Helen Corday

Celebrating Pleasure

HelenC

Use Your Head

My beloved pervs, if there’s one skill I wish I could learn whilst in lockdown it would be how to give myself head. Oral sex is utterly sublime whether it’s a quick snack, a side dish or the whole damn meal. One of the things I love most about oral sex is the opportunity to occupy either the role of giving or receiving in their totality. You can devote your whole attention on receiving or on giving. With full focus and connection I’ve been able to orgasm from the pleasure of giving head, though not quite as easily or abundantly as I orgasm when I’m receiving head.

 Giving head is not a skill that we’re born with and even when you learn how to get one person off doesn’t mean it’s going to be good for the next person, or for the same person on a different occasion. Magazine articles advising people to spell the alphabet on people’s clits with your tongue, though fun to try, are way less helpful than learning to actually communicating what you want.

It can be great to begin sex by letting your partner(s) know that you welcome communication during sex. Even with that caveat it can be hard to find the right words during sex without killing the mood. Receiving oral is a great time to practice asking for exactly what you want, whilst giving is a great time to practice listening and doing exactly what your partner asks for.

I’ve often been giving head and craving more feedback to ensure it’s the best it can be. I’ve also found when I’m getting my pussy eaten that when I just moan my pleasure it can cause people to go harder and faster just when I want them to keep doing exaaactly what they’ve been doing. Bluntly telling someone they’re doing it wrong can deflate their enthusiasm, which benefits no one. So I devised strategic dirty talk phrases that are explicit directions to my O town. I highly recommend figuring out the actions you most often want someone to do during oral, whatever junk you have, and translating them into encouraging but specific dirty talk. For example…

Want them to slow right down? “Tease me, I want you to make me beg for it before you give it to me”

A broad flat tongue, consistently stroking upwards?  “lick me like I’m a melting lollypop” or “lick me like a thirsty dog” works well here too

A bit of alphabet tip of the tongue tickling but not the whole damn thing?  “Spell FILTHY SLUT on my clit with your tongue”

Don’t want them to change a thing? “You’re so good, you know exactly how to make me cum, pleeeease don’t change a thing”

You get the idea? Experiment with strategic dirty talk that feels comfortable for you to say and whip it out next time some delightful human has their lips locked on your lovely bits. Communication during sex is a skill that takes practice, just like anything else, but the more you flex it the better the results. And if lots of oral sex just the way you like it isn’t a good incentive to practice, I don’t know what is.

MILF

I remember when I first became a mother at 20 years old I felt this expectation to dress more matronly, certainly less suggestively sexual. I had copped a lot more  hostile street harassment whilst pregnant, criticising me if I showed any flesh in public, even though it was summer. Society was doubling down on the pressure to ‘cover up’ now I was a mother and I felt very at odds with that expectation.

Mother on mother slut shaming was pretty rampant too. The mothers and babies group I attended was full of bland colours and ample covering from the chin down. All that was talked about was child development, nursing and homemade organic baby food. It certainly was not a safe space to discuss how we would nurture our sexuality as we recovered from birth and coped with breastfeeding. Dressing conservatively was so against my own inclinations and nature that it lasted perhaps two months, at most, as I made a futile attempt to fit in with them. I was already an outsider in the group being working class and so young to boot. So when I resumed dressing however I god damned wanted, their disapproval quickly turned to disdain. Plunging cleavage and faux snake skin rainbow boots did not fit their uniform requirements.

I was very isolated as a mother for the first couple of years. Getting into online amateur porn when my kiddo was 3 was a lifeline for me. Not only did it fund me to first get my VCE and get into University, it also began to heal the wounds that the severance of my motherhood and my sexuality had caused. In making amateur porn I discovered that my body wasn’t deserving of ridicule due to it being wrecked by pregnancy and birth, as my ex-husband had so loved to inform me it was. I also discovered the erotic mother was as adored and desired as she was feared and shamed, which is never just a coincidence.

