Danai Gurira speaks on Zimbabwean identity
Hi Sis Noe
DO I have to really shave my pubic hair if I don’t want to? I am a woman but I don’t like being bald. — Worried.
Reply
Each one of our senses can influence our sexual responses in any given situation, but certain people respond more to images than to sounds, tastes or scents. It is always useful to know which sense is most acute for our partners. Certainly, the erotic triggers of many people are influenced by available images, whether from life experiences, the internet or elsewhere, so it is hardly surprising that a current vogue for a bush-less style has emerged off screen as well. In fact, genital hair holds arousing, pheromoneladen scents, which are missing from the cleanshaven vulva. You will simply have to decide what you are personally comfortable with. Many women feel torn between a political sensibility, personal standards and a desire to do what a partner finds most appealing. But be empowered to take this decision from a position of awareness and understanding, and be flexible enough to revisit it from time to time. Try to care less about how your body might be perceived and more about sensually connecting with a partner in a relaxed fashion.
Hi Sis Noe
I’ve finally recovered from the break-up of my last relationship and have started dating. I want to form a serious connection with my partner. Could having sex soon after meeting someone prevent something long-term developing, or should I risk being spontaneous with this new partner? — Worried.
Reply
Putting the words “risk” and “new partner” in the same sentence raises the safety question. First, you must find a way to have that essential conversation about each other’s sexual history and be prepared to take precautions. It is also worth examining your motives before you quickly become intimate with a virtual stranger. People have sex for all kinds of non-erotic reasons, and I’m going to make some guesses that might apply to you: maybe you want to get it over quickly, to assuage your anxiety about doing it for the first time after your break-up? Or, deep down, you are still missing your previous love and want to try to fast-track into a similar situation? Perhaps you have been so hurt that you are trying to prove to yourself that you can get back in the saddle — and imagine that will be healing? I know you long for a deep connection again, but unless you are truly ready emotionally to handle spontaneous sex that is unattached to loving feelings I would suggest waiting a bit. Use your intuition; you will know when the timing is right. In general, becoming intimate early on is not necessarily going to sabotage the development of a longer relationship — unless it goes badly wrong. In your present state, that could happen.
Hi Sis Noe
I have suffered from premature ejaculation throughout my adult life. I have found out that my son is now seeking information about the condition through various websites. I desperately want to help him, but in our manto-man talk on his 17th birthday the subject did not arise. — Help.
Reply
Your son is just discovering his sexuality, and it is unlikely that premature ejaculation is a major problem for him at this point. If possible, though, ask him about it directly. Make sure he knows that any questions he has about sex will be answered in a straightforward, respectful and non-intrusive manner — not just on birthdays. Provide therapy if he needs it. The best thing you can do, though, is to stop HOTSHOT Hollywood actress Danai Gurira has said she struggled to nail down her true identity in the earliest stages of her life, as she grappled with life in what was then a recently liberated Zimbabwe in the 1980s.
Gurira has over the last few years become one of Hollywood’s brightest lights, with roles as a zombie slayer on The Walking Dead and blockbuster movie Black Panther enhancing her reputation in the home of film and television.
However, while she is now celebrated as one of the Africa’s greatest exports to Hollywood, her earlier life as a budding actress in Zimbabwe is still largely a mystery.
In an interview with the LA Times, Gurira shed light about her life in postcolonial Zimbabwe, saying she had struggled to discover her true roots as the country battled to also leave it’s colonial past behind.
Those early struggles provided the actress cum playwright with some of the material that she had used for plays such as the The Convert, a production set in colonial Zimbabwe in 1896 and reflecting on the period solely from the African perspective, with no white characters on the stage.
