Free The Best You'll Ever Have by Valerie Frankel, Shannon Mullen

around, nor will faking to make him think he’s satisfying you. I, for one, would rather be single forever (sorry, Mom) if the relationship I was in didn’t give my orgasms equal time. And I certainly don’t want to marry a man with whom I don’t feel comfortable enough to tell him or show him what works for me. Imagine a lifetime of faking orgasms, trying to sleep afterward, being too unsatisfied to rest, and even sneaking into the bathroom after sex to masturbate. Lying, deceiving, and only hurting yourself. Ecch. What a dismal way to live.
    Consider the alternative: great orgasms, open communication, mutual satisfaction, and deeper connection. Of course, a new man doesn’t know your body’s ins and outs right away, but he wants to be told what he can do for you. He’s watching you to see what effect this move or that has on you. He doesn’t expect you to like all of them. He’s working on trial and error and would appreciate any guidance you can give. Believe me: he wants to be good at this. He wants to send you deep into a red-hot sea of lust and pleasure. He lives for it! A turned-on woman is the ultimate turn-on for a man. You could blow him for five hours straight, and he won’t get as excited by it as he would from watching and feeling you come against his hand, lips, or penis or with the help of one of Safina’s very lovely accessories for your lust life (more on that later).
    Every now and then you might come across (as it were) a guy who does know what to do. That’s nice (hell, it’s amazing!), but just because his skills give you a free pass from having to communicate your needs doesn’t mean you should keep your mouth shut. Even if he’s a genius in bed, if you talk more about what feels good, you’ll both discover new tricks and add to your repertoire.

    Practice Makes Perfect
    One of the reasons women are so often frustrated by men’s ineptitude is because they believe men know more about sex than women. Wrong. Well, let me take that back. Men do know themselves better than most women know themselves. Men start masturbating earlier. They aren’t taught to avoid or fear their own body parts like many women are. Unlike most women I’ve talked to, men aren’t embarrassed that they are experienced masturbators. Almost all adult men know that spanking the monkey and having orgasms is normal and that not masturbating is weird and wrong. They feel no shame for normal body maintenance—and that’s really what orgasms are for men. Get up in the morning, brush the teeth, check the gut in the mirror, and jerk off into the toilet. Or into a tissue. Or in the shower. Men will have an orgasm whenever there’s a little free time before or after work. They do, because they can.
    Meanwhile, women often have guilt, shame, and discomfort about masturbation. Our society is really weird about sex, as I’ve mentioned before, especially about women’s bodies. We’re obsessed and yet we’re silent and restrictive. Your negative views around masturbation go back into childhood: every time you were told not to touch yourself, every time you were discouraged from asking about it. Boys, on the other hand, grew up encouraged to masturbate by their friends and even their fathers who told them it was normal. While you spent your youth avoiding the area, worried about your hymen, afraid of getting pregnant, and trying to be a normal nice girl, boys were spending their free time becoming experts on their own orgasms. Seventy-five percent of boys hear about masturbating before they ever try it. When did you first hear about it? Did you ever hear about it now from an actual person (putting magazines and books aside for a moment)? Ninety percent of American boys have 2.3 orgasms a week by the time they are 15. Twenty-three percent of girls have one orgasm per week by the time they are 15. Plenty of women have their first orgasm after college. We aren’t slow learners. We just shirked practice.
    As grown women, we