A Practical Guide to Sex E-Book

Meg-John Barker

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Serie: Practical Guide Series
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 229

Beschreibung

Plenty of books on sex suggest that it has to be done in a certain way, or in a certain kind of relationship, or with certain people. This isn't that kind of book.  Enjoy Sex is a truly practical, friendly guide through the confusing, and sometimes alarming, world of sex and sexuality. Its radical approach puts your experience at the heart of the book, and invites you to explore what might be enjoyable to you.  With the authors' engaging and thoughtful style, the book challenges the messages we receive about 'normal' sex, looks at how to understand and care for yourself, delves into ideas of pleasure for different bodies, ages and tastes, explores relationships, and tackles the tricky topics of communication and consent.  So, throw out the rule book and learn to listen to your own desires. This may just be the most helpful book about sex ever.

Leseprobe

A PRACTICAL AND INCLUSIVE GUIDE

MEG-JOHN BARKER AND JUSTIN HANCOCK

Published in the UK in 2017 by

Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre,

39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP

email: [email protected]

www.iconbooks.com

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ISBN: 978-178578-080-6

Text copyright © 2017 Meg-John Barker and Justin Hancock

The authors have asserted their moral rights

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Typeset in Adobe Caslon by Marie Doherty

Printed and bound in the UK by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

About the Authors

Dr Meg-John Barker is a writer, therapist and activist-academic specialising in sex, gender and relationships. Meg-John is a senior lecturer in psychology at the Open University and has published many academic books and papers on topics including non-monogamous relationships, sadomasochism, counselling, and mindfulness, as well as co-edited the journal Psychology & Sexuality. They were the lead author of The Bisexuality Report and they are involved in running many public events on sexuality and relationships, including Critical Sexology. Meg-John is also a UKCP accredited therapist working with gender, sex and relationship diverse (GSRD) clients. In addition to their many academic books, they have now written several books for the general public including Rewriting the Rules (Routledge, 2013), The Secrets of Enduring Love (Penguin Random House, 2016) and Queer: A Graphic History (Icon Books, 2016). They are frequently mentioned in the media, and they blog about sex and relationships on rewriting-the-rules.com. Twitter: @megjohnbarker.

Justin Hancock is a sex and relationships educator, trainer and practitioner working with young people and adults in this field since 1999. His website BISHuk.com is one of the leading sex and relationships advice websites for all those over fourteen and is sponsored by Durex UK. The accompanying book to the website, Sex Explained: A real and relevant guide to sex, relationships and you, was self-published in 2013 and was very well received by activists in sex, sexuality and sexual health work such as Brooke Magnanti, Buck Angel and Dr Ranj Singh. In addition to this Justin works with practitioners in sex and relationships education and sexual health services providing training and resources. He was involved in writing teaching resources for the DO SRE for Schools project. He has made a number of media appearances on television and radio and has written several pieces for newspapers and blogs. Twitter: @bishtraining.

Acknowledgements

We’d like to thank Hannah, John, Stephen, Fi, Ben, Petra, Toni and Dean for all their immensely helpful comments on the first draft of the book. We’d also like to thank Kiera from Icon for all her enthusiasm and support with this project, Rhiannon from Hey Kiddo for her invaluable help with our website, and the Open University, Damn Fine Media and Julia Scheele for their input on the additional animations. Thanks also to the people who have taught us so much over the years about sex, too numerous to mention. We’re very grateful to the employees and customers at the Barbican and Look Mum No Hands cafes for their patience with two people talking loudly and enthusiastically about sex for hours around a laptop.

Contents

Preface

1. Introduction

The messages we receive about sex

Understanding sex

Approaching sex advice

A different approach to sex advice

2. You and Sex

Your messages, background and experiences

Self-care

Being present

Self-touch and solo sex, fantasies, erotica and porn

3. Bodies

Diverse bodies

Parts of the body

Pleasure and what we mean by it

Change over time

4. Relationships

Different contexts for sex

Who are we doing this for?

Discrepancy and fluctuation are normal

Every time is a first time

5. Communication and Consent

Why consent is the core of everything

Consensual communication with yourself

Consensual communication with others

Navigating ongoing relationships

Where Do We Go from Here?

