Take the Vulva Pillow Tour

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Want to Know More? Read the following Blogs:

See the Erectile Network here: Be VulvaWise.

For more details about the different structures, take a look at this post: The Missing Female Pleasure Parts.

For more information on what’s been misunderstood and neglected, here’s another post: Lost Sexy Bits. (It includes a quickie home play assignment.)

You Can Become VulvaWise!

It’s simple: check out this information. Then explore out your own or a friendly and willing vulva-owning person’s body. Once you experience all the parts, you’ll be your own expert. Once you know, you’ll be vulvawise!

PS: If you’re wondering what happened with the Spanish translation fund-raising project: we succeeded! Look out for the Spanish version of Women’s Anatomy of Arousal by the end of 2017!

Want Even More Vulva-Wisdom?

GET THE BOOK
You can have it by reading the award-winning Women’s Anatomy of Arousal book. It’s available as a physical book, as a Kindle or an audiobook!

TAKE THE COURSE
You can ‘attend’ the recorded 4-session online Women’s Anatomy of Arousal course.

 

Be Vulva Wise

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What Does That Mean?

To be VULVA WISE means that you understand the basics of female genital anatomy, including the parts that most people (yes, even sex educators, doctor, midwives and other experts) don’t know about.

What Is This Image?

This is the Female Erectile Network!

It’s an awesome set of interconnected but separate female genital structures all made out of erectile tissue.

What’s Erectile Tissue?

The most familiar form of erectile tissue is in the penis. It’s what enables them to transform from small and soft to big and hard.

Do Women Have the Same Stuff?

Pound for pound and inch for inch, women have just as much erectile tissue as men. It’s just arranged differently. The female genitals contain just as much of this expandable, engorgable, highly pleasurable tissue as male genitals do. Just as much!

Where Is It All?

The erectile tissue makes up the Female Erectile Network. The structures include the three parts of the clitoris; the paired vestibular bulbs; the urethral sponge; and the perineal sponge.

 

Want to Know More?

For more details about the different structures, take a look at this post: The Missing Female Pleasure Parts

For more information on what’s been misunderstood and neglected, here’s another post: Lost Sexy Bits.  (It includes a quickie home play assignment.)

Become VulvaWise!

It’s simple: check out this information. Check out your own or a friendly and willing vulva-owning person’s body. Once you experience all the parts, you’ll be your own expert. Once you know, you’ll be vulvawise!

Want to learn more about women’s astounding, engorgable and delightful erotic equipment?

Find out why Dr. Christiane Northrup has called Women’s Anatomy of Arousal “the most comprehensive, user-friendly, practical and uplifting book on women’s sexuality I’ve ever read. It’s the gold standard!”

Get More Women’s Anatomy of Arousal!

Arousal_frontcover-w-Book of theYear Award
Read the award-winning Women’s Anatomy of Arousal book.

WINNER, 2010 BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD!
(From The American Assoc of Sex Educators, Counselors & Therapists)

It’s available as a physical book, as a Kindle or an audiobook!


Want Even More Vulva-Wisdom?

TAKE THE COURSE!
You can ‘attend’ the recorded 4-session
online Women’s Anatomy of Arousal course.

 

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Vaginal Sweet Spots

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Q: Are you Familiar with the A-spot? I am re-reading your awesome book ‘woman’s anatomy of arousal’ and was curious to know if you have heard of the A-spot? From what I can tell is that there hasn’t been much research done on this area.

– Christina from ConfidentLovers.com

side-view-w-pudendal-pelvic-hypogastric-nerves_v3_labeled-1

This image shows the major nerve pathways. You can see the uterus (in yellow with an orange cervix) and how there are branches off of the Pelvic Nerve in front and in back of the cervix. Illustration by Sheri Winston, Copyright 2009

A: Hi Christina,

Thanks for your great question. It seems that leopards have taken over vaginas because there are so many spots! I have to admit, though, I’m not a big fan of the ‘spot’ meme in general, so I don’t use the term A-Spot. (or pretty much any other specific ‘spot’.) There are no actual anatomical spots.

Where’s the A-Spot

What I believe people are referring to when they use the term A-spot are the areas in front of the cervix where nerve plexuses emerge. “A” refers to the spot that’s anterior to the cervix. It’s in the fornix (or fold) in front of the cervix.

