Sawyer Bailly
“Imagine you could give an essay entitled “How to Make Me Come” to a past, present or future sex partner, free of judgment or repercussion. What would you want them to know?”
This is the question that Emma Koenig first posed to women on her Tumblr, How to Make Me Come. Inspired by a frustrating sexual encounter of her own (“the simplest version of this story devoid of all identifying details: he thought I had an orgasm. I hadn’t”), Koenig hoped to create a safe space for women to share their experiences with the sometimes-elusive orgasm and explain what exactly turned them on. It didn’t take long for the page to go viral; in a mere month, How to Make Me Come had garnered upwards of a million views. Emboldened by the opportunity to finally speak openly and honestly about their journeys of sexual exploration, women swapped tales with one another of pleasure and pain, of desire and frustration. The website was a hit. As it turned out, every woman had a story to tell.
Koenig compiled the best of these anonymous essays into MOAN: Anonymous Essays On Female Orgasm. Divided into six sexy sections (Foreplay, Harder, Softer, Deeper, A Little to the Left, and The Afterglow), these essays collectively paint a picture that somehow manages to capture the simultaneous beauty, complexity and messiness of female sexuality - something that remains largely excluded from mainstream conversations about sex.
Like many women, I grew up knowing next to nothing about the female orgasm. As a young teenager in middle school, I had no idea that sex was actually supposed to be pleasurable for women - much less involve an orgasm on both sides. In fact, the female orgasm itself may as well have been a fairytale: nice in theory, yet nothing but a fantasy. Many of us simply didn’t know what sex was supposed to mean to us as girls beyond pregnancy scares, STIs and “losing your virginity” (“it WILL hurt”).
In grade seven, sex education mostly involved my classmates and I fidgeting in our seats as our equally uncomfortable gym teacher awkwardly assured boys in the class that their burgeoning sexual urges were perfectly normal. Wet dreams and boners were a sign of growing up and becoming a man, he said - nothing to be embarrassed about. To the girls, he offered only a brief description of all he claimed was in store for us: period cramps, tampons and unwanted hair. In grades eight and nine, my health class was divided into girls and boys. Our teacher, a woman this time, seemed determined to open our minds to the possibilities of pleasure. She encouraged us that masturbation was healthy - good for you even - and that we should all give it a go. All around the room were eye rolls and scoffs. I’m sure at that point lots of girls were doing it - but no one wanted to be the one to admit it.
Needless to say, it is rare for women to be asked, point-blank, what makes us come, what turns us on, what we like. Because of this, many of us find ourselves feeling uncomfortable, even ashamed, to communicate what we want to our partners. Maybe we worry about coming off as pushy, or high maintenance, or even just awkward and unsexy. Maybe we are fearful that they will be annoyed, turned off or threatened by our power as women who can articulate what we like.
MOAN tells us that the opposite is true: that a good partner cares about the other person’s pleasure, and that asking for what you want is sexy and awesome. “When I was little, my mother warned me that most men won’t care about my pleasure,” says American actress and comedian Rachel Bloom in the foreword. “However, I have pleasantly found the opposite to be true. Most of the men I’ve been with have been eager to please and super open to doing whatever it takes to get me off. When I tell them exactly what I want, they’re not threatened: rather, they are relieved, jubilant, and then super turned out (in that order).”
In MOAN, Koenig provides space for women of all ages, backgrounds and sexualities to talk openly about their journeys with sexuality and pleasure, and detail what exactly
“makes them come,” with great candour, humour and emotion. They tell stories of disastrous one-night stands, fumbling middle school kisses, their discovery of masturbation, mental illness, religion and shame, trauma, true love. There were stories of award-winning fake orgasms (think Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally), and real ones too. In reading each woman’s essay, I found myself laughing, crying and cringing, sometimes all at once. Some were sexy, some were hilarious, some were horribly uncomfortable and some were heartbreaking. I thought back to my past experiences and relationships, connecting the dots between them and contemplating what my own essay would be.
In movies, sex is depicted as something entirely different from most of our real-life experiences. On screen, it takes only a brief, smouldering glance for the woman to be overcome with desire. The clothes melt off, and in seconds, she is brought to ecstasy. Everything is airbrushed and pretty and sweat-free. This leaves many of us with questions: am I normal? Is my orgasm normal? “No matter how proud you are of your clitoris and all the amazing things it does, there will almost always be confusions and questions around it,” says Bloom. MOAN is a refreshing break from the often contrived, performative picture of female sexuality that we see in the media.
I realized a few things reading MOAN. Firstly, everybody is different. Our bodies are different, our preferences are different and our experiences are different. We’re all a little weird, and that’s okay. Secondly, sex is not perfect. It’s messy and, at times, awkward. It isn’t like a movie, and it shouldn’t be. Lastly, everyone’s experiences and feelings ARE VALID. Whatever gets you off (so long as it’s consensual!) is sexy! Not having an orgasm sometimes (or ever) is okay, too, MOAN tells us. We are enough, just as we are. There is no “normal,” and the sooner we realize that the sooner we are all going to enjoy ourselves a lot more.
MOAN is the beginning of an important conversation, one that is not only about pleasure but also about liberation. It is a chance for women to find power in what we have
been told to feel shame for, and be unapologetic in asking for what we want (both in and out of the bedroom). Bloom sums it up perfectly: “I could go on and on about the reason this book is important right now, but Emma goes over all those reasons in her introduction way better than I ever could, so I’ll just say this: we’re all just flesh monsters who shit, sleep and fuck, so life’s too short not to get the exact pleasure you want.”
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