“OMG” Sex and Dating Stories: Feminist Book Club Edition

“’OMG’ Sex and Dating Stories: Feminist Book Club Edition”

a lightly edited Girl Boner Radio transcript

August (narration):

The body. It does all kinds of interesting things. Some of those things are sublime and expected: the rush of deliciousness when you take the first bite of an incredible meal, the euphoric release of orgasm. Other times, our bodies do, well, not what we want them to in a given moment—say during sex or a first date. 

Today’s episode features three such stories – unforgettable experiences of three people in the Feminist Book Club community.

I met the founder of Feminist Book Club, Renee Powers, a few years ago when my first Girl Boner book was about to release. She’s based in my hometown and old stomping ground, Minneapolis, and was hosting a podcast called Wild Cozy Truth. And I loved the thoughtful ways she put it together, blending interviews with her own journal entries. I loved her honesty, her humor, her fierceness. So I invited her to be in conversation with me at my first book release event. 

Since then, Renee shifted her podcast and entire business into Feminist Book Club. I asked her to give us the elevator pitch:

Renee:

So I actually have it written down because I get asked this a lot. In fact, I dreamed about it last night and I said it word for word and I’m like really proud of myself. So Feminist Book Club is, we call it the premier online hub for intersectional readers, but anyone who wants to infuse their bookshelves with social justice. We say we encourage resistance through reading with our blog, our podcast, our virtual and offline events when it’s safe, and most importantly, our signature monthly subscription box.

 

[Upbeat intro music and this voiceover: What would it take to arouse your life? To experience more pleasure, more connection, more realness, in and outside of the bedroom? I’m August McLaughlin, and this is Girl Boner Radio…]

August (narration):

It has been a blast and inspiring, seeing Renee and her company grow and become fabulously successful, watching her dream come into fruition in real time and resonate with so many people. And it was a total pleasure to talk to her recently about her own sexual empowerment journey.

[acoustic chord riff]

Renee:  

So I went to an all women Catholic school for college for undergrad. I had been sexually active since I was 18 but it wasn’t good sex. [laughs] And I hooked up with somebody, a friend of a friend, and experienced my first orgasm at the age of 19. And that was great. [laughs] But I didn’t know it was something my body could do. I really thought that, you know, sex was just penis and vagina. I didn’t understand my own sexuality. I didn’t understand my own kind of desires. Still don’t to some degree but especially not when I was in this really insular—they called it “Catholic Disneyland.”

August (narration):

That was the nickname for the campuses, Notre Dame and the women’s college she attended across the street.

Renee:

Like we knew people were having sex but we also knew far more people who were waiting for their ring by spring.

August (narration):

“Ring by spring” is a sort of tongue-in-cheek ambition of many traditional Christian college students to be engaged by the spring semester of their senior year, partly, maybe largely, so they could start having what they defined as sex.

Renee said her school wasn’t as conservative as some colleges. Catholics drink a lot, she said, and there were a lot of parties – 

Renee:  

And a lot of like everything except penetration because, you know, Mother Mary was watching or something, I don’t know. 

August (narration):

Renee’s “OMG” memorable sex story happened during a time when she was really growing into and exploring her sexuality. 

Renee:

I was a serial monogamist. And I’d lost my virginity to my longtime boyfriend, and we had broken up, oh gosh, halfway through my sophomore year of college. And then I hooked up with one of his friends. And that’s when I experienced orgasm for the first time. 

August (narration):

Then she started “playing the field.”

Renee:

I was having a lot of fun. I had never really dated. I had never had casual hookups. Part of it, too, was that semester, especially, I had taken my first Introduction to women’s studies course. And it was the first time I had ever understood what feminism was. 

And it was a great introduction, despite it being on a conservative Catholic campus. I mean, we had some really radical instructors. It was a great introduction to sexual exploration, to sexuality exploration, to embracing all facets of what it means to inhabit a feminine body, what it means to perform a feminine body and what it means to really claim sexuality as your own and have some sense of agency over it. And that was brand new information to me. I really think that, you know, this discovery of feminism led to a discovery of pleasure for myself because up to that point, it had been about performance.

August (narration):

Before that, masturbation hadn’t even seemed like an option.

Renee:  

I didn’t really know about it. I thought boys did it. I thought if you had a penis, you masturbated. I knew like dildos existed and stuff but I didn’t – I’d never played with one. I didn’t understand the pleasure that one could derive from that because I can’t orgasm through penetration. And so I just assumed like if I can’t do that, it’s not for me then. 