Sweet Nerve Bundles

A plexus is a bundle of intertwined nerves, like a tree trunk with roots and branches. Like all spinal nerves, they come in pairs. Any place that is richly innervated provides great pleasure potential, so all of the plexuses are wonderful sweet ‘spots’ for sexual stimulation.

There are a variety of places where vaginal nerve plexuses are located. There are the ones you’re asking about, in front of the cervix, as well as plexuses behind it and on the posterior vaginal wall.

A Wise Variety of Variations

One of the interesting things about anatomy is that while many things are very consistent from person to person (like bones or muscles), nerve patterns are quite variable. This is why every vagina owner (and visitor), needs to map out the location of their individual sweet spots. While every vagina will have nerve bundles that are in the anterior cervical fornix (that’s the fold in front of the cervix) the exact location can be more forward or back, closer together or wider apart.

Why This Wiring

I always like to understand not only how we’re wired but why we connected that way. Here’s what I think is going on with the cervical nerve plexuses. Part of the arousal process for women involves the uterus getting pulled up and forward. (I cover this in much more detail in my Women’s Anatomy of Arousal book or online course.) As the uterus is pulled up, it would naturally stretch and therefore stimulate the nerves adjacent to the cervix. This is why they’re wired to be pleasurable areas to excite and why stimulating them will help with things like increasing arousal and vaginal lubrication.

Erotic Mapping Expeditions

Have fun doing highly personal pleasure research to map out your (or your lovers’) sweet spots. I highly recommend exploring and finding all of the especially pleasurable areas inside and outside the vagina including all the wonderful erogenous erectile tissue and all of the nerve plexuses.

Happy hunting!

Go here to read a blog post about The Missing Female Pleasure Parts.

Get More Women’s Anatomy of Arousal!

Women’s Anatomy of Arousal provides the life-changing and integral map that all women (and their partners) need.

Want to learn more about women’s astounding, engorgable and delightful erotic equipment?

Find out why Dr. Christiane Northrup has called Women’s Anatomy of Arousal “the most comprehensive, user-friendly, practical and uplifting book on women’s sexuality I’ve ever read. It’s the gold standard!”

Read the award-winning Women’s Anatomy of Arousal book.

WINNER, 2010 BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD! (From The American Assoc of Sex Educators, Counselors & Therapists)

Sexual Breathing for Sensational Sex

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Sexy Breath

Your breath is the most central and simple tool you have to shift your state of consciousness. You can use your breath in a multitude of ways. Your breath is one of your most foundational inner tools. You can breath to get more present, to relax, to expand your awareness of sensation, to turn off your chattering ‘thinking’ brain and to turn up your turn-on.

More Enhancement Tools In Your Well-Hung Toolkit

Your brain is a powerful erotic engine that can either help or hinder your arousal. You can engage it in ways that amplify your sensual and sexual awareness. Your mind can help you center your focus on pleasure and sensation.

Another powerful way to use your mind is by engaging your imagination. Your gullible brain believes that whatever you imagine is true. You can employ that knowledge by making-up all sorts of lovely imaginary experiences to play with your erotic energy.

Movement is another one of your inner tools that can heighten awareness, increase sensation, and rev up your body.

Joining conscious breathing with movement and imagination is a winning combination for easier arousal, more sensation and pumping up your pleasure! You can use your inner tools to orchestrate your awareness and attention, electrify your thrills and inspire awesome pleasure.

The Sexual Breathing Practice

the-act-of-1419363Here’s a simple way to harness these inner tools. Do a Sexual Breathing practice. You take deep breaths while you pump your pelvic floor muscles (PFMs) and imagine that you’re breathing in and out through your bottom (genitals, anus and perineum).

You can pull up your PFMs on the inhale or the exhale. You can coordinate the pattern in whatever way is easiest for you, but the rhythm I suggest may work best. (Try it this way and if it doesn’t work for you, do the reverse.)

Take a deep breath in and pull up on your PFMs. Exhale and release them. Continue this pattern of coordinated breath and pelvic floor muscle movements. Relax into the rhythm. Begin to imagine that your breath is actually being sucked in through your bottom as you inhale and is being released from your bottom on the exhale. Imagine that you feel the air flowing into your genitals as you pull it in on your inspiration and flowing out as you exhale and release. Feel the sensations of the air rolling in and out, all the way through your whole body.

Play With Patterns

Find the rate that is easiest for you. Practice and play with it until it feels natural and effortless.

