ColumnWhy do women cheat? A recent study has found – prepare to be SHOCKED – that they cheat because they’re horny.

The fact that we needed a study to uncover this deep, dark mystery is the real problem here – not the fact that women are sometimes compelled to cheat. We live in a world that still – in 2014, for god sake’s – is shaken when women admit that they need sexual release.

Why do women cheat? For the same reasons men do. Yet the Internet, upon discovering this study, was shocked to find that women are not sitting around all day, waiting for our prince to deliver us from our idle housewife lives, untie our corsets so that he can have his way with us. But we won’t enjoy it!!!! No, not unless he wants us to appear as if we do, because it turns him on. (And feminism never existed, either.)

It’s fun to laugh at the Internet’s penchant for getting its panties in a twist over things that we should all know by now, yet these antiquated notions about women’s sexuality persist and persist and persist.

The study in question, even though it hints at an obvious truth, is problematic in the ways these studies of sexuality tend to be. It employs a small sample size and was led by a scientist who works for AshleyMadison.com – a website that caters to people in relationships looking for extramarital affairs. Oh, and the participants were actual women using this “cheating site” – those already looking for a fling. (As an aside, next time you date online, unless you’re cool with having your personal life, emails to potential lovers, and other information mined for studies, I suggest you carefully read the terms of service before you click “accept.”)

I’m bothered that we’re even searching for an answer to the question “why do women cheat?” — have we asked this question about men? No, we just assume, as we’re socialized to do, that they are led by their penises and cheat because they want sex. The thing about this study that seemed to surprise those analyzing the data was that women didn’t want to leave their marriages – they just wanted some damn good sex. They wanted to preserve their partnerships for whatever reason – for companionship, children, financial reasons – but they did want sex elsewhere.

Our culture is not quite at grips with the fact that women’s sexuality is just as, if not more, primed for novelty than men’s. The women in this study were between 35 and 45. Because we’re so habituated to the myth of “til’ death do us part” when we sign up for marriage, it can come as a shock when after three, five, or seven years of monogamy – it’s no longer enough.

We’re taught that if we have love, we’ll never desire another man or woman’s body – and more than that, that sex isn’t as important as companionship, financial reliability, good parenting – all the other aspects of marriage. Sex is like icing – if we meet someone who’s offering us a cake made of all the proper ingredients of partnership, we can forego the sweetness we truly desire.

Number one, I say put the icing first when you’re dating. Because if you end up marrying someone who doesn’t make your toes tingle, you’ll miss it later on. That’s the first step – recognizing and honoring our authentic desires and sexual needs, straight from the start, and not settling for someone who’s merely meeting our practical needs. We have other needs, and they must not be kept in the shadows.

Two, when and if you do put a ring on it, know at the outset that even if you’re over-the-moon hot for your betrothed, you may not always be. Don’t be afraid to have that talk. You may not always be, and hey – he might not always be either.

If you’re at the stage where your partner is still getting most of marriage right, but you’re just not sexually attracted to him anymore, first – forgive yourself. You are normal – you are the many, not the few. Those of us who can stay attracted to a long-term partner for many years are rare creatures indeed. If you’re that woman, god bless you, and rock on. But if you’re most women, you may need someone else at some point – and you shouldn’t go through a major shame spiral if you feel it.

Women are socialized to believe that our sexuality is not our own — we learn to navigate other people’s desires before we recognize ours as real. Instead of waiting, and wanting to be wanted, women need to embrace our sexual needs earlier in life — not halfway into our marriages.

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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ColumnIt’s reader letter time again! Today’s topics: period sex, shame and (the glories of) female masturbation.

I Don’t Want to Have Sex on My Period

Dear Stefanie,

I am in my mid-twenties and in a somewhat new relationship (five months). We have a great sex life, mostly – he’s a good lover and has helped me to relax in bed. I don’t mind how high his sex drive is most of the time – it makes me feel wanted. However, he wants to have sex when I’m on my period! GROSS. I’m not even ready to burp in front of this guy, and he wants to us to just put a towel on the bed and go to town. He even told me he wants to get his “red wings.” I feel like certain things should be private, especially in a new relationship. Won’t all the mystery be gone if our bodily functions are on display like that? How do I tell him that I don’t want him anywhere near me when I’m on the rag? Seriously – all I want to do is eat ice cream and watch Netflix – sexy time is not on my mind. Is he going to dump me because I’m not as sexually voracious as he is?

