The title of my presentation was Talking and Teaching About Female Sexuality: What You Must Know To Educate Others.

What is some of the new research you have uncovered in this area?
Some of the new research indicates that the way that women feel about women’s genitals has a strong relationship with some of their health behaviors, such as going to the gynecologist, or some of their sexual behaviors, such as participation or orgasm from oral sex.

What is important about the Female Sexual Response Cycle?
Some important things that educators can take from learning about the female sexual response cycle include the fact that there is this amazing process called vaginal tenting, whereby the uterus tilts upward, thanks to muscular contractions, and it makes more space in the vagina, lengthwise and in terms of width. So as a woman becomes sexually excited by spending more time in foreplay, this process can happen, and it actually allows sex to feel more comfortable and more pleasurable for her. So for women who are feeling some discomfort or pain during sex, one thing that health educators can suggest is that women spend more time doing something that they enjoy sexually to allow this process of vaginal tenting and expansion to occur.

What important information can be learned from your presentation?
One thing that many people can benefit from learning is that there is not one “right” kind of orgasm. Often people get hung up on thinking about G-spot orgasms, vaginal orgasms, clitoral orgasms – when in fact there’s really no one “right” way, and there’s also no one type of orgasm. And that many people, even if they’re having a vaginal orgasm, may be experiencing that orgasm not only because of vaginal stimulation, but because of breast stimulation, some feelings of love or attraction or lust, or other types of stimulation on their vulva or outside of the woman’s genitals, that may feel exciting to them. A G-spot orgasm, for example, may result from stimulation of the G-spot, which is about one or two inches inside the vagina on the front wall, but also, again, from stimulation of other parts of the body. And in fact because the parts of the clitoris actually extend backwards into the body by a few inches – it’s much larger than meets the eye – most orgasms seem to involve the clitoris to some degree, maybe even all orgasms, the more that we learn about them.