples. It’s a weird question to associate with our sexuality because the idea of normal, which generally refers to the average or middle of the bell curve, is antithetical to the extreme responses that passionate orgasmic sex generates.

Questioning our normalcy about what we desire or what we experience in the unique space of sexual satisfaction is less about the behaviors we engage with than it is the trouble we have reconciling our rational everyday mindset with the free-fall abandon that our sexual impulses demand if we are going to achieve the passionate release and connection they offer. The truth is, as the Kinsey study so clearly demonstrated, that there is no normal in our sexual preferences and behaviors. If the idea of normal applies anywhere, it is in the context of how we relate to ourselves as erotic sexual beings, whether we are open to exploring and understanding our desire or repressing and judging ourselves and others for their sexual impulses.

A powerful cure for moving beyond the normal issue starts by developing the curiosity and willingness to learn how to express our sexual desires out loud. It is empowering to claim our erotic self with our words.  I remember a man who shared with me despairingly that he couldn’t even say the word “masturbation” out loud to his wife. When we give up our own expression to appease anyone, not only does the relationship get frozen in the narrow window of the permissible, but we betray ourselves in a way that makes us doubt ourselves and our desire.  Not expressing creates the dynamic of continuously wondering if we are normal. It is tricky at first, emerging from our self-imposed silence.

I remember the initial awkwardness and discomfort I felt when I began to speak out loud during sex. For a very long time, I believed that my voice would somehow break a spell or interrupt some natural flow.  But in fact, as I started using words to say what I liked or wanted,  it wasn’t a distraction at all.  The more that I trusted myself  to really engage and communicate in intimate encounters, the more exciting it got.  It took a while, but this became particularly true about finding the freedom to share bits of the strange fantasy life that I had silenced for so long with my fears of being abnormal; it turned out to be rocket fuel for passionate intimacy.

If you are breaking a long term sexual silence, words might feel like too big a leap, so start small with allowing yourself  to make the sounds that are held in the erotic spaces. Moans, laughter, screams, and sighs are a hearty soundtrack that will expand the texture of lovemaking in surprising ways.  For one thing, it is through sound of any kind that we communicate our intimate intentions and experience. Even shared guttural noises diminishes our sense of isolation to our sexual selves and our partner. Getting over the inhibition of making noise and the imposed silence of our early days of making out in our parent’s den is a powerfully liberating step to get beyond the normal.

Wendy Strgar is the founder of GoodCleanLove – a website that sells organic and natural sexual intimacy products, and also a source of medical research for women and men’s sexual health. She is the author of “Love that Works: A Guide to Enduring Intimacy“.  Her blog  www.makinglovesustainable.com  was named as the best sex/relationship blog by Intent.com for 2011 and has been listed many times as one of the best 100 relationship blogs on the web.

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Sex sells. And Sprout Pharmaceuticals just scored the diamond ring with the FDA approval of its previously rejected female Viagra drug Flibanserin. But is it just selling us the image of desire or can it authentically fix our female libido problems? 

This libido issue has been recognized as a “medical” problem, initially termed hypoactive sexual desire (H.S.D.D. ) with its own diagnostic code until 2013 when it was renamed female sexual interest/arousal disorder (F.S.I.A.D.).  The name change, as silly as it sounds, is important because it indicates a new and more accurate understanding of a more realistic sexual response cycle for women. The idea that this new pink Viagra treats a disorder that isn’t even still in the books only adds insult to injury when you consider both the significant side effects, including fainting and low blood pressure from Flibasnserin (a failed antidepressant), and the almost non-existent increase in sexual response.   

Only two days after the approval of Flibanserin, Sprout Pharmaceuticals, a company of less than 40 employees, was sold for $1 billion, easily covering the $100 million dollar initial investment, spent mostly on an elaborate social media campaign equating a dubious drug approval to equal rights for women. The one good thing that has come from the FDA drug approval and even the bogus PR movement “Even the Score” developed to persuade the FDA to cave on the drug, is that now we can speak freely and honestly about female libido- and the fact that most women want more of it, but often have no idea how to get it. 

