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It’s called “Oh, ohh, ohhh! Female Pleasure, Desire and Orgasms” and it’s just one of the workshops sex educator Megan Andelloux offers and now her sassy presentation are causing a stir in Connecticut.
Anthony Cannella, a Central Connecticut State University associate professor who criticized Megan’s presentation at the unversity said: “I think it’s a lot of pandering and unnecessary titillation. I don’t think kids need any more encouragement than they already have. It’s sort of irresponsible in my view. It’s really disingenuous to say that it’s mainly education.”
Megan Andelloux is a nationally Certified Sexuality Educator (CSE) through The American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists, an HIV educator and a Board Certified Sexologist through The American College of Sexologists. For more on Megan, visit www.ohmegan.com.
PLEASE NOTE: I misspoke during this interview….if you watch pornography you CAN indeed have orgasms. You really can. My apologies. Pornography and orgasms can be lovely things.
There’s little mystery behind a lecture called Fornication 101. But, there is plenty of debate about it at Central Connecticut State University.
A sex educator named Megan Andelloux is giving the lecture, which she tells The Hartford Courant is a “study of how people experience the erotic and express themselves as sexual beings with an emphasis on jollies, attitude awareness, sexual skill building and health.”
Andelloux has talked at dozens of schools, including Yale, Wesleyan and the Universities of Connecticut and said she’s never gotten negative comments about her work before, but she’s been receiving e-mails calling her “disgusting” and that she was contributing to immorality, the Courantreports.
Professors at CCSU are also putting their opinions on a university listerv.
Mark McLaughlin, a spokesman for the university, told the Courant he thinks the negative reaction is based on misconceptions that taxpayer money is being used to pay for the lecture. TheRuthe Boyea Women’s Center on campus and is sponsoring the event, which is paid for with private donations.
The spokesman also thinks people are confusing the lecture with an academic course and that it’s about sex rather than sexuality.
“We feel, despite the provocative title, her presentation really does focus on health, sexual consent, and providing a frank and open, factual presentation designed to appeal to college students,” McLaughlin told the Courant.
NEW BRITAIN, Conn. — A new controversial sex seminar that could be coming to Central Connecticut State University in New Britain is raising eyebrows. It’s an explicit seminar that’s also offered at a number of other schools in the state.
This one-hour presentation put on by a Rhode Island based sexologist was initially slated to come to campus last week.
Fornication 101 is a seminar that promised to help participants “experience the erotic attitude awareness and sexual skill building.”
“It doesn’t seem to be a bad thing,” said student Ethan Pelletier. “We’re all adults here.”
Many different topics were to be discussed in a steamy sexology seminar slated to come to campus at CCSU before being canceled last week.
Certified sexologist Megan Andelloux, also known as Ms. Sexuality Speaker, tours universities talking about adult sex education.
One concerned woman in Meriden emailed Eyewitness News saying she was appalled her tax dollars would support such an offensive program, but school officials said the program was privately funded.
According to a university official, funds for the $600 presentation would come from private donations given to the Ruthe Boyea Women’s Center in support of its educational mission.
Taxpayer dollars are not used.
Despite the provocative title, the presentation clearly focuses on health, sexual consent and on providing a frank, open, positive and factual presentation designed to appeal to college-age students.
Officials said the seminar hasn’t been re-scheduled, but according to the sex educator’s website, she’ll be on campus in March.
Sexuality educators set the record straight: “Talking about sexuality does not increase sexually transmitted infections” despite what non-experts report.
Contact: Megan Andelloux
HiOhMegan@gmail.com
401-345-8685
Contact: Aida Manduley
Aida_manduley@brown.edu
787-233-0025
In yet another attempt to shut down access to quality sex education, South-Eastern New England conservative advocates hit the sex panic button in a multi-state, email and phone campaign to colleges all over New England last week.
On February 3rd and 4th , certified sexuality educator and sexologist Megan Andelloux (AASECT, ACS) received word that numerous colleges and university faculty received a document stating that colleges who brought sex educators such as Ms. Andelloux onto their campuses were linked to the increasing rate of transmission of HIV in RI. Furthermore, among other misleading “facts” that were “cited,” the author of this bulletin claimed that Brown University was facing an HIV crisis, which is false.
Citizens Against Trafficking, the face behind the fear-mongering, spammed numerous local institutions from a University of Rhode Island account with its latest malicious missive that targeted specific individuals as well as Brown University. The author of the letter, Margaret Brooks, an Economics Professor at Bridgewater State, suggested that colleges and universities that host sexuality speakers, including those who are professionally accredited, are partly to blame for the four new cases of HIV which have been diagnosed amongst RI college students this year.
Ms. Andelloux states: “My heart goes out to those students who have recently tested positive for HIV. However, there is no evidence of any link between campus presentations on sexual issues and the spike in HIV cases. Rather, I would suggest that this demonstrates a need for more high-quality sex education to college students.“ It is unclear why people at URI or Citizens Against Trafficking, a coalition to combat all forms of human trafficking, is attempting to stop adults from accessing sexual information from qualified, trained educators. What is certain however, is that this Professor of Economics miscalculated her suggestion that a correlation exists between increased HIV rates in Rhode Island and the type of sex education these speakers provided at Brown University: one that emphasized accurate information, risk-reduction, pleasure, and health.
