We do not live in a culture of healthy sex. Prohibition, shame and anxiety prevail limiting our chances for healthy sexual development. Sex is considered dirty so we keep it hidden from view. Parents are uncomfortable talking about it so communication is blocked. As a result we live in a culture of ‘drunken sex’ where we have to anesthetize ourselves to anxiety and inhibition before we’re free to express sexual desire.
Without dialogue we’re left on our own to test the boundaries of sexual behavior. So we learn by trial and error. However, when drunk, we’re numb to the feedback necessary to tell us whether our actions are welcome or not. Without feedback, development is impaired, which may explain the prevalence of assault when we reach college.
Growing up in the middle-ages (before the Internet) I learned more about healthy sex from Penthouse Forum than anywhere else. This was a section of letters from readers describing their sexual experiences followed by comments from one the magazines outside ‘experts’. It sounded like an honest and straightforward exchange. I remember some of the contributors were women … most were men … but they all stressed the same thing: your partner’s pleasure is just as important as your own and that the goal is to develop intimacy. I remember spending afternoons reading these when I was a teenager who could only imagine what sex might be like. I was fascinated. It taught me to be receptive to my partner and responsive in bed. It told me that foreplay is sex … not just something leading up to it. It pointed me to books on Tantric Yoga. I made a to-do list of things that made up satisfying foreplay … prolonged periods of touching and caressing … attention to what’s above the belt … and how it shouldn’t be rushed or scripted. It taught me that sex was more than just ‘getting off’. Now I’m by no means a model of stellar performance in the sack … but I think it helped that someone was talking about it … and how ironic that it was Penthouse magazine.
