Earlier this week I was informed by August McLaughlin, author, founder of ‘Girl Boner’ and radio host, that a new episode of her ‘Girl Boner’ radio show is available. I listened to this week’s show and think it’s great. August has a studio guest, erotica author Autumn Bardot talk about her book. The show is not only entertaining but also educational. Have fun!
4 Orgasm Myths to Stop Believing Now
Orgasms are awesome and there are many ways to invite stronger ones if you desire them, which is a completely valid aim. I think it’s also important to keep in mind that there’s no hierarchy or competition. Shorter and less-intense orgasms aren’t less valuable and really, all Os are unique. If we embrace them, we’ll probably experience more pleasure.
A listener wrote in to Girl Boner Radio, asking for ways to amp up her own orgasmic bliss. As Dr. Megan Fleming pointed out, edging (aka orgasm control) is one great option. The question also got me thinking about orgasm myths, so I dedicated much of the latest episode to the topic.
Autumn Bardot, author of Confessions of a Sheeba Queen, and listener, Kate, joined me to a range of orgasm myths, from “size matters” to “squirting is really just pee.” We also chatted about Autumn’s writing life, her aim to celebrate brave women and how penning erotica has influenced her life and sexuality. Erotica writer and phone sex operator Sammy Rei Schwartz also made a special appearance, which you can learn more about below.
I’m still not sure in what category this post belongs. In a way, it’s a health post more than a beauty post. But since beauty and health belong together, it might be both. Then I found out it is a quite ‘clinical’ post… more medical than anything else, and still: at the end I’m talking about a woman’s most private body parts, which makes it very much non-sexual, but still enough to probably belong into the GB version of Augusts blog fest. And that’s why it’s here.
What I said before I find essential to my life. Health and beauty belong together in my opinion. When I feel like a piece of seven-year-old cheese, having a fever, a horrible headache or suffer from constipation, it doesn’t matter how much makeup I plaster my face with, I’m grumpy and unwell, and I won’t be able to shine. I’m miserable, and it shows. A radiant woman is beautiful, a woman who takes care of herself is beautiful. A radiant woman is one who’s healthy and shows it. A woman like this is beautiful. To be and stay healthy, and to make sure we discover early enough if that’s not the case, occasional visits to the doctor belong to our life. But there is this one appointment, no matter how healthy we keep us – this one annual visit – we all hate from the bottom of our hearts.
There is this one picture that’s burned into our thoughts, memories, and brains, forever. That chair. The most hated chair on Earth – and no, it’s not the one at the dentist. It’s the one that’s about 1000 times worse than the dentist’s most valuable possession.
In every woman’s life, there is this one annual medical examination that turns the most peaceful nun into a maddening fury: Her visit to the gynecologist.
You sit in the doctor’s office, talk to your gynecologist for a couple of minutes before he tells you: “Go over there and undress down below.”
You disappear behind that wall and take your pants or skirt and undies off. And I keep asking myself two questions: “My doctor sees everything in only a few moments. What the hell is this wall for?” And: “If ‘undressing my lower regions’ mean everything – what the hell am I going to do with my socks?
Then you take place in that really, really embarrassing chair. You half lean, half sit there in the most unsettling position. And then your gynecologist tells you the first of two standard sentences: “Could you please slide down closer to me.” I always feel like telling him: “Hey, Mister. If I slide down even a couple of inches closer, I’m going to sit on your face! – But who the hell cares. I’m already laying here in the weirdest position you can imagine… go ahead and stick into me whatever you feel like.” Whoops… of course I’d never say that, but I guess, the women who are going through this regularly know what I mean.
He does whatever he has to do to find out if everything is okay. I doubt I need to describe the confusing and often cold touch of the instruments and the uncomfortable feelings. Of course, this examination is necessary and often lifesaving! I am grateful to have the chance to go to these examinations be lucky enough my doctor screens for early detection of a disease or illness! But this doesn’t make it any better.
In the end, the gynecologist usually checks your breasts, which is a good and necessary thing to do as well. But it’s not less embarrassing than the upsetting position in that chair.
I’m positioned there like a stranded whale, and the next thing I hear is the second, deeply disturbing standard sentence: “I’m sorry, my hands are cold.” And here I am, laying as still as I can, thinking with all my mighty thoughts: “Don’t’ get hard, you nipples… relax… Do. Not. Get. Hard.” – Usually, no focus is going to help to avoid the unavoidable. The doctor’s hands are cold! Dammit.
After the examination, you get dressed again, which is probably happening much faster than the undressing, even more, if you decided to keep your socks on.
