When folks first start exploring things like paddling and spanking and other kinky stuff in bed, there are two things that they often end up buying very early on: cheap fuzzy handcuffs and/or a fur-lined paddle.

That was the way it was with me, way back when I started down the road to interesting and unusual sex. These things are staples in the “kink” section of almost any sex toy store.

The furry handcuffs usually fall by the wayside pretty quickly. Most of them are poorly made, a lot of them are uncomfortable or don’t work right, some of them are downright dangerous, and at the end of the day both leather cuffs and good old fashioned rope are a whole lot safer and a whole lot more comfortable.

The furry paddle usually ends up being put away in the toybox and neglected after a while, too. I know a lot of folks who have one, and most of them never use it.

I bought my furry paddle many years ago, then more or less forgot about it. I dug it back out of the recesses of my toybox a couple of weeks ago, and discovered a whole new liking for it. Even though some hard-core kinksters sneer at the lowly fuzzy paddle, it’s actually remarkably versatile and quite a lot of fun.

The secret, as with most sex toys, is in the person who uses it, not in the toy itself. With a little imagination, this thing can make your partner sing! Well, figuratively, anyway.

The basic premise is pretty simple: smack someone’s ass with the furry side and they barely feel it, smack with the other side and it produces a mild to moderate sting. Easy, right? Ah, but think of the soaring cathedrals of sensation that you can build from such simple bricks!

For starters, combine this with a blindfold, which I still say is one of the most fun basic toys you can have. When your partner can’t see what you’re doing, mixing the furry side with the leather side gets a lot more interesting. With just a little practice, you can get pretty skilled at flipping the paddle over in your hands while you’re using it, so your partner will never quite know what to expect. A steady rhythm, but with random furry side/hard side smacks, is a lot of fun. “Whuf whuf smack whuf smack smack whuf”…you get the idea.

It takes a second for skin sensation to register, which makes this game especially delightful. You can hear the smack before you feel it, so it makes an interesting little split-second of uncertainty–”Is that going to sting, or not?” And by the time it registers, the next smack is already on the way…

And you don’t have to use it only on your partner’s behind. Paddles can be quite interesting on breasts, the back of the calves, even on the feet.

Another thing that’s quite a lot of fun is to gently stroke and caress your partner with the furry side, then randomly and without warning smack with the leather side, then flip it over smoothly and go back to the stroking and caressing. If you do it quickly enough, your partner will barely even have time to be aware of the smack before you’re gently caressing again.

For anyone who’s even a little bit curious about spanking or paddling, the furry paddle is a safe, soft introduction to the joys of paddling. But even for people who are a bit more experienced, a furry paddle is still a great sensation toy.

You can find them pretty cheaply at almost any sex toy store. You can also find a premium high-end version here, or an inexpensive version here. I think they deserve a place in (almost) any toy box.

This week’s sex tip is a bit counter-intuitive, because I’m going to suggest trying something that’s a little unorthodox…namely, not doing what you’re best at or what you most enjoy.

One thing that can sometimes happen in a long-term relationship is that things in the bedroom can get stuck in a rut. Occasionally, it’s nice to shake things out of that rut, to keep the sex fun and fresh and interesting.

It’s easy to say “Well, you keep things fun by trying new stuff,” but making a list of new stuff to try can sometimes be challenging. Sometimes, the best solution is just to step away from the rut without any clear idea of where you might be going, just to see what happens.

Most of us have things we really like doing in bed–one or two standbys that we find ourselves doing all the time, or perhaps things that we know we’re really good at. And so it’s tempting to go with what we know works and what we feel comfortable doing.

So try this. For some period of time–perhaps the next time you have sex, perhaps a few days, whatever–don’t do the things that you find easiest to do. Talk to your partner: “You know that thing I do that you really like, that we do all the time? Let’s try NOT to do that. And that thing you do that you know really works for me, let’s not do that either. Instead, let’s experiment, as though we were just having sex for the first time and didn’t know what worked for us, and see what we find!”

It might seem a little weird to tell someone NOT to do whatever it is that they’re best at doing, but every now and then it’s a good way to mix up the routine and explore new territory. In fact, who knows? You might find some new thing that works even better for you!

Help! I am married. I am a submissive into BDSM. My husband is not interested. What can I do?

That’s a very tricky question.

The short answer is you have four options: talk to him to find out why he’s not interested and see if there is some way you can rebuild your relationship with him to give you the things you need; end the relationship; talk to him about your needs and explore the possibility of finding a way for you to meet your needs somewhere else or with someone else, in a way that he is on-board with and is compassionate andrespectful of him; or cheat.

Of these four options, I definitely don’t recommend cheating. There are a lot of problems with cheating, some of them practical, some of them ethical, and some of them philosophical. On a practical matter, it’s overwhelmingly likely that sooner or later, he will find out. On an ethical level, betraying the trust of a person that you love and have committed to isn’t cool, even if the relationship doesn’t meet your needs. It’s also an attempt to take the easy way out, to seek having your needs met elsewhere without actually having to take responsibility for the consequences in your existing relationship. On a philosophical level, everything that you hide from your partner corrodes and destroys intimacy.

So, first, I would recommend sitting down with him and having a real, serious conversation about the things that you need and the way he feels about that. Don’t just take “I dunno” or “I don’t want to” as being the end of the conversation. Ask detailed and specific questions; for example, if you say “I would like to explore ___” and he says “I don’t want to,” find out why. Does the idea intimidate him? Does it simply not appeal to him, and if that’s the case, what DOES appeal to him? What does he like about sex? Does he find the idea threatening? Does he have moral or religious objections to it? (Many people may feel that dominating a woman is wrong because it reinforces the historical, patriarchal ideas that are harmful to women; in BDSM, though, a role that is freely chosen is very different from a role that is imposed on women by choice. Accepting the idea that women should be free to choose their own role means accepting that some women do in fact want to choose a submissive role.)

