by Wendy Jones
We started Sex Education in Year 5 when we were ten years old. We got the period talk, Year 6 we got another period talk and a bit of talk about the changes boys go through during puberty. Year 7 we got a period talk. Year 8 we got a period talk. It was just literally periods all your life! Then in Year 9 they tried to do contraception with us and failed because the teacher was known throughout the school as a joke teacher. None of us liked her. It didn’t go well, we spent most of the lesson playing Wink Murder behind her back because she made us all sit in a circle on the floor around her, bearing in mind at this point we are fourteen-year-old girls who do not want to sit cross-legged on the floor while someone goes ‘This is a condom’ at us. And that was about it. There was a lot of hesitation about anything that involved affection between two girls. We didn’t learn about sexuality, it didn’t get a mention. I’ve educated myself.
At eighteen, school was the only experience I’d had. I’d spent my life being surrounded by girls and beautiful women – that was what I was used to. So that’s what I’d based all my sexual fantasies on. My boyfriend was the first person I’d ever kissed. Before, most of my fantasy was women. I thought I was a lesbian. I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I definitely still have stronger feelings for women than I do men, but I’m very happy with my boyfriend.
My boyfriend works in retail. Perfectly normal guy. He’s very open about it with his work colleagues. Yeah. He shows them pictures of me. I’m okay with that. I’m fine! I really don’t mind! The general atmosphere where he works is very open and very dirty-humour-based, which probably fits in quite nicely. My boyfriend’s family knows. My boyfriend’s parents didn’t discover he was into this, he discovered his parents were into it. He found photographs and a book of Victorian discipline under their bed when he was sixteen. I’ve met them; they are perfectly normal people. They know exactly what our relationship is, which I’m fine with. If his parents are comfortable with that then I have no issue with that either.
I’ve always felt I should be able to talk about these things. Even today, female masturbation is a bit of a taboo and it shouldn’t be: it’s normal, it’s healthy, it’s what people should do, it makes you learn about your own body and what you want. My experience of not having been told about this stuff makes me want to talk about it: about being gay, about sex, about relationships, about everything, because I didn’t know about it so other people probably don’t know. And I definitely want to continue with BDSM. I’ve met so many good people; I have so many close friends through doing it. I really enjoy it. Do I want to do BDSM in the long term? Yeah.’
15
Mother
Yvette, 48, Crewe
‘Do you remember the Turkish Delight ads?’
‘When I was very young, eighteen and a half, I had this boyfriend called Glenn. I was living in America away from my family and he was really into pornography, heavy-duty porn. I’d never come across anyone like this before – well, the man upstairs used to have porn mags and me and my brother used to look at them. This guy, Glenn, used to take me to – oh my God – the tackiest hotels with hot tubs and mirrors on the ceilings and, being young and not knowing that much about the world, I used to watch these really horrible – maybe they weren’t really horrible, maybe they were okay – films with him to be grown up, then have sex under the mirrors. I tried to be grown up and do all that stuff and watch films but one time I thought, ‘Oh God, I’m sick and bloody tired of listening to people making noises.’ Finally I agreed I would watch the films if he turned the sound down because the sound was like, ‘Ugh, so tedious’. It did nothing for me. I pretended it did at first. When I was a child my parents went on about what a great movie Deep Throat was, saying, ‘Oh, it’s such a great film, it’s kind of intellectual and funny.’ I said to this guy, ‘Okay, I’ll watch Deep Throat with you; that’s supposed to be good.’ Fucking hell! It was such a load of bollocks. Intellectual it wasn’t. Funny? Possibly. Dated? Yes. Pornography? Yes. None of it did anything for me at all.
I don’t have many memories of my childhood. Well, I do. There was growing up with my mum and my stepfather who were incredibly sexual in front of us, snogging, and he was always touching her inappropriately. It became apparent they had a very lustful relationship – he was quite lascivious towards her, and she obviously used her sexuality. It made me feel sick and I considered it dirty, you know, like dirty old men in the seventies. It was disgusting. I vowed I never wanted to be like my mother and as a result I’ve gone the other way.
