My favorite part about how women were discovering how to pleasure themselves is this lady's face when she's shown a vibrating dildo.

The documentary also talks about the feminist protest of the 1969 Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, a pivotal moment in the women's movement. Usually, for retrospectives on feminism, we hear a lot from scholarly talking heads who have not only studied and analyzed the movement, but were also part of it. But Sex in '69 featured a lesser-examined — but equally illuminating — viewpoint: that of a 1969 Miss America contestant. In this clip, Susan Anton, Miss California 1969, gives her take on how the protest affected her. Interestingly, 40 years later, she is grateful for women's liberation, and thinks we still have a long way to go.

The Masturbation Recommendation
Glamour's version of this comes from a woman who learned to stroke her own clit during sex. Not a bad idea! But not exactly revolutionary either. Nor are the zillions and zillions of variants on "get to know your own body" that magazines typically proffer. We get it: masturbation = good. But for the many women who can come by themselves but not with a partner, this may not be that much help.

The Pointless First-Person Anecdote
Glamour has loads of these. There's the girl who thought she could only come with a huge cock, but then met a man she enjoyed sex with despite his four-and-a-half-incher. The moral: everybody's different, and sex with one person is different from sex with anybody else. Thanks Glamour! Uh, but doesn't this mean that the ex-size-queen's experience won't apply to me? Shut up and move on to ...

The Relationship Explanation
Kierna Mayo tells Glamour that she didn't have regular orgasms with her guy until they were fully committed to each other. And sure, some women need to feel safe in order to climax, and some of those women need to be committed to feel safe. That said, plenty of women have great relationships and no orgasms, and an equal number have great orgasms and no relationship. The relationship explanation may be true for some women, but it's far from a panacea.

The See-Your-Doctor Sendoff
Most of these pieces end with the recommendation that, if nothing else works, you should talk to your gynecologist. Glamour includes the testimony of a woman who turned out to have a nasty-sounding but fixable problem called clitoral adhesions. Her story is a happy one (spoiler: they all are in this kind of article), and her example is good: if you're having sex problems, and nothing else works, it's smart to see your doctor. In fact, this is perhaps the best advice that magazine orgasm how-tos are capable of giving. That's because your doctor gets to talk to you in person, see your individual vagina, and hear your individual story. Which, unfortunately (or fortunately, I'm not sure I want Glamour up in my cooch), women's magazines can't do.

Orgasm advice is far from the worst advice women's magazines dish out (that would be, say, tips on the newest burn-your-face-off antiaging treatment, or perhaps how to conceal your too-large hips). But it is some of the most oversold. Hardly a month goes by without Glamour, Marie Claire, or (most often) Cosmo promising "Amazing Sex Every Time" or "Effortless Orgasms" or something equally hyperbolic. This can lead women who don't have orgasms every time — even with a magazine's supposedly helpful advice — to think they're doing sex wrong. But it's also just dumb. Everybody's different, and everybody needs to do something slightly different to achieve orgasm. Yes, it's possible to make certain generalizations — most people don't get off on looking at the Eiffel Tower, for instance, but some do! Point is, having a million orgasms after following a few generic tips is one of women's magazines' emptiest promises.

Glamour [Official Site]

K-Y's Intense Arousal Gel Leaves Women Speechless In New Ads [BrandFreak]

Susie Bright, sex-positive feminist and author, was gracious enough to help with your most troubling sex questions. All week, she and her daughter Aretha will be providing us with their sage advice. After the jump!

A lot of Jezzie readers asked yesterday, "Where does Susie Bright get off saying a woman can't come from intercourse alone?"

I think we have a "word" problem. When I say that penis-vagina intercourse can't make a woman orgasm, I mean that the sensation of a phallus sliding against vaginal walls is not sufficient. If our vaginal walls were sensitive enough to spark orgasm, we would all suffer horrible deaths during childbirth. It's our birth canal!

When I insist, "There's got to be some clitoral stimulation, or there's no female orgasm," I'm talking about a very big understanding of the clit. It is a lot bigger than most people think. And you can't see most of it from the outside! There's certainly more than one way to make it happy.

Let's think about men's anatomy-everyone knows what a man's cock and balls look like. If you told a man that his "penis" was nothing more than the head of his cock-his "glans"-he would laugh in your face. If he pitied you, he might tell you that there was an important aspect to the penis called the shaft, also the frenulum, and perhaps a foreskin. His scrotum and balls are part of the essential package as well.