You can use this practice with a slow rhythm to relax. Get a nice easy rhythm going and bask in the calming practice.

Play with using this practice during erotic play. See what happens when you start slow and slowly increase the speed until you’re really rocking it.

Try it at a fast rate to turn up your turn-on. You’ll probably notice that the combination of breath, muscle work, and focused imagination intensifies your arousal.

Add it to your next climax and see what happens when you direct several streams of mind and body energy into your orgasm all at the same time.

4976972267_dcb24dabaa_oSolo or Partnered

You can do sexual breathing alone or with a partner. When you do it as a duo, you can synchronize by both doing the same pattern at the same time. Or you can do opposite patterns, with one of you inhaling while the other exhales.

It’s All Good

There’s no right way and no way to do it wrong, so go ahead and experiment. Play with breathing through your bottom and pulse your way to more pleasure.

Succulent_Sexcraft_Sheri_Winston
This is a teasing, tempting taste of my book, Succulent SexCraft: Your Hands-On Guide to Erotic Play & Practice which is jam-packed with games, exercises and practices like this one.

Find out more about this super useful, inspiring and visionary guide to extraordinary and empowering sex for everyone.

 

“Succulent SexCraft is an adventurous, practical, and delightful guide to owning and operating your sexuality – with or without a partner. This book is superb.”
-Christiane Northrup, M.D., ob/gyn physician & author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom & The Wisdom of Menopause

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My Personal Sexual Harassment & Groping Score: What’s Yours?

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All this talk of groping and forced kissing got me thinking. What’s my count of unwanted sexual encroachment? What’s yours?

I consider myself a woman who has not been sexually assaulted. Not in the ‘classic’ sense of being raped or sodomized. I wasn’t incested nor have I experienced date rape. And yet, as the cultural conversation turns to the topics of harassment, groping and unwanted kissing, I started to think about my list of negative sexual experiences that do actually constitute sexual assault. My list was surprisingly (and yet not surprisingly) long. My first unwanted experience was with the milkman (yes, in the old days when someone delivered milk to your door!). I was seven and he grabbed me and tongue-kissed me! While it never occurred to me to tell my parents, I did have the good sense to never go near him again. In fact, one day my whole family visited him at his farm and I distinctly remember being very careful to not be alone with him all the entire day despite his efforts to ‘show me the hayloft.’

I’m not counting any of the incidents that occurred in my sexual explorations with boys and men because I was freely participating (albeit from a sometimes ambivalent place).

Next stop: I moved to New York City right after high school. I was an innocent (in the ways of the street, at least) young ‘hottie’ roaming the wilds of New Yawk, dressed in my artsy thrift-shop vintage slutwear.

There I had a variety of unpleasant, infuriating and sometimes scary experiences.

The first shocker was the catcalls and commentary from men on the street. No one in the suburbs where I grew up had ever screamed lewd remarks about my boobs, described the things they wanted to do to me or the ways in which I could be of service to them. At first, I shot back nasty comments and put-downs, but that just seemed to fire them up to assault me with nastier words, including, of course what a bitch I was for not swooning at their feet or dropping to my knees. I soon learned that ignoring them and swallowing my rage was a safer approach and likely to end the verbal assaults more quickly.

There was the creepy guy who followed me on the street muttering about all the things he wanted to do to me. There was the silent hoodie guy who followed me out of the subway at the mostly deserted hour of 5 AM and stalked me through the streets. Both times, being in neighborhoods I knew, I headed for an open deli, went in and told the men working there that a creepy guy was following me and got their support and protection until the predator went away.

I was groped on the subway a number of times in the rush-hour packed car, unable to know where the offending hand was coming from. I saw several flashers and a few causal subway masturbators.

There was the guy on the street who grabbed my ass. I spun around and kicked him the kneecap with my pointy-toed boot. My friend was worried that he was going to knife me or shoot me, but I was still young enough to feel invulnerable and pissed-off enough to want to hurt him. So I did.

And then there were the clubs and bars. Another guy grabbed my ass and got kicked in the kneecap, too. There was the man who grabbed me from behind while I was dancing—he got an elbow in his solar plexus. The next one grabbed me on the dance floor (a stomp on his instep for that one). The one who glommed onto my girlfriend got my fist to his solar plexus … and so on and on and on. I guess I’m lucky that none of them hit back, stabbed me or shot me.