Sincerely,

My Bloody Valentine

Dear Bloody,

Before we talk about how miraculous your bloody vagina truly is, let’s talk about why you’re so worried about being dumped. That feels like the heart of your letter – so let’s tease apart where the insecurity comes from. You say that your boyfriend, bless his horny little heart, has helped you relax in bed – a tacit admission that you needed some relaxin’. At the same time, as in everything related to sexuality, consent is at the heart. If something makes you uncomfortable, you should NEVER feel any pressure to perform. On the lifelong journey that is sexual discovery, you’re right at the beginning, and there is no shame in that. Your boyfriend clearly wants you – he wants you all the time. But remember that his desire for you shouldn’t be the arbiter of whether or not you feel desirable. At some point you’ll discover that you are always desirable, despite your partner’s predilections. If he should ever get the proverbial “not now honey” headache, it doesn’t mean you’re any less sexy.

Now on to the bloody bits. We women are unfortunately trained to believe that our periods are gross, shameful, and should be banished to the metaphorical menstrual hut. The Western version of this is the tampon commercial with a smiling young woman in white stretch jeans riding a horse, erasing the evidence of the natural bodily process taking place. We’re told to pretend we’re pure and clean, and to hide the fact that our uterus must shed its lining approximately every twenty-eight days. But life is dirty, bodies are messy, and there’s no reason to be ashamed. Menstruation is a normal fact of life during our reproductive years, and there is nothing gross about it. In fact, it’s fairly magical. The ancients certainly thought so. Make it your business to figure out why you associate words like “gross” with your magical, mystical, life-giving period.

Feeling like you want to mainline Chubby Hubby and binge-watch “House of Cards” is perfectly normal, but feeling like you are “gross” is not. You do not have to ride a horse in white stretch jeans, because you may feel like crap. But did you know that orgasm is one of the best treatments for menstrual cramps? You can always give yourself one, but eventually you may feel ready to let your boyfriend help you with that process. Go slow, communicate, and explore your boundaries, always keeping a pint of Ben and Jerry’s at arm’s reach.

I Don’t Know How to Masturbate. Really. 

Dear Stefanie,

I came late to masturbation – LOL. But seriously, I didn’t start until I was 18, and I’m 23 now. I shared a bedroom with my older sister growing up, and there was no privacy in there. I must have been about 12 the one time I tried to do it under the covers while I thought she was sleeping, but she said “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” and that nipped it in the bud. We only had one bathroom, and I was forever being pressured to hurry the hell up, so it was a miracle if I got my contact lenses in – there was no time for self-pleasure. Since then, I’ve tried using my hand, a sex toy someone gifted me in college, and the faucet in the shower, but something seems to be wrong. It takes a really long time to bring myself to orgasm, and sometimes I can’t get there at all. I don’t have a crazy sex life, but when I do hook up, I probably come 2 out of every 10 times, and just barely. Is there something wrong with my clitoris, vagina, or brain? I am not a dummy – I have read everything there is to read about the way these body parts are connected, yet still – I believe masturbation/orgasms could be so much better, more efficient, and satisfying in general.

I Touch Myself (and nothing happens)

Dear Touch,

You are a smart cookie, and I like your sass – you know that self-pleasure is just as important as partner-pleasure. Good on you. First, it doesn’t sound like there is anything physically wrong with you, as you can orgasm – it’s just harder to get there and it doesn’t happen as often as you want it to. However, if you haven’t talked to your friendly neighborhood gynecologist about this – I would encourage you to take advantage of Obamacare and get your feet in some stirrups. My suspicion is that this all goes back to sharing a room with your sister and being rushed out of the bathroom by your family. Experiences like this can imprint our young brains with a major shame tattoo, and lasering that sucker off can take some work. Every time you considered pleasuring yourself, you didn’t even have a safe space in which to contemplate doing so. Most people experience shame associated with masturbation, thanks to culture and family. You had that typical shame, and then your sister yelled at you for touching yourself when you were young and impressionable. The extreme lack of privacy in your house made you feel like you’d be found out at any moment, and stopped you from experiencing a normal, healthy relationship with your body.