How about we begin instead with some basic sex education and dispel a few persistent myths about how libido works as well as how it changes. The persistent and harmful belief that sexual desire is or should be spontaneous is where the trouble starts. We all remember those initial early stirrings of sexual hunger, when it was some odd animal unleashed in us, just by being near the crush of the month, or even the frenzied, rip-your-clothes off feelings in the biologically driven stage of falling in love. Who doesn’t love that kind of spontaneous eruption of desire? It’s like surfing a giant wave, or dancing around a bonfire. So yes, there are times- rare and beautiful as they are- when our libido spontaneously takes us on a fantastic ride, sometimes resulting in an over the top orgasm.   

And then there is life: children, bills, figuring out the Feng Shui of correct furniture placement, dealing with in-laws, trying to progress in careers, cars breaking down, and you know… getting to an exercise class. Somehow, spontaneous sexual desire doesn’t usually mix in this list. This is where we have to start working for a new and more reliable form of libido. As adults, this is the moment when we have to both want and learn how to generate our capacity for desire. And this is where the libido story falls apart for most women. Study participants stated, “Once I started, it wasn’t an issue. It was getting me started.” And “I hate having to ‘wind myself up’ to do it,” said another participant. “It makes me feel broken.”  These comments reflect the real problem with female libido, that most women don’t understand: what makes desire work over the long-term is being willing to own and cultivate our erotic selves.   

It is a big leap to take responsibility for our own erotic impulses. It is much easier to let them lie dormant under a giant stack of old guilt or wounds of  being sexual, emotional disconnection from our partner, silent shame about our body image, or just having no idea about how to access a fantasy life. It is grown-up business that requires both curiosity and commitment to our erotic soul for it to flourish. And most women equate that work with being broken. We know now that desire is not usually the leader- just waking up our capacity to be aroused is enough to kick desire awake. And arousal is available through any of our senses if we go looking for it.

Giving up the longing for spontaneous desire to take you over and leaning towards getting good at cultivating responsive desire is the only pill you need to take.  Not only will you avoid the pain and embarrassment of frequent fainting spells, which will not help your libido, but you will invent exciting new pathways in your brain to actually get to the passion we all truly want.

Stay tuned in the next weeks for real ideas on how to make your own desire cure.

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ColumnSexual shame dominates our lives — even when we’re not consciously thinking about sex. Shame is so overwhelming that it can feel impossible to extricate oneself from the ubiquitous, all-consuming spiral of it.

Sexual shame is not just what happens in the act of sex, or post-coitally. It’s not the just the “walk of shame” or guilt about casual sex that you wish you could un-have. It’s something you carry around with you when you commute to work, when you’re hanging out with your friends, when you’re relaxing with your family – it’s always there, lurking in the background, until you consciously decide to kill it off.

There are almost too many sources of shame to list in one article, but I’ll try. There is the most obvious kind of shame – the kind that happens after a sexual assault. This brand of shame is ostensibly permitted, at least in clinical settings. Not all women come forward after rape, however – so it’s only the few who are allowed to work through the trauma. One-in-four women will be raped in their lifetime – a staggering statistic that elicits a tsunami of shame.

Yet sexual shame is also straight-up body shame. It’s waking up in the morning, looking at yourself in the bathroom mirror, and thinking, “Ugh”. It’s feeling too old or too ugly to experience love. It’s repressing your anger because you’re afraid of offending a partner or potential partner. It’s the sense that you must always be a good girl, even if you’re a grown-ass woman.

Sexual shame is not asking for sex when you’re horny, because you feel too fat or not pretty enough. It’s not asking your partner to go down on you because you worry that there’s something wrong with your vulva – maybe it’s not “normal.” It’s being in your head when your partner does go down on you – worrying whether you’re good enough to deserve that pleasure, wondering why you’re not feeling enough pleasure, worrying if you’re moaning loud enough to make your partner feel like you’re having a good time – instead of just having a good time. Worrying, on the other hand, that you’re moaning too loud.

