The Blowfish Blog

Couple’s Couch: Relationship Values or What I learned From Teaching Teens, Part 2

“How do we know we’re ready to have sex with someone?” I posited to the group. There was much rolling of the eyes at this question, but eventually most of the girls got into the discussion.

It helped that I had brought a list handed to me (without citations) entitled, “Top Ten Things To Do Before You Have Sex: a list for teenagers.” We had fun pointing out that #7: Meeting Your Partner’s Parents might not be a good idea in the slightest if anyone wants to actually get laid, and so on and so forth before getting down to number one on the list, the real crowd pleaser.

#1: Be Able to Give Yourself an Orgasm

If you’ve never had the pleasure of talking to teens about orgasms, I suggest you try. Fraught with giggles and extreme rolling of the eyes, it’s a good reminder of how forbiddingly exuberant speaking about sex used to be when we pretended to be innocent.

These girls are anything but innocent. Most of them have had more sexual partners before the age of 15 than I’ve had in my lifetime (admittedly not nearly as high as one might imagine being in my line of work). They’ve cheated on partners, been cheated on, slept around with other ladies in Juvenile Hall. They’ve been pimped out, pimped out their friends, survived some serious sexual trauma, and some have even assaulted other people. And yet, I say the word “masturbate” in their presence and the room falls apart into giggles.

How can such sexually experienced people lose their gangster cool over talking about orgasms? Or about being naked with the lights on? Or about putting someone else’s condom on to his hard cock?

Fearlessness can so easily be felled by the hint of sexual vulnerability.

Never has this been so potent to me as it was when watching a room full of bravado quelled into nervous uncertainty. Suddenly the ringleaders of ferocious cliques were bemoaning their stretch marks and discomfort around buying lube like everyone else I’ve ever known. Sex is the great equalizer.

When I was coming of age in the bedroom, I was allowed to talk about fucking. I could talk about blow jobs, about techniques, about fancy underwear, condoms, the pill, but I could not talk about getting myself off. That was a major faux pas.

Nothing has changed, apparently. My clients will talk about sex, about wanting it and how to do it, down to the gritty details, but they’ll never mention their own pleasure. It’s as if their orgasm is not as important as the fact that they are indeed having sex. Perhaps why #1 on the list was so controversial.

I wonder how many sexually active adults had orgasms before having sex with lovers. My guess is that most men, with their sexual equipment ever at the ready, are well versed in orgasm before ever laying hands on another. But women?

My partner is pretty up front with the fact that she was almost out of college and eight sexual partners into life before masturbating to orgasm for the first time. Other friends of ours took just as long, if not longer, to figure out how to make jilling-off feel good. I wonder what first sexual experiences would look like for people if everyone who engaged with another already knew how to come. I’d like to live in that world. A world, perhaps, with a whole lot fewer secrets around pleasure.

So imagine my surprise when the giggling died down and one of the ladies asked me point blank, “So how do I make it happen?” She meant orgasm, as in, could I please describe for her how to achieve orgasm. I wanted to floor to open up and swallow me right then and there.

Lame, Rebekah. So uncool. You, a sex-educator of all people, should be able to help a room full of uncomfortable, questioning teens discover the mysteries of their bodies. But I didn’t. I did what all adults do and I turned their questions back on them. I avoided answering because I got scared that they would think about me masturbating, that they would know. I would have to expose myself and be seen. I couldn’t get myself to do it.

Not that they showed any sort of disappointment, mind you. Right after the question was asked, the girl who asked it looked as if she herself would rather be swallowed up by the floor than have me answer. I was afraid to tell, she was afraid to ask. She did the braver thing, being that her peers were in the room. As for me, I hid, just like all the adults that came before me when I asked them my own personal questions.

I’m not proud, but I am curious about my reaction. Even as I work to put an end to sexual shame, I reenact mine upon others. And because of this, I learn how to do it better next time.

— Rebekah Skoor, MA

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This entry was posted on Thursday, 28 February 2008 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.