1. DEMAND condom use 2. Hold your partners accountable for what happens in the bedroom. None of this “baby I can’t control myself around you” or “I just wanted you so bad” bullshit. 3. Coercion is real and it’s very scary and hard to identify in the moment. Establish a dialogue with your partner. Be clear on what you both want. Be clear on what you don’t want. Your boundaries should ALWAYS be respected. 4. Sex can be really emotionally and physically over-stimulating the first few times; don’t be afraid or ashamed to ask your partner to slow down, take a break, or even stop. 5. Focus less on pleasing your partner and more on exploring your partner. Everyone’s body is different and there are no “tricks” to better sex. Chances are, if you psych yourself out worrying over how well you’re “performing” then nobody’s going to have a good time. 6. Ask questions, offer suggestions. Despite what porn has probably taught you, talking during sex isn’t weird or taboo. Your partner isn’t a mind reader. They don’t know what feels good to you. [Pro-tip, a looot of people without clitorises aren’t fully aware of just HOW sensitive a clitoris is. They can be a little rough with them. Tell them to chill!!!!] 7. Your sex life is YOUR business. Don’t ever feel ashamed of how many or how few sexual partners/experiences you’re having. Do what you want, touch the people who want to touch you back, forget the rest. 8. DON’T FAKE YOUR ORGASMS!! Don’t fake your orgasms!! DON’TFAKEYOURORGAMS!! If your partner isn’t getting you there, let them know! Tell them how!! 9. There is more to sex than orgasms. Sex is a really cool way to establish intimacy and trust, to have a fun time, to relieve stress, to explore a person’s body and bring them pleasure. Don’t get me wrong, orgasms are really cool and good, but your sex life is going to be a lot better if it doesn’t revolve around them. 10. LEARN ABOUT YOUR BODY!! This goes for everyone, but ESPECIALLY if you are a person in possession of a vulva, you have been discouraged and even actively kept from vital knowledge about your anatomy! Do some google searches, buy a human sexuality textbook, masturbate. 11. Virginity is a useless concept. It’s completely okay if your virginity is something important to you and I’m not trying to belittle that idea. Just, for the record, in the grand scheme of things it’s not a big deal. Literally nothing about you changes just because you bumped uglies with someone else.
This has been a public service announcement from your friendly internet poet.
Talking about sex when not being sexy is the best first step to having sex. Don’t talk about it to turn on your partner, just discuss it casual. Talk about your thoughts and feelings, what you think you want, what scares you, what interests you, etc. Like anything you can think of. It makes the act easier and can help you establish boundaries before the act starts. Try doing it on a phone or over text so you know sex won’t start. Sometimes the distance helps you be honest.
i like how positive this post is and how it isn’t gender specific <3 <3 <3
Some solid stuff here!
Also: no matter what genitals you have or what you’re doing, a little lube can go a LONG way and even be the difference between if sex will even happen or not. It’s nothing to feel embarrassed about asking for, and even if you’re not sure you’d need it, it might make the experience more enjoyable faster than it would without.
And don’t neglect to clean up afterward!! This is really important, too.
I’d like to add don’t worry if your virginity someone who turns out to be a jerk or wasn’t the special experience you expected or wanted.
This does not define you or your sexual journey and it is so common you’re not weird for having a less than great first experience.
To be perfectly honest even with the ‘right’ person your first time will most definitely suck, sexually, it’s all the times after getting to know what you and your partner like that is the best part.
p.s. also getting to point where your comfortable enough with your partner to roll around crying laughing when they fall of the bed cos it will happen mid-sexy times.
as someone who has a really bad experience with her sex life, follow these advices. they are completely true and important to take in mind <3
Also, from one person with a vagina to any others: not everyone bleeds the first time AND bleeding can happen any time you have sex or sexy alone times involving penetration.