Keep the conversation going. Look for things that HE might like. Ask him about his fantasies. Find out if there are things that he might like to try himself, and look for common ground. If he is resistant to the idea of trying anything new, find out why. Is it about a belief that there is a certain way that relationships are “supposed” to be? Is it about feeling uncomfortable with the unknown? Something else?

And don’t necessarily expect that a single conversation will answer everything. Sometimes, people take time to warm up to new ideas. Even folks who seem absolutely dead-set against something will occasionally change their minds, if you present it as something you’d really like and that can enrich your life with that person.

If that doesn’t seem to get you anywhere, try exploring some other options. Ask him if it would be okay if you try to learn about these things or meet these needs somewhere else, such as with a BDSM munch group.

This is another conversation that he might find threatening; it’s important to emphasize that you’re not looking to replace him, but rather to meet a need that he seems unwilling to meet. I personally find it helpful to keep in mind that it is perfectly reasonable of you to ask that your needs be met, and that it is not necessarily reasonable for someone to tell you “I refuse to allow you to have oyur needs met from anyone but me, and I refuse to meet your needs.”

If none of that succeeds, then I think it’s time to consider whether or not this relationship gives you the things that it takes for you to be happy. It may be that each of you might be happier with a different partner.

Good luck!

I’m sure you’ve probably noticed that there haven’t been new tips these past couple of weeks. Weeklysextip.com has moved to a brand-new Web host, where we will have more space and more bandwidth so we can start expanding. Once the move is complete, look for more weekly sex tips here!

I’m a huge fan of sex games (as you can imagine, considering that I’ve invented one), but I have nowhere near the talent of some of my friends for turning any ordinary, innocent game into a stripping game.

We all know about stripping games like strip poker, of course. Or, at least, most of us do. There are a zillion variants; some versions of strip poker don’t involve betting but require the player with the worst hand to remove an item of clothing after each round, while others are more conventional betting games but the stakes you play for are your opponent’s clothes rather than money. There’s a version here that’s pretty easy even for people who aren’t poker players to follow.

Some variants of strip games also have rules that say a person who’s completely naked and who must lose clothing instead performs some act for the benefit of the other players, though other varieties say that a player who’s naked is simply out of the game, or a player who’s naked doesn’t suffer any consequences for a losing hand.

The neat thing, though, is that any game, with a bit of cleverness, can be turned into a strip game.

And not just card games. Hell, you can turn a pile of forks and a banana hook into a strip game, if you like…I’ll get to that in a minute.

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The first part of turning any game into a strip game is to define what an article of clothing is. Some folks like to leave that up to each player, though I think that can unfairly slant the game–if you get one person who says that only wearable items like shorts or socks count and another person who counts each individual earring as a separate item of clothing, things can end up unbalanced. Especially for the player who has no earrings sitting next to the player who’s got fifteen piercings in each ear.

The rules that my friends and I have standardized on are: Jewelry and items such as watches don’t count. Paired items count as one article of clothing–both shoes together are a single item, both socks together are a single item, and so on. We also play that if you’re wearing a shirt and a sweater, they both together count as a single item–no multiple layers of clothing allowed.

But then, we’re pretty hardcore about getting naked during a strip game, so take that for what it’s worth.

So to show the kind of versatility you can get with strip games, I’ll describe three games I’ve played: two commercial games (Are You a Werewolf? and Apples to Apples) and a game invented by a friend (Forks).

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Are You a Werewolf? is a party game based on an older game called Mafia. It can be played with a special deck of cards that you can buy online, or with a normal deck of cards. The full rules of the game are available here, but basically it’s a game of social manipulation in which two players are randomly assigned the role of “werewolf,” one player is randomly assigned the role “seer,” and everyone else is assigned the role “villager.” Another player is the moderator, who doesn’t actually participate except to tell the players what happens each round. The players do not know who is assigned to what role.

Each round, the players all close their eyes and make noise. The werewolves silently open their eyes and then silently choose another player to devour in the night. Then they close their eyes and the seer opens his eyes. The seer silently chooses a player, and the moderator silently tells the seer if the chosen player is a villager or werewolf. Then the entire group opens their eyes.

The moderator tells the players which one of them was devoured by the werewolves. That player is then out of the game. The players then vote on who to lynch for the crime; their goal is to lynch the werewolves, of course, but they don’t know who the werewolves are! Simple majority vote carries the day, and players can use deceit and trickery to try to influence the lynching away from themselves onto others. The seer can try to manipulate the voting, but since the seer is a prime target of the werewolves, she doesn’t want to draw attention to herself.

When a player is chosen to be lynched, that player is out of the game and that player’s role is revealed. Then a new round begins. The game continues in rounds until either both werewolves are lynched or until the werewolves eat the village.

The strip variant of Are You a Werewolf? is pretty straightforward. After each game, if the werewolves won, all the villagers lose an item of clothing. If the villagers won, all the werewolves lose an item of clothing. The fun part comes in when people begin negotiating about who to lynch based not on who they think the werewolves might be, but on who they think they might like to see get naked…

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Apples to Apples is a word-association game in which each round, one player acts as a judge and plays a card that has some adjective printed on it. The other players, who hold cards containing nouns printed on them, play one of their noun cards they think is most related to the adjective card. The player who is the judge for that round chooses which card she thinks most suits the adjective. That person gets a point, and the play continues with a new judge.