I believe my impulse to hit back came from having an older brother. As little kids we sometimes fought, winding up rolling on the floor in an all-out brawl. He was older and bigger, but I fought back with whatever I could. I fought ‘dirty’ when I needed to, kicking, punching, pulling hair and even biting when he was overpowering me. I’m grateful that I learned to fight back—and also grateful that my fighting back against the gropers never got me injured. Again, I now realize how lucky I was.

Don’t forget the landlord, who after fixing my toilet grabbed me and laid a slobbery gross tongue-kiss on my unsuspecting mouth. He was a big strong guy and I was a small woman, alone in my apartment. So rather than hit back, I threatened to tell his wife if he ever did anything like that again. (That definitely scared him!) I still made sure never to be alone with again.

As far as bosses or co-workers, I was very lucky to never have a predatory guy at a job, but then again, I’ve been in business for myself for most of my work life. So, while I can certainly be a bitch to myself, I never created a self-hostile workplace vibe.

So, to add up my creepy guy score: Gropers: A dozen or more. Flashers and public masturbators: Five or six, as near I can recall. Unwanted kissing (plus extra points for the first guy because I was a child): Two. Overall, my physical harassment score is over twenty.

If I were to include all the men who cat-called me on the street, the count would soar. That number seems endless, a multitude of rude aggressive harassment from countless men.

In sum, I’ve encountered lots and lots of sex-related boundary violations. Fortunately, they were mostly relatively minor. I consider myself blessed to have been spared more aggressive and invasive sexual assault. I don’t believe my experience is unusual. As a midwife and gynecology provider for over twenty years and as a sexuality educator for 17 years, I am well aware of how often women are violated.

But as I ponder my own, relatively benign history, I have to reassess my earlier statement that I haven’t experienced sexual assault. While the violations were ‘minor,’ the effects on me were not. I have lived, as I think most women do, in a culture that has made it necessary for me to be on alert every time I walk out my door. A culture where the so-called ‘locker room’ has potentially invaded every space and created a need to be vigilant in an environment that feels unsafe.

Has the time finally come where a culture that creates such a hostile and threatening environment for women will no longer be tolerated?

As I pondered these issues and I started counting, I recalled more and more incidents that qualified as sexual assault and harassment. The final score: hundreds of men.

That got me to thinking, inspired me to write this post and has me wondering: how long is your list, especially once you include the full range of ways you’ve been can violated, trespassed and harassed? What’s your score?

When will the time come when, as women and as a culture, we decide that any number is unacceptable. Are we arriving at the time when we’ve finally had enough?

Wholistic Sexuality: Connection, Power & Passion

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Wholistic Sexuality™

A Paradigm of Empowerment, Connection & Passion

 

Are You Craving Connection?

We all long for a sense of union and yearn for attachment. Everyone craves deep connection. Yet, so many people feel alone, and live shadowed by a sense of disconnection and isolation. Having sex is certainly one of the common practices that people use to feel, at least temporarily, united. Unfortunately, they often don’t have the kind of sex they dream of and wind up feeling even more disengaged then ever. I believe that part of the problem is the way that we think about sex, about connection and about our selves.

I offer you a new way to relate, a new model of sexuality—Wholistic Sexuality™. In essence, Wholistic Sexuality is about connection, beginning with your connection to your Self.

It’s All About You

That’s right. I’m saying that at heart (or perhaps lower) sex isn’t about what you do with other people behind a closed door. First and foremost, your sexuality is about your relationship with your Self.

And, let’s face it, you’re complicated. One way to understand your Self is to understand that you’re made up of interconnected, overlapping spheres, the domains of your mind, body, spirit and heart, which are linked and surrounded by an energy matrix. You are your past, both all that you remember and all that you’ve forgotten, as well as your present and the myriad futures you imagine. Your relationship with yourself is formed by genetics, upbringing, and experiences. It’s an amalgam of your beliefs, assumptions, and values. Your sexuality is composed of fantasy and reality, dancing with your deep desires, permeated by needs and challenges. Your sexuality is an inherent part of who you are, and all that makes you, uniquely you.

durer-nude-woman-with-the-zodiac-c-1502-1500It’s About Everything

Your sexuality is also about your connection to everyone and everything. It includes relationships with your intimate partners as well as your friends and family, influenced by media, history and culture. It’s part of all aspects of your life including your work and your play, your communities and spiritual traditions. Like a hologram, your sexuality is a microcosm that reflects and manifests everything from the personal to the planetary.