Here [x] is a list of reasons it may happen and suggestions about how to proceed–a lot of times it’s simply because of friction, which is why the point about lube is very important. Some of us learn these things the hard way and think we’re marked for death, but you’re most likely okay! Proceed with caution, but don’t freak yourself out.
Like seriously I wish we had a more comprehensive sex education program in the U.S. You know how many guys I know who had no idea an unaroused vagina is only 2-3 inches deep? Or that the cervix raises up when aroused to accommodate dick? Or that if a girl is “tight” that generally means she’s not turned on and you’re shitty in bed? Or that the cervix has an entire cycle it goes through throughout the month where is changes hardness, placement in the vagina, wetness? Like, when you’re ovulating your cervix gets soft and raises high up into the vagina and your hormones get you really horny. It’s like natures way of moving the furniture around and fluffing the pillow for dick because it wants to get pregnant. And before menstruation, it gets really hard and low in the vagina. It’s basically inactivating it’s Facebook and saying “I just need some alone time for a few days”
Ladies and gentlemen, take a moment to learn about vaginas. Men, take an interest into your woman’s menstrual cycle!
U.S. Needs better sex Ed because I’m a 23 year old woman and didn’t even know all of this
Hi I had no idea about the cervical cycle.
God bless this post pls share it far & wide
“It’s like natures way of moving the furniture around and fluffing the pillow for dick because it wants to get pregnant.” This has got to be one of my new favourite quotes.
Also, for anyone interested, have some sex ed links:
The cervix, what happens throughout the cycle and how it actually looks. (Or for those that have one, check out your own with a mirror and a speculum. It’s very easy and kinda cool.)
It’s nice when something you’ve been shouting at the top of your lungs for a decade and everyone ignored is finally, suddenly, magically, touted as genius when a guy says it in a comedy routine. And by nice I mean, unbelievably important and exciting for the cause, but rather deflating for my professional self-efficacy.
But my ego aside, I’m so glad Oliver shined light on the embarrassing disgrace that is sexuality education in America, and I’m thrilled mainstream media is at least pretending to give a shit about the crisis (and it is a crisis). He did an astounding job examining the intricacies of the problem.
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The part where he discussed fear-ridden, misogyny-focused, and often Christian-based abstinence-only sexuality education lies and misinformation programs that liken women who have sex before marriage to old shoes, chewed up gum, and dirty tape was especially important to me for a few reasons:
First, the dirty tape program is the “sex education” program I sat through as a high schooler. It did so much damage, it is in part why I decided I wanted to become a sexologist when I was 15. I wrote about the horrible experience in my book, and in my college program “Virgins and Sluts” where I talk about the harm of the virgin/whore dichotomy, I reenact the lesson with the students and have them unpack and examine, frankly, how utterly fucked up these messages are.
Second, I know despite many people being vocal about these horrible programs, including me, and Elizabeth Smart, who has been quite outspoken about how she was made to feel like a “used up piece of chewing gum nobody wanted” because she’d been raped, the chewing gum, dirty tape, and a new one (prickly rose stem with the petals all gone) lesson plans are STILL promoted by private Christian organizations, and STILL being taught to teenagers in PUBLIC school classrooms, including my high school, to this day.
Oliver in 21 minutes hit on a number of truths in the tragic state of sexuality education. These include:
– The disproportionate power of one Puritan parent to cause a ruckus, get the media and the school district to throw the teacher under the bus, and ruin the opportunity for every other student to have access to medically accurate information about their bodies, health, and sexuality. This happens with parents of college students (read: ADULT STUDENTS) too, which I’ve written about here, and here. I also talk about this phenomenon in my college workshop “Sex Ed in America”.
– Ridiculous, embarrassingly cheesy, outdated, shame-filled, and/or fear-based sex education videos that continue to be played in classrooms. I play some examples for the audiences in my Safer and Sexy college workshops to provide context for the very different way I teach about pregnancy and STI prevention, and you can view a few clips of them here (starts at :27).
