I think my female friends might resent my having a penis. Society seems to give me a lot more leeway because of it. Guys
get to enjoy having sex. But for girls, the message is a little different. Society tells girls they can''t enjoy sex as much as guys do.Take orgasms.
Women fake orgasms all the time on TV. It''s like a big joke, says Sophia Salman, I was watching Sex in the 90''s on MTV, and one of the clips was of the show Seinfeld. Elaine was faking, because the guy was taking too long and she had to buy shoes.It''s like the media are telling women they''re not going to get any real pleasure out of sex, so it''s better to just pretend and laugh about it later.When it comes to
masturbation, the message is even more negativeWomen don''t talk about masturbation as much as men do, says Valerie Termine, 17, of New Jersey . With men, it''s common conversation. But I''ve never talked about it with my female friends. I was afraid if I told a girl, she''d say ''Oh my God! What a slut!.I actually heard a boy tell his girlfriend that he was disgusted and couldn''t think about her the same way again after she admitted she had masturbated, says Marisa Mangione, 19, of Delaware. I guarantee you, this same boy does it at least twice a week.Same goes for oral sex. For guys, it''s OK. For girls, it''s not.In the media, it''s always a woman giving a guy oral sex, says Kara Mason, 17, of Minneapolis . No one talks about guys going down on a girl. It''s much more acceptable for a guy to ask for it. Another reason some girls have trouble enjoying sex is that they''re the ones who end up pregnant. Guys, on the other hand, are given permission to have fun, without worrying so much about consequences.People see pregnancy, not disease, as being the main consequence of unsafe sex, says Chitra Kalyanaraman, 17, of New Jersey . Negative messages start circulating when kids are real young, says Beverly Whipple, PhD, RN, who is Professor Emerita at Rutgers University and an expert on sexual pleasure.If girls feel they aren''t entitled to enjoy sex, then they are less likely to say no to sex or to use contraception if they say, yes, experts say. That''s because they see sex as someone else''s decision. They do it to please their
boyfriends—or to make their boyfriends love them, rather than because they want to have sex.