I did have an experience with my mum’s really close friend, whom I adored. This guy, Keith, whom I loved, was gay. He did come into my bed when I was nine. And I have to say, to say he raped me is far too dramatic, but something happened. I wouldn’t even say it was unpleasant. It wasn’t horrible. I didn’t hate him for it; in fact, I loved him desperately. And it was only a one-off. People say, ‘Oh, you should hate him.’ Well, I didn’t hate him.
He bought me a ladybird orchestra. I liked little things, like little teddies and ornaments, as small girls do. It was tiny ladybirds all playing instruments with a ladybird conductor, and I still have it to this day and it’s on display in one of my children’s bedrooms. He gave it to me as a way of saying sorry and I still have it and that is probably really screwed up and I don’t care. Then my sister said to me a year ago, ‘I’ve got some things of yours,’ and it was a birthday card from this man I’d saved because I loved him so much – he’s dead now. He died of AIDS. I honestly don’t feel any hatred towards him: it’s my parents I hate for doing what they did, acting out all their nonsense in front of me. With Keith it was just something that happened. Of course, I never told anyone but it did physically damage me rather badly because I had to go to the doctor on numerous occasions, which is quite sad actually. It really damaged me physically. I didn’t make the connections until I was an adult.
I’ve been married twenty years and have sex with my husband but it’s very safe sex. Once, and this is a real secret, my husband wanted me – oh, I feel so bad – when we had sex he wanted me to say things like, ‘I want you,’ and ‘I want you to fuck me,’ – rude, rude words as I see it. I’m not a prude, but I just couldn’t. It felt really abusive to have to say, ‘Oh, fuck me!’ It turned him on but there was no way on God’s earth to allow myself to do that, it was too physically painful. It’s not painful in my vagina, just in my heart; it feels sad, a bit like grief. It’s such a mish-mash. Well, this is rather personal and private: sex has always been quite difficult until my body has been overtaken with the physical sensation. Sex has been great when the sensation takes over and obliterates the other feelings and the thinking.
We used to have sex much more often, say twice a week, now it’s once every couple of weeks, which probably could be more often. But with the kids and work it’s hard to make time for it. I generally don’t want to do it; it’s something that I feel I ought to do because that’s what women do. I’ve got nothing to prove – I’ve had four children. I can get pregnant; I’ve had babies. I love babies, but no more do I want to give birth to them so there’s no meaning in that department. It’s sort of my marital duty but when I do do it, I do enjoy it. Because I don’t want any more kids there’s no incentive to get pregnant.
Never in my life have I masturbated! Ever! That I know is weird. Sex with myself – are you joking? Urh – no. My husband said to me about fifteen years ago, ‘Maybe you should just try,’ but the idea is horrendous because it’s so dirty and not nice. It’s not physically dirty, obviously: I’m quite a clean person. It’s so not what I can do. Oh, it’s so painful I don’t even know how to go there. I bought a book about healing from sexual abuse and there was this one exercise where you had to lay on the floor and clench your buttocks and touch yourself very gently and I vowed to myself I might try that but I never have!
If I allow myself to think about what I want I freeze over and I can’t go there. That’s why I’ve never had a sexual fantasy. I’d be far too scared to. I fantas
ise more about winning the lottery, which is completely unlikely to happen, especially as I don’t buy lottery tickets. Sometimes I think it would be lovely to have an affair with a man who completely adored me and bought me presents all the time but that’s more of a Prince Charming fantasy coming to rescue me from my life and bringing me money. Obviously, I fancy men and think, ‘That’d be nice,’ or, ‘He’s handsome,’ but I’d never be like a sadomasochistic person or a person who wants to sleep with two people at once, or goes to those parties where they put their keys in the bowl on the table. No, I’ve never fancied that, never even allowed myself to. Then I turn into my grandmother who, if we watched anything on telly and there was even a vague bit of kissing, she’d close her eyes. I remember watching Carry on Camping with her and she was muttering away. She was Dutch and she was tutting in these funny Dutch words and I was feeling really ashamed that I thought Carry on Camping was funny.
