The Best You'll Ever Have

While checking out this book at the bookstore,
you probably glanced at my photo on the back. As you see, I am a normal-looking woman: Midwesternish, midthirties, auburn hair, straight teeth. Not homely, but not a knockout either (although I do my best). I don’t have deep cleavage, big teased blonde hair, a leather dress, or latex underpants. Nor do I look like a shrink with fifty years of couples counseling under my belt. I probably look like someone you know. I may even look like you. I may
be
like you—an interesting, curious, happy person, if somewhat ordinary. Until a few years ago, I worked at an advertising agency, went to dinner with friends, dated whenever I got the chance, and looked forward to the weekends and my next vacation. A typical American woman.

Chapter 1

I’m not quite so typical anymore. Most American women don’t sell sex toys for a living. But more are joining me every day because lots of women buy them—or should. I’ve learned that much since the creation of Safina, the company I founded to provide sex information and products for women. I’m now an official, if unorthodox, “sexpert.” Unlike the majority of sexperts, I have never appeared in a porn movie. I don’t do inner sex goddess classes with hand mirrors and chanting. I haven’t hosted couples retreats in the mountains where I advise lovers to gaze into each other’s eyes and breathe in sync. You will never hear me spouting new age psychobabble about sexuality. My approach is the result of my personal, I dare say, typical sexual experience as a civilian—not a professional—sexual being, and a lot of research.

That said, I have also presided over hundreds of Safina Salons (more on Salons later), I’ve spoken with and lectured to thousands of women nationwide about sex, and I’ve conducted seminars and classes through the Learning Annex and other organizations on how women can improve their sexual pleasure. I’ve made gathering sexual information job one and have interviewed dozens of groundbreaking doctors and researchers in the United States and beyond. I’ve studied the history of sex from the ancient Greeks to modern presidents. For the last few years, my life has been all sex research, all the time. My life has made a 180-degree turn since my days as an advertising executive. It all began—the idea to start the company, and to devote myself to sexual education—with a question. A question that is common to most women but that often goes unasked. If Safina does nothing more (although it does—much, much more), I hope we adequately address the query, “Am I normal?”

Dragging Sex Out of the Closet

I was living in Brussels for an advertising job when the President Clinton/ Monica Lewinsky sex scandal broke. The Europeans were bewildered by our government’s reaction to the scandal. I was constantly asked to explain why our government cared about our president’s sex life when the women he saw were clearly over 18 and consenting. When I returned to New York, I noticed a concrete shift in our culture. Sex was a topic of open discussion on TV and in restaurants. Of course, people talked about sex before. But I’d never heard newscasters saying “oral sex” previously or Barbara Walters asking Ms. Lewinsky if the president made her “as a woman, happy and content.” It was my turn to be shocked. Meanwhile,
Sex and the City
was not just beloved in New York as it had been when I left, but it had become wildly popular all over the country. The ribald honesty of the characters made Madonna’s formerly shocking behavior seem quaint in comparison. Victoria’s Secret had boomed in my absence too and was now having runway shows broadcast on network TV with their “Very Sexy” collection, which was more Frederick’s of Hollywood than their formerly Victorian style. Staid magazines like
Redbook,
once full of recipes and mommy tips, now blazed tantalizing cover lines that were just as raunchy as
Cosmopolitan.

You turn your back on a country for two years and look what happens! While I was gone, sex had moved to the forefront of the American culture agenda. And yet, when I met my girlfriends for drinks and the subject turned to their own sex lives, all I heard were the same vague statements they’d always made like, “My new boyfriend is awesome in bed.” No one spoke as explicitly, it seemed, as Ms. Lewinsky, and she did so only under subpoena. The new national openness was great in the abstract, but on a woman-to-woman level, sexuality remained a sealed state secret.

Why Is Sex Such a Mystery?

Eating is essential for survival, like breathing, drinking, and sex. What could be more essential for our species’ survival than sex? We know a lot about how to eat, breathe, and drink. And although everyone can recite reproductive mechanics, you’d be surprised by the huge educational gaps in basic sexual anatomy and the physiology of pleasure. Don’t believe me? Tell me then, how long is the clitoris? What’s the difference between the vulva and vagina? Where and what is the prostate? The perineum? What are the four stages of arousal? I could go on (in fact, I do—for the rest of this book). We are all interested in sex, fascinated by it, obsessed with it. So why don’t we know everything there is to know about our bodies and what they can do? What’s standing in the way?

I’m convinced that the gap is due to how information is presented—as either too medical sounding and therefore impersonal or too explicit and therefore embarrassing. Sleazy sex book covers can be downright mortifying. I’ve long felt that buying one would reflect negatively on me (although who would care anyway? Strangers and cashiers?). Sex toy packaging and the dark, shady stores where you buy the stuff are even more off-putting. Even the outsides of those stores are sleazy. Why aren’t sex toys presented like cosmetics or lacy underwear instead of deviant gizmos for hookers? Sex equals sleaze in our consumer culture (and in our creative culture). No wonder people hesitate before seeking information and buying products or admitting the naked truth to their friends.

Hesitancy about sex dovetails into hesitancy about talking about sex with a partner. If I had a nickel for every time a woman told me, “If I tell him what I want him to do to me in bed, he’ll think I’m ‘slutty’ or ‘greedy’ or ‘demanding,’” well, I’d be drowning in nickels. It’s amazing that women can tell a hairstylist or a waiter in precise detail how to trim their bangs or cook their food, but women can’t bring themselves to say “not there,
there
” to the most important person in their lives.

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