Women's anatomy education, on the other hand, has been a giant exercise in vacancy.

Until recent times, we've been schooled that the clitoris-the female analog to the penis-is nothing more than the small glans one can see on the outside of the vulva. Start laughing. Women have a big, big, clitoral body-but it's nearly all on the inside, instead of the outdoor plumbing that's viewed so easily on men. The reason you hear so much about the "G-spot," and controversies over whether women are excited by internal anal or vaginal pressure, is because those areas are all means to massage, and stimulate, the internal clitoral body. The G-spot isn't some extra accessory; it's just one of many inches on the clitoral map. Remember: the whole clit, and nothing but.

Of course, the female clitoral glans is the super-sensitive part, just like a man's. But in the same way that men like to have their entire penises taken into account when they're aroused, women are favored by attention to their entire clitorises.

When I present this information in public, I am hampered by my lack of rendering skills. Now, finally, I have the genius of Betty "Quick Draw" Dodson to show you what's it's all about. The next time someone asks you, "Where's the clitoris? What does it look like? How do you know where to find it?" you simply come over here, and press play.

And now, for our next question:
THE BOY WHO DIDN'T LIKE DOGGIE
I like being fucked from behind, but my boyfriend refuses to even try it. He says it's gross, that it's for dogs, not people. What can I do to persuade him that it's fun, and not an insult?
Alessandra

Aretha: He's the problem. What's the matter with him?? Ummm…watch Snoop Dogg.

Susie: JESUS CHRIST! I don't want to hear about what you watch…

Aretha: Well, I didn't want to hear you answer that other masturbation question!

Susie: Okay, let's start over. We agreed we could both say "TMI" whenever we wanted to. How do we get this boyfriend to not be so uptight?

Aretha: I'd probably get a little evil.

Susie: You mean, trick him?

Aretha: Yeah, lay down and say you want a back massage, "Just a back massage." So then he has to straddle you, so he can do it right. That gets him used to being relaxed on top of you. Look back at him, give him lots of eye contact and encouragement. Ask him to bite your neck. He's just got to get comfortable being back there. You'll feel his comfort level coming up, and then you just make it happen. If all fails, just sit on him backwards, and slip it in.

Susie: You make it sound so simple. But you're probably right. I have to guess this is a young man. I don't think this phase of his is going to last very long. He probably thinks all kinds of things are gross, like green vegetables, but pretty soon he's going to grow up.

THE SLUT FACTOR
At what point is promiscuity self-destructive? At what point is it empowering?
Carrie

Aretha: It depends on the people you're sleeping with! No jealous jerks, psychos, disrespectful people. Keep a standard. Know what you're attracted to, and don't fuck just anybody.

Susie: Well, that would be easy if you could tell all of that ahead of time. What about the other side, how do you know if it's empowering?

Aretha: Having as much sex as you want is empowering when you're having fun, you're eating, sleeping, working, getting on with your life.

Susie: I love that you always put sleeping on your "Top 5" list. I have a problem with that word, "promiscuity." It implies sluttiness, which is used to shame women, not men. It's not what the town prude thinks about you that's the issue, it's whether you're having satisfying reciprocal sex with people who respect sex itself.

GROSS FOR SOME PEOPLE
Okay, this may be gross for some people, but I have to ask. My boyfriend has expressed an interest in being peed and shat on. I'm totally curious to try this out but I have no idea how to do it at all, I know how to go to the bathroom, I obviously mean in a sexy, clean, fun way for both of us and also with minimal clean-up if possible. Any suggestions? Also, I am wondering where this interest comes from for people? Is it Freudian or is it as simple as just wanting to try new and different things sexually?
Rose

Aretha: OH MY GOD! No way! It's always a shocker when a young man "expresses" himself…most of them hardly say anything. Mom, I DON'T KNOW! What happens to the shit? Do you do it in shower? What is the right setting?

Susie: The bathroom is the right place; you've got that right. The pee is not really that big of a deal, it's sterile, you've probably peed in the shower before and never even thought about it.

Aretha: My default answer to all sex questions is light some candles and it'll be a lot sexier. Bubble bath!

Susie: Dealing with scat makes things a lot more medical, you have to put on your nurse hat and really plan things, to avoid infection. I would treat these two things apart, 'cause the pee could be an easy experiment without a lot of risk, and then you could see how you felt about his fantasy, and the whole psychological side of it, with him. Here's a couple of highly informative books: Anal Pleasure and Health, and Intimate Invasion: The Erotic Ins & Outs of Enema Play.