At my last examination, my gynecologist told me: “You know, I realized you’re my patient for quite some time… let’s see: It’s over 20 years now.” I nodded and looked at him, replying: “Yes, I know. And this makes you officially the longest relationship I was ever in.” He smirked. “Business cooperation you mean?” And my answer was: “Business, yeah, sure, haha. What other man gets that close to me?” He laughed loudly.
And yes, I think it’s a good thing to pick a gynecologist with a good sense of humor!
This post is part of the Beauty of a Woman BlogFest VI! To read more entries, and potentially win a fun prize, visit the fest page between today and 11pm PST March 11th.
Lies, boring sex and does size really matter?
Once upon a time… It was a while ago I was in a relationship I considered to be happy. It was a long-distance, long-term relationship, and later engagement. And there it languished. If we had lived closer together, I eventually had realized much earlier, that this guy was a lazy, lying, nightmarish sociopath. But for a while I was happy. He made me happy. He made me feel like I was the only one, the prettiest, the most beautiful woman! (I found out later he told this to at least 6 or 7 other women too – at the same time – but that’s not subject of this post).
At the time he made me happy, satisfied me in bed until I finally realized two things: The man had literally no idea how a female body works, and I wasn’t sure whether he was properly educated when it comes to the ‘birds and the bees’.
Maybe this might help him:
Yes, he carefully watched my reactions, and I figure his request for me to let myself go and make noises during sex made it easier for him to see what action leads to what reaction. But other than that, he was more or less helpless.
·He had no idea why women menstruate
·He had no clue how to recognize when a woman fakes an orgasm
·He was totally oblivious how many orgasms a woman can have before dying
·He figured the more orgasms, the better satisfied
·The thought of a woman faking an orgasm just to get him off her finally never occurred to him.
As for me: I finally realized how boring this man was. All he was (and probably still is) interested in is sleeping, eating and sex. And there we go: He was even boring in bed. Due to us being apart for long times and then meeting again, it took me a while to find out that these sexual meetings always followed a certain program. Like a time frame, or maybe a ‘user manual.’
1. Tell her you love her
2. Tell her she’s beautiful
3. Tell her you missed her
4. Repeat point 1 – 3 excessively
5. Undress her
6. shower with her (because she insists)
7. tell her some more she’s beautiful
8. give her oral satisfaction
9. extend that until she screams
10. before she sneaks off (again), finally try to get your own satisfaction (provided it stands)
That was about it. There was no variation, no ideas, no new things, nothing magic, not even much fun after a certain time.
In the end, I finally just sighed and shortened the entire happening somewhere between point 1 and 4 – and again around point 7 and 8. Earlier screaming makes the entire thing end up faster, right?
And there was something else that irritated me to no end: his pride about the size of his penis. I just frowned at him when he mentioned the 9 inches. Do I need to understand what the point is why men need to show off their size? Provided of course they have it! Because of these 9 inches were, if not a lie, at least an exorbitant exaggeration. To this day I still believe he read that one number ‘upside down.’ It would explain a lot.
At the end it came as it had to: The relationship came to an end. Do I regret what happened? In a way, I do, yes. It shouldn’t have taken this long for me to realize how boring the man was, both in and outside the bed.
It took me a while to get out of the grief – but once I got over it, I thought, okay. Next time it will be better. And I thought it did…
*****
Unexpectedly and to my great surprise a man from my past showed up out of the shadows. Over 20 years ago we had worked together on a project, but once the project had ended, we’ve never seen each other again.
That man was so handsome when he was younger! Back then he had swept me off my feet. And now he came back into my life to do just the very same thing again. I’m no kid, and I usually don’t suffer from unexpected hallucinations. He got older, just as I did. We all change a bit with age. The only difference is that I’m realistic about it – he isn’t.
His way of making love with me was to ‘jump on me,’ wild, feral… his foreplay limited to the words “Are you awake?”
Considering the years before I had the most boring sex one can only imagine, this might have been a welcome change. For just a moment. Then I woke up. My man complained I was “too aroused.” I hate to say that, but I had to really, I mean, really control myself extremely hard not to laugh out loudly. Why? Let’s say it this way: As a woman in love, you don’t tell the man of your desire that he does turn you on, but unfortunately he’s got a penis about the size of an IHOP breakfast sausage.
And no, this is not me making fun of him. I’m 5’3″ and never had a child. My gynecologist uses his instruments the size for young girls – and still, I had the feeling having sex with my boyfriend was like throwing a wiener into a garage… What does that tell us? The good thing was: I knew it wasn’t me. He is that convinced everything about him, on him and in him is totally perfect, he had to find a reason why our sexual being together wasn’t as good as he wanted it to be. And since he “is” perfect, it was my fault.
