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Communication: Relationships and Sex

How to Talk About Sex

Try and Cover the Following:

• ·            What pace to go at
• ·            Sexual health of both partners (History of STDs, HIV, etc)
• ·            What you feel is required/needed to be engaged in SA
• ·            If and how you masturbate
• ·            How you feel about your body image
• ·            What feels good/doesn’t
• ·            Safe BC methods
• ·            Sexual ethics/beliefs
• ·            Relationship status

Why is it difficult?

-Media doesn’t portray sexual discussion at all. It just happens.

-Shown either pregnancy OR passionate sex scene. Nothing in between.

-Upbringing: closed-minded environments, even passionate environments that don’t promote rational discussion

-Habit into adulthood may be hard to break

-Current non-sex discussions aren’t good: Are you friends? How comfortable are you able to talk about relationships/family/other things?...Daily, open communication is key for all topics, not just sex, for a sexual relationship

What to do:

-Before you have any sex period, lay it down: We should have a goal to always talk about sex openly, honestly, even if it is hard at first, so that we can ensure good sexual and emotional health for us both

-Accept that things might be awkward to talk about, with or without clothes on

-Accept that you might have to talk about sex before having sex

-Talk with clothes on in a private but not tempting place

-If you ever feel uncomfortable with someone doing something tell them then to stop at that very moment

Keys for Good Communication

-Avoid accusation, start statements with “I”

-Just say it is outright awkward

-Be sensitive with words, accept that there might be certain times to do things and not others

-Use careful language-don’t use slang if they don’t know, what language works best for both people?...also, do people like talking during sex? Find a middle ground

-Recognize the ongoing progress: talk a little bit each day (don’t overwhelm), mull things over

-Have confidence in the conversation or else it will go bad if you think it will go bad

-Talk about positives, what the partner is good at

-Don’t forget to laugh!

-When it comes to protection, say NO if they are disagreeing about importance of it

-Be specific : NOT what do yout hink of our sex life, but how do you like your clitoris to be touched , etc.

-Ask them based on where they came from “Have you ever tried…”

-keep things positive, don’t say “I’m bored”

-Code words for when to stop

-How you react to people’s sharing/fantasies is different

Why do some people feel resistant to talking about sex?

-It kills the buzzàwe need to talk at some point though

-We are avoiding being close/vulnerableàBut sex is both of these things! We shouldn’t be having sex if we can’t communicate

-We want to be involved with fantasy and not reality

-Talking implies being ready, and maybe they don’t exactly feel ready

-Don’t let yourself get into a pattern of no communication, feeling unsafe/uneasy

-Start earlier rather than later

-This is all about partnered sex...communication is different for people who prefer casual sex

Resources:

http://www.scarleteen.com/article/sexuality/be_a_blabbermouth_the_whys_whats_and_hows_of_talking_about_sex_with_a_partner

http://jezebel.com/#!5669930/social-minefield-how-to-talk-to-your-partner-about-sex

Jiffy Lube

Bet I can teach you everything you must know about lube in 3 minutes!


Ready?


1. IT'S GOOD. REALLY GOOD. No matter how hot the action is, lube makes it wetter, better, and safer. End of story.
2. There are three main kinds: Water based, oil based, and silicone based.
3. Water based is the most common and least expensive. It's latex safe (yay), but not particularly long lasting.
4. Oil based lube (including makeshift versions like Vaseline) is THICK, but not latex safe. 
5. Silicone lube can be just as thick as oil based lube, but is safe for use with latex. Hooray! It's also super long lasting, so though more expensive than water based, a little goes a long way. The main thing to watch out for here is that you don't use it with your silicone toys-it'll erode them.
6. Flavored lube is really really meant for oral use only, and use with caution around lady parts: the glycerin that makes it sweet can cause yeast infections. 


Now go and get it on. With lube.




-Rosie Alig

Equipped for Pleasure: Is the Romance Novel Making Condom Use Sexy?

I.      

  I should preface this by saying I never read romance novels, I am not an eminent source on them whatsoever, but I heard a friend of mine say (or maybe I read somewhere?) that “romance novels are like porn for chicks, because it’s acceptable for them to look at.” Putting aside the vastly insulting assumptions packed so tightly into that sentence (Is it unacceptable for women to look at ‘real’ porn? Do men never read romance novels? Is there a ‘normal’ when it comes to deciding from where we derive our sexual pleasure?), I realized I know very little about the novels themselves, their portrayals of sex and why they have come to be celebrated by some and stigmatized or put down by others (as all things tend to do, I suppose). So I went downstairs and picked up my house’s copy of Cosmopolitan Magazine and flipped to their section called Red Hot Reads… and began to read.

The excerpt was entitled “Built For Pleasure.” The description at the top read, “Reeling from a bad breakup, Maddie Moore has thrown herself into restoring an old inn she’s inherited. It’s all the distraction she needs until Jax, the sexy contractor, shows her he has more to offer than just a handy tool belt.”