The pressure to conform to the sexless mother societal ideal, The Madonna Archetype, often significantly impairs a mother’s relationship to their sexuality and the quality of their sexual relationships with others. In order to sever mothers from their sexuality, the erotic mother has been portrayed as deviant, selfish, insane and lacking a deep love for her children, or even a threat to their wellbeing, for centuries. The erotic mother’s fecund, carnal sexuality was strategically divided from her nurturing, child rearing role. The powerful archetype of the erotic mother was divided and conquered around the same time period they were burning us as witches, also not a coincidence.

Both mother and child are created by sex. Yet the traditional ideal of motherhood has her eschewing her sexuality in favour of modestly performing her duty to breed without succumbing to her natural lust. Yet if ‘god’ didn’t want us to enjoy sex why did ‘he’ give us so many damn ways to orgasm, and multiple times at that? In addition to clitoral, g-spot, cervical and anal stimulation, I can orgasm from neck kissing, nipple sucking, toe sucking, dreaming, dancing and meditating. I’m not an anomaly. I also wonder if the 20% (approx) of women unable to orgasm would be significantly reduced if their sexuality wasn’t obsessed over whilst simultaneously shamed, abused and ridiculed from the minute it emerges.

Affordable and safe birth control makes shaming and abusing women as a strategy to prevent unwanted pregnancies (a deplorable strategy to begin with) utterly redundant and absurd. We wrestle our right to choose when and if we will become mothers not from God’s hands, but from the hot sweaty meddling hands of the power hungry scoundrels who have too long masqueraded as God’s middlemen.

I’ve spent the last 18 years in a reckoning with the triple strength slut shaming reserved for sexual sole mothers. One thing I’ve learned with sexual fulfilment as a woman is that you’re dammed if you do and you’re dammed if you don’t. So I chose to do it, a lot. As a sex worker I was able to avoid energy draining minimum wage jobs and be able to work part time hours for full time pay. This gave me more time and energy to be with my child and to work toward much needed healing for myself. Monetising the sluttiness, for which I had always been vilified, was the most satisfying FUCK YOU I ever got to say. I don’t accept your shame and hate but your cards and cash are welcome, thank you.

The ‘amateur’, kinky, alternative, queer, feminist, ethical porn and sex worker community have been a source of so much healing and education for me. Before discovering the diverse and vivacious world of online smut I believed my genitals were deformed, my breasts were hideous and my considerable libido was an emasculating unlovable flaw. Oh and I had better not gain any weight, ever. I also didn’t even know where or what my g-spot was! I got the sex education and the body positivity I desperately needed in this community of hardworking revolutionary sluts. Most vitally I learned that my love of sexuality does not negate my worth. Amongst my sex working peers I learned to shed a crippling amount of unnecessary shame and start to develop self respect, learn how to assert my boundaries and to know, then insist, that my pleasure and desire matters too.

The peer education and support I’ve experienced in my corner of the sex work community is formidable. I’ve never been part of a kinder, more inclusive and more informed group of humans. I have made many regrettable choices in my life but sex work is not one of them. Being a whore has made me a better person and it certainly enabled me to become a better mother too.

Sexual Satisfaction Matters

Recently Ben Shapiro tried to use the old misogynist trope of insisting that sex workers are diseased to launch an online attack on Cardi B’s ‘Wet Ass Pussy’. It was a poorly thought out joke that made Shaprio look like a sexual ignoramus who doesn’t arouse his wife.

Unsurprisingly, Shapiro’s ignorance about the awe inspiring wetness of peak multi-orgasmic female arousal made him the butt of his own joke. Also unsurprisingly, Shapiro then doubled down by admitting to the world that he and his wife don’t value sexual satisfaction. Maybe this is true for them. The Shapiros could be a well matched pair of asexuals or demisexuals for all I know. 

