Read an Excerpt

Introduction

Have no fear, Mama Gena is here! This book is your road map to the heart and soul, the scintillating core, of being a woman. It's the result of twelve years' research into what women want and what makes us happy. It's a how-to guide for living a completely fulfilled life.

Sounds good, doesn't it?

The key to this wonderful life is what I call the "womanly arts" — a set of skills and behaviors that you already know but may have forgotten about. If practiced passionately and enthusiastically, these arts allow every woman to revel in her own fabulousness. They give her the power to create a life of pleasure, abundance, and full gratification.

I want you to start thinking about the life you would have if you could. I want you to envision your own fantasyland. Give free rein to this vision of your desired lifestyle, and don't let it be dominated by someone else's plans for you. Do you see a life that allows for for intimacy, family, responsibility, creativity, great sex, flexible time, and flexible emotions? Do you see days filled with alone time — or shared activities with a bevy of friends, family, and children? Do you see hours spent volunteering, or making big bucks in a high-powered career, or creating the next great painting or novel? Do you see yourself in a rural place, or by the beach, or up in the mountains, or in a small town, or in a city apartment? Do you see a life spent with one love, or filled with a myriad of interesting and exciting partners?

Maybe you see yourself picking a bit of this and dash of that.

Whatever your vision is, however unlikely, unorthodox, or "unacceptable," get ready to run with it. Your feelings are the utmost priority, your desires are more important than anyone else's deadline or mandate.

A pleasurable life is not a necessity. Not an obligation. We are taught to work hard, study hard, and deprive ourselves. But who teaches us about pleasure? Who teaches us to laugh when we feel like it, to concentrate on how good the sun feels on our skin, to value the giddy pleasure of playing hooky, or to plunge forward enthusiastically and seize our own brass ring? Many of us have almost forgotten a life of pleasure can exist. As a woman, though, pleasure is your birthright. That's the big, fat secret I am here to unlock with you.

Your dreams, your desires are not too big for you. They are just the right size. And they are rapidly and readily accessible if you follow me through the doorway of pleasure. This doorway has always been there — Mama is just reminding you where the key is and giving you a little shove toward happiness and success, however you define them. I am here to tell you that every woman can be creative, sexy, and happy and can have a marvelous relationship with a life partner. Glamour and beauty are within reach. And ecstasy, pleasure, and fun can play a huge role in your life.

In working with countless women as a facilitator and researcher in the area of relationships, I have discovered that a woman's pleasure has an electrifying effect on herself and others. If a woman even begins to think about what pleasures her, she instantly feels pleasured. And if that woman can communicate those delicious thoughts to someone else, that lucky person also feels the glow. I know, I know, it sounds so simple. But hey, no one is in the habit of looking at the power of pleasure.

So many people have dedicated themselves to examining women's problems and making much of their general unhappiness. Therapists, weight-loss centers, credit card companies — everybody's got us in their clutches, and somehow women as a whole aren't too much happier for it. I dedicated so much time to studying women's unhappiness (my own included), and none of it led to fun. Finally I decided to investigate women's pleasure instead. No one else was doing it, really. It was a wide-open field, no competition. Not too many people seemed to have the time or the interest to explore pleasure — how to attain it and the rewards that come with it. And what I have found has proved to be amazing, beyond anything I could have dreamed. I learned that the pleasure women are capable of — that energy — is the greatest untapped natural resource on this planet. I discovered that when a woman is happy and fulfilled, those around her share the rewards. A gratified woman can be the source of a whole community's joy and prosperity.

