Whoop Whoop, Giggle, and Thoroughly Girly Sex

I recently enjoyed a funny article by Kristen Chase, “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” (the title sarcastically refers to John Mayer’s incredibly sexy, sensual song of the same name) about Kristen’s post-baby, and awaiting-other-baby, body. Reading her Motherhood Uncensored blog and its reader comments was hilariously fun (more so had they not been so d*mn true about gravity, stretch marks, even body parts that you don’t want to claim). I recall a friend in her late twenties pointing to unfamiliar and only just found under-arm flab (I’m laughing as I write this) saying to me in astonishment, “Look at this!” Playing with it, flicking it with her two fingers, making it wobble-wobble-wobble, she wanted an answer: “What is this, and where did it come from?”

To Kristen and other mommies, um … well, it can be funny sometimes, sometimes inconvenient. I have to be careful—a body issue of mine is that, when I sneeze, I have to try not to pee. I’ve blamed it on my daughter for twenty-eight years now.

Being narcissistic isn’t usually a female trait; if anything, we judge ourselves too harshly. We give and give to others. We knock ourselves constantly and few women who I know can really take a compliment. I think the shared stories of “guess what my body is doing now” are a way of dealing with the change.

My generation’s mothers and peers didn’t encourage us to think of our bodies preparing to enjoy being “Cosmo girls,” (Although the “Cosmo girls” were certainly having more fun!). That was too way out there, almost naughty, like boys looking at girly magazines.
But this is it, this is the thing. We need to get over it and on with it. We need to get feisty and fired up—and, yikes maybe we even need to get some fetishes—because I’ve got a secret for all of you. Men love women’s bodies. Men love YOUR bodies.

Secrets … since we’re talking secrets … I can tell you about my sex shop story.
Ok, I was taken there by a girlfriend who blurted to me, as we opened the door of this never-before-entered phase of my life, “Relax. Enjoy this. Let’s have fun being girls!” (Relax? I’m thinking, “I can’t even breathe, and I may pee my pants! Do good girls go in here?”) It was one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life. I learned how to “whoop, whoop,” giggle, and be thoroughly girly about sex.

Sex Confessions—Marie Claire magazine recently ran an absolutely right-on article about things you hear (or wonder about) in a sex shop. A couple excerpts of “Confessions of a Sex-Shop Sales Clerk follow”: “Ultimately, I became an ad hoc protector of women. Like the time a bearded book editor appeared. After gabbing about the erotic-lit industry, he explained a particularly ludicrous double-penetration scenario he imagined for his wife. He seemed to treat sex as an event strictly for his pleasure, which I found particularly egregious. I was sleep-deprived and blurted out, “Sir, what do your wife’s feet look like?” He paused. Then stuttered. He had no idea. I suggested that for the next month, he spend a weekly hour in bed with his wife without using his penis. Two months later, a thank-you note appeared to “the tall saleswoman who taught my husband how to make love.” The other excerpt is, “My favorite customer, Marlene, first appeared at 10 a.m. on a Saturday. A youthful, 50-something firecracker in mom jeans, she marched in and scanned the shelves. “I have three sons and a husband. I need a vibrator that is completely silent. Do you hear me? Com-plete-ly si-lent.” She looked at me expectantly.”