Barrier methods have been shown by the CDC to reduce the transmission of HIV and other STIs (Sexually Transmitted Infections). Research has shown that when individuals have access to medically-accurate information, are aware of sexual risk reduction methods, and have access to learn about sexual health, the number of infections and transmission of STIs decreases, pain during sex decreases, and condom use increases. The CAT circulated bulletin is blatantly misleading about many issues, and often omits information that is crucial to understanding the full picture of sex education at Brown and in Rhode Island.
Shanna Katz M.Ed, one of the educators listed in the bulletin states, “In today’s world, many people are sexually active without having ever learned about sex itself. Educating adults about how to better communicate with their partner and how to protect themselves physically and emotionally is vital to the health and wellness of our culture. Without this information and skill sets, we are back in the 1950s, with people feeling guilt around sex, and feeling as though their desires are wrong.”
Reid Mihalko states, “In an age where the majority of college-age adults have only experienced federally funded abstinence-only sex education, continue to get their visual cues about sex from mainstream porn, and feel unsafe talking to their parents and school administrators about accurate sexual health information, I am committed to teaching men and women of all ages comprehensive, pragmatic safer sex practices and how to think for themselves when it comes to making the best sex and intimacy choices for them.”
When individuals who do not hold any background in sexuality education speak out in opposition because of their fear or prejudice, society becomes rooted in outdated beliefs and pseudo-science that do injustice to people everywhere. Furthermore, when those individuals personally and publicly attack those devoted to providing sex education with false and misinformed accusations, it not only hurts those who are defamed, but also the community at large.
We ask for an immediate retraction of the vilifying and inaccurate statements made by Ms. Margaret Brooks and Citizens Against Trafficking in their latest newsletter. We also ask that esteemed local universities such as URI and Bridgewater State continue to hold their employees to ethical standards of normal scientific inquiry and require that their facultyhold some modicum of expertise in a field of education before raising the public level of panic over it.
Megan Andelloux is available to answer any questions the press, Margaret Brooks, University of Rhode Island or Citizens Against Trafficking holds. Aida Manduley, the Chair of Brown University’s Sexual Health Education and Empowerment Council and Brown University’s is available to discuss the upcoming Sex Week and sexuality workshops held at Brown University.
Sexologist Megan Andelloux, who has come to campus four years running, is a huge proponent of lube, not so much desensitizing cream.
“Lube is great. I repeat, lube is great,” said Megan Andelloux, emphatically kicking off her annual Sex Toys Workshop in Shanklin Hall last Wednesday. Andelloux, a certified sexuality educator, or “sexologist,” according to her business card, has been coming to Wesleyan for the past four years to speak on the fascinating, controversial, and always exciting topic of sex. While the workshop was largely light-hearted and entertaining, it was in fact sponsored by FemNet—Wesleyan’s Feminist Network—and raised interesting questions about the relationship between sex and feminism.
The workshop covered a broad range of topics, from desensitizing cream to handcuff alternatives to new ways to make use of a vacuum. No matter the topic, Andelloux had a witty comment to explain it.
“Desensitizing cream is the devil, like douching,” she said. “Just remember the three D’s: desensitizing cream, devil, douching. It’s like the Energizer Bunny of lube.”
At the front of the room was a table strewn with toys, which she went through and explained one by one. Andelloux also passed around the toys and had the audience participate in such activities as testing out the vibrators by placing them against their nostrils.
“If it makes you sneeze, it’s too strong,” she explained.
Given its provocative, shocking, and hilarious subject matter, students who attended the workshop had a wide range of responses to it, but on the whole their reactions were very positive, the event ending with raucous applause.
“Clearly it was interesting,” said Alec Harris ’14 with a laugh. “It was shocking at first but I found I got used to it very quickly. It was very lube-heavy.”
Despite the fun and light-hearted tone of the lecture, FemNet did have a slightly more serious purpose in hosting the event. Katie DiBona ’11, president of the group, elaborated on FemNet’s intentions in bringing Andelloux to speak.
“It’s really important to FemNet to bring people to campus who believe in sex positivity and think that sex is about having fun and good communication,” DiBona said. “People who believe in celebrating sex instead of making it into a taboo.”
DiBona described what she sees as the broader relationship between the sexual liberation of women and feminism.
“Men are often seen as the ones whose role it is to be sexual,” she said. “Celebrating women as sexual beings and not viewing their sexuality as something negative or that makes them a slut is really important to feminism and women’s rights.”
Students offered different perspectives on the workshop’s relevance to feminism.
“Most of the toys were catered towards women, and she definitely came off as a strong, independent woman,” said Emma Pattiz ’13. “There were also definitely more women in the audience.”
Another student thought that the feminist focus of the workshop was appropriate due to the long history of sexual oppression of women.
