HOW TO BECOME A BETTER LOVER – NEGATIVE ATTITUDES
The reduction in sexual pleasure experienced by many women is partly due to the negative attitudes to their bodies and to sex which they obtained in childhood and early adolescence from parents, clergy, teachers, and peers. All too often children are taught that the genitals are dirty or disgusting. Even the medical name for a woman’s genitals, the ‘pudenda’ (from Latin, meaning ‘that of which one ought to be ashamed’), is symbolic of the disgust some parents induce in children towards their genitals. Women have a second problem. Unlike a boy’s very obvious penis, which he knows is pleasurable to touch and fondle, a girl’s genitals are hidden, mysterious, remote. I find it remarkable (and disturbing) that many women have never used a mirror to see what their genitals look like and to find out where their clitoris is.
In addition, many boys, and nearly all girls, are taught that masturbation is evil, that it leads to debility, or even if it does not, should not be ‘indulged’ in! This is nonsense, of course; masturbation has several very positive values, especially for women. In childhood and adolescence it teaches a girl to explore her body and not to be ashamed of its shape, its texture, and its surfaces. It teaches her, especially, not to be ashamed of touching and playing with her genitals. It does more. It helps a girl become aware of her response to sexual stimuli and to recognize the stages of sexual arousal. And it enables a girl to develop her own sexuality – to know what she enjoys and what she dislikes – which is important if she is to be fulfilled sexually later.
Far more destructive to a woman’s sexual fulfilment than her negative conditioning to sexuality is the self-satisfied neglect by lany men of a woman’s sexual needs. If there is a villain in a Oman’s unfulfilled sexuality it is her male sexual partner!
*119/16/1*
