Sex Tips That Don’t Suck

January 21, 2015 / Desireé Dallagiacomo

(Content Warning: This video contains graphic descriptions of sex.)

Editor’s Note: While this video discusses sexuality between cisgender men and women in relationships with people of different genders, Everyday Feminism also recognizes the relationships between queer, trans, and gender non-conforming people.

Had enough of sex tips that suck? Most of the sex advice written for heterosexual women focuses on men without a single thought for the pleasure or needs of women.

Patriarchal ideas that tie the value of a woman to the pleasure of a man make for some really bad sex tips, and they can damage the way you see yourself.

So here’s a different kind of message. Take in this eye-opening spoken word piece about real sex tips and take your body back.

With Love,
The Editors at Everyday Feminism

Click for the Transcript

Speaker 1: A sampling of sex tips from women’s magazines.

Speaker 2: Stick his penis through the hole of a doughnut, nibble around it, periodically stopping to suck.

Speaker 1: Sprinkle pepper under his nose just before he climaxes. Sneezing can amplify the feel good effects.

Speaker 2: Grab his penis in one hand and move it around like an Atari joystick.

Speaker 1: Make two fists around the shaft and twist them in opposite directions as fast as you can.

Speaker 2: Grab his penis in one hand and slap it with the other.

Both Speakers: In over fifty sex tips, my vagina is not mentioned once.

Speaker 1: Cover to cover, I am meant to make others feel good.

Both Speakers: As a woman, everything says I am defined by what is put inside of me.

Speaker 2: My capacity for holding cavernous comfort for a more important person.

Speaker 1: My body does not belong to me, but to the men that make meal of my flesh.

Both Speakers: As a girl, I learned sex to be a duty.

Speaker 2: My worth—

Both Speakers: Weighted in the number of mouths I made water.

Speaker 1: I learned to open for any man willing, believed he would fill all this empty.

Speaker 2: Sex was a bad dream I couldn’t wait to shake awake from. Each time a man unbuttoned me, I swiftly sewed myself back up.

Both Speakers: My body—

Speaker 2: A wound I was always trying to bandage.

Both Speakers: I knew nothing of feeling. When I had sex for the first time, fifth time—

Speaker 1: Fifteenth time, I was a ghost. From the outside I saw men slip themselves in. I watched them come and never felt them leave.

Both Speakers: It took me twenty-three years to consider my body.

Speaker 2: The first time I let a lover see me naked.

Speaker 1: When I was touched with careful hands.

Speaker 2: Evening bellowed with laughter.

Speaker 1: I found my voice.

Speaker 2: Each knot slowly loosened with every yes.

Speaker 1: I was not territory to claim.

Both Speakers: For the first time, sex was a safe place.

Speaker 2: I was an instrument my hands finally learned to play.

Both Speakers: Each bend a crescendo welcomed home.

Speaker 2: I’m silencing the throats that call me object.

Both Speakers: Cavern.

Speaker 1: Feast to feed the loudest catcall.

Both Speakers: I am learning to consider myself first.

Speaker 1: To say “no.”

Speaker 2: And say “yes.” To offer my partner instructions.

Speaker 1: A little slower. No, faster. No, slower.

Both Speakers: To say “clitoris” and not flinch.

Speaker 1: Clitoris.

Speaker 2: Clitoris. To ask for sex when I want to have sex.

Speaker 1: To ask for it from behind or on the counter or during that matinee screening of Casablanca.

Speaker 2: To ask him to go down on me.

Both Speakers: To masturbate whenever the fuck I want to. Renaming my sexuality is a dance I’m slowly learning the steps to.

Speaker 1: My voice is not mating call.

Speaker 2: My hips, not invitation.

Speaker 1: My hands.

Speaker 2: Thighs.

Speaker 1: Mouth.

Both Speakers: My vagina was not designed to please anyone without my say so.

Speaker 2: If you are sexualizing me right now—

Speaker 1: Simply because I am talking about sex—

Both Speakers: It does not mean I owe you anything.

Speaker 2: I am not asking for it.

Both Speakers: Unless I actually ask for it.

Speaker 1: I am unlearning the ways I prepare my flesh.

Speaker 2: I am teaching my tongue courage to ask for what I want.

Speaker 1: To demand what I need.

Both Speakers: I am learning to take my body back.

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Desireé Dallagiacomo is a student at the University of New Orleans where she studies creative writing and women & gender. She ranked 3rd in the world at the 2014 Individual World Poetry Slam. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, the recipient of UNO’s Ryan Chigazola Poetry Scholarship, and, as a member of Slam New Orleans, ranked 3rd in the nation at the 2014 National Poetry Slam. She is a teaching artist for WordPlay Teen Writing Project, The Recovery School District, and The Centre for the Arts. Her work has been featured on EverydayFeminism.com, THe Huffington Post, Upworthy.com, in Tulane University’s production of The Vagina Monologues, the New Orleans Fringe Festival, Tandem Review, and Words Dance Literary Magazine.

Kaycee Filson is a Theater Artist and Performance Poet from Pennsburg, Pennsylvania. She graduated with a B.A. in Theater (Directing) from Bard College in 2011 and is currently living in New Orleans, LA where she works as the Teen Arts Coordinator at the Contemporary Arts Center, acts as the artistic director for the Live Oak Theater Collective, hosts a monthly live dating show, and competes with slam poetry team, Slam New Orleans (Team SNO).

Video courtesy of Button Poetry. For more amazing spoken word performances, check them out on YouTube and Facebook.