Further Resources

Index

Preface

Hello, and welcome to our sex advice book. Our idea with this book was to give you a practical guide through the confusing, and sometimes daunting, world of sex and sexuality. We wanted to put your experience at the heart of the book, and to invite you to explore what might really be enjoyable to you.

For many people even the idea that sex is something we could enjoy is quite radical. In the past, many cultures have tended to be quite sex negative – people weren’t supposed to enjoy sex but it was more of an obligation or duty linked to having children. These ideas are still very much around, but in recent years a more sex positive culture has also come in where we’re all supposed to love sex, to be really experimental, and to have incredible orgasms. That can actually put us under just as much pressure and prevent us from really tuning into what we want to do because we’re so busy trying to demonstrate how good we are at sex or how much we’re enjoying it. We’re bombarded by so many messages that we should be having sex of a certain kind that we can struggle to even think about what we’d really like to do, let alone communicate that to another person.

In this book we’re trying to get away from the sex negative and sex positive messages to find a kinder way in which we can all approach sex, and enjoy it if we want to.

WHO ARE WE?

A lot of sex advice books claim that the authors are ‘sexperts’ who can give you ‘the secret’ to ‘great sex’. We’re going to challenge all of those ideas over the course of this book! We’ve learnt a lot about sex over the years, but it’s important to remember that only you can be the expert on your experiences, your body and your desires. We’re all in this together with the kinds of messages we receive about sex, and we all struggle with them.

This book is the first big project that we’ve done together after several years of loving each other’s work and being great mates. It’s the result of many mornings in London cafes sitting together around our laptops with many cups of coffee.

Justin has been a sex educator for a couple of decades, working with young people in schools, youth clubs, and clinics. He also trains other sex educators and runs the BishUK website. Meg-John has studied sex and relationships academically for a similar length of time, as well as working as a sex and relationship therapist, and doing a lot of activism in this area. When we started delivering workshops together and discussing our work we realised that we’d come to similar places from different directions. We noticed similar problems in sex education, sex therapy and sex advice. We hope that by bringing our different knowledge and skills together in this book the result is something new and helpful.

WHO ARE YOU?

When we were writing this book we tried very hard to make sure that it’d be relevant to everyone. A lot of sex advice is written primarily for a certain kind of person in a certain kind of relationship.

We’re hoping that the book will particularly appeal to you if you’re:

Somebody who’s keen to enjoy sex more than they doSomebody who’s generally left out of sex advice books (most people!)Somebody who hasn’t had much sex education, or who’s had poor sex education (again, most people!)Somebody who isn’t doing what they’d really like to do sexually or wants to try different thingsSomebody who’s struggling with sex in any way

Obviously we can’t cover every single issue that you might have with sex in such a short book. So we’ve also put together a website (megjohnandjustin.com) where you can ask us your questions, find out more about some of the key ideas in this book, watch animations, and download further resources. We’d also love to hear what you thought of the book over there once you’ve finished it.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

We deliberately started the book with the things that we think are fundamental to enjoying sex: your relationship with yourself and with your body. For this reason it’s probably worth going through the book in order, rather than jumping ahead to later chapters. It might seem strange that we don’t talk about sex with another person till quite late in the book, but we believe that learning about our own desires, attitudes and feelings about sex is fundamental to being able to communicate about them – and share them – with other people.

We’ve included lots of activities, things to try, and points for reflection during the book. Hopefully you’ll find it useful to pause and have a go at these things. These are the places where you’ll probably learn the most about what works for you. We love the idea of people scribbling all over the book, writing in their own ideas and thoughts as they go along. However, we’re aware that many of us tend to skip over these parts when we’re reading a book like this. That’s fine too, you can always bookmark the ones that look useful to you to return to later. The activities are often things we’ve used in workshops to help people to think more deeply about sex. Most of them can be done by writing things down, talking about them with a friend, or just thinking about them. They’ll probably each take between two and ten minutes depending on how much detail you want to go into.

