deborah sundahl

Shannon Bell: Poli Sci Professor + Squirter Extraordinaire

Kate Sloan

I recently researched and wrote a big news feature on female ejaculation for a journalism school assignment. (Man, I love my life.)

I got to interview a lot of terrific babes for the piece. Superhero sex blogger and squirting champion Epiphora. Porno administrator and mega-hottie Jesse Rae West. A sexual health researcher who chose to remain anonymous and gave me the best quote about the squirting-is-pee study (“It’s bonkers! Bonkers! Seven people is, like, nothing!… That’s just ridiculous. Like, what the fuck. Like, that is not statistically significant in any universe. So it doesn’t prove anything”).

As if all those folks weren’t awesome enough, I also got to talk to Shannon Bell. And, holy fuck, was I nervous.

If you’ve never heard of Shannon Bell, let me enlighten you.

• She’s a political science professor at York University here in Toronto, where her students have variously called her “the first professor to ever use the F word in an intelligent way,” “the most enlightened person I’ve ever had the pleasure of receiving instruction from,” an “interesting dresser [who] likes anarchists,” “obscene and gross,” and “wildly intelligent, HILARIOUS, gregarious, and extremely helpful” on her RateMyProfessors page.

• Western Standard magazine profiled her as one of “Canada’s nuttiest professors” in an article, in which she’s quoted as saying that she likes to dress provocatively for her students’ benefit, starting off the semester dressing femme and then moving into a “solid leather” aesthetic around October when “things are getting intense in terms of their assignments.” (I also had a feminist sociology professor last term who mentioned that sometimes Shannon wears a skirt without panties to class, but I was not able to confirm this…)

• She’s a performance artist and a lot of her performances have focused on female ejaculation as a political statement. She talks about one such performance in her book, Fast Feminism, one entire section of which is entitled “The Female Phallus” (her badass name for the G-spot/urethral sponge/female prostate). In the performance, she squirts all over a mirror that’s angled to give the audience a good look at her genitals and what she’s doing to herself. She also recalls a time when she did a live squirting demo on a radio show, narrating the whole process herself as she did it. (That takes skill and focus, dude.)

• She teaches female ejaculation workshops from time to time in Toronto, complete with live demos, of course. A friend of mine went to one of these workshops and described it to me as “very wet.”

• Shannon also appears in one of the earliest on-screen examples of squirting, a 2002 Isis Media DVD called How to Female Ejaculate. In the movie, she and three other women (Carol Queen, Deborah Sundahl, and Baja) talk about squirting’s role in their sex lives, how they learned to do it, what it means to them personally and politically, etc., and then they get out sex toys and towels and jerk off together on camera. Shannon squirts three separate times, using a pink dildo and her fingers. At one point, she says, “I wouldn’t want to live without [being able to ejaculate]. I find it incredibly empowering. It really changed me, both physically and intellectually. It gave me an incredible sense of power and control over my body – as well as a hell of a lot of fun.”

• Her book Fast Feminism is an absolutely incredible resource for anyone who’s interested in female ejaculation, female sexual power, and/or feminism. It’s a rollicking good read. And the cover isn’t explicit so you can read about urethral sponges and mirror-squirting on the subway and no one will look at you funny.

• In the book, Shannon details how she once gathered a sample of her own ejaculate, took it to her doctor, and convinced him to run chemical analysis on it. Her results confirmed previous findings about the differences between ejaculate and pee: that they are indeed different, and have mostly different components and a different pH from one another.

• She started squirting when she was EIGHT YEARS OLD. That blew my mind. EIGHT!

• When I asked her if any woman can learn to ejaculate, she said, without skipping a beat, “Sure. Any man can learn to ejaculate. There’s really no difference.”

Seriously… What an unbelievably awesome person. I’m still starstruck.

My Favorite Sex Podcasts

Kate Sloan

I’ve been listening to podcasts for 10 years. GOOD LORD, I’M OLD.