Many people are just born with a no/low sex drive and no/little interest in sex, and that’s totally okay. The trouble is it’s far from the truth for the majority of people. Shapiro presents his disinterest in sexual satisfaction as though it is morally superior, which is demonstrably harmful. Seeing that infidelity is one of the most common reasons cited for divorce, marriage counselling and hearing why people use porn a lot and visit sex workers in high numbers, this dismissal of sexual satisfaction also puts him directly at odds with reality.

Huge numbers of people risk their lives, break the vows of their marriage, to their god(s), to their own core values, to the deepest wishes of their own hearts because of the human need for sexual satisfaction. Dismiss this power at your peril. The futile attempt to diminish the power and importance of sex in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary has caused, not just countless heartbreaks, but the endless and tedious sex scandals the media loves to whip up too. 

It doesn’t matter if you’re left, right, centre, country, city, republican, democrat, conservative, liberal, progressive, gay, straight, queer, christian, muslim, jewish, hippy, buddhist, hindu, atheist or tantric… whatever your colour, creed and political persuasion sex scandals have hit your community and will continue to do so. The human desire for sexual satisfaction is extremely powerful, extremely important and can go destructively awry if it isn’t paid it’s due respect. Just look at the global paedophile ring within the catholic church, a consequence of it’s loathing, shaming and degradation of the sex drive, among other things. The immense power and import of the need for sexual satisfaction deserves nurture, reverence and respectful caution. No less so if you decide to sacrifice your satisfaction for family, ideological or faith based reasons.

Both in my personal and professional life I have seen many people lose partners and families that they dearly love due to the relationship becoming devoid of sexual satisfaction and being unable to communicate that as a problem. The underlying cause of this loss is so often due to the foundational belief that “there are far more important things than sexual satisfaction in a marriage”. It’s like believing that the world is flat, this belief contradicts the evidence of our human reality. Believing sexual satisfaction is unimportant keeps partners from communicating about their struggles with sexual desire with their intimate partners. It silences and shames them into telling their beloved placating lies to hide their true needs, and then they often feel forced to seek satisfaction elsewhere, in secret.

Now I am not suggesting that everyone should be devoted to the exploration of the sexual arts, open relating or polyamory, far from it. What I am saying is that even if you choose monogamy, or even celibacy, you would be wise to humbly acknowledge and revere the power of your need for sexual satisfaction to protect against the disasters denial too often causes. Sexual satisfaction matters, it matters as much as any other aspect of a marriage or romantic relationship. No matter what form your agreements and vows take in your intimate relationships, you’ll only benefit from the wise recognition of this and the compassionate, careful but frank ongoing discussion of sexual satisfaction with your intimate beloved(s).  

Wet Ass Pussy

Whilst I’ve enjoyed seeing articles like this, I’ve noticed not many defenders of WAP by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion are commenting that the main reason people are FREAKING out about WAP is the fact their sexual desire and prowess is shamelessly monetised. This is why it’s catching more backlash than most sexually explicit songs.

The only narrative the world permits about full service sex workers is ‘victim’ or ‘object’. WAP is an ‘in your face’ (with a WET ASS PUSSY) expression of thrilling in and enjoying transactional sex that puts whores as the active subject in control of their choices… AND ENJOYING IT. So many are terrified of a feminism that INCLUDES sex workers, and it’s not just the mens, plenty of ‘radical feminists’ hate what we do too. All their beliefs about bodily autonomy for women vanish when it comes to commercial sex.

And SWERFS don’t fucking come for me saying that the reason you abhor the sex trade is because of the prevalence of abuse in the industry. Marriage as an institution began as the ownership of women as chattel and is rife with servitude, violence, rape, coercion, child abuse and dysfunction globally. Yet we do not struggle to comprehend that people can be free to choose and enjoy marriage whilst at the same time fighting to end inequality, criminal abuse and exploitation within it.