On the flip side, there is not speaking up about what you don’t want, also born of shame. We want to be pleasing, even as we’re afraid to ask to be pleased. We’ll show up for sex when we’re not in the mood, because we’re afraid of alienating our partner. There is also the shame you might feel after (or while) looking at porn. There is post-orgasmic shame.

There is slut-shaming, still everywhere, even as we fight against it. We’re still damned if we do and damned if we don’t as the Madonna-Whore complex rules most of our social interactions and messaging from pop culture. No matter how progressive we are, even if we’re atheists, there is still the sexual shaming born of religion – as active, or perhaps more active, than ever. The ever-present war on women seems to dominate every election cycle. As I said — too many kinds of shame to list in this space.

Our culture is saturated by sex – it’s in our imagery and our innuendo. It dominates our advertising and films, our viral videos and Netflix queues, our nightly news — our everything. Despite the constant stream of sex, almost none of it (save a few daring projects like “Orange is the New Black” & “Masters of Sex”) honestly depict real (and diverse) women’s sex lives. Women are still overwhelmingly portrayed as objects for consumption by male viewers. There are precious few representations of our desires on the big and small screen – the spaces where we tend to work out our unconscious drives.

What is the cost of all of this unremitting shame? Self-shaming robs you of pleasure – which is really just a way of robbing you of your life force. I believe that shame can actually make you sick, but the good news is that reclaiming pleasure can renew you — body, mind and soul.

So after a lifetime of pervasive sexual shame, how do we purge it? You may want to change the rules of patriarchy, and may be actively working toward that — but it’s not enough. In order to disentangle yourself from the twisted mess that is the shame industrial complex, you must ask yourself what you really want. Peel it back, layer by layer. Let your fantasy life be the lab in which you discover what might turn you on if you weren’t shaped by misogynistic images.

Sexuality is deeply complex, and I’m not telling you to reject any part of yours. There are moments that shaped you from childhood and young adulthood, and some of those, even if they come from what you might objectively consider harmful or negative — they might still be yours. This is yet another level of shame which must be purged. There is nothing wrong with any fetish, or anything that turns you on — as long as consent and communication rule.

Ending sexual shame has everything to do with claiming your authentic desire. Even if you know how to give yourself an orgasm, you probably don’t have enough of them. If you’re a typical heterosexual woman, you come to partnered sex without the expectation of having one, because most of us experience clitoral orgasms, not vaginal ones. And because so many straight men don’t put a lot of thought into our anatomy, and properly pleasing us — many of us give up. If you want to claim your desire, you have to be brave enough to speak up.

Here are some daily practices that can help you expurgate shame, and wholeheartedly embrace pleasure:

• Daily orgasms via solo sex
• Orgasmic meditation with a partner or at a workshop
• Daily sensuality practices
• Tantra

If you begin claiming what’s yours in other areas of your life, standing up, being strong, not wilting in situations where you’d ordinarily give up — you’ll empower yourself to stand strong for your sex life. I was incredibly inspired by Rebecca Traister’s admonition to women this week — that we, in the words of our hero Tina Fey, say “I don’t f**king care if you like it” the next time we’re coddled or infantilized by men.

Figure out what is YOURS, not your partner’s. This doesn’t mean you will stop pleasing your partner. If the person you’re married to or sleeping with is threatened by your self-discoveries, rather than turned on by them — I’d suggest that you might reconsider that relationship. Come to the bedroom with new revelations about your needs, new demands, new fantasies, new ways to role-play, new positions – and communicate about them. That’s where it starts — but only you know where it goes from there.

Join Stefanie on a journey to the authentic heart of your sexual self with Project 40: Sadism, Masochism, Sexuality & Shadow, an online 40-day tour through the heart of your psyche via intensive journaling, ritual, and guided daily emails. 

Got a question for Stefanie? Email stefanie at ecosalon dot com, and she’ll answer it in the next Sexual Healing column.