The scene opens in the attic of the inn, where Maddie is busily cleaning until Jax walks in, a smoldering vision of a “tall, tattooed, and perfectly-chiseled body.” As the heat rises, the first thing that caught my attention was not how sexy the story was, but rather one particular sentence, sandwiched somewhat innocuously between sensual descriptions of passionate lust: “Writhing underneath him, she tightened her grip on his shoulders and kissed him, feeling him hard and throbbing at her hip. ‘I need you inside me.’ He quickly got up and took a condom from the wallet in his jeans. He began groaning when she helped him roll it down his length.”

I opened up the issue from the previous month. There, at the height of the love scene, “she pulled down his boxers, feeling how much he wanted her. ‘Hold on,’ Lucas said as he hastily pulled out a condom from the pocket of his jeans.”  

Wait a minute. Were these romance novels… making safe sex sexy?

II.    

  In a 2000 study published in the Psychology of Women Quarterly, Amanda Diekman, Mary McDonald, and Wendi Gardner analyzed correlations between women’s reading habits of romance novels and their attitudes towards condom use. They surveyed about 100 female undergraduate students. In one part of the study, the subjects were asked to say if they read political essays, science fiction, or romance novels the most. The study found that of the population who answered that they read romance novels the most, they had the least-positive attitudes towards condom use, and were least likely to report past condom use.

Then, subjects were asked to read one of two types of selections from a romance novel for three weeks. Says the study, “In the traditional romance script condition, participants read segments excerpted directly from romance novels that were part of the initial content analysis and included elements of the “swept away” myth. A different segment was read each week. For example, one segment read as follows:

“He touched, hardly touching at all, and left her weak. His mouth, gliding like a cool breeze over her flesh, was rapture. . . .When she sighed, he brought his lips back to hers.

He undressed her slowly, bringing the gown down inch by inch, wallowing in the delight of warming the newly bared skin. Fascinated with each tremor he brought her, he lingered. Then he took her gently over the first crest.

           In the safe sex version, participants read identical segments, except that the following paragraph was inserted between the two paragraphs in the previous example.

                    He pulled back slightly so he could look at her. “Should we use protection?” he asked gently. She nodded at him, her face warm, as he unwrapped the bright foil. Pleased with his concern for her, she smiled at him and kissed his throat.”

         The study found that after three weeks, the group reading the segment with the included safe sex section were surveyed to have more positive views on condom use, and greater intention to use condoms in the future.

This quote stood out to me from the article:

“As expected from past examinations of the passive role of women in the romantic script (e.g., Rose, 1985), the male character initiated the discussion or use of a condom in every instance. Furthermore, the female character was portrayed as rejecting condom use in almost half of the discussions. This was a disturbing finding. “True love,” according to some novels, is apparently expressed through the female character actually disregarding the risks to her health. In fact, the female characters who rejected condom use gave reasons such as ‘I want no barriers between us.’” (Diekman et al, pg 181).

III.  

     So what does this tell us about how, for the population that reads romance novels, these books influence our views or standards of sexuality? This can obviously be extrapolated to pornography, movie love scenes, sexual education classes… the list goes on. Making safe sex sexy is a great way to reduce the stigma around latex use. When was the last time you saw a cunnilingus oral sex scene in a movie where the giver used a dental dam? If it were well conveyed and tastefully done, would this change the sensuality or passion of the scene? Hopefully not, though I can only assume there is a steep learning curve needed in order to get used to seeing condoms more in films and books as a passion intensifier rather than a fumbling teenaged boy’s comedic pre-sexual encounter prop.


--Mia Stange

Sources:

--> Excerpts from Simply Irresistible, by Jill Shalvis, in Cosmopolitan Nov 2010 and Last Chance, by Christy Reece, excerpted in Cosmopolitan Dec 2010

--> Diekman, A. B., McDonald, M. and Gardner, W. L. (2000), LOVE MEANS NEVER HAVING TO BE CAREFUL. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 24: 179–188.

  -->Widdice LE, Cornell JL, Liang W, Halpern-Felsher BL. Journal of Adolescent Health, 2006 Oct. Having sex and condom use: potential risks and benefits reported by young, sexually inexperienced adolescents. You can read the full research here.

Interesting read: Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Reading Romance Novels by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan (link on Google Books can be found here.

NB: This is a very heterosexually-directed set of studies/observations, and for that I apologize. I would be interested to look into condom/dental dam use in homosexual and/or lesbian erotica (and even just in pornography).

Also: This study is ten years old, and since then there have been major campaigns to decrease the stigmatization of condom use. Still, a lot more can be done. One other thing to think about in love scenes you read is, if they do portray condom use, who initiates it? Is it still true what the 2000 study said, that men always initiate? What does this do to female narratives of agency in these romance scenes? It would be great to get a compilation of statistics on contemporary romance novels—what’s changed? Do you think Cosmopolitan requires their authors to insert a sentence including condoms into their published sex scenes? 

WELCOME!!!

Hello to all and welcome to our blog!
This is a space for Smith College's peer sexuality educators (PSE) to blog about topics that interest us and a space for those who wish to learn sexuality information in an open, accepting and sex positive environment!
Feel free to ask questions and comment on any posts and I hope you learn a lot!