We live in a marketing world of hyper-sexualised images of women and plenty of men WAX LYRICAL about their consumption of women as a commodity without it impacting their respectability or social standing, they can even talk about sexually assaulting women and become president of the united states. Yet the TERROR and SCORN some feel compelled to express when women actually wield their sexual marketing power overtly and intentionally is hilarious and pathetic. We see through your game and we’re not playing by your dumb ass rules.

I delightfully contributed to a coffee table book of Wet ASS PUSSY for Carlin Ross and Betty Dodson this week. It was a gratitude project from the army of orgasmic women who’s lives (and clits) have been touched by the pleasure activism of this formidable duo of women in their Bodysex Workshops. It was so joyful to see a diverse range of age, ethnicities, nationalities, shapes and sizes. Betty and Carlin have an array of tips for closing the orgasm gap in partner sex. The orgasm gap is the fact heterosexual couples tend to prioritise male orgasm over female orgasm when they fuck. One of Betty and Carlin’s key suggestions for increasing female pleasure in partner sex is for women to “run the fuck” and WAP is certainly an anthem for that too. Whether it’s Megan being gobbled and swallowed, getting her ass eaten or Cardi B gagging on cock or riding dick whilst doing her kegels they know what they want, they know how to get it and they are not ashamed to tell you.


Fuck the Pain Away

Peaches suggestion to “fuck the pain away” is some of the best advice ever put into song form. Orgasm is medicine and the oxytocin released is a powerful antidote to stress and painful emotions. So here we are in a pandemic, locked in our homes, loosing our jobs and our minds. Comfort is sorely needed. If you’re single, like myself, the only responsible option is fucking your own pain away.

In my mid-twenties whilst my heart was still prone to breaking, relationships were tumultuous and my libido was voracious, I discovered that a crank (cry+wank) orgasm could turn a very bleak outlook into a significantly more positive one. Over the last 15 years since then I have grown and expanded this practice in several ways. I have used the strategy to soothe my pain and despair over such things as betrayal, heartbreak, grief, failure and the election of Tony Abbot.

Orgasm and pleasure are the key tools in my stress, depression and anxiety nurturing arsenal, but not just any orgasm. Whilst staring at my favourite porn and jerking off on autopilot can be lots of fun once in a while, as can hammering my clit into multi-orgasmic submission with a vibrator, neither gets me the most reduction in emotional pain, depression and stress. If I use orgasm to try and escape, suppress and avoid my painful emotions it doesn’t have as much benefit as when I use my self pleasure and orgasm to allow and release my painful emotions. The emotions we deny and suppress often fester and become bitter and toxic. Allowing painful feelings to flow freely mingled with my sexual pleasure leads to an emotional catharsis that has far more lasting benefits on my mental and physical health.

The emotions I most often bring to this erotic catharsis are sadness and anger, though I’m now starting to explore fear and anxiety as well. The trick, I find,  is not to think about the painful feelings or the stories you’ve attached to them, that just leads me to a busy head and cuts off my capacity for pleasure. I simply allow the feeling itself to be there, the bodily sensation of it, without inhibition or judgement. To quiet the sad stories and/or negative thoughts in my head I focus my mind on slow deep breaths and the sensation of my self touch.

Without turning away from the pain, but turning into it, I slowly increase my self touch and movement to  arouse erotic sensations. I love to sensually touch and explore my face, lips, mouth, tongue, my neck, my breasts, nipples, sternum, belly, pelvis, inner thighs, my cunt, buttocks and anus too. To stay connected emotionally I often express the feeling with sound on the exhale breath, which can range from screaming rage (into a pillow if you’re concerned about sound), to sobs, to heart weary sighs. If I do cry I don’t wipe away the tears, an act of suppression, but allow them to roll freely over my skin too.

Music, of course, can be extremely helpful too. I would steer away from songs you directly associate with the specific story of what pains you. I try to select music that invokes the feeling but not the story.

I wish you cranks of comfort and cartharsis in these times of struggle, my beloved pervs.