The Whole Lesbian Sex Book (12 page)

Go to the gym. Not to “improve” your body—though you may enjoy Pilates or power lifting—but to experience yourself inhabiting your body and to see other people doing it, too. You can take classes in yoga or kickboxing—it doesn’t matter, as long as you find an activity that works for you.

Don’t like the gym? Go to the park. Walk. Get a skateboard. Ride your bike. Roll your chair along a different path. Take a new route to work, and walk there. The point is to engage in activity that will bring you into a relationship with your physical self. Sure, you’ll find buff specimens in the park, but you’ll also see people who look just like you.

If the parks and gyms in your town are too straight for comfort, start an all-dyke workout group. You can meet once or twice a week for long, brisk walks; hit the gym on the buddy system; sign up for a martial arts class; or go swimming on your lunch hour.

Your body need not be a box you are locked into all by yourself.

Somatic Healing

I’ve had a long, hard struggle overcoming an abusive relationship that included sexual assault. Because of this, I haven’t learned a lot about my sexuality that many people learn when they are younger, so I’ve had the nice experience of being an actual grown-up when I figured out what I was doing. Of course there have been negative consequences: I sometimes still have flashbacks during sex, even with my long-term partner.

Somatic healers teach the concept that the body and mind are part of one intelligent biological system. Your emotions do not exist separate from your body. So if you “feel” less than gorgeous, the solution may lie in deepening your relationship with your body rather than trying to escape it.

My body is femme, fat, cushy, strong, pale, soft—I love it. It’s just right.

Do you “check out” during sex? Do you think you’d have an easier time reaching orgasm if you could stop your mind from wandering? Or are you fine for a good fuck—as long as your partner doesn’t get too emotionally close?

Emotions are part of your cellular history, your body’s “memory” of where it has been. The feelings associated with a traumatic experience don’t go away, even if we ignore them. Trauma remains in the body until the emotions surrounding it are resolved and integrated into your experience. Your body will continue to respond automatically to situations you perceive—from your body’s perspective—to be threatening. One survival strategy is simply to shut down.

I have large breasts and they have little feeling. Little feeling in breast and vagina…. Thank goddess my clitoris is in working order. Otherwise I’d be a Barbie.

Regardless of what has caused your body to respond like a town under siege, the trauma remains. Whether you have survived childhood sexual abuse, emotional neglect, physical abuse, a battering adult relationship, rape, sexual harassment, queer bashing, a life-threatening accident or illness, or even time spent in a war zone, healing trauma is a slow, painful process. And it’s the only way to get your
self
back.

Staci Haines, author of
The Survivor’s Guide to Sex: How to Have an Empowered Sex Life After Child Sexual Abuse
, stresses somatic healing as the key to sexual healing:

Your body was a dangerous place…. Leaving your body then, or dissociating, was an intelligent move. The memories or experiences of the trauma are often still present or “held” in your body today. Many survivors stay out of their bodies and senses long after the danger has passed to avoid revisiting those stored experiences.

Yet, your body is also you. It is the place in which you live and are alive. You connect and are in relationship with others from your body. You act in the world from your body. Your body is where the healing from trauma and abuse happens. Your body is also where you experience sensual and sexual pleasure. To experience all of these pleasures, however, you must be in your body, or “embodied.”
²

Happily, you have many kinds of healing practices to choose from—everything from meditation and Tantra to therapeutic bodywork practices, like Rosen Method bodywork, somatic coaching, sex coaching, sexological bodywork, and others.

What’s it like to come back into your body? It’s like awakening to a sense—such as touch—you’ve read about, heard about, thought you understood, but have never truly experienced.

You Are What You Eat

“Not treating your body as a temple can kill even the most Herculean libido,” Heather Corinna writes on Scarlet Letters, her erotic website. “Healthy sexual functioning requires a good respiratory system and a healthy flow of oxygen, adequate hormone levels and properly functioning sexual glands, and most of all, energy. The best diet for your sexual health is the best diet for your health, period.”
³

Your body requires nutrition, adequate rest, plenty of fluids, and movement just to sustain life, much less thrive. You can improve your relationship with your body by learning to take good care of yourself. In fact, tending to your physical care is a great prelude to sex.

Get a Pelvic Exam

Add to this good health care. Many lesbian, bisexual, and queer women fail to get regular gynecological exams, and even when we do get checkups, we’re often not candid about our sexual practices.

Why don’t we get better health care? In the United States, lack of access to health insurance is a big factor in preventing women from getting adequate health care. Many lesbian and bisexual women as well as transgendered people feel very uncomfortable talking to health-care practitioners about sex. (Many of us feel uncomfortable talking to our
lovers
about sex.) It doesn’t help that few of us have access to health-care professionals who have any idea what we
do
sexually. Some lesbians feel uneasy about the mechanics of Pap smears; others think that because they don’t have sex with men, such care is unnecessary—not true.

