Sex writers tend to have a completely unchallenged authority on their subject matter, a benefit that not many other types of writers receive. This power that writers on the subject hold can be quite damaging in some cases, after all, one of the most Googled subjects worldwide are sex tips.
People really need their sex tips, and they trust the internet to provide them with watertight solutions, as they do with most things. Most writers who write about sex don't intend to obfuscate notions of sex for their readers and most of them don't even realize the grasp they have on their readers. A lot of what passes off as sexual wisdom just happens to be generalizations, specific to dominant cultures, and sometimes just downright spurious.
How do we manage to navigate through this and find out what works for us? How can we be certain of what works and what doesn't? Here are a few tips:
Humans tend to have various stages of sexual development. Let's say you're in a new relationship, you look up the internet for sex tips and find that a lot of the stuff prescribed doesn't really apply to you. You're at a stage where you really can't bring whipped cream into the bedroom, or maybe you've not even reached the point where things can get down and dirty with your partner.
Assess your relationship with your partner, the best thing to do is to just follow your instinct in most cases and not fall for a hokey sex tip. If something doesn't feel natural to you, don't even bother trying it. Let's even take the case of makeup sex- sometimes it's just not the solution for a tiff! Depending on context, makeup sex could either help you or just let a lot of problems go unvoiced.
Sex tips tend to be of a rather generic quality that often only represents a very Western worldview. Maybe you live in a place where it's hard to carry out a lot of the stuff perpetuated in these sex tip columns, maybe you don't have access to a lot of the things they ask you to buy. Again, over here it's crucial to remember that you needn't subscribe to boilerplate sex tips, go with whatever feels natural and culturally appropriate to you.
Most of these articles tend to offer advice from a rather myopic perspective, by that I mean it's written in a tone that suggests that one person is expected to carry out advice without the knowledge or consent of the other person. Instead of this rather dubious method, the best thing to do is have a chat with your partner. Find out what they like and what they don't. Ultimately, this will serve the purpose of better sex than any article will.
This post was originally published on lovetreats.in
Written by Rheea Mukherjee. Rheea spent most of her life moving between the US and India. In 2011, she decided enough was enough and moved back to Bangalore for good where she founded Write Leela Write with her friend Kala. Rheea writes awesome blogs and other things for Lovetreats. She loves dogs, attempts yoga and fantasizes about becoming vegan. Rheea also just published her first book, "Transit For Beginners"!