Keep in touch with Stefanie on Twitter: @ecosexuality

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ColumnWe all have sexual fetishes, fantasies, and unspoken desires. Who decides whether they’re normal or not?

“Normal” is  a strange, problematic term. It’s one thing when asking a doctor about a mole, but when contemplating your sexual desires and fetishes, “normal” is a non-starter.  If something you desire doesn’t fall into a range of accepted cultural norms, are you abnormal? Even if it’s something as simple as being attracted to another partner when you’re in a relationship — is there something wrong with you? Obviously not. But you probably still feel some real, palpable shame — just for having some thoughts.

In the groundbreaking book PERV: The Sexual Deviant in All of Us, Jesse Bering tells us why what we want isn’t the problem. The problem is that our culture is rife with religious dogma, even if it’s not coming directly from the church. It’s embedded in our institutions, our laws, and our very consciousness.

It’s a good thing that so many have already read 50 Shades of Grey as an appetizer, because Bering delves into a lot of fetishes that even I, a sex writer, had never heard of. From an incestuous love affair between Czech twin brothers (who perform in porn together), to your basic foot fetishes, this book covers a lot of ground, some of it shocking. But it’s not meant to titillate, or trouble your moral soul. It’s meant to show the reader that sexual “deviancy” is a construct, just like everything else we’ve been culturally conditioned to believe without question.

As long there as there is consent – as long as there is no harm – Bering believes that we have no right to condemn people’s sexual fetishes and desires. After all, we all agree that gay people are normal, but there are still those out there claiming they can “pray away the gay,” Yes, conversion therapy, very depressingly, is still a thing.

The numerous animal studies cited in the book include one in which goats and sheep are switched at birth and raised by members of the other’s species. And wouldn’t you know it, the animals’ resultant sexual preferences were not for their own kind, but for their adoptive parents’ species.

The point is that most of what society considers sexually deviant, perverted, or just plain wrong likely grew out of an imprinting experience from early childhood. Even a random arousal (say, from tickling) can lead to orgasm, and a life-long fetish can be born. Bering considers many of the fetishes he writes about in the book to be actual sexual orientations that we cannot and should not judge. As long as no one is getting hurt, as long as everyone is a willing participant, where is the harm in a man being sexually aroused by an amputee?

Most of us are on a continuum that starts with vanilla sex and ends with being a PERV. There should be absolutely no shame when it comes to your sexual desires and fetishes– both the ones you’re vocal about and the ones you’ve only dared to fantasize about. Communication, as in everything, is key.

We have been trained to condemn others for their desires, but that’s just a projection. The truth is that calling out others for their “abnormal” desires gives you an excuse not to think about your own. Even if your very real desires wouldn’t shock a soul, you may want to hide them from the world — even from your partner. There’s so much shame about sexuality in our society that some of us will use any excuse to compartmentalize it. Even if you only wear rubber boots when it’s raining out — why not let your freak flag fly?

Got a question for Stefanie? Email stefanie@ecosalon.com and she’ll answer it in the next Sexual Healing column.

Keep in touch with Stefanie on Twitter: @ecosexuality

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ColumnWe’ve talked a lot about the orgasm in this space before (and we surely will again), but it’s just one of many ingredients in the proverbial sexual feast. Find out how the food on your real dinner plate can affect your sexual appetites.

The four-stage model of sexual response goes like this: excitement/desire phase, plateau phase, orgasmic phase, and finally – resolution phase. But the most important spice isn’t even included in the list – libido.

Libido is complex animal, and its mysteries are not easily solved, particularly for women. Daniel Bergner posited some promising theories in his recent book What Do Women Want: Adventures In The Science of Female Desire, but the questions remain open. We can only answer them for ourselves (and have fun doing it). It’s not just about what we want, it’s about how often we want it, and why.

For the sake of this column, let’s put aside the myriad cultural and psychological complexities of women and desire. No matter who you are or what you want, there’s one fundamental we cannot ignore when it comes to libido: our physical health. We’ve all had a headache (the real kind) and thus decided to forgo a romp in the hay. But if the baseline health isn’t there, your libido can get stuck in a major funk.

