How to Be a Great Lover: Girlfriend-to-Girlfriend Totally Explicit Techniques That Will Blow His Mind

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The Kama Lou Tra

HOW I CAME TO TEACH
THE SEXUALITY SEMINARS

"I can now throw out the message `If you're too
experienced or know too much — you're a slut.' I now see
that couldn't be further from the truth. There is such
power in owning one's sexuality and self."

FEMALE SEMINAR ATTENDEE,
WRITER/PRODUCER, AGE 39

Gathered in a boardroom in an elegant midtown private club, ten to fifteen women, ranging in age from early twenties to mid-fifties, stare at the table center. The table itself is laid with silver flatware, linen napkins, and fresh flowers. It's evening and the lighting is dim, provoking an air of expectancy.

    "Okay ladies, this will be the first of many choices you will have to make this evening." I stand at the head of a long, rectangular mahogany table.

    Some of the women are dressed in couture suits; others are dressed more casually, in slacks; others are still more casual, decked in a downtown hip look. The women are staring rather mutely at the center of the table, in which are placed a selection of what I affectionately call "instructional products" (better known as dildos).

    "Without being overly PC, please select the color of your choice — white, black, or mulatto — and the size you prefer — 8-inch, 7-inch, 6-inch, or the ever-so-popular 5-inch executive model."

    I hear a few peals of laughter and then I smile at the newcomers and say again, "Ladies, go ahead and choose an instructional product."

    A tall, lanky woman in her mid-forties says, "Do I have to choose what I have at home?"

    Gales of laughter follow. The women look around at each other and can't believe they are laughing so hard. I know now, after almost six years of conducting The Sexuality Seminars across the U.S. and in Canada, that this is the ice-breaking moment, when the women who have come to learn more about sex, and specifically, to learn how to become a better lover, begin to relax.

    How to Be a Great Lover is a cumulative extension of these seminars and includes not only what I have learned from my research, but also what I have learned from the many women who have attended the seminars. Throughout the book, you will hear their voices, as well as the voices of their men, sharing their experiences — woman to woman. As one woman, a fifty-five-year-old housewife from Seattle, told me, "I found out learning about sex isn't just for my children's generation. After my husband's death, I am dating again and at my age, I HAVE to know about safe sex."

    I want to be absolutely clear about the spirit with which this book was written. It was never my intent to sit down and create a book about how to please a man. While there is no point in arguing the fact that the man in your life will be a major beneficiary of the information found here, the real purpose is three-fold: to empower you as a woman, heighten the intimacy of your romantic relationship, and enable you and your partner to enjoy yourselves in intense new ways.

    While biology may have graced us with a basic understanding of how to have sex, we are not necessarily born great lovers. We learn to be great lovers. And I have always believed that anything worth doing is worth doing well. Wouldn't you agree that the better we are at something, the more we enjoy doing it? Sex is no different. It shouldn't be an experience just to get through, but rather an experience to be relished from beginning to end. For that to happen, you've got to know what you're doing.

    I also believe that every woman has the right to be sexually proficient. You'll find that knowing what to do to your man's body can provide you with as much power as it does pleasure. And contrary to what we've been made to feel in the past, there never has, nor ever will be anything unladylike about being masterful in the bedroom. The truth is, being sexually savvy is no less a part of being a woman than motherhood, and learning how to be a great lover is about excelling in all areas of womanhood.

    It's for these reasons, as well as the demand from the women in the seminars, that I decided to write a book that teaches women the art of sex, and I hope to give you extraordinary tools that will enable you to please your lover beyond his wildest expectations.

    The first place most of us learned about sex was in the company of our girlfriends. It is certainly the first place we laughed about it. Most of us can vividly recall squirming in uncomfortable silence while our mothers struggled to tell us the facts of life, or how we sunk deep into our chairs during health class, praying the teacher would spare us the humiliation of having to discuss the subject out loud. At the same time, we can also remember those wonderful Friday nights, sitting pajama-clad in a circle of five or six of our closest pals, listening intently as the girls with the older sisters shared amazing stories about what they'd seen and overheard through keyholes. We absorbed their tales as if they were gospel, giving far more credence to their words than those of our mothers and teachers. We may have giggled and acted shocked, but secretly we couldn't wait to experience sex for ourselves. Indeed, sex seemed like a fabulous, exciting adventure.

