New Book Asks If You're Getting What You Really Really Want From Sex

 

Author Jaclyn Friedman appeared at Women and Children First bookstore last week to introduce her latest book: What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl's Shame-Free Guide to Sex and Safety. “What You Really Really Want isn’t actually a book that you read," she said. "It’s a workbook that you do.”

And it is precisely that. Friedman asks the reader to position her (or his) self within the discourse of society and then to shed off the layers of religious, familial, peer, and educational influence that have affected his or her sex identity. The gem that remains after the excess baggage is sloughed off is what we really really want out of sex - that includes our fantasies, our boundaries, and even things we choose to reject.

It seems odd to us that a guidebook about shame-free sex in today’s society hasn’t been written until now. It seems such a simple thing, or at least it should be — discovering what it is that you really really want.

Friedman herself is an intelligent and confident, but also amiable and accessible, feminist. She touches on some difficult subjects and asks questions of the reader that may seem simple enough, but are absolutely bogged down in emotional weight. At the reading, Friedman said she was inspired to make the book while she was on a book tour for Yes Means Yes, which she edited in 2008. She said the women she encountered would always ask her one question about sex: “How do I know what I want?”

According to Friedman, all of the influences outside of the reader have taught her or him three things (“The Terrible Trio”): shame, blame, and fear. She proposes that women turn down the volume on these influences and instead focus on the best part about sex - what feels good to each individual person.

One example was discussed at length during the Q & A session. Take everyone’s favorite class in high school (assuming you had it at all): sexual education. One of the major issues with sex ed in schools, Friedman says, is the emphasis on how sex is presented as taboo and never a single word is spoken about sex being pleasurable. "I'm pretty sure the students know that it feels really good," she laughed.

It’s as if educators dangle some enticing dessert in front of student and, at the risk of them being unhealthy, refuse to acknowledge that the treat can taste very good. It’s as if people should feel only shame upon consuming it. Friedman said it is this kind of conditioning that has made many people feel confused about sex, even before they even begin to explore it. Understanding the influence is important because with its recognition, one can tune down its static.

To create the book, Friedman assembled a group of 12 random strangers to embark on a workshop. From that came the format and exercises of What You Really Really Want. Rebecca Kling, one of the 12 participants, joined the reading at Women and Children First. She talked about the positive effects of the workbook, but also of the advantages of trekking through it with a group of other women.

“As a transgendered woman there are very specific messages that I’ve received about what my sexuality should mean and what it is allowed to mean," Kling said. "I was so pleasantly surprised to come into these conversations…feeling like I was not the token ‘tranny’ and that there were no token identities involved.”

Having a support group, or at least one individual, that the reader can talk to about the process is in fact part of the process itself. The group, Friedman explained, was evenly distributed with a large age range and different sexual biographies. Together they discovered that all the women had so very much in common, and it was precisely because of the insecurities and baggage that most women do share.

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