“The lecture was feminist in that Megan focused on consent and pleasure, when sex has been used to oppress women and other marginalized groups for a long time,” said Elizabeth Halprin ’14, a member of FemNet. “I also appreciated that she used terms like penis-owner and vagina-owner, because too often our society conflates biological sex and gender.”
Yet other attendees saw less of an emphasis on feminism in Andelloux’s talk.
“I don’t think it was overbearingly feminist; it was just really based on equality,” said Harris. “In the beginning she said that she doesn’t care who you are, or who you’re doing it with—she just wants sex to be fun. Although from a perspective where women aren’t seen as having as much control in the bedroom, it could have been considered feminist just because it was equalizing.”
However, the negative aspects of linking a sex toys lecture with the causes of feminism were also questioned.
“Sexual empowerment can be a very important tool for women, but you have to examine it critically,” Halprin said. “When women use sex to empower themselves it can continue to promote the idea of them as sexual objects or purely sexual beings,”
DiBona shared similar opinions, but saw the dangers as less relevant.
“It’s definitely a valid opinion; it’s just another way of being a feminist, one that’s not my way,” she said. “There is that danger, but for me what I think is important is to get women—female-bodied people—to feel equipped to combat sexism and paternalism and other forms of oppression by feeling empowered themselves.”
While others expressed concern about whether or not advocates of women’s rights should focus their efforts on educating about sex toys when there are such issues as the condition of women in developing countries or the continued existence of sex-trafficking at hand, DiBona defended the importance of the workshop.
“You can’t create hierarchies of issues,” DiBona said. “Who’s to say what is more important or what type of oppression is worse? There is no one way of being a feminist, so when people are participating in feminist activism it’s really about what parts of feminism are most relevant to them and that they think are important to put their time and efforts into. Sex positivity and good communication in sex are really important to me, so that’s why I put my efforts in this direction.”
Students tended to agree that such workshops were an important and essential contribution to feminism.
“I think it’s important to demystify sex, because our society is pretty Puritanical, and so the more opportunities that everyone has to find out about sex the better,” Halprin said.
Pattiz agreed that the sex-toy workshop is part of a continuum of the feminist movement.
“I mean, when you compare it to giving microloans to women in third world countries, it’s like, what the hell are we doing?” Pattiz said. “But women’s sexual liberation has been an important part of the feminist movement for a long time, and sex toys are a relatively new outlet for expressing that liberation. A workshop on sex toys is a light-hearted approach to making people feel comfortable about women’s sexuality.”
Megan Andelloux sits in row three of the Pawtucket City Council Chambers, awaiting a verdict. Beautifully poised in a navy blue, tailored vintage dress, her red hair lovely and tidy, her hands in her lap, her pumps set squarely on the floor, she looks like a young real estate professional requesting a zoning variance.
She isn’t.
In my mind, she transforms into the heroine of her own comic book series. Her pumps become stacked spike-heeled boots, her demure fifties dress evaporates into a corset blazing with the colors of the American flag. Her red hair let loose and wild, she leaps from her chair, a rolled up copy of the Bill of Rights in one hand, a vibrator in the other.
This is about sex, she admonishes the cowering panel. You know it is! My center will open! People will come! Men and women will have, finally, a safe place to talk about orgasms and erectile dysfunction, safe lubricants and spanking. And it will be in downtown Pawtucket!
But tonight is not the night for super heroine triumphs. Tonight is just another night for battling the grinding bureaucratic machine that Andelloux, thirty-three, encountered last fall when she attempted to open her nonprofit Center for Sexual Pleasure & Health in Pawtucket’s Grant Building. It turns out that educational organizations may not do business in this building, and so the city’s zoning office shut her down. Her appeal of that decision, tonight, will be denied. This is not about sex, the panel will assert. This is about zoning.
She will not transform into an erotic, pen-and-ink protagonist. She’ll nod, knowingly, at the denial she suspected was coming her way. She’ll sit through the rest of the evening’s decisions, then powwow with her lawyer Michael Horan in the cold, clattery hallway outside the Chambers. They’ll plan her next attack, not with sex toys, but with paperwork. She’ll tell local press that she’ll continue to assert her right to do business in Pawtucket. She’ll assure friends that she’s not ready to give up. Not by a long shot. It’s not comic book behavior, but it’s a fight all right.
“Two things,” Andelloux says, tucked into the circa-1960s black vinyl sectional sofa in her CSPH offices, the 500-square-foot Ground Zero of her battle. The center is for counseling and classes, as well as distribution of literature ranging from safe sex to pleasure-related practices between (she constantly emphasizes) consenting adults. No sex takes place here and nothing is for sale. It’s Planned Parenthood with a little Lady Gaga thrown in; shame gets checked at the threshold while candor and humor make any question reasonable, any aspect of sex fair game. Andelloux says she loves the space because it’s an interior storefront. Patrons of any of the Grant Building’s tenants, from Flying Shuttles Studio and Blackstone Chess Academy to graphic design studios and Kafe Lila, enter through a central outer doorway to find individual businesses lining an interior gallery. From Andelloux’s point of view, this brightly lit, friendly vestibule provides privacy for anyone who might feel uncomfortable entering an organization dealing with sex, from the street. “Plus,” she says, “the building has its own cat. How homey is that?”