    Years later, when we were finally ready to act on our exciting adventure, we knew little more about how to proceed than what we could remember from the long, lost tales of those older sisters. We may have grown more comfortable with the thought of having sex, but we weren't any closer to really knowing what to do. Complicating matters further was the feeling that there was no place we could go for information about how to learn to do it, much less how to be good at it. Neither our mothers nor our health teachers ever included any specific how-tos in their sex education chats. We can't blame our mothers; I'd bet that if they weren't ignorant about techniques, they would still be way too embarrassed to get into the specifics with their daughters. And I doubt a teacher who taught sexual technique would last long in any school district.

    As confusing and difficult as it was for us to discuss sex back when we were young women, it only got worse as we got older. Not knowing what to do sexually as a young woman is uncomfortable and at times embarrassing, but it doesn't compare to the inadequacy we feel in having to ask questions on the subject once we've passed the age when were already supposed to know.

    Like me, many women have always felt embarrassed, even ashamed, for desiring to know more about sex or to improve their skills in this area. After all, what kind of young lady would want to be good in bed? In other words, how does she admit she wants to be good in bed, and remain a lady? For me, this dilemma goes back to the way I was raised: don't talk about sex, don't think about it, and above all, don't do it. So with that as my psychological imprimatur, how was I going to learn about sex? Men could learn how to be great lovers through experience. In fact, they were given kudos for it. What women were given for experience in this area, however, was a reputation. There's a complicated double bind here: on one end of the sexuality continuum, under what I call the "Don't Umbrella," we have the "don't ask because it's bad" attitude. On the other end of the continuum, we are taught that sex is a form of manipulation we should use to control our man.

    Neither of these options ever made sense to me. I wanted something in the middle: practical, real information that would enable me to feel comfortable sexually. I believe that sex should be an expression and celebration of my feelings, and all I wanted was to be brilliant at sex with the one man of my choice. It didn't seem like too much to ask.

    Where do we women usually go to develop sexual savviness? As one woman, an accountant from Chicago, said, "For most of us, the level of our sexual prowess is only as good as that of our best lover — and we might have left him behind in high school."

    So how do nice girls like us go about learning about sex? The most obvious place is from the man or men in your life, especially those who introduce us to our first sexual experiences. Often men are sexually active at a younger age than women, so we depend on them to show us the ropes. Unfortunately, they usually don't have teaching on their minds. Being goal-oriented, they just want to have an orgasm. If an orgasm is out of the question, their next focus is getting as close to it as possible. Young men like to see how far we'll allow them to go. They may know how to do it, but not necessarily how to do it well. So ideally, it is in a long-term relationship, where we (finally) may feel comfortable enough to ask questions and experiment, that we learn the most.

    Another route to sexual knowledge is to practice on as many different men's bodies as possible, and perhaps, through trial and error, we may arrive at some confidence in our know-how. However, I believe that, with what we know today about sexually transmitted diseases, that is not a wise choice. The risk of AIDS and other STDs lurk dangerously close to home. But, if you're like most of us, becoming intimate with lots of different men is something you just may not be comfortable with, and for those of us in a committed relationship, this isn't an option at all.

    For me, once I decided I wanted to learn more about what to do sexually, I went searching for a source that would help me master these skills, just as I had mastered other skills in my life. As I mentioned before, I'm a firm believer in the adage that anything you're going to be doing regularly is worth doing well. And of all the things a woman should want to be her best at, loving a man intimately seemed a logical priority. At the time, I was on the brink of my first truly romantic adult relationship with a man I'd hoped to be with forever (it didn't turn out that way, but that's another story altogether). And with my unwavering curiosity, I began a determined quest for reliable information about sex that made sense to me and wouldn't infringe on my values. The first place I turned was to books, and by virtue of its erotic reputation, my first stop was The Kama Sutra.

