how to have great sex Archives - Rewriting The Rules

Enrich TV: Interview on love and sex

Meg-John Barker — Thu, 16 Feb 2017 14:26:59 +0000

Hey everyone. Here’s a new video interview with me chatting about various projects with Darya from Enrich TV, including my top relationships tips:

Reflect on the cultural messages about relationships and how well they fit for you
Consider treating all kinds of relationships as valuable, rather than prioritising romantic ones
Recognise that separateness is as important as togetherness
Practise being present to how things are now, remembering that everything changes over time
Put sex in its place (wherever that is for you)

I hope you enjoy it…

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BDSM 101: Consent, consent, consent

Meg-John Barker — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 09:10:15 +0000

This week I’m blogging about kink up to the film release of Fifty Shades of Grey. In the previous three days I’ve covered mythbusting, finding out more, and figuring out what you’re into. Today – to finish – I’m focusing on the most important issue of consent. If you want to find out more, check out my books, zines, and podcasts which cover this topic in more depth.

If you like this, please do consider supporting my Patreon.

The Consent Checklist

Consent, consent, consent

Despite what you might think from Fifty Shades, consent is not just a matter of having a safeword! In fact we can see from Fifty Shades itself that safewords are not enough. The first time that Christian spanks Ana she’s really not sure if she likes it. Her feelings about it change from when it happens to later when she reflects on it. She has similar ambivalence on other occasions but clearly doesn’t feel that she can use her safeword to express that uncertainty.

There are huge cultural pressures around sex. We often feel – as Ana seems to – that we must have certain kinds of sex a certain amount in order not to lose a relationship. We feel that we should ‘perform’ certain kinds of sex in order to be a ‘real’ man/woman, or a ‘proper’ straight or queer person. We feel like if we’ve had a kind of sex before we’re obligated to have it again. We feel too embarrassed or awkward to say we’re not enjoying something. We feel that because we’ve done one thing we should automatically do others. All of these are deeply problematic ways of thinking about sex which hurt us badly, but they are also really hard to completely step away from because they’re so engrained in our culture.

So, when it comes to consent, we can’t just rely on partners to say ‘no’ or safeword if they’ve stopped enjoying it. Instead, consent should be about trying to minimise the pressures that they – and we – are under, so that we can be as confident as possible that what we’re doing is consensual. How can we do this? Well it is definitely worth talking about the messages we’ve received about sex and reassuring the other person that we really wouldn’t want them doing something they don’t enjoy. We can also deliberately avoid making any suggestion that kink or sex should involve certain things (e.g. genitals, pain, orgasms, or fancy outfits) or that certain things are more or less normal.

It’s also worth thinking about wider power dynamics that are in play between you. Is one person older than the other, or from a gender, race, or class with more social power? Does one person earn a lot more than the other (hello Christian Grey!)? Is one person much more sexually experienced or confident in their capacity to find other sexual/romantic partners? Are there differences between you in terms of mental or physical health? All of these are worth considering in relation to how the person with greater power (in these various areas) can maximise freedom of the other person to be able to say no (or yes). Of course it’s likely that you’ll each have more, or less, power in different areas.

Finally it is troubling how much we tend to assume that we’ll be able to have consensual sex – or play – when our wider relationships are not very consensual at all. The Pervocracy puts it really well:

I think part of the reason we have trouble drawing the line “it’s not okay to force someone into sexual activity” is that in many ways, forcing people to do things is part of our culture in general. Cut that shit out of your life. If someone doesn’t want to go to a party, try a new food, get up and dance, make small talk at the lunchtable–that’s their right. Stop the “aww c’mon” and “just this once” and the games where you playfully force someone to play along. Accept that no means no–all the time.

Fifty Shades is a perfect example of how to get this wrong. Christian is constantly doing things after Ana has clearly said ‘no’, such as buying her expensive gifts, following her on holiday, and getting involved in her work. How on earth is she to trust that he’d respect her ‘no’ when they’re playing? And just as Christian tries to convince Ana that she’s a submissive, Ana tries to force Christian to be the ‘hearts and flowers’ boyfriend that she’d really like. How are they to trust each other not to try to pressure, control, and manipulate when it comes to their sex life?

If you’re bringing kink into an existing relationship it’s definitely worth having a good hard look at whether you treat each other consensually around other things, such as socialising, food or finances, and how you might be more consensual in those areas. It’s also worth thinking about whether you treat yourself consensually! This is something I’ve written more about here and there is lots of useful stuff about cultivating consensual communities over on the Consent Cultures blog.

Conclusions

I hope these posts have given you a flavour of some of the things that are worth thinking – and communicating – about when exploring kink. As I said earlier, there are heaps more helpful resources out there to draw on. There’s another excellent list available from Clarisse Thorn’s website here.

It can be amazing, when you haven’t done so before, to finally give yourself permission to have the kind of sex and/or play that really excite you. Tuning into yourself, communicating with others, and cultivating consensual dynamics, are all excellent ways to start opening that door.

If you want to find out more, check out my books, zines, and podcasts which cover this topic in more depth.

If you enjoyed this, please do consider supporting my Patreon.

The Consent Checklist

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BDSM 101: Figuring out, and communicating, what you’re into

Meg-John Barker — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 08:00:21 +0000

This week I’m blogging about kink up to the film release of Fifty Shades of Grey. Yesterday focused on finding out more. Today I’m covering how to figure out, and communicate, what you’re into. If you want to find out more, check out my books, zines, and podcasts which cover this topic in more depth:

Figuring out what you’re into

There’s a sense in Fifty Shades that the kind of ‘kinky fuckery’ that Ana finds herself enjoying is fine, but that the kind of ‘real’ BDSM that Christian is after is not okay. Please put these kinds of distinctions from your mind! People are always trying to draw lines between what kinds of play are okay and what kinds aren’t. For ages it was that missionary penis-in-vagina man/woman sex was fine and nothing else was. Then it expanded a bit to any kind of sex involving genitals was okay, but other stuff wasn’t. Now, after Fifty Shades, we’re told that a bit of light spanking and fluffy handcuffs is okay but anything ‘more than that’ isn’t. All this focus on what counts as normal, right, proper sex (and what doesn’t) takes us aware from far more important questions such as what the people involved actually enjoy, and how to do it ethically.

So the first step is to try (as much as is actually possible) to step away from all the things you’ve learnt about ‘normal sex’ and all the pressure there is right now to have ‘amazing sex’ with all kinds of toys and techniques, and just tune in to what you’d actually like to do. Importantly that might involve bringing kink into your sex life, or kink might be something you explore without linking it to sex. Many people enjoy things like role-play, sensation-play, bondage, and impact-play without necessarily involving genitals or orgasms.

Another key thing is to remember what a big umbrella kink, or BDSM, is. People are into all different kinds of things and for all different kinds of reasons. For example you might enjoy playing with power (bossing people around, or serving someone) and never go near pain or strong sensations. Or vice versa. Or you might enjoy mixing those things together. People sometimes use D/s to refer to the more power-based forms of play, and SM for the more sensation based. Even for any one activity, people get different things out of it. So, for example, if you like the idea of hitting someone with a riding crop to humiliate them you might not fit so well with someone who wants to be hit as a form of physical endurance. Again, nobody should ever tell you that your motivations or preferences are any less valid that anyone else’s.

Research suggests that around equal proportions of people prefer being the top or dominant person, the bottom or submissive person, and switching between different positions at different times. You could think which applies best to you, as well as recognising that it often changes over time.

Communicating what you’re into

Fifty Shades isn’t a great example of how to communicate about what you want. Ana is just presented with a list of Christian’s interests and told to say which she’ll consent to and which she won’t. This means that their play is entirely based on what one of them wants rather than both of them. Also it often seems like Christian telepathically knows what will give Ana multiple orgasms with no communication whatsoever. Real people don’t work like this!

If you’re not sure what you’re into it is worth you – and the person or people you’re thinking of playing with – doing a bit of self-exploration. Check out some kinky videos, erotic fiction, or books of popular fantasies and see what piques your interest. Many people in BDSM communities suggest ‘yes, no, maybe’ checklists. These are lists of all imaginable activities which you can go through saying which you’re up for and which you aren’t. There are many versions online – here’s just one of them.