Lifelong Learning Journey

We’re on a lifelong journey of learning and discovery and that is especially true about our sexuality. Here’s a key fact to comprehend about sex: much of our sexuality is learned, including our erotic capacities and responses. Like learning to play an instrument and make beautiful music, we learn how to play our selves to make sexual magic.

Practice Makes Access!

Each of us comes fully equipped with all the everything we need to access ecstasy. You can think of your self as having tools, of mind, body, spirit, heart & energy. We all have the equipment but not everyone learns how to fully operate it and really make it sing. Just like learning to play the piano, our sexual skills need to be learned, and then practiced if we want to develop mastery. The more you practice, the easier it gets.

How You Learn

Learning is a process of skill-building. First you need to develop a foundation of basic skills. Once you become adept at the essentials, you can go on to cultivate more advanced abilities. The foundational skill set is your solo-skills, that is, the ability to competently play your own instrument. Once you have facility with your own sexual self skills, you can master partner skills and play delightful duets with others. Everyone can learn these skills and become sexually adept. Of course, there’s always more to learn on the journey to erotic mastery. Even virtuoso musicians always continually hone their craft.

Meaningful Models

In order to learn to be a sexual virtuoso you need to know what’s possible, then how to get there. Bad maps, which our culture provides in plenty, don’t get you where you want to go. It’s crucial to have accurate maps, usable guides and true templates for this journey. When you have functional and empowering models of what sex is and what it can be, then you can more easily follow those paths and reach your full sexual potential.

Language License286-7_kitagawa_utamaro

We need to free our words and discover, create or reclaim luscious, comfortable and hot language to talk about our sexuality, our bodies, and our desires. Only then we can really start to talk about sex, learn about it and consciously create our sexuality.

 

Genital Reality

Believe it or not, our current understanding of female and male genitalia is incomplete and inaccurate. How you play your instrument or anyone else’s if you don’t even know what’s really there and how it operates? We need to know the whole truth about our bodies. The lack of this fundamental information has myriad serious repercussions.

Erotic Owners Operating Manual

After you get the picture of the basic equipment, then you need to know how it works, and how you can make it work better. For example, once you understand the process of arousal, and learn to fully utilize your innate tools, you can dramatically enhance your sexual experiences. Once you understand the erectile equipment or how our nervous systems are hard-wired for pleasure we have much more ability to utilize our glorious bodies.

radha-krsna0Celebrate Sex

We need to reclaim sex from the shame-mongers. Sex is the inherently sacred power that creates life. When you recognize your potential, you are unleashed to explore the vast and potentially transcendent realms of orgasm and ecstasy. Your sexuality is a powerful, transformative gift that’s your personal manifestation of the universal life force. Sexual pleasure is your human birthright. Claim it! Free your sexuality and you’ll tap into your very own vital wellspring of joy. After all, it’s yours!

Lost Sexy Bits

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Genital Anatomy - Think you really know?

Lost Sexy Bits

It doesn’t seem possible, yet in this 21st century age of information, we lack the basic truth about our sexual anatomy. It’s sad but true, the pictures in the sex books and the text books are missing some of our vital equipment. We’ll never be able to see the whole picture, if we keep trying to put the puzzle together when important pieces are missing. When we don’t have this information, we can’t understand the reality of our bodies, much less figure out how to pleasure ourselves or others fully. If you don’t know what you’ve got, how can you really play with it?

What’s Missing From This Picture?

Cousin - Livre de pourtraiture-1608-cropped 2.Imagine playing the piano but only being able to see half the keys. Even though the invisible keys are still there, you wouldn’t know that you could or should play with them. Or imagine that a quarter of the keys have been permanently removed. You’d still make perfectly good music but it would lack the range, complexity and depth that having access to all the keys could give you.

That’s the situation we have now in our culture with our current models of male and female genitalia. The pictures in the books only show us a part of what’s actually there. Much of the equipment that’s responsible for arousal and orgasm in women* is missing from our standard depictions thus absent in our brains as well. Women have just as much erogenous equipment as men do although it’s arranged quite differently. Women have a network of structures for arousal that is utterly analogous to the male apparatus. But since a number of these structures are missing in our images and our minds, much of that equipment isn’t being played with.