I probably could do with some therapy but the idea of talking about this stuff fills me with absolute dread so I’ve avoided it like the plague. I’d like to look at it but I’m really nervous in that I don’t want to have a sort of mini breakdown. I think, ‘Oh my God! What if I die an old lady and I’ve never sorted this stuff out?’ And part of me thinks, ‘Well, I don’t care. It’s too painful.’ But then maybe my life would be better; I don’t know. It would be lovely to be able to explore myself, not masturbate-explore, but explore that side of myself. Because men do find me very attractive. I still get men bloody chatting me up and it really annoys me. I’m always getting blokes chatting me up and they’re always really ugly. They’re never the gorgeous businessmen who on a train journey happen to say, ‘Oh, look, I happen to have a diamond ring, you don’t have to give me anything,’ and then I can go off and sell it and pay my PhD fees and no one would know!
My children are teenagers. It’s been strange because I grew up in a house where my stepfather would walk around naked with an erection, and I had no privacy at all. If I was in the bath he would walk in and look at me and even took photos of me. Then to have children who suddenly start shutting the door … When they were little we would all have baths together and it was so lovely – me in the bath with their little gorgeous beautiful bodies and then suddenly my daughter didn’t want to get in the bath with me and she wanted her own space and I had to respect that. I didn’t like it. The same has happened with every single one of them – I have to respect their privacy. It’s a shame that my daughter doesn’t let me see her body naked. I feel sad that I can’t go and chat to her in the bath, but she doesn’t want me to so I can’t. And the boys, well that would be totally inappropriate, and that’s that.
I was walking through the park today with the dog and I saw this piece from a magazine on the ground and I looked at it and thought, ‘They’re really pornographic images.’ I thought, ‘Gosh, I’d hate my sons to see this. I’m going to pick it up.’ There were these images of women with their legs spread showing different aspects of their vaginas. There were eight of them and they were so different, and if I was a little boy and I saw that I would probably be really taken aback so I threw it in the bin.
The first time I looked at my vagina was after I had my third child. I had never allowed myself to look at any of my private parts – my private parts! I was really shocked at how it looked. I remember saying to the midwife, ‘Is it unusual? Would you mind having a look?’ She said, ‘It looks fine, that’s how they look after childbirth.’ But these vaginas in the park looked like something I’d never seen before in my life. Maybe if they’d been photographed in a different way they could look absolutely beautiful but the hard photography of women showing their legs and their vaginas felt like objectification of women – it didn’t feel right and I’m glad I picked up that piece of porn and put it in the bin. Having grown up with not being allowed to explore one’s own body and self, it was such a bastardisation of the women – of women.
Sex is such a fragile thing and sexuality needs to be nurtured and grown, not cut off or stamped on. Had mine been allowed to be nurtured and grow I wouldn’t be in the position that I am now; someone who’s scared to have a sexual fantasy, who thinks it’s dirty, who thinks it’s scary, who thinks it’s rude! Yeah. Rude and not ladylike and not nice, which I know intellectually is not right.
Do you remember those Turkish Delight ads when we were little girls? It was on ITV in the 1970s back in the day when to be an Arab was mystical. It would say, ‘Fry’s Turkish Delight’ and a lady would come on and she’d say, ‘Full of Eastern promise’. There she was looking gorgeous and in the background was some Omar Sharif-type Arab in a tent on a sand dune. I suppose the nearest thing as a child I got to a sexual fantasy was the idea of being like the Fry’s Turkish Delight lady with my veil and the handsome Arab sheik in the background. That’s as far as it went. There would be no other encounter other than him whisking me off to a tent full of wonderful purple and red silk cushions. Oh God – I bet some women have really juicy, interesting sexual fantasies and mine is the Fry’s Turkish Delight advert!’