We tend to think of blood flow issues as part of the male domain. We’ve all seen the cheesy couple in a Cialis commercial, dancing in their kitchen while the voice over says ,“It may only be an issue of blood flow, so see your doctor…” But guess what, ladies? Your sexual response also requires blood flow and engorgement. That’s where Nitric Oxide, a magical ingredient, comes in.

Nitric oxide is produced by the body, and it plays a huge role in both penile and clitoral response. Better known to chem nerds as NO, it also controls blood pressure, helps with heart and nerve function, fights infection, and more. In other words, it’s no slouch. (It won “molecule of the year” in 1992. Bet you didn’t know that molecules won awards, eh?)

How to Eat Your Way to a Better Orgasm

So how do you say yes to more NO? Well, it’s produced when you exercise; getting sweaty helps your body make more. So your next bikram yoga class can also be used to enhance your sex life.

But if you’re already pretty active, you can also eat your way to a better orgasm. L-arginine is an amino acid that converts to NO in your body – or, in science-speak, it’s an “oxidative precursor” to NO.

Want some L-arginine? You can find it in: almonds, chickpeas, coconut, flaxseeds, garlic, ginseng, greens, oatmeal, peanuts, root veggies, salmon, soy, sunflower seeds, tuna, walnuts, and chocolate. Some of the crossover items on this list–ginseng, soy, and chocolate– are also known to function as aphrodisiacs, so you’ll get double bang for your buck, so to speak. L-arginine is also available in supplement form – if you or your partner has a diagnosed sexual dysfunction, it might be worth looking into.

However, it’s important to note that there haven’t been any truly useful studies about arginine and sexual response in women. For men with ED, there is some evidence that it arginine works like Viagra – and it’s safer. Arginine has a lot of other benefits, too. But there are side effects, even though this is a “natural” supplement. Be particularly wary of arginine if you have herpes – it can aggravate your symptoms.

I believe that pleasure can and should be found along the way, and that it’s not always about the Big O. That said, there’s nothing wrong with priming your body for a better orgasm by eating better as well.

Got a question for Stefanie? Email stefanie@ecosalon.com and she’ll answer it in the next Sexual Healing column.

Keep in touch with Stefanie on Twitter: @ecosexuality

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ColumnDo you know what women want?

I’m just one woman, so I can truly only speak for myself. But the ancient question of what women want has obsessed us ever since Eve was cast out of the garden for being too libidinous, and too curious. Since that moment women’s sexuality has been feared, reviled, and made into the subject of epic poems. We have been called sirens, burned at the stake for our supposed witchery, and eventually trained to be  virginal, marriageable maidens. Apparently, we can’t win — we either want it too much or not enough.

Our sexuality was so repressed, so underground, that the very idea of women’s pleasure wasn’t even a thing for American and European men until the 20th century. Women were thought to be receptacles for sperm, baby-makers, and raisers of progeny only.

In the 19th century, tightly corseted and managed by our husband-owners, huge numbers of women were diagnosed with “hysteria” (which was also explored in a 2011 Maggie Gyllenhaal movie). This was what happened when a housebound woman, often a mother, exhibited what amounted to symptoms of chronic depression, brought on by the complete repression of her sexual urges.

Her doctor’s prescription was the release of a good orgasm — however it wasn’t called an orgasm, because remember, women didn’t experience pleasure — they called it a “paroxysm.” But still, it was progress: tacit acknowledgment, at least in doctor’s offices, that clitoral stimulation was healthy and necessary.

Doctors did this by hand for years, but then the vibrator was invented in 1880 (thank you, electricity!). Vibrators were advertised as “personal massagers” and women began buying them in droves, but once the word got out about what they were really used for, they went underground again, at least until the seventies (thank you feminism!). Such is the way with women’s pleasure — once our culture realizes that it’s unceasing and liberating, it’s quickly silenced by the Shame Industrial Complex.

