Work it!

By Andrea Nemerson

› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

How do you do kegels correctly? I heard that you shouldn't contract your anus when you do them, but when I do them I can't help noticing something that sure feels like anal or rectal muscles contracting.

Love, Slightly Lost

Dear Slightly:

Poor Dr. Kegel. All he wanted was to help women fight the urinary stress incontinence that so often follows childbirth, and he somehow managed, albeit posthumously, to found an empire of misinformation (kegels will make you a multiorgasmic sex goddess), misapprehension (kegels should be performed with a full bladder) and false hopes of all sorts. Don't get me wrong: Well-toned pelvic muscles are the only way to avoid peeing your pants every time you sneeze or laugh, pre- or postpartum. And they can improve sexual pleasure to some extent — for both partners. But they are neither a panacea nor anywhere near as complicated as people make them out to be.

This is all sort of an oversimplification, but the sling of sinew in question, the pubococcygeus (PC) muscles, run from the pubic bone in front to the tailbone (coccyx) in back, supporting the pelvic organs. Since the muscles involve the anus as well as the vagina, you'd be hard-pressed to contract one without having at least some effect on the other. If you're paying close attention, though, you can somewhat isolate the specific muscles that contract the vagina (although the butt will still tighten a little) or the anus (the vagina will contract some). There are far more extensive instructions all over the Web and in books. Some kegel how-tos will tell you to exercise both areas separately; others will concentrate on the vaginal half of the setup. But I suggest avoiding those books or sites that promise sexual pleasures beyond all imagining — they're trying to sell you something that kegels can't help you find, either up your own pussy or anyone else's. Look for general women's health guides or sites about pregnancy and birth. These are far more likely to make promises they can actually keep, and will spare the good doctor from rolling in his grave quite so often, or so energetically.

Love,

Andrea

Dear Andrea:

My friends and I attended a "pleasure party" and in the catalog was this "virgin cream" that tightens your vagina as if it was the first time. How does it work? Does it work? Side effects? There's nothing on the bottle that indicates anything.

I ask because I do kegels on a regular basis, and I think I must be doing a good job because my partner of eighteen years (and two kids) says that I'm still tight. He insists that he would tell me if I wasn't. I asked him if I should use the cream and his only response was, "You can if you want, it really doesn't matter." I'm frustrated. Remembering to do the exercises is a pain and if this cream really works I would like to try it. I just don't want to spend the money if I don't have to.

Love,

Smart Shopper

Dear Shopper:

You don't have to. Not because the cream won't work (although it won't), but because even if it did work you wouldn't need it. Like the guys with six inches who lay out big bucks to improve a situation that is not only normal but fully acceptable to their partners, you are buying trouble, yet another way to waste money on something you don't need. I don't think much of anyone who would try to sell you an expensive tube of humbuggery at a "pleasure party," and if you see this person again you can tell her I said so.

I actually found a couple of different products, with different active (if there really is any activity, which I doubt) ingredients. One contained l-arginine, an amino acid with some potential benefits but no proven efficacy, and which shows up in nearly every sexual enhancement product out there, along with avena sativa (actual wild oats!) and "horny goat weed." The other ingredients are more in the line with the lumps of alum used for revirgination in Victorian porn stories about swarthy sheiks who kidnap naive heiresses and subject them to various bodily indignities until they escape, only to realize that they actually loved the sheik, not to mention the bodily indignities, and ... somebody stop me. These "tightening" preparations contain tannins, so they might work in rather the same way that tea bags do to reduce the puffiness that follows overenthusiastic partying. In other words, they may indeed tighten tissues at a surface level, but I wouldn't count on it, and they won't compete with kegels to effect any lasting tightening of the vaginal muscles.

In the world of sexual enhancements, it's so rarely a case of "you get what you pay for." More like "you get what you don't have to pay for but are unwilling to work at." Snake oil is expensive, easy, and does diddly; exercise is free, terribly boring, and efficacious. Take your pick.

Love,

Andrea