Re: ugnet_: Senga

[Rehema Mukooza]

Members:

 

The master of T-I-T-I-L-L-A-T-I-O-N in disguise as supplying "senga" information! 

Another way of E-D-U-T-A-I-N-I-N-G folks around here as many times as possible!

Hhm, this is bizzare behavior on display! 

 

Zakoomu R.

J Ssemakula <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Instead of Dr. Ruth, a Nurse Called Sue

February 19, 2004

  By MIREYA NAVARRO

 

With typical bluntness Sue Johanson tells older men and

women to get over body image: the "turkey neck," the "wear

and tear," the hormonal deficiencies. But in her cheerful,

no-nonsense style she adds that there are creams, patches

and pills to help them, and if all else fails, that they

can always kiss and cuddle.

"You can still have a great deal of fun," she said recently

in a rare speech before a United States audience, a group

of sex-toy saleswomen at a conference in Las Vegas.

Ms. Johanson, who won't reveal her age but looks like a

70-something grandmother who knits and makes sourdough

biscuits (she does both), is having a lot of fun herself

just talking about sex.

A registered nurse from Toronto, Ms. Johanson became known

as a sex educator on Canadian radio and television before

the Oxygen Network began an American version of her live

call-in show in 2002. Now in its second season, "Talk Sex

With Sue Johanson," at 11 p.m. on Sundays, has become one

of the most popular shows for Oxygen, a cable channel whose

target audience is women 25 to 45. (During the rest of the

week Oxygen broadcasts reruns of "Talk Sex" or of her

Canadian show, "The Sunday Night Sex Show.")

One indication of Ms. Johanson's rising profile in the pop

culture landscape: just last month "Saturday Night Live"

lampooned her in a skit in which a Sharon Osbourne

impersonator crowed over "this sexy old lady." She has also

made the late-night talk show rounds, appearing with David

Letterman and Conan O'Brien. Late-night channel surfers may

find her in the middle of untangling the contents of a

"fantasy restraint kit" as she rates new sex products. Or

looking deep into the camera through wire-rimmed glasses as

she tells the dissatisfied Linda from Gloucester, Mass.:

"Hey, I got to be honest with you. Most guys won't last 15

minutes. Sorry!"

Ms. Johanson, better known as Sue, may remind viewers of

another sex adviser of a certain age, Ruth Westheimer, who

proselytized for healthy sex on her own television and

radio shows in the 1980's and early 90's. But Ms. Johanson

functions in a changed cultural landscape, where the

Internet and television have made sex talk ever more bold.

Yet even in these sex-saturated times her brand of sex

education is still the exception, some sex experts noted,

perhaps because of more conservative government policies in

the United States and an entrenched reluctance among

Americans to talk about sex as a normal activity.

"There's a bit of a cultural schizophrenia around sex and

sexuality," said Tamara Kreinin, president and chief

executive of the Sexuality Information and Education

Council of the United States, a nonprofit organization

based in New York. "American culture, which has become more

open, still has a hesitancy around sex that other cultures

don't have."

Ms. Johanson said she could not ride the subway or stand in

a grocery line in Canada without being approached to answer

the kind of question that would make even the frozen

chicken blush. But in the United States, a much bigger

market, her growing fan base seems almost bashful but

mostly grateful. "I find that Americans are so polite and

so respectful that being recognized is wonderful," she

said. "People will look at me and say, `Hi, I love your

show.' And that's where it ends."

Shame, fear, guilt and ignorance all get in the way of good

sex, Ms. Johanson said, adding that based on the calls she

receives, many Americans lack basic knowledge. Some young

women, for example, still ask whether they can become

pregnant through oral sex, and they have more than a few

misconceptions.

A common one, she said, is "that women always have to have

an orgasm every time they have sex."

A sampling of recent shows indicates that viewers in both

countries ask her about rashes and discharges, about sexual

dysfunctions and positions, about performance anxieties and

relationships. Anal sex and G-spot orgasms are the topics

of the day.

On a recent show a woman asked: "I'm having these dreams

that I'm having sex with women or I'm watching women have

sex. Why is that?"

A man asked: "If condoms are left in a car and they freeze,

are they still good?"

On television Ms. Johanson's creased face may register

concern, empathy, surprise, even horror, but never

judgment. Despite her grandmotherly image, she can be

graphic enough to make readers of a family newspaper

squeamish. Her repertory of reactions includes funny

dramatizations of ecstasy or disgust, as well as folksy

terms like "tatas" (for breasts) and clinical explanations.

("Can we pull up a female frontal on the screen, please?")

The author of three books on sex, Ms. Johanson is married

to a retired electrician and has three grown children and

two grandchildren. She found her calling as an educator in

the 1960's when a friend of one of her two daughters

thought she was pregnant and sought her help. Ms. Johanson

ended up opening a birth control clinic for adolescents at

her daughters' high school in 1970; she ran it for 18

years.

She entered graduate school for courses on human sexuality

and counseling (she does not have an advanced degree),

became the host of a sex call-in show on Canadian radio in

the mid-1980's and later started a show on public-access

cable. Nine years ago she gained a national audience in

Canada with "The Sunday Night Sex Show" on the W Network.

In 2001 she received the Order of Canada, the country's

highest honor for lifetime achievement. Ms. Johanson

travels at least three times a week to give talks in

schools and colleges throughout Canada but says she also

finds time to sew, knit, walk, swim and make bread and

biscuits from a sourdough culture she has used for more

than 35 years.

So does a woman who travels to presentations with a "hot

stuff" bag, who jokes that she always carries condoms in

her purse "in case I get lucky," have a healthy sex life

herself?

"I will just say yes," she said with the emphatic speech of

a teacher, "and leave it at that."

"Sex Talk," which moved to 11 p.m. from midnight for its

second season on Oxygen, has done well with its intended

audience but also attracts male viewers, said Debby Beece,

the network's president for programming. In January "Sex

Talk" tied with Oxygen's 8 p.m. movie as the network's

top-rated show, attracting a total of 4.2 million viewers

that month.

Ms. Johanson receives 80,000 to 100,000 calls each show,

her producer, Julie Smith, said, though only 12 to 20 go on

the air. (The show has a Web site: www.talksexwithsue

.com.) The behind-the-scenes crew of 17 includes screeners

who weed out drunks and repetition, as well as a few

volunteers who try out sex toys for Ms. Johanson's reviews.

Ms. Johanson said she relied on constant research and a

bank of specialists for the questions that stump her.

But Deborah Tolman, director of the Center for Research on

Gender and Sexuality at San Francisco State University,

said the short-answer television format could be

misleading. (Ms. Johanson sometimes elaborates on an answer

or corrects herself on later shows after being alerted by

viewer e-mail messages.) And Ms. Tolman said some of Ms.

Johanson's answers were too limited to the individual

questioner and did not take into account broader issues

like sex roles and cultural expectations.

Still, she praised the show for "defusing the taboo nature

of just speaking about sexuality." Ms. Johanson said she

intended to encourage people to know what they were doing

and never to "let sex just happen - always practice safer

sex."

"I regard sex as a gift from God," she added. "We're the

only ones that really are able to enjoy sex, so we have an

obligation to learn about it and enjoy it."

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/19/arts/television/19SEX.html?ex=1078218851&ei=1&en=8fb63bf09d3ed864

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