Sex Is Natural. So Why Are So Many People So Bad at It?

By Liz Langley, AlterNet. Posted March 3, 2009.

This vulva gallery therefore is so simple yet so inspired -- an art show we carry around and never look at.

The differences are profound and lovely -- some are drapey and flowerlike, some have bigger labia, some are spare and simple, and frankly there are more hair variations than at the Westminster dog show.

I've never put this much abstract thought into the subject before, and like much of Winston's teaching, the impact of it won't hit me for a while, but when it does it will be big. While it's steeping, however, I'm just doing the things she advises. Like breathing.

Not that I really need instructions to breathe, but this typically thoughtless, carefree act feels like a performance at Lincoln Center when you're supposed to do it loudly in a group of nine strangers.

It's my first exercise in my first class with Winston, called "SexCraft," which promises some insight into several orgasm-enhancing techniques, including "hands-off self-arousal" (which I cynically think would be very helpful when boring people are talking, not to mention a real time saver).

After she gives us some introductory thoughts (many of which I've shared in earlier places in this story), we start doing our first breathing exercises. We're spread out across the room, sort of like gingerbread people on a baking sheet. There are two men and seven women in the class -- both of the men are there with a partner.

Most of us are sitting cross-legged on the floor, but some lie down on cushions with their knees bent, like you would if you were looking at cloud pictures. With our eyes closed (partly to keep us focused on ourselves, partly to keep from making eye contact, which could be weird), Winston asks us to breathe deeply, and on the exhale to give it some volume -- her own exhale is a long, loud and languorous, a breath with vibrations you can feel.

"If you don't make the sound, you won't have the full experience," Winston says, adding that it will encourage our shy classmates who will feel free to vocalize if they hear others doing it.

This little aural nudge definitely helps, and somehow knowing other people are shy makes me feel more brave and able to make my exhales a bit louder -- not much, but a little bit helps. After a while, we add elements like flexing our pelvic-floor muscles as we breathe.

Soon I'm as relaxed as I've only ever been after hypnosis. I don't feel very aroused, but I resolve to try it at home and see if privacy (I'm a solo act) doesn't produce the desired effect.

Not to put too fine a point on it: Holy. Cow. It works. It took some time to really get a bigger effect but eventually ... well, think the difference between winning a spider ring at skee ball and winning the slots jackpot in Monte Carlo.

I'm still a novice. I haven't mastered the "hands-off" thing, but education is a process, and this is some pretty fun homework, so much so I'm content to dwell right where I am for a while.

It's hard to remember all the elements, like learning to drive a stick shift, but even just a few deep breaths and the vocalizations makes a difference to me now. It's like opening a door in your house and discovering a set of rooms you never knew you had. I'm so glad I didn't think I knew it all.

You can't turn a light on in one corner without it casting some illumination on nearby spaces, though, and the foundation of Wholistic Sexuality -- the relationship to one's self -- had just as much impact as the physical tips.

The things Winston's curriculum prompted me to look at in my life were just as important as the physical exercises -- it's amazing how dropping emotional baggage can make you physically light and sparkly. I supposed I could have learned it some other way. But it made a big difference to have a light that talked back to me.

See more stories tagged with: women, sexuality, sex ed

Liz Langley is a freelance writer in Orlando, Fla.

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