March 17, 2011

Saying Yes for the Sake of Pleasure

(From Royalle's "The Tunnel")
As therapist and holistic sex educator Gina Ogden, Ph.D., writes in Women Who Love Sex,  there is a curious paradox in our culture about women’s sexuality: "While there is increasing encouragement for women to say ‘No’ to abuse and violence, there is still virtually no broad-based encouragement to say ‘Yes’ to pleasure”(xi).

The Californian based news, commentary, and politics blog, sacratomatoville post, recently had five women in their twenties and thirties tally up their sexual score. Said Cecilia, age 31, ad executive, who reported 20 as the number of men she'd had sex with: "In my 20s, I often slept with guys to get them to like me even if I wasn’t in the mood. Now that I’m 31, sex is about my pleasure. I’m not as skinny as I was in my 20s, but I don’t care. I’m more comfortable with my body because I view it as a powerful machine, and I carry myself with confidence."

I hope my daughter will have the confidence and pride in her body not to have sex with others just so they will like her. I also hope that she will feel good about saying yes to pleasure and yes to sex for the sake of pleasure. 

The films of Candida Royalle, who makes erotic films from a woman's point of view, often follow the journey of women overcoming personal insecurities and conflicted emotions about sex to take charge of their bodies and say yes, with integrity, to pleasure. “The Tunnel,” for instance, on Sensual Escape is an early example of Royalle’s feminist commitment to thus empower women as sexual subjects, a commitment for which Royalle since has received wide recognition among sex therapists and counselors.

2 comments:

  1. Such great stuff! I think women like to have a higher number just because it makes them feel more desirable to men. Not such a great development in women's liberation but I suppose it's the learning curve. We need to teach our girls better. Great post!

    ReplyDelete

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