Andelloux embraces homey. She’s painted the center’s walls a cheery yellow and robin’s egg blue, colors more at home in a farmhouse kitchen than an office, and hung ephemera that reveal her collector’s mentality as well as her saucy take on sex. A vintage magazine ad for Lysol douches on one wall plays ironically against an oversized, pillow-like vulva puppet she uses for teaching, on a shelf below. On a nearby coffee table, four chunky pieces of stainless steel sit on a mirrored pedestal cake plate. They resemble oversize punctuation marks (they’re G-spot and prostate toys). She settles in to talk about the center with the warmth of a girlfriend dishing last night’s “Project Runway” over coffee.
She considers those “two things” — the two mistakes that brought her into the spotlight of the city of Pawtucket and onto the wrong side of narrowly interpreted zoning. She purses her lips, sighs. “I shouldn’t have testified about sex workers’ rights,” she says. “That got a lot of people angry. And I probably shouldn’t have put the word ‘pleasure’ in the title of the Center.”
She may be right. After signing a lease for her fledgling nonprofit in May, Andelloux, a proponent of sex workers’ rights, decided to testify at a June State Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on eliminating Rhode Island’s statewide law allowing indoor prostitution. “I was terrified to testify,” she says. “But I felt some advocates were confusing trafficking with sex work, so I went.” Andelloux signed up to speak, lost her nerve and scratched off her name. “Then this woman stood up and said, ‘We need to stop sex…no…we need to stop sex trafficking.’ I thought this is a complete fear of sexuality. So I put my name back on. I thought, even if my voice shakes, I can go up.”
So up she went, but was dumbfounded when Donna M. Hughes, a professor of women’s studies at the University of Rhode Island well known for her activism on sex trafficking issues (and a proponent of eliminating indoor prostitution), took her to task afterward in a series of public forums. First, on June 24, Hughes described (but did not name) Andelloux in a Providence Journal editorial as a “tattooed woman calling herself a ‘sexologist and sex educator.’” Hughes also wrote that Andelloux was “a reporter for a prostitutes’ magazine called $pread,” adding, “I couldn’t make this stuff up!”
The next day, Andelloux penned her own letter to the Journal. “Let me introduce myself,” she wrote. “I’m the nationally certified sex-educator and derogatorily labeled ‘tattooed lady’ mentioned by Donna Hughes in her June 24 opinion piece.
“Putting quotation marks around my profession was insulting,” Andelloux continued, “and yes, I am a contributor to the sex-workers magazine $pread. Is it so shocking that sex workers can read?”
The heroine, suddenly, had a nemesis. “As an alum of URI (’97),” Andelloux wrote, “I would have expected faculty to develop a reputation for science and truth. Instead, it seems that Ms. Hughes would rather resort to right-wing scare tactics. Perhaps if ‘the Professor’ really cared about women, she wouldn’t attack us for the way that we look.”
Things got nastier. In a September 23 issue of Citizens Against Trafficking, an online newsletter published by Hughes and Melanie Shapiro, a student at Roger Williams University School of Law, an unsigned article titled “Sex Radicals’ Vision for Rhode Island” said:
“But the advocates for prostitution are still active in Rhode Island. In fact, a new center to campaign for sexual rights is trying to open in Pawtucket. The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health calls itself the ‘Dormitory for Armatory.’ The proprietor, Megan Andelloux, is a member of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, which is a subsidiary of COYOTE, the group that originally sued for decriminalization of prostitution in the 1970s. It too advocates for the decriminalization of prostitution. To date, the city of Pawtucket has prevented the center from opening, saying it violates their zoning ordinances.
“The sex radicals are entitled to free speech, but citizens of Rhode Island are entitled to resist their advocacy of prostitution and violence. The proprietor of the proposed center is a prostitute (she calls herself a ‘foot fetish model’) and a dominatrix. She is also on the ‘faculty’ of the Kink Academy in Boston, which holds ‘classes’ to demonstrate sexual sadism, masochism and torture. The classes often include live models. (The images are too obscene to include here.) One of the students at the Academy claims she became a ‘sex slave’ to one of the instructors and was ordered to prepare to be a prostitute. Andelloux claims to be a speaker on college campuses where she demonstrates whipping and has the students try on sex gear.”
***
Is this a fair portrait of Andelloux, or someone else’s comic book rendering?
Andelloux went to Mitchell College, a two-year institution in New London, Connecticut, for kids needing a creative approach. She quickly realized that “sucking at math” was not part of a career in marine biology. Meanwhile, she happened to take a quiz on facts about sex, reading that 80 percent of Americans failed it. She got one question wrong. A human sexuality course she took fit her passions. She changed majors and planned a dinner out with her parents to give them the news.
“Right before my mother put the hamburger in her mouth,” Andelloux recalls, “I said, ‘I’m going to be a sex educator.’ ” She cracks up at the memory. “My mother said, ‘Megan, girls can’t do that.’ My father shook his head. But I told them that’s what I decided I was going to do.”
