Category Archives: Education

Sex and mathematics are hard

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If you were like me growing up, then the subject of mathematics at school was hard. Dare I say even impenetrable.

I wanted to like maths. I wanted (desperately) to be good at it. But the simple fact was that while many of my fellow students worked hard and learned the material and got good marks, I simply couldn’t – my brain refused to understand. Maths used in physics was no problem for me (oddly). if you needed to calculate vectors, acceleration, or the voltage drop over a circuit, then no problem. I could do all of that. Or write an essay on Anton Chekhov’s The Three Sisters, or a 20,000 word creative piece. But maths simply eluded me. To this day, I don’t know why.

It’s become an item of almost faith in our society that “children learn far more easily than adults”, we hear that their brains are like sponges, able to soak up much more new information than adults, and learn much better. This may be true, but I think that it leads to a kind of over-reaction, whereby we assume that as adults, things that we couldn’t learn as children are going to remain forever impossible.

This is simply wrong. You only need to look at mature age students in higher education. My mother (at age forty something) studied horticulture and received high distinctions across the board – much better than the average young adult in her course.

The point is that things that once may have stumped us don’t have to stay out of reach as adults. I recently decided that I wanted to understand calculus. I took to Google and found a slew of “introduction to calculus” pages. And guess what? Grasping the fundamentals was simple. I mean really simple. Something that felt impenetrable as a teenager made perfect sense to me – granted, I did have to go back and refresh my algebra knowledge, but that turned out to be a simple enough task as well. Now – amazingly – I understand and can use calculus. I even signed up for a mathematics newsletter that I stumbled across during my research and the first issue I received today taught me something new and even gave me a chance to have some minor insights of my own about numbers. Hurray for adult learning!

Of course we learn all the time as adults, we often just don’t see it as “education”, rather we treat it as just part of our work.

Sex of course never gets a look in when it comes to learning. It’s not taught in school. It’s not taught at work (well for most of us). In fact, it’s never taught at all. It’s something that you might go and learn about on your own, or perhaps, if you are lucky, then you will get to explore with a partner.

For most of us though, it’s sink or swim, pick a few things up here and there, watch some porn, read some articles in magazines. Hardly a rigorous process and one that is as likely to mislead as it is to inform. And of course it is compounded by the comfort of finding out what “works” for us, then never taking the opportunity to learn new ways of experiencing sexual pleasure.

So what does it all mean? It means a few things to me – firstly: your pleasure and knowledge of sex is in your own hands. No-one is going to teach you, so you need to find out how to make it good yourself. Secondly: it’s actually good and important to be sexually knowledgeable. The more you know about sex and sexuality the more chance you have of enjoying it and being able to give your partner pleasure, and being safe.

Lastly: knowledge is power! I now know how to solve certain mathematical problems that once eluded me entirely – and I also know how to reliably give almost any woman an orgasm.

John.

Performance anxiety – it’s not just for men

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Today I read an article in the local paper written by sexual health therapist Matty Silver. You can see it here.

It’s a good article focused on male sexual performance – or lack there of. It’s something that rarely if ever sees the light of day in the media. After all much of the time the media wants to paint men as either macho machines, or one dimension slaves to their penis, so talking about men feeling intimidated by, or unequipped for a healthy sex life rather breaks the stereotype du jour.

In reality men have their own issues around sex. Plenty of them. Personally I fought premature ejaculation for many, many years. I was lucky to come across a book by Canadian doctor Sy Silverberg. Along with some assistance from a kind partner, it changed my sex life forever, and allowed me to enjoy sex in a way that I had never been able to before.

All in all, I think that this article is a step in the right direction – it demonstrates that we are all complex, emotional, and more or less fragile beings. Something that should be respected.

What jarred for me though was the second last sentence:

Women don’t need to perform – they can just lie down and don’t need to do much – they can even fake an orgasm!

I understand what Matty Silver was trying to say with this, yes, there is a very obvious difference between men and women, women don’t need to get an erection to participate in sex, yes they can “just be there”.

