Hi Dr. Betty, ("My Daily Masturbation" Cont.)

I got a lot of warnings about "bad touch" and was frequently reminded, "You don't want to give a man the wrong idea." Many of the women in my family had a history of some form of sexual abuse, and a pedophile was hidden in the family since no one had the courage to confront the issue. Instead of being warned about one uncle, I was told I couldn't trust any man. The violated women of the family were prone to manipulative tendencies, so I didn't trust women either.

For much of my teens, I was under the impression that there was nothing in sex for me but some sort of disgrace, hassle and worry. I didn't even know that girls could and would masturbate until much later. I remember once examining my genitals while sitting on the toilet not long after the first session of a sex ed. class in the fifth grade and, since they never discussed the clitoris, I thought mine was a 'genital wart' that got there some way other than sexual contact. After that, I didn't really want to think about what was going on down there. I don't think I'd ever heard the words cunt or clitoris until I decided to check out the Vagina Monologues when I was a senior in high school. (I'm now 24 and in graduate school.)

I had pushed away my sexuality and it would only reveal itself through my art - especially as a pianist. One professor, with whom I was close to as an undergraduate, had taken me aside after a performance to tell me that "it's one thing to sound X-rated...but you don't want to look X-rated when you play." This was regarding the way I moved and touched the piano. I wasn't upset or embarrassed, just fascinated.

I was also willingly ignorant. I would wince any time the subject of sex would come up and completely recoil from it when it had anything to do with me directly. I had this idea that becoming sexual and succumbing to these "bad touches" would mean that I'd turn into some kind of zombie and lose my sense of self.

Through a steady regiment of sex-positive feminist literature I've been able to snuff out the repressive thoughts and habits that were probably at the very root of my long-term depression. (By the way... I own your books, Sex for One and Orgasms for Two, and frequently visit your website.) I'm healing because I now recognize that to boycott sexuality is to boycott a part of my anatomy and overall health. I was choosing to be handicapped and I was unhappy.

Speaking of boycotting anatomy, I'm lucky the ignorance and neglect didn't completely atrophy the nerves connecting my brain to my clitoris. After a few weeks of reading erotica, sites like yours, watching snippets of free porn and allowing my fantasies and feelings to flow as they did when I was a child and did not know shame, I finally reached down with real commitment and curiosity and patience in order to experience this orgasm I had only heard or read about and assumed it was happening to someone in a sex scene in a movie. I'm an all-natural gal, as you can see in the photos. (I'd prefer not to shave, but I'd be willing to compromise.) Now that I no longer have a roommate, I'm allowing myself to make more sound and experiment with different positions when I masturbate.

I'm able to have orgasms in a variety of ways, and that boosted my self-confidence. Taking responsibility for my own pleasure was that missing rite of passage towards becoming a self-respecting woman. Now, I just need to come to terms with partner sex and decide whether or not I'm happiest single. I guess I was more interested in mapping out my spiritual journey to orgasm than writing about the particulars of my cunt in this essay.

Thank you so much, Betty. You are one of my heroes.

Megan