By Gwen Frost
“Hi! I’m Cy, I use they/them pronouns, and I’m here to talk about fucking,” starts our speaker, breaking the bubble of tension in a room full of adults not ready to make eye contact with the butt-plugs in front of them.
This Thursday January 18 at 6 p.m., Cy, from Seattle-based Babeland sex toy store, led a workshop about sex, intimacy and sexual health! Titled “The Sex Ed You Wish You Had,” the event was put on by the Womxn’s Identity Resource Center, and co-sponsored by the AS Disability Outreach Center and the AS Queer Resource Center.
Babeland was queer founded in 1993 and has been queer run out of Capitol Hill in Seattle for over 25 years. The sex toy industry is a purely unregulated industry, said Cy, deemed “novelty only.” As a pleasure-based sex educator, Cy emphasized the importance about keeping yourself safe in an unregulated industry, and how to tell if a toy is safe for bodies.
When Cy opened up the question of what sex is, one audience member clarified it as “more than just penis-in-vagina intercourse.” Another said “it’s up to you to decide what sex is. It’s like Art.”
Sex may be different for all of us, but healthy, consensual sex (or not having sex) can make us all individually feel empowered. But “what empowering feels like to you at 16, versus 25, versus 45, versus 65 are very different things,” clarified Cy. They explained how there should be no “shoulds” with sex; no one should be having sex, no one should do something differently, no one should be heterosexual.
The notion that “‘you’re not a good feminist if you don’t like sex’ is false,” said Cy. Sex positivity doesn’t necessarily correlate to sexual activity. If you’re having polyamorous, everywhere, or everyday sex, that’s amazing. But it doesn’t make you more sex positive than someone who also has a healthy relationship with sex but chooses to focus on different kinds of expressing that for themselves.
“We’re fucking in the 21st century and it’s a beautiful time to be fucking,” Cy said.
28 percent of the internet is porn, and porn can be a good visual aid for figuring out what we like and don’t like. As for ethically consuming porn, Cy said “sex work is real work. Paying for porn is one way to do reinforce that.” Others tools include erotica (Literotica.com), and masturbating.
But what about when we add another party into the picture?
“There’s a cultural pressure we put on ourselves once we’re in the bedroom,” Cy said.
One way to alleviate this pressure with a partner is having a talk with whoever you’re intimate with, and making a list for you and your partner(s) to write down sexual activities that you would “Yes,” “No,” or “Maybe” try. This is a useful tool for starting dialogue about boundaries, opportunities, and bringing new things into the bedroom.
Bad at dirty talk? Practice makes… less-bad! One tool they suggested was practicing your dirty lines with household chores. Dishes, vacuums, mops… Commanding or gentle, your style of dirty-talk can be developed through erotica, practice, self-application, and more.
Also, dirty talk can have a really beautiful union with asking for consent, because it aids in communication. Saying what you want to do to someone before you do it, and then asking them if they want you to do it, and then asking them if they’re sure… there is some overlap here. Though I won’t say advocate for the notion that “consent is sexy” as a reason you should ask for consent, incorporating consent into the way you behave sexually doesn’t mean you have to break the tension. It might even help build it.
“Our earlobes actually get engorged with blood when we get turned on,” Cy said.
This led to topics of the lack of engorgement that can occur, commonly with alcohol. Alcohol is a depressant and a blood-thinner, sometimes eliciting in penis-having people what some call “whiskey dick.”
However, vulvas also experience alcohol inhibition, which is less culturally known. Vulvas have difficult attaining and sustaining wetness due to a lack of blood flow to the vulva, which, normally, functionally triggers wetting of the vagina during arousal. Both can be circumvented by gentle massage, and applying and relieving pressure.
Further on our anatomy exploration, Cy told us that the clitoris has 8,000 nerve endings, and is the only organ in the entire human body purposed purely for pleasure. Vibrators were passed round, “come-hither” motions demonstrated, and pegging was demonstrated with anal dildos.
“The G-spot is always shallower than you think it is,” said Cy. And for people with prostates, you’ll know when you find the prostate because “you’ll be like ‘what is this walnut doing here?’”
“What is a good way to clean out the anus before anal?” asked one audience member.
Cy offered douching, which involves taking a turkey-baster filled with one-quarter to one-half cups of lukewarm water, then pushing the water up the anus two times. Then, wait 45 minutes, and do it one more time (this waiting is important).
Also for anal, the topic of lube slid in.
“Lube is like wine, some people care a lot, some people care a little,” Cy said.
Water, silicone and oil based lubes are the three types. . Babeland doesn’t even carry oil-based lubes however, for a myriad of reasons, including that oil can be hard to ‘clear out’ for people with vulvas, which leads to increasing likelihood of yeast infections or bacterial vaginosis. Silicone lube was recommended for easing shower sex, and water-based for sex toys.
Get safe, get talking, get educated, and god, get fucking.