In the past few years a number of books exploring what women want and specifically, women’s sexuality, have emerged. There was Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality, which set the whole concept of monogamy on its head in 2010, and then Naomi Wolf’s Vagina last year. I was already heady with excitement about a new sexual paradigm. A Sexual Revolution 2.0, so to speak. And then I got my review copy of Daniel Bergner’s What Do Women Want? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire in early June. I inhaled it in a matter of hours, while sitting by the pool. It’s one of the most important books I’ve read in years. I found myself nodding as I read, and even said “YES!” out loud, alarming the man on the lounge chair next to me.

Finally, scientific proof of what I’ve known in my body since I’ve known anything — that women are deep, endless wells of sexual desire. That it is not by any means what society tells us it is. That it is animalistic, and at times base. That it is not polite. That it is not always about receptivity. That relationships and intimacy are great, but they don’t always trump casual sex. That being with the same partner for years can get boring. That it’s okay to desire others. That it’s, in fact, biologically likely that one will want to stray.

All of these things, and more, are explained in this seminal text. From rat studies to masturbation studies, Bergner presents evidence that what many women want is essentially exactly the OPPOSITE of what we’ve been told it is. Female sexuality researchers are in these pages, and the great myths of evolutionary psychology are exploded, once and finally, for the utter bunk they’ve always been.

Women have been sold a bill of goods about what we want. It’s bad enough that our body image issues are so entrenched, and that little girls begin to develop them at earlier and earlier ages. (Seven-year-olds with anorexia exist.) It’s bad enough that our relationship to the clothes we wear, the makeup we use, the way we present ourselves in public is so fraught. Male gaze continues to suck. It has us so twisted and distorted that we have to spend our lifetimes righting it. But now that we have this other layer of evidence about what’s been taken from us, we can begin to put ourselves back together again.

Our culture still tells us that sexual women are sluts, witches and bitches. Our carnal nature isn’t getting us burned at the stake anymore, but it is getting us so thoroughly slut-shamed that we bury it. Women I know, even the smartest of the lot, are so confused about what they want that they don’t even give themselves a chance to figure it out. They marry (and stay married to) men they never desired in the first place. They think that the man they’re attracted to now is the man they’ll still be attracted to in ten, twenty years. They fully buy into the the idea that men cheat because they’re horny animals, and that long-suffering women always lose, because menopause will eventually kill our sex drives. That we’re on a slow sexual decline, while our male partners are always the ones with the wandering eyes — just because they’re built that way. Others buy into the directives of Mating In Captivity — that making “dates” with your long-term partner is the way to keep the spark alive. The science in “What Do Women Want?” suggests that the spark may remain elusive, no matter how hard we work at it.

Just a week ago, the New York Times ran a piece about the poor little coeds at the University of Pennsylvania, and how “hookup” culture was ruining their chances for marriage. There is still a stigma, even for millenials out there doing their thing, experimenting, and getting off.

I hope that the publication of this book will spur a conversation about what women REALLY want. This  may completely upend everything we know — our relationships, our expectations, our long-term plans.You need to start talking with your girlfriends, your lovers, your boyfriend, your husband. I’ve talked to some guys who are a bit threatened by the concept of women wanting sex as much as, or even more, than men. But hey, they’ll get over it.

Next on my reading list is UNMASTERED: A Book on Desire, Most Difficult To Tell by Katherine Angel. Won’t you join my book club, and together we can change the world?

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What do you desire? Can you put it into words?

Despite feminism’s advances, to express desire as a woman is still an obscurely shameful act. To chase a man is desperate; to crave a pair of shoes is shallow. Even ambition in pursuit of an athletic achievement or a career goal is suspect most of the time. No one ever accuses male marathoners of neglecting their children, like some did to Paula Radcliffe. Did your latest promotion come at your husband’s expense? Or your dog’s?