But really?  An otherwise sensitive article that accepts that stereotypes about male sexuality are damaging then goes and drops another unhealthy stereotype on women. It seems wrong.

Not all women can just “lie back and let it happen”. Nor should they. And it’s a bad message for anyone with a platform like a major newspaper to be sending.

What I would rather see is the acceptance that women and men both can have performance anxiety. It may not be so clearly evident in a woman as in a man, but for a caring lover it should still be obvious through body language, through lack of vaginal lubrication, and lack of relaxation. These are all things any partner who cares to look for them can see.

I often meet women who come to me because they need a chance to explore their sexuality and build their confidence in themselves and their body and their ability to enjoy sex in a non-stressful, non-judgmental situation. It is something that I can offer, being an escort that (to many people’s surprise) women often can’t get in a relationship.

This really is the problem though, for both men and women, often regardless of age. We are never given the opportunity by life to develop the skills and confidence with our bodies that we need to have a healthy sex life. I do what I can through the services that I offer, but really there needs to be a community wide change in attitude to sex, sexuality, and relationship.

Personally I think that it is time for these issues to be given as much attention and priority in our society as learning maths and (in Australia) English.

John.

Oh Joy and John Oh on vaginismus

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My favourite sex blog Oh Joy Sex Toy has a fabulous article today about vaginismus. What is it you ask? Sounds painful right? Well yes. It can be. But I won’t go into detail. Read the post for an excellent description of this entirely fixable problem of painful vaginal penetration:

http://www.ohjoysextoy.com/vaginismus/

What I wanted to say on the subject is that it is one close to my heart. Over the years of me working as a male escort I have been contacted by a number of women who had diagnosis of vaginismus or issues with painful penetration and were looking for a safe, professional way to treat their condition. Some had spent time working with a therapist, doctor, or physio prior to contacting me, others had not.

The Oh Joy article has it right though, vaginismus is usually a mental condition with a physical symptom. So the first thing to do is talk. Try to understand its origin. After that, progressive gentle stretching exercises that allow you to retrain the automatic muscle spasm that is vaginismus are the key. This can be done using medical dilators that get progressively larger, or something as simple as a partner’s finger (and eventually fingers).

Some women would rather have the assistance of another person (such as myself) to work through the physical stretching exercise. I usually recommend that we arrange a number of short (one to one and a half hour) sessions to work slowly and allow you to relax progressively to the point where full penetration is possible.

For some women just one session can be enough. For others it may take several. But the important thing is that no matter how bad your vaginismus is it can be fixed! See your gynecologist and they can start you on the right path. If you would like the help of a professional with the actual exercises and to allow you to even try sex when you are ready with the safety of someone that understands your situation and the need for care and patience, then please feel free to contact me.

John.

The Futility Closet

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Twitter has a habit of bringing interesting things into my life, such as the Scarlet Alliance sex work conference late last year, interesting people, the occasional client, and today, a new podcast!

Introducing the Futility Closet podcast.  It is an interesting mash up of historical stories and facts.  Here’s the synopsis for todays episode:

An amazing tale of interspecies friendship

The lyrebirds of Australia were highly mysterious and rarely seen until one fell in love with an elderly widow in 1930. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll trace the development of their surprising friendship and how it led to an explosion of knowledge about this extraordinary species.

We’ll also learn how Seattle literally remade itself in the early 20th century and puzzle over why a prolific actress was never paid for her work.

It was the story about the lyrebird that caught my attention, but on closer examination there was a lot more interesting information to be had too.  I have had it playing in the background most of the morning as I have worked my way through my list of new years tasks (like catching up on banking).

If you have a more science oriented mind, then you could also check out the Radio Lab podcast.  It’s one of the best that I have ever heard, but then I am a bit of a science geek/nerd!

John.

