Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience Is All Business

Sex is a commodity. It can be bought and sold like any other product and is subject to the complexities and volatilities of the free market economy. Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience, explores the obvious relationship between sex and economic trade through a glimpse into a few days in the life of Chelsea, a high-end New York call girl.

Chelsea (played by porn-star Sasha Grey) is an independent business woman for whom sex is only one element of her trade. Though she does exchange sex for money, she spends the better part of her time branding herself with designer fashions, marketing her website with search-engine optimization, documenting her transactions and managing her finances according to the advice of her more connected clientele.

Those who know little about sex work often accuse workers of selling their bodies -- Chelsea sells an experience. Transactions with clients appear like any other movie-made date...

Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience Is All Business

Sex is a commodity. It can be bought and sold like any other product and is subject to the complexities and volatilities of the free market economy. Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience, explores the obvious relationship between sex and economic trade through a glimpse into a few days in the life of Chelsea, a high-end New York call girl.

Chelsea (played by porn-star Sasha Grey) is an independent businesswoman for whom sex is only one element of her trade. Though she does exchange sex for money, she spends the better part of her time branding herself with designer fashions, marketing her website with search-engine optimization, documenting her transactions and managing her finances according to the advice of her more connected clientele.

via GIPHY

Those who know little about sex work often accuse workers of selling their bodies -- Chelsea sells an experience. Transactions with...

This post is intended for those over the age of 18. If you're not yet 18, please visit Scarleteen for some great resources on sexuality.

No two bodies are the same and accordingly, no two penises, balls or prostates are identical in their sexual response. Even those who know exactly what brings them to the height of ecstasy admit that their needs change with...well, the wind. Mood, time elapsed since last sexual encounter, stress, energy levels and a host of other factors influence what feels good during oral sex for both men and women. So the techniques I outline below are merely suggestions and certainly not a recipe for the perfect blow job. Play with them, have fun and ask your partner for feedback to find out what they love and enjoy the process.

If anyone else has suggestions, please add them to the list! Here are just a few thoughts on blow jobs as a sneak peek into my workshops and video courses...

1. Consider massaging their thighs and lower...

Vulva, vulva, vulva. Say it with pride if you have one or love one. Unlike the oh-so-popular vagina, with its many euphemisms à la va-jay-jay and other less-respectful terms, the vulva has not yet been put through the linguistic, misogynist ringer.

This lesser-known, but remarkably important region, is inaccurately used synonymously with the vagina. I'd like to officially clear things up:

The vagina is the interior space beginning at the entrance of the vagina and ending at the cervix (the entrance to the uterus). It is a muscular structure that can sometimes be difficult to locate for young women, as it is a potential space as opposed to a wide-open hole. The walls of the vagina generally touch in a relaxed state and during arousal, this elastic tube-like structure can expand to accommodate an inserted object. The vagina is composed of expandable tissue and functions as a passageway for childbirth, provides a barrier against harmful bacteria...

Young men in Britain will now be able to pick up free condoms at barber shops and football fields as part of an initiative to reduce teen pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted infections. After attending an educational session on safer sex, they will receive plastic cards that can be used to collect condoms at convenient locations in which they already congregate like football fields and barber shops.

What a great initiative to get young men involved in both contraception and safer sex!

At a recent conference on HIV/Aids, researcher Dr. David Este reported on the benefits of HIV education programs that are accessible through previously-established community gathering places like salons and barber shops. While sexual health clinics are essential to promoting healthy sexuality, they can be intimidating (particularly for young men) and may not always be easily accessed due to location and limited hours of operation. Making condoms available in places that youth already...

I don't have a penis and I've never wanted one. As a woman, I'm subject to impossible pressures with regard to my physical makeup, but I can't even begin to fathom the anxieties associated with penis size. While it may not factor heavily along the path to enlightenment and it doesn't seem to matter to most women, men are socialized to obsess about the size of their penises. Joking, bragging, worrying, strategic shaving, lying and measuring are common symptoms of this cultural fixation that reduces men to the size of their members.

Studies of men who worry that their penises are too small overwhelmingly indicate that their anxieties are unfounded. They often underestimate their own size or overestimate perceptions of normal penis size. More importantly, they miscalculate the degree to which their sexual partners desire a larger penis. Research indicates that 85 percent of women are happy with their partner's penis size in comparison to only 55 percent of men who report satisfaction...

This post is continued from a previous post here...

But does size matter? From a sexological perspective, penis size has very little impact on the sexual pleasure of the penis-bearer or his partner. For men having vaginal sex with women, the shape and size of the vagina do not require large objects of insertion for pleasure and a well placed penis, finger, dildo or other object can produce far more pleasure than an oversized rod. In a relaxed state, the vagina is a short potential space with walls that gently touch and close together and the richest nerve endings are located near the opening. The g-spot, which can produce intense response and orgasm for some women, can generally be stimulated by any object of two inches in length. However, vaginas also come in different sizes, so it may be a matter of finding the perfect fit.

More importantly, the clitoris, that wonderful pleasure organ through which most women achieve orgasm, is not located in the vagina. A penis, finger, feather,...

I don't have a penis and I've never wanted one. As a woman, I'm subject to impossible pressures with regard to my physical makeup, but I can't even begin to fathom the anxieties associated with penis size. While it may not factor heavily along the path to enlightenment and it doesn't seem to matter to most women, men are socialized to obsess about the size of their penises. Joking, bragging, worrying, strategic shaving, lying and measuring are common symptoms of this cultural fixation that reduces men to the size of their members.

Studies of men who worry that their penises are too small overwhelmingly indicate that their anxieties are unfounded. They often underestimate their own size or overestimate perceptions of normal penis size. More importantly, they miscalculate the degree to which their sexual partners desire a larger penis. Research indicates that 85 percent of women are happy with their partner's penis size in comparison to only 55 percent of men who report satisfaction...

Sex is a process. It's a beautiful, fun and wonderfully messy process that involves several stages of arousal and response. Orgasm (alongside desire, excitement, plateau, and resolution) is just one stage of sexual response, but it tends to get the most attention. Though orgasms can be great (sometimes better than great), they aren't always earth-shattering and shouldn't be universally regarded as the main event.

Sex is often reduced to orgasm alone and this can put undue performance pressure on both women and men. While I'm an avid fan of performance when it comes to sex, pressure should never be a part of the equation. Our nervous systems don't respond naturally or optimally when we're put under pressure and this lessens our ability to experience pleasure. Our sexual response cycle, which includes blood circulation, erection, lubrication and muscle relaxation, is also negatively impacted. I'm not suggesting we forget about orgasms all together, but simply that we focus on other...

Sex is a process. It's a beautiful, fun and wonderfully messy process that involves several stages of arousal and response. Orgasm (alongside desire, excitement, plateau and resolution) is just one stage of sexual response, but it tends to get the most attention. Though orgasms can be great (sometimes better than great), they aren't always earth-shattering and shouldn't be universally regarded as the main event.

Sex is often reduced to orgasm alone and this can put undue performance pressure on both women and men. While I'm an avid fan of performance when it comes to sex, pressure should never be a part of the equation. Our nervous systems don't respond naturally or optimally when we're put under pressure and this lessens our ability to experience pleasure. Our sexual response cycle, which includes blood circulation, erection, lubrication and muscle relaxation, is also negatively impacted. I'm not suggesting we forget about orgasms all together, but simply that we focus on other...