Only a while later he told me, he wanted me to lose weight. – And that was it for me. Couldn’t he find a way to accept me the way I am; even more since he told me before that he would? I informed him that it was time to say ‘goodbye.’
To my great surprise, this got to me. I was extremely depressed after this separation. I missed him horribly… But I am lucky. I have the most wonderful friends on Earth. They helped me getting over him and comforted me.
I think the final moment when I was prepared to let go, was that particular day when I went grocery shopping and heard a song that reminded me of him. In a blur, our time together raced through my memory… and I thought to myself: “Really, girl… did you want to stay together with a man who is that bad in bed?” And then I started laughing.
It is, I might add at this point, a little embarrassing to laugh out loudly and being unable to stop, in the middle of a supermarket, right between broccoli and bananas. However, I made it out alive. The only thing I regret until this day is, that I never gave him “The Kamasutra” for his birthday.
*****
These two relationships taught me three things; I better keep in mind from now on:
1. I need a man who has a goal in life that goes further than meals, sleep, and sex. I need a man who moves his ass and works for what he wants and has a certain fantasy and ideas; a man with a certain education, whose messages I can read without flinching over the misspellings and who is experienced and interested enough to find out how to satisfy a woman. A man, with whom sharing intimacy makes my skin tickle, my skull explode until I can count the stars in the sky and my toenails roll up.
2. Does size really matter? To me, it does, yes. Do I compare? Was that one better than this one? Hell no! The size of the penis isn’t half as interesting as the man that’s accompanying it. But to me, there needs to be ‘something’ to feel.
3. I am, in my very individual and unique way, beautiful. And I deserve better than what I have been accepting of a relationship for the past few years.
I, therefore, decided to celebrate my beauty. I am unique; I am special, I am beautiful, I am humorous, loving, caring and helpful… I am many things; and yes, in bed I’m a revelation. *wink*
I deserve to have what I want, and I deserve to be happy!
For years already, the founder of Girl Boner, writer and radio host August McLaughlin has organized her famous BOAW (Beauty of a woman) Blogfest. This year it will start in one week from now!
There are more and more participants in two categories: The ‘original’ version and the ‘Girl Boner’ version.
The more the merrier, as she reminded us participants just lately. Please register on the registration page:
You still got time to register. August is amazing. Her deadline for registration is March 1, 2017, but she as well accepts registrations that come in with a slight delay!
There are prizes to win – please register and be part of the fun!
Writer’s Treasure Chest has become an amazing writer’s blog, and you are the ones who took it to what is is now and hopefully will continue supporting it.
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Once in a while though I permit myself to throw in a post that’s important to me in a personal way and is not or only indirectly connected to the writer’s world.
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This is one of them.
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Please let me first introduce you to a wonderful and dear friend of mine who I know for years:
The lovely August McLaughlin, a talented writer, founder of ‘Girl Boner’ and radio host.
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Last week we met and she spontaneously invited me to her ‘Girl Boner’ radio show where I got the possibility to briefly address my personal message to as many as possible women out there!
Thank you for this chance August! You rock!
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If you like to hear this episode of ‘Girl Boner’ radio, you can do so by clicking the following links:
I am very proud to introduce you to August McLaughlin today. For those who don’t know August McLaughlin yet, please read her bio. She’s an extraordinary personality and I’m honored and grateful to know her.
Bio
August McLaughlin is an award-winning, nationally recognized health and sexuality writer, radio personality and host and creator of Girl Boner®. Her work appears in DAMEMagazine, the Huffington Post, The Good Men Project and more. Kirkus Reviews called her first novel, In Her Shadow, “an engaging story with an inventive structure and an intriguing focus on body-image issues.” Her latest book, Embraceable: Empowering Facts and True Stories About Women’s Sexuality (available December, 2015/January, 2016 on Amazon and iTunes), is a celebration of women’s sensuality. Each week on Girl Boner® Radio, she interviews relationship experts, celebs and more, exploring women’s lives and sexuality “like no one else.” Known for melding personal passion, artistry and activism, August uses her skills as a public speaker and journalist to inspire other women to embrace their bodies and selves, making way for fuller, more authentic lives.
For the planned interview I was able to choose the questions I’d like to ask. And I picked a few sexual myths circling. Would you help me finding the answers?
First-time sexual intercourse for a woman ALWAYS hurts. I personally have never met a woman who actually enjoyed her first time without pain. How is reality?
