Female Lust: A Memoir

SEX, WELL-BEING
Gabrielle Vaughn | VenusBlogs Editor at Large

Katherine Angel bares all in a strikingly honest book about women’s desire, and her own sexuality. Report by Salon’s TRACY CLARK-FLORY

When as a teenager Katherine Angel felt herself suddenly overflowing with lust, she began to wonder: Where are the similarly hungry women? In “Unmastered: A Book on Desire, Most Difficult to Tell,” she says of her burgeoning erotic wanting, “The words I would have put this into, had I felt the urge — the words I still put this into — are these: I feel like a man.”

This is a book for every woman who has ever felt like a man for being sexual.

It is largely a sexual autobiography, but also self-conscious proof-positive that women are capable of being just as desirous as men. She writes poetically about having her partner ejaculate on her: “I love this. The sudden wet coolness on me. The smell: summer rain on cement. Fresh, open windows.” Of her lover’s swollen member, she says, “It is beautiful. It unnerves me, in its gorgeous attentiveness.” It would be a daringly personal work for any woman to write, but perhaps especially so for Angel, a Cambridge-educated academic and feminist who has researched female sexual dysfunction.

Read the article in full:
A memoir of female lust

Michael Douglas’ Oral Sex Problem

HEALTH, SEX
Gabrielle Vaughn | VenusBlogs Editor at Large
Photo of Catherine Zeta-Jones

Michael Douglas has opened up about his past diagnosis, revealing that oral sex, not smoking or drinking, caused his type of throat cancer. Now he’s backing out of that statement, being that after he said it he came across as one of the biggest idiots on the planet. Retract away, Mr. Douglas, it’s just too late for you. Your comments have already been signed, sealed and delivered into the low class attention-whore Hall of Fame.

One would think that surviving cancer might make a person less inclined to embarrass and single out the people who loved, supported and cared for them during their time of crisis, but ah, Michael…you thought it a wonderful thing to share with the world, didn’t you? I guess you never imagined that the first thing we would picture was a disease ridden Catherine Zeta-Jones, spread legged, in a bed, with your face between her legs. Oh such a class act you are.

And now, you retract your statements. And why? For the reasons that all public idiots retract everything they say — because people didn’t approve of your sublevel respect for your beautiful wife. That’s why.

Ya lost me, man. Liberace or not. Ya lost me.

No Fan of Menopause

MENOPAUSE
Gabrielle Vaughn | VenusBlogs Editor at Large

There is no beating menopause. When she wants her way, she gets it. You might try to tame her into submission with black cohosh and other herbal supplements, but she will only allow you moments of reprieve. The truth is, no matter what you do in your attempts to conquer her, La Menopause will best you each time.

I am new to this game. I am fresh on this menopausal battle field, but let me tell you, I have not come unequipped. I have my weapons with me at all times, and even though this hormonal upheaval tests me daily, I am not without my own defensive strategies.

Not one to fancy hormone replacement, I’ve decided to tackle this scoundrel in my own natural way. Noticing that she is relentless in her abundant delivery of hot flashes and night sweats, I no longer wait until it’s too late and I’m drenched in perspiration. Now, thanks to clever planning, I meet those devils with what I like to call…

Many Little Electric Fans.

Yes, all over my house, I have mini-fans plugged in. Even as I write, there is an electric fan poised above my head, ready to be clicked on, ready to push cool breezes my way should the overwhelming waves of scorching inner temperature suddenly rise — as these waves are known to do.

Ah…here comes a wave now. Down, down, you little monster! I shall not sweat for you this morning! Sweet, silent airflow, how effective you are. Somewhere in this wind tunnel is a sweaty, middle aged woman who laughs at your efforts — you shall not take me alive! The flashes — I hardly notice them.

It’s the same at night. Fans, precariously placed, ready to blow. I find myself snuggled deeply under thick, warm blankets — and then, at any moments notice, I am suddenly unflung of my coverlet and ready to rip my own flesh off just to catch a moment of cool. Alas, I no longer need to be so dramatic because my friends are there. My fans. My fans love me.

And I love my fans. And my freezing glasses of iced tea or grapefruit juice.

Now, if only I could leave the house. If I can just make it to the store without melting into a puddle of menopausal moisture…if I can just get my clammy hands on one of those handheld battery operated fans — If I can be both menopausal AND chilly — and I know I can — then you will hear me cry, in my best Stuey Griffin: Victory is mine!