We’ve gone through several strip variants of Apples to Apples, most of which end up with everyone getting naked pretty quick. In the variant we finally came up with, each round the judge chooses the noun card that LEAST matches the adjective, and the player who played that card loses an item of clothing.

Since a person is guaranteed to lose clothing every round, and since a round takes less than a minute to play, someone usually ends up naked very quickly in the game. For that reason, we adopted a rule that says that if the player who is to lose clothing is already naked, then he chooses another player at his whim to lose an article of clothing instead. Like I said, we’re pretty hardcore about our strip games…

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Recently, at a fetish convention, I was introduced to a fun and quirky little reverse-Jenga style game called Forks, played with a metal skewer, a banana hook, and a pile of 60 or 70 forks.

The first step is to bend the metal skewer so that it has a loop in one end. The skewer gets hung on the banana hook like so:

The forks are distributed so that each player has the same number of forks in front of her.

The players take turns on each round. On each turn, the players insert one fork onto the skewer or hook, or onto forks that are already there. Forks may not be stacked and they must not touch the ground.

If a player knocks forks off the stack, or causes forks to touch the ground, then as long as 5 or fewer forks have fallen the player must place them back in the collection of forks. If more than 5 forks end up falling off or touching the ground on one turn, the player adds all those forks to his pile of forks.

The goal is to run out of forks. If more than one player runs out of forks in one round, then the players who still have forks left are out of the game. Their forks are distributed among the remaining players and play continues.

There are a couple of ways to make this a stripping game. In the fast version, any player who knocks forks off the pile immediately loses an item of clothing. In the slow version, the losers of each game lose an item of clothing.

Me being who I am, I like the fast version better.

This week’s sex tip article is a bit delayed. It’s been a fun, but exhausting, week; I spent last weekend in Atlanta at a sex convention, and had a blast, though I seem to have lost my glasses somewhere on the flight back.

Anyway, after a long weekend spent going to sex workshops on subjects like bondage and kink, and time spent with friends I don’t get to see nearly often enough, I’m back home and getting settled in to normal life again.

This week’s tip isn’t a how-to, but rather is a catalog of some silly sex myths I’ve heard. Some of these myths are surprisingly common, and can really mess with our ability to have fun, satisfying sex.

So, without further ado, here we go!

#1. You can’t get pregnant if you don’t have an orgasm.

It would be easy to write an entire article on “You can’t get pregnant if…” myths. There’s You can’t get pregnant if you’re on your period,” or you can’t get pregnant if you have sex standing up,” or “you can’t get pregnant if you’re in a hot tub,” or “you can’t get pregnant if he pulls out,” or… It’s really beyond the scope of this article to talk about all the ways you can get pregnant, but it’s worth mentioning that these are all myths. Yes, you CAN get pregnant these ways. Even if oyu have sex standing up in a hot tub during the full moon after eating a clove of garlic on the first day after Lent and he pulls out before you come.

#2. If you have “too much” sex, whatever that means, or if you use sex toys that are “too big,” your vagina will become loose.

#3. Anal sex makes your anus loose. People who have anal sex too much end up in diapers.

The human body is not made of Silly Putty. It doesn’t stretch out and then not return to its original shape.

The vagina and anus are lined with muscle. Muscle, unlike Silly Putty, becomes firmer and more elastic, not looser, when it is worked. This myth is as silly as believing that your mouth will stretch out and become looser if you eat too many Big Macs!

It’s repeated often by folks who one would really expect to know better, like “Doctor” Drew (I put the “doctor” in quotes because his medical degree is in a field totally unrelated to human sexuality; expecting him to be a sex expert because he is a doctor of internal medicine is a bit like expecting someone to be able to work on jet airplanes because he knows how to change the battery in your car).

#4. Oral sex can get you pregnant.

With all the myths about things that can’t get you pregnant, occasionally we have to throw in a myth about something that can get you pregnant just for good measure.

Some folks actually believe that swallowing semen can lead to pregnancy. Granted, these folks probably don’t know a whole lot about human anatomy (here’s a hint: babies don’t actually grow in your stomach), but there it is.

#5. When you are in a relationship for a long time, of course the sex will decline and become less exciting.

This can happen, no doubt about it. But it isn’t inevitable.

People who have been partnered for a long time don’t have sex less often because that’s what long-term relationships do; people who have been partnered for a long time have sex less often because they choose to allow their sex lives to taper off.

The best way I have ever discovered to have a healthy, dynamic, exciting sex life is simply to choose to do so. Try new things; there’s never any possibility of running out of new stuff to do. Talk about your sexual fantasies; it’s a great way to discover new territory to explore. And above all, don’t be afraid! If you are with someone who you really love and who really loves you, then it should be possible for you to talk about anything, even sexual ideas that might seem strange or uncomfortable at first.

#6. Men have a stronger sex drive than women.

If I could choose one common sex myth to disappear tomorrow, this one would be it. This myth, and all its corollaries (men always want sex, men are always ready for sex, men are always the pursuers of sex, men are not capable of having a female friend they don’t want to fuck) does more to distort sexual relationships than any other single myth I can think of.

Because of this myth, women who have high sex drives and men who have low sex drives often feel like there is something wrong with them. Women who expect men to have the stronger sex drive may be uncomfortable or afraid when it comes to initiating sex.

The reality, as near as I can tell, is that both men and women want sex, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the specific person, and that no one sex wants sex more often than the other. I’ve known many women with very high libidos, who are happiest having sex three or more times a day, and many men who are more or less indifferent to sex and are perfectly happy having it once a month.

Making assumptions about a person’s sex drive just because that person is a man or a woman is foolish.

#7. Women don’t like porn; porn is for men.

#8. If you have a sex partner, you shouldn’t need or want to look at porn.