That’s why it’s strangely cathartic to watch woman after woman name their desires, honestly and without judgment, take for example fresh-faced New York gallery owner Alix. “I get overwhelmed by the desire to have a dress, or a bag, or you know, even, like, a salad bowl,” says Alix, smiling sheepishly at the camera. “The dumbest stuff.”

Alix’s interview is one of a collection in Victoria Floethe’s The Desire Project. Floethe, a New York writer, started the series two years ago in an attempt to catalog all the ways that women want what they want. As we all know, desire can take many forms – from sexual desire, as described by consultant and public speaker Cindy Gallop, to novelist Sam Taylor’s desire for one particular vintage coat.

Personal trainer, stuntwoman and athlete Kym Perfetto articulates the need for something like The Desire Project perfectly in her interview: To express desire, even the simple desire to succeed, is seen as unfeminine. “From a female perspective,” Perfetto said, in reference to athletic competition, “you need the positive reinforcement to get yourself there. It seems very cocky and unladylike. It’s something you have to come to terms with, first, before you can say it out loud.”

The same applies to a lot of different aspects of a woman’s life. The field of female desire is strangely unexplored, even scientifically; most sexual scientific research has been done by men, on men. Floethe was partially inspired by an article by Daniel Bergner in the New York Times, which described the ways that female arousal differs fundamentally from male arousal. Even the most basic desire – what do we find sexy – is different for a woman than for a man.

“The idea was to create an environment, a place where people can be really expressive,” said Floethe. “I really liked the direct-to-video feeling of YouTube, but a lot of it is moronic. I wanted smart, funny women talking directly to the camera about desire. What else is there? Desire is life itself.”

Most of the women are filmed in front of a blank wall in Floethe’s apartment, their stories illustrated by nothing more than their vivid, and occasionally hilarious, descriptions. The format is conversational, not confrontational, but they relate some uncomfortable stories – not always sexual ones, but ones dealing with jealousy and competitiveness.

“At the beginning it started with friends,” said Floethe. “Then they recommended other women, and then scouting all the time. Whenever I went to a party and I met someone interesting, I asked them. There’s a really strong international feel to it…. it’s one of the most fun parts, imagining all the fantastic people you could call up and ask.”

Floethe airs one episode a month. For more information, check out her to submit your own desires, contact her through The Desire Project.

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Here’s a mighty powerful question: What’s it going to take?

We usually mutter that question in dire circumstances. Worst case scenarios. Rock-bottom situations. What’s it going to take for you to wake up? What’s it going to take for me to stop? What’s it going to take for them to realize?

But life is always an urgent circumstance, when you think about it. Birth – miraculous. Survival – miraculous. Death – inevitable. Suffering – optional. Life – urgent.

I wonder what my days would be like if I approached my happiness with the same sense of urgency that I dedicate to deadlines and to-do’s.

Like, I’ve GOT to meet my dancing quota! Wild horses couldn’t keep me from lunch with my girlfriends! Come hell or high water, I WILL get a facial and lay in the sun! Most important deadlines: to meander, to laugh until I snortle by noon every day, to make pizza with my son.

So, in the spirit of urgent vitality – and not knowing if today will be my last – I’m asking myself, lovingly but firmly: LaPorte, what’s it going to take for you to be incredibly joyful? What’s it going to take for you to make an evolutionary leap as an artist, lover, mother, friend, human? What’s it going to take to get you to walk to the lake that’s four minutes from your house? What’s it going to take to get you on the dance floor? You want to eat life whole? To know God? To radiate pure love? Urgently, now: what’s it going to take?

I think it’s going to take everything I’ve got. Deep breath. Pause. Softening. And, smiling. Because I’ve got what it takes. As do you.

True desires rise from rich capacity.

Editor’s Note: Danielle LaPorte is the creator of WhiteHotTruth.com, which has been called “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality.” She is the author of The Fire Starter Sessions: A Digital Experience for Entrepreneurs, an inspirational speaker, former think tank exec, and news show commentator. You can read all of Danielle’s EcoSalon guest articles here, and find her on Twitter @daniellelaporte.

Image: shaggyshoo

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