The Ever Clever Vagenda

HEALTH & WELL-BEING, SEX, V TALK
Gabrielle Vaughn | VenusBlogs Editor at Large

One of my favorite blogs out there is The Vagenda, an British-based online rag dedicated to matters of the vagina and the women who own and work with them. Every so often (like everyday) I come across a blog that I feel is either important — or hilarious, and most times both. Have a go at this one, which is called, “Period Sex: Putting the Men Back Into Menstruation” by the Vagenda Team.

It is Wednesday night. All is silent. I am watching but not really paying attention to Tess of the D’Urbervilles. My flatmate has bought me a badge from a sex shop in Soho that says ‘fancy a tit wank?’ and I am internally debating how I feel about it, watching Eddie Redmayne’s head bobbing across the screen like a tetchy, full-lipped cobra. The man I’m currently seeing texts me: Friday?

We have a good time. Nice chat, usually in a pub. It’s very easy, very comfortable. A part of me feels that this Friday would be just dandy, considering the SHAME of last week when my sister and I got very drunk, had a heated debate about the pros and cons of the Candy Crush ‘Saga’ and ended up necking an entire bottle of Caesar salad dressing. So it’s all systems go. But then I got to thinking, as the vapid Carrie Bradshaw so often professes to, with a slight tilt of the head and a confused sigh, about My Period.

Now, much like its owner my period is a moody, unreliable little bugger. I even, feeling smug, installed the app on my phone – Period Diary, Journal des Règles, Menstruatie Agenda – call it what you will. It’s dead handy, if a bit screechy. YOUR PERIOD IS FIVE DAYS LATE, it panics every month. It’s like the NHS website that tells you to call an ambulance if you say your throat’s a bit tickly. Sometimes the poor thing gets so worked up it tips itself over into the following month, breezily informing me I’m back in my ‘fertile window’. I know it is lying, it knows it is lying, but it’s thrown floral arms into the air with a despairing WHEVS! I CANNOT, WILL NOT COPE WITH YOUR SHIT ANY MORE! The mendacious app can’t take the stress of waiting any longer, and I don’t know how to tame it. But hey, whatever it tells me, there’s a handy GUM clinic opposite my flat which will provide all the answers should I need them, and so usually I ignore it. [I should add here at the risk of sounding blasé that I do have a copper IUD – which is AWESOME - so as far as pregnancy goes at least, I’m pretty covered. I got junk in mah trunk.]

To read more (and you know you want to read more) click HERE.

The Measure of a Man

SEX
Gabrielle Vaughn | VenusBlogs Editor at Large

Because there’s never enough pressure on any one of us to be someone a little more super than we already are, why not rehash everyone’s favorite subject of all time: penis size. Because if we’re not talking about breast size, we’re talkin’ penis.

I was under the impression that, for a while there, we were letting penis size slide and that our focus was more on the quality of performance, no matter how the man was endowed. Ah, but old habits die hard *cough* and by the look of this article, Penis Size Does Matter To Some Women, Study Claims — I have to rethink what I think people are thinking. Too alliterate? Nah, let’s just keep going.

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer, says:

Contrary to the reassuring catchphrase “size doesn’t matter,” penis size may matter in bed — but only for some women, and for certain types of orgasms. Read more

Awareness, The Hard Way

BEAUTY, HEALTH & WELL-BEING, SURGERY
Gabrielle Vaughn | VenusBlogs Editor at Large
Photo: Ethan Miller, Getty Images

My Medical Choice, by Angelina Jolie

MY MOTHER fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56. She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was.

We often speak of “Mommy’s mommy,” and I find myself trying to explain the illness that took her away from us. They have asked if the same could happen to me. I have always told them not to worry, but the truth is I carry a “faulty” gene, BRCA1, which sharply increases my risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer.

My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman.

Only a fraction of breast cancers result from an inherited gene mutation. Those with a defect in BRCA1 have a 65 percent risk of getting it, on average.

Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer is higher than my risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex. Read more

I Wanna Fake it with You

RELATIONSHIPS, SEX
Gabrielle Vaughn | VenusBlogs Editor at Large

Women have been accused of faking orgasms for years and years. And, it’s true — every once in a while we do — we have to. We have faked it in the past and we will fake it again in the future. When sex bores us or the emphasis to come is just a little too much pressure to deal with, on occasion, we will resort to Oscar-worthy performances where we moan, sigh, shiver and shake our way to the finish line. We fake orgasms when we feel that if we don’t get it done soon, the sexual act we’re presently involved in might go on forever — and that’s a tedium most women would rather just pass on. And rather than explain to our partners the slew of reasons behind what they might translate as their own inability to pleasure us properly, we fake it. Sometimes it’s just not worth the explanation. So, instead of groaning with pleasure for several hours and going nowhere, we moan with delight for a few minutes and everyone walks away happy.

That’s our little secret, isn’t it? Certainly our male counterparts don’t have this ability, and why would men even want to fake it? Aren’t they always just pleased as punch to wriggle around inside our bodies for the ten seconds it takes for them to climax? Men can’t fake it because their orgasms come with bells and whistles, which I like to also call semen — THE telltale aspect that reveals a man’s orgasmic reality. No semen, no orgasm — right? Read more

Mum’s Not The Word

ABORTION, HEALTH
Gabrielle Vaughn | VenusBlogs Editor at Large

What if we lived in a world where the word — abortion — didn’t come with heaps of controversy, guilt and judgment? If such a world existed, we’d be more apt to see both sides of the coin, and with an unbiased clarity of sight, we might better understand that many women who choose to have abortions are actually unaffected by the controversial moral issues that politics and religion make us ever aware of. These women are without guilt because they don’t see abortion as something to be guilty over, nor do they see their own actions as criminal — or up for anyone’s judgment. For this type of woman, her decisions are hers to make, and hers alone. To the world she says, “It’s my body, and that makes it none of your business.”

And I’m going to be brutally honest — the concept that abortion is always a hard decision to make is untrue. There are women who don’t think twice; it’s what they have to do. They don’t get caught up in what ‘you’ think. And if terminating a pregnancy — for whatever reason — is something that they’ve determined as an absolute necessity, then… abortion it is. No looking back. Read more

Viagra for Women

HEALTH & WELL-BEING, SEX
Gabrielle Vaughn | VenusBlogs Editor at Large
Photo courtesy of jezebel.com

Is the FDA-Approved ‘Female Viagra’ Pill Actually Effective and Safe? Jezebel writer, CALLIE BEUSMAN reports:

A month ago, the FDA approved the first pill meant to combat sexual dysfunction resulting from menopause. It’s called Osphena, and it purports to cure dyspareunia (pain during sex) by augmenting the declining estrogen levels responsible for “vulvar and vaginal atrophy,” a terrifying term that implies that menopause causes your body to decay and form a rotting flesh-coffin around your softly beating woman’s heart. Shinogi, the pharmaceutical company responsible for Osphena, claims that more than half of the 64 million U.S. women who have been through menopause would benefit from the drug. While it’s nice to see someone recognizing that woman over 50 do, in fact, have and enjoy sex, and while it’s great that someone is addressing sexual dysfunction in women, there are several things about Osphena that are in danger of being overblown or misrepresented entirely.

Fat Shaming Meets Comic Art

BEAUTY, HEALTH & WELL-BEING, MEDIA
Gabrielle Vaughn | VenusBlogs Editor at Large

I must admit, in the beginning, I was hesitant to get on board with the “Just Be A Real Woman” concept, probably because I knew that coming to terms with the reality of my own body would be a part of that plan. I love the idea of other women accepting themselves, in fact, the whole notion of self-acceptance is both beautiful and foreign to me; nonetheless, that kind of complete confidence is inspirational. I want to accept my body “as is” — I just haven’t been able to.

But something clicked for me after I saw the comic strip that 20-year-old Illustration student, Colleen Clark created for a school project. When she was asked to “write what you know,” she deferred to her immediate experience: feeling “ashamed, embarrassed and hateful of my own body.”

Oh. That again. “That again” was my way of brushing it off, lessening the importance of what is a very real, very intense struggle for almost every woman who must face the daily onslaught of mixed messages — We’re damned if we do (accept our fat/skinny bodies) and we’re damned if we don’t (achieve a certain body image). It’s just one more lesson in how we must slam ourselves down so that we can stay insecure and messed up forever. Read more

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