16
Slut
May, 37, Liverpool
‘Ethical slut! That’s what I want to be’
‘I associate water with sexuality. I will masturbate and I’m bringing myself to orgasm and I’ll imagine the sea as my lover. I might become the sea: I am the element that the sea is, powerful but soft, moving, watery. I close my eyes and imagine how the sea touches me as I lie in it or lie on the beach as it starts to come up me, then it’s splashing me and then how it takes my breath away. I’m imagining gorgeous, delicious feelings and breathing in the way that I would when I’m relaxing and completely surrendered to the sea, despite its power to kill or drown me, so I have trust. It’s a sensual imagining.
Eco-sexuality is a new name for – I’m going to put a stab in the dark – enjoying the sensuousness of nature. Kids do it a lot, human beings do it, animals do it. We bask in the sun or enjoy the deliciousness of water or the smell of a flower. We say we are kissed by the sun. Eco-sexuality is not getting a stick and shoving it inside me. If I’ve been feeling jangly I’ve gone – this sounds a bit hippy – ‘Go to nature and be in nature.’ I’ve gone, ‘What element do I want? I really want long grass tickling me.’ And I’ll go and do that. The idea of instead of Earth Mother, it’s Earth Lover. It’s allowing nature to be my lover.
Polyamorous is something I am in the world. Polyamory is acknowledging that I can be in love with many different people at one time. And yes, I might be having sex with them as well, but it’s about love. I did have a three-way relationship where I was in love with the female and the male and all three of us were equal. It was amazing. It was idyllic. I had a sexual relationship with her as well as him. We all had sex together. Me and the male engaged with each other first and expressed our attraction during a six-month course we were on. I had a similar experience with the female over the same course and this was one of the very first female–female experiences I’d had. We said – because we all had mutual attraction – let’s see if we’d enjoy a threesome.
It was like heaven on earth. I mean it; I really mean it. It was so conscious. We brought our fears and vulnerabilities; he was like, ‘I’ve got performance anxiety.’ A lot of our fears were, ‘Is my dream actually going to come true now?’ Because I’d not imagined what it would be like to do this not drunk, not like, ‘Oh, we just ended up doing it, because we were in the hot tub.’ We chose to do it; we planned it. We sat in a triangle cross-legged and spoke honestly, we did a check-in first and then we were like, ‘What shall we do?’ We played with some exercises with one person asking for whatever they wanted. It was sensuality, not just sex or ‘I want you to suck this, and do that.’ It was like, ‘I want you to hold me, and let me cry like I’m eight.’ It was absolutely honest. We said twenty minutes each doing exercises and then we allowed the alchemy of whatever.
We’ve done it lots. We’ve had other lovers and been separate and then we come back at diffe
rent times, spontaneously. All three of us are still in acknowledgement that we love and are attracted to each other. We are lovers on and off, here and there. I absolutely love group sharing. Multiple partners at the same time – that’s definitely been where I’ve felt the most joy, connection and calmness. ‘Ethical slut’ is a brilliant, brilliant phrase. That’s what I want to be, what has allegedly been a slut. Not having to cross my legs. But ethical, so it’s not, ‘I’m just gonna shag whoever and it doesn’t matter.’
There are orgies going on in England. There’s a great night I’ve been to in London with at least a hundred people, which used to be called The Sex Maniacs’ Ball and now is called The Night of the Senses. It is a sex club encouraging able-bodied to mix with disabled-bodied people, especially around sexuality. I love that concept. Because unfortunately our society creates this model of what is sexy, and, being in a wheelchair, having one leg, having Tourette’s, der, der, der, is right down the list: they don’t have a sexuality and don’t want sex. And it’s really horrible. It’s a real problem. In society everyone is allowed to be sexual apart from disabled people. And the mentally ill.
It’s very difficult to literally be sexual with lots of people at once but I’ve been in orgy situations where there have been ten to twenty people in a room. In the Night of the Senses I was in a room where all bits of bodies were touching – a mass. I certainly wasn’t having sex with all twenty of them. There was mutual understanding and a group intention, like a crowd watching a concert. That night was great. It had an etiquette booklet and I love that about the polyamory community: there’s an agreed etiquette around things like protection. Because it’s on the table there’s so much more awareness and upfrontness.