By Lady Cheeky

If you’re like me, you consider yourself to be a feminist. But, have we ever stopped to think what that means? Sure, we agree we should get equal pay for equal work and certainly women deserve to have all the rights afforded men. But, it seems that there’s one last battlefield to be conquered, and it’s the freedom to be our sexual selves. You only have to look at the recent Rush Limbaugh ‘women who use birth control are whores” debacle to see how prevalent the fear of women’s sexuality is.

Somewhere along the picket lines for promoting the safety of Roe vs. Wade and for mandates for women in the clergy, we may have forgotten our right to own our sexuality. Women’s sexuality, it seems, is the last bastion of un-forged territory in the women’s rights movement. For instance, why is it when we think of pornography we never think of women? Sure it’s been a predominantly male generated industry but there’s a whole country of women, who love to see a little “slap and tickle” that are afraid to admit they look too, and enjoy it.

The early feminist philosophy was that pornography degraded women and turned them into objects for men’s pleasure always refusing to see women as human beings. But, what if we looked at it a different way? What if we looked at those women as willing partners in that sexual play? If we do, the paradigm then shifts and we then have to accept that the woman on the screen is in control of her actions and may even enjoy what she’s doing.

In sexual society, men are not the only ones attending S&M clubs, taking lovers and masturbating. Women take equal part in all those activities. The misnomer that society seems to gravitate to is that women only do those things or go to those places to please their man … because everyone knows that women don’t like sex.

With that hackneyed idea in mind, we have been pigeonholed into the old stereotype of the frigid housewife or girlfriend that only gives her mate a blowjob on his birthday. This couldn’t be farther from the truth.

My first website, www.LadyCheeky.com, which is primarily erotic and pornographic pictures, has received thousands of emails from women all over the world that appreciate the view and the message of a site that promotes healthy attitudes towards passion and women’s sexuality. Most of these emails tell me how happy they are that they found a site that they can relate to and how porn is helping them have a more fulfilling sex life with their partner. Some emails are more telling of a growing concern in couplehood. Recently, one gentleman’s email detailed how he is afraid to talk to his girlfriend about what he likes in bed for fear that she will think he’s perverted. When I investigated further, it turns out he just wanted more oral play. I asked him where his fear was based, he responded by telling me that he knows “that women don’t like blowjobs and that they think the penis is an ugly appendage”. Where did he get this idea? It seems his opinion had been formed by locker room talk when he was a teenager and had left such an impression that he had never been able to communicate his desires to a lover since for fear she would think he was at the very least, sexually selfish or at most, a pervert. What a shame.

Women’s sexuality is a complicated issue. Society wants our women to be mothers and be lovers, but has a hard time letting the two exist at the same time. Women in my generation have it a little bit better than my mother’s. In her time, women were there to serve the fancy of their men. Sex was her “duty” as a wife. In the same vein, she was a whore or “less desirable” if she had sex before marriage. Men, on the other hand, were allowed their indiscretions. “Boys will be boys” is what our media taught us then. To some extent this hasn’t changed, and the result is a nation of confused, scared and ashamed women and confused, terrified and silent men.

So what’s the solution? We start by educating our young women about their sexuality. We tell them that sex is something that people enjoy and is a natural part of being a human being. We teach them to have respect for themselves and to learn all they can about their sexuality and how their body responds. This kind of progressive education should be taught alongside a sexual psychology class where young adults can learn what happens to their psyche when hormones start firing. This might clear up the lust=love feelings that overtake teenagers and lead down many painful roads. These classes should be included in a curriculum offering information on sexual responsibility, safe sex, teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

In a perfect world, parents would guide their children toward self-respect and a healthy attitude toward sex, developing a safe atmosphere where nothing is too taboo to discuss. When parents don’t show fear about a subject then children learn not to fear it either.

I was a forty-year old woman before I allowed myself to enjoy sex and not see myself as a dutiful woman. I explored, at 40, what I enjoyed and what I didn’t in the bedroom. If I had only had the sexual self-confidence when I was becoming sexually active, I know I would have had a more satisfying sex life.

Women’s rights are about CHOICE. We should have the liberty to choose and pursue what brings us happiness without restraint. This applies to our sexuality, now, more than ever. Women need to “come out of the closet” about enjoying sex, porn and a sexually creative lifestyle. We need to intelligently and responsibly discuss it with the next generation and lead by example that being a holistically complete, vital and well-balanced woman who integrates her sexuality without apologies, is essential to living a complete and happy life.

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