– The total lack of cohesion in sex education mandates. Some states don’t have any sex education, some states do, but don’t require the material to be medically accurate (HELLO!!!), and the experiences of sexuality education varies so widely from district to district, school to school, and even teacher to teacher. All of these decisions about whether to have a sex ed curriculum, and if so, what subjects lies to include are, sensibly, made by people who have absolutely no training whatsoever in human sexuality.
– The correlation between states without sex education and souring teen pregnancy rates. It’s infuriating how many people willfully ignore such thorough science and data because “I have *feelings* and sex is icky!”. Actually, it’s criminal that people charged with educating and preparing youth can so spectacularly fail, withhold life saving and life changing information from students, ignoring all evidence, and still have jobs and get funding for their programs of lies and shame.
– The cleverness and resourcefulness of sexuality education professionals who find ways to impact students despite a lack of funding, lack of support from the district and state, and the ever looming fear of a rogue parent ruining your career. I’m happy Oliver played the clip of the educator who wasn’t allowed to discuss condoms teaching students how to properly “roll a sock on a foot and then put the foot in the shoe”.
– The rampant homophobia and slut-shaming, both subtle and egregious, that are in programs offered at schools.
– An across the board failure to have meaningful discussions about consent, and consent lesson plans that focus on a heterosexual context of girls’ “no” being dismissed because it wasn’t “firm enough” instead of focusing on, ya know, training all parties to value autonomy and only engage in sex with an enthusiastic “yes”. And when you promote, fund, and allow this flawed message to be taught to students, as Oliver pointed out, “you are abetting and already troubling culture where a bunch of frat guys can march around Yale feeling completely comfortable yelling out “NO MEANS YES, YES MEANS ANAL”.
His summation line, “There is no way we’d allow any other academic program to consistently fail to prepare students for life after school, and human sexuality, unlike calculus, is something you actually need to know about for the rest of your life” I thought was especially on point.
And then Oliver produced a star studded sex ed video for the people who have been failed by the system. It checks off quite a few of the items that I think need to be included in any good sex ed program:
– clitoris!
– pleasure, fun, exploration, and toys (including lube!)
– it’s OK to say no to sex, and it’s OK to say yes to sex, and if anyone wants ridicule you about either choice, they’re “assholes”.
– contraceptives exist to help protect against unwanted pregnancy and infections, but you may have already experienced either, and this doesn’t make you a bad person.
– practice and skill building
– humor!
– consent in myriad ways, including stopping mid sex act, and saying yes to some sex acts but not others
– sexual language (”if you call it a who-ha, you’re not ready for sex”)
– general sex-positivity and normalizing of sexuality.
There are a few things I would have liked to have seen be different:
– OMG IT’S A VULVA, NOT A VAGINA
– mention of sexual identities
– a blurb about what the clitoris actually does
All in all, well done
To John Oliver- thank you!
To the news media- remember this the next time an outraged parent wants you to run a story about how, GASP, their kid is learning that genitals do more than piss, and these other things are kinda fun.
To those reading this who agree with all of this- we need you to do more than “like” this! Find out what is being taught in the schools where you live. If they don’t have sex ed, or have “girls are chewed up gum” type of sex ed, voice your concern! Write to your representatives about stopping abstinence only education and funding comprehensive sexuality education. Tell the school board you want the to hire a professional sexuality educator to develop a curriculum for the district.
We need to reframe this conversation from “Tonight at 6, a parent is outraged about a poster in a classroom that lists SEX ACTS!” to “Tonight at 6, the community is outraged that Christian moralizers are paid millions from tax dollars to tell girls in public school they’re worthless if they have sex or are raped. The entire city, except two parents, are calling it ‘scandalous and disgraceful’ that professional sexuality educators and scientists are being cast aside while preachers are granted unvetted access to children to indoctrinate them medically-inaccurate lies about their bodies that data demonstrates can lead to disease and/or a lifetime of mediocre sex, as well as instilling shame about their sexual identities, and contributing to a culture of sexual violence”.