We need to talk about Ashley

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In amongst the outrage, fear, and moral grandstanding over the Ashley Madison user database leak I came across this article:

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/ashley-madison-hack-what-if-you-find-out-your-colleagues-on-the-list-20150820-gj3i4y.html

It is about the most sensible and humane piece of journalism that I have ever read. In answer to the question: “should I look up the database to see if X is on it” the author just say “no, leave it alone”. There is wisdom here.

Women come to me for many reasons, some, because they cannot get the sexual satisfaction that they desire in their lives from their partners. Some do it with the partners knowledge and permission. Some do not.

But “cheating” isn’t the problem here. “Cheating”, with all of its derogatory overtones is what happens when we live in a society that is dysfunctional in how it handles sex and relationships. Why do people “cheat”? Some because they can. Some because they feel that they have no other option.

What we need to do as a society is collectively “grow up”. In an ideal world, there would be no need for a service like mine. But the truth is that there is no genuine attempt to teach children, teenagers, and young adults how to develop and maintain functional relationships, let alone give people space and acceptance as they work out what their sexuality is and what they need in their lives. We can’t even allow – in this country – that two people of the same sex can have a genuine functional relationship.

We are trapped in a social narrative that starts with fairy tales and “ends” with white weddings. Then we have to live the rest of our lives trying to live up to this impossibly high standard of happiness and reliance on one other person. In short, it’s impossible for most people. Just look at divorce rates. And just because people are still married doesn’t mean that they are happy and fulfilled, or wouldn’t like something more or different.

Which brings us full circle to Ashley Madison. It’s time that we left our moral outrage at the door. Recognised that people and relationships are complex, that judging others by our own morality is wrong and destructive, and that we need a new order in our lives that prioritises real human needs and wants, rather than religious dogma and social etiquette that is demonstratively harmful.

Recognising same sex marriage would be a good start, but a rethink of even the concept of marriage would be even better.

John.

Sex – what matters?

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From:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jul/29/britain-shares-sexual-fantasies-neil-bartlett

by Neil Bartlett

“Far from being something best left to priests, pornographers or politicians, sex is something people want to think about for themselves.”

Every week I meet someone new who embodies the statement above. Sometimes more than one person. Usually it is women who after years, often decades of their adult lives have thrown off the constriction of sex being “owned” by priests, pornographers, and politicians (and a disapproving “public”). They come to me for many reasons, but mostly because I let them think about sex for themselves. Let them participate in sex any way they want, without judgment. This is no small thing, because sex and more correctly our sexuality is not something that we can push down and repress without consequence to ourselves and those around us.

So I like Bartlett’s statement above. It is an accurate summary of how I and most of my clients think and feel.

“My own advice to my younger self, now that so many strangers have told me what they are really up to, would be simple: when we have sex, we’re not looking for plumbing – but for meaning.”

This is of course Bartlett’s own personal message to himself. But it is also the closing statement of the article and I think that it misses the point that he made directly before it (which I quoted first). Sex is about what you want and need it to be for you, right now. Sometimes that may be a search for meaning for someone (although I don’t think many people come to me for that). Usually it’s about plain simple pleasure, or personal growth, empowerment, healing, even survival.

So I don’t think that Bartlett is fair to characterise sex as being only about “plumbing”, or “meaning”. That sells it so very short. We want to think about sex for ourselves. Discover what it means for ourselves. Not be told by an artist, or anyone else what it’s about. We want to do it, we want to enjoy it, Sometimes we want to film it. Sometimes we want to share it. Sometimes we want to watch it. The list is almost endless.

However, more often than not we find that the world is set against us in some way when we think “gee I would really love to…”. Social convention, marriage, laws, friends, family all say “no” tacitly, or explicitly. So the thoughts stay in our heads most often. And there they breed conflict within ourselves as we weigh them against the values that the rest of the world – the priests, the pornographers, and the politicians – say we should have. We wonder who we really are and we doubt ourselves, instead of experiencing, rejecting, accepting, and ultimately learning.

I am glad that Neil Bartlett learned something from his exhibition and the feedback that he received. But lets not allow his personal insights to narrow the discussion once again. Lets keep it completely open. Especially for young people, who’s sexuality will ultimately be shaped by the society that we create, and they live in.