Of course these are worth revisiting from time to time because our preferences and desires often change over time, and with experience. Some people write, and update, a kind of ‘user manual’ for themselves to give partners a longer explanation of how they – and their body – works. One particularly important thing to get across is any ‘hard limits’ and ‘triggers’ you’re aware of so that partners know what they really mustn’t do or say.

Sometimes people have the idea that talking about these things is unsexy or unromantic. A good rejoinder is that non-consensual play is a lot less sexy and romantic. Also, my friend Hannah gives a great analogy:

When you choose a restaurant based on the type of cuisine you like, read the menu, discuss dish choices with your companions, ask the waiter some questions about the specials, and tell him how you like your steak, does it ruin your appetite or spoil your enjoyment of the meal?

It is worth being very cautious about playing with somebody who isn’t up for some form of communication, and it can be extremely sexy and romantic to share fantasies or plan out a scene in advance. You could even put aside an evening specifically for that purpose, with all of the delayed gratification that involves. If face-to-face is hard then writing things down (online or offline) can be easier and equally exciting (although with the proviso that online communication is not completely private).

Of course Ana has a hard job telling Christian what she wants because she has zero experience of sex or kink. It can be very hard to communicate what you’re into if you haven’t actually tried things. In such cases communication might be more a matter of letting each other know how to tell if you’re enjoying something or not. For example, are you somebody who is very noisy when enjoying things or do you go quiet?

Safewords like in Fifty Shades are obviously a good idea but ideally there should be a lot more going on than that. If you’re just starting to try out some stuff it’s worth going gently and slowly, and checking in regularly with each other how it’s going (where’s this for them on a scale of one to ten, for example). Don’t assume that the way something feels for you will be the way it feels for somebody else. People are all different and what is gentle for you may be near the limit for them. You can always try out something you’re curious about in a much more light and playful experimental context before bringing it in more seriously.

Checking in is important for everybody involved. Tops and dominants can struggle just as much as bottoms and submissives, with the added pressure that they are often the one who is expected to orchestrate or control everything.

The absolutely essential thing with all of this is to create conditions under which whatever you do is most likely to be consensual for all concerned. Whether you’re playing with an existing partner, or somebody you’ve met through kink community who has good word of mouth as a trustworthy person, the next post will cover the kinds of things you really need to consider in order for play to be consensual.

Tomorrow: Consent, consent, consent.

If you want to find out more, check out my books, zines, and podcasts which cover this topic in more depth:

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BDSM 101: Finding out more about kink

Meg-John Barker — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 08:00:05 +0000

This week I’m blogging about kink up to the film release of Fifty Shades of Grey. Yesterday was an introduction. Today I’m focusing on how to find out more about kink. If you want to find out more, check out my books, zines, and podcasts which cover this topic in more depth:

Finding out more about kink

In Fifty Shades Christian swears Ana to secrecy about their kink relationship so that she can’t talk to anybody else in her life about it. This is a terrible idea! It’s a huge warning sign in a relationship if there are areas you’re forced to keep secret. Given how common kink is there may well be people already in your life who you can chat openly about your ideas with. However there is still stigma around kink, so you might prefer to talk with people who’re already involved in BDSM.

If you’re new to kink, there is a huge wealth of information available to help you get started. It’s definitely worth checking this out and learning from people who have been there and got the Tshirt.

I wouldn’t suggest going to general sex advice books to find out about kink. Generally they are pretty poor with only brief sections that don’t cover any detail about consent or practicalities. Some of the spin-offs from Fifty Shades are equally dubious (note: cable ties are not a good idea for bondage!) Go to the community experts instead. The books by Lee (Bridget) Harrington & Mollena Williams, Tristan Taormino, and Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy are particularly helpful places to start. Many of those folk have blogs, podcasts, and video clips that you can check out as well.

Online FetLife is also a good social networking space to meet others and chat about kink-related topics or get advice from more experienced folk. There are also groups on general social networking spaces like facebook. Offline munches and fetish fairs are a great place to start meeting other people to play with and/or learn from. At these kinds of events the emphasis is just on chatting and exchanging information, rather than doing anything kinky yourself, so they can be great for the newbie. Online and offline there are loads of different groups, clubs, events, etc. for different interests, sexualities, genders, and so on, so do find ones that feel comfortable to you.

However, a word of caution about getting involved with BDSM communities: It can be easy, as someone new to kink, to assume that everybody already there knows what they are doing and has your best interests at heart. The manta of ‘safe, sane, consensual’ can leave you assuming anybody you meet would be safe to play with. As I said earlier, sadly kink groups aren’t exempt from abusive behaviour, and you should be just as cautious as you would be anywhere else. Unfortunately some people do prey on folk who are new to the scene, relying on their ignorance, and the stigma around kink, to keep their silence. Particularly it’s worth running a mile from anybody who tells you that they’re some great expert, that they know what you want, that you should do certain things to be a ‘proper’ submissive or dominant, or that you should go faster than feels comfortable to you (basically the Christian Grey vibe is one to be well cautious of!)

SexGeek has much more information on this, plus a great list of resources for people new to kink, and Erica Hanna has written an excellent, and well-researched, post about things to be cautious of when getting involved with kink communities and events.

Also, as Elizabeth Sheff and Corie Hammers found in their research, sadly most kink communities – like many other sexual communities – are not very diverse in terms of race and class. As in Fifty Shades there can be a link between BDSM, wealth and whiteness which is excluding, for example the idea that it is necessary to buy a ‘red room’ full of expensive kit in order to be ‘proper’ kinky. Another tip from Fifty Shades can help a little here: Cable ties aside, a lot of equipment can be purchased cheaply from a hardware store, or taken from a kitchen cupboard (e.g. ropes, clothes pegs, spatulas, candles). Again the books and websites mentioned can help with adapting everyday kit, and there is also some good community writing about creating more inclusive communities.

Finally, if you have any worries or anxieties about the kind of kink that you’re interested in – such as whether it is consensual or not – then it could be worth chatting with a kink-affirmative professional. Sadly we’re still not in a situation where all therapists and counsellors are knowledgeable about kink, and some are downright pathologising, so check out a site like Pink Therapy (UK) or Kink-Aware Professionals (US) to find somebody decent.

Of course you might not want to get that involved in kink community if it is more that you just want to bring some BDSM into an existing relationship. But it is well worth cracking a book or two, and checking out some informative websites, to learn the basics in terms of physical and emotional risks and establishing consent. The rest of these posts give a few suggestions to start with, but there’s plenty more information and advice out there.

Tomorrow: Figuring out, and communicating, what you’re into.

If you want to find out more, check out my books, zines and podcasts which cover this topic in more depth:

The post BDSM 101: Finding out more about kink appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

BDSM 101 (or what to do and what not to do from Fifty Shades of Grey)

Meg-John Barker — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 08:00:13 +0000

As somebody who has researched with BDSM communities for over a decade, and written about the Fifty Shades books, I thought it’d be useful to give my suggestions for people who are thinking about getting into kink for the first time having watched the Fifty Shades movie. If you want to find out more, check out my books and zines which cover this topic in more depth. If you like this, please do consider supporting my Patreon.

So, over the next four days, I’m going to cover the following topics, including where I think Fifty Shades gets it right, and where it has a lot of room for improvement:

Mythbusting about BDSM
Getting informed about kink
Figuring out, and communicating, what you’re into
Consent, consent, consent

Before we go on it’s important to say that pretty much everything covered here is also true for any kind of sex – not just kink. It’s sad that people often don’t think about tuning into what they enjoy, or ensuring consent, until they’re considering BDSM. So you might well find it useful to read on even if kink isn’t something you’re particularly interested in.

First some myth-busting

There are a lot of myths out there about BDSM, which stands for Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, and Sadomasochism. Fifty Shades manages to challenge some of these, but also leads some of them in tact. So what do we actually know?

Well, first of all the whole Fifty Shades phenomenon demonstrates that having some kinky desires or fantasies is not abnormal. There’s no way the books would have been such bestsellers if it were. And research bears this out. Around two thirds of people have fantasies about bondage, and other common interests like spanking and roleplay are not far behind.

Research has also now clearly demonstrated that being into kink also doesn’t make you psychologically unhealthy or more likely to be injured during sex. BDSMers actually come out as higher than others on emotional well-being in some studies, and they don’t turn up in ER any more than anybody else.