You could ask where his fantasy comes from…you could ask that about anything. Why do people who want to do it in the missionary position, aside from peer pressure? Why do people make porn out of anything and every subject? Fetish usually comes from memories like every part of our unconscious. The hidden issue behind your question is that he wants you to dominate him and revel in humiliation…you have to find out how you jibe with that, regardless of the bodily fluids.

Susie's newest book is X: The Erotic Treasury. She blogs at susiebright.com and podcasts about sex and politics weekly on: In Bed With Susie Bright.

Susie at Happy Ending Lounge, photo by Stacie Joy.

Dr. Laura is responding to a question about her double standards for men that engage in casual sex and women that do. The writer is apparently trying to say that both people should be held accountable for treating sex without respect, saying that it "encourages men to attempt to use women sexually as their birthright." Laura disagrees, because she's a slut-shaming idiot.

First of all, God and nature are responsible for the reality of a double standard. Women have breasts from which to suckle the baby born from their uterus after a nine month gestation. Women's high-pitched voices and hearing are geared for the infant-mother bonding that miraculously takes place right after birth. Women's temperaments to nurture, cuddle, coo, and protect are hardwired into their psychological programming.

Uhhh, also, "God" gave women the ability (some of us) to have multiple orgasms, nipples by which we can get aroused, clitori and, some of us at least, temperaments other than ones that "nuture, cuddle, coo and protect." Dr. Laura, notably, does not strike me as much of a coo-er.

There is no question that men more easily dissociate love and sex. Young males in particular are open to sexual experiences for the challenge, orgasmic satisfaction, and status among other males. These qualities are not synonymous with femininity.

And:

Women give themselves sexually to men out of love, a desperate desire to be wanted and loved, or for money.

But women never take men for the sake of their orgasms. Women "give" themselves to men for love or money. That's it.

It is not typical, as it is with men, for a woman to feel proud of the number of men who have penetrated her

And not because society slut-shames, it's because God does.

the only women who look for the sexual challenge are those so twisted with anti-male rage that domination of a male is a form of psychological rape which satisfies that neurotic anger.

Oh, god.

Males are generally out of control every which way until they fall in love and take on the obligations and responsibilities of a man committed to a woman and family.

She doesn't sound like she much likes men either. Oh, wait.

In fact, the deranged males who perpetrate horrendous acts of violence are generally such loner males with no families to make them feel important, give them purpose and direction…and love.

Except for that BTK killer guy, he was a total outlier.

Women are the taming and socializing force in society. Men will only do what women allow. Remember the ancient Greek classical play "Lysistrata"? The women in the town refused to have sex if their men continued to participate in war and violence. Poof, all the violence stopped. Women have always had the power over men; but feminism got women off the track of realizing that, and on the track to only hating or disdaining men...Now, women have largely become "pigs." Instead of embracing modesty, pride, values, and self-value, they parade around showing their bodies like Playboy bunnies, have sex before "hello," shack up with men without marital commitment

Well, Doctor Laura knows a little about shacking up, casual sex, and posing for nude pictures!

Am I Anti-Female? [Dr. Laura]

Related: Dr. Laura, How Could You? [Salon]

Earlier: Yeah, We Know: Dr. Laura Schlessinger Is Full Of Shit
Dr. Laura Blames Whiny Women, "Defends" Her Soldier Son

I've tried lots of weird looking sex toys in my day, but the clit pump - which is an electronic sucking device that cups over the clitoris to engorge it with blood - looks kind of scary. It's supposed to be used daily as an "exercise" rather than right before sex to get in the mood, but the underlying sentiment is that it was a tool for masturbation.

The nasal spray seems a lot more interesting and possibly really helpful, particularly for peri-menopausal women suffering from lower libidos. It's a fast acting drug that shoots the hormone Oxytocin- which facilitates breast feeding and bonding with babies, and studies also show it is linked with social recognition, bonding, anxiety, trust, and arousal - right into the brain.

Writing in The Daily Beast, Hannah Seligson reports on an "orgasm gap" between men and women. Researchers found that while women in relationships orgasm 80% as often as men. In repeated hookups (more than twice), women come half as often, and on first-time hookups the percentage drops to a third. But it's not because ladies need love and security in order to get off. Instead, it's because dudes just aren't trying that hard.