Andelloux got herself into URI from Mitchell, graduating in 1997 with a major in Human Development and Family Studies and a minor in Human Sexuality. She moved to northern New Jersey and worked for Planned Parenthood as a sex educator. Developing a reputation as a “spitfire,” in her words, Andelloux got herself in occasional trouble for a little too much candor. “I had a mouth on me,” she says. Once, after finishing a Planned Parenthood presentation at a high school, Andelloux was approached by a student. “She told me she’d been having sex with her partner with no birth control. She was freaked out. We had this long conversation and then I told her I’d send her some condoms. I told her I’d address the package as [though] for a school project.” But when the girl’s moth-er opened the package, freaked out herself, and called Planned Parenthood, Andelloux was in trouble. “Oh yeah. I got in trouble. I kept my job, but I was in trouble.”
Andelloux continued to butt heads with Planned Parenthood, so she leapt at the chance in 2001 to work at Miko, a well-known sex-toy shop in Providence, where she ran educational workshops full-time and worked the sales floor. When Miko closed in 2008, Andelloux reached her crossroads. “People kept telling me I should open a new store,” she says, “but I knew I didn’t have business sense. I know how to teach, how to make people feel comfortable, and I know how to talk about difficult concepts. [But] I knew my name, at this point, was too risque even for liberal organizations, so I started doing my own workshops.” One day last spring, as Andelloux was hanging posters for The Vagina Monologues, a passerby recognized her from Miko, and told her about a great place in Pawtucket that was looking for tenants.
***
On September 14, twelve days before the scheduled grand opening of the Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health, Donna Hughes sent an email from her Blackberry to the nine members of Pawtucket’s City Council:
Hello,
A center for “sexual rights” and “sexual pleasure” is opening in Pawtucket.
Twenty-six hours later, Andelloux got a call from the Pawtucket Police Department. Her opening needed permits, Major Bruce Moreau told her, and there were concerns based on activities advertised on her website (including burlesque dancing and a raffle of sex toys) that required special permitting. He shared the contents of Hughes’ email with her. Andelloux picked up her husband, Derek, a family medicine resident at Brown, and the couple walked up the squat, broad steps of Pawtucket City Hall into a confusing gauntlet of special event permits that led, ultimately, to having to describe the Center’s primary purpose to secure overall zoning approval — something Andelloux had never been informed by her landlords that she needed to obtain. She rushed through meetings in hallways and offices; she called city councilors to explain her mission.
Mostly, though, Andelloux worried that the words “sexual” and “pleasure,” pitched by an adversary directly to a council representing a famously Catholic city, might ignite further opposition beyond the inertia her paperwork seemed to be generating. She settled on stating the Center’s primary purpose as “education.” What she didn’t realize is that within the minutiae of the Pawtucket zoning codes lies the fact that a special use permit obtained by the developers of the Grant Building does not support educational facilities like schools. Andelloux never said she ran a school.
But it was that sole word, education, that prompted zoning official Ronald Travers to rule against the Center, and gave the Zoning Board reason to uphold his verdict.
Andelloux was caught in a knot of nomenclature, as binding as a corset, but nowhere near as fun. She prepared a new motion with Horan, this one to request a special use permit for her space, much like a yoga studio in downtown Pawtucket had obtained. They returned to the council chambers in late January, filing their motion and hastening to point out that she will engage in education, but on a scale that is consistent with the overall mixed use espoused by the city’s downtown plan. No one argued. No one challenged. Only one member asked one thing:
“So, you won’t be selling any sexual paraphernalia?”
No. No. Andelloux said, shaking her head.
Meanwhile, she rejected ongoing counsel from well-wishers to leave Pawtucket for more liberal and accepting (not to mention properly zoned) locations. She paid rent on her unoccupied space. She paid heat. She paid legal fees. She turned away paying clients. And waited for one more fight. The next step was going to be court.
Then, finally, it’s decision time again. Andelloux perches in her chair, her bright pink dress shifting under her nervously clenched hands. Her husband pats her knee from time to time. The zoning board rolls through decision announcements like a boss spins a Rolodex; it’s easy to lose track. Then Andelloux’s name pops through the bureaucratic fog. And, in a series of comments as mild and conciliatory as her previous hearing had been spiky and adversarial, the men who control her zoning destiny say yes.
Yes, they say, to Megan Andelloux, and several lean forward to their microphones to say, for the record, that they regret that things got off to a bad start. They mouth words of support, absolving their municipality of anything other than administrative vigor. They regret the tangle. They grant her permit. It’s almost, if you imagine an erotic comic book, like a bit of sex play. Yes? Yes? No, No… Yes!
It was just that easy?
Megan Andelloux nods and smiles.
She looks unthreatening enough, perched on the edge of a table in a large classroom at Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Connecticut. Andelloux is indeed speaking on a college campus and receiving $500 for the two hours she’ll spend with 100 young men and women packing this room on a chilly fall evening. She has, indeed, allowed her feet to be looked at, photographed, and massaged by paying clients as a foot fetish model — although this never has involved genital exposure or contact, much less touching above her knee, she says. Yes, she has been paid to create educational videos for “Kink Academy,” a website that celebrates every aspect of consensual sex. And right now, yes, she’s tugging a strap-on harness up over her clothing to demonstrate for her audience what she describes as one of her favorite lube tricks.