However, Fifty Shades does – unfortunately – perpetuate one common myth about BDSM: that people who are into kink are more likely to have been abused themselves (as Christian Grey was as a child) or to be abusive (as the women who introduced the young Christian Grey to BDSM was, as was one of his other ex-partners).

Again the evidence shows that BDSMers have childhoods that are indistinguishable from other people’s and are no more likely to be abusive themselves. Of course, that means that there will be folk in the BDSM world who have experienced abuse (just as there are in the general population). Also, sadly we know that there are abusive people in all communities and BDSM is not exempt from this. But it’s important to remember it is no more likely here, despite how it might seem in Fifty Shades.

So it’s absolutely fine to want to be kinky. However, as with all forms of sex, it is worth thinking up front about how you’re going to do it in as consensual and enjoyable way as possible – both for yourself and for any other people involved. That’s what the rest of these posts will cover.

Next: finding out more about kink.

If you want to find out more, check out my books and zines which cover this topic in more depth. And if you enjoyed this, please do consider supporting my Patreon.

The Consent Checklist

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Consensual Relationships Revisited: Only with Consent

Meg-John Barker — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 09:00:34 +0000

This post applies the concept of consent to all relationships in various ways. This topic is taken up in a lot more detail on my website with Justin Hancock, and in our book Enjoy Sex (How, When and IF You Want To).

Content warning: abusive relationships and abusive sex are touched on briefly in this post.

Recently I wrote a post here about open relationships. It explored how the concept of openness might be applied to relationships more widely than just open non-monogamy – which is what people usually mean when they talk about open relationships. Whilst my research with polyamorous communities started by focusing on non-monogamy, I think that openness is a useful concept to apply to all kinds of relationships, not just non-monogamous relationships or just partner relationships.

A similar thing has happened with my research on kink, or BDSM, communities. Initially, like many of the researchers who have tried to learn from – rather than explain – kink, my focus was on the ways in which people ensured that their play was Safe, Sane and Consensual (SSC) or Risk Aware Consensual Kink (RACK). Those terms are the mantras of the kink communities. Whilst RACK recognises the problems with the idea that the things people do could ever be entirely safe, or completely sane (whatever that means), it retains the idea that consent is the vital cornerstone of BDSM sex.

However, my latest piece of research with kink communities was all about how common ideas about consent are currently being questioned, and reconsidered, by people in those communities. Online conversations over the last three or four years have radically challenged understandings of consent in ways that I think are useful for everyone, far beyond just kink communities.

The Consent Culture movement has argued that the idea of consent needs to be expanded out in a number of ways.

Consent is about:

All sex, not just kinky sex
Enthusiastic mutual agreement, not just the ability to say ‘no’
The whole relationship, not just the sex parts
All relationships, not just sexual relationships (including the relationships that we have with ourselves)
The whole culture, not just the individuals within it

The idea is that unless we aim for consensual relationships beyond the bedroom, with all the people in our lives, and in our wider culture, it will be very hard – if not impossible – to ensure consent within sexual encounters, whether those are kinky or non-kinky. It isn’t possible to isolate just one aspect of human behaviour (sex) and ensure that it is conducted under a completely different set of rules than the ones that we use when managing the domestic chores,for example, or inviting someone out to a social occasion, or putting structures in place for how our work projects will be conducted.

I’ll take each one of these expansions in turn now, and explore how we might encourage all of our relationships, networks and communities to become more consensual.

All sex, not just kinky sex

This last few months my main research project has involved analysing sex advice media. One thing that is really noticeable in mainstream sex advice is that there is hardly any consideration of consent at all. On the few occasions when consent is mentioned, it only happens when the authors start writing about kinky sex. In all of the books listing multiple positions for sex, and all of the agony aunt musings on sexual problems, there is hardly any mention of the need for sex to be consensual, or of the role of lack of consent in sexual difficulties. But when the topic of kink comes up – as it increasingly does since the 50 Shades phenomenon – suddenly everyone is being advised to proceed very carefully and to ensure that they have a safeword.

Of course it is good to see consent being mentioned at all, but given the extent to which non-consensual sex happens in non-kinky forms of sex it is shocking that there is so little about how to engage in that kind of sex consensually. It often seems like consent is just being used, in these few kinky mentions, to remind readers that BDSM is something ‘different’ and riskier: so it is seen as requiring consent in a way that ‘normal’ sex doesn’t.

In the sex advice book that Justin Hancock and I are writing, we aim to weave consent throughout the book rather than considering it only in relation to certain kinds of activities.

Enthusiastic mutual agreement, not just the ability to say ‘no’

One of the first things that many of the BDSM blogs say is that we need to move away from the ‘no means no’ version of consent, which is the one that we generally hear about. ‘No means no’ is the idea that sex is consensual so long as the other person doesn’t refuse our sexual invitation, or actively say ‘no’ (or use a safeword) during sex.

The idea of ‘enthusiastic’ or ‘yes means yes’ consent is that ‘no means no’ is a pretty poor basis on which to proceed.

For one thing, studies have found that people very rarely use the word ‘no’ when refusing things. It can be very difficult to start using it in a sexual context given how unfamiliar it is. Researchers asked young women and men how they would tend to turn down a friend’s invitation to go to the pub if they didn’t want to go. Generally they reported that they would say something like ‘I’m sorry I’m busy tonight’, or ‘I’ve got to finish this project’. Similarly, when they were asked what they’d do if they went home with somebody but then decided that they didn’t want sex, people of all genders said that they would say something like ‘I’m so sorry I’m actually really tired’ or ‘I’ve realised I’m not ready for this’. Crucially all the participants were clear that they would recognise such statements – from another person – as meaning the exact same thing as ‘no’.

This kind of finding lies behind the enthusiastic consent idea that we should read anything other than an enthusiastic ‘yes’ as a ‘no’. As one website puts it:

“NO” means NO.

“Not now” means NO.

“Maybe later” means NO.

“I have a boy/girlfriend” means NO.

“No thanks” means NO.

“You’re not my type” means NO.

“*#^+ Off!” means NO.

“I’d rather be alone right now” means NO.

“Don’t touch me” means NO.

“I really like you but …” means NO.

“Let’s just go to sleep” means NO.

“I’m not sure” means NO.

“You’ve/I’ve been drinking” means NO.

SILENCE means NO.

“__________ ” means NO.

Research suggests that the kind of ‘miscommunication’ that is often cited by perpetrators when non-consensual sex happens is generally not valid. People are mostly very capable of understanding a refusal that doesn’t include a ‘no’ in both social and sexual situations, and a direct ‘no’ is actually relatively uncommon.

However, there are certainly differences between people, particularly in terms of culture, class and neurodiversity, which meant that one person might struggle to read another’s reluctance. For this reason, enthusiastic consent can be a more helpful model than ‘no means no’ because it suggests that people only go ahead if everyone involved is enthusiastically saying – or demonstrating – that they want to do so. If you’re not receiving a clear, wholehearted, enthusiastic message to go ahead from a partner you don’t go ahead, and you check in with them (and vice versa). Also this is an ongoing process throughout the whole encounter, rather than a one-off thing that you do only at the beginning.

However, as with the capacity to decline sex, the capacity to enthusiastically consent is constrained by a number of other factors, so it is important not to leave it there. The Consent Culture bloggers suggest many things that individuals and communities can do in order to put in place the best possible conditions for people to engage with each other consensually.

The whole relationship, not just the sex parts

Here we can return to 50 Shades of Grey, as a helpful example. In the novels (and presumably the upcoming movie), it could be argued that the sex/kink was relatively consensual, at least according to the ‘no means no’ version of consent. Christian presents Ana with a list of all the things he likes and doesn’t like sexually, and she is able to remove anything that she doesn’t fancy doing. He also introduces her to the concept of a safeword so that she can stop a scene at any point.

Of course the enthusiastic consent model would prefer it if they mutually came up with a list of things that they both actually wanted to try, which they revised over time. Also it would be good if they considered how they might both check in with each other (verbally and/or non-verbally) throughout what they were doing to ensure they were still on the same page, and perhaps if they talked more together about how they both tended to express things so they would know that going in.

