Flow control

Dear Sasha,

I was wondering if you knew of anything I could do to reduce how wet I get when I’m aroused. It’s almost always abundant. I feel that I end up getting cheated out of a sexual experience because I can’t feel as much as I probably should during penetration, and I’m sure that it is the same for my partners. I do lots of Kegels, I even own a pair of smart balls, it doesn’t seem to help. I have heard of surgery, but I find that extreme. Do you have any info that can help me?

Dear Sandy,

Eight jillion people are reading this right now and thinking, “That’s a problem?” But yes readers, some women and their partners find the amount of lubrication they produce makes intercourse less stimulating, and they’re all tired of people telling them to get over it and embrace their sacred juices.

Here are a few options:

You can experiment with decongestants or antihistamines (erg, I know...) but of course, they’ll also dry up your mouth. Marijuana also makes people pastier but then you’re stoned, and if you’re anything like me in this state, sex becomes nearly impossible to enjoy because someone is touching you with their icky, needy fingers. What do they want from you? Are they trying to steal your skin? (I made the huge mistake of eating a pot cookie when I was taking care of a friend’s out-of-the-way farm last year and spent an entire night standing over the bed yelling at my boyfriend, “Well we’ve all read In Cold Blood haven’t we? HAVEN’T WE?”)

You might also try a disposable (erg, I know…) menstrual cup, like Instead, that will contain cervical mucus and can be worn during intercourse. Lubrication comes from a couple of places in the vagina, including the walls, so you’ll be left with this fluid—good thing, you’ll need some—as well as any that comes out of the urethra, if you’re one of those gals. Anyway, it’s worth trying to control some of it if it bugs you so much.

It seems, though, that you are assuming your partners find this as distressing as you do (likely you have run into squeamish types and this has you all in a twist) but you won’t really know unless you talk about it in a way that doesn’t spiral into shame. Learning to talk about your bodily functions with ease and routine, as well as adding different forms of pleasure to your repertoire, improves your sexual self-esteem enormously. Go online and hunt down sex guides published by Cleis. Learn more about the mundane miracle that is your pussy.

Dear Sasha, I remember you recommending Art School Sluts, but I’m wondering if you can recommend some good porn (i.e. with attractive individuals who look like they could be people I know, as opposed to the phoney porn ideal, and featuring hot, real sex that looks like sex I would actually have). Perhaps you could suggest some kind of review site that would help me filter.

Dear H,

Look for titles by Comstock Films (www.comstockfilms.com). Since you brought up Art School Sluts, I’ll assume you like heterosexual content with the odd girl-on-girl scene and that when you refer to “someone I know,” you aren’t talking about your mom.

I went by my local lefty sex shop and got a stack. Here are a couple of standouts:

Blacklight Beauty by Jack the Zipper. It has striking avant-garde production values, an independently listenable soundtrack, gritty urban locales featuring the insouciant narcissists from the Suicide Girls/Eon Mckai (www.eonmckai.com) tits-on-a-stick factory, who spend a lot of time pouting into the camera while they’re being boned—a conceit I have mixed feelings about because it makes me want to slap them, which makes me horny. See what I mean?

A and O Department by Anna Span. Based on this film—a series of vignettes in stunningly dour U.K. medical settings—I’d green light all of this director’s work, sight unseen (and if you’ve ever wondered how to get a female condom in or what it actually looks like during sex, check it out). No soundtrack, great, no-nonsense verbal and physical rapport between the actors and I shit you not, it’s Monty Python-funny at times.

In terms of review sites, www.adultdvdempire.com, www.blissbox.com and www.cduniverse.com are three adult DVD review sites, the last having the most customer opinions.

Got any questions for Sasha? E-MAIL: POULEDELUXE@YAHOO.COM