Sex Ed 201: How to be better at sex
In October 2017, I had the amazing opportunity to speak in front of a live audience at TEDx Oakland. Given my background at Lioness, I decided to talk about Sex Ed 201: How to have better sex. i.e. pleasure-based sex education for adults.
This topic is close to my heart. Recently, I’ve been in several conversations where someone brings up at least one of two points:
- If someone already knows how to have sex and to pleasure oneself, you don’t need to learn anything else. You know you, the end.
- We should focus on sex ed for children [instead of sex ed for adults] to instill good sexual habits in the next generation.
Let’s just say…I have a lot to say about these two points. I disagree, adamantly. Hence the talk (below) where I make the case for why always learning and exploring sexuality is beneficial for everyone, no matter your age.
1. “I already know myself”
Some people don’t need to, or don’t want to improve certain aspects of themselves. That’s fine—we have a limited amount of time, and only so much time we’d like to devote to learning and exploring different things. There are plenty of things I don’t care to learn or improve on in the interest of working on other hobbies, strengths, and weaknesses. We don’t have to be committed to bettering ourselves in every single aspect of life, and it’s unreasonable to expect that of anyone else.
The problem is if you assume you have a deficiency, weakness, or believe something is wrong with yourself (or someone else) when you want or need to learn more about your own pleasure. The problem is when “I have a question about sex” implicitly means “I have a problem about sex.”
Just because someone wants to learn more about a subject or wants to be better at something doesn’t mean they have a problem. Take exercise as an example (let’s pick Yoga to be more specific). You don’t necessarily have a problem if you take yoga classes. There are a variety of reasons someone may take yoga classes. Some people may want to lose weight, some may want an outlet to blow off steam after work, some may just want to try a new hobby or hang out with friends, some may want to master yoga to become an instructor or for their own satisfaction. The reasons for trying something new or improving on something vary depending on the person. So, why do some people interpret “getting better at sex” as also being “bad at sex”?
While I’m not entirely certain where the belief comes from, I have a couple guesses. I think it’s in part believing that sex should be simple. It is considered a basic human need, after all, akin to eating, sleeping, and breathing. However, like eating, sleeping, and even breathing, there are ways of getting better at those basic human needs, too. We can find and practice new ways to eat healthier, sleep better, and breathe better that can make our lives better and more satisfying. The same goes for sex — we can get better at sex for a more satisfying life, to explore something we want (not just need) to explore. We could “master” sex, if we want to, or not.
Just because someone may want to get better at sex, doesn’t mean they’re bad at sex.
2. “But what about the children?”
Sex education for children is important. But so is sex education for adults. After all, who’s teaching the children?
Issues surrounding sex are sometimes considered struggles of the past. Sex education, in theory, was supposed to smooth out all the dramatic changes that entangled young adulthood. Our own personal experiences, hearing about friends’ experiences, consuming popular media and pornography should have taken care of the rest. We should have had sex figured out by the time we grew up. But is that really the case?
On paper, having sex seems pretty straightforward. Still, I haven’t met a single person that hasn’t wanted to improve their sex life at some point in time. These questions don’t exist in a vacuum. Sexual dissatisfaction can bleed into our health, our wellbeing, and especially our relationships.
I saw this firsthand when I left my position at an investment bank and started selling sex toys. Selling intimacy products became a conversation opener for women of all ages to ask me all sorts of questions about sex that they usually didn’t ask their doctor, friends, partner, or anyone else.
A group of sorority students at a college were very interested in learning more about the G-spot—where it is, how to find it, how it works, how to have a g-spot orgasm. A woman confided that she never told her fiance that she has never had an orgasm with a partner, and was worried that her inability and dissatisfaction would spoil their marriage before it even started. Some women who experience menopause have varying effects on their own sex drive, so much so that they need to re-discover what works for them.
These are just snippets of the sheer amount of questions and topics I encountered. Whether you’re 18, 55, 75 or 105, everyone has questions about sex at some point in time, especially in relation to their body. The problem is, who are they going to for answers?
The internet is an obvious option.
You’ll have to sift through a million answers — most of which are contradictory, completely false, or inaccurate (have you seen porn?), and a lot of other information you probably weren’t even looking for. Even when you find reliable accounts, it’s unlikely that what works for one person will work for you. A lot of sexual experience is subjective.
Besides that, everybody’s experience is different. There are no set milestones for things to achieve by any point in time. Some people first masturbate when they’re very little — others start when they’re very old. Some don’t have their first orgasm until they’re 50 or older. Everyone is different, no one experience should be considered the norm or abnormal. To assume otherwise is to dismiss other people’s experiences and perspectives—meaning you’re missing out on the value of how your experience is unique, as well as how other’s experiences are also unique and insightful.
So how do I have better sex?
I know what you’re probably thinking — yes, we get it, everybody is different. So what? Where do we get to the part about having better sex?
The secret lies in the difference. If we can understand how exactly we’re different and find measurable ways to describe the varying experiences, we can make headway for Sex Education 201!
At Lioness, what we found early on was that there are significantly different patterns of orgasms — three so far that we know well, but we also know that there are many more beyond these three! We’ve named each unique pattern (left to right, starting from the top): Ocean Wave, Avalanche, and Volcano.
Here’s the interesting part — these three patterns come from three different people. And a person only has one orgasm pattern. Someone with a wave pattern won’t have a volcano pattern, and vice versa. There are a lot of amazing findings we’re observing and expanding on from some earlier research conducted in the 1980s, and you can read more about that here.
So where do we go from here? How do we have better sex?
The secret to having better sex is that…there is no secret.
There’s only one truly accurate answer, which is self-experimentation. Research has shown women who were more comfortable with themselves were far more sexually satisfied.
Basically, confidence = better sex.
It’s a bit cliche, I know. We all want that magic bullet — magic pill, whatever you’d like to call it— that unlocks mindblowing sex every single time for the rest of your life, but that just isn’t possible (for now). But we need to put in the effort to have great sex. We need the right attitude, and a strong desire to quench our curiosity and try new things.
While we haven’t exactly streamlined great sex, technology has given us products geared towards making self-exploration easier (hello Lioness). ;)
But ultimately, it comes down to a matter of mindset. We all fall into habits and ruts, but the difference between dissatisfaction and, ultimately, satisfaction is whether you climb back up and keep striving to learn and explore. Even for the most seasoned sexpert who knows a lot of different things, sex can always get even better when you stay curious!
And it’s okay to not know everything. No one does, not even the seasoned sexpert. When it comes to sex, nobody has the upper hand because we all want and need different things at different times.
How do you have better sex? Be a better explorer.
Be curious, and be open. It’s the journey for ALL of us, not the destination.
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