    Long considered one of the oldest and most definitive written sources on sexual technique and pleasure, The Kama Sutra was originally compiled in the fourth century A.D. It was put together by a Brahmin and religious scholar named Vatsyayana, who gathered his material from texts dating back to the fourth century B.C. Since then, the work has been updated and appended several times and translated into many different languages. I'd heard about The Kama Sutra for years, and it always evoked a vision of sensual eroticism in my mind. When I finally opened the book and began to read, I was very surprised, for two reasons. The first factor that shocked me about this engaging and abundant work was the uninhibited view of sexuality in ancient India. The book's depiction of sexual acts between men and women made me wonder why and how sex ever got to be the taboo subject it has become in modern times. Furthermore, The Kama Sutra openly and unabashedly covers such topics as romance, marriage, adultery, bigamy, group sex, prostitution, sadomasochism, male and female homosexuality, and transvestism.

    The second aspect of The Kama Sutra that struck me is the uselessness of its information for contemporary women. This is not to say the book isn't fascinating, because it is. It's also highly entertaining. Furthermore, The Kama Sutra is a beautifully detailed representation of this antediluvian Indian culture. But rather than serving as a guide to sexual technique for both sexes as it has been billed, it's more accurately a coming-of-age handbook for upper-class adolescent boys and young men in fourth-century India. The Kama Sutra discusses what were then the three aims in a man's life (virtue, wealth, love) and how they can be acquired through the mastery of erotic touch. For example, the book describes the conduct of a well-bred townsman (he must bathe regularly and keep a separate bed in his room to use with prostitutes), as well as explains the fine art of seducing a girl (including how to scratch, bite, and administer blows to her back and head). The book even provides advice and proper etiquette for those particularly delicate situations such as dealing with more than one wife at a time, and seducing other men's wives.

    The Indian culture depicted in The Kama Sutra clearly placed great value on sexual expression and fulfillment. Erotic pleasure was considered divine, and the desire to provide it was every bit as consuming as the desire to receive it. Still, The Kama Sutra has a decidedly male perspective. While much attention is given to the techniques of pleasuring a woman, it is obvious the information recorded here was gained through observation rather than conversation. It is unlikely that the women on whom these writings are based were actually consulted about what it is that puts them into a divine state. Let me give you an example. Part Two of The Kama Sutra is devoted to "amorous advances." The following is excerpted from the chapter on embraces:

Lying on his side, either he rests his best limb on her as on a brood mare, or else lying on top of her, the part of his body below the navel resting on the girl's pubis, he presses his instrument against her without penetrating her. At that moment, the girl's sex opens out, overexcited, particularly if she has a large organ. Thrusting his groin firmly against the girl's pubis, he seizes her by the hair and stays crouched over her in order to scratch, bite, and strike her.

    Does that sound like something pleasurable to you? Even those who enjoy sex a little bit rough at times, or who view spanking as something erotic, wouldn't take kindly to being pinned down like a brood mare in order to be scratched, bitten, and hit. Still, I don't think that women at the time, unlike in modern India, were as disrespected as they were misunderstood. In spite of such slights toward women, in Vatsyayana's original version of The Kama Sutra, women were nonetheless held in high esteem. The book makes it very clear that, from a man's perspective, being desired by a woman was considered an honor, and the seduction of a woman was a form of art. However, art, as we all well know, is and always has been a very subjective phenomenon. As the saying goes, One man's trash is another man's treasure. Or, as the case may be, one man's perspective isn't necessarily another woman's pleasure.

    My reason for sharing this particular excerpt from The Kama Sutra was to show you how easy it is to get irrelevant information in the area of sexual technique. And while I learned a lot about fourth-century Indian culture and picked up some very vivid tips on positions from it, The Kama Sutra was neither what I expected, nor what I needed. And so my quest for practical sexual knowledge continued.

