My name is Anthony Taylor, Anthony to my friends, never Tony. On my visiting card I call myself Anton Schneider. A straightforward translation, harmless enough. However, the letters appended to my name, Dip. VIST, are, I admit, a fiction. I believe there is no academic qualification for sex therapists and therefore no Vienna Institute of Sex Therapists to award Diplomas. Hence the need to invent one. My first intention was to place the Institute in Paris, but when I realised the initials would have been risible to vulgar minds I chose Vienna, a city in any case much more appropriately associated with Sigmund Freud than Johann Strauss, purveyor of meretricious waltzes and polkas.
Having decided several years ago to set myself up in this profession, I faced the problem of getting established. Experimentally I inserted a carefully worded advertisement in the upmarket broadsheets, and a more explicit announcement in one or two specialist magazines. To my surprise, the former generated the greater interest. It seems that subscribers to the Times are more inclined to seek advice than readers of Swingers Weekly.
Credit for such success as I have enjoyed must be shared with my partner. Shortly before embarking upon this enterprise I had the good fortune to meet Gudrun, a German lady with large breasts, wide sexual tastes and a good deal of experience acquired with two husbands, both already disposed of through the divorce courts. Gudrun, at that time in her late thirties like myself, was seeking an enterprise in which to invest the fortune her lawyers had extracted in the two marriage settlements. It was while we were resting in bed after a particularly ingenious demonstration of her agility and muscle control that I proposed a joint venture in the field of sex therapy. She saw at once the attraction in being able to charge large fees while engaging in pleasant dalliance with our clients, and so before long we had set ourselves up in consulting rooms in a quiet avenue with a discreet parking area out of sight of passers by. That was almost a decade ago and we have never regretted our decision.
It must be said that the absence of any professional body overseeing the profession has given me freedom to set my own code of conduct. Thus I determined to be a hands-on practitioner. Physiotherapists, I reasoned, are by their nature hands-on, and since sex is also a tactile activity it was not unreasonable to follow their example. I am aware that this would be thought unethical in stuffier circles but I draw comfort from a high proportion of satisfied clients.
Looking back now on our early days, Gudrun and I often recall one of the first couples who came to us. Let us call them John and Jane. I sensed early in the consultation a degree of antagonism between them, as though each was hoping I would say that one was right and the other wrong, an outcome one should always seek to avoid. The contentious area was oral sex: John wanted them to try both fellatio and cunnilingus, Jane vehemently declined either.
After some discussion, I suggested a small experiment to which they agreed - fortunately without asking what I intended. I motioned to Gudrun who was always in attendance as an informal nurse/chaperone. She saw immediately what was required. Swiftly moving to John's side, she opened his zip, extracted his penis, stroked it two or three times and then bent her mouth to the head. I was watching Jane, half expecting her to get up and leave or, at least, to make some form of protest, but she seemed transfixed by what she saw.
Gudrun, it goes without saying, is a mistress of fellatio. When we enjoy this practice together she is able to sustain my erection just short of the point of ejaculation for a remarkable length of time. John, in his inexperience, was not so lucky. Barely had Gudrun taken his distended member into her mouth than he spasmed and delivered his semen into her throat (I should point out that this was before we became ultra cautious about the threat of AIDS; today, Gudrun only performs in this way if the client wears a condom).
At the time, I felt the way Gudrun licked her lips upon completion of the act was unnecessary but on reflection I could see that her intention was to convey a message to Jane, who remained in a state of what appeared to be bewildered shock. Gudrun, however, saw the need to capitalise on what had been achieved. Taking Jane gently by the arm, she led her to the couch and persuaded her to lie down. Murmuring softly in the woman's ear, she swiftly peeled back Jane's skirt to reveal white, practical underwear. While reassuringly stroking Jane's face, she nodded to me.
I moved to the couch and knelt to remove the knickers, noting that Jane at least made a very slight movement, lifting her bottom to assist me. However, when I attempted to part her legs she remained rigid, neither actively resisting nor co-operating. For a while I caressed the outside of her thighs, wondering how to progress. Looking to Gudrun for guidance, I saw that she had a hand inside the neckline of Jane's dress and appeared to be manipulating a breast while speaking quiet words of reassurance. Encouraged, I intensified my caresses, with each stroke moving my fingers a little higher and inward towards the groin.
Suddenly, Jane sighed and relaxed. The crisis had passed. I touched her knee and she parted her legs, instinctively raising her knees but, Gudrun reported later, clenching her eyes tight shut. The labia before my face were surmounted by a fringe of fine light brown hair. I parted the slightly puffy lips with my fingers. There was no resistance. I explored with my tongue, discovering that her inner lubrication was already advanced. My first touch to the distended clitoris finally elicited a sound that seemed to indicate approval. I continued, licking slowly and with only moderate pressure.