Men are less likely to perform oral sex as part of a hookup than when they're in a relationship, and they may be less likely to care about the woman's orgasm in general. In interviews conducted as part of the study, one guy said "that with his girlfriend, 'definitely oral is really important [for her to orgasm],' but that with a casual hookup, 'I don't give a shit.'" Another man said:

Now that I'm in a relationship, I think [her orgasm is] actually pretty important. More important than [in a] hookup. Because you have more invested in that person…When it's a hookup you feel less investment.

When did making a girl come become "boyfriend experience," some kind of special thing you do only for somebody you also take home to mom? And when you have sex, aren't you making an investment, an investment of time, energy, and risk? When you're a guy, you expect that investment to pay off with your orgasm. Shouldn't the woman get a return on her investment too? Seligson quotes Michael Kimmel, author of Guyland, who compares sex to housework: "Men don't pull their weight on either front because no one makes them." So we need to make them — just as faking an orgasm is bad for womankind, letting your hookup get away with sexual selfishness just teaches him that's ok. Everybody's different, and not everyone is going to come every time, but if we go to the trouble of fucking a guy (and as much fun as it is, it totally is a lot of trouble), we deserve better than "I don't give a shit."

The Orgasm Gap [Daily Beast]

Earlier: Stop Faking Orgasms For The Good Of Your Sisters

In the new study, published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, evolutionary biologists from Newcastle University looked at the Chinese Health and Family Life Survey, which includes information on the sex lives, income, and education of 5,000 people across China and based on interviews and questionnaires. Of the 1,534 women in the study who have husbands and boyfriends, researchers found that 121 reported always having orgasms during sex, 408 said they often had orgasms, 762 sometimes had orgasms, and 243 had them rarely or never. Lead researchers Dr. Thomas Pollet and Prof. Daniel Nettles said that though several factors correlated to the number of orgasms a woman reported having during sex, one of the biggest was the income of their partner.

The British papers reporting this story take it as more evidence that, as the Daily Mail put it, "for many females, money, status and success remain a key ingredient in sexual attraction." However, the scientists themselves acknowledge that bias could explain their findings, suggesting that women who have frequent orgasms may overestimate their partner's income, that women with wealthy partners exaggerate how much they enjoy sex, or that women who orgasm easily select partners who are wealthy.

Clearly there are many other factors that call this scientific evidence into question, since scientists did not actually measure the number of orgasms the women had, and factors such as the woman's income level, or how income may contribute to the stress level of the couple were not discussed in the articles. But since the papers have so many examples of famous rich men with younger, hotter women, such as Hugh Hefner and Donald Trump, this research just proved wrong the assumption that "women involved in such relationships do it for the lifestyle - and put up with the sex," according to the Daily Mail.

Dr. Pollet says the findings are "consistent with the view that female orgasm has an evolved adaptive function," and claims that women may orgasm more frequently if their man is rich to indicate that they would be good marriage material, adds The Telegraph. Since the points out that "women can become pregnant whatever their pleasure levels," and that female orgasm "appears to have no reproductive purpose," clearly the theory presented in the study that "the female orgasm is an evolutionary adaptation that drives women to choose and retain high-quality partners" makes sense, since a rich man is always a high-quality man.

Many women can probably come up with their own anecdotal examples of "poor" males who are good in bed (though it is much easier for newspapers to find a picture of Hugh Hefner than that starving artist guy you dated in college), and just yesterday, the Telegraph published another piece, this one claiming that wealth does not equal happiness. According to research from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, during a recession, life expectancy falls and rates of mental illness increase, and men who use wealth, power, or status to define themselves are particularly at risk. Lasting friendships, marriage, and belief in something bigger than yourself are all proven to have a more positive effect on happiness than the size of a person's wallet. To sum up: all of this stuff is confusing, contradictory, and most likely utter bullshit.

Wealthy Men Give Women More Orgasms [Times of London]

Women Get More Pleasure In Bed From Wealthy Men [The Telegraph]

Why Rich Men Are Better In Bed: Women Have More Orgasms With Wealthy Partners, Study Finds [The Daily Mail]

Men, Listen Up: Money Does Not Make You Happy [The Telegraph]

This is exactly why openly discussing our sex lives — especially with our girlfriends — is crucial; hearing about others' experiences is helpful in gauging our sexual health. This isn't to say that we should automatically think something is wrong if our sex lives don't measure up to that of our peers. But many sexual health problems stem from a discomfort with the topic, and the more we talk about sex and masturbation, the more comfortable we will be with the issue. Familiarity breeds orgasms!