John.

Being who you are can be very hard

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I saw an article today in the local paper that caused me to want to write something. You can see the article here:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/how-one-man-thinks-he-can-change-the-samesex-marriage-debate-in-10-minutes-20150721-gigw8w.html

In summary, the gentleman who is the subject of the article is gay. He grew up in a small town, with (one can imagine) little or no support, and the horrible prospect of homophobic reprisals against him if he came out to friends and family. He survived though, and ultimately his story is helping others and even influencing politicians.

What resonated with me though in this article is the fear and pain that Lachlan felt because he was different. Different to his friends and family. Different to the social stereotypes that society and the media propagate. Different to what he thought he should be.

This last item is perhaps the most insidious. It’s one thing to defend yourself when you have confidence in who and what you are. It’s another thing entirely when you can’t even trust yourself. So this is my topic for this post: understanding and trusting ourselves.

As you know I work as a male escort for women. I came to this work for a number of reasons, but perhaps the key reason is that I love sex and (if I may say so), I am good at it. I like having lots of sex. And I like having sex with more than one person. As a male escort this benefits everyone. As a person in a “regular” job and a monogamous relationship (which was me for most of my adult life) it left me feeling a little like Lachlan. I didn’t fit in to that society. I didn’t fit in to that world. I was ashamed that I loved sex, because society told me that really loving sex wasn’t ok, oh and it probably meant that I was a pervert too.

The truth though was and is for me, for other men, and also for women that many, many of us love sex. We love it a lot. We want to have it. We are sick of being told that we can’t, or it’s not right, or it’s not normal, or it’s bad. These things are untrue. They are figments of the imagination of a demented society that tries to deform people’s minds and sexualities, be they gay, straight, lesbian, bi, queer, asexual etc.

You do not need to doubt yourself. You do not need to be ashamed that you like sex and want to have it – no matter how vanilla or chandelier swinging kinky. It is one of the great pleasures of my work to see a woman who comes to me knowing what she wants, but barely able to ask for it, blossom into a person who knows and trusts her body and her sexuality. One of my clients has gone on to become an award winning maker of feminist porn. Others have found relationships that fulfill their sexual needs. Some have overcome their personal fears and inhibitions to be able to enjoy sex in a way that they couldn’t in the past.

I don’t claim credit for these transformations. I am simply part of the journey that these women took to being able to own their sexuality, no matter what it’s form.  This is something that we should all be able to do and should be supported in doing.

John.

 

All about sex – a writing project

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In my recent post about sex education I suggested that it was time for me to write something on the topic.

In the last few weeks I have started on this project and am delighted to say that it is progressing well.  My intention is to publish parts of the book here as they are completed, or at least knocked into a reasonable shape.  I expect that it will be an ongoing project that evolves over time as I get feedback and more experience with the process and subject.

So.  Stay tuned.

John.

It’s time that we had REAL sex education

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Following on from my recent post about beauty in our society I want to write something about sex education. It’s a topic that I have cared about since my ok, but rudimentary sex education in high school. I was prompted today by this article in the local paper. From the article:

So it is not uncommon then for a female student to graduate high school having never received any formal education on topics such as natural lubrication, the clitoris, female masturbation or the female orgasm, even though the male equivalent of these topics were first broached way back in primary school.

The inherent asymmetry this creates then stigmatises female pleasure, while reinforcing a phallocentric model of sex. Thus male pleasure is centrally coded into the experience and attributed hyper significance, while the female orgasm is treated as taboo, embarrassing, irrelevant or even non-existent.

Worse still, by erasing female needs and prioritising male needs as paramount, the current model of sex education normalises male entitlement and perpetuates female voicelessness. At a fundamental level, this reinforces the same gender stereotypes and patterns which give rise to sexual violence and intimate partner violence.

For Manon and Lyndsay, this all points to a need for urgent reform, starting with more consultation with young women.