It could be very useful, if you’re in a sexual relationship, to do the activities with a partner in order to learn more about each other. However, you might like to do them alone first to get a sense of where you’re at without worrying about what they might think of you. There’s a lot more about how we talk with partners about sex in Chapter 5. An important point here is that it isn’t a good idea to do these activities with anybody who you don’t trust, or who is unkind or abusive towards you in any way. If you’re unsure whether this applies to you we’ve included a couple of resources on how to know at the end of the book.

We’ve also included lots of examples of different people’s experiences throughout the book so that you can see the diversity of different things that work for different people. These aren’t direct quotes, but they are the kinds of things we’ve heard several times from people over the years (and some of our own experiences!).

SELF-CARE AND THIS BOOK

Most people find the topic of sex difficult in one way or another. Those who’ve had sexual experiences may well have had some tough or so-so times along the way. Those who haven’t may be worried about what to do, or if they even want to have sex. Also – as we’ll see – all of the wider cultural messages about sex can put everyone under a lot of pressure. For that reason it’s worth reading this book in a way that’s kind to you.

We’re going to give a lot of advice about self-care in the next chapter. If that concept is unfamiliar to you it means a similar thing to ‘looking after yourself’ or ‘being kind to yourself’. It’s worth thinking about a bit right now in relation to how you read the book. Reading in a self-caring way involves checking out whether you feel in an okay place to do some reading, maybe leaving any sections you know are difficult for you until you’re feeling ready for them. You might want to notice your feelings as you go along. If you find yourself feeling a bit uncomfortable reading a certain section that might be a good one to come back to again. Also you can notice when you’ve read enough for one day and need a bit of time to process it all.

We’ve tried to write the book kindly as well. We’re not aiming to shock anybody or be deliberately provocative. Of course we have had to write about different sexual experiences and practices though. So there is some sexual content, and a few places where we’ve covered unwanted or non-consensual sexual experiences. In those places we’ve tried to provide a note up front to let you know that we’ll be discussing those topics, and we’ve never gone into a lot of descriptive detail about those kinds of things.

The introduction will start us thinking more about the messages we all get about sex and how we relate to them. In the next chapter we look more at your particular relationship to sex. Then we have a chapter on bodies and sex, and one on sex in relationships. We end the book with a chapter on communicating consensually about sex, before providing some further resources if you want to carry on the learning you’ve done here.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

THE MESSAGES WE RECEIVE ABOUT SEX

Whether we realise it or not, the world around us is saturated with messages about sex. Every day we pick up on loads of ideas about sex from the people around us, from the places we work and play in, and from society more broadly.

Think about the kinds of messages you receive on a daily basis. Perhaps you chat with friends about sex: when it’s okay to have sex with a new partner or what counts as ‘cheating’. Maybe you pick up magazines with articles about how to have great sex or multiple orgasms, or how to seduce people or be attractive to them. It could be that your religion has ideas about who you’re allowed to have sex with and for what purpose. Perhaps you’ve heard in the news about the latest sexual abuse scandal, or the latest drug for improving ‘sexual function’. Probably you’ll have seen sexual encounters on TV or in movies that generally follow the same old script. Certainly you’ll have seen advertisements on the street or public transport for dating agencies, or for products designed to make you look sexier.

These messages about what sex is (and isn’t), how to have it, and who to have it with, tend to be remarkably similar wherever they come from. Because they’re all around us they have a major role in shaping how we think and feel about sex, and, therefore, our experience of sex itself.

Because these messages surround us all of the time, most people end up acting on them, and sharing the same ideas when they talk about sex. As a result, these messages often feel like the ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ way of doing things, rather than just one possible way of thinking about sex.

Examining these messages – what we learn from them, and whether they’re a good fit for us or not – will be a major focus throughout this book. Let’s start by thinking about the ideas we receive about what sex actually is.

try it now WHAT IS SEX (ACCORDING TO THE MESSAGES WE RECEIVE)?

Over the course of this book we’ll encourage you to come up with a list of as many sexual, erotic or sensual practices as you can. This kind of list is incredibly helpful for tuning into what you like sexually, and for communicating about that with other people. For now, we’ll use it to think more about the sexual messages we receive.

