One of the best things about snuggling with female friends is the skin-on-skin contact we benefit from cuddling whilst just wearing underwear. This special kind of physical contact is hard to come by, when you're not in a relationship. Even when in a relationship, men frequently struggle to just cuddle and not get sexually aroused and then want sex. This is why when you crave touch, snuggling with your female friends can be such a huge bonus; you can just cuddle without it potentially leading to sex.
Skin-on-skin contact feels so wonderful, and yet I would say we're fairly deprived of it in our culture. We're fairly deprived of physical touch full stop. Think about it, how many hugs do you receive a day? Sometimes we can go for days or weeks without hugging someone. Other primates regularly groom and hold each other and so naturally get their need for touch met. In addition, wearing clothes can act as a barrier between ourselves and others, even those we do hug. Yet being touched is massively important for emotional and physical well-being (babies who are not touched fail to thrive).
How comfortable would you feel cuddling your female friends whilst wearing only underwear? Maybe the thought is alien to you, you think it's wrong, or, lucky you, it's something you do on a regular basis. If it's something you've never done before, we welcome you to try it.
Showing posts with label intimacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intimacy. Show all posts
Saturday, 10 January 2009
Sunday, 14 December 2008
Female Intimacy
How intimate are you willing to be with your female friends? Have you ever snuggled in bed with them? Maybe kissed them? There appears to be a barrier as to what is an acceptable level of intimacy for two heterosexual women to have with each other. Except we're not too keen on the word heterosexual anymore, as we prefer to see sexuality as a spectrum, rather than cut-and-dried.
Society would prefer to see any kind of sexual intimacy between two women as taboo. It's still not keen on lesbians and would rather pretend they didn't exist. Notice the eyebrows raised if two female friends choose to buy a house together. The automatic assumption is that they must be lesbians, not to mention that being a lesbian is a bad thing. Living in this kind of society, therefore, we're experimenting without any kind of guidelines in place. As we've mentioned before, we like the 'Do No Harm' code of ethics; if you're not hurting yourself, the other person or anybody else, then what happens between two consenting adults is up to them.
We do think it's important to experiment though. When women become happy sharing intimacy with each other, rather than believing it has to be kept solely with a man, they will no longer be controlled by peer pressure. When the fear of being labelled a lesbian no longer holds any fear for women, when it no longer has any kind of control over them, they can stop being bitchy towards each other in the workplace, and start supporting and empowering each other instead. In her book, The Hite Report: On Women Loving Women, Shere Hite believes women backstabbing each other is down to this fear of being seen as becoming too intimate with another woman and consequently being labelled a lesbian. Whereas if women are constantly bickering and fighting, no one is going to accuse them of such a thing.
The first step to becoming more intimate with female friends is to realise that there's nothing wrong with it. Cuddling on the settee whilst watching a film, is a perfectly acceptable way for two friends to spend time with each other. If you think this is self-evident and are already intimate with female friends, then congratulations. If the thought scares you, Why does it? Is it the fear of being labelled a lesbian that scares you? If so, realise that society uses this taboo as a very effective weapon for controlling women. If women are afraid to get their intimacy needs met with other women, they can only look to men, which keeps them locked into their reproductive role in society.
It's time for women to cast-off the fear associated with same-sex intimacy and instead treat the taboo with the contempt it deserves.
Society would prefer to see any kind of sexual intimacy between two women as taboo. It's still not keen on lesbians and would rather pretend they didn't exist. Notice the eyebrows raised if two female friends choose to buy a house together. The automatic assumption is that they must be lesbians, not to mention that being a lesbian is a bad thing. Living in this kind of society, therefore, we're experimenting without any kind of guidelines in place. As we've mentioned before, we like the 'Do No Harm' code of ethics; if you're not hurting yourself, the other person or anybody else, then what happens between two consenting adults is up to them.
We do think it's important to experiment though. When women become happy sharing intimacy with each other, rather than believing it has to be kept solely with a man, they will no longer be controlled by peer pressure. When the fear of being labelled a lesbian no longer holds any fear for women, when it no longer has any kind of control over them, they can stop being bitchy towards each other in the workplace, and start supporting and empowering each other instead. In her book, The Hite Report: On Women Loving Women, Shere Hite believes women backstabbing each other is down to this fear of being seen as becoming too intimate with another woman and consequently being labelled a lesbian. Whereas if women are constantly bickering and fighting, no one is going to accuse them of such a thing.
The first step to becoming more intimate with female friends is to realise that there's nothing wrong with it. Cuddling on the settee whilst watching a film, is a perfectly acceptable way for two friends to spend time with each other. If you think this is self-evident and are already intimate with female friends, then congratulations. If the thought scares you, Why does it? Is it the fear of being labelled a lesbian that scares you? If so, realise that society uses this taboo as a very effective weapon for controlling women. If women are afraid to get their intimacy needs met with other women, they can only look to men, which keeps them locked into their reproductive role in society.
It's time for women to cast-off the fear associated with same-sex intimacy and instead treat the taboo with the contempt it deserves.
Friday, 12 December 2008
'The Hite Report: On Women Loving Women' by Shere Hite
Every now and again in my life I come across a book which completely transforms my way of thinking. I believe 'The Hite Report: On Women Loving Women' by Shere Hite could become one of them.
Hite's book is potentially groundbreaking work on female relationships (not, as you may presume, solely lesbian relationships), and how the lack of open and honest communication between mothers and daughters on female sexuality during childhood is damaging not only their own relationship, but the relationship between sisters, female friendships and women's advancement in society.