    I soon found other books, some of which provided a modicum of useful information. I was in search of information about what men found most exciting and why, and perhaps even more importantly, what techniques were known to be successful, in easy-to-understand explanations, telling me exactly how sexual acts were done. Where did people put their thumbs? What did they do with their tongues? What were they actually doing? In bookstores and libraries, mostly what I saw were tomes on sexual history with pictures or drawings of men and women in positions that seemed unnatural, uncomfortable, and in no way right for me. Even if I could have followed the accompanying instructions, I felt certain one or both of us would have ended up in traction much sooner than in sexual bliss.

    In all fairness, there were a few bright lights on the horizon. Books such as The Sensuous Woman by "J," The Happy Hooker by Xaviera Hollander, and Alex Comfort's The Joy of Sex presented information in a way that appealed to me — as if sexual interaction and the desire to be good at it was something perfectly natural for everyone. In these books, the bodies depicted seemed like they belonged to normal people, and the sexual scenarios also seemed realistic, like they possibly could have taken place somewhere other than Fantasy Island. And I did learn something: before reading The Sensuous Woman, I had never even heard of oral sex!

    But as much as I enjoyed all three of these books, reading them was like watching television on mute: the pictures were helpful, but there weren't enough specific details on how to achieve these results in my own bedroom.

    The next place I went for practical advice was to the movies. While Hollywood does a good job of providing ideas on how to create a sensual atmosphere in scenes in some of the R-rated movies, when it comes to actual sex scenes, directors cut away to exuberant facial expressions, followed by two people basking in the afterglow, without offering a single lesson in how that radiant afterglow was achieved. When the movies ended, I felt frustrated by the mere thought of the actors having information that I didn't. The fact that the men and women involved were only acting did little to quench my thirst for their knowledge, whether it was real or imaginary.

    In my search for sexual know-how, I turned next to pornography. This is a $1-billion-a-year business and the majority of consumers are men. Therefore, porn movies are a logical place to research what turns men on sexually. And I must say, you do get to see what's going on in porn films. Unlike in mainstream movies, an X rating pretty much guarantees that all the action takes place on top of the sheets, rather than underneath them. But after watching a few of them, I found the films all began to merge and look alike and I was as bored as I was saddened.

    I was turned off by the way women were represented in most of the films. It wasn't that what they were doing felt wrong to me, for I expected to see explicit sexual acts being done in a variety of positions and to hear language not found in my everyday vocabulary. As far as I'm concerned, at times there is a place for even the raunchiest sex between consenting adults. Rather, I was disappointed in the total lack of romance, love, caring, and respect between the men and women depicted in the films.

    The sex in porn movies is all performance with no connection of spirits. The men and women barely have personalities. I was sincerely open to looking at all the ways I could be sexually masterful and alluring, but that didn't mean being reduced to a sexual mechanic. Nor did it include sharing my body or my man with other people. That would defeat the purpose of sexual intimacy entirely.

    For me, there are at least two problems with porn movies as an education source: first, the objectification of women completely destroys any sense of the intimacy most of us crave in our sexual encounters; and second, porn movies present only a male view, portraying what visually turns men on. There's a small problem: they forgot to consider consulting 50 percent of the participants — us women.

    When I have asked men what they get from watching porn films, they tell me they use them to "get the juices flowing" or "to get ideas for positions." One seasoned infomercial producer told me, "I use them to compare how I'm doing, and measure my performance." But for us women, using porn as a guide to finding out what we like and are comfortable with is at best, inaccurate and at worst, laughable.

    So again, I had struck out in my quest to find a useful and appropriate source for further sexual education. I was caught between a rock and a hard place. I really wanted to be good in bed, but not at the expense of my values. I hadn't found anywhere that, for lack of a better term, nice upstanding women could go to in order to learn how to express their love for a man in a physical manner, or to have their sexual questions answered. It just wasn't done.