#9. Men are more “visual” than women.

Porn is another one of those things that an entire essay could be written about. These aren’t all the myths floating around about porn, though some of them (like “porn causes rape”) are so politically and socially charged that debunking them would take a book.

These three myths are all interrelated, and are also related to the “men want sex more than women” myth. The fact is, both men and women are aroused by depictions of other people having sex. Porn producers know this; there are porn production companies owned and run by women. Women and men both find porn entertaining and stimulating, though they are often socialized around porn differently; women seem more likely to purchase written porn (and yes, bodice-ripper novels count), men seem more likely to purchase porn flicks.

But does that mean men are more “visual” than women? No; more likely, it just means that we consider it more socially acceptable for men to buy porn DVDs than for women to do so. And, interestingly, many of the people I know personally who have large libraries of porn movies are women!

Porn is something that people can enjoy even in a relationship; it actually has no bearing on whether or not a person is satisfied in relationship. Indeed, sex is one of those things where the more you have it, the more you want it, at least for many people. And porn can be enjoyed by couples as well as alone.

#10. Masturbating causes blindness. (Hard to believe anyone still believes this one.)

#11. If you masturbate too much, you will “train” your body to only come from masturbation and you will forever be unable to have an orgasm from sex.

#12. If you have a sex partner, you shouldn’t need or want to masturbate.

Masturbation is more openly acknowledged now than it has been in the past, but it’s still surrounded with walls of guilt and shame…and yes, myths.

The notion that masturbation causes blindness (or infertility or emotional problems or whatever other Very Bad Thing you might imagine) is still hanging on in some parts of American society even though there isn’t a shred of evidence to support it.

Masturbation won’t make you blind, or cause any other health ills–at least not unless you’re doing it with a belt sander or something. Nor will it “train” your body to respond only to masturbation.

There is a tiny kernel of truth hidden in the idea of “training” your body, in the sense that orgasm is often a partly learned response; it isn’t always obvious what sort of stimulation will work to get you off. When you masturbate, you can learn exactly what works for you, whereas a partner you’re having sex with doesn’t necessarily know what to do.

But believing that masturbation will ruin you for intercourse is a bit like believing that practicing the piano means you can never become skilled at flute. You can learn how to get yourself off and also learn what works for you when you’re with a partner; the one does not preclude the other.

And masturbation isn’t the same as partnered sex; having a happy, fulfilling sex life doesn’t mean that the desire for solo pleasure suddenly vanishes! In fact, I find that I masturbate more often, not less often, when I have a regular sex partner.

#13. If my partner is attracted to someone else, that must mean my partner doesn’t really love me. If I am attracted to other people, that must mean I don’t really love my partner.

Disney moves really try to convince us that this is true; when our prince or princess arrives, the toggle switch inside our brains gets switched off and forever afterward nobody else even exists for us.

For a very small number of people, that might be true. But the reality for most people is that we do still notice, and find ourselves attracted to, other people no matter who we are with or how deeply we are in love.

And that’s all perfectly OK. It is what we do, not who we find attractive, that matters.

#14. Eating oysers (or horny goat weed, or ground-up tiger penis, or ginger, or cherries, or Spanish fly, or whatever) causes increased sexual arousal.

Sorry, ain’t true. All of these things–horny goat weed, Spanish fly, tiger penis (yes, seriously, tiger penis!), and so on–work no better than a placebo.

Well, at least not at making people horny. They work very well indeed at transferring money from the wallets of desperate people into the wallets of hucksters and con men. But as far as making you horny, a sugar pill works just as well.

Sexual arousal is so subjective that it’s highly susceptible to belief and hope. If we think something will make us horny, often we will convince ourselves that it’s true. The only substance ever shown in double-blind studies to work as an aphrodisiac for real, though, is a drug called “Bremelanotide,” or PT-141. It was discovered accidentally by a company called Palatin Technologies, but was never introduced to the market; the FDA shut down third-stage clinical studies on the fear that the drug might cause high blood pressure.

#15. A person who is into kinky sex probably was abused as a child.

#16. A person who is into kinky sex is probably “addicted” to sex, whatever that means.

#17. A person who tries out or enjoys kinky sex will be “ruined” for normal sex and won’t enjoy simple intercourse without kink any more.

BDSM and kink are surrounded by a sea of myth all their own. The most common one I’ve seen is that anyone who likes kinky sex has some kind of past childhood issue at work, which I think probably comes from the fact that a lot of folks think that kinky sex can look superficially like abuse. It seems reasonable to believe that things that look similar to each other must be related, which is why we assume that people who enjoy eating Sno-Cones probably grew up in places with lots of snow…oh, wait.

Anyway, it’s been my observation that there is no more likelihood of past childhood abuse among people who like kink than among people in general; in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the incidence of abuse among people who like kink is, if anything, lower.

The second two myths speak, it seems, to a fear of not being “normal.” It is common, when we fear something, to make ourselves believe that the folks who do that thing are Bad And Wrong. It’s even easier if we don’t understand the appeal of the thing in question; to someone who doesn’t like to be spanked and who can’t fathom why someone else might enjoy it, it can be seductively easy to say “It must be because that person is addicted to sex” or “It must be because that person has been damaged by abuse.”

The notion that kink “ruins” someone for “normal” sex, for whatever value of “normal” sex, is also a myth. I used to live with a woman who was one of the most amazing cooks I’ve ever known; when she made lasagna, for instance, it was a three-day affair, with fresh noodles made from scratch and a special blend of cheese.s The lasagna was heavenly; we’d have friends stopping forever by whenever they’d heard a rumor that she might be cooking.

