Secrets often cover shame.  So what am I ashamed of that I have never told?  Voting for Richard Nixon.  When I first got the vote, I was young and raised in a Republican household where all followed  the path of staunch Republican ancestors.   I would argue with my very Republican father, but did vote for Nixon when he was first elected.

Now what is very interesting is that I make no secret about many other things I’ve done.  Many think I am too open.   Masturbating is  the  example that probably shocks  most people.  Even some of my graduate students were unhappy with my ideas on that subject.

Masturbation  remains a big “No-No” but is probably a surer way to prevent hasty entry into intercourse.  During my years as a teenager lover’s lane was full of boys and girls finding release in mutual masturbation.  It provided great lessons in foreplay while preventing pregnancy and letting many brides wear white on their wedding days.   I think  mutual masturbation  allowed Bill Clinton to believe he was not being unfaithful.   I know Monica was getting her thrills if only a mind f—.

When I suggested in my first book  When Good Kids Do Bad Things that the Big M might be a  useful to think about if you worried about a child’s early entrance into full intercourse, my book was banned in Christian Book Stores.  One carefully phrased paragraph was too offensive to the fundamentalists ears.   The same force is now editing Huck Finn.

Interestingly Judiasm comdenms “spilling your seed” but that leaves masturbation open for women.   One other point on one of my favorite subjects.  Men who eventually can’t get it up and out, may be the main source of prohibitions against women’s sexuality.  It is called a reaction formation in my profession.   I am so grateful I remain a woman and can have an orgasm when I want, not just when my husband can perform.  My retirement project is a novel about celtic women who were probably the freest sexually until the Roman Church gained control.  It is a raunchy tale and probably won’t get published, but I am having one whale of a good time writing it and the sex scenes turn my husband on.

Staying  strong.

Write about one thing you’ve never told anyone and explain why.

Curious to see how many respond, because this will be a hard one for many people.  Stay strong.  Hope I am showing one way to do it.