Of course, this might be a generational thing. Pretty much every woman I know talks sex — and often. But we've grown up in a culture — with pop icon sex educators, Sex and the City, designer vibrators — that facilitates and encourages such discourse. According to the study, "The highest prevalence of sexual dysfunction was in older women, but they experienced less associated distress. The most distress occurred at mid-life." However, it also says that "the youngest women had the lowest prevalence of problems and of associated distress," which would indicate that we're still not 100% comfortable with our our bodies, and ourselves.

Almost Half of Women Have Sexual Problems [U.S. News & World Report]

The first time a vibrator ever met my ladybits was in high school and, rather grossly in retrospect, it belonged to my boyfriend's mom. What? We washed it off before and after. He wasn't particular skilled at my clit and neither was I, so we sort of just used it as a dildo a couple of times and then quit bothering with it. God, I hope she doesn't read this. If so... I'm sorry! I was young and foolish then! We really did wash it thoroughly!

Personally embarrassing admissions aside, my second (and non-borrowed) vibrator was a gift to me from two guy friends for my 17th birthday. The one friend bought it at Spencer's Gifts and it was 9 inches long with a light-up tip (first question I asked: "Why does it need to light up?"). For the general amusement of the party I had for said birthday, they brought along batteries. My friends ended up — and when I say my friends, I mean, literally, almost every single one of my friends — played a game of surprise hot-potato with it in which the goal was to hand it, buzzing, to someone before they realized what they were touching. It got hidden in a drawer in my bedroom for a while and brought to college with me, since I still hadn't figured out that whole clitoral-stimulation orgasm thing yet. For some reason, I started using it with my first college boyfriend, and finally figured out how to get myself off. Once I did, I was hooked, so when he went away, I kept using it. It got used with and without a succession of boyfriends over the years, but finally bit the dust my senior year in college. RIP, baby.

My second vibator I bought during graduate school, a similarly-unadorned hard plastic model in beige. Between a long-distance relationship, the end of that relationship and a second LDR, that shit buzzed its last less than a year into our relationship while I was living in New York for the summer. It had the same staying power as the guy I was seeing at the time, come to think of it. Fuck you, waste of $10.

My third toy I purchased at a sex shop off Columbus Circle in NYC. I got all fancy that time and bought a gold-colored one — but still hadn't learned my lesson buying cheap vibrators: It lasted less than 6 months, so into the trash it went. I finally decided to get a little smarter about attending to the needs to my clit after that, and bought one with attachments, which lasted me several years. I even kept it all in the box, which was adorned with pictures of a naked girl utilizing it. The first time I hired movers, I stuck the whole thing at the bottom of a box of books which, naturally ripped open. The movers carefully hid any evidence that they'd found my vibrators, and then one of them left me a note with his telephone number. I never called.

A couple years into my relationship with my fancy vibrator and accessories, I was on a business trip in New Orleans and practically squirming with horniness. I didn't mean to cheat, honestly I didn't, but all those sex shops on Bourbon Street were just calling to my clit, so I walked into one on a lunch break and bought my first penis-shaped (if still rigid plastic) vibrator. My boyfriend at the time wasn't happy about my purchase (because it was penis-shaped, I guess?), so I pretended like I didn't like it any better than my old toy and kept it hidden away when he was around. But, once he was gone, so was the old (and faltering) vibrator, attachments and all.

To my great surprise, that spur-of-the-moment New Orleans purchase is still with me, 5 years later. I might have spent more on batteries than I ever would've on a Magic Wand, but I don't care. I know my vibrator is getting older and it's not quite getting the same RPMs as it used to and goes through batteries quicker than I remember (of course, that might just be me using it more often than I used to), but I already rue the day when I have to hide it in with a bunch of other trash no one will bother picking through and go to a sex shop and buy a replacement. Maybe after that I'll suck it up and do the environmentally conscious thing and buy a plug-in model, but something about fucking myself with anything that has a cord hanging off of it might be a little too scary and/or tampon-like for me.

Earlier: Sci-Fi For Women: Marrying Your Vibrator
How Do You Dispose Of Broken Vibrators?

• Women taking antidepressants and experiencing a hard time achieving orgasm as a side effect of the medication may benefit from taking Viagra.