Yet that doesn’t mean that I am forever ruined for tuna melts! I still love ‘em just as much as I always have.

Exploring kink doesn’t mean you’ll never want good old-fashioned missionary sex again; it simply means you now have a wider variety of taste sensations, that’s all.

#18. If you need to use a vibrator to have an orgasm, there’s something wrong with you.

#19. If your partner doesn’t have an orgasm during intercourse, that means you are doing something wrong.

Different people respond to different things. That’s all part of the normal, natural variability of the human species. If vibration gets you off, use a vibrator! And rejoice that you know hat works for you!

Unfortunately, we live in a society that teaches us that orgasm is what happens when you do things “correctly”–if you rub the right bit the right number of times in the right way, the belief goes, then orgasm is what happens. This ignores the reality: most of what happens during orgasm, for most of us, has more to do with what goes on between the ears than what goes on between the legs.

And that’s perfectly OK. Sex is all about the journey, not the destination. If it’s fun and you’re both having a good time, you’re doing it right. Hell, there are times when I’ll deliberately not have an orgasm, just because I’m enjoying what’s going on so much.

#20. If a man likes receiving anal sex, that means he is gay (or has “gay tendencies,” whatever those are).

There is nothing “gay” about anal sex, any more than there is anything gay about oral sex, kissing, or manual sex. Look at it this way: Lots of women like being fingered. Does that mean that if a lesbian woman enjoys being fingered by her lover, she’s secretly straight, or has “straight tendencies”?

Men have prostates. It feels good to stimulate the prostate. That’s all there is to it.

The fact is, nothing that a man and a woman do together is gay, by definition. Sexual orientation is entirely separate from sexual activity.

In last week’s post, How to have cybersex, I talked about how to use the wonders of the Internet to share intimacy with your partner over a text-based instant messaging system. This week continues the general theme with an introduction to having Webcam sex.

FIRST, THE TECHNICAL STUFF

Of course, the first thing you’ll need is a Webcam. Most modern laptops come equipped with Webcams from the get-go; desktops often do not. You can find cheap USB cameras for as little as $30 in computer stores, with the more popular models typically weighing in at around $100 or so. Most also have built-in microphones as well.

Almost any USB Webcam will work fine. Higher-end Webcams offer better low-light sensitivity, noise-canceling microphones, autofocus lenses, and the like, though you don’t actually need any of these features to have good cam sex. What you will want is a good frame rate (look for 30 frames per second) and a camera that says it’s USB 2.0 (older USB 1 cameras typically offer highly compressed, pixelated images and poor motion).

SECOND, THE SOFTWARE AND IM SERVICE

Once you have a Webcam, you need software. There are several options available for Webcam chatting, with different Internet requirements and different levels of difficulty in setting up. I’ve found the most popular free Webcam chat services that work with both Macs and PCs, in order of ease of setup, to be Yahoo IM, Skype, and AOL IM.

Yahoo IM doesn’t require any setup at all. If you have a Yahoo IM chat ID, you’re set. It works over slow Internet connections and there’s no configuration.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that the image you see is tiny, jerky, and poor quality.

Skype requires you to download the Skype program onto your computer. If you choose to use it only for Internet chat sessions and don’t need it to work like a telephone, it’s free. It’s also relatively easy to set up and it doesn’t require much configuration, and it gives you nice full-screen video.

When it works, anyway. I’ve had problems where some Webcams, including the built-in Mac Webcam, tend to go black after exactly two minutes of use. This is apparently a known and documented bug in some versions of the Skype software. It’s also really annoying.

AOL IM allows lovely full-motion, full-screen, high-quality video, and it works with the iChat software built into the Mac. Windows users need to download the free AIM client software.

The disadvantage is that if you have a home router, it can require some tinkering with your router’s settings to make video work.

THIRD, THE LOCATION

Assuming you’ve got the technical end licked and you and your partner can video chat to your heart’s content, the next big thing is location, location, location. Well, location and also lighting, but mostly location.

Lighting and location are linked, of course. You want to choose a comfortable place free of distracting clutter and with good, even lighting. Avoid light behind you; that tends to turn you into a silhouette. Lighting that’s at face level is more flattering than lighting directly above your head. Many Webcams don’t have good low-light performance, so if there’s not enough light the image will look grainy and fuzzy.

A lot of folks like to set up on a bed, which can be a little tricky if you’re using a laptop with a built-in Webcam. small table or desk at the foot of the bed can make for a good place to set your camera or computer. I personally find that it’s easier to sit than lie down, but whatever you want to try is fine. Remember that the image recorded by your Webcam might be fairly small, so closer to the camera is better.

GETTING IT ON

Cam sex is a bit like cyber sex, a bit like sharing the secret room, a bit like negotiating sex, and a bit like having in-person sex. A lot of the same little wobbles and fears that apply to letting someone watch you masturbate or to having cybersex apply; “What if I don’t know what to do?” “What if I can’t think of anything that’s exciting?” “What if I feel awkward letting someone watch me?”

It’s helpful to remember that it’s about sharing intimacy with your partner, not winning an Academy Award. Theatrics aren’t what makes cam sex good; good cam sex is about good interaction. It’s OK to feel nervous if you’ve never done it before, and it’s OK to say “Wow, I’ve never done this before, so I’m feeling a little nervous!”.

And you don’t need to jump straight into taking your clothes off. Sometimes, a bit of tease goes a long way. If you want to start slow, start slow!

SCENARIOS

If you don’t have any specific ideas about what to do, a few scenarios might help you to get going.

Show Me What You Want
One fun, easy way to get started is to talk to your partner about how you like to be touched. Describe where you like to feel hands on your body, and how hard, and then demonstrate by moving your own hands over yourself. Again, you ned not necessarily dive straight into getting naked–there’s a lot of foreplay that can happen with your clothes on!