What we learned then, and have confirmed subsequently with other inexperienced women, is that in introducing them to cunnilingus it is important, once begun, not to vary the technique employed. To do so can lead to a diminution of that drive to orgasm which has to be the novice's real objective. However, there is a crucial moment that can be exploited profitably, as I then did with Jane. Aware of tiny muscle contractions in the inner thighs - a sure indication of the oncoming climax - I paused, lifted my head and asked, "Would you like me to stop now?"
At first there was no reply. Then Jane said, "Yes. Yes, please stop. " And a moment later, "I mean, no. Go on. Do it for me if you like. "
"No, Jane," said Gudrun. She had opened the front of the woman's dress and brought her nipples to dark-hued prominence. "It is not his choice. But I think you need to continue, to go all the way. Isn't that so?"
In a small voice Jane said, "Yes. I want it. "
As I resumed, Gudrun applied her tongue to a hardening nipple. Jane's physical response had inevitably receded to some degree but her mind was now receptive. I confess that I was myself aroused by the task of taking her on a prolonged upward path from initial arousal to unrestrained ecstasy. When the moment eventually came she rode the crest without excessive effort. There were no accompanying sounds but there was a tell-tale thrust of the vaginal mound against my face, a short period of tension followed by a long exhalation of breath and a slow relaxation. I cleansed the lips with my tongue and then rose in time to see Gudrun refastening Jane's dress. John, I noticed, was hurriedly trying to return his erect penis to his trousers.
We suggested that they might like to be left alone in the room to talk or possibly to experiment further with each other but they declined (a disappointment to us - it would have been our first opportunity to observe through the two-way mirror we had installed. a facility which has since provided us with much titillation). When they left, I told them they should take time for reflection and return for a further consultation in two months. They promised to do so but we never heard from them again. We often wonder if they went on to enrich their sexual activities orally or whether Jane wrote off her experience with us as a momentary aberration and reverted to obstinate self-denial. In which case, I doubt whether they are still together. Therapists can only do so much for clients.
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One of the most common problems brought to our consulting rooms is imbalance of sexual desire: one partner in greater need than the other. Complete equity, of course, is rare but most couples are able to reach an amicable compromise. Difficulty arises when there is a substantial difference in libido. Usually, it is the male who is dissatisfied with the female's limited interest or, in that situation, the female who is irritated by what she considers to be excessive demands for her body. However, one of our more interesting cases concerned a woman who complained that sex with her husband was too infrequent for her needs and, moreover, was unsatisfactory when it did occur.
We will call this couple Mary and Nigel. Mary was twenty-six and, it can be said without being impolite, quite plain: about five feet eight, size twelve, brown hair to her shoulders, brown eyes, small, high breasts. She dressed unpretentiously, always coming to us in a plain blouse with a skirt two or three inches below the knee and, as we discovered in time, hold-up stockings. Nigel, a schoolmaster, was forty-two, tall, with dark short hair, a long, lean face, neither beard nor moustache. He wore a dark suit at first, later casuals that were no longer quite fashionable. Yet, such is sexual chemistry, such is woman's intuition, Gudrun said that even at the couple's first consultation she had no difficulty in visualising him as a sexual partner. It made the nature of Nigel and Mary's incompatibility the more puzzling.
They had been married for eight years, but before marriage they had not lived together, nor had sex with each other, unusual enough in this age. Both had had limited premarital experience with other partners. Although this much emerged during our early discussions, it was soon apparent that both were embarrassed when answering intimate questions. This is not uncommon and the solution is to conduct separate interviews. In the case of Mary and Nigel, as with others, this invariably produced useful information. The downside is suspicion, or at least apprehension, on both sides about what the other has said. It also entails more consultations. We like to replay the interview tapes before considering how to progress, and then it is usually necessary to speak to each individually again before bringing them together to try to steer them towards a resolution.
In this case it seemed that Mary had taken the initiative in coming to us, so it was logical to hear her side of the story first. The following are extracts from my case notes.
Ref. 0372/6/03 Int 2, Transcript 19/06/03 Extracts Subject: Mary X
Q. You've told us it was your idea to seek advice.
A. Yes.
Q. You had discussed the problem together, tried to find a solution yourselves?
A. Well, up to a point . . .
Q. Which was?
A. I'm afraid Nigel doesn't find it easy to talk about sex. We didn't get very far.
Q. And the difficulty was - what exactly?
A. (after a long pause) I suppose basically it was me wanting sex when Nigel didn't.
Q. How often would that occur?
A. Most of the time. I mean, when we were first married it was more or less all right. But it just sort of tapered off. At first, I thought it was the kind of thing all couples probably go through. Only after a while I realised how much I was missing it.
Q. Missing the comfort of the physical relationship?
A. More than that. I just wanted to be - you know. The physical act.
Q. Can you say how often?
A. (a pause) I think I could do it every day. (a pause) Is that awful?
Q. Not awful. Unusual, certainly. Some women might envy you. But when you had this - urge, how did you communicate it to Nigel?
A. Different ways, I suppose - trying to be very loving towards him, perhaps suggesting it would be nice to try . . .
Q. When would you do this?
A. At night, in bed.
Q. Never during the day?
A. No.
