The power of sex: an interview with Nancy Friday

by Daphne Howland

For more than 20 years, Nancy Friday has been making headlines with her books on women and sexuality. From the moment that she started work on My Secret Garden, her groundbreaking book on women's sexual fantasies, she has found herself embroiled in controversy. That hasn't stopped Friday, however, who has since published several other books.

HealthGate contributing writer Daphne R. Howland spoke with Friday about her thoughts on sexuality.

Nancy Friday: Your sexuality is a pipeline that feeds everything else you do. And you should keep your sexuality alive because it feeds your intellect, it feeds your social self, and it makes you more interesting to yourself and to other people. It's part of your general health. To ignore it to think about sexuality only as sexual intercourse is confining yourself. It's very, very limited thinking.

Sexual well-being, sexual happiness, sexual chemistry, and sexual peace of mind don't depend on sexual intercourse. They do, however, depend on being in touch with your sexuality. That doesn't necessarily mean that you need a partner. It's nicer for many of us if we do have a partner - a partner adds another dimension to sexuality. But your sexual identity, your sexual well-being, and your feeling of being sexually alive all exist unto you yourself.

Nancy Friday: When I write about masturbation, it's not because I think that everyone should lock themselves in a room and masturbate and do nothing else. That's not it at all. Masturbation is an exercise; an enjoyment that comes naturally to an infant or a small child. And unfortunately, we learn to stop arousing ourselves when we are told by our caretakers either with words or a look that it's bad and makes Mommy or Daddy very unhappy. And don't forget that our Surgeon General was fired because she suggested that perhaps it would be a good thing within a family to let a child know that masturbation is all right.

Masturbation is a healthy and normal activity. All a child really needs to learn is that masturbation is usually something that is done in private.

Nancy Friday: Yes. And that's too bad, because masturbation is one way to learn that you're a sexual entity unto yourself and that you can take charge of the good feelings that come from masturbation. This is important later on. For example, when a young man holds an inexperienced young woman in his arms, she assumes that he is responsible for her feelings of pleasure that he is a magical creature. That's not healthy for either of them.

Let's say that a girl masturbates when she's young. She then meets a boy in adolescence and gets that \"feeling\". She can then say, \"Oh, I recognize this wonderful feeling and isn't it nice that I can have it with him, too?\" She's learned she's a self starter, that she has something within herself that she can choose to give. She's a magical creature too.

Nancy Friday: The original feminists were never in favor of heterosexual sex. It just wasn't on the agenda. In the Ms. magazine school of feminism, it's still not on the agenda. It's a man-hating, beauty-hating, sex-hating thing.

I aimed a lot of arrows at feminists in this last book. Because of this, feminists have begun to talk about sex, but they still won't include men in their feminism. But there were a lot of men who marched with us in the 70s.

I just got back from Asia where I talked with women about feminism in the United States. I told them: "Look, don't get caught up in the word "feminism." You don't fit into old feminism. You are a new generation. Find another word if you must, but don't let the word hang you up in thinking about this new world. It is a very different world. Women today in their 20s and early 30s don't like the word feminism. I am reluctant to use it to describe myself because it holds me back. And yet I want the world to know that I was an early feminist.

Nancy Friday: We're different yet we're the same. People tend to think everything has changed. The fact is we're a very ambivalent culture. Much of our population is still quite patriarchal, and the other half is much more advanced.

One troubling issue today is that so many people walk down the street in transparent clothes. They parade around with their breasts pushed up or their penises outlined in tight jeans. They want to send sexual signals, but they don't feel sexual inside. So if you go out there broadcasting sex in your attire and demanding in your walk, "look at me," but you don't feel it, the sexual current isn't there. You don't see the person, you see the clothes.

They have bought into some kind of commercial message and they're wearing a sexual advertisement. A part of them wants to be that way. But they don't understand that part of being sexual is being sexually responsible. A sexually healthy person doesn't want to be raped. A sexual person wants to enjoy sex, not be killed by it.

There's a lot of anger in people today. When that anger is flaunted as sexually provocative dress, the message is "f*** me." But it is a very angry message. The message isn't really "f*** me," it's "f*** you!"

Nancy Friday: We need to raise a generation of people who understand the meaning of sexuality. It's a component of the human condition. Each of us is born with it. We should be taught and home is the only place it can be taught that sexuality is an extraordinary energy that will be with us all our lives. It doesn't end at menopause or at old age. It begins at birth and it ends at death. It's a part of being alive. Sex is exciting, and it's OK to explore and enjoy it when you're young via masturbation. But beyond that, you have to wait. Sexuality is an explosive energy and you must learn to be responsible for it, despite media messages to the contrary.

Nancy Friday: The point is that you want to stay sexually alive because it is such an exciting part of your life. Therefore, postpone it until you can handle it intelligently.

We've got this whole conservative branch of our society that refuses to educate children about sex. "Just say no." You can't say no until you know why you say no. By all means say no. I think people should postpone sexual intercourse because it is such an overwhelming feeling. But you should postpone it because it's an excitement that you can't handle until you're old enough or mature enough to know what it can bring to your life.

That doesn't mean you can't masturbate, which will teach you about your own body. Learn about how your own body operates before you lie down with another person. That's the greatest education you can give a child.

Nancy Friday: I try to send out the most healthy message possible. One of the things that is most rampant in this out-of-control world is sex. This world is wallpapered in sexual stimuli. And young people today grow up in it. They get it from right, left, and center. And they're not raised to know how to handle it.

If I dressed like a hooker it would be easier for [my critics]. In my latest book I try to introduce men and beauty into the feminist formula. I'm an educated woman who lives within the "nicest" part of society. There's no nicer girl on the block! ...and I write about sex and I say that sex is part of life.