Sex Questions from the Twittersphere: Advice for the nervous and young?
By Dr. Carol Queen • Apr 22nd, 2009 • Category: Blog, Carol QueenQuestion: If you could give 1 piece of advice about sexual relationships to a nervous, inexperienced 22yo woman, what would it be?
Sexual relationships are like a conversation that you conduct largely (but not solely) with your body – and like any conversation, someone starts it off, the other person picks up the thread, and it becomes a back-and-forth: hopefully one that stays engaging, pleasant and comfortable for both parties.
There are a few parallels to keep track of as you’re learning to communicate this way, because we’ve all been in conversations with people who weren’t paying attention to our contribution, where we got bored, where we felt offended or taken for granted… and hopefully we’ve also had conversations that felt like an intimate mind-meld.
The same skills (and problems) can a verbal conversation and a physical sexual connection, so in deciding who’s appropriate to be physical with (and how to hone your own skills), look out for how it feels to be respected, listened to, your own perspective valued. Even when you don’t know where a conversation’s going, you often know you’re engaged in it, and sex can be like that too.
Maybe this explains why conversation is so often a successful lead-in to sex, or at least how it helps people decide whom they might want to be sexual with at a later time. Just remember in both contexts that you get to have your own boundaries and comfort levels, as well as your own sources of fascination and interest.
Tweet! Take care and have fun!
CQ
Dr. Carol Queen >> Carol Queen is a writer, speaker, educator and activist with a doctorate in sexology. First as an organizer in the lesbian/gay community, where she helped found one of the first gay youth groups in the United States, and later in the emerging international bisexual community, as a sex worker and a practitioner of alternative sexualities, she typically teaches and writes from her own experience and that of her communities even as she references academic thought on these subjects. See her website: www.carolqueen.com.
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