Ethical Slut - Dossie Easton [118]
If you really want to be the world’s greatest lover, and you want to know exactly what pleases your partner the most, try masturbating in the same room. Who knows, you might like to watch—we find it a tremendous turn-on. Watching or showing, you will teach and learn each other’s individual pattern of pleasure and become the most perfect, and the most perfectly satisfied, lovers that ever could be.
GET YOUR CONDITIONS MET
It’s hard to focus on pleasure when you’re worrying about whether the baby is asleep, the door is locked, the shades are drawn, or whatever bothers you. Figure out what your conditions are, what you need to feel safe and free of worry, so you can enjoy your sex completely. Deal with your needs beforehand.
Establish agreements with your partner about safer sex and/or birth control. It is not appropriate to argue with anyone’s limits regarding pregnancy and disease risk reduction: respect the limits of the most conservative person, because sex is a lot more fun when we all feel safe. Personal limits may be idiosyncratic, and that’s okay too. Dossie has a minor obsession about being clean and likes to set up clean sheets and have a shower so she feels all fresh and sparkly. Someone else might not care as much—so what? There is no one right way to get ready to have sex. Give yourself permission to take care of your own needs; it will free you.
Sometimes you discover that your conditions aren’t what you thought they were and that the new ones might offer some special fun. Janet remembers:
I’d been to a concert that night with two friends, who were lovers with each other and with me. One of us had recently acquired a treasure: a ’64 Lincoln Continental the size of a studio apartment. On the way back, we decided to stop by the river to admire the moonlight, and before we knew it we were throwing a full-scale orgy in the front seat of the Lincoln. I’d always thought I wouldn’t like sex in a car, but when I found myself stretched out in the front seat with my head in one partner’s lap as I masturbated him over my shoulder, and my other partner kneeling in the passenger footwell with her head buried between my legs, I began to change my mind. The scene ended in hysterical giggles: the one I was masturbating began to come, his body went into an orgasmic spasm, and he hit the horn—the car emitted an enormous blast of sound from its mid-’60s Detroit horn that must have awakened everybody for miles around and made us all practically fall out of our seat!
COMMUNICATE
Most of us have been struck dumb by the scariest communication task of all—asking for what we want. Is there any one of us who has never failed to tell our partner when we want our clit or cock stimulated harder or softer, slower or faster, more on the shaft or more on the tip, on the side, on both sides, up and down or round about, or whatever it is that would work for us? Take it from us, the way to get what you want in sex is to ask for it. And the way to get a good reputation as an excellent lover is to ask each partner what he or she likes and let them show you how to do it exactly right: Janet makes a point of having her lovers masturbate for her early on in the relationship, so she can watch how they do it and make mental notes about what kinds of stimulation they like to feel. Once you get past the initial embarrassment, this is actually easy and will make you a very popular lover indeed. If you find this impossibly difficult, here’s a good way to start:
EXERCISE Yes, No, Maybe
Try this exercise with yourself