But the biggest problem with the consent between Ana and Christian is that it doesn’t exist in the rest of the relationship, only in relation to sex. Christian never hears Ana’s clear ‘no’ about him buying her gifts, following her on holiday, and getting involved in her work. Also both characters continually attempt to pressure, persuade or cajole the other into being what they want them to be: a submissive in Ana’s case, and a loving husband in Christian’s case. This is despite both stating very clearly that this is not what they want, several times over.

Could Ana really trust that Christian would respect her ‘no’ or safeword during sex when he had so often ignored it at other times? Could Christian really trust Ana’s consent to engage in activities when he knew that she was so desperate to convince him into the kind of relationship that she wanted with him.

So we can usefully ask ourselves how possible consent is in one aspect of a relationship (such as sex) if it is absent in other areas. If we find ourselves trying to force, control, pressure, persuade, or manipulate our partner in some areas, how easy will it be for us to adopt a different approach, or for them to be able to clearly express enthusiasm, or refusal, in others?

This is not easy stuff. We live in a wider culture of relationships where it is often deemed acceptable to try to gently – or not so gently – change a partner to be more like we want them to be: to nag them or niggle at them or pressure them to alter things because it would be better for us, or because we think it would be better for them. It can be easy, when we know someone well, to subtly manipulate them into doing what we want at the weekend, or to pressure them into going on the kind of holiday that will make us happy, or to try to convince them to dress differently or go on a diet, for example.

A particularly pervasive myth in relationships is that it isn’t acceptable to change. ‘You’ve changed’ is often deployed as an insult. This has implications for sex where people can feel huge pressure to continue the frequency and type of sex they had at the start. This can make it virtually impossible for them to feel able to refuse sex of particular kinds, or to express (or even know) what they might be enthusiastic about.

All relationships, not just sexual relationships

Several of the Consent Culture bloggers point out another difficulty in cultivating the kind of consensual relationships that are necessary in order for sex to be consensual. This is the fact that so few other relationships in our lives are consensual. As The Pervocracy puts it:

I think part of the reason we have trouble drawing the line “it’s not okay to force someone into sexual activity” is that in many ways, forcing people to do things is part of our culture in general. Cut that shit out of your life. If someone doesn’t want to go to a party, try a new food, get up and dance, make small talk at the lunchtable – that’s their right. Stop the “aww c’mon” and “just this once” and the games where you playfully force someone to play along. Accept that no means no – all the time.

Our interpersonal relationships are shot full of non-consent on this micro level. And, again, the model is often one of ‘no means no’ rather than of enthusiastic consent. Even though we know full well that somebody’s reluctance, or claim to be busy, or going quiet , or changing the subject, means that they don’t want to do what we’ve asked, it is easy to pretend that they might still be open to it because they haven’t actually said the word ‘no’.

Attempting to shift to an enthusiastic consent model in all our relationships can be very liberating. For example, after lots of conversations about this kind of thing in my friendship groups, I’ve noticed a subtle shift from a default assumption that if you’ve said you’re going to an event you ought to go. Instead now the default assumption is generally that we all have times when we get to the time of the event and –for whatever reason – we’re not in the right place for it. It is totally fine to say that we’re not up for it under those circumstances, without the need to provide any kind of explanation, and with an implicit ban on any attempts to persuade somebody further.

I’ve realised how much more enjoyable it is to have a coffee with somebody, or an evening out, when I know that the only people present are people who actively want to be there. It’s also a relief to know that it is totally fine to reschedule or to opt out when I’m not in the mood.

Enthusiastic consent in all relationships might involve things like: checking whether somebody wants physical contact rather than assuming (e.g. would you like a hug?); remembering to check in with people when there is an ongoing arrangement between you that whatever you’re doing is still something that they enjoy; assuming that the lack of an enthusiastic ‘yes’ to an invitation means the person probably doesn’t want to do what you’re suggesting, and leaving the ball in their court instead of continuing the invitations.

It’s also important to remember that different things work for different people. So in any relationship it could be valuable to initiate a conversation about how you can best communicate in order that the other person will feel able to decline, respecting that their way of communication might be different to yours. For example, they may find it easier to communicate about these things over certain media, or they could let you know that a certain response from them generally means that they are reluctant or uncomfortable.

Of course none of this is at all easy, especially when it runs so counter to the way we’ve often culturally learnt to do these things, and when we’ve often learnt to experience refusal as a personal rejection. But it is good to keep touching in with yourself about whether you are approaching people in a way that opens up, or closes down, their freedom to consent or not (e.g. to social arrangements, to work projects, or to the relationship in general).

(including the relationship that we have with ourselves)

This takes us to another major aspect of relationship consent which strangely only occurred to me very recently. I was talking about a recent interaction that I’d experienced as pushy and pressurising, suggesting that it felt non-consensual. A friend pointed out to me that I hadn’t been treating myself consensually in the situation.

I was shocked that I hadn’t noticed this given that I’m usually such a big advocate of the need for self-care and kindness as foundations for treating others compassionately. Looking back on the situation I realised that part of me felt obligated to respond in the way that I assumed the other person wanted me to. Then I felt trapped into a corner of either agreeing and feeling resentful, or refusing and feeling guilty and/or angry with them for putting me in that position. I realised that if I could treat myself consensually -really knowing that it was okay to agree or decline, and respecting my own limits in terms of what I could and couldn’t offer – then it all felt much less emotionally loaded and trapping.

Another situation which occurred to me was when I was at a social event. I didn’t want to talk with anyone because I was worried about getting pulled into a long conversation with somebody I didn’t really connect with. I realised that I was treating myself non-consensually in believing that once I’d started a conversation it wasn’t okay to move away. That meant I wasn’t engaging with anyone at all unless I could come up with a ‘good excuse’. An alternative would be to allow myself that it is fine to honestly say when I’ve got to the point that I just want to be alone, or with somebody I know well rather than in a group, or that I want to chat with a few different people over the course of the event.

Recently I had a realisation that, most evenings, I really enjoy doing something social early on (generally with one other person or with a small group), and then having some time at home before going to bed. I notice how I still don’t always feel okay just expressing that to friends who are more into late nights and who invite me along. Consensual self-relationships are definitely something that require cultivating!

Treating ourselves non-consensually can lead to us closing down because we fear the situations we might get into. For example, we might be worried that we will offer too much to somebody and have less time or energy for ourselves; that we will get into a relationships of whatever kind that doesn’t feel good for us because we think that it is what the other person wants; or that we won’t feel able to change what we have to offer as we (inevitably) change over time. This can lead to an all-or-nothing approach. On the other hand, when we are consensual with ourselves we can refuse; or offer only what we have to offer knowing that it is okay to change; or ask for time to consider things rather than responding straight away.

None of this is to say that such conversations or negotiations will be pain-free. But with a foundation of self-consent, the pain of acknowledging a discrepancy in what any two (or more) people want may become less enmeshed in a larger tangle of guilt, shame, anger, or self-recrimination. Hopefully you can stay with the loneliness that the other person doesn’t share what you want; or the sadness that you can’t reciprocate in the way that is desired; or the acknowledgement of your limitations; without criticising yourself – or the other person –for it.

The whole culture, not just individuals within it

Perhaps the main thing that the Consent Cultures movement emphasises is that individual relationships cannot easily become consensual in isolation. When we are in wider cultures where the norms are of non-consensual behaviour, it is very difficult for us to operate differently to that. There have been some really useful writings recently, for example, about how common and taken-for-granted non-consensual practices are within organisations, or within education. For example, people in positions of power over others often force them to do things; implicit rules state that people should be constantly available to their colleagues; and there are pressures to demonstrate ‘success’ in certain ways in competition with others.

Currently consent is taught very little in schools even in sex education, and this is a real problem. But people have pointed out that even if we did teach consent much more, at all levels and across different classes, it would be hard for children and young people to adopt consensual practices when they are often not treated consensually themselves in families and in schools. The idea of Consent Cultures leads us into some vital – but very challenging – conversations about how organisations, institutions, and societies operate.

As Pepper Mint points out:

we are in fact swimming in a soup of nonconsensual power dynamics, where our personal strategies are typically shaped by sets of options that can range from mildly undesirable to downright horrific.