Make a list of all the sexual activities that you can think of – off the top of your head – which people might enjoy. If you have some Post-it notes or small scraps of paper you might like to write one activity on each of these. You’re going to be moving them around, so it’s useful to have them on separate pieces of paper. If you can’t do that where you are right now just jot them down on a piece of paper or think of them. Or you could make a list on your phone or computer and then move them around there.

Allow yourself to think about all of the things that people commonly imagine when it comes to sexual, erotic or sensual experiences. But once you’ve done that try to think of the less obvious kinds of things as well, like all the different ways you could touch or be touched, or non-touch based things like sharing fantasies. Think of things you’d like yourself and things that you wouldn’t particularly like yourself but that maybe other people might like. Try to be quite specific. For example instead of ‘oral sex’ you might divide it into kissing, licking, sucking, etc. and be clear which part of the body is receiving it.

Now imagine a line like the one below: a spectrum from ‘definitely not sex’ to ‘definitely sex’. Try to arrange your sexual practices along this line, so that the ones that are generally not seen as ‘proper sex’ go at the left-hand side, the ones that are generally seen as counting as ‘proper sex’ go at the right-hand side, and any that are somewhere in between go in the appropriate place along the line.

What do you notice about the kinds of things that you put at the far right? What about the far left? Were there any things that you struggled to know where to put? Were there any things that seemed to go in more than one place?

Thinking back to what we were talking about before, do you think that the messages we receive about sex are part of the reason why you’ve put certain things in certain places?

Keep hold of your list or Post-it notes. We’ll be coming back to them in later chapters. Also feel free to keep adding to your list as you go through the rest of the book.

When we’ve asked groups of people to do this exercise during workshops, they generally come up with this kind of response:

It seems that things that people count as ‘proper sex’ generally involve genitals, nudity, and some form of penetration. Often the kinds of sex that involve one penis and one vagina are seen as being somewhat more ‘proper’ or ‘real’ than those involving different genitals in different combinations, or other parts of the body. Things at the ‘definitely not sex’ end of the continuum could be done for other reasons than sexual desire, or are generally seen as potentially leading to ‘proper sex’, rather than being sex themselves. Also, activities that don’t involve any physical contact often get placed further towards the ‘definitely not sex’ end of the spectrum.

IS IT HELPFUL TO DIVIDE UP SEX IN THIS WAY?

Can you see any problems with thinking about sex in this way: drawing lines between what counts and what doesn’t count as ‘proper sex’? You might consider who is able to have ‘proper sex’ according to this continuum, and who is always going to end up having something less than ‘proper sex’. Think about the impact this might have on them and the kinds of pressures it might put on people and their bodies that sex is seen in this way. You might also like to start thinking about how it impacts you specifically. Is there any good reason for saying that some kinds of sex are more ‘proper’ than others?

Hold onto your thoughts on these issues because we’ll be coming back to them towards the end of this chapter.

UNDERSTANDING SEX

If we’re able to let go of the ideas about what is ‘proper’ sex, we may find that we’re more able to tune into what we actually enjoy. It’s about finding out what works for us rather than trying to match up to an ideal of what we’ve been told sex is.

try it now ENJOYABLE AND NOT-SO-ENJOYABLE SEX

Think of one kind of sexy, sensual or erotic activity that you’ve had which you’ve enjoyed a lot on one occasion, but also not enjoyed as much on another occasion. For example, it might be that you’ve had a really great kiss one time and – another time – a kiss that left you cold. Or you could pick sex with a partner or on your own, having a fantasy, or something less sexual like a massage. The important thing is that it is the same activity, so that you can compare what it’s like when it’s enjoyable and when it isn’t. For the ‘not enjoyable’ time, don’t pick anything that is scary or upsetting to remember – just a time when you weren’t really enjoying it as much as you’d have liked.

Try to remember both experiences – the time when you enjoyed it and the time when you didn’t – in rich detail. You could do this as a writing exercise, writing a paragraph or two about each time in turn. Or you could just sit quietly and remember each time in as much detail as possible. You could even create a drawing or cartoon of the experience, with or without words. Either way, you might find the following prompts helpful.