As with cybersex, the key to cam sex is to keep it authentic. Talk about how you feel. Show your partner how your body is responding. Talk about how you would like your partner to touch you. Describe what you would like your partner to do, and how it would make you feel.

Keep it interactive, too. Ask your partner how he or she feels, and what he or she might like to do. Have your partner show you the ways he or she would like to be touched.

Playing Director
Another fun Webcam scenario is to tell your partner what to do, or have your partner tell you what to do. There is something that’s really, really exciting, I think, about describing what I would like to watch my partner do to herself, and then seeing her do it. And, on the flip side, when a partner describes to me what she would like to see me do, it can really help me to learn what turns her on!

The fun in this isn’t just in taking control (though that is a lot of fun, no doubt about it); it’s also in using it to explore how you and your partner react. Pay close attention, if you’re telling your partner what to do, to your partner’s reactions. You can tease your partner by drawing out the experience; tell your partner to get really close to the edge of orgasm and then stop, for example, to bring out a heightened sense of arousal and to tease him or her. You can do this for an extended time, having your partner tease himself or herself multiple times, then switch roles and have your partner tell you what to do to tease yourself.

By watching your partner’s responses closely as you instruct him or her, you can sometimes learn quite a bit about the way your partner likes to be touched. I’ve even found a few things that some of my partners didn’t know, by telling them to touch themselves in ways that they normally don’t do; when we pleasure ourselves, it can be easy to get into a rut, because we know what works most efficiently. Touching ourselves in different ways can sometimes be a neat avenue to learning new things about our bodies.

Question and Answer
One fun game I played with an online lover a long time ago involved asking each other questions about ourselves, to see how well we knew each other. We took turns asking questions like “What is my favorite color?” and “What kinds of movies do I like?” If one of us got the answer right, we would get a reward by watching the other of us do something sexy; a wrong answer would mean some kind of penalty, such as “Nope! Now you have to put a clothespin on your nipple” or “Nope! Now you have to pinch yourself.” It was a fun, sexy way to explore how well we each knew each other.

Roleplay
Some folks like to introduce an element of role-playing into their Webcam sex, by dressing up in costumes (cheerleader and Catholic schoolgirl are popular choices) and acting out a fantasy scenario. Just about any role-play scenario can be adapted to cam sex; again, the key to making it fun is to be authentic about your responses and talk about how it makes you feel, even if the scenario itself is fiction.

Sharing Fantasies
It can be a lot of fun to use Webcam sex to talk about fantasies that you normally don’t feel comfortable sharing with your partner. For some people, chat or Webcam can offer enough space that it’s more comfortable to talk about things that are hard to talk about in person.

Run your hands over your body. Describe to your partner what you’re fantasizing about and how the fantasy turns you on. Use the Webcam to show your partner how turned on you are, as you talk about your fantasy. Invite your partner into the fantasy by describing how you would like him or her to participate.

Remember that fantasies aren’t necessarily about things that we would really like to do in real life, and that offering your partner a safe space to talk about fantasies with you is an important part of sharing and intimacy. We all carry around fantasies that other people would find surprising or even shocking; creating a safe space to describe them, without judgment or negative reaction, builds trust and intimacy, and can be surprisingly sexy.

I have a number of long-distance partners; it’s one of the curses of the Internet. Meeting people online is a double-edged sword…while I have met many folks online who enrich my life and add value to it, the Internet lets us connect with people who may be a long distance away.

Fortunately, the Internet also offers us the ability to talk with people anywhere in the world, easily and effortlessly. And that means that it’s easy to talk about sex!

Cybersex is a lot of fun; the advent of instant messaging programs and global Internet means it’s easy to stay in touch with a lover who is a long distance away. It’s great if your partner is away on a trip, or is going to college in a distant town, or lives far away.

When you first get started with cybering, it’s normal to feel a little awkward. Some of that is performance pressure (“oh, no! I have to think of sexy things to say? What if I can’t think of anything?”). Some of it might be simply learning to talk openly about sex (“it feels awkward to describe sex acts in explicit detail”). Some of it is just the fact that anything new tends to feel uncomfortable at first, whether it’s getting on a bicycle for the first time or dipping your toes into some new sexual activity.

The key to good, fun, exciting cybersex is authenticity. I’m not talking about authenticity in the setting you create, mind you; not everyone cybers from the point of view of a secret agent in an exotic country, but some folks do, and that kind of storytelling can be a lot of fun. What I mean, instead, is authenticity in your reactions.

You don’t need to come up with elaborate storylines or complex characters in order to be good at cybering; instead, what you need to do is to talk about the way you would respond, and how the cybering is making you feel. It’s not necessarily about playing a role so much as it is about sharing what turns you on with your lover.

When people ask me about cybering, the most common question I hear is “What do I say?” To me, that’s the easy part: you say what you’re feeling. I’ve found that it’s easy to start into cybersex simply by saying something like “I’m feeling kind of frisky today!” or “I had this really interesting erotic dream this morning, and it’s got me revved up!”

From there, you can talk about a fantasy you’ve had (the section on talking about sexual fantasies in the Cultivating Fantasies post might help). Or just talk about how your body is feeling and what you might like your partner to do about it. “I would really like to feel your hands on me.” “I am thinking about how it feels to kiss you, and that’s turning me on.” Simple things like that.

Remember, your goal isn’t to impress your partner; it’s to share with your partner! You’re not trying to audition for a screenwriting competition; you’re trying to share intimacy with a partner by talking about the sexy things that you feel when you’re together.