I couldn’t agree more about the need for reform. Also for the participation of young people (girls and boys). And that when we neglect to make sex education broad and inclusive of both genders (and a range of ages!), we help to entrench stereotypes that marginalise women and their right to self knowledge and sexual pleasure.

It is a regular occurrence for me that I meet women who have little connection with their bodies and their sexuality, who have difficulty achieving orgasm, and generally have a hard time enjoying sex. It happens so often that I specifically offer “therapeutic” services to try to assist women and give them a better sex life. It is enjoyable and rewarding work for me, but in an ideal world it would not be necessary.

To this end I have often thought about (collaboratively) writing a set of ebooks for young (and not so young) people about all aspects of sexuality. Not just the biology of reproduction like I was taught at school, but about relationships (straight, gay, bi, open, closed, and poly), kissing, masturbation, oral sex, contraception, consent, peer pressure, penetrative sex, breaking up, emotions, porn, and anything else that people wanted to hear about.

Importantly I think that this sort of material shouldn’t be “one size fits all”, but revised or expanded for gender, orientation, and age. Young people need access to this information, but even us adults need it too some times.

And we now live in an age where (thanks to the magic of computers, smartphones, tablets, and the Internet) we have the ideal means of distribution and totally private viewing for this sort of material. In short the time has never been better to solve this problem.

Having said that, I guess it’s time to put my money where my mouth is and write something. So, a question for my readers: as a young person (or as an adult), what aspect of sexuality would you have liked most to be able to pick up a short e-book and read about?

In hindsight, as a teenage male, I would have benefited most from a book about masturbation for boys/men. I suffered for many, many years with premature ejaculation (ironic I know, given what I do now!) and I can absolutely attribute that to having no idea about how I should have been learning to masturbate – with a view to having a healthy sex life once I had a partner to share sex with. Just a few basic tips would have made my sex life (and that of my first three partners) much more enjoyable.

So, please let me know what you think. I am very interested to hear your thoughts.

John.

Beauty is so much more than skin deep

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A recent hacking incident that lead to private nude photos of women being published on line caused a cascade of responses, one of those being presenters on Channel Seven’s Sunrise program here in Sydney indulging in victim blaming.  This lead Sydney Morning Herald columnist Clementine Ford to respond with a semi nude photo, posted to Facebook with a message “Hey #Sunrise – get fucked”.

It was, I thought a powerful response and entirely appropriate.  The post has been very popular and attracted vast numbers of comments.

Clementine Ford has since published an article in the Sydney Morning Herald talking about the torrent of abuse that her post drew down on her.  Mostly men basically trying to shame her for how she looks.  To her credit she had held the line and not taken the post down despite the very, very personal criticism.

We live in a media saturated world that puts physical beauty on a pedestal (then alternately savages it).  We all know this, but we like to think that the people around us aren’t so shallow – after all, we live in the “real world” not in the celebrity world.  But the truth is that, as Clementine Ford experienced, there are plenty of regular men (and boys one suspects) who are equally vacuous and malicious and prepared to publicly judge and criticize women for their appearance.

Which is why I am writing this post.  It is a common thing for women who come to me to feel insecure about their appearance, or even hate how their bodies look.  Year of subtle, or not so subtle denigration by people around them, and of course the relentless pressure of the media sap their confidence and take away their love and enjoyment of themselves.

I am often asked what I do if I don’t find a client attractive.  The answer is not what most people expect though.  When it comes down to it, I see all of my clients as people, as women, as human beings.  Different shapes and sizes, different interests, fear, worries, and desires.  But all people.  And in every person there is something to admire, something that can arouse passion and make a person attractive to themselves and someone else.

On top of that, no matter what, we are all able to enjoy sex.  And sex transforms people, pleasure makes people vulnerable and beautiful.  Not beautiful in the superficial way that the media would recognise, but in a way that speaks to the partner with whom they are sharing something so intimate.

We all have beauty.  And it deserves to be celebrated.  A big part of what I do is give women an opportunity and the safety to experience feeling and being beautiful.

John.