Our model of male equipment is based on a cultural norm that removes extremely important functional sexual tissue. The cultural myth is that the foreskin is extraneous, and is better off removed. As if Mother Nature had some extra time on her hands, so she knitted a useless frilly doily and tossed it on the end of the penis. Now, being so modern and tidy, we just remove that quaint little dust catcher, improving on evolution’s design. The reality is, the foreskin is far from insignificant, it’s a well-designed part of the male equipment with important and irreplaceable functions.

Our mental maps of our sexual equipment are incomplete. This missing information hinders our sexuality, our relationships, our health and our understanding and enjoyment of our very selves in myriad ways. It’s a virtual amputation with very real effects.

Mental Mismatch Mess-Up

What happens when our models of what ‘should be’ don’t match what actually is? Many people assume there’s something wrong with them, instead of recognizing that the pictures and scripts are flawed. Many feel broken, inadequate, and believe they got ripped off when Mother Nature was giving out the good stuff.

Inaccurate models are like mental chains that limit your movement, cramp your style and prevent you from discovering your truly awesome capacity for pleasure. Accurate models help people expand their capacity for sexual expression and their repertoire of sexual skills. When your experience fits your mental picture, you feel whole, functional, and connected. You’re free to explore the full range of your sexual potential. Most importantly, it helps you know you’re normal.

The Missing “Female Erectile Network”

As I point out in my book, Women’s Anatomy of Arousal: Secret Maps to Buried Pleasure, women have what I call the Female Erectile Network: a set of interconnected but separate structures all made up of erectile tissue, that amazing, arousable, expandable and especially sexy erotic equipment.

Pound for pound and inch for inch, women have just as much erectile tissue as men—it’s just arranged differently. Some of these pleasure parts are well known while others are almost unheard of (even by scientists, medical practitioners and sexologists).

While it’s beyond the scope of this article to go into detail about each of the structures of  the erectile network, these are the components: the three parts of the clitoris; the paired vestibular bulbs; the urethral sponge; and the perineal sponge. They are connected both functionally and structurally. For more details check out this post: The Missing Female Pleasure Parts.

Female Genital Anatomy Quiz

Female Genital Anatomy – You Think You Know?

Each of the network’s structures is composed of erotically responsive erectile tissue, and with proper stimulation, each can become engorged. While women can become aroused and orgasmic with only some of the network activated, for maximum pleasure, get the whole network engorged. When all of the separate structures are engorged, the erectile network becomes like a snug and stretchy cuff of delightfully responsive equipment. Getting one component stimulated and engorged is good. Getting the whole network puffed up and pleasured is way better!

What Else Is Missing?

It’s not just that our representations of genitalia are inaccurate. Our understanding of arousal is also limited as it doesn’t take into account personal, cultural and gender differences and is based on a goal-directed, male-oriented pattern of arousal and sexual expression. Even the language we have to talk about sex and bodies and all of the delicious things we can do with them is limited and filled with shame. All of these skewed visions have very real and damaging effects, just as accurate models offer vistas of expanded possibilities and untapped potential.

How Do I Get There From Here?

We need accurate models that reflect the actual bodies and experiences of people of all genders. It’s challenging to find the few resources available to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle. You need and deserve accurate depictions of your sex parts, new visions of what’s possible, and a good map to show you how to get there.vintage-erotica-art-cocks-cunts-550x820

What Does Whole Look Like?

It starts in your mind. Begin by taking a deep breath, right now and imagining who you would be if you were sexually whole. Visualize yourself able to enjoy all of the sexual experiences you’ve ever imagined and more. You can become that person when you open your mind to your potential and begin to learn how to fully play the beautiful instrument of your sexual self. It begins with having a comprehensive and accurate understanding of your instrument.

Your Home Play Assignment

Got that mind set? Good. That’s a great basis for step two: exploring your body. That’s right — now it’s time for you to do some home work (er, I mean home play) and, if you own this equipment, go check it out directly. If you are not a vagina-owner, you’ll need to find a vagina-equipped lab partner for your home play assignment. Here’s the nutshell version of your mission. (For more detailed home play instructions, you may want to read the book or take the recorded online course.) Take a look and a feel of all the parts when not aroused, then get turned on and check them all out again.

There you go … you’re on the road to becoming your own expert and finding all of the neglected pleasure equipment! That’s how you can learn about all the parts that are really there, discover how to engorge them and how to really fully play your incredible instrument.