What’s your living situation now? Do you have a roommate? Are you still feeling privacy pressure? If you live with other people but have your own room, make sure there’s a robust lock on your door, to start. Worried about making too much noise? That’s what SoundCloud is for – crank it up. Could it be a time of day thing? Many people masturbate right before bed, but you might be exhausted and your body just isn’t in the mood to respond. Try changing up your timing – first thing in the morning, perhaps? You didn’t mention fantasies in your letter – that’s an important part of the masturbation matrix. Are you letting your mind wander where it wants to? Explore that, because it could be stymieing you. If your fantasy life seems to be functioning fine, it may be a matter of finding the sweet spot, so to speak. For many women, there is a very sensitive part of the clitoris – the upper left quadrant. See if you can locate this spot, and apply different kinds of pressure there – either with your finger or a toy. This might feel clinical at first, but it’s worth it. There are some excellent clitoral stimulators on the market – don’t be afraid to visit your local sex shop to find out what’s best for your needs. If you haven’t already come across (LOL) her work, Betty Dodson is the queen of all things masturbation — she is the pioneer on this subject and she’s still going.

Finally, and this might feel like a brave leap – might you consider Orgasmic Meditation? It’s a liberating tool that can help you bypass a lot of the stress and shame of “finding your orgasm.”

In closing, some wisdom from Lydia Lunch: “Pleasure is the ultimate rebellion.”

Love,

Stefanie

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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ColumnIntimacy is a word that we bandy about, but we rarely grapple with its more challenging implications. Intimacy is also the issue that lady mags tend to frame as the key to healthy relationships, and however true this is, not all of us are currently in a relationship. (And many of us who are may not actually be ready for real intimacy either.) Are single people doomed to live without it? Considering all the health benefits of intimacy, let’s hope not.

The Sharon Olds poem below has been one of my favorites since college, but only in the last few years, after the end of a long-term relationship, did I truly understand its deeper layers. Can we experience intimacy with casual lovers, or only with our long-term partners?

Sex Without Love

Sharon Olds

How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other’s bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health—just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.

To me, the poem is not so much an indictment of conventional partnership (the false messiah) – it’s about finding intimacy and pleasure beyond traditional notions of romantic love.

We tend to think of intimacy as something you share only with your primary romantic partner – the relationship valued above all others. But what if that’s a crock that we’ve been spoon-fed to preserve the established cultural order?  We put a high price on romantic love (figuratively  and literally–it’s big business). It trumps all other forms of connection, and marriage is the thing that begets the most attention we’ll ever receive in our lives — plus a huge nest egg of gifts. This is a given in our movies, TV shows, and our consumer culture overall. Notice the uptick in those “A diamond is forever” ads during the holiday season? That’s not an accident. We always crave intimacy, as that’s the way humans are built; and retailers know exactly when to take advantage of our vulnerabilities.

And there’s the rub, because it is precisely these vulnerabilities that one must be unafraid of, if we’re to experience real intimacy. According to Brene Brown, she of the viral Ted Talk, intimacy requires vulnerability – and vulnerability requires killing off of shame. If you’re single during the holiday season, it can be even harder to reach out — to let yourself be vulnerable. Our culture can shame us into staying silent, and remaining alone. (Interestingly, dating sites get huge spikes in memberships during the holidays – at least some singles are taking the initiative.)

Intimacy is not just post-coital pillow talk preserved for your spouse — it’s something you can share with your best friend, your child, your parent, your cousin, anyone that you’re willing to be vulnerable with. To get there, though, you have to first go on the hero’s journey and realize that you are the “single body alone in the universe against its own best time.” Intimacy requires knowing the self, warts and all. If you secret away your shadow side because of shame, your “intimate” moments probably won’t come to much.

So what of sex without love? Can real intimacy be found there – in hookups, in friends with benefits arrangements, with more than one person at a time? I believe so, but this requires first unraveling oneself from the hetero-normative framework of compulsory marriage and transactional relationships. Tina Turner asked us what love has to do with it, but I’d reframe that: What’s capitalism got to do with it? Notice where your relationships are about who owes what to whom, and you’ll begin to move beyond this limiting perception of dating and relating.

If we can liberate sex from love completely as an expectation — in the world and in our own consciousness, we can find real love — and real intimacy — everywhere.

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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