Lust Life: Educated Dilemma

He’s a curious cat. We met at a birthday party on the edge of the New York alternative sex world, where many of the guests were sex writers, alt-porn directors, sensual pioneers and porn ingénues with names like “Liquid.” He stood out from the scraggly crowd: a young, hot, sophisticated Euro-boy. When he mentioned he was a friend of the pornologist, I assumed he was a seasoned sexplorer.

He told me he was sick of spending his weekend nights wasting away at trendy Meatpacking clubs. “I want to know the underground of New York,” he said in his charmingly clumsy, Italian accent. “Do you know the underground?”

“It depends on what you mean by underground,” I said. “There are all sorts of alternative scenes, but there is an underground that I know very well…certain parties…erotic parties.” His eyes lit up. I wasn’t quite sure if he understood what I meant by “erotic parties,” but we exchanged numbers and parted with sparks between us.

After a few weeks of him calling and texting me for a date, an opening appeared in my busy schedule for this sexy Italian. We went out for dinner, and a week later we saw each other at another party of porn daddies and sensual free-spirits. A hot dominatrix opened up a conversation about sex with a complimentary spanking. Biscotti and I got cozy on the sofa. He said, “She’s wild…I never did anything like that or go to parties. I don’t know, maybe is my education. We are very Catholic country in Italy…but I’m coorious.”

A few days later, we were naked in my apartment. “I go slowly,” he said. “I can’t come first time…is always like that…I need time.”

“Why do you think that is?” I asked.

“I think is my education…”

“Americans have the same bad education,” I said. “I broke through it…so can you.”

I believed I had the power to help break his unfortunate pattern. He said he felt comfortable with me, but the challenge was insurmountable. No amount of expert technique and encouragement could end the curse of his sexually repressive education—that night, at least.

I realize I’m in the minority of sexually liberated people. But before one can be liberated, one must be oppressed or repressed. I never had a consistent problem climaxing (except when I was repressed with anti-depressants), but in the first few years of my sexually active life, I often thought if I had sex more than once a week, I would turn into a nymphomaniac. Oral sex was repulsive. Masturbation? Shameful. Homosexuality was not quite a sin, but the idea that I could be a lesbian was disturbing to my fragile psyche. And group sex? I couldn’t imagine having sex with someone I didn’t love, never mind a dozen strangers.

How did I come to have these sex-negative beliefs? Education—as in the parental, scholastic, religious, cultural socialization that leads us to believe that any sex act outside of heterosexual marital procreation is dirtier than nations at war. Our early education tells us not to talk about sex, so we have secret conversations with Playboy and porn. It punishes us when we touch ourselves in public, so we feel ashamed to do it in private. The boys who learn that they are as worthy as their penises grow up to be men who are too anxious to come, and too anxious if they can’t. Orgasmically challenged women were once girls programmed to expect automatic pleasure from the mythical rod of perpetual satisfaction.

When are boys going to be taught their penis is not a measure of their sexual worth? When are girls going to be encouraged to take responsibility for their own pleasure? Unless you grow up in a sexually open household, you are going to spend half of your adult life chiseling away at the layers of education carved from the fears of our forefathers. We can’t control education, but we can take charge of our desires.

Biscotti took charge of my desires that night, and he’s beginning to take charge of his own—with a little help from his sex ambassador and sexually crazed friends. Of course, some people prefer to hold on to their bad education—the familiar frustration of coming too soon, the comfort of an orgasm never had. And the underground can be a scary place if you’re shackled to the sexual perversity of the world.

But oh how wonderful it is when you’re free! To liberate yourself from the evils of education, all you need to be is curious. The rest will follow…and you can go as far as you want to go.