I didn’t know that clitoral stimulation was pleasurable, available to me, because nobody had ever really talked about it until this women’s studies class and we were talking about the clitoris for the first time and I was like Oh, that’s what my vulva looks like. [laughs]

Renee:  

It was all kind of coming at me at the same time, you know, this leaving my ex boyfriend, you know, experimenting with new people, discovering kind of empowered sexuality through the lens of feminism. 

And it’s been 15 years or something, but in my mind, it’s like all the same week I feel like it all happened, where I discovered all this, and all this was happening and I have my first orgasm through oral sex. And I was like, Oh, this is what we’re talking about in class. I want more of this. How can I do more of this myself? And that’s when I started to masturbate for the first time.

August (narration):

It was during one of those solo play sessions that Renee’s body surprised her, and not in the most comfortable of ways. 

Renee:  

It was just an impromptu experience. I lived in a double dorm room with a friend of mine, and she was a super heavy sleeper. I was up on the top bunk and she was on the bottom bunk. We had one of those little tiny dorm rooms where all you could fit was like the bunk beds and a couple of desks. And that’s it. We always slept with the TV on. And she’s always slept with earplugs, I think. And so it was like, might as well like see what’s going on, you know? She’s asleep. 

And I start to masturbate and start touching and rubbing and tensing up. And this was something that I didn’t understand at the time is that it’s difficult for me to orgasm when I’m too tense. I have learned since I really need to breathe and relax and unclench but at the time, I didn’t know that yet. And so I was clenched and tight, and I think I’m getting close and all of a sudden, I completely wet the bed. 

I pee everywhere. [laughs] [ocean waves] And I can’t stop and it’s a puddle and I’m like, oh, shit. It’s one in the morning. We don’t have a bathroom in our dorm room. I have to go down the hall. She’s asleep. I don’t want to wake her up. I don’t have an extra set of sheets clean. Like I don’t know what to do. It’s not like we have a couch where I can go sleep on it. 

So I have wet the bed at 19 years old, with my college roommate asleep in the bunk below me. And I don’t know what to do. So I quietly climb down the top bunk, and I change my clothes. I don’t think I went to the shower. I think I just like wiped off and changed my clothes. [laughs] And I stripped my bed but I left my sheets kind of in a pile on my bed so she maybe didn’t think anything of it. I mean, she was pretty innocent so I don’t think she would’ve made any guesses. 

And then I just sat in my desk chair all night and played on my computer all night. I was probably playing Kitten Cannon or something stupid like one of those little fun internet games, all night, until like eight in the morning when she woke up, and I was able to wash my sheets, [laughs] go back to bed, and I think I skipped my morning classes so I could get some sleep. But one of my very first college all-nighters was because I wet the bed masturbating and couldn’t go back to my bed. [laughs] And the worst part, the saddest part of this whole story, is I didn’t orgasm. [laughs] 

August (narration):

Side note for anyone who’s wondering, Renee had not experienced squirting aka “female enjaculation.” That’s another topic for another day. 

And she didn’t tell anyone about what happened, not a single person, until we spoke about it for this episode. 

Peeing during solo play did not keep her from the practice, thankfully. But – 

Renee:  

I think that I made sure that I peed before I would masturbate. [laughter] 

And now I know that sometimes like having a little pressure down there does feel good, does help. However, I also could – I know my body much better where if I know that I’m close to pee or an orgasm, it’s very likely it’s going to be pee so maybe I should go pee first. And also, I think I would feel less shame about it than I did then. Because I’ve grown since then, you know. I’m not sharing a bunk bed with a very innocent 19-year-old. [chuckles] 

August:

What would she say to someone who hasn’t yet masturbated and feels curious about it, or maybe ashamed that they haven’t figured that out yet? 

Renee:  

Yeah, I still feel some shame around my own sexuality. And I think that will never go away. It just requires healing and understanding and a lot of therapy. [soft laugh] 

At the same time, I would say it’s never too late to start discovering your body. And if you don’t want to, that’s fine, too. I mean, I think that’s part of it that, you know, I need to hear now is just because other people have really delicious, spicy sex lives doesn’t mean that mine has to look like that. Just because I’m on a podcast called Girl Boner doesn’t mean that I’m masturbating every day, twice a day. 

Sexuality, desire, it’s always fluid. It’s always changing.You know, at that time, I was very certain that I was a, you know, monogamous, heterosexual cis woman. And now like, yeah, that’s probably not at all true. Like, I’m very confident that I’m pansexual and probably on the asexuality spectrum, and that’s okay, too. And I can still have a healthy, fulfilling sex life, whatever that means to me. 