 

To Learn More

WAA-LOLC_Wegener-Self-Exam_V7-HeaderThese lavishly illustrated Online Courses focus on Female Genital Anatomy and Erotic Pleasure:

Want more info on vaginas and related parts? We got more!

This is the BEST BOOK EVER! I am an owner of a “sexy boutique” – Va Va Vooom, in Asheville NC, designed especially for the pleasures of women. This book is always placed prominently in my store as a “must read”.  – Lisa Zeimer

Arousal_frontcover-w-Book of theYear Award
Sheri’s award-winning book, Women’s Anatomy of Arousal – Secret Maps to Buried Pleasure contains unique and extensive anatomy illustrations (drawn by Sheri!) that show, in great detail all of the parts women have, how they’re connected and how to make them happy! In fact, it won the 2010 Book of the Year award from AASECT (the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists) due to this ground-breaking understanding of female sexuality and anatomy.

Check it out! Or just go ahead and grab a copy!

 

* Just to be clear about the terminology, let me elucidate. When we use the terms “women” and “female” and are referencing anatomy, we are referring to cis-women. (Cis is a term meaning that your gender identity matches the sex assigned at birth.) The term “vagina” and other anatomical terms refer to the genitalia of people who are born with a vagina and an erectile network. Usually these will be cis-women. There are also trans-men who have vaginas and this anatomy would be accurate for them. This anatomy does not include the variations of surgically-produced genitals that may be the equipment that trans-women have.

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A Breastmilk Theory of Love

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The Milky Way by Rubens

A Breastmilk Theory of Love: Relationships, Love and Mothering

Does our infant feeding experience affect how we relate to relationships? Is there a template for love laid down in early life that creates unconscious patterns that lead to either healthy or dysfunctional connections? Hear what a Wholistic Sexuality educator, former nurse-midwife and intimate arts counselor thinks about the deep connections between the breast and the heart.

If we’d had our needs met, completely and efficiently, with love, security and nourishment all coming together from the abundant breast of a loving mama—would it be easier as adults to form secure and trusting love relationships? To not be possessive and jealous? To trust in the abundance of love and that our beloved(s) will be there when we need them? To be able to receive pleasure? I believe it would.

Auguste Renoir, Maternite dit aussi l'Enfant au seinThe Bountiful Breast

Ah, breastmilk, Mother Nature’s most perfect food, the true nectar of the Goddess. Evolution has developed an exquisite arrangement for nurturing young mammals, perfected through millennia. It is an elegantly simple system, based on supply and demand. A human breast is essentially a milk factory. When a baby sucks on the areola of the breast, it stimulates receptors which tell the breast (via the brain) to respond by producing milk. As the infant grows and its caloric needs increase, the baby gets hungrier and sucks more, producing more milk. Despite myths to the contrary, the breast is never empty. There is an endless supply of milk, always as much as a child needs. As long as the system is not interrupted, and the mother is adequately hydrated and nourished, there will always be an abundance of glorious milk.

Magic Milk

Mammalian milk has evolved to meet the highly specific needs of each particular species. Human milk contains the exact nutrients in the perfect balance to grow the complex brains and bodies of our infants. It contains living immune factors to protect the health of the child. It teaches both our immune system and our metabolism how to function properly for the rest of our lifetimes by mechanisms that are still poorly understood. Children who are breastfed for a year (or ideally two or more) suffer from less of every known disease, not just as infants but throughout their entire lifetime.

Durer - Life of the Virgin -small cropRelationship 101

Sweet and plentiful breastmilk is the perfect food, always ready, warm and delicious. And it comes in an attractive and time-tested package, that of the woman’s breast, firmly attached to the warm, soft, breathing, pulsating body of the mother. This perfect food is delivered from within the context of the first love relationship that the baby knows. This is how evolution set up the system. When the baby human feels one of its basic needs, that of hunger, the need is met, not with an external object, but by their own personal Beloved. Fed from her warm yielding body, cradled in her strong arms, enveloped in her scent, her loving touch, steadied by her heartbeat and breathing, gazed at by bliss-filled eyes. Ideally, the human need for food is answered in the context of a relationship, by a person, with love.

Sad Stand-in

For those who truly cannot breastfeed, it’s good that we have a substitute that’s at least adequate to prevent significant infant mortality. And, of course, a bottle can be given while the baby is held lovingly in arms. But nothing from a factory can come close to replicating a system that evolution has perfected.

