ETHICAL

Sex and Pleasure
strategies for safer sex and birth control and more language so you can
more easily talk with your partners about all of this good stuff. Some
clever sluts read a chapter a week of a good book with a partner and
perhaps talk about it on Friday over dinner-a nice way to prepare
for the weekend.
These days there is also a lot of information and discussion on the
Internet. We applaud this freedom of information, and we also want
you to be careful, because much of the information you read and hear
about sex will be inaccurate. Because sexology is such a new science,
and because research into what people actually do in sex is difficult
and often inconclusive, and because we as a culture have not talked
explicitly about sex for a very long time, fairy tales abound, and reality
can be hard to come by. Collect all the information you can, use
what works for you, and take it all with a grain of salt. Fortunately,
here's lots of sex information available these days in books, magazines,
podcasts, websites, and more-plenty to choose from. The best part
of learning about sex is that you'll love the homework.
SPEECH LESSN ESS
If you can't talk about sex, how can you think about it? The historical
censorship of discussion about sex has left us with another disability:
the act of talking about sex, of putting words to what we do in bed,
has become difficult and embarrassing. Although most of us have had
the experience of failed sexual functioning in one way or another, most
of us never get the chance to get support from our friends and lovers
about it-sexual dysfunction becomes our secret shame, a position from
which it is virtually impossible to figure out a way to function better.
What little language we can use to talk about sex is riddled with
negative judgments. Either you speak in medical language of vulvas and
penile intromission-which sounds like you need to be a doctor to talk
about sex, so it must be a disease-or you have gutter language (fucking
cunt, hard dick) that makes everything sound like an insult. What you
can't talk about, you can hardly think about-a crippling disability.
People who can't use words often resort to trying to communicate without
words: pressing their partner's head downward, moving their hips
to try to get that tongue in just the right place, feigning ecstasy when a
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