And I want other people to know that no matter where you are on these spectrums a) it can change, b) you are still valid, worthy and deserving of love, care, desire and compassion.

[acoustic chord riff]

August (narration):

Nora, another member of Renee’s team, told me about the last time she had sex with her ex—and how it turned out to be, spicy in…also unexpected ways.

Nora:

I was about to move from Georgia. And I just felt like we didn’t really fit in each other’s lives anymore. So I thought it was time to end things. And he was like, “Well, let me see you one more time.” And I was like, “Okay, great, cool one last time.” 

August (narration):

So they decided to get together. He would head to her place. 

By that point they had been together for two-and-a-half years—a lot longer than she had expected. Going into the relationship, she’d thought it would be a summer fling. But there they were, two-plus years later, acting as though everything was normal, one last time.

As she often did when he drove the hour-and-a-half to see her, she ordered pizza for the two of them to share once he arrived. And in a way, that pizza was a lot like their relationship—fun and interesting, but a mismatch. 

Nora:

The first incompatibility issue was that he liked pineapples and jalapenos on his pizza to begin with. 

August (narration):

So they had a half-and-half pizza. His side had pineapples and jalapeños, hers had anything but. Their personalities contrasted, too, much like their star signs.

Nora:

I’m a very moody Cancer, and he was a very emotionally detached Virgo. And he’s just like, “Why can you just be happy all the time?” 

August (narration):

Nora realized that that was causing a lot of issues in the relationship. She needed to feel her feelings, including the difficult ones. So this was it, the end, for sure. One last hoorah before they went their separate ways, likely involving sex.

Nora:

I kind of figured that was gonna be the course of the night out. We were just gonna have sex one last time. But at first, when he first got there, he pretended like nothing was a mess. I thought, Oh, well, maybe he just forgot the conversation we had when we decided we wanted to end things. And I was like, Okay, well, this is going to be normal. And we’re just going to have regular sex instead of like, goodbye sex. So that’s what I thought it was going to be just regular sex and not grand passion or anything, but it was definitely memorable.

August (narration):

Memorable because of how the sex started.

Nora:

So when we get back to my room, we’re kissing and making out like normal, and then he started undressing me. And he started to finger me, which was normal. His usual routine starts with fingering.

August (narration):

Within a few minutes, Nora realized something was very wrong. 

Nora:

And I’m just like, wait, what is this burning sensation? “Did you wash your hands?” 

August (narration):

He had not washed his hands, and his fingers had been all over hot peppers.

Nora:

I’m like, “You have to stop. We have to stop.” I’m running to the bathroom, splashing water in my vagina. I’m like, “Oh my god, this is terrible. I hate everything about this.”

August (narration):

It wasn’t like anything she had felt before.

Nora:

I guess the best way to describe it is just like if you eat jalapenos and your mouth is on fire –

August (narration):

It’s like that, but in your vagina. She kept flushing it out with water.

Nora:

Water is instantly cool. It’s like, Okay, I think it’s gone but, Oh, wait, nope. Still here! So it took about like five minutes of that and he’s like trying not to laugh. In the doorway of the bathroom like this is not funny. You did this to me.

August (narration):

Nora laughs about it some, but it really was so uncomfortable. 

Thank goodness, what followed was far more pleasurable. Kind of like a sweet dessert. After a break, they decided to continue having sex, with added caution this time. 

Nora:

I was like, “Wash your hands. And if you’re using your mouth, I need you to brush your teeth first too.”Because I was like, “I’m not taking any chances.” 

And it’s so weird because that’s usually our go to like he would come visit me on a Friday night we get pizza, he will always get pineapple jalapenos, but for some reason, this had to be the time where it just messed up everything.

August (narration):

Quite the finale for their relationship. 

Nora:  

Yes, it definitely ended with a bang. 

[acoustic chord riff]

August (narration):

Our last story today features Niba, from Renee’s team and also from Notes by Niba, where she creates and hosts videos about science. Niba told me she has a very “trash fire” love and dating life. 

She estimates that she’s been on over 200 first dates, and she tries to stay very open minded…which has led to some wonderful experiences and some doozies, such as this one.

Niba:

So I had just moved to a brand new state to start grad school. And I was like brand new state, brand new dating pool. So I went on this date with this guy, and he was so nice. We just like hit it off. We both spoke French and for some reason that was really nice. We both were into like sciency, techie things and so we had like some nerd vibes going on. 