Back during the infancy of the medium, I was 12 years old, and even then I was a sex geek. I remember walking between classes at middle school and listening to Kidder Kaper talking about anal sex, fisting, female ejaculation, and all sorts of other things (conveniently ignoring the warning at the top of every show that you had to be 18+ to listen to it). I felt like a spy; on the outside I looked like an innocent little girl, but my ears and brain were sharing a delicious repartee about wonderfully nasty things.

Contrary to what some folks would posit, consuming sex information at such a young age didn’t mess me up; in fact, I think it made me safer and more conscious about sexuality. And I still listen to sex podcasts to this day. Here are some of my favorites…

Sex is Fun is the first sex podcast I remember ever listening to. It’s not being made anymore, but it had a good run and I think I listened to every single episode. (You can still listen to the whole archive on the show’s website.)

Each episode focuses on a specific topic related to sexuality. In the earlier shows, they were often fairly basic topics, like masturbation, oral sex, and anal sex; later on, they progressed to more complex issues, and also did occasional interviews with sexpert superstars like Susie Bright and Deborah Sundahl.

Different hosts rotated in and out of the show at different times in its progression, but what they all had in common was that they were articulate, smart, knew a lot about sex, and held a completely non-judgmental attitude about everything sex-related (provided it was all safe, sane and consensual, of course). I may not remember the details of individual episodes anymore, but what I vividly remember is that all-accepting, sex-positive attitude. I sincerely think it shaped all the sexual attitudes and beliefs I formed as I grew up – for the better.

Try these episodes: The team talks to Deborah Sundahl about G-spots and female ejaculation. A controversial discussion on ecstatic/orgasmic birth. HIV 101 with HIV/AIDS educator Gay Rick.

Open Source Sex is/was (I’m not sure if she’s still making it?) a podcast created and hosted by Violet Blue, who, if you don’t know, is an amazingly prolific writer, editor, and media-maker in the realms of sex and digital security. In other words, she’s a sex geek and a tech geek. And she has an incredibly gorgeous, sexy voice that’s ultra-soothing to listen to.

She does all sorts of different things on her podcast: discusses sexual issues, interviews sex-world celebrities, and reads erotic and instructional excerpts from her own books and other people’s. It’s a smorgasbord of information and titillation that could bring value to the life of any sex nerd.

Try these episodes: An interview with Shine Louise Houston, creator of the Crash Pad Series. Genital flavors: why you taste the way you do, and how to make changes if you want to. Excerpts from The Castle, a BDSM novel.

Sex Out Loud is Tristan Taormino’s podcast. Tristan needs no introduction because everyone in the sex world knows about her, but incase you don’t: she directs hot-as-fuck porn, writes and edits books about sex and non-monogamy, gives lectures and workshops, co-founded the Feminist Porn Conference, and now hosts this podcast.

Each episode of Sex Out Loud is an in-depth interview with someone who is doing interesting things within their little pocket of sexuality subculture. I started by listening to interviews with people I already knew, and then delved into those with folks I’d never heard of – and I learned new and interesting things from each and every episode.

Try these episodes: A fascinating discussion with Christopher Ryan, co-author of Sex At Dawn. Tristan chats with S. Bear Bergman, author of Butch is a Noun and various other books that I love. Betty Dodson and Carlin Ross on the politics of female masturbation.

The Savage Lovecast is Dan Savage’s podcast. I recognize that lots of people in the sex-positive world take issue with Dan Savage for various reasons, and I agree with them on many of those points. But I can’t deny that I find Dan very entertaining and I think his contributions to LGBT rights advocacy have been overall positive.

Each episode of the Lovecast starts with a “rant” from Dan on some sexual or political (or both) topic that’s in the news. Then he plays calls from listeners and gives them advice. The questions can range from commonplace and vanilla (“How do I come out to my parents?” or “Why doesn’t my girlfriend get off during intercourse?”) to complex and unusual (“Should I have been nicer when I rejected that guy with an adult baby fetish?” or “I found my dad’s stash of ladies’ panties and he had a pair of mine in there; what should I do?”). Dan almost always takes a strong stance one way or the other, and even when I don’t agree with him, I find his responses amusing and thought-provoking.