Unfortunately, many modern industrial culture women believe that they can’t nurse, don’t have enough milk and that their body has failed. The truth is that it is our system that has failed them. In nature, it would be extremely rare for a woman (or any other mammal) to not be able to adequately nourish her child unless she’s starving. In our bottle-feeding culture many women have unsuccessful nursing experiences because the natural process, which certainly begins before and during labor as well as after, has been repeatedly disrupted in multiple ways. The result is that the elegant system is too disturbed to function properly and nursing doesn’t work despite many women’s heroic efforts to fix it. This is more then a shame, this is a tragic epidemic as the dysfunction of this system has so many sad consequences.

The Barren Bottle

Compare the perfect sweetness and ideal nourishment of breastmilk to the synthetic formula given to most of us as children and to many babies even now. Artificial infant formula tastes nasty, like wallpaper paste. It’s often given in a transparent bottle, clearly in a finite amount. When the bottle is empty, that’s it. It’s all gone. There is no more. The need for food is met, not in the context of a warm and loving relationship, from a soft and sensuous mother’s body, but with a ‘thing’, a hard and separate object. This is so removed from the context of relationship that it need not even be given while the child is held. A bottle can be propped up or self-held by an older baby.

Terrible Templafinger-1404202_1920te

This forms the template for love and attachment that many of us struggle with for the rest of our lives. Is it any wonder that so many people in our culture, as adults, look to consumer goods, to external objects, to satisfy their oh-so-human needs? But more stuff is never enough to really fill those needs. So we go out and buy more stuff, newer stuff, bigger stuff, better, faster, sexier stuff. More, more, more. But it’s really no good. No matter how much we accumulate, objects will never satisfy our needs for love, security and acceptance. Only relationships can do that.

Sick Substitute

Moreover, artificial infant feeding formulas are unhealthy and barely adequate substitutes that can’t come close to Mama Nature’s perfect food. Indeed, they cause innumerable infant health problems, including gastrointestinal distress, allergies, irritability and malaise. Food, nourishment and the associated feeling of love can become deeply connected with feelings of sickness and pain.

Life Lessons

In our first few years we learn some of our most basic life lessons. Is the world a good or bad place? Am I loved? Can I trust that my needs will be met? Is my body a good place to be in?

Sunga period, 1st century BCEShould we be surprised that so many people have mixed up feelings of love and desire with pain and dysfunction? After all, for most of us our first model of relationship taught us that food and comfort come from an object that is separate from another body. That satisfying our hunger is likely to make us feel uncomfortable and even ill. We learned that nourishment is finite in amount and unpleasant tasting to boot. It’s no wonder that we feel that love is a limited commodity with only so much to go around. It’s not surprising that we can’t get comfortable and form trusting relationships with others. Is that why it’s so hard for some people to receive pleasure? Scarcity consciousness and bottle-fed limits are deeply ingrained templates. Bottle-contained artificial infant formula, unsatisfying, toxic, and unpalatable has confused us about the nature of love.

If we’d had our needs met, completely and efficiently, with love, security and nourishment all coming together from the abundant breast of a loving mama—would it be easier as adults to form secure and trusting love relationships? To not be possessive and jealous? To trust in the abundance of love and that our beloved(s) will be there when we need them? To be able to receive pleasure? I believe this is true.

Reframing Scarcity and Embracing Abundance

For myself, I’m trying to re-frame my beliefs about love and attachment, about scarcity and abundance, from a breastmilk perspective. It’s remedial education, to be sure. It’s a process that requires practice and repetition to succeed at changing (or at least influencing) such old core beliefs. I’m rethinking love, in the breast-milk model. I’m granting myself my ditaly-695032_1280enied birthright, reminding myself, over and over, and over again that there is an abundance of love, there’s always as much as you need and plenty to go around. And that if you need more, just suck and more will come. The breast is never empty, just like the heart. There is always enough. And my hunger can only truly be satisfied by human relationships, never by things. True milk, like true love is plentiful and nourishing, never finite or toxic. And it tastes really, really good.

No wonder the breasts are right over the heart. It is where love comes from. Endlessly, without limits, because the breast is never empty and the heart can always give more love. Read more

How Can I Get Over My Body Hang-ups?

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Sheri addresses a common question: How Can I Get Over My Body Hang-ups? during the Sacred Sex Webinar.