For each experience (the enjoyable one, and the not-so-enjoyable one), think about:

How it started: Where were you? What was happening beforehand? How did it begin? How did you feel? What were the sensations involved? What thoughts were going through your head?How it progressed: What happened next? What were your feelings, sensations, thoughts? (You might remember some of these more easily than others and that’s fine.) Run through the time in your head, continuing to tune into the feelings, sensations and thoughts.How it ended: What was that like? How did you feel afterwards?

Now think about any differences that you notice between the enjoyable experience and the not-so-enjoyable experience. For example, there might have been differences in the circumstances of the experience: what was happening before and after; who you were doing it with, if anyone; how you felt, or the thoughts that were going through your head. Make a note of anything at all that occurs to you.

MULTIPLE EXPERIENCES: DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ENJOYABLE AND NOT-SO-ENJOYABLE SEX

When we’ve done this activity before with people, these are the kinds of differences that have come up:

How ‘in the moment’ or ‘present’ they felt. For example, people said things like: ‘I was less distracted in the enjoyable time, not worrying about what was going to happen next.’Whether they made comparisons between themselves and other people. For example: ‘In the less enjoyable time I kept thinking: “Am I as good as their ex?”, “Are they enjoying this as much as last time?”, “Do I look as good as people in porn?”’How focused they were on achieving a goal. For example, in the less enjoyable time people wondered things like: ‘Am I going to come?’, ‘Are they going to come?’, ‘Am I lasting long enough?’ or ‘Am I hard/wet/aroused enough?’Whether they were seeing sex as a performance. For example, in the less enjoyable time people worried: ‘Do they think I’m skilled enough at this?’ or ‘Should I be changing position more?’How consensual it felt. For example, in the less enjoyable time: ‘I felt like I was doing it for them rather than for me,’ ‘I knew they felt a bit pressured into it’ or ‘I was a bit part in their scene rather than a central character in my own.’How aware they are of their sensations. For example: ‘When I was enjoying it, I could feel this tingling sensation in my feet, their breath on my skin, the heat rushing to my face. It was like I was totally in my body.’How focused they were on what they thought they should be doing. For example, in the less enjoyable time people wondered: ‘Is it okay to touch them like this? Will they think this is weird? How long should I do this for?’How critical they felt about themself or anyone else involved. For example, in the less enjoyable time people thought about themselves: ‘You look really bad in this position,’ ‘They’re not enjoying this’ or ‘You’re no good at this.’ Or they thought about another person: ‘Why don’t you know what to do?’ ‘How long is this going on for?’ ‘You suck – and not in a good way!’How connected they felt with themself or anyone else involved. For example, in the less enjoyable time: ‘I just went with it because I wanted to do it.’ Or in the enjoyable time: ‘It felt like giving myself a gift,’ ‘I really felt we were sharing something,’ ‘It was really intimate’ or ‘They seemed to really get me.’

Recognising these kinds of differences – between enjoyable and less enjoyable sex – will, over the course of this book, help us to consider how to let go of some of the messages that we receive about sex, how to tune into ourselves and be present, and how to communicate with other people about what we want to do.

FOCUSING ON PROPER SEX OR ENJOYABLE SEX?

If you compare your ideas about enjoyable sex to the previous activity determining what sex is, you might well notice that the differences between enjoyable and not-so-enjoyable experiences could apply to pretty much anything on that list, not just the activities that are often seen to count as ‘proper sex’. It seems like, when it comes to enjoyable sex, it ain’t what you do; it’s the way that you do it!

When we focus on distinguishing proper from not proper sex, it’s all about which bodies are involved and what they should do to each other. When we focus instead on distinguishing enjoyable from less enjoyable sex, the emphasis is much more on how we relate to ourselves and each other, and what we might like to do. In other words, it’s more about how you do things rather than what you do. This is not to say – of course – that everybody would (or should) enjoy all of the possible sexual activities if they just did them in the right way. Rather it’s about giving us clues about how we can do the things that we prefer in the ways that will be most enjoyable. This book is about figuring out which activities or practices you find enjoyable (and less enjoyable) and how you can go about doing them in the most enjoyable ways.