If ever there were an underappreciated organ, it’s the prostate. Nestled up against the bladder, this walnut-sized, much-maligned little gland is chiefly known for its propensity to become cancerous — and the famous one-fingered exam that finds out if it is.
But the prostate can be much more than just a source of discomfort; it’s also a formidable pleasure centre. With her new book The Ultimate Guide to Prostate Pleasure: Erotic Exploration for Men and their Partners — and an accompanying workshop — San Francisco-based sex educator Aislinn Emirzian teaches men and their partners all about it.
Emirzian got her start working for California’s Good Vibrations sex shop. “I noticed that we had tons and tons of guides for G-spot play and no guides for prostate play, and that was in spite of the fact that we were getting more and more prostate toys, which were being marketed as male G-spot stimulators,” she says. “I thought that didn’t really make sense, and I thought that there was clearly a demand for this information because we were getting all of these toys, and they don’t make those toys if they don’t sell.”
So Emirzian decided it was high time someone wrote a guide to prostate play.
She co-authored The Ultimate Guide with her friend Charlie Glickman, a Good Vibrations co-worker and a sex educator in his own right. “There was just an immeasurable contribution that was made by having him on board,” she says. “It was important to me to have a male co-author because I think that people do want to see a male perspective strongly represented in a book about men’s bodies.
“Writing this book was a little challenging because there is just an ocean of information about prostate health and prostate diseases, and there’s hardly any information, especially hardly any scientific information, about the prostate as a pleasure zone,” she says.
To find the necessary information, Emirzian and Glickman compiled several rounds of surveys focusing on touch, techniques and what prostate massage actually feels like. They surveyed nearly 200 men and their partners.
On Aug 6 Emirzian will teach a workshop at Ottawa’s Venus Envy. It will also be part book launch. “[The workshop] is basically as much prostate information as we can cram into the attendees’ brains in about an hour and a half or two hours,” she says. “It doesn’t go as deep on, say, anal pleasure or any one specific prostate massage or stimulation technique. Rather, it is a broad discussion of all the ways that you can stimulate the prostate.”
Topics she’ll cover include locating the prostate, what kinds of touch work well, and different techniques for fingers, toys and penises. “I hope folks will go home and have amazing prostate pleasure.”
The Ultimate Guide to Prostate Pleasure: Erotic Exploration for Men and their Partners
Aislinn Emirzian and Charlie Glickman
Cleis Press
$17.95
Workshop:
Venus Envy Ottawa
Tues, Aug 6, 6:30pm
venusenvy.ca
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