There’s a common belief that the “first time” is extremely pleasurable or extremely painful for women—across the board. In reality, it usually falls somewhere in between. Unfortunately, so many of us have little clue as to how it all actually works (beyond the very basics), so some awkwardness is normal—as is some pain, especially if you aren’t well lubricated first. Emotional shame can also make physical intimacy painful, and does, for many women.
It is heard that the males’ semen tastes different, depending on what the man eats or drinks. Is this really true?
It sure is! Foods and drinks can absolutely affect semen flavor—though most of the research is anecdotal. Fruits, vegetables and juices are believed to improve semen taste (and taste and scent of all genders), whereas a meat-rich diet and cigarettes have the opposite effect. Apparently vegetarians taste and smell better than meat eaters.
It is generally said, men have wet dreams, is it true that women are excluded from fun like this?
Not at all! Girls and women experience wet dreams, too. (I wish we’d learned that in sex ed!) Ever since I wrote about what I call “sleep-gasms” on my blog and covered them on my show, I hear routinely from women who experience wet dreams. Whether we have them or not, it’s perfectly normal.
Is watching porn truly a mainly male form of entertainment? Not one woman I know enjoys watching porn (or at least says so). What does reality tell us?
I know women who enjoy porn, and women who don’t. Women are just as “visual” as men (that we aren’t is another common myth), but watching mainstream porn is more likely to trigger a sense of shame in women for all sorts of reasons—cultural ideals being one of them.
Most mainstream porn is also geared toward a straight male audience, which makes it less appealing to many gals. Some features violence toward women, which is, in my opinion, an atrocity. (I’m not talking about kink/BDSM, but abuse; there’s a huge difference.)
Recent studies show that more and more women are enjoying porn, and that many women prefer lesbian porn. I think that’s because it’s less degrading and more focused on women’s pleasure. I really appreciate the feminist porn genre, which celebrates all shapes, sizes, ages and genders. It’s a relatively small, but mighty, genre I hope keeps growing!
I also love Cindy Gallop’s work, with Make Love, Not Porn. She educates folks on the differences between porn and real sex—understanding the differences is so important.
Is the clitoris really the center of female sexual pleasure?
The clitoris has this reputation for good reason. It has some 7,000+ nerve endings—which is more than any other body part. Many women reach climax through clitoral stimulation, but we’re all different. We should all seek and explore our own bodies and what feels good.
Is it true that a woman’s vagina and/or its associated parts can alter by having regular sexual intercourse with an exceptionally large penis?
Large penises can cause tearing and discomfort, but it’s usually not permanent. Lots of lubrication, foreplay and other types of sexual expression, such as oral, can help minimize these issues. Kait Scalisi, MPH wrote a great blog post on this topic: Is His Penis Too Big? Here Are Seven Ways to Deal With It.
It is said that older people don’t have sex anymore. Some even say a woman after completing menopause does not get aroused anymore. Can this be true?
Hormonal shifts associated with menopause can cause decline in libido and related symptoms, such as vaginal dryness—but they’re all manageable. Recent studies show that women who value sex into their “golden years” can have increasingly pleasurable sexual experiences. I think some of this has to do with stronger confidence, experience and emotional growth. If a woman notices dramatic changes in her sex drive or sexual health, she should talk to a professional, such as a physician or sex therapist.
We know, there’s one pill to increase a man’s erectile function. But that’s’ not the only pill on the market. Can a pill or exercise really enlarge a man’s penis?
There’s no pill known to increase a man’s penis size. Lifestyle steps can help ensure normal circulation and arousal, however, which are super important for sexual function. Regular exercise, an overall healthy diet, getting enough sleep, managing stress and not smoking can all help tremendously. I explored this article for DUREX®: The Truth About Penis Size.
To learn more about women’s sexuality, buy August’s new book!
Embraceable: Empowering Facts and True Stories About Women’s Sexuality
A provocative blend of memoir, anthology and inspiration, Embraceable is a celebration of women’s sexual empowerment. Learn how August McLaughlin, creator and host of Girl Boner®, found her way out of the sexual repression to which too many girls and women are prone. She then weaves research and inspiring facts around stories contributed by women who’ve cultivated sexual empowerment in their own lives—on topics ranging from asexuality, kink and burlesque dancing to religion, “slut”-shaming and surviving sexual assault. Learn what girls do (and don’t) learn in sex ed, the truth behind widespread damaging messages, the role body image plays in embracing our sexual selves and more.
Here are the purchase links for Embraceable. The paperback will be added to Amazon within shortest time.
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