ColumnStereotypes about female sexuality are mostly a load of bunk, and they’re hurting our sex and love lives. ENOUGH ALREADY.

If you still believe that men are the horny ones – the ones that “can’t keep it in their pants” or only “think with their d**ks,” you’ve been brainwashed, and I would like to un-wash your brain. We’ve been socialized to believe that women are less libidinous, more marriage-minded, and wired to crave romance and/or nurturing — not sex.

The truth is that women are likely more libidinous than men, and many desire multiple partners, sometimes at the same time, and sometimes as serial monogamists. (Science is beginning to back this up – they’ve only just begun to study it.) Shocked? Don’t be — explore it and own it if you feel it. Women are also multi-orgasmic, and possess the only body part whose sole purpose is pleasure (the clitoris). And our sexuality doesn’t turn off like a switch at menopause.

There are a lot of myths to bust.

It’s all quite ironic that we continue to believe women want sex less than men, given the hard work that the Greeks, Romans, early (and late) Christians, Jews, and Muslims and others have done to convince us that women’s unrestrained sexual desire can only be tamed by male ownership of female bodies. After a few centuries hunting witches they switched it up yet again – women were to be perceived as perfect little princesses, yet they had to be harnessed in corsets. These women eventually became the “happy” housewives of the ’50s, who were corseted in new ways.

Then we got the pill and a lot changed, but the pervasiveness of the beauty myth continues to keep us in chains. (Note: I’m talking mainly about the arc of women’s sexuality in the West here – female genital mutilation is still the norm in certain areas of the world, owing to the belief that women are too carnal for their own good.)

Before we were owned, we were venerated. Evidence of pre-agricultural fertility cults show that women’s bodies occupied an exalted place in the consciousness of the era. This might have been based on the way we bled with the cycles of the Moon, or because we seemed to be solely responsible for birth and life itself. Whatever the reasons, there was a time when women’s sexuality was sacred.

We were proud to be whores before we were cast as Madonnas. I think it’s about time we took our power back, sexual and otherwise. Before the Greco-Roman patriarchs began their systemic repression of women’s rights and lives, there was prehistory. It’s unwise to romanticize any historical epoch, given that we weren’t there and can only hypothesize about the conditions in which our ancestors lived. But “Sex at Dawn,” one of my favorite books of the last ten years, does a nice job of showing us why evolutionary psychologists have gotten everything so very wrong. And yet they’ve shaped our cultural consciousness. How do we untangle all the crossed wires that claim to define how we’re wired?

It’s as of yet impossible to identify where nature ends and nurture begins, but culture plays a major role in our self-perception and our relationships. The popularity of shows like “The Bachelor” and the annoying ubiquity of Patti Stenger prove that we’re up against a major meme machine and it’s going to take a person-by-person, relationship-by-relationship transformation to shift our consciousness. Sex, and in particular, women’s sexuality, has lived in the shadows of our psyches because it was deemed too overpowering. Instead of trying to control it, we must allow ourselves to experience all of its dimensions. That doesn’t mean we’ll engage in 24/7 orgies and none of us will ever work again (as Republicans seem to fear).

We live in binaries, and  it’s about time for a breakthrough. From compulsory heterosexuality to compulsory motherhood to monogamy, marriage, engagement rings, and more, there’s much we accept as rote. We often participate without question, because it’s in our movies and on our TV’s and our Facebook feeds. But is it what you really want? Only you can answer that.

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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Female sexuality is still a concept some men can’t grasp (particularly if they’re Republicans and from Texas). But for those of us with vaginas, we know it exists. Still, are we falling into male-dictated roles when it comes to female sexuality and sex positions in particular?

So, there you are, in the bedroom. You could be with a lover (new or old), a husband, with another woman, or even several people. Are you feeling liberated in your sexuality? Are you embracing sex positions that bring you pleasure no matter how you may look or sound? Or are you still doing your best doggy-style porn position? (Not that doggy style can’t be fun.)

We so easily get caught up in the perceived expectations our (male) partners (surely) have. Men are not totally at fault, of course (I’m looking at you beer commercials and internet porn). But they sure don’t reject the devices common in our culture that have come to define female sexuality. (Dave Chappelle brilliantly sums it up in under two minutes.)

But how is that empowering us, ladies?

Just like we fall into traps when it comes to attracting lovers, we also fall into traps when it comes to sex itself. We worry about body image (are my boobs going to look weird if I’m laying on my back?). We worry about appearing as Victoria’s Secret as possible (please, ladies, enough with the Brazilian waxing already). Do we emulate porn stars rather than do what feels really good for us?

If you need a little variety to feel liberated, try on some of these sex positions and see if it doesn’t help to redefine your sexuality…or at least, make it a bit more fun. Keep in mind there are hundreds of sex positions and variations…and we aren’t even going into oral sex here, either. These are some of the best of the bunch, in no particular order or rank.

1. Missionary: You’re probably thinking this can’t be empowering, right? But let’s have another look. First and foremost, it’s easy, and gets you face-to-face with your lover. It feels good typically for men and women, and there are variables. The woman can do most of the work by lifting her behind off the bed and thrusting the man. He can put his thighs outside of hers increasing clitoral stimulation, and the couple can easily kiss and touch in this position, making it a more erotic experience.

2. The erotic V: The woman is seated on the edge of a table at a height that allows the man to penetrate while he’s standing up. Her legs are up on his shoulders. The woman can also wrap her legs around her mate, and if he’s strong enough, he can even lift her up for a truly orgasmic experience.

3. Rocking Horse: Many women are afraid of or embarrassed by being on top of the man, but it can be one of the best feeling positions for women. In the rocking horse, the woman is on top of the man, who  is seated with his legs crossed and back supported so both man and woman are at an angle upwards. Her legs can be wrapped around his torso or extended out along the side of him.

4. Splitting Bamboo: The woman lies on her back lifting one leg over her partners’ shoulder. He sits on his knees and enters the woman. This gives both a free hand or two for touching and clitoral stimulation.

5. The Crouching Tiger: The man lays on his back at the edge of the bed with legs over the side. The woman climbs on facing away from the man with his hands under her buttocks and her legs in a crouching position on top of or outside of his. She’s able to control the pace and depth of penetration as well as use her hands on her body and his for increased pleasure.

6. The Glowing Juniper: For the romantics. The man sits with legs outstretched. The woman, facing the man, lays back on his legs with her legs around his waist. He supports her back and sides with his hands, and if he’s flexible enough, can bend over to kiss her on the stomach.

7. Kneeling: Both man and woman sit on their knees face to face with her legs around his. He will have to bend slightly to penetrate her, but the woman does the work so the man supports her back as she controls speed and depth.

8. The Amazon: The man sits on a low, sturdy chair. The woman sits on top so that her legs touch the ground. She controls the pace. She can sit facing or away from the man.

9. The Curl Up: Think of this as Doggy-style laying down on your side. It’s spooning with a lil’ something extra. The woman lays on her side, curling her legs up. The man positions himself behind her, mirroring her pose and then she wraps her legs outside of his so that he can enter.

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Keep in touch with Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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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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