    Finally, at my wit's end, I decided to go straight to the source: enter my dear friend, Bryan. The truth of the matter was that the forever love I mentioned earlier and I had long since broken up, but I was optimistic that at some point in my life, I'd get another crack at love and romance. And I wanted to be ready. I could talk to Bryan about anything, and his being gay meant that the subject wasn't the least bit dangerous for either of us. In other words, there was no chance of his leering at me and saying, "I'll show you, baby." He empathized with my problem and wanted to point me in the right direction.

    Over several cups of café latte at his house, Bryan asked me what it was that I wanted to know, and why I hadn't asked my boyfriend what he wanted in bed. I said to him, "Bryan, how can you ask for what you want to know, when you don't even know what that is?" I told him that I was comfortable with my knowledge about intercourse, but it was the other stuff men liked that I wanted more information on. The more information I have, the higher my comfort level, and the higher my comfort level, the more confidence I have. I knew that with more knowledge on oral and manual techniques, I'd be able to express my love more creatively, and in a way that better represented the depth of my feelings.

    Bryan didn't laugh or make fun of me. All he said was, "Then you've got to know one thing: for me, the key to great sex is in the foreplay." He explained that when it comes to making love, intercourse is just the tip of the iceberg, and that the foundation of amazing lovemaking lies in foreplay. That's where the great lovers are separated from the mediocre ones. This made sense to me. I knew foreplay was the key to exciting sex for women, so why shouldn't that be true for men?

    As we sat in his house over lattes, Bryan picked up his spoon and told me to do the same with mine. Pretending it was a penis, he showed me what feels good to men. He explained which areas of the penis are extra sensitive, requiring a gentle touch, as well as those areas where more pressure should be applied for maximum results. He also showed me some creative things to do with my hands, tongue, and throat that would create a variety of sensations in just the right places. Bryan's explanations were clear and logical. The great part was that I soon found they didn't suffer in the translation from spoon to penis.

    That first real sexual lesson was back in 1985 and to this day, it was the best latte I ever had. There was one particular move Bryan showed me that I can honestly say has never failed me. And all the women in my seminars who have tried it on their men say exactly the same thing. I call it "Ode to Bryan," in memory of my dear friend Bryan who has since passed away. (You'll find out precisely how the "Ode to Bryan" is done in Chapter 6.)

    There is no way I could have imagined what kind of impact that conversation with Bryan would have on my life. I certainly never dreamed it would turn into a career. But the transformation in my way of being with and relating to men was profound. It provided me with the confidence I needed to explore my own sexuality. For a long time, I kept the information to myself. It wasn't intentional; I guess I just didn't realize or think about how many other women could relate to the same frustrations when it came to sexual know-how.

    One night in 1993 while visiting with a couple of girlfriends, I got to talking with them about sex, our love lives, and men in general. Somewhere in the midst of the conversation, one of them mentioned that the sex had not been everything she had hoped it would be between her and her fiancé. The problem, she said, was hers. Here she was, about to get married, and she had little confidence in her sexual ability beyond intercourse. She was reluctant to try anything at which she might fail. My other friend empathized, sheepishly admitting that she didn't know exactly what to do, either. They both said lack of knowledge made them feel awkward and inhibited in bed. But what were they going to do? There wasn't a place where women who valued their reputations and self-respect could go to learn sexual techniques.

    Yes, there is, I told them, wondering to myself if Bryan was looking down from heaven at that moment. Right here. I got out three spoons and began to talk. I showed them everything Bryan had shown me, and added a few moves I'd come up with myself. We laughed until the wee hours of the morning, exchanging ideas and sexual anecdotes about all the wrong information we'd gotten in the past. Nothing could have prepared me for what was to follow. Within a week I got phone calls from both of my friends, saying that the things I showed them that night had actually led to dramatic improvements in their sex lives already! They referred to me as The Kama Lou Tra and said I should consider going into the business of teaching nice women about sex.

