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Dear Betty,

I appreciate so much your book "Sex for One". It's amazing how these old self-defeating messages rob us of our dearest self-love. I believe orgasm rejuvenates our whole system as taught by Yoginis for centuries. My first orgasm (never to be repeated) was a Whopper through oral sex from a "guru" type.

He said he'd given many women their first orgasm. I was then 30 and had learned to be a fake with my husband of seven years. Anyway, after that orgasm with oral sex, I went semi-unconscious into some other world of pleasure timelessness. I told him if I died today, I would have had the "Ultimate Spiritual Experience." Following that experience, I hooked up with this "guru" but he was not able to get me off again. Unfortunately, my mind was connected to my "sex" (remember I was very inhibited until then) and I kept getting in my own way. I was deeply sad.

Years later, after lying there waiting for men to finish, smiling and then secretly masturbating later, I am now more open since I realized that I needed to get back to my body and learn about self-pleasure for myself. One problem remains. As I gain pleasure, I am so occupied with the nagging thought that my clitoris is a penis that my thoughts get me crazy about whether I want this or not. How can I just lose myself in pleasure without these stupid images that vie for my attention and keep me from relaxing. I hate to think that I focused so long on men's pleasure that I have fixated myself as a male. HELP!!

I

Dear I,

Too many so-called "gurus" take advantage of sexually inhibited young women which proves they are not all that "spiritual" but rather sexual animals. While I have nothing against our sexual instincts that are driven by hormones to serve procreation, I do object to fake gurus, priests and ministers who pretend celibacy then take advantage of young foolish girls and boys. I lay the fault of this on the doorsteps of most organized religions that aim to suppress sexual desire so people can be controlled through guilt and shame. Since we have lost the separation between church and state, the government is now in the business of limiting women's access to sex education, information, legal abortions, and birth control methods.

The nagging thought that your clit is a penis is actually correct. Look up clitoris in the dictionary. It will say the clitoris is the female phallus, a woman's source of sexual arousal. Get my book "Orgasms for Two" and look at the diagram of the internal clitoris that includes the clitoral shaft, glans and hood. Inside our bodies the clitoris continues with a wishbone-like structure called the legs with the bulbs next to that surrounding a portion of the vaginal canal. Also included is the urethral and perineal sponges- these all puff up with blood when we are aroused. This means that women have nearly as much erectile tissue as men, but ours is internal.

I recommend that you turn your thoughts into a hot fantasy. Visualize that you're fucking your lover in the mouth or ass with your hard throbbing clit and see if that doesn't make a difference. Going for an orgasm is anything but relaxing. See yourself as a sexual athlete going for the gold with dedication and commitment.

One of my favorite views of myself is androgyny where I am equally male and female. Actually this is closer to the truth than our didactic division of "Him Tarzan, Her Jane" bullshit that is handed to us as society insists that a boy baby wears blue and a girl baby wears pink. The divine male and divine female energies are in all of us and the more balanced they are the happier we will be. Love both aspects of yourself.

Betty