And we go back to my place and as he’s dropping me off, he’s like, “I think I gotta use the bathroom.” And I was like, “Oh, sure. Like, come on in.” Keep in mind this is a brand new place. I’ve just moved in maybe like two or three days ago. So I don’t even have like a bed, which is actually not where this is going, weirdly enough, but he had to use the bathroom. 

Goes to the bathroom. I hadn’t really, you know, tested the limits of my sewage system yet, so to speak. And he’s in the bathroom for like an obscenely long time. And my roommate and I are hanging on the couch. And she’s like, “You know, Niba. He’s been in there for like a good 20-30 minutes. Like, is he okay?” And I’m like, “Well, maybe I should check on him at this point.” So I go over there and I like knock on the door. [knocking sounds] 

And he’s like, “Hey, I clogged your toilet.”  [starts to laugh]

And this is a brand new place. I just moved in. And because we had just moved in, we didn’t have a plunger. 

August (narration):

It was also nighttime. They had just returned from dinner and it’s late. 

Niba:

All the stores are closed. And I’m like, Okay, where the hell do I get this plunger from? 

So I decide, you know, this is kind of a little bit of an emergency. Maybe I should go and like just ask the neighbor, you know. It’s friendly. So I walk over to the neighbor and my first impression to this neighbor—I’ve never met him before—I just walk up to the door, knock on it, and I’m like, “Hey, I just moved in. My friend just like clogged my toilet. Do you have a plunger that I could borrow?” [chuckles] And he just kind of like looked at me for a second. And then he closed the door in my face. [laughs] He didn’t even say anything and I’m like, fuck, okay. 

So I just like went out and I went to the other neighbor and did the same thing and bless this like sweet old dude and his dog. He was like, “Yeah, totally. I got you. Like here’s the plunger. Please wash it before you like bring it back.” And I’m like, “Yeah, of course. Thank you.” 

I come back. Give him the plunger. And my date is, literally in my bathroom, plunging his own poop out of my toilet that is now clogged. And I don’t know what to do. Like what do you do in this situation? Do you offer to plunge the poop? Do you like go get a drink? Do you like continue the night? Like I am so confused. 

And so finally we end up, you know, plunging said poop. 

August (narration):

Niba wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself while he plunged; it definitely seemed like a one-person job.

Niba:

So I just kind of like stood next to him and made jokes about poop and prayed that like he still thought I was cool after it. 

It goes down the toilet, things are fixed. He cleans up the bathroom a little bit and the whole time I’m like, Bless him for not making me deal with this crap. Which really tells you how low the bar is because some men really would make women do that. And I’m not about that. But God, the stories. I just can’t. 

August (narration):

Niba summed the date up like this:

Niba:

Shittiest first date in the literal sense but he was super sweet, very nice. 

[acoustic chord riff]

Learn more about Feminist Book Club at feministbookclub.com and follow them on Instagram at @feministbookclubbox. 

[single chord strum]

Now, I’m going to wrap up with a few sexy product recommendations that you can find at The Pleasure Chest. I’ll dedicate one to each of today’s guests.

First, Renee, our peeing masturbator. For Renee I picked the Fascinator Velvish Throw. It’s a velvety, super absorbent blanket that you can lay down on your bed any time fluids of any kind are flowing. Rather than mess up your sheets, you get busy on the throw then toss it in the wash.

To Nora, and her I’ll dedicate the Intimate Earth Intense Clitoral Stimulating Serum. It contains something spicy—peppermint, not hot pepper—but it’s gentler and made for delicate skin. So instead of pizza upheaval, you can luxuriate in this serum that you apply to the clit just before sex for some light, sultry buzz. 

And in honor Niba and her kind toilet cleaner, I picked the b-Vibe Anal Training and Education Set. If you’re curious about butt stuff but aren’t sure where to start, this kit provides everything you need for safe and pleasurable bum play—or as the company says, “to prepare you for your anal odyssey.” It comes with butt plugs, lube, and an enema you can use for, well, advance plunging, as well as a guide with the step-by-step how to.

Find all of these accessories at thepleasurechest.com or click the links in the show notes. For more Girl Boner fun and to support this show and my mission of building my team and supporting more people, please join my community at patreon.com/girlboner. For just a few bucks a month you can get access to bonus segments, archived episodes you can’t find anywhere else, Ask Me Anything and more.

And if you’re enjoying Girl Boner Radio, I would love to hear from you by way of a rating and review. Thanks so much for listening and have a beautiful, Girl Boner-embracing week.

[outro music that makes you want to dance…]