So we need to think about all our relationships and how cultural power dynamics play out in them. For example, do differences in age, gender, cultural background, race, body type, disability, class, role, or anything else between us mean that we have different levels of power in this situation? How do these impact on the likely capacity of ourselves, and the other person, to be freely able to consent (or not) to what is being suggested? Are there pressures in play that make the other person feel that they should act enthusiastically, or say ‘yes’, even when they are not keen? And how might we decrease those pressures, or at least bring them out into the open? This is another useful set of questions to ask about the relationship between Ana and Christian in the Fifty Shades books.

Returning to the sex advice that I’ve been analysing, I feel very aware of how this kind of media often promotes a culture in which consent is difficult if not impossible. For example, there is often an implicit idea that any kind of discrepancy in what people in a relationship want sexually, or how much they want it, is bad. So there is encouragement for people to do things they don’t want to do in order to give the impression that there is no discrepancy.

Instead we could operate under the assumption that discrepancies of all kinds will be present in all our relationships: in terms of what people want to do together and how much they want to do it, as well as in relation to values, goals, and all kinds of other things.

This assumption of discrepancy means that we are less likely to fall into patterns of trying to determine who is right or wrong, or insisting that one person changes entirely to meet the other’s needs. Rather we can look at the discrepancy openly together, considering what we each have to offer, and where are limits are, and figuring out a way forward, for now.

Find out more…

Here’s some links to other posts of mine you might find helpful…

Also check out my books, zines, and podcasts which cover this topic in more depth:

Useful Resources:

There’s a good list of resources on the consent culture blog, and more is being written on this topic all the time if you search for the phrase ‘consent culture’.

Harriet Lerner‘s book ‘The Dance of Intimacy’ is a great reflection on the place of treating ourselves consensually in developing more consensual relationships.

The post Consensual Relationships Revisited: Only with Consent appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Sex therapy: Stop trying to be ‘normal’

Meg-John Barker — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 08:30:09 +0000

You can read more about the ideas covered in this post in my books The Psychology of Sex, and Enjoy Sex (How, When, and IF You Want To).

Yesterday The Observer published its special issue on sex. Based on their survey of British sexual attitudes and practices, the issue contains several interesting articles about current understandings and expectations around sex. They interviewed me and a couple of other sex therapists about what we thought was going on in this area, from our work with clients. You can real those interviews here, and I’ve included the full version of mine below. I addressed a few points in greater depth than they could cover in the article.

Overall I was pleased with the interview they published, especially with the fact that they used my quote ‘stop trying to be “normal”‘ as the headline. However, in retrospect I think I might have added a caveat: ‘stop trying to be “normal”. But that is really really difficult to do in a culture that puts so much pressure on people to conform to a certain idea of “normality”, so go gently on yourself.’

What are the most common issues raised in sex therapy by men?

Definitely problems with erections: either struggling to get and keep erections, or ‘premature ejaculations’ which mean that they feel they orgasm too quickly. There’s a lot of pressure on men around performance, so men’s sexual problems tend to relate to not feeling able to ‘perform’ as expected, and anxiety that this makes them less of a man.

Could you just tell me about how this has that changed since Viagra?

Viagra and other similar drugs have certainly changed things. Of course they have been very helpful to many many men in helping them to have the kind of sex they want. However it’s important to remember that they only work to keep erections in guys who can already get erections. So they can be disappointing for people who aren’t getting aroused in the first place.

At the same time, I think a lot of people have understood Viagra to mean that all sexual problems can be physiologically fixed and that this must mean that they are physiologically caused. That isn’t the case. A lot of sexual difficulties stem from the huge cultural pressure to ‘perform’ sexually in certain, limited, ways, and the anxiety that causes. Sexual difficulties can also be a really useful message from our bodies that they are not happy with what we’re trying to make them do (e.g. having sex that we don’t really want). The risk with drug therapies is that they encourage us to ignore those messages, and they may discourage us from trying to change the wider culture around sex which is such a big part of the problem.

What are the most common issues raised in sex therapy by women?

Mostly, for all genders, it is worries about anything that gets in the way of having the kind of sex that people feel is expected of them. With women, for example, if they don’t feel aroused enough or if their vagina is too tight or painful for penetration they often feel anxious. For a lot of women there’s a big fear that if they don’t have the ‘right’ kind of sex they might lose the relationship.

What are we most scared of when it comes to sex?

This one is easy! People are very scared of not being normal. By far the most common question I’ve heard as a sex and relationship therapist is ‘am I normal?’ And people come to sex therapy with the hope that it will make them normal. Generally what they mean by ‘normal’ is the ability to have sex that lasts a certain amount of time, that happens an average number of times a week (whatever that is!), and that involves penetration and orgasm.

Do Britons have a healthy attitude to sex?

No! The NATSAL survey of sexual attitudes and lifestyle found that 42% of men and 51% of women reported experiencing sexual difficulties.

Why is that the case? I’m sure it’s because we have this strong cultural ideal of normal sex and how important it is. Everyone is trying to match up to whatever they’ve seen on TV or read about in magazines instead of realising that sex is hugely diverse. There’s massive variety in the amount of sex people want, how long they want it to last, the kinds of things they enjoy most sexually, the people that they find attractive – all of these things. It is perfectly healthy to experience no sexual attraction or to have a high level of sexual desire or anything in between. We need to stop caring so much about normal and start embracing diversity.

Online porn: good or bad influence?

Both! As with most things porn opens up some possibilities and closes down others. In a world where we still have shockingly little decent education about sex, porn does provide a lot of people with a place to find out about how bodies work and different sexual practices. Also it can help people to realise that there are lots of things that they can do sexually and that is okay.

However, if people only view the most available kinds of porn they could easily come away with another set of ideas about ‘normal’ sexually, which could make them feel worse rather than better. For example, it wouldn’t be helpful to measure your body against a porn star’s body (in terms of how it looks and what it can do – they are like the Olympic athletes of sex!). Plus it is important for people to find their own sexual scripts of what they enjoy rather than feeling that they have to copy any standard script (whether it is porn or Hollywood movies).

Finally there is very little discussion of sexual consent in either porn or mainstream media sex scenes. Given the high rates of sexual abuse and violence that is probably the most vital thing – to get people negotiating sexual consent. It’s shocking that this is absent from most media representations of sex, and from most sex advice too.

Could you tell me what you mean by negotiation?

Negotiation really means having some kind of conversation about sex before having sex. This would cover things like what each person likes and doesn’t like, as well as how they will communicate to each other during sex if they aren’t enjoying it any more. This is very important as research suggests that – currently – couples who have been together for a decade still only know about 60% of what their partner likes sexually, and only about 20% of what they don’t like!

Kink communities have a lot of good ideas about how people might negotiate – given that it can be so difficult to communicate about sex. For example, with a ‘yes, no, maybe’ list you list all of the sexual activities you can think of (either together or on your own) and then go through the list writing ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘maybe’ beside each one, to get a sense of what your shared areas of interest are, and also what each person’s hard limits are. This can be a pretty exciting and fun way of opening up a conversation. It’s also good to revisit it every year or so as, of course, these things often change over time. Kinksters also have ‘safe words’ that people can say if the sex they’re having starts to feel uncomfortable in any way (e.g. the traffic lights of green = go, red = stop, and amber = slow down a bit or check in, I’m not sure about this).

One of the positive sides of online technology for sex is that people can also negotiate online prior to having sex in person. Email and online messaging can be great places to talk about sex, to share fantasies, or to try things out in role play (although, of course, it’s important to remember that none of that communication is completely private because online messages go through so many places in their way from A to B).

Have the anxieties you hear in therapy changed in the last five years? (And how?)

I did an analysis recently of the kinds of anxieties that people were writing about to the main newspaper sex problem pages in the UK. That gives a pretty good sense of what people are most worried about at the moment. The top two problems were worries about sexual orientation, and worries about infidelity. So people are most concerned about whether they, or their partner, might be bisexual or gay, and about whether they, or their partner, is having an affair. The next most common fear was around not being sexually normal (the kinds of thing I’ve already mentioned).

So I think we definitely need to open up more conversations, in sex ed in school, in the media, and in sex advice, about the diversity of sexual orientations, and about how people manage the rules of their relationships around monogamy. From the research it seems that over a third of people have attractions to more than one gender, and over half people have sex outside of a monogamous relationship.Clearly people are very anxious about these things, but many don’t have the information and awareness to navigate their ways through it.

What sexual practices are you seeing more of?