Even today, women may feel more pride identifying with their fathers than their mothers. There's still something shameful, something inferior, about being a woman, and this belief is pervasive and insidious in society. Given this belief, women are left with the feeling that if they accept who they are and identify themselves as women, it's akin to admitting they're failures and 'second class citizens'. A person whom by dint of her sex is unworthy of an executive job, high-paid salary and equality in the workplace - who would want to associate herself as such?
This shame about being a woman is laid during childhood, believes Hite, by mothers refusing to be open and honest with their daughters about their sexuality.
Teenage girls desperately want to know more about their mother's body and sex life, so that they can then better understand their own. Yet the mother is naturally unforthcoming about such information; the changes are happening to the girl and she has many puzzling questions about it, yet her mother is keeping the answers hidden, a secret. Why isn't the girl allowed to ask her mother about her own body and sexuality? Even if the mother is willing to discuss periods with her daughter, she will rarely share her own experiences of this phenomenon; meaning the girl is supposed to accept this intrusion into her personal life by the mother, but not the other way round. This lack of two-way conversation is possibly the reason why teenage girls develop an irritable relationship with their mothers.
Girls cannot understand why their mother is so coy about her own sexuality. Why must it be kept hidden away as if it doesn't exist? Is there something shameful about a woman being sexual? What about orgasms, is it okay for women to have them? These questions are frequently in the child's minds, even if she may not have the words in which to express them. When sexuality is hidden as it is by the mother, these questions remained unanswered and form a barrier between mother and daughter. Daughters feel that they cannot trust their mother - they live with this person and yet there is a huge part of her that remains hidden, unspoken of. The daughter may feel it is unfair that her mother knows a lot about her and frequently sees her body, but is unwilling to share intimate details about herself.
Daughters presume that because the mother is unwilling to share her sexuality, that there must be something wrong with a girl being sexual, having a sex life and having orgasms. If there wasn't, why wouldn't her mother be more upfront about it? This is where the shame of being a woman starts. This lack of mistrust between mother and daughter is also the start of women's lifelong poor relationships with other women; the bickering, backstabbing and lack of nurturing between women that has become so prevalent in society.
Mothers and daughters developing two-way, open and honest communication about sexuality could pave the way for more nurturing female relationships in society. And make women who are proud to be women, because the essence of who we are as sexual beings is no longer viewed as shameful and demeaning.
Hite has come under fire by psychologists in the past for the lack of rigour in her sampling methods, leading to flawed results. This Hite Report was published late 2007 and so far, I've been unable to find information on the web which either supports or discredits her sampling methods for this Hite Report. I hope, for the sake of the crucial message in this book, she has learnt from previous mistakes and been more rigorous this time.
Hite's book is potentially groundbreaking work on female relationships (not, as you may presume, solely lesbian relationships), and how the lack of open and honest communication between mothers and daughters on female sexuality during childhood is damaging not only their own relationship, but the relationship between sisters, female friendships and women's advancement in society.
Even today, women may feel more pride identifying with their fathers than their mothers. There's still something shameful, something inferior, about being a woman, and this belief is pervasive and insidious in society. Given this belief, women are left with the feeling that if they accept who they are and identify themselves as women, it's akin to admitting they're failures and 'second class citizens'. A person whom by dint of her sex is unworthy of an executive job, high-paid salary and equality in the workplace - who would want to associate herself as such?
This shame about being a woman is laid during childhood, believes Hite, by mothers refusing to be open and honest with their daughters about their sexuality.
Teenage girls desperately want to know more about their mother's body and sex life, so that they can then better understand their own. Yet the mother is naturally unforthcoming about such information; the changes are happening to the girl and she has many puzzling questions about it, yet her mother is keeping the answers hidden, a secret. Why isn't the girl allowed to ask her mother about her own body and sexuality? Even if the mother is willing to discuss periods with her daughter, she will rarely share her own experiences of this phenomenon; meaning the girl is supposed to accept this intrusion into her personal life by the mother, but not the other way round. This lack of two-way conversation is possibly the reason why teenage girls develop an irritable relationship with their mothers.
Girls cannot understand why their mother is so coy about her own sexuality. Why must it be kept hidden away as if it doesn't exist? Is there something shameful about a woman being sexual? What about orgasms, is it okay for women to have them? These questions are frequently in the child's minds, even if she may not have the words in which to express them. When sexuality is hidden as it is by the mother, these questions remained unanswered and form a barrier between mother and daughter. Daughters feel that they cannot trust their mother - they live with this person and yet there is a huge part of her that remains hidden, unspoken of. The daughter may feel it is unfair that her mother knows a lot about her and frequently sees her body, but is unwilling to share intimate details about herself.
Daughters presume that because the mother is unwilling to share her sexuality, that there must be something wrong with a girl being sexual, having a sex life and having orgasms. If there wasn't, why wouldn't her mother be more upfront about it? This is where the shame of being a woman starts. This lack of mistrust between mother and daughter is also the start of women's lifelong poor relationships with other women; the bickering, backstabbing and lack of nurturing between women that has become so prevalent in society.
Mothers and daughters developing two-way, open and honest communication about sexuality could pave the way for more nurturing female relationships in society. And make women who are proud to be women, because the essence of who we are as sexual beings is no longer viewed as shameful and demeaning.
Hite has come under fire by psychologists in the past for the lack of rigour in her sampling methods, leading to flawed results. This Hite Report was published late 2007 and so far, I've been unable to find information on the web which either supports or discredits her sampling methods for this Hite Report. I hope, for the sake of the crucial message in this book, she has learnt from previous mistakes and been more rigorous this time.
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