“This one is great,” she says as she yanks the harness, complete with large synthetic phallus, into place around her hips. She grabs a plunger-bottle of lubricant; it looks like a hand soap dispenser that sits near a powder room sink. She tucks it into the harness — where a gun would sit in a holster.
“Okay!” she calls out, her rigging complete. Her voice reminds me of a home ec teacher’s — both perky and bossy. If it weren’t for the subject matter, she could just as easily be demonstrating how to sew a wrap-around skirt.
“So when you’re having sex with a strap-on, and your partner is getting really hot, here’s an amazing finish,” she says, and gives the bottle a couple of swift plunges that release spurts of viscous liquid. The audience knows exactly what this simulates and loves it. The kids cheer. Andelloux opens her eyes wide, nodding at their response. “See? See? Isn’t that cool?”
In these two hours, Andelloux’s workshop will range from this kind of taboo-busting demonstration to ardent discussion of safe ingredients in lubricants and sex toys (“If that dildo has a smell, it’s made overseas with dangerous synthetics. Don’t buy it.”) She’ll take dozens of questions penned on index cards, some of them endearingly naïve. She’ll give advice that is bumper-sticker outrageous, but gets to serious healthy practice. “Don’t put anything smaller than six inches up your butt,” she orders, reminding her audience that the anatomy of this part of the body is not equipped to expel items. “Once something gets lost up there,” she continues, “the only way you’re gonna get it out is at the emergency room.” As the kids hoot, she eyes them. “And trust me, you don’t want to be that patient.” Her mix of medical terminology and slang, sometimes folksy, sometimes colorfully current, makes her advice easy to embrace. It’s a remarkable marriage of tone and content. If Rachael Ray and the Marquis de Sade had a lovechild, it’d be Megan Andelloux.
After she finishes up by — yes — taking volunteers for a fully clothed spanking demonstration that raises the roof, students surround her and linger for nearly an hour, asking questions and inspecting the few vibrators and lubricants for sale. The fun and safety of sex takes her on the road like this nearly weekly, speaking to groups large and small, running sex toy parties for private clients, doing events at sex toy shops, attending and presenting at conferences. She creates “Tearin’ It Off,” a weekly podcast with WBRU at Brown University, and writes numerous columns for online sexual and feminist health and advocacy sites. She will appear, unpaid, in an annual production of The Vagina Monologues in Providence. For a sexologist, this cobbled-together assortment of education and entertainment keeps rent money coming in, and for Andelloux it is also, she admits, a bit of a calling.
“My parents were 1950s WASPs,” she says, describing her traditional upbringing in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts. “I was totally raised in that environment.” The youngest of three kids (but fourteen and eighteen years younger than her sister and brother, respectively), Andelloux watered her activist seed with an issue embraced by many girls: animal rights. She became a vegetarian at fifteen.
A year later, Andelloux developed a quirky obsession. “I had a thing for memorizing sex facts,” she says, “you know, statistics. When people masturbate, average breast sizes…I would spout these off to my friends during supper.” Still passionate about animals (and specifically about orcas), Andelloux planned to study marine biology at the University of Rhode Island. Then she was date-raped. “I had a series of sexual assaults take place in the summer before my senior year, including the very first date I ever went on,” she says. “I was seventeen. I’d gotten good grades up to that point. After that summer, my grades plummeted, I had nightmares, I reverted to wearing baggy clothes, and I hung out with the ‘bad girls.’ My grades were nowhere good enough to get into URI.”
I recently met an incredible feminist, Megan Andelloux, on campus at Brandeis University when she did a workshop on sexual pleasure and awareness as part of our annual Vagina Week, leading up to the Vagina Monologues.
As an FMLA member, this was a great feminist event – 1 – Megan is insanely empowering! 2 – we were able to pull in a lot of student’s that wouldn’t necessarily come to a FMLA meeting/event because her workshops are about improving one’s sexual awareness and skills .
Campus clubs were able to collaborate on bringing Megan to campus because she is both health and pleasure focused and fantastically entertaining.
To give you a chance to get to know her better and an opportunity to come to the Grand Opening where there will be lots of food, fun, give-aways and famous sex-positive feminist activists, here is an exerpt of my interview with Megan:
E: So Megan, what do you do?
M: I work as a sexuality educator in many different formats. The majority of my time is spent providing workshops at colleges and universities on topics relating to sexual pleasure and health (the focus being more on the pleasure and intertwining health in). [...] I work within the medical community, teaching medical students and providers how to be sex positive doctor’s, educating them on common concerns/questions and topics the public holds (but that they aren’t taught in med school) and finally, how to provide safe, non-threatening, empowering pelvic exams. And I do that with the use of my body (vagina, brain and mouth). [...and] I work within the media as a public policy analyst regarding sexual rights challenges to our freedoms.
E: What does being a feminist mean to you?
