Hey Slut: The Pressure to Come

Hey Slut,

I’M ALMOST 18 and have yet to have an orgasm. I find it nearly impossible to arouse myself on purpose, with touch or otherwise, so when I do find myself aroused I try to take advantage of it and masturbate. However, it rarely escalates, and in fact quickly decreases regardless of what I do. I have used lube and vibrators but they don’t do anything for me at all, it just feels odd. Do you have any ideas on what might help me gain more control in the matter? Thank you.

Sara’s daughter

 

Dear Daughter of Sara (DOS),

I was ten years old when I got my period at my father’s house. It was horrific. My parents had recently divorced and he moved his new girlfriend and her kids into a log cabin a half hour away. Some weekends, when he had visitation, I watched my father mow the lawn and play tennis, but mostly, I walked up the road and hung around the one liquor store in the town so long and so often that the owner allowed me to sweep the floors for booty. I dragged a tall, heavy, wooden broom down the isles and hid from the chaos that had become my home. I cleared cobwebs from the corners and wiped dust from the Twinkies. When I was finished, the owner allowed me the thing I wanted more than anything: candy. So I filled my sweatshirt pockets with Skittles and Kit Kats and when I got back to the house, I ran upstairs, shut the door to the room I shared with my new sort of almost step-sisters and I masturbated a lot and gorged on my stash. My body was the only thing I could control. If there were a valve I could push to turn my breath on and off, I would have tried that. When I got my period, I lost control again and was furious.

The betrayal began with hips. I wanted to be small like Christie Brinkley, but my hips expanded to great proportions while my chest stayed flat for a couple more years. My stomach bulged without me while my breasts stayed put. My huge feet grew a size in one year. Boys pinched my butt at school and I bled through my favorite two-tone pink jeans. I hated math but I hated my fat thighs more. Discomfort and raging horniness drove me into the sweet bulimic depths of loneliness. I sought refuge in TV and Twix bars, but the TV had other motives. Every commercial sported a thin, tall super model that was definitely having sex. Other ladies of TV were coiffed and stacked with skinny arms and flat bellies. They were totally fucking. I was chunky. I had acne, cellulite and bad new-wave hair. I kept trying to conquer and control my body but the more I tried to stop it from growing and feeling and wanting to fuck, the more my body rebelled.

It took me a long time to orgasm and much longer still with another person in the room. Even now, sexually active and hornier than ever, sometimes my pussy gets shy and I cannot reach orgasm during sex no matter what happens. Here’s a secret that Cosmopolitan magazine won’t admit: It can take a while for a woman to come. It can take an hour. It can take weeks with a new partner. Here’s something you won’t hear on the news: several sexy, beautiful women I know have never come at all.

What I’m getting at, DOS, is that your young and savage body is not entirely controllable;  it’s more like a shooting star or a symphony. You can learn how it moves and breathes and seek to explore its patterns and rhythms, but there’s no exact formula that is 100% guaranteed to make you come no matter what the girlie magazines claim. Think less about finding your “on” switch and more about learning your body’s language. The more you pressure yourself to reach bliss, the more frustrated you will become. I am sorry to tell you, this process will take time.

I know you are in a hurry to hit this important female milestone. Perhaps your besties brag about their orgasms. Don’t believe everything they tell you because they may be dealing with their own quivering insecurities by exaggerating. Having an orgasm and performing sexually are two things people are most insecure about and so the media will exploit it and sell you on the idea that there is a singular solution. Don’t fall for it.

You get pressured from every direction, don’t you?

I mean, the pressure to come. Hot, busty women savagely eat a hamburger dripping with sauce with ravenous mouths and blowjob lips promise you satisfaction. Bylines shriek about new ways of finding your G-spot; blowing your hair back. The call to get on board with every sex position imaginable like: How to Please him in bed: words that hit like failure on steroids.

I don’t know if you were expecting me to say, “Try harder or try this technique: buy this other vibrator or toy.” Here is what I am suggesting instead: You may simply be the proud owner of a shy pussy. That is something to respect and admire. Get to know her and don’t freak her out by applying too much societal pressure. Being truly naked with someone requires reluctant, sweet beginnings: awkward tender vulnerability and being brave enough to allow your sexual body to awaken. When your shy pussy is ready to be unleashed, she’ll become the lethal sex goddess you allow her to be. Until then, relax and hang out with her for a while.

 

 

About Antonia Crane

Antonia Crane is a writer and performer in Los Angeles. She teaches Media Writing at UCSD to students who know more about Tumblr than she does. Her memoir “Spent” is forthcoming on Barnacle Books March 18th, 2014. Her other work can be found in The Rumpus, Dame Magazine, Salon, PANK magazine, Black Clock, The Believer, Frequencies, Slake, The Los Angeles Review The New Black, and lots other places. She can be found running up the mountain in Griffith Park. She blogs and tweets and all of that :http://antoniacrane.com.
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