At her sex ed workshops, Jessica Drake passes around a box with the words “live, laugh, love” printed on it. Inside are index cards of sex questions that people have written to Jessica under the cover of anonymity. During the workshop, she reads them out loud, and then answers them with compassion and useful tips from her experience directing and starring in adult films.
Drake’s workshops are mainly geared towards heterosexual couples, and touch on similar topics as Jessica Drake’s Guide To Wicked Sex, her line of instructional DVDs. So the questions tended to reflect the sorts of things that that straight couples might be interested in, but have no idea how to approach. Case in point: the majority of the questions when I attended were about how to have anal sex. Drake addressed the discomfort that men and women might have about the topic with compassion.
“If you’re reluctant to have anal sex, why might that be?” she asked. “Or if a woman doesn’t want to have anal sex, why?”
She wrote down the answers on a dry erase board: pain, mess, bacterial infections, stigma, and reciprocity were some. Then she addressed each issue with care.
“Pain shouldn’t really be an issue,” she said. “I tell people all the time that it’s a completely different sensation. It’s something you have to get used to.”
She stressed that pain was important because it tells us when something is wrong, but that lots of lube helps make the act feel more enjoyable, especially a water based product that has the viscosity to provide a cushion between one’s butt and penis. So does trying positions where the woman is on top, or both people are spooning, allowing the woman to control the depth and speed. This is unlike doggy style, a position that looks good on camera, but which is not necessarily great for those just starting to have anal sex.
For mess, there’s the simple solution of taking a shower, or the more thorough precaution of having an enema, a process that Drake explained step-by-step. In terms of bacterial infection, Drake stressed the important of not going back and forth between anal and vaginal intercourse, whether it’s with your penis or with toys.
Drake addressed questions about reciprocity in anal sex with a steady calm too. “I think it’s all a matter of an introduction,” she said, suggesting that people not to bring up anal sex or another type of act as something to do right away, but by discussing it over a romantic dinner, by watching a movie about it, and “build it up like it’s a fantasy,” without having to commit to trying it right away.
Drake started getting into sex ed not only to give sex tips, but because of fans approaching her, asking if there was something wrong with them or their partner. She discovered that they were trying to model their sex lives after porn — which wasn’t as easy as it looked.
She takes great care to dispel such myths.
For example, when you cut to an anal scene in porn, you usually don’t see the actress wearing a butt plug in the makeup chair to prepare, or you don’t see the foreplay that goes on before the camera starts rolling. In porn it’s all urgent and immediate — which is sexy, but is also a fantasy. Urgent, immediate, wild sex takes some prep.
You also don’t see the consent conversation that happens between actors as to what they like, and what they won’t do in a scene. This is important — consent is a huge deal and Drake covers it in detail in her DVDs.
“Guys are like, ‘How do I make my wife or girlfriend have anal sex?’ Jessica recalled. “It’s easy, you don’t make anyone do anything.” Instead, she explained, you figure out if they’d be into it through an open conversation, and go from there.
She also makes sure that men — who often feel pressure to measure up literally and metaphorically to what they see in porn — don’t have to like everything they see.
“I’ve had guys speak up in seminars and really you can tell that they’re really grossed out [by anal sex],” she explained. “And I tell them, ‘If you’re that squeamish, you shouldn’t be having anal sex. That’s just the reality of the situation.’”
Drake’s career and fanbase put her in a unique position to talk about sex with authority, to breakdown stigmas, and to bring important conversations (like consent) to the fore. Here’s the best part: it seems to be helping people.
