Allison Moon - Getting It: A Guide to Hot, Healthy Hookups and Shame-Free Sex

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Like good sex, this book was a collaboration.

Thank you to my agent Alyssa Jeanette at Stonesong Press for being enthusiastic about my perversity.

Thanks to Kimmy Tejasindhu and Kaitlin Ketchum for their insights and guidance. You have made this book better, and in doing so, have made me a better writer. To Annie Marino and the rest of the team at Ten Speed Press, thank you for making this book real.

To Rachel Keller, Luke Tracy, and Zita Zenda, thank you for letting me go a little feral in your guest rooms.

A sincere thanks to Sandra Daugherty, Liz Wright, Stephen Penta, Lindsay Katt, Dirty Lola, Lauren Saville, and Angel Adeyoha, for providing valuable contributions, insights, and inspiration.

To the many anonymous bar and restaurant patrons, Twitter contributors, and passing acquaintances who offered voluminous opinions both solicited and unsolicited.

To the various pseudonymed folks who trusted me with their hearts and bodies over the past couple decades. I learned something from every one of you, and Im grateful for every experience I had with you, even the rough ones.

To my father, David, for making sure I was the one kindergartener in Catholic school who knew the words scrotum and vulva. To my mother, Betty, for encouraging me to pursue my dreams, though she was probably gunning for singer/songwriter. To my sister, Adrienne, and bro-in-law, Ken, for being proud of my sexual activism before I even knew what I was doing.

To Reid Mihalko, for consistently demonstrating unparalleled integrity of character, resilience, and patience. You are my anchor and my lighthouse. This book, like so much good in my life, would simply not exist without you.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Allison Moon is the author of five books, including the award-winning sex-ed guide Girl Sex 101, Getting It: A Guide to Hot, Healthy Hookups and Shame-Free Sex, and the erotic memoir Bad Dyke. Allison is a popular sex-educator who has presented her workshopson strap-on sex, cunnilingus, polyamory, sexual self expression, and moreto thousands of people around the United States and Canada. She currently lives with her partner in Oregon at the base of an active volcano.

EPILOGUE

Like most sex educators, Im constantly hearing peoples sex stories. Often Im the only person in the world theyve told. The stories are always fascinating and sometimes horrifying. Most of the stories start with a lieabout what was normal, what was right, or what so-and-so told them about sex.

Im thinking of Peter, the British nonagenarian who showed me the strap-on his favorite sex worker used with him when he visited her on leave during World War II. He never told his wife about it, but he told me. Im thinking of Vex, who was bound and kidnapped at the behest of her parents in the middle of the night, thrown into a van, and driven off to a conversion camp to get the gay tortured out of her. Theres Natasha, who suffered violent UTIs because her husband said he didnt like the smell of her vagina, so she douched with household cleaners and perfume. And theres June, who had her first orgasm at eighty-two years old, and wept in my arms lamenting all the time shed lost. There are hundreds more. All these stories began with a lie, but they persist because we fear talking to one another about sex.

We must change the narrative, starting with our friends, our lovers, and our families.

The world is terrifying right now. Our enemies prize shame and silence, and they encourage us to be competitors rather than collaborators. We must combat these forces by fighting for transparency, intimacy, collaboration, and joy.

We must learn from our mistakes, heal harm, and tend to our woundsboth individual and collective. We must use our strength and privileges to fight for the right of everyone to live sexually expressed lives. We must have difficult conversations and be willing to work always toward equity and love. We must bear witness to one another, and allow each other to be raw and human and beautiful and seen.

Sex itself isnt revolutionary. It is, in fact, one of the most mundane forces in the world. But the way we do it has the power to change everything.

Advocate for yourself. Support your friends. Seek out truth. Quash shame and rumors. Build a life that makes you feel embodied, joyous, and vital. Share your heart and body with those who treat it with love and respect, and endeavor to do the same for those who share theirs with you. The world we can build together is worth it.

RECOMMENDED READING

SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

Friedman, Jaclyn. What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girls Shame-Free Guide to Sex and Safety. San Francisco: Seal Press, 2011.

Queen, Carol. Exhibitionism for the Shy. San Francisco: Down There Press, 2009.

CONSENT

Fischel, Joseph J. Screw Consent: A Better Politics of Sexual Justice. Oakland: University of California Press, 2019.

Martin, Betty. The Wheel of Consent, wheelofconsent.org.

TECHNIQUE

Carellas, Barbara. Ecstasy Is Necessary: A Practical Guide. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2012

Chia, Mantak, and Douglas Abrams. The Multi-Orgasmic Man: Sexual Secrets Every Man Should Know. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.

Kerner, Ian. She Comes First: The Thinking Mans Guide to Pleasuring a Woman. New York: William Morrow, 2004.

Moon, Allison, and KD Diamond. Girl Sex 101. Lunatic Ink, 2018.

Nagoski, Emily. Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015.

RELATIONSHIPS

Brown, Adrienne Renee. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. Chico, CA: AK Press, 2017.

Chen, Ching-In, Jai Dulani, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities. Chico, CA: AK Press, 2016.

Chapman, Gary, and Jennifer M. Thomas. The Five Languages of Apology. Chicago: Northfield Publishing, 2006.

de Becker, Gavin. The Gift of Fear: And Other Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence. New York: Dell, 1998.

Donohue, Chris. Sex Outside the Lines: Authentic Sexuality and a Sexually Dysfunctional Culture. Dallas: Ben Bella Books, 2015.

Hardy, Janet W., and Dossie Easton. The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love. Emeryville, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2017.

Levine, Amir, and Rachel Heller. Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Findand KeepLove. New York: Tarcher, 2010.

Mellody, Pia. Facing Codependence. New York: Harper & Row, 2003.

Patterson, Kevin. Loves Not Color Blind. Portland, OR: Thorntree Press, 2018.

Richo, David. How To Be An Adult in Relationships. Boulder, CO: Shambala Publications, 2002.

Schulman, Sarah. Conflict Is Not Abuse:Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair. Vancouver, BC: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2017.

Van der Kolk, Bessel. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. New York: Viking, 2014.

Zehr, Howard. The Little Book of Restorative Justice. New York: Good Books, 2015.