• "Grammar Girl" is out to get rid of bad grammar. • A former Muslim sex slave who was targeted for her ethnicity when Serbs attacked tells her heartbreaking story to CNN. • Southern New Hampshire towns are reporting an increase in domestic abuse calls and arrests, which police says is linked to the poor economy. • A self-instructional program on reproductive health and sex-education for teen girls with diabetes will help them understand the risks of unplanned pregnancy while diabetic. • Inflation, high security at hotels and popular venues, and traffic jams have made weddings a real bummer in Sri Lanka. • A weak baby dolphin that was caught in Japanese fishermen's nets has regained its ability to swim after being outfitted with a special lifejacket. • Meet Rampa Rattanarithikul, a Thai mosquito scientist who has researched and collected mosquitoes for 50 years. • Two dogs that were allegedly trained to have sex with their female owner have been accepted into a no-kill animal sanctuary in Utah. • Cute puppy news! Look at this newborn french bulldog set to Chopin. (Image via She Cards.)

At some point, we all need to become adults, and in doing so, we need to stop being so selfish. If you want to make a relationship work, you have to do what you should and not what you want. You should make your man feel good about himself, even though you may want to feel ecstasy. Think about it: An orgasm lasts for a few seconds. A relationship can last for decades, if you work at it!

It may sound harsh, but it's true: Our body's primary biological function is not about orgasming. And that's why it's perfectly alright to compromise something like that, especially if it's for a better cause that's bigger than you, like securing a really great boyfriend. Because at the end of the day, that can be so much more satisfying than any physical sensation!

*So, as you probably know by now, Jezebel will be moving in a "new direction." I'll still be writing about sex, but it will be more focused on health/relationships, and have a purpose, rather than just sex for sex's sake. In addition, I'll be spending less time here talking about taking off my clothes, and more time on what clothes I like to wear.

Related: Why Women Should Fake Orgasms [DailyMail]

On second thought, you know what? Fuck the bonerkillers just this once. It turns out that Big Pharma's insatiable lust for profit seems to be funding a lot of interesting research on the female orgasm.

Like, why doesn't Viagra work on women? Well, Pfizer tested 3,000 of them, and figured out that prompting a rush of blood to the gonads didn't really do the trick. (It doesn't? I would think it would?)
"What we know is that very little of what's going on with women and sex is below the waist," Anita Clayton, co-author of a book called Satisfaction: Women, Sex and the Quest for Intimacy, tells the Washington Post. "Almost all of it is above the neck." Ugh, great. Well, then came this suntan drug that was supposed to make everyone horny (and tan!) but the FDA pulled the plug when it looked like high blood pressure was a side effect. (I have low blood pressure, guys, I'm sure it's safe for me!)

Anyway, for once in my life I have no real strong opinion. Except that all this reading about arousal is making me pretty sure I do not have the dread hypoactive sexual desire disorder.

A Dose Of Desire [Washington Post]
Related: Adderall Makes Me Hump Like A Guy
Earlier: Five Reasons To Love Viagra

I must've started not long after I was out of diapers. I think the first time that I actually orgasmed I was about 7 years old, maybe 6. It was by accident, and of course I had no idea that's what was going on. For me it was just a fun side activity while watching TV (and it still is). I became addicted.

Initially I didn't associate any shame with what I was doing, until I was about 8 or 9 and my mother caught me and yelled at me. That didn't stop me, I just knew it was something I had to do in private. Years of Catholic schooling later had me praying to God that I could find the strength to stop doing "that thing I do," but that was a very short lived period of my life before I stopped buying into the bag of bullshit the nuns were trying to sell me.

I would read about "mind-blowing" sex in Joan Collins and V.C. Andrews books, passages that likened women's orgasms to lightning strikes and bells sounding, so I had really hyped up sex in my mind. I knew I wouldn't come on my first couple tries at sex with a boy. Finally, after fooling around with my boyfriend for a month or two, I came while he was going down on me, and I remember being like, "Oh! That's what that is? I can do that better and faster by myself!" By then, I realized that what would happen when I touched myself was an orgasm, but for some reason I thought it would be different — or better — with a partner. And sometimes it is.

Related: 'Help Children Masturbate' [The Sun]
Paperback: The Dirty Bits — For Girls [Independent]

[Image via Exploding Dog.]

I'm Vacuum Screaming [The Sun]
Earlier: Procter & Gamble Loves Clean Teeth, Hates Dirty Thoughts

This is the Taffy Tickler, a silicone vibe/dildo with a G-spot stimulator, which retails for $27.99. Doesn't it look like a Yayoi Kusama sculpture?

PriveCo's 2007 Vibrator of The Year Award [AVN]