Which brings up a second important part of good cybering: interactivity. Cybersex isn’t the same as storytelling. You’re not simply describing a fantasy from beginning to end; you’re interacting with your partner. Good cybersex is like good sex; you both have a hand in shaping how it goes. When you start describing how you feel, and what you’d like your partner to do, leave room for your partner to describe how he is feeling, and what he’d like to do, and what he’d like you to do!

It’s also perfectly OK to feel nervous about it. Remember, you’re not staging a performance for an audience; you’re inviting your partner in to share the experience with you. If you feel nervous, it’s OK to say “I feel nervous, and I’m not quite sure what to do.” That can be an opening for your partner to respond, perhaps with something like “I’d like to caress your arms gently and kiss you deeply.” If you run out of things to say, it’s always easy to describe how you feel.

I really enjoy touching myself while I’m having cybersex, and I like hearing about how my partner is touching herself, too. This helps get the arousal going, and maintains a state of erotic tension in your mind. You can describe what you’re doing to yourself, and most importantly, describe how it feels. And, of course, ask your partner how he feels, as well.

One of the nice things about cybersex is that it can be a way to explore scenarios or situations that you wouldn’t necessarily want to do in real life with a partner. It’s about halfway between sexual fantasy and actual sex; you can make up any sort of setting you like, the way you can in a fantasy, and involve your partner in the setting, sort of like the way you do during sex. As with solo sexual fantasies, the things that you want to explore in cybersex aren’t necessarily things you’d want to explore for real. It’s OK to talk about situations that turn you on but that you wouldn’t necessarily want to do–for example, many people like talking about exhibitionism, or public sex, or perhaps even kinky sex acts that get you going in your fantasies.

Because cybersex is about revealing sexual fantasies that you might not necessarily explore for real, it’s important to treat the things that your partner says with compassion and respect, even if your partner surprises you with something that you didn’t know. Don’t reject your partner for the things that come up during cybersex; instead, treat it as a safe, fun way to learn new things about your partner that you might not have known about.

Keep it real; talk about how you’re feeling, even if the setting is totally imaginary. Keep it interactive; remember that you’re not performing for an audience, you’re working with your partner and interacting with your partner. Don’t be afraid of running out of things to say; talk about the things your partner is saying and the way they turn you on. Make a safe space; don’t flip out if your partner says something you didn’t expect to hear. Do that, and you’ll find yourself having all kinds of fun even if you and your partner aren’t in the same room!

“My wife and I have a good sex life, but there’s something that I’d like to try with her that we’ve never done. I don’t know how to introduce the idea to her. Help! What’s the right way to talk to her about it?”

I usually use the same technique to introduce any lover to some new idea, be it oral sex or being tied up and blindfolded or whatever it might be. I say “Hey, I really like the idea of ___. What do you think?”

I have consistently found that trying to search for just the “right” way to bring up sex and spending a lot of time being flustered and embarrassed about it generally doesn’t work very well. When you surround sex with walls of shame or fear and you don’t talk completely openly about what you want, you can end up creating a self-perpetuating cycle where it becomes difficult and awkward to talk about your sexual desires, and so you feel awkward about doing it and you don’t do it often, so it becomes more difficult and awkward to talk about, so you feel even more awkward about it, and pretty soon there’s something you really would like to explore that you just can’t bring yourself to mention.

I am a huge fan of talking openly and directly, without any beating around the bush or trying to drop hints…but also without a sense of expectation or entitlement. She might say “no.” If she does, that doesn’t have to be a big deal anyway; the human sexual experience is so vast that there’s always plenty more to explore. It’s also generally true that people change over time; “not now” does not necessarily mean “not ever.”

In fact, sometimes the “no” answers are the most valuable, because they can springboard into conversations about what your partner does and doesn’t like about sex, and what sorts of things don’t appeal to her about whatever you’re interested in. I don’t let “no” be the end of the conversation, but rather the beginning.

Again, though, it is very important not to have a sense of expectation or entitlement. If you do, then asking followup questions is likely to be seen as pressuring or badgering, whereas not attaching a sense of expectation to the conversation won’t, even if you use the same words. (People are surprisingly leaky; if you have a sense of expectation when you ask questions about sex, odds are pretty good your partner will feel it, if even subconsciously.)

So what I do is I go into any conversation about sex with honesty and transparency, directly, and from a position of abundance rather than starvation. There are so many fun, exciting, interesting, sexy things to explore in bed that you could never cover all of them even in ten lifetimes, so if your partner doesn’t want to explore one particular kind of activity, it’s really no big deal.

And, interestingly enough, I have also found that the more honest, open, and direct you are, the more likely the answer will be “yes,” even if what you want is something your partner finds intimidating or scary. The more direct and honest you are, the more transparent you are about what you want, the more easily you talk about sex, and the more you can hear a “no” answer without a sense of entitlement, the more you build trust in your relationship. The more trust your build, the easier it is to talk about sex, and the more your partner is likely to be willing to explore things with you even if they sound intimidating at first. Talking about sex, like not talking about sex, tends to become a self-perpetuating cycle.

If you aren’t accustomed to talking openly about sex, and you feel uncomfortable or nervous asking for what you want, be transparent about that too! “I’d like to build a fun, exciting sex life with you, and I’d like to explore new things in bed with you, but it’s hard for me to talk to you about because I feel nervous talking about the things I want in bed.” Honesty means complete honesty–including honesty about how you feel!

Make the conversation a two-way street, too. Ask questions. Find out what your partner wants to explore. Make it safe for your partner to open up; remember, the fact that someone wants to try something that sounds intimidating to you doesn’t mean you have to say yes, just like you wanting to try something doesn’t mean your partner has to say yes.