Regular gynecological exams will help you stay on top of the state of your sexual health. Some sexually transmitted conditions don’t produce noticeable symptoms until you’ve got a serious problem. For example, human papillomavirus (HPV), among the most widespread sexually transmitted conditions, has been linked to cervical cancer. A recent study conducted in Seattle found HPV present among lesbians—even those who had never had sex with men.
⁴
A Pap smear can alert you to the presence of abnormal cells caused by HPV, long before cancer develops. However, you will need a complete gynecological exam, including blood work, to determine if you’ve been exposed to HIV or other STDs.

Risk-Free_____

Frottage (with clothes)
Nipple and breast stimulation (not
lactating)
Sharing sex toys (with a condom)
Genital touching with glove
Oral sex with barrier
Masturbation (touching only yourself)
Voyeurism and exhibitionism
Cybersex and phone sex
Watching porn
Reading erotica
Talking dirty
Fantasy

Safer Sex, Please

We hear a lot about safer sex—but what is it, really? Safer sex is the practice of assessing risks and taking precautions that you hope will prevent you from acquiring or transmitting STDs.

How do you know if you’re at risk? Well, the greater the number of people with whom you have had unprotected sex, the greater the risk you’ve been exposed to a sexually transmitted disease. Your risk for acquiring an STD increases if you already have an STD, if you’ve used intravenous drugs, or if any of your partners have used intravenous drugs. Finally, some sexual activities are riskier than others. (See “Safer-Sex Guidelines for Lesbian and Bisexual Women,” below.)

You may believe that because you’re in a committed monogamous relationship you’re exempt from safer-sex concerns. If that were true, there would be far fewer of us with herpes and HPV. Unfortunately, monogamy is
not
a foolproof safer-sex strategy. Some STDs can lie dormant for months or even years after exposure, which may be longer than your previous relationship. You could easily transmit an STD you didn’t know you had. And, of course, a commitment to monogamy is no guarantee. Many women have sex outside of their relationships without telling their partners.

Illustration 3. Making a Dental Dam

Here is a recommended safer-sex strategy for
monogamous
couples (two partners having sex exclusively with each other): For six months, use latex barriers every time you have sex. (See the safer-sex techniques, below.) After six months, both of you can get thorough gynecological exams, including a Pap smear and blood tests for STDs. If all tests are negative, you may decide to forgo latex barriers. However, if one of you has a viral STD, such as herpes, HPV, hepatitis C, or HIV, safer-sex practices are recommended to prevent transmission of the STD. If one of you has a bacterial STD, such as chlamydia, use latex barriers until you’ve completed treatment.

Some women in
nonmonogamous
relationships choose to
fluid-bond
with their primary sexual partner. They share bodily fluids with only that partner, while using latex barriers with everyone else. Should one partner “slip” and engage in unsafe sex with an outside partner, the commitment is to tell the other right away. The partners can then assess the risk and make safer-sex decisions. Again, this presumes a high degree of trust.

Safer-Sex Guidelines for Lesbian and Bisexual Women

These guidelines are intended to help you make choices about sex with women:

•
Oral sex:
Use dental dams, Lollyes, or plastic wrap for cunnilingus and rimming. Put a drop of water-based lube on the genital side of the dam.You can also cut up a latex glove or unlubed condom to make a barrier for oral sex (see illustration).

•
Finger-fucking and fisting:
Use gloves for hand-to-vagina or hand-to-anus penetration.

• Change gloves when moving from anal to vaginal penetration and when you change partners. Remove the glove before you touch yourself.

•
Masturbation:
Don’t touch your vulva, anus, or favorite sex toy with the same hand you’ve just used to touch your partner’s vulva or anus—change hands or wash up first.

•
Dress your toys:
Use condoms on dildos, butt plugs, and vibrators.

•
Sharing toys:
If you share toys, be sure to use condoms and clean thoroughly between uses with an antibacterial soap.

•
Use water-based lube:
Never use oil-based lubricants with latex products. (Oil will break down latex.) Do not use oil-based lube for vaginal penetration.

•
Avoid products with nonoxynol-9:
While “noxious-9” has been shown to kill HIV in some laboratory tests, it can be irritating to vaginal and rectal tissue. Certain women experience vaginal infections after using nonoxynol-9. The product can actually increase the risk of HIV transmission by irritating the delicate rectal tissue, providing a direct route to the bloodstream.
⁵

•
Yeast infections:
If your lube is giving you yeast or other infections, switch to a lube that doesn’t list glycerin as an ingredient.

•
Bacterial vaginosis:
If your partner has a vaginal infection, see a gynecologist—and refrain from unprotected sex with your partner.

•
Urinary tract infections:
Urinating after penetrative sex can help prevent a urinary tract infection. Remember to drink plenty of water as well.

•
Do not share needles,
whether for IV drug use, play piercing, permanent piercing, or tattooing.

•
Blood play:
Wear gloves during any activity that may bring you in contact with a partner’s blood, such as piercing, cutting, or shaving. Be careful not to stick yourself. Dispose of sharps properly.

•
Dispose of gloves and condoms carefully:
Turn gloves and condoms inside out as you pull them off to prevent exposure to bodily fluids.

•
Clean your sex toys
with an antibacterial soap after every use.