masturbation?

Hey I think I better go back into my shed for another few months.. I fear I have returned and lowered the tone!

Full body orgasms apparently are very rare with a partner, and very common without! - just something I read somewhere!

Grown-up women know how to take care of their own sexual needs without having to look for a partner x

No petallus you don't - but you can if you want to

And you don't have to dress up for it!

Steering my way back to the original subject - I say without any guilt or shame.. "I do" ..... you can't expect anyone else to know what pleases you if you don't know yourself, besides i don't put myself off at the vital moment!

When I was about 14, by best friend found a book in her parents' bedroom: "Love and Marriage" by Dr Eustace Chesser, carefully covered in brown paper. She sneaked it out. We used to hide away and read it together. It was a very clinical volume, and I actually think it mystified more than educated us.

I do remember, though, a section on masturbation - the gist of which, for women, was that if you did, you'd never reach a "real" orgasm. Scary to think of now, but since we didn't have a clue what masturbation was, it meant little!

Rats! Another money making scheme down the drain....

Yes they do crimson.

Do they make vibrators for men and, if not why not. I'm thinking in terms of business opportunities here. Although would men be happy to buy such an object developed by grannies [bit like the Shreddies advert].

Hear, hear, greatnan. I took the same approach. When they asked questions, I answered them with information, with the result that nothing about periods or reproduction was a shock. The only time I was embarassed was when DD1 aged about five asked me in a busy public toilet at the top of her voice Why are you putting that stick [tampon] in your bottom? I didn't have a problem with explaining why, but not to all and sundry. I said I'd tell her when we got home and I did.

I may never think of a potato the same way again

I talked to my girls about sex in just the same way I talked about nature, the universe, anything they wanted to talk about. They knew more than any other child in the playground, and in fact some mothers thought they were a bad influence. I think there is a difference between innocent and ignorant - a child can be very knowledgeable but quite free from guilt.

Yes, petallus especially when the prostate can be reached to trigger orgasm, but it would need to be something other than a potato to achieve that!

Oh, so the anus must be an erogenous zone for men then!

I'd forgotten about the book my mum gave me about sex [without discussing any of the content afterwards] but at least she was very open about periods and such like, so I wasn't scared when it happened. I wasn't going to say this on the Christmas thread as it didn't seem appropriate, but my mum used to use the cotton wool from Dr Whites to make 'snow' for the Christmas tree! Even after reading the book I was still worried that I could get pregnant by gazing at the photo of Rudolph Valentino in my film book. I think I was even luckier not to get pregnant during my misspent hippie years, so the book obviously didn't do much good! Information about sex, perhaps but not about contraception, although I do remember mum saying to me 'don't give yer body to any man, our crimson'. Wise words.

Oh the poor man - what a catastrophe to leave him in that predicament (tee hee!)

My friend is a nurse, she once told us of a man who turned up at the hospital with a potato stuck up his bottom. he told the nurse he had slipped in the shower and had fallen on the potato that his wife had dropped. Apparently she had been washing them in the shower with him at the same time !

Corrections: we have all three and DD was nine.

Three books. We have the first two. Highly recommended.

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0340878282/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_3?pf_rd_p=103612307&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0940208075&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=10H0QBHKDWDFRC171TQ4

www.amazon.co.uk/Lets-Talk-About-Where-Babies/dp/1844281736/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325326046&sr=1-1

www.amazon.co.uk/Lets-Talk-About-Robie-Harris/dp/1406324205/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b

My mother gave me a short, Catholic version (!) pamphlet which told me the basic facts when I was fifteen. Needless to say I'd found out the facts from a biology book about rabbits when I was twelve. Every girl in my school year probably read that book in the school library. It was a reference book so we weren't allowed to take it out and we were such innocents, I don't think that even occurred to anyone. Or maybe I'm being naive . Anyway, I had to put the book on my mother's bed when I'd read it so she could hid it again until my next sibling was fifteen.

About a year ago DD2, who works with "da yoof", recommended two books which we got for DD3, then aged ten. She read them enthusiastically, asked questions about stuff she didn't understand, and took it all on board with minimal embarassment. In fact, her main interest was in the mechanics of childbirth.

I'm off to find the references for these books because I would recommend them highly for pre-pubescent kids.

Circle skirts yes, sex, NO, NO, NO! I had a 'sheltered' upbringing - wasn't allowed to go dancing with friends on Saturday nights and had a huge self-esteem problem because I was a bit overweight. My achievements were academic until I escaped from the parental orbit when I went to Kenya in my 20s and made up for lost time.

Me too. Glad we are getting down to basics here! (Circle skirts - Yes!!)

I remember ONE hour at school - on periods. That was IT.
I had scarlet fever when I was about 12, and the gossip and jokes in the children's ward opened my eyes a lot.....a lot of young teenagers there.....interesting.
My parents? No way. No info.

Believe it or not, I did an anatomy course at college, and they never mentioned the clitoris.
I got into the women's movement when I was about 30 - a deluge of information and reorientation. I had the 'Our Bodies - Ourselves' book, and kept it for my daughters, so they had oceans more info than I did. And we talked about it too. (I remember one said later her 'liqorice' and the other her 'tickleish'..!)

Neither pooled knowledge nor reading anything I could get my hands on about sex (mainly Readers Digest, problem pages etc) informed me that female masturbation existed. It was not even alluded to in schoolgirl conversations. I think i found out about orgasms by reading "marriage manuals". It was only the books of the feminist revolution in the early 70s that brought this subject into the light of day wasn't it? Oh yes Masters and Johnson came out around then too didn't it.

Oh, I'm sitting here swamped in nostalgia, especially after reading Greatnan's last post. And Joan's. I used to make full skirts; very difficult to get the hem level I remember. On to sex though, when I was 11, I asked my parents where babies came from and they said they would tell me when I was older!! They never did but I found out somehow though the information was sketchy! There was a constant fear of getting pregnant before marriage. Being in a steady relationship, even engaged, was no excuse. The shame of a 'seven month baby' stayed with women all their lives. As for masturbation, that was another area where information was thin on the ground so it was quite possible to accidentally discover the possibilities when alone in bed without having a clue what it was all about, least of all that it was associated with sex!