“I left Zimbabwe and came to the United States for university, and in liberal arts colleges, you’re allowed to start thinking about, “Who are my people? Who am I? What’s our history?” And start to really explore that in a way that’s necessary for your own journey. And I think it’s even necessary for the Brits, qu i te honestly. Their history d o e s n’ t seem to worrying about him and work on your own, easily fixed problem. Here is the trick: you have to learn to recognise your point of ejaculatory inevitability — that is, your point of no return. Masturbate and try to stop yourself just before you get to that point. Wait a minute or two, then repeat the process and stop again. On the fourth time, allow yourself to ejaculate. Once you have mastered this exercise, request the help of a partner to stimulate you. Just before you reach your point of no return, tell her to stop. Do this twice more, and on the fourth time you can finish. You can then finally have sex, perhaps with your partner on top, but sticking with the same stop/ start routine. You will eventually be able to control your ejaculations in any position you choose.
Hi Sis Noe
I am a 44-year-old single, healthy and adventurous woman. At 16 I was raped, I enjoy sex very much but cannot relax enough to allow a sexual partner to give me an orgasm. I have to do it myself. I have sought therapy and it has helped a little. — Help.
Reply
I’m glad you sought treatment for your trauma. As you continue to heal, your sense of safety with sexual partners will improve, but in the meantime you may simply need that element of control. The next step could be to ask a patient, trusted partner to participate while you self-pleasure, in a way that is comfortable for you, such as caressing your breasts. If you experience anxiety or intrusive images, stop and ask him to hold you until you are relaxed, then try again. When you achieve orgasm this way, move to the next stage: ask him to place his hand over yours while you pleasure yourself. This will have the added benefit of teaching him how you like to be touched. Eventually, let him try, with your guiding hand placed over his. involve those who were colonised, in how it’s assessed. So it is exciting for me to see this play performed in front of a British audience,” she said.
Gurira also said before penning The Convert, she had felt that the Zimbabwean story had never been told sufficiently.
“Where is the history of my people told from our perspective on the screen or on the stage? Where is our experience of the colonial impact and assault? And who would I have been if I’d been born 150 years ago and what journey would I have trekked?
“A lot of those questions were at the fore. I grew up in a British colony, in Zimbabwe, when it was a young ex-colony. It was very much a British schooling system, and I was taught very little about the land I was living on,” she said.
Despite the success of Black Panther, a movie centred on African culture, Gurira said she felt that the continent had been largely mistreated by Hollywood.
“That’s what drove me to start writing. Like, “This cannot be the way my people are portrayed in a cinematic form.” For me, it was theatre at the time — that’s my medium. It was really that dearth. Every time I saw a film — and not all — there were many interpretations of the continent I found
really
disturbing and limited and from a perspective that wasn’t ours,” she said. Difficulty in allowing a partner to bring you to orgasm is common, even for women who have not experienced trauma. Many have been raised as “givers” who find it hard to receive pleasure, and feel awkward that it’s taking too long (most women need clitoral stimulation). We must all take responsibility for our own pleasure, show our partners how to give it to us, and not expect them to mind-read.
Hi Sis Noe
I am a 43-year-old single mother with two children. I am not sexually active at the moment and I want to find out if it’s possible for women to have wet dreams. At times I have sexual dreams and I wake up feeling like I orgasmed. Should I consult a doctor? — Worried.
Reply
It is perfectly normal for women to have orgasms during sleep or on awakening. It is probably the female equivalent of male nocturnal orgasm and ejaculation — except that we rarely notice because there is no tell-tale semen left in the bed. Both men and women usually have these experiences. In the 1950s, Alfred Kinsey wrote about this phenomenon — he discovered that 65 percent of the women in his study group had experienced sexual dreams, and in 20 percent this had led to orgasm. In a later study, researchers actually observed a woman having an orgasm while she was asleep in a lab. Does it really bother you? If not, there is certainly no need to seek treatment. You may be missing sex with a partner at the moment, although contrary to popular belief, sexual energy is not finite, so you may still have these orgasms in tandem with a satisfying sexual life with a man. For the moment, if you engage in conscious self-pleasuring you could at least have some orgasms while you are awake to enjoy them!