That revelation led me to study what I call the womanly arts — the skills that enable us to access joy, gratification, energy, and fun all day, every day. Here's a rundown:

• The first and most important womanly art is the ability to identify your desires. Mama is here to help you locate what you really want and show you how to whet your own appetite. Some women (maybe most women) don't even know what they want. We will coddle your fledgling desires until they sing to you loud and clear.
• The second womanly art is the art of having fun, no matter where you are. I'll help you figure out a way to have a good time whether you're at the dry cleaner, sitting at your desk, listening to your mother-in-law, or doing your taxes.
• The third womanly art I'll talk about is the art of sensual pleasure. The orientation to pleasure is a feminine instinct, and each glorious inch of your body is yours to use for your fulfillment. Women have a greater affinity for pleasure — a drive, an innate understanding of pleasure — simply because they're women. After all, they have an organ on their body whose sole function is pleasure. You will learn more about your instrument and its potential.
• Flirting is another womanly art. It is a fantastic way to fire up your entire life. When a woman has mastered her ability to flirt, she feels deliciously powerful.
• When you feel good enough to flirt, you feel good enough to practice the womanly art of owning your beauty. Mama will inspire you to make the decision, every minute of every day, that you are the hottest, most gorgeous thing that ever lived. Why not? You are.
• I will also encourage you to befriend your inner bitch. Learning to live with her is an art. And as you know, if you're heading into battle you want that bitch on your side! Mama will show you how.
• Owning and operating men is another womanly art. You already knew that. We'll investigate the ways in which a woman's pleasure (namely, yours) can help both of you live happily ever after.
• And the final womanly art we'll be learning is the art of inviting abundance. Women have uncanny powers of attraction. You'll learn how to conjure up anything you want — a new coat, a parking space, a new job for your best friend.

In this book Mama will articulate all the skills, the opportunities, and the pathways a woman can access to become enthusiastically gratified. Along the way we will explore your deepest intuitions, your desires both great and small, and pleasure — as experienced by all your five senses. I'll show you the power that comes when you embrace all of your contradictions — when you let Elegant and Slutty sit side by side, or allow Tacky, Tasteful, Over-the-top, and Understated to appear simultaneously, in the same ball gown. We'll put Shy in her proper place, next to Abandon. We'll invite unabashed Hilarity to disrupt the most refined dinner tables. You'll see Voracious and Virginal are not incompatible. In these pages, Lust is exalted, Repression abhorred. The fragrance of freshly sweaty skin is more divinely valuable than Chanel No. 5.

You'll soon learn that anything fun is preferable to a dozen obligations, and in my book, a shot of fulfillment is always the next best step. I'll help you realize that there is always time for passion, in any form. And gratitude. Showers of gratitude and thanks are the order of the day.

To embrace the womanly arts, you must simply begin with a positive point of view. Rely on the fact that something good or something better than good is heading your way at all times. Your manicured hand is in control of your own ecstasy dial. Whatever befalls you, you can and will use it to make yourself happy. In every circumstance you are the one with the edge. You will know that whatever your desires are, they will not just be fulfilled, but bettered and expanded, with frosting on top. Most women spend their time whining about the past rather than paying attention to what they want now. What you will soon see is that ecstasy comes from leaping in the direction of your desires, despite the obstacles. What might surprise you most is that true selfishness can be the path to real generosity.

We are going to bypass doubt, judgment, and disapproval. We are going to leave the past where it is and enjoy the present even more by focusing on rituals, exercises, and new perspectives that introduce your dreams and your desires right into reality, right now. You are about to be a gratified woman. A gratified woman can have a glorious time washing the dishes, changing a tire, or being ravished in bed. Being on intimate terms with joy, she can create it anywhere. She is not limited by circumstances, money, education, background, or geography. She does not have to find the "right" guy to have a great evening out — she can draw out the best in any man. She does not need the latest fashion to feel beautiful — she knows her glow comes from within, no matter what she is wearing.

A gratified woman is someone who constantly experiences the abundance of life itself and the privilege of life itself because she knows that wherever she is, just by the force of nature that is her being, anything is possible. And that is a wonderful place to be. If you are ready to live in this place, if you are ready for unbridled joy and overflowing passion regardless of life's challenges, turn the page and start the course — the course of succulence, the course of outrageousness, the course I call Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts.

Copyright © 2002 by Regena Thomashauer