Is that really true? A catalog of sex myths

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 you 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.