    I became interested in learning about and enjoying good sex, but with HIV and AIDS an unfortunate reality, I also wanted to know how to have sex safely. Soon I was holding informal focus groups and the idea of writing a book on safe sex in the nineties began to emerge. In the focus groups, I asked women what questions they had on the subject of sex. Their responses blew me away: I had not been alone in either my curiosity or my lack of knowledge about sex. And while they, too, were concerned about sexual safety, they were, like me, interested in sexual mastery. They believed that being a great lover was very much a part of being a great woman.

    That's how it all started. The evolution into The Sexuality Seminars began slowly, with those friends telling other friends about the information they received. Pretty soon I was giving seminars several nights a week after work. After a while, the phone was ringing off the hook and I was getting so many requests that I ended up quitting my regular job and committing full time to developing and giving the workshops. I have to admit that at first, I wasn't comfortable with this new image of myself. It took some getting used to the fact that I was suddenly an expert on sex. Today, as a sex educator, I give seminars all over the country and throughout Canada. The business has expanded beyond women to include seminars for men, couples, and specialty groups such as bridal showers, bachelor parties, and birthdays.

    Every seminar is an exchange of ideas. Much like a snowball rolling down a hill, the seminar information base grows with every good idea I hear. There has yet to be one in which I didn't learn something new, and I don't expect there ever will be. So, although I lead those seminars, the information I deliver has come from innumerable sources. I can't emphasize enough how much sharing of information goes on in the seminars, and as you read the book, you will hear, see, and feel how the women exchange their ideas, build their knowledge, and develop their confidence in becoming good, dare I say expert, lovers. You'll also hear directly from men: what they like and what turns them on most. I bet some of their responses will indeed surprise you.

    The heart and premise of these very confidential seminars (no disrobing is permitted) was to create a safe, respectful place for women to exchange ideas on sexuality that they knew worked. And when women shared what they knew with others it in turn validated and expanded what they already knew. Chances are you will recognize some of these techniques as your own, or very similar to your own. Outstanding! If you find yourself already familiar with any of these techniques, that's great. Simply move on to the next or compare notes with how yours is done. Though I have led these seminars for over five years, I still hear something new in each and every one of them. How? By always staying open and ready to learn. The women who come to the seminars feel the same way. One woman, a Russian emigre, said, "This is my fourth seminar and I can't believe how much I can still learn. I came again for a refresher." At the beginning of the seminar, the ladies think I am the one who knows; by the end, they feel as if they are the ones who know.

    How to Be a Great Lover draws on the thousands of interviews I've conducted and scientific research I've reviewed over the past fifteen years, and is a compilation of what I have learned listening to the myriad women who have attended the seminars. The women come to share, listen, and learn, and it's in this spirit that the book is written. The seminars continue to grow, with women learning about them from word of mouth (so far, I have not done any direct marketing).

    Regardless of your present experience or level of inhibition, there is something here for you. The book has a lot of fresh ideas about the sensual basics of romantic ambiance, kissing, intercourse, and safety. But the juice is found in the chapters on oral and manual stimulation. I've found this area to be where women seem to have the least amount of confidence in their sexual ability. If you've been less than secure in this area, you won't be much longer. Here you'll find easy-to-follow instructions on many hand and mouth techniques, the results of which (according to seminar participants nationwide) will blow his mind. For those who enjoy a little whimsy in the bedroom or who have been curious about sexual toys and how to use them, the final chapter of the book was created just for you. After reading, you may just find yourself the recipient of a brand new strand of pearls — that is, once he finds out how you intend to use them.

    It is difficult to adequately capture with words the kind of power you feel from having the ability to put the person you love in total ecstasy. When I say power, I don't mean having power over your lover (although men have been known to become slaves to Ode to Bryan). I'm talking about a kind of selfless power that comes from knowing that you know. Once you are assured of your knowledge, all aspects of your relationship with your husband, lover, or boyfriend will change significantly. As you become physically closer, you'll find the boundaries of your intimacy expanding on every level. There is no greater spiritual exchange between two people than that of lovers loving well.

    If I can contribute to furthering this kind of joy in any way, then even on my worst day I've still got the best job in the world.