Seeing the good in the bad

Jennifer K Mahal

Barbara Keesling wants women to know that it’s good to be bad.

To that end, the Costa Mesa sex therapist and Cal State Fullerton

human sexuality professor has a new book, “The Good Girl’s Guide to Bad

Girl Sex.”

Being bad, said the author of “Sexual Healing” and “Talk Sexy to the

One You Love,” does not mean being immoral, acting cheap, being

pornographic or obscene in public, behaving dangerously or recklessly, or

demeaning yourself.

“It’s not for people who want to be promiscuous,” she said. “It’s for

people in a committed relationship.”

In Keesling’s just released book, a bad girl is defined as one who is

sexually confident, assertive and unashamed.

But other people define bad differently.

“Virginal is no longer the criteria for being classified as a good

girl or a bad girl,” said Bright Ryan, co-owner of Wicked Chamber, a sexy

clothing shop in Costa Mesa. “I’m finding that when a couple comes in to

the store, the guy’s not looking for the girl to be shy, he’s looking for

her to be honest.”

Ryan said that she thinks a good girl is one who plays fair by not

playing games and not changing the rules.

“The bad girls tend to be the ones who are devious, constantly

manipulating,” she said.

Mona Coates, human sexuality professor at Orange Coast College for the

past 26 years, said the book’s title is catchy, but she thinks the

good-bad dichotomy has outlived its usefulness.

“I think a lot of the population who thinks in good-bad, black and

white terms misses the finesse that we have nowadays in sexuality,”

Coates said. “Those concepts have caused more pain and trauma than they

create resolution.”

However, she said that she considers Keesling a “wonderful” author.

“I know her work well,” Coates said.

Keesling said the idea for the book -- her eighth -- came out of

conversations she had with friends and her experience teaching at Cal

State Fullerton.

A few semesters ago, the professor had her students write essays on

what they thought being bad meant. She said many of the girls in her

class seem to be getting the message that there is a double standard for

sexual behavior -- men can do one thing, but women have to adhere to

other rules.

“A lot of these girls are really afraid to be seen as a bad girl,”

Keesling said.

The therapist confronts many of the stereotypes about being a bad girl

head on in chapters titled, “Bad Girls Feel Good About Being Bad” and

“Bad Girls Knows Their Bodies.”

She said she feels lucky to have come of age in the late ‘60s, early

‘70s, when exploring sexuality was on an upswing.

“Most of the women now were born in an era that equated sex with death

(because of HIV and AIDS),” said the Hermosa Beach native who has lived

in Orange County since 1980. “I don’t envy (young women). In the ‘70s, we

had to decide whether to get married, have children, have a career. Now

they have to make decisions about their health.”

It was an article about sexual health that led Keesling to become an

expert in sexual therapy.

One day, while on a break from her job as a mail carrier in Redondo

Beach, she read a newspaper article about the sex surrogates working with

William Masters and Virginia Johnson. Keesling decided to find out more

about it and asked the human sexuality teacher at a community college.

That contact lead her to a career as a surrogate partner.

Surrogates, explained Keesling, help people in sex therapy who do not

have partners to complete the exercises given to them by their therapist.

The exercises do not necessarily require having sex, she said, although

that can be part of the assignment.

Sexual dysfunction, premature ejaculation, sexual anxiety and low

sexual desire are among the problems she has helped treat both as a

surrogate and a therapist.

While working as a surrogate, Keesling earned her bachelor’s in

psychology from Cal State Fullerton. The Bishop Montgomery High School

graduate went on to earn her doctorate in health and social psychology

from UC Riverside in 1988.

“My mom loves the part where I write books. The part where I have sex

with people, she’s not so happy about,” said Keesling, who has appeared

on Howard Stern and modeled in Playboy.

“People ask me the weirdest questions,” she said. “From have I done

perverse things . . . they ask really rude questions.”

Though she didn’t write the book with a particular example in mind,

Keesling summed up her classic bad girl in one word -- Madonna.

“She has sex on her own terms,” she said of Mrs. Ritchie, adding that

the superstar has even put out a book called “Sex.”

But Keesling is quick to say that Madonna is not her idol, instead

naming someone less glamorous -- noted sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

“She did everyone a huge service,” she said.

On the good girl side, Keesling points to to actresses like Jennifer

Love Hewitt. Although she is also quick to point out that many of the

girl-next-door models and actresses tend to vamp it up in bad-girlish

leather on magazine covers.

“This obviously taps into something,” she said.

Keesling said she hopes the book will help girls find their way to

becoming comfortable with their sexuality in this mixed-message era.

“I’m not any kind of advocate, but I think we will find in the next

few years that a healthy sex life is a really good thing,” she said.