After 50 Shade of Grey there is definitely more awareness around kink and BDSM, again without much good information for people about how they might engage in those kinds of sex. The novels definitely don’t give a great sense of how people might do this! There are some very useful books out there by people like Tristan Taormino, Mollena Williams, and Dossie Easton if people are looking to explore those areas.

What’s missing from the novel? In what ways is it not helpful as a sexual education?

In the novel, the kink relationship takes place in a very unequal power dynamic. Ana has no experience at all, and Christian has loads, and he is also a hugely rich and powerful man. It’s really important, in real life, to think about power dynamics when it comes to sex because they can easily make one person feel that they can’t really say ‘no’ to something they dislike, or open up about what they’d like to do sexually. Ana is given very little opportunity to say what she might like to try – just a list of what Christian is into.

Also, Christian does not respect Ana’s boundaries in their wider relationship. He follows her when she’s asked for some space, and interferes with her work life. He also tells her that she can’t talk about the relationship to any of her friends, which is a big danger sign for abusive relationships. Both characters are trying to change each other into something they’re not. It is hard to have consensual sex under such unequal conditions.

Do you think we’re having better sex than previous generations?

Nope, sadly not. I’m always dismayed when I go and talk to students about these topics because their sex ed is generally no better than what I had thirty years ago. Also the current popular sex advice books (which I’ve just been analysing for a research project) just perpetuate the idea that there is one kind of ‘normal’ sex that everyone should be having. They emphasise penis-in-vagina sex and orgasm, and really don’t give any sense of diverse bodies and sexual practices, or much guidance around the issues of sexual orientation and monogamy that people are actually most worried about. Many are mostly a list of different positions in which to have penis-in-vagina sex, which really isn’t much help!

You could definitely say that many of the places that people are going to get help with sex are actually part of the problem, given that they still buy in to the idea of normal sex that everyone should be having, instead of emphasising diversity and helping people to tune in to what they want and to communicate that consensually to others.

What counts as cheating these days? Are we less monogamous – are there more shades of grey?

The evidence suggests that people do not have open conversations, early on in relationships, about monogamy. They generally just assume that the other person will have the same rules as they do. Many relationships then break down because they realise that they have different rules when something goes wrong. One person thought it was fine to stay friends with their ex and the other didn’t. One person thought it was okay to look at online porn and the other didn’t. The lines around monogamy and non-monogamy are blurred, and there are lots of different ways of doing relationships (think about friends-with-benefits, hook-ups, monogamish relationships, and polyamory, for example).

Again I think people just need more awareness about these things and guidance about how they might navigate differences in how much emotional and/or sexual openness they might like. We go into relationships assuming that we will share our monogamy rules and our sexual desires, but actually there are bound to be some differences. Assuming difference from the start, and talking about it it, could be a lot less painful than finding this out down the line.

Is that like the conversation about whether or not you want to have children – important to have early?

I think that’s another conversation that is worth having. In Rewriting the Rules, I suggest that it’s worth thinking about all the things that we often take for granted when committing to relationships (e.g. living together, sharing finances, having kids, going on holiday together, etc.) as well as monogamy, and having conversations about it. There are different ways of doing all these things, and it’s important to respect that each person can be coming from a different place and that is okay.

Is there a difference between how older and younger couples are negotiating or interpreting the new rules?

I’m not sure that there is much of an age difference here. Some older couples have found, through experience, that they want to do something differently to the perceived norm (e.g. living apart together, or having separate holidays, or swinging), whereas some younger couples follow what they think is expected of them. And, of course, there are older couples who feel that they can’t shift after a lifetime of following the perceived rules, and younger ones who do things differently from the start because of their politics, for example.

Do you think we’ve become more open minded and experimental, or more anxious and insecure?

Again I’d say the answer is both! There is both more openness and more anxiety.

What is still taboo?

We still have a lot of cultural bogeymen in relation to sex. The sex advice books that I read talk about a ‘sexless relationship’ like it is the worst thing in the world and would definitely lead to break up. They encourage people to have sex even when they don’t want it in order to avoid this. I think that is really problematic as it encourages non-consensual sex, and also lots of relationships are not sexual and are totally fine.

There are also taboos about people being ‘too sexual’ or having the ‘wrong’ kinds of sexual desires. People get so scared of being labelled a sex addict, or a freak, that they often try to hide from their sexual desires, rather than exploring them in a safe space, and figuring out which can be acted on consensually, and which they want to keep to fantasy only.

Are fantasies quite taboo in general?

Yep, people are often worried by their fantasies, again because we aren’t open about the reality that it is – in fact – normal to have a range of sexual fantasies, including about things we’d never act out. Like dreams, sexual fantasies can be a place where we work out all kinds of things. Emily Dubberley’s recent collection of British women’s sexual fantasies is a great place to look to realise just what a range of things people fantasies about.

What’s the most common advice you give out in therapy?

The most common thing I do is to try to help people to gently explore their ideas about what is normal and what everyone else is doing sexually. Those NATSAL statistics – that half of people see themselves as having sexual difficulties – definitely help with that.

Once we can stop trying so hard to fit a certain box of ‘normal’, then we can start to explore what our own desires actually are, which is a much better starting point.

What issues seem to be most upsetting and pertinent in therapy?

I think those I’ve already mentioned. People feeling that there are certain kinds of sex and relationships that they should have, and that they are an unacceptable human being if that isn’t what feels right to them.

This feeds into many mental health problems, particularly anxiety and depression, and also many relationship problems and conflicts. We really could help people a great deal if we could put out a different message of sexual and relationship diversity.

Do you think have any examples of the most common situations that you see in sex therapy?

One kind of situation I’ve seen a lot of is young people – often, but not always, women – who find penetration sex painful, but keep having it because they feel like this is what their partner will want, and they fear they might lose the relationship if they don’t. Often this is wrapped up in wider discomfort about their body. They’ve learnt to worry greatly that they are unattractive, so they can’t relax during sex. They’ve also never really learnt to enjoy their fantasies and their bodies so that sex might be a pleasurable thing.

Of course what we really need to do about this is to change the messages that young people are getting about their bodies, and about sex and relationships. But until that happens, therapy with clients like this is often about improving confidence, helping them tune into their desires, and challenging assumptions about sex. For example, it might be that they are assuming what kinds of sex their partner wants, and actually both of them would be very happy to take the pressure off penetration sex, by doing other stuff as well, or instead (e.g. mutual masturbation, oral sex, watching erotica together, role-play games, massage).

Another common situation at the moment is people – often, but not always, men – who are disturbed by the kinds of online porn they’re looking at or how much they’re looking at it. Again, the ideas around ‘normal’ sex often mean that they are terrified to think too much about it in case they discover that they are abnormal or ‘deviant’ in some way. Often they then get into a pattern of just trying not to do it at all, and then going back to it and feeling deeply ashamed afterwards.

Again, the best answer here would be to change our cultural ideas about sex, so that we were much more open about the diverse range of sexual practice that are absolutely fine, as well as being much clearer about the lines between consensual sex and non-consensual sex. If sex education throughout school explored those kinds of things then young people would have a much better idea about how to navigate their sexual fantasies and online sexual spaces.

However, in the absence of that cultural shift, therapy can provide a safe space for people to be open about what turns them on, and to start to gently understand what it means to them (rather than just trying to avoid it completely, or get sucked into it totally). Exploring ideas of consent and ethical treatment of ourselves, and other people, can help clients consider their own ethics around watching porn, and engaging in sex, and the lines that they want to draw between fantasy and reality.

When was the last time you were shocked in the therapy room?

In a way every time that I hear another person in so much pain because they are trying to match up to this impossible ideal of normal sex, instead of exploring what they might actually enjoy. That is pretty shocking when you think about it.

If you could give one piece of advice to the nation when it comes to sex, what would it be?

Stop trying to be ‘normal’!

Find out more

My book, website, and podcasts with Justin Hancock address all these subjects in more detail.

The post Sex therapy: Stop trying to be ‘normal’ appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Guardian article – Relationship FAQ

Meg-John Barker — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 08:31:48 +0000

Yesterday The Guardian interviewed a bunch of sex and relationship bloggers to find out our answers to our most frequently asked questions. The article is here and you can read my answers below – hard to capture all the complexity in 130 words a piece!

Question 1: What kinds of relationship are most successful?

