masturbation?

I don't deny it - and at least you are making love to someone you really like!

I was tempted to put this on a thread yesterday when I heard about Tracey Emin enquiring from Jenni Murray on Woman's Hour about her intimate life. Then, I hesitated.....not sure whether some things are too private.

Having worked with sex offenders for several years in treatment programmes, I had to ask them about their sexual fantasies in order to work on adapting them to more responsible ones, so my threshold of embarrassment on such matters widened radically, and I wouldn't want to launch into a personal discussion with other women that offended or shocked them.

As you can see, I'm treading on eggshells here. Let's see how it unfolds......

lol

I think men often to do it in the company of their mates when they are going through adolescence and they carry on talking about it from there.
I once knew someone who was going through a sex change. Male to female. Very upset about her group of colleagues (all male) not treating her as a woman one day. What do you mean? I asked. "They still talk about w***ing during coffee break" she replied. I think we don't know the half of it...

Talullah Bankhead reputedly said to one of her lovers. "Come and make love to me at four darling. And if your late, I'll start without you"

She probably had to finish without him too.

I used to teach EPR (Education for Personal Relationships) to mixed groups of teenagers in comprehensive schools and I reckon there is little that could shock me about people's sexuality. My pupils had some strange ideas about sex, some of them quite dangerous. A common belief was that a girl couldn't get pregnant the first time, or if she did not climax. I was teaching in a catholic school so I had to present my syllabus to the headmaster and the Chairman of the Governors, Father Egan. It was approved, as long as I added the rider to my information about contraception to the effect that their religion did not approve of any artificial means. We covered homosexuality, transvestism and sexually transmitted diseases. Several mothers came up to me at parents' nights and whispered that they had found the information in their child's folder very useful, as they had never been taught any facts at school or at home.
Cruelty shocks me and I hate violent films or TV programmes. I find sex scenes just boring, as they rarely add much to the telling of a story, but I am not offended by them.

Might have been a "her" Annobel...

Point taken, JessM.

Closed bedroom curtains during the day always intrigue me?

Some years ago I attended a training course on Sex and Sexuality which was run for LA youth workers, SW's, and others who worked with adolescents. At the time I was a social worker for a Christian based charity and regarded with suspicion by the others on the course once it was established, during the ice-breaker session, that I was a Christian myself. I actually came in for a lot of (quite personal) hostility and there were many comments about my ability to 'cope' with the course contents. (Not from the trainers who were both very professional.) Imagine my delight therefore (smug emoticon) when we did an exercise in sexual terminology and I was able to correctly define and discuss accurately every single term used. At the end of the course I was invited to return as a trainer!!
Like Greatnan and Carol I've worked in the field and there is very little that I haven't come across in terms of sexual behaviours.

The one I find mysterious is the "taking pics and videos of yourself having sex and sending them to your mates" which, according to our school nurse is common practice amongst teens... Now that is something we didn't do in our miss spent youths and middle ages.

Sorry, wild assumption there. We didn't have the electronics in our youth. But I should only speak for myself about those middle ages...

I only once had a man friend who suggested photographing us 'in flagrante delicto' and I dropped him at once.
Young people do not seem to realise how the things they post can be used against them, even to the extent that potential employers now look at their social networking sites to find more information about them.
I can't understand why celebrities allow themselves to be filmed, as they must know the clips could be widely circulated if they break up with that particular partner. Or is that any publicity is better than no publicity?

I don't in the least mind discussing sex in general, but my personal life remained personal and private. (Nothing to discuss for the last 13 years!)

I think the answer to Helshea's question is that men are proud of, boast about and even exaggerate their sexual activity and women, generally speaking, do not (esp. older generations). On the subject of masturbation, and keeping it secret/private, some years ago I was chatting to my daughter in my bedroom and picked up my duvet to give it a shake and there on the sheet lay a bright pink vibrator I had at the time. We both stared at it in silence. Too much information for a daughter to have about her mother?

I think that is where my personal threshold is Greatnan. Talk about anything you like but sexual boundary stops when it comes to my personal and private life.

I have heard of the most bizarre and dysfunctional sexual behaviours and have heard some hilarious stories from investigating police officers, one of which I can tell is general terms and you can guess the rest. A known offender's house, deep in the fens, was searched when concerns were raised about his comings and goings with what looked like a small body wrapped up in a blanket. In the freezer was found a roadkill badger that he had been thawing out with the hairdryer and using for sexual purposes, then re-freezing. Forensics found 'a lot' of DNA evidence to substantiate their suspicions.

I do have lots of enecdotes about fetishes, and only need encouragement and a small schooner of sherry.............

Any doctor or nurse who has worked in A&E will have weird and wonderful stories to tell. Once on a late shift a gentleman presented with a rolled up newspaper in an unusual orifice, offending paper removed, soothing cream applied. Enter senior doctor " anyone got an evening paper?" we were wetting ourselves.

Carol . If your story wasn't about the fens I wouldn't believe it.

Ah! I see we have found the level we were dithering about....

OMG, Masturbation on Gransnet?????????
No, no, no, this is going too far.............
Don't forget ladies ( ladies? ) : " for some sex is a topic of conversation, for others it is way of life! "

I knew an Australian once whose party trick was, apparently, turning the lights out and streaking through the crowd with an ignited newspaper in that location. There were reliable accounts of this entertaining pastime. Along with igniting farts. Boys...
Is having sex with dead badgers illegal then. Or does it only count if it is a live one. Trying to work out why the cops were interested, other than sheer blooming nosiness.... Other than to eliminate the small body theory.

Weren't we the generation that discovered the female orgasm? Certainly the first generation to think it was some kind of god given right... Or am I going all senior and remembering wrong...

Not illegal JessM - the cops wanted to know why this known sex offender was carrying something suspicious into his house, and whether the animal they found had been killed illegally (it wasn't), so then they looked at whether some criminal damage had been committed, but the CPS, when consulted, decided not in the public interest to charge him with anything. It didn't stop them from broadcasting what they had found, just to keep the offender on his toes (apparently, he did need watching carefully).

The title of this topic is surely clear enough - if anyone thinks they would be offended by a bit of honest talk about a subject most people find interesting, then they need not open it.
I know younger people think that sex is 'gross' (their word) for anyone over 30, but I hope we are all a bit more broad-minded!
My daughter and her husband were going to Paris for a much needed break, whilst I was child-minding. For some reason, she had to open her suitcase, and right on top was the best that Anne Summers could supply.
She also ran Anne Summers parties for a time, and it was good fun to see how the 'ladies' lost their inhibitions after a few glasses of wine.
The items they did not buy were the bright red, scratchy briefs - apparently something only bought by men for their unappreciative partners!

My doc daughter has a wealth of A and E stories but I especially like the one about the consultant who displays the orifice objects on his shelf...the favourite being a Smurf!