Women Loving Women

If you're a heterosexual woman who is curious about sex with other women, then we can highly recommend 'Women Loving Women: Appreciating and Exploring the Beauty of Erotic Female Encounters' by Jamye Waxman. It's an exploratory book with a self-accepting message.

We live in a society that has pigeon-holes for sexuality; heterosexual, homosexual and bisexual. In reality, sexuality is a spectrum - women (and men) can be interested in, and attracted to, the same sex, without considering themselves to be gay or bi.

In the late 1940s Alfred Kinsey developed a sexuality scale based on people's fantasies and real-life experiences. His scale ranged from 0 to 6, with 0 being completely heterosexual (i.e. had never had sexual thoughts about somebody of the same sex), 3 being a true bisexual and 6 being completely homosexual. His results were astonishing; only 10% of the population were a 0 or 6, everybody else fell somewhere along the spectrum.

Dr Fritz Klein later expanded on the Kinsey scale. He believed that a person's sexuality was not fixed and could change over the course of his or her lifetime. Which means that whilst you or I may have considered ourselves to be heterosexual during adolescence, we may now find ourselves attracted to women, or vice versa, or that our sexuality hasn't changed at all. I find this fascinating, because it means we can choose and re-choose what makes us happy, sex-wise, throughout our lives. Life is an exciting journey - if we allow it to be - and high self-esteem will carry us through any uncertainty this may cause. Klein wanted to show that we didn't have to limit our sexuality to those whom we fantasized about and/or screwed, but can include those we have close interactions with, and that it evolves over time.

Society, however, has unhelpful taboos around sexuality. These taboos exist because many people fear the feelings evoked in themselves when other people openly express their sexuality. The former are scared to examine their own sexuality, in case they don't like what they find; they therefore do their utmost to bury it. Unfortunately by doing so, they find anything which might bring these feelings to the surface disquieting, and therefore attempt to suppress sexual exploration in society by making it a taboo. This becomes a vicious cycle, because the less accepting society is of the spectrum of sexuality, the more difficult it is for people to investigate - and subsequently accept - this crucial part of themselves.

This is a shame, because if these people chose to accept their feelings rather than push them away, gradually they would become more comfortable with them, and realize that maybe the feelings were trying to inform. Being comfortable with your sexuality is imperative for your happiness and well-being; likewise, self-acceptance is crucial to self-esteem. [For an excellent book on what strengthens or damages self-esteem and how to raise it, see 'The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem' by Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D.]

When it comes to exploring our sexuality through same-sex encounters, rather than allowing ourselves to be limited by society's taboos; we find the 'Do no harm' code of ethics to be beneficial. If the encounter is between two consenting adults i.e. you're not hurting yourself, the other person, or anyone else (e.g. lying to your husband about having sex with another woman), then there is nothing wrong with what you are doing and there's no reason to be concerned. So long as you're both comfortable with the proceedings, that you can both trust you're able stop at any time; you're in a safe space in which to explore.

One final note, 'Women Loving Women: Appreciating and Exploring the Beauty of Erotic Female Encounters' by Jamye Waxman is written specifically for heterosexual women and so therefore may hold little of interest for lesbians.

Female Maturbation: It feels good and it's good for us.

A lot of people still wonder, ‘If masturbation feels so good, can it really be bad for me?’ When really they should be asking, ‘As masturbation feels so good, can it also be good for me?’

The answer to the second question is a resounding ‘Yes’. [The answer to the first question is, of course, a resounding ‘no’.]

The old, false beliefs that masturbation makes you blind, mad, insensitive, insane or lethargic; can be replaced with these truthful pluses of masturbation. Masturbation is good for you; it makes you skin great and benefits your overall health. It improves your circulation, boosts your immune system and slaps a big smile on your face. It can be a wonderful way to unwind and relax and release stored-up tension. It’s also the safest form of sex; you can’t get pregnant or acquire a sexually transmitted disease from it.

With masturbation we can express love for ourselves. If a part of yourself recoils at the thought of loving yourself, because it’s considered bad in some way; realise that you can’t love anybody else until you have learnt to love yourself first (how can you if you’ve never experienced what it feels like). True. Additionally, ask yourself why it is okay to love other people, but not yourself? Let me clear-up a common misconception around self-love. People who commit heinous crimes are not those who love themselves too much; when people are referring to people who ‘love themselves too much’, they don’t mean true self-love; what they’re actually referring to are the personality traits (bragging, conceit, etc), which manifest in an attempt to cover-up self-hate. These people hate themselves because they have not learned to love themselves. They don’t love themselves because they’ve been told from an early age that to do so is evil, or they’ve never experienced love from parents who were also caught-up in the trap of believing that self-love is wrong.

Masturbation can help raise our self-esteem, by allowing us to explore and accept our bodies. Self-esteem is another positive character trait that has been given a negative press. People with high self-esteem (definition: feeling competent to live and worthy of living), are not the murderers, rapists and criminals of this world. They value their own lives too much; and because they value their own lives, they are able to value the lives of others. Plus, they’re too busy getting on with their own lives to mess it up by committing a crime. Self-esteem is essential to happiness and self-fulfilment and whilst it is not the focus of this blog, I’m made up that masturbation has a nurturing part to play in building self-esteem.

So, now you know. Masturbation not only feels good; it’s also good for us.