I write a lot about different possible ways of doing relationships: monogamous, monogamish and openly non-monogamous relationships; living apart together and long distance relationships; sexual and non-sexual relationships. Something I’m often asked is whether a certain form of relationships can be successful. My question back is always ‘what do you mean by successful?’ It generally turns out that people mean longevity. While studies have found that all these forms of relationships can last over time, I question whether that is the best measure of relationship ‘success’. Perhaps that is something else that is worth thinking about.

Question 2: Will things get easier if I change how I do relationships?

When people contemplate a different kind of relationship – such as an open relationship or polyamory – they often imagine that it will solve all of the problems they’re currently having. I’ve called this the ‘poly grail’ (although it happens with all kinds of relationships). Sadly the answer is that any different way of doing relationships has its own challenges. It’s tough to be in monogamous, it’s tough to be single, and it’s tough to be non-monogamous (whether you do that openly, or secretly in the form of affairs). It’s well worth finding a kind of relationship that works for you, but it’s far too much pressure to expect to find the ‘one true way’ of doing relationships, just as it’s too much pressure to expect to find ‘the one’ partner who’ll fulfil all your needs.

Question 3: How do I go about finding the kind of relationship that works for me?

Instead of searching for the perfect relationship, it’s helpful to figure out what’s important to us, and to communicate about that. For example, where do you stand between wanting just one very close person in your life and wanting lots of friends or partners who are equally close? What about between sexual exclusivity and having many sexual encounters (online or offline)? Is it important to have a clear agreed contract for how you do relationships or for everyone to be free to make their own decisions? Do you like to be private or are you keen to share everything with partners? Communication won’t resolve all the differences we have in relationships, but it definitely helps to be open about such things from the start and to accept that people can feel very differently about them.

The post Guardian article – Relationship FAQ appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

What can we all learn about sex from The Sessions?

Meg-John Barker — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 09:36:47 +0000

I urge you to go and see the movie, The Sessions, which is currently out in cinemas. Not only is this a quietly beautiful and uplifting film about life and love, alienation and connection, in the same vein as another favourite of mine, The Station Agent, it also has a lot to offer on the topic of sex.

The Sessions

The film, based on an autobiographical essay On Seeing a Sex Surrogate, follows Mark O’Brien (played by John Hawkes) as he attempts to find a sexual relationship. At 38, Mark has had to spend most of his life in an iron lung since having polio as a child and is only able to be outside of the machine for two or three hours at a stretch, still lying on a gurney and reliant on his mouth for typing or making phonecalls, and on paid carers to move him around.

After being opened up to the possibilities of love, but subsequently rejected, by a potential partner, Mark decides that he wants to experience sex. A therapist refers him to a sexual surrogate: an expert practitioner who engages in sexual therapy and education through both conversation and sexual intimacy with their clients (unlike sex therapists whose professional boundaries forbid physical contact). Cheryl Cohen-Green (played by a rightly Oscar-nominated Helen Hunt) sees the highly anxious Mark for a number of sessions and helps him to explore his fears and hopes around sex, as well as experiencing various sexual practices, with the aim that he will then have sexual knowledge and skills to take into future relationships. The film takes us through both the physical and emotional aspects of the sessions and reveals the impact of these on both main characters as well as on a number of beautifully drawn additional people in Mark’s life including friends, carers and his priest (William H. Macy on cracking form).

What can we all learn from The Sessions?

The film was moving without ever straying into sentimentality, and funny whist retaining a deep commitment to the humanity of all of the characters. It contained, for me, many important messages, particularly about the value of being open to connections with others (wherever those happen) and of being able to express one’s vulnerability and uncertainty. I loved that, whilst the main character did want to have a romantic and sexual relationship, we also saw that romantic relationships are not necessarily sexual, sexual relationships are not necessarily romantic, and the other relationships in life (such as those with the priest, friend and carer) are equally valuable in their own ways.

Just as Hope Springs (which I wrote about here) does for ageing and sex, The Sessions directly challenges the common, and deeply problematic, misperception that disabled people cannot and/or should not be sexual. Clearly Mark is just as needing, and capable, of both sex and love as anybody else, and those who are able to relate with him in any kind of mutual way (rather than being unable to see past his body) are the richer for it.

The movie relays this message in a far more subtle and sophisticated manner than I could possibly do justice to so I will leave that point there. Instead, in the rest of this post, I want to ask what all of us might learn about sex from the sessions depicted in the movie. If we haven’t experienced disability it would be too easy to come out of this film assuming that what happens is only relevant to ‘other people’, or possibly to ourselves at some future time of injury, older age, or illness, but not now. Actually I think that we could gain a lot from considering the ideas around sex in this film as relevant to all kinds of people and bodies.

Sex in The Sessions

It is striking to me that the thing which makes sex with Cheryl most difficult for Mark has little to do with what his body is and is not capable of. Rather, as for so many of us, it has much more to do with his own anxieties about sex. These come from the messages which he has received about what kinds of sex are and are not okay, about what sex means, and about what it should involve.

It is extremely common for people to report sexual difficulties (more than half of people according to most surveys, as I mention in the sex chapter of my book). And even those who don’t report such problems have all kinds of ideas which get in the way of them having a pleasurable or fulfilling experience. This is a truly psychosocial issue because our psychological experience of anxiety, discomfort and self-doubt is intrinsically related to the social understandings of sex that surround us. That social stuff operates through us in the form of self-monitoring. It is like there is somebody inside observing and commenting that we might look ugly in this position; or that our partner is probably expecting us to do this now; that we’ve taken too long over something, or not long enough; or that it isn’t okay to do that because it is too dirty or weird or not ‘proper sex’. All of those kinds of internal commentaries relate to social messages about who should be having sex and in what ways.

So not only does Mark need help to believe that it is okay for somebody with his body to pursue sex at all, he also struggles with messages that sex is only acceptable in a certain kind of relationship (definitely not one with a sexual surrogate), and with ideas about what counts as sex. He has many ‘shoulds and oughts’ about sex which we will recognise from the social world that we share with him.

Cheryl challenges these perceptions well in her work with Mark. Instead of reinforcing his idea that penis-in-vagina sex is ‘proper’ sex, she introduces him to a wide range of sexual practices including those that do and do not involve the genitals, as well as the idea that certain roles or places (like motels) might be experienced sexually by people as well as certain acts. She jokes about taken-for-granted rules about sex like the idea that after fondling one breast it is ‘kindof a rule’ that you have to fondle the other one.

Whilst Mark does feel good when he meets his aim of orgasming inside a woman and her orgasming too, he later comments that it wasn’t any better than many of the other practices they engaged in, and not even as good as some. Mark also orgasms quickly on any kind of genital contact or even visual stimulation. At first he regards this as a failure but Cheryl helpfully challenges the common assumption that a (male) orgasm means the end of sex. They enjoy both sex without orgasm and sex after orgasm, and the concept that simultaneous orgasm is the epitome of good sex is challenged when it is clear that Mark can enjoy Cheryl’s orgasm more from having already had his and being able to focus on her.

What the film helpfully points out – if we are able to see it – is that we all have different kinds of bodies that work in different ways. Instead of this being a cause for shame and distress as we all try (or pretend) to meet up to some narrow, limiting standard of sex (or avoid sex entirely if we don’t), we could embrace this diversity and make it the starting point for each new sexual conversation. Rather than going in with assumptions about how our body, and our partner’s, ought to work, we could go in assuming that this will be a new and different body and being open to the inevitably new and different experience it will bring.

Our concerns could be not ‘will I get an erection?’, ‘will it last long enough?’, ‘will I be able to be penetrated?’, ‘will I come at the right time?’ but rather ‘how does this person’s body work?’, ‘what do they like having touched?’, ‘what other kinds of stimulation do they enjoy?’, ‘how do I respond to what they do?’, ‘what can I tell them about how I work with my words and with my body?’, ‘what new ways will I discover with them that I haven’t with other people?’. With such questions it ceases to matter whether or not we orgasm from penetration, or at all, or whether we get erections or can be penetrated. We can put down those anxieties and just open up to the conversation as it unfolds.