M: A feminist is something I would most identify myself as. My passion, my life work’s, all of my reading materials and a day to day way of life for me. To me, being a feminist is all about giving people options. The option to do this or that, go into one field vs. another, to become a sex worker, to be monogamous to one person only, choose one type of birth control over another, etc. Being a feminist means challenging others and yourself. When you feel uncomfortable, ask yourself why? When someone says something you don’t agree with or don’t understand, ask them why? It’s only through the option of challenging others, which is a right we have fought for and won, that we grow and change the world for the better. We can’t just accept what we have, we have to want to build upon it.
That’s what being a feminist and a sex educator is to me. Options. Challenging. When people go to my workshops, yes I want them to have fun and learn, but I also want them to ask questions with the information I provide! I want to push people! Because really, those questions are going to spark a change in the future. New research, new standards of roles one can possess, totally new concepts can occur when you don’t accept what is laid before you.
E: How did you get involved in the world of sexuality?
M: There are three answers I give to this question. The fun and easy answer is I had a knack for memorizing sex facts, don’t ask me why. I had a knack for memorizing sexual issues and it was a social issue, a perfect fit for me. At first I wanted to be a sex therapist, but I quickly found out that I wanted to help people BEFORE they ended up with sexual issues, so I went into education.
Secondly, being a Sexuality Educator was a way for me to rebel against the way a girl was supposed to behave. My parents subscribed to strict gender role behaviors and “good girls don’t talk about sex”. When I decided this was going to be my career path, I choose to tell my parents in a restaurant so they couldn’t freak out on me. The first thing that was said was Oh! Megan! Girls can’t do that! Typical. but that’s also why I choose to name my company Oh Megan! because my mother was always saying that to me for talking about sexually related topics. Oh Megan! That’s inappropriate.
Thirdly, I think I became involved in the world of sexuality because after I was raped, no one would talk to me about it. I didn’t have a space where I could fully disclose because people were uncomfortable and didn’t know how to handle the conversation. It seemed strange to me, and I was angry that our culture talks so much about sex, but we don’t provide answers when people have questions and concerns. I think becoming a sex educator was a way for me to work out some of my issues, get answers to my questions and to provide a space so others wouldn’t feel alone or ashamed for what they were thinking or had experienced.
E: The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health sounds incredible. Can you talk about the relationship between the sex-positive world and the medical world?
M: My work’s mission is to join these two world together so I had to create The Center!
Too often the medical world turns it’s back on the pleasure-focused side of sex and the pleasure-focused world is totally bored by the medical world. But they need each other to survive! The Center will be a respectable entity for medical providers to work with and is already developing ties with Boston University, Brown University, Mass General Hospital and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical Schools.
Working with professionals in the medical field, and most importantly, with medical students, we can create change within the medical school curriculum. Some medical students are starting to chime in that they want more sexuality information. (The majority of med students have 12 hours of sex education composed of birth control, pregnancy, STD’s and sometimes, pregnancy terminations.) I am working closely with Boston University Medical School and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School to develop sexuality curriculum with fundamental structural changes.
Outside of the medical world, it’s important to remember that most people want to understand their body; what’s taking place within them. Traditionally, that information has been withheld from the public, but the feminist and pro-sex communities have some of the best documentations and discussions on sex and sexual health data.
The Center’s focus will be education and advocacy work. The CSPH will be the perfect blend of health, pleasure and advocacy. There will be written & visual resources, medical journals pertaining to sexual issues available, toys (with education on what we would/wouldn’t recommend), kink-friendly resources, sexual health and rights speakers, medical and pro-sex positive resources available for loan right from the start, and in the spring, offer a certification series for sex education classes with C.E. credits.
E: Are there any opportunities to get involved with the center either as an individual or as a campus organization?
M: Yes! The best way to get involved would be to attend the grand opening on Sept 26th in Pawtucket, RI. The grand opening will be a fund raising event and feature some of the best and brightest individuals in the field! Sex educators, sex therapists, sex worker advocates, authors, and sexual right advocates will be speaking and you can schmooze with them after they speak. (Scheduled speakers include Carol Queen, Bill Taverner, Betty Dodson, Gina Ogden, oh yeah, and me!) Tables with community and national resources will be throughout the location so people can learn more about resources they might not have known about.
You can also attend classes and workshops which will start in the fall and in the spring, apply to be an intern! As a campus organization, if you can’t come to us, we can come to you and talk about sexual advocacy issues, starting a nonprofit, getting into the field, etc.
Dildos, vibrators and strap-ons in every shade of pink titillated students while the distinct hum of plastic on tabletop mixed with the explosive giggles of the audience. At the front of the room was a spread of promiscuous products ranging from penis pumps to some kinky gizmos most people in the room didn’t know existed.
Megan Andelloux, a certified sexuality educator, licensed sexologist, foot fetish model and physical love guru, stood at the front of the room, plush vulva puppet in hand.
“There are some ground rules to this presentation,” she said. “Please put all cell phones on vibrate and place them between your legs. You can touch everything on the table, but please don’t put anything in your mouth.”
After this coital canon was set, she opened up questions to the audience. Students then secretly scribbled his or her most pressing inquiries on index cards to be answered throughout the program.
