The ideal sexual woman

In this activity you’ll examine the messages you’ve absorbed about how the “ideal” sexual woman looks and behaves. 

We receive messages about the ideal sexual woman from a variety of sources, whose ideas about “ideal” may or may not align.

Let’s consider three of them:

Moral Messages:

Religious and spiritual messages coming either directly from your religious group or more implicitly through ideas of “purity” and “goodness.” When you think of a “pure” or “good” sexual woman, what is she like?

To begin, let’s give her a name:

What does this ideal, “pure” woman look like, and how does she behave outside sexual situations?

Medical Messages:

What we receive from our doctors and our formal sex education (if we have any) and news about medical treatments related to sexual health, such as medication for erectile dysfunction and hormones for menopause.

When you imagine a sexually “healthy” or “normal” woman, as defined by the medical profession or scientists, what is she like?

Her name is :

What does this ideal healthy, normal woman look like, and how does she behave outside sexual situations?

Media Messages:

This includes television and movies, magazines and books, all forms of pop culture. These are often messages not about “purity” or “health,” but about performance all seventy-four types of orgasms you should be having and forty-two tricks to make his dick happy.

When you imagine the ideal sexual woman, sprung to life from the pages of the magazine rack in a drugstore or manifested by a spell from the union of television and porn, what is she like?

Her name is :

What does this ideal, “peak-performance” woman look like, and how does she behave outside sexual situations?

Your sexual model

Together, our three versions of the ideal woman constitute a sexual mental model, a standard by which each of us, unconsciously or consciously, assesses our own sexuality, to decide whether we’re doing it right. When you see yours together, some patterns might emerge. Let’s investigate further.

Step 1

Highlight, underline, or circle the characteristics shared by all three. Star or mark any characteristic that is unique to just one of them. Do any of those unique characteristics contradict each other?

Step 2

When you think about what “normal” sex looks like and whether you are normal, which ideal (or which aspects of different ideals) sets the standard against which you assess your own sexuality? Why that one?

Step 3

What are the consequences, both real and imagined, for not conforming with the ideal?

*************************************************

Source : Emily Nagoski – Come as you are