Ah, the joy of sexual fantasies. Almost all of us have ‘em, but despite that, it can sometimes be hard to admit them to others. Even to our lovers.

Sexual fantasies, like masturbation, are often secret refuges; we build walls of privacy around them, that can make them hard to talk about, or even to confess. Despite the secrecy we shroud our fantasies with, they seem to be very important to the growth of our sexual selves. Research has demonstrated that positive, healthy sexual desire seems to depend heavily on sexual fantasy, and even that sexual fantasies can reduce the perception of pain!

I am a huge fan of sexual fantasies, for a number of reasons. They are a safe playground in your mind; you can use them to explore things that sound appealing to you in a way that’s totally in your control. They spur creativity; creativity is learned, not something that you’re magically born with, and focusing on your sexual fantasies–teasing out the parts of them that really get your motor going–can be a wonderful way to prime your creative pump, so to speak. They can help you liven up your sex life.

The inner mind doesn’t pay that much attention to social norms or taboos, and because of that, people often find it difficult or embarrassing to talk about their sexual fantasies. Some very common sexual fantasies, such as fantasies about loss of control, fantasies about sex with strangers or with people who are not our partners, fantasies about group sex, fantasies about seduction, and so on, might violate the things we are brought up to believe about sex, and so might feel shameful.

Fortunately, thinking about something isn’t the same thing as doing it! Imagining sex with a stranger isn’t the same as having sex with a stranger, and thinking about being overpowered and ravished in a secluded alley isn’t the same as actually wanting to be raped. Your thoughts are not a crime.

In fact, having sexual fantasies about situations involving people other than your partner may actually indicate that you feel safe and secure in your relationship, and that’s a good thing.

I believe that encouraging and promoting sexual fantasy, and sharing sexual fantasies with your partner, goes a long way toward creating a rich, fun, and exciting sex life, especially in long-term committed relationships. People often say that sex naturally tapers off in a relationship; I believe that’s the case only if the folks involved choose to let it happen, and that a full, rich, and mutually shared fantasy life, which leads to experimentation and exploration, is a great way to make sure your real-life sex never ends up in a rut.

How to talk about sexual fantasies

A lot of folks find it difficult to let other people in to their secret sex fantasy life. Some of the things I talk about in the post called Sharing the Secret Room can help. For example, if you’re not comfortable talking openly with your partner about sex, then learning how to do that is a great place to start. Talk about things you’ve tried together and enjoyed, and how it feels to have sex with your partner–those are great ways to start.

You can integrate this into your sex life. Talk about how what your partner is doing feels. Talk about what you would like your partner to do next, or what you’re looking forward to your partner doing. This is a natural springboard into talking about your fantasies. Talk about what you’d like your partner to do, and how you imagine it might feel.

Remember, though, that neither you nor your partner are obligated to act on your fantasies! We all have things that turn us on that we might not want to experience in real life, and that’s perfectly okay. Just because you talk about it doesn’t mean you have to do it! And even if you do try something, and then decide that the reality isn’t for you, that’s also okay.

Create a safe space for your fantasies

Part of the reason it can be scary to talk about fantasies is that we might be afraid of being judged by our partners. Your partner probably has sexual fantasies that will surprise you, just like you probably have sexual fantasies that will surprise your partner. Make it safe to talk about these things. Even if you hear something that surprises you and doesn’t necessarily turn you on, don’t lash out at your partner or criticize your partner for it! Fantasies are not reality, and the fact that your partner has a fantasy doesn’t necessarily mean that he or she wants to do it.

Creating a safe space for your partner to trust you with these inner landscapes is an important part of building a vibrant, exciting sex life.

Encouraging fantasies

I firmly believe that creativity is a learned thing. The more you exercise your mental muscles, the more creative you become. The playground of fantasy is a great way to do this.

One of the things I like to do is revisit the same fantasy several times, adding on to the story inside my head each time. Think about the details. What are you wearing in your fantasy? What is the setting? If you imagine yourself being tied up, how are you tied? How does your dream partner tie you? In what order? With what kind of rope? If you imagine yourself on a tropical island in your fantasy, what color is the beach? Are there rolling hills or tall, jagged mountains?

By thinking about the details and making the fantasy itself more elaborate, you can practice exercising your creativity.

Another technique that I really like is thinking about what it is about the fantasy that most turn you on. Which little details are the ones that get you going, and why? If you fantasize about being tied up, what is it that you like–is it the process? Is it feeling restrained and helpless?

This is important because even if you don’t want to make the fantasy into reality, you can still bring little bits of it, stripped to the bare essentials that most rev your engine, into your real love life. For example, if you fantasize about being tied up because you like the feeling of being held and unable to move, you can bring that into your bedroom by having your partner hold you down, even if you don’t really want to be tied up.

Techniques for sharing fantasies

A fun way to get started with sharing your fantasies is to make a game where you and your partner take turns revealing the details of some fantasy you particularly enjoy. For example, you might start by saying “My favorite fantasy happens on a lonely, windswept tropical beach.” Your partner might say “My favorite fantasy happens here in this bed, late at night, with a thunderstorm raging.” You can then take turns drawing each other in with details, describing what happens as the fantasy goes on.

Another thing that can be a lot of fun is to talk about your fantasy during foreplay. When you feel sexy, and you and your partner are getting all turned on, describe parts of your fantasy that get you going to help make the mood even more exciting.

You can write down your sexual fantasies before you share them, like I describe here. Or, keep a fantasy journal, and write in it whenever you have a fantasy–not just the fantasy itself, but also how it turned you on.

Focus on your fantasy life, encourage the sharing of fantasies, and you’ll find your sex life gets hotter!