Try these episodes: Uh, seriously, any of them. They’re all great. Pick one and press play.

Why Are People Into That? is the newest podcast out of all of these. I saw a flier for it when I was at the Feminist Porn Conference and literally gasped as I grabbed one, because the title of this show is the question that fascinates me most about sexuality. Why are people into that?

The show is hosted by Tina Horn, porn performer, sex worker, and writer. She’s smart as a whip, relentlessly thoughtful, and endlessly curious about sex. Each episode has a different guest with whom she discusses a particular fetish or kink, usually one that the person themselves is into.

The discussions are pretty free-form and meandering, like real-life conversations, only they’re a hell of a lot smarter and more interesting than many of the conversations I have in real life!

Try these episodes: Sinclair Sexsmith on power. James Darling on high heels. Siouxsie Q on age play.

Other sex podcasts I’ve heard are good, but haven’t personally gotten the chance to listen to yet:

• The Whorecast

• Sex With Emily

• Sex Nerd Sandra

What are your favorite podcasts about sex?

Progress Report: G-Spot Orgasms

Kate Sloan

Last week, I bought Deborah Sundahl’s book on squirting, ordered a Pure Wand, and stacked up a couple of thick towels on my bed. It was time.

I’ve been interested in exploring my G-spot for years and years – pretty much ever since I realized I had a vagina – but I’ve never fully gotten around to it until now. I guess, like most women, I was discouraged by mainly three things:

1. The idea that it just wouldn’t work for me. I’ve been having clitoral orgasms since I was a kid and it’s hard to wrap my head around the idea that there could be a whole different kind of orgasm waiting for me to figure it out.

2. The “need to pee” feeling. It can be a very unsettling sensation, especially since clitoral pleasure is so straightforwardly pleasurable and G-spot stimulation isn’t always.

3. The time and energy required. I find G-spot play much more exhausting and time-consuming than clit play, mainly because my G-spot needs to be stimulated for a long time before it’ll swell up enough to become sensitive.

Yes, I’ve been resistant. Yes, I’ve been lazy. But all that is beginning to change.

My recent ponderings and explorations began a few weeks ago, when, during oral sex, my boyfriend slipped a finger inside me and began to feel around. This is common for us, but for some reason, on this particular day, my G-spot was very responsive. I moaned and writhed wildly as he stroked it. Eventually, the pleasure got so great that I pushed his head away to stop him from tonguing my clit – I wanted to focus on the G-spot stimulation alone.

Over the next 40 minutes or so, we experimented with my spot. There was plenty of lube, and very fast thrusting, and vigorous “come-hithering,” and lots and lots and lots of moaning. It was a pleasure unlike any I had ever felt during my own masturbatory adventures – I could never reach my spot like he could, nor could I rub it as firmly or speedily as he could. (My boyfriend attributes his dexterity to a lifetime of playing video games.)

When we paused to rest and re-hydrate, I reached inside myself with a couple of fingers and found that my G-spot was more swollen than I had ever felt it before. It was bulbous and ridgy and surprising. I was elated: new sexual territory to explore!

Since then, I’ve taken matters into my own hands. I’ve used various curved toys to hit the spot, thrusting faster than I thought my arms could handle – and that insane pleasure has returned on a few occasions. It’s deeper and really does feel like I’m stimulating the back end of my clitoris – a new angle on the orgasmic pleasure I’ve been experiencing all these years.

I still haven’t been able to orgasm from my G-spot alone, nor have I squirted (as far as I can tell), but it’s been very fun to try. I’m going to keep working on it and I’ll report back, if and when I become a multiorgasmic sex goddess with a deliciously swollen and satisfied G-spot.