I will leave the details of how this might work in practice to future posts on sex communication and consent (and several suggestions are also already made in my book). However some ideas – many of which are touched upon in the movie – which can be helpful include:

Exploring the whole of a partner’s body rather than focusing on assumed ‘erogenous zones’ and asking a partner to feed back to us on how each touch is for them (avoiding what they dislike in future), and doing the same thing the other way around.
Practising mindfulness, or being in the moment. at other times in life (washing the dishes, sitting still, walking) to cultivate that capacity and bringing it to sex.
Reflecting on our assumptions about sex, whether they are helpful, and how they can get in the way of our pleasure and ability to be in the moment.
Communicating about what we enjoy sexually with partners outside of explicitly sexual situations (e.g. in conversation, on the phone, or online), perhaps sharing fantasies or considering all the possible sexual practices that we are aware of together.

Find out more

Since writing this blog post I’ve written a whole book, with Justin Hancock, which explores many of these ideas further: Enjoy Sex (How, When and IF You Want To). Also check out our joint website: megjohnandjustin.com.

The post What can we all learn about sex from The Sessions? appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Multiple (perspectives on) Orgasms

Meg-John Barker — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 17:15:28 +0000

This is an early post by me on the topic of orgasms. I explore this in more depth in my books Enjoy Sex (How, When and IF You Want To) and The Psychology of Sex.

During the last few days I have been attending the World Association for Sexual Health (WAS) conference up in Glasgow. Right before that, on June 11^th, we had the conference of the College of Sexual and Relationship Therapists (COSRT), which is the key British organisation for this group of practitioners.

I organise the programme for the COSRT events and, to make it go with a bang, this year we decided to focus on the orgasm! On Saturday we spent the day learning about the science and art of orgasms, and on Monday we brought our various perspectives to the attendees of WAS in a very well-attended symposium on the subject. Here I want to give a flavour of just some of the ideas that were presented over the course of the two events.

Orgasm science

During the COSRT conference we were very fortunate to hear from three of the major international researchers in this area: Roy Levin from the UK and Beverly Whipple and Barry Komisaruk from the US. We learnt that many of the same underlying physiological processes are involved in orgasms regardless of the sex of the person involved: for example, increased blood flow to the genitals, activation of the dopamine system, and the involvement of the hormone oxytocin. Indeed, research has found that experts cannot tell the difference between descriptions of orgasms given by people of different sexes. Vaginal muscles, like those of penises, contract during orgasm, and many also ejaculate a specific fluid as well (sometimes called ‘squirting’). However, there is no evidence that vaginal and uterine contractions are involved the transport of sperm for fertilisation (a common myth).

Given that the genitals begin in the same form in everyone – only being sexually differentiated later in foetal development – there are more similarities than we often realise. For example, the clitoris is not simply the ‘button’ that most people think it is, but rather a structure of much larger size stretching back through the body, meaning that some people with clitorises experience pleasure or orgasms from internal stimulation, for example of the ‘G-spot’ at the front of the vaginal wall. However, it is important to remember that 70% require external stimulation of the clitoris glans (the button) in order to orgasm, so orgasms from penetration alone are actually quite rare. Similar to the G-spot, the stimulation of the prostrate through the rectum can produce/enhance orgasm for many people.

Orgasm art

When I organised the programme for the conference and symposium I wondered whether there might be conflict or tension between the perspectives of the scientists who were speaking, and those of the therapists and others who were talking from a more practical, or even creative, point of view. Actually, nothing could have been further from the truth. There were so many resonances between the different talks. For example, we heard from Roy Levin that sounds made during orgasm occur at the same time as contractions and are an important part of the process. Then tantric teacher Barbara Carrellas echoed the importance of sound, and the involvement of deeper and higher notes in different orgasmic experiences.

Similarly, Alex Iantaffi and myself spoke about the fact that it is important not to see orgasms as the goal of sex. Psychosexual therapists find that clients who put too much focus on orgasms and/or erections or penetration often experience problems and don’t enjoy sex as much. Beverly Whipple said exactly the same thing in her talk, emphasising that it is better for sex to be pleasure-directed, rather than goal-directed. There are many things that might be involved in sex (fingers, tongues, fantasies, imagery, kisses, self-touching, other-touching, holding, caressing, talking, various kinds of penetration, and various kinds of sensations – sometimes including orgasm), but not all of these are necessary each time or for every person.

We also heard from several speakers that genitals need not always be involved in orgasms at all. Barbara Carrellas introduced us to tantra-style energy orgasms which involve breathing in a circular motion up and down the body and squeezing the pelvic muscles during this process. Again, this is not done with the goal of orgasm, but can result in orgasmic experiences which build and build and which are indistinguishable from other kinds of orgasms when the brain activation is recorded in an fMRI scanner.

Speakers Michelle Donaldson and Sue Lennon spoke about the potential for widening out our understandings of orgasms, and the parts of our bodies and minds which are involved in them, for people with spinal injuries and various cancers. They may have less, or no, genital sensation, following injuries or surgeries, but they can still experience orgasms if they develop these wider understandings and experiences. Psychosexual therapist, Tricia Barnes, spoke at the WAS symposium about the importance of taking a biopsychosocial approach to orgasms, which incorporates the whole body, the perceptions and thoughts people have, and the wider sociocultural world they inhabit which may have positive or negative notions about sex and orgasms.

Question marks around the current treatment of orgasms

During the COSRT conference we screened the recent documentary Orgasm Inc which follows the race, in the US, to find a medical treatment for women who have difficulty experiencing orgasm (along similar lines to the popular treatments which exist for ‘erectile dysfunction’). The documentary cautions against a purely medical approach for all the reasons that we have already mentioned:

The focus on attaining orgasms is goal-directed rather than pleasure-directed, and may therefore be counter productive in encouraging focus on a particular ‘end point’ rather than people being present to the whole experience of sex, whatever it involves.
Orgasms are biopsychosocial experiences, and medical treatments alone may stop us from considering the psychological and social processes involved. For example, many women feel they should have sex even when they don’t want to in order to maintain their relationship, and there are many negative social messages about sex for women who have ‘too much’, or ‘too little’, sex.
Most people with clitorises need external stimulation in order to experience orgasm, and many of those seeking medical treatment are still under the popular misconception that it is ‘normal’ to experience orgasm from penetration alone.
There are whole body, emotional, and imaginative techniques which can open up orgasmic experiences which would be well worth trying before taking a medical treatment with potential side-effects which have not been researched long-term yet. Certainly a good starting point would be exploring what turns you on and communicating about that with sexual partner/s.

In our symposium at the WAS conference, Alex Iantaffi and I concluded that the constant focus on what is ‘normal’ in sex, and on diagnosing people with ‘disorders’ or ‘sexual dysfunctions’, is unhelpful. Instead it would be useful to recognise that orgasms mean different things to different people at different times. An orgasm can be experienced as all of the following things and more:

…a mechanical release, a demonstration of one’s masculine or feminine sexuality, a relief of stress, a loss of control, allowing someone to see you at your most vulnerable, a display of intimacy, the height of physical pleasure, a transcendent spiritual experience, a performance demonstrating prowess, a giving of power to another, an exerting of power over another, a form of creative self-expression, a humorous display of our rather-ridiculous humanity, an unleashing of something wild and animalistic, a deeply embodied experience, an escape from bodily sensations and pain, and/or a moment of complete alive-ness or freedom…

So orgasms can be positive experiences, they can be relatively mundane, or they can be negative. Not everyone sees them as an important part of their experience, and many may prefer other kinds of stimulation, or to stay in the realm of fantasy, or to focus on other aspects of life. Instead of worrying so much about having certain kinds of experiences (like orgasms), we could simply be with our sexuality as it is at the time, allowing it to be all that it is, and to ebb and flow over the course of our days, weeks, and lives. Instead of trying to force ourselves to fit what we perceive as ‘normal’, perhaps we could put that energy into letting go of our preconceptions about sex and discovering our sexualities anew.

Find Out More

Justin Hancock and I talk about this topic often over on megjohnandjustin.com.
The website for Orgasm Inc is here.
You can find the accessible book on orgasms which Beverly Whipple and Barry Komisaruk co-authored with Sara Nasserzadeh, and Dr. Carlos Beyer–Flores here.
Barbara Carrellas’s Urban Tantra website is here.
The COSRT website is here, and their journal, Sexual and Relationship Therapy, is here.
The Scarleteen website contains useful information about exploring and communicating sexual turn-ons.

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