Who's been telling you about perfection and how did he get in here now that's the question

by anna at 06:50 PM on October 04, 2004

In many parts of Africa, the practice of removing young girls' clitori and sometime their labia too is commonplace. It's an age-old tradition. Yet most reputable surgeons won't perform the procedure. This leaves it to barbers and butchers whose sole medical qualification consists of owning sharp tools. Sterile technique consists of wiping the blade off on your shirt.

Obviously this is reprehensible. But I'm not here to lament it. If you're into that there's lots of other places to go. Oddly enough, there's also many sites that defend female circumcision, as they so euphemistically call it. I'm not here to defend it either.

Whatever the rhetoric, this stems from a basic fundamentalist Islamic view of women as lustful sirens out to lure men into committing sinful acts. It's the same basis as that of the burqa. But that's so bogus. Studies have shown that while men think about sex every two seconds, many women go for minutes on end without a carnal thought.

Clearly men thought this up. I don't think they thought it through though. Face it: a huge part of the pleasure of sex stems from gratifying your partner. (And God knows it isn't an easy thing sometimes.) Plus, the more gratified she is the more receptive to suggestion she becomes. Conversely, it's not a whole lot of fun to have sex with a woman who is obviously bored and painting her fingernails or clicking the remote.

It's probably different among gay guys. Physiologically, barring Bob Dole Disease or heavy drinking, enough friction for enough time exerted on the penis will result in orgasm. There's not this whole big deal about techniques and finding this spot or that.

In high school I knew a guy named Dean. Although average looking, he always walked around with this shit-eating grin, like he was getting all he could handle. He was like the proverbial guy who walks into a bar licking his eyebrows with his Michael Jordan-like tongue and is immediately mobbed by foxy girls. You'd hear girls giggling about him. "Let's just say Dean knows what he's doing," they'd confide. Or, "I thought Dean was going to split me in two but it turned out fine. We're going to do it again after school." Even his exes spoke glowingly of their encounters.

I asked him for his secret. He told me all about the old "man in the boat." He also added that she doesn't like to be launched until her sails are fully hoisted. I guess it was good advise, though back then women didn't even have G-spots. All we had was the wet-spot and no one wanted to sleep on it.

It's funny how the most important information gets left out of parents' birds and the bees talks. Aside from knowing how menstrual cycles impact sexual availability and desire levels, I'd say the most important omission is the improbable location of the boatman and his pal the G-spot (which I don't know to this day.) For girls it would have to be how to sense when things are getting ready to get messy and what your options are at that point.

As Jeff Foxworthy once said about husbands' imminent arrivals, that's information you need.