We Should be More Clit Smart And We Should Be Angry We're Not
This is the 6th of my 7 International Clitoris Awareness Week blog posts, and today the focus is being angry. I happened upon this post from 2010 recently at Frothing at the Brain. It's just a girl who wants to tell the world that she's pissed off about how little information she was given about an important aspect of her life.
She deserves to be angry. She deserves to say it's ridiculous, and she's not alone in the anger or in living through the ridiculousness.
Today, I am angry. Today I am so furious that there are tears in my eyes and I can’t go one day longer without making a noise about this.
I am angry that the so-called “sex education” I was provided with was so incredibly inadequate. I find it hard to believe what I’m about to say, but I know it’s true, because I lived through it.
Nobody told me I had a clitoris.
Nobody told me I was capable of having orgasms.
For five years I was given “sex education”. It mostly consisted of periods and condoms. It didn’t talk about consent. It didn’t talk about the actual mechanics of sex, about arousal and lubrication and oscillation. It didn’t tell me a single thing about relationships and it didn’t tell me I had a clitoris.
I only know now because of the internet. Nobody entrusted with my care and education has ever told me that the female orgasm exists, or about the parts of my anatomy necessary for it.
Now, we all had different sexual educations within our different schools and by different teachers. We all had different parents who insinuated, expected, and taught us different things about sexuality. We were all exposed to different friends and media and were from different areas, but I bet we all lacked or misunderstood some key knowledge about our sexual functioning when we first became sexually active.
Yeah, everybody has to learn a bit. We have to explore with ourselves and with each other to really get the grove of things, but that's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about basic stuff like what a female orgasm is like or what the clitoris is.
I'm talking about more than simply a lack of knowledge, but actually being led in the wrong direction. I'm talking about thinking we'd just be able to orgasm when a dude put his penis in and moved it in and out (I explain more clearly why that's so problematic HERE). I'm talking about thinking that truly sexual women can enjoy some Fifty Shades of Grey shit like earth shattering orgasms when someone tweaks your nips, or having a partner that can bang you into an orgasm. I'm talking about realizing that you can't do that Fifty Shades of Grey (or you can input any sexual media in here - porn, romance novels, Hollywood sex scenes or any scenes in any HBO shows) shit and thinking that you must be one of the unlucky ones - or worse - thinking you are broken, or less sexual, or not trying hard enough. I'm talking about never seeing women touch their clits in movie sex. I'm talking about never having a problem orgasming alone, but realizing that when you do the things you think you should be doing with a partner, orgasm just isn't a part of that. I'm talking about reading about "vaginal orgasms" and "mind-blowing orgasmic sex positions" in Cosmo that are never mind-blowing or orgasmic put into real life practice. I'm talking about a society that often ignores our clitoris as part of partnered sex, that insinuates in every way that we should just be able to orgasm by being fucked, and then tries to "fix" us when we're not. Maybe it's your hormones. Maybe you can't "let go" enough to orgasm. Maybe you aren't trying enough positions. Maybe you aren't actually in love with your partner..
Maybe it's that we're not stimulating our clitorises, people.
It seems insane that in needs to be said, but it absolutely does. If a dude asked a sexpert why he couldn't achieve orgasm when he was getting boned in the ass or when his balls were being tickled, the answer would be clear. It wasn't a hormone imbalance or that he wasn't emotionally in it enough - you need to stimulate your penis, son! A man likely wouldn't ask that question though because contrary to what we ladies get treated to, the culture's insinuations about male orgasm clearly involves stimulating his organ of sexual pleasure. So, maybe the 70% of us women who don't claim to have vaginal orgasms aren't broken or less sexually capable.
Maybe most of the things we ladies learn from our culture about or orgasm is a bunch of bullshit.
And we should be angry. If you think about an aspect of your sex life and want to cry because you feel inadequate or stupid or unworthy, you have every right. Cry it out girl, but then realize that you aren't broken or pathetic or less sexually capable - the world around you is just assuming the wrong shit, and we need to set it straight.