Sex & Pancakes Review
That being said, I thought I’d do something a little different this week. I’ve recently realized that when I tell people I’m a sex educator they tend to immediately ask me the same two questions.
They either want to know the weirdest question I’ve been asked or what question I get asked the most—both of which I think come from an interest in what’s considered normal. Despite getting asked these questions a lot, I rarely have the answers ready, so I decided to reflect on them a bit and answer them here.
First, I can honestly say there isn’t a single question I’ve ever been asked that I consider weird. I’ve been surprised by some on rare occasions but I’ve never attributed a value judgment to a question.
I think that neutrality and openness are really important to what I do and when I’m asked a question all I’m thinking about is how to best answer it. Asking about sex can be very intimidating and I would never want this to prevent someone from approaching me with a question they have.
As for the most common questions I get asked, they can be summed up into three categories:
- Relationships: Most questions I get are actually about relationships. I used to have a pretty loose rule about staying away from relationship questions because my area of expertise is sex, but I’ve quickly realized that many sex questions are actually about the relationship. We’ve answered a lot of relationship questions on Link Radio and in most cases the answer to them comes down to communication. It may seem obvious, but most of us aren’t the greatest communicators when feeling vulnerable.
- How to be a better lover: It’s not surprising that many people want to know how to improve their sex life. These are questions about technique, positions, sex tips—anything in which the focus is on increasing their partner’s sexual pleasure or their own.
- Pain during sex: Questions about pain during sex have been really frequent this year. This can be a particularly complex issue to respond to since the causes can go from basic, such as needing to be more aroused or lubricated, to more complicated, such as physical or psychological health issues. I do my best to answer these questions, while always reminding people that a health professional should be consulted whenever in doubt.
While these are the most common categories, they definitely don’t cover the huge variety of questions I receive. It’s been amazing to get to write and talk about sexual health with you so I’d like to thank you all for reading, listening, sending in your questions and taking part in making this all happen each week!
—Melissa Fuller
If your question hasn’t been answered yet, be sure to check out the Sex & Pancakes blog and Facebook page to keep reading over the summer and submit any new questions you have at
Sex-pancakes.com.
Got a quick health question? Just need a resource? Text SextEd at 514-700-0445 for a confidential answer within 24 hours!
