So, I met this nice straight couple. He’s 30 and she’s 27. They discovered a copy of More Joy of Sex in their apartment upon moving in. What an eye opener for them.
They had never heard of cunnilingus, fellatio, analingus, frottage, and a slew of other terms, not to mention positions. She was vociferous about her unwillingness to let him at her back door. But I digress…
Is it common for adults to be so uneducated about sex and sexual terms?
I didn’t know those words existed, much alone knew what they meant, up until a year ago.
I knew a girl who simply refused to believe “beaver” was suggestive.
Hastor, did they not know the acts by their proper names, or did they just not know about the acts at all?
I knew about blowjobs long before I heard the term fellatio. And I just learned the term cunnilingus recently, though I could always tell you about eating a girl out or carpet munching or muff diving etc.
So were they ignorant to the complete acts, or just the proper names?
A little bit from column a and a bit from column b. Perhaps it is because I am gay and researched a great deal to understand my sexuality and sexuality in general. I guess I thought everyone knew the basic mechanics and more.
I was never given a book and I never had “The talk”. I think I pretty much learned everything about sex, from peers in elementary school. The basics at least. Then more knowledge came with higher grade levels. The problem was that when you learn things from peers, you learn words like dick and pussy, not penis and vagina; salad tossing, booty sex, not analungus and… wait, what is the proper term for booty sex? Oh yeah, sodomy. See…
When teachers step in with the formal sex education weeks they teach you all about penis, vagina, menstrual cycle, clitoris etc. But they do not introduce “Fellatio” and “Analungus”. So it is not uncommon for people to only know the terms by their slang names.
I would not find it hard to believe that a person does not know the proper terms. But if I said something about a blowjob and someone was shocked and confused about the fact people suck penis, I would find that very odd. Those people must be very sheltered.
There was a guy in my eighth-grade class who thought that ‘dildo’ was another word for ‘condom’.
I’ve known the terms cunnilingus and felatio for some time. I learned of analingus last year (Thanks, Straight Dope! :))
But I still don’t know what frottage means. it sounds like some sort of dessert, involving whipped cream, served fondue style.
Actually, in some places I think it is…
“I know all the awesome things about bringing an unwanted baby into the world, and would wear a protective dildo.” - Sue Townsend, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole
…who is British.
I suspect Sue Townsend was just pointing up that fact that sweet little 13 1/2 year old schoolboys sometimes get things a little mixed up.
WTF is frottage?
For a thirteen y/o, I know a lot… Don’t blame me though, blame the fact that at one point, the only reading my dad’s house had was ‘Sex for Dummies’. So I knew what those terms were when I was 12 (don’t shun me!)
Frottage is French for rubbing. In a sexual context it’s a somewhat archaic term (I’ve generally seen it in Victorian era porn) for masturbating and/or massaging your lover.
I think there are a lot more people out there who are ignorant of sexual knowledge than perhaps we would like to admit. A few years ago a friend told me that one of her (female) flatmates did not know what a clitoris was, or where it was located. More recently, someone I know well Who Will Not Be Named asked a mutual friend what “oral sex” was (this being in response to Clinton/Lewinsky). Did she not get the shock of her life. Both these women were in their mid-to-late 20’s. In both cases, a strong undercurrent of Evangelical Christianity was suspected…There are other evangelicals I’ve known who were similarly “innocent.”
Well, I may* know* what those terms mean, but that doesn’t mean I want to do all of them. I’m all good with oral sex…but analingus? Call me repressed, but ewww. And I can speak for both the Llama and myself when I say that anal sex–“letting him in the back door”–is a Hell No proposition. DeathLlama actually has an even stronger aversion to it than I do.
I can say that the Llama has been an education about new terms for oral sex before; “hummer” was completely foreign to me. I don’t remember what else…but as much as I keep learning, there still seems to be an inordinate amount left to enlighten me.
Frottage… I keep thinking “frottage cheese”. No, I don’t want any.
I’d heard of cunnilingus and fellatio and their more vulgar terms before. Didn’t know about frottage, but knew the subject matter.
However, much of my education on some of these matters I owe to the Straight Dope, and the dedicated efforts of the numerous dopers. Just think how empty my life was before I learned about felching. And squicking. (Bask in the sarcasm.)
I think there are many people without a vast knowledge of the truly diverse sexual practices out there. Hell, I bet there are some who can’t figure out what “doggie style” means.
I’m sure a strong evangelical christian background is one factor. And probably being gay leads to learning about more diverse practices - you’re already breaking taboo, might as well experiment a little.
And I think Bear_Nenno makes a great point - most people are getting their sexual knowledge from their peers in high school. They aren’t going to learn the sophisticated terminology for those acts from their buddies on the football team.
But what do I know about sex?
Well, I’ve known most of the proper terminology for quite a while, but that’s just because I compulsively research anything and everything, not just sex. You can learn a lot by reading through the dictionary and encyclopedia, and not necessarily things of which Pat Bucchannon would approve.
On the other hand, I simply cannot understand some of the misconceptions that people have. I can understand entirely not knowing the word, but how can a woman not know that she has a clitoris, for example? Even if she’s so repressed as to never look or touch “down there”, don’t her clothes rub a little funny on occasion, and she notices it?
I think that sex and sexuality has been repressed for so long in so many years (dispite the 60’s) that it is hard for many people to admit their feelings and needs. I think that a lot of people just pretend they know what is going on when they are younger because they are embarrassed to admit to their friends that they don’t know what it means. This leads to getting into adult hood, not knowing what stuff is and being too uncomfortable to find out.
My sweetie and I just bought ‘The Idiot’s Guide to Amazing Sex’ (I would recommend it). We have learned a lot and it has brought us closer because we are more open.
I say we take it upon ourselves as members of the SDMB to educate the world about the beauties of the sexual dictionary. Hopefully there will be many young men who need some instuction. 
I know everything there is to know about sex.
Except, that is, what it feels like to actually do it.
By the way, frottage is usually referring to rubbing against each other to orgasm while fully clothed. i.e. dry-humping. It’s more of a fetish, though, really.
Just when I thought there was nothing left for me to learn, I found this board!!! Felching, squicking…there is a whole world of sexual activities going on that I knew NOTHING about!!!