As a part of Condom Awareness Week 2009, the sex toy workshop which set out to promote fun, safe sex, was sponsored by the Class of 2011 Class Council and the Emerson Alliance of Gays, Lesbians and Everyone, a student organization which promotes the acceptance of queer culture throughout the Emerson community. At least 40 students gathered in the Bill Bordy April 13 to discuss singular sensations and alternate pleasures.
But this event was not about engaging in risky business. Rather, the topics discussed were about enjoying how much fun sex can be-even alone.
Andelloux said she promotes masturbation as a form of Sexually Transmitted Infection prevention. In response to those who dis dildos and other toys, she used a simple analogy.
“Toilets aren’t natural, but they make our lives better,” she said. “Masturbation is good for the mind and body. It’s the safest sex you are going to get.”
While the sexologist went down her list of sex toys and coital gadgets, she also provided advice from a combination of medical and pleasure studies, as well as her own experiences.
“My deal is that I bridge the world between the medical community and the pleasurable community,” she said. “I marry the two together that usually turn their backs on each other.”
As far as favorites go, Andelloux said to each his or her own. Her plaything of preference, however, she said looks like a sneaker but feels like partner play.
“The Galan is not about aesthetics, it’s about how it functions. It’s even quiet in the shower,” she said.
But the demonstration wasn’t just a sales pitch. Andelloux explained the ins and outs of the sex toy industry providing examples of what materials to steer clear of in stores.
“Don’t let your toys screw you,” she said. “I like happy vaginas.”
There are two main products to avoid: Anal Ease, a numbing cream for anal play and vaginal tightening cream-both of which may cause damage to one’s private parts. If a store sells these products it is a tell tale sign to try another shop.
Prude and promiscuous Emersonians alike said they enjoyed the workshop for both its shock and educational value.
Freshman Pat Lambert was asked to model one of the strap-on dildos during one of the demonstrations. He said he loved to be a part of the workshop and was planning on buying some of the toys after the show.
“This woman was riveting. I have learned more here in one hour than I have in any of my classes at Emerson,” the political communication major said. “You never knew how open everyone was. It was like having a group orgy via talking. Or how cool your body is. I didn’t know my body could do this.”
Deborah Engler, coordinator for wellness education at the Center for Health and Wellness said she would talk about condoms all day if it meant students would practice safer sex. The workshop, she said would help students see the educational and fun aspects of masturbation and sex.
“The workshop is about how there are a million and one ways to pleasure yourself without a partner and how it’s the safest way,” she said. “It’s about being safe and experimental at the same time.”
By the end of the night, Andelloux asked the audience what were three things learned from the workshop. The cumulative response: Before you buy lube, taste it, exercise your vagina every day and pee before and after you play.
Heavens above, sex and love: Q & A with sexologist
As a part of Condom Awareness Week 2009, Sexologist Megan Andelloux spurted her knowledge to a group of eager-eyed Emersonians on topics most would blush to bring up. The following are some of the questions asked anonymously during Monday, April 13th’s sex toy workshop in the Bill Bordy Theater.
What is the best way to give a hand job?
“Approach it as a genital massage. All those things that they didn’t want to be called in high school-that’s what they want to be called now. Bring them up to a certain point and then bring them back down. Whatever body part you are touching, you are there to tease and to tantalize him.”
Is it normal for a vagina to close up before sex?
“If someone is nervous for whatever reason, their vagina goes into lock-down mode-nothing’s coming in here without a fight. This usually happens more at the gynecologist’s office than before sex play. But it won’t become a steel trap door, it’s just going to get more difficult to put things in there. But there are physical indicators as to whether the vagina is ready for physical penetration. The inner lips will open up-open for business or closed for business.”
I’m gay and haven’t had good sex yet. What should I do?
“Stop reading magazines, because they are designed to make you feel bad about the types of sex that you’re having. Good sex should be fun. Sex is play-time for adults. It’s not that you need to have orgasms every time or about keeping up with the Jones’s. These are the things we hear a lot, but sex should be playful-you should be laughing. Awkward things happen during sex and you have to embrace it because it makes amazing stories a few weeks down the road.”
How many times a day can you orgasm without hurting yourself?
“As long as we aren’t hearing any physical damage like popping things or chafing, I say go for it. It has been proven that orgasms decrease mild depression, it gets rid of headaches, gets rid of menstral cramps so fuck Midol, just cum. But my favorite thing about orgasms is that if you have a cut on your body, they help speed the healing process up.”
What do you do when you and your partner are having bad sex?
“If you aren’t having good sex talk about it in a non-serious format like at the supermarket. There are lots of fun distractions-the freezer aisle is perfect for when you are breaking out in hives, you can easily pop your head in the freezer to stop looking at your partner and pretend you are looking at how the fishsticks are on sale. Everyone around you is bored-they aren’t listening, but if they are, you are giving them a good excuse to be at the supermarket.”
Is it normal to have a burning sensation when you pee for one to three days after sex?
“Nope. This is not normal. You should really go see a physician to find out what’s going on down there.”
No. No. Andelloux said, shaking her head.
