What do you think makes for a healthy sexuality? I’m a 26 year old professional and have a much higher libido than most other people I know. I’ve had many partners who have been satisfying to me in many different ways, but I have often felt baffled by my intense level of sexual pleasure and excitement. I’m not afraid of my sexuality, but how does one go about understanding something so powerful? Does it require study? A good partner? Much of the time I feel that my sexuality is offensive to some people, particularly other women. How do you deal with jealousy from other women? Do you feel that it is important for a young woman to control her sexuality in some way?
First of all, I want you to understand that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you; in fact, many women are troubled by having the opposite issue from you, a low sex drive (and pharmaceutical companies are trying to capitalize on that). I hope you never feel that you need to suppress your sexuality, especially not to make other people comfortable; it’s a large part of who you are, and if other people are bothered by it that’s their problem, not yours. Now, obviously I’m not telling you to run wild and do whatever you feel like regardless of consequences; as ethical people we need to be aware of how our actions might harm others, and we need to respect others’ boundaries and to be up-front about our motives and intentions so they have the information they need to make valid decisions about consent. But as long as you are honest and open with potential partners about your intentions, desires and needs, and refrain from pushing clearly-expressed boundaries, you have absolutely no cause to feel ashamed.
Now, it’s true that some other women may react to you with jealousy or competitiveness, but in my experience that usually happens when an attractive woman only pays attention to the men in the room. I’ve found such reactions can usually be minimized by friendliness, openness and paying just as much attention to the women around you as to the men, thus counteracting the perception that one is trying to be a “queen bee” and monopolize all of the male attention. Now, I have the advantage of being bisexual, and therefore at least as interested in female sexual attention as male (and maybe just a little bit more). You didn’t mention whether your sexual interest is confined to men, but even if it is being friendly and platonically affectionate with the women in your social environment will go a long way toward defusing jealousy. Some people are going to be judgmental of you no matter what you do, but I’m afraid there isn’t much you can do about that, and it would be the same even if you were as prim as a nun; as the expression goes, “Haters gonna hate”.
I wish I could tell you how to go about understanding your sexuality; I’ve been wrestling with trying to understand mine since more than a decade before you were born, and I still haven’t made a lot of headway. I think sexuality is less something to be understood, and more something to be experienced, explored and accepted. We still don’t really understand why people’s sexualities manifest in the myriad ways they do; for example, I’ve been attracted to both sexes and fascinated by bondage, dominance and submission since I was a wee lass, long before I had any actual idea of what “sex” meant. Why? I never experienced any kind of childhood trauma that might have “perverted” my development, and I can’t recall a time I was any other way. In high school, I knew a pair of identical twin brothers: one was straight and the other gay. How in the world could that happen, when they were genetically identical and raised in the same home? Yet it did. My advice to you is to accept your sexuality as an intrinsic part of yourself, just as you accept your preferences in food, clothes, entertainment and everything else. Don’t let anyone tell you that a high libido, a large number of partners and/or enjoyment of kinky activities are signs that something is wrong with you, and whatever you do don’t succumb to pressure to conform. The intense level of pleasure you can experience is a precious gift, and when one is given such a gift the only gracious and proper reaction is to accept and enjoy it.
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My personal opinion is that, at an instinctive level, people are jealous of other folks enjoying things they can’t do (or have been inhibited from doing), and they’re only too happy to lie dog-in-the-manger.
Like the schoolyard, and our ancient instincts towards gender hierarchies that underpin it, the alpha-types all think they have an entitlement to be top of the heap. They’re prepared to smackdown anyone else who gets in the way, either psychologically, via social forces or even fisticuffs.
Since other folks give way to this pattern of behaviour, they think it’s not the ball of crap it really is.
Your sexuality is entirely your own business to determine, it’s your right to determine it, when, how and (consentiing adults notwithstanding) who with. Nor does anyone else have the right to interfere with your self determination.
The rot sets in because unwholesome people/groups/governments think they have that right. They don’t. Every time someone gives an inch, they take three feet. They don’t care that makes you unhappy; they’re happy.
Put another way, if you are happy with yourself, putting your feelings about “others” aside for a moment, then you don’t have a problem, they do. I agree with Maggie about that.
I agree with Maggie that some attention to the ladies will go a long way in reducing their jealousy. I would recommend always having one or two ladies join in when you have sex with a man, which he probably won’t mind.
In statistical terms you may be considered “hypersexual” which is a gift, considering that the majority of American women today report a lack of sexual desire or difficulty reaching orgasm without the aid of a medical device (“vibrator”).
Could you add what your early experience was with sex education, masturbation, sex play, etc. before puberty? I suspect that may help explain why you are so gifted, although nobody can rule out a genetic basis for your gift.
This woman is a rarity; an unspoiled (or nearly so) sexual being with a healthy and mature outlook on life. Go forth and explore your gift with love and discernment, realizing that you will sometimes be disappointed, even hurt; and share the results with the world in a blog like this one, to show the nay-sayers and doubters that there is nothing wrong with sex and sexuality, and that it can be beautiful. Be careful of predators, but otherwise enjoy.
We expect that identical twins should be, well, identical. There are plenty of anecdotes about identical twins that have been separated soon after birth and who, meeting years later, find they have the same interests, the same clothes, similar partners.
And yet it’s now clear that being genetically identical doesn’t mean that the twins are ‘identical’. Indeed, there is an on-going study at a London hospital/medical school collecting such ‘oddities’ where one twin is fat, the other thin; where one is happy and outgoing and the other quiet and withdrawn, etc.
An answer may lie in ‘epigenetics’, the mechanism by which genes are switched on or off; both twins will have the same twins, but the way that the genes are expressed differs. What causes this difference in gene expression isn’t clear (to me, anyway).
Psychologists suggest that it’s to do with differences in rearing. You might think that such twins are reared identically, but this may not be so. A parent could say to the younger twin something along the lines of, ‘look at your big/older sister’ knowing full well that the comment is ironic and not meant seriously. But the ‘small/younger’ sister doesn’t know that. Whether this is a complete or even partial answer isn’t clear.
Look up mirror twins. Still genetically identical but the egg split a little later than with most identical twins. One right handed, other left handed. Sometimes goes as far as internal organs switching sides of the body.
Perhaps gay vs straight is part of the phenomenon as well.