New Yorkers Get Schooled in 'Womanly Arts'

Feb. 20, 2004 -- Some women are naturally comfortable with their bodies and sex, but many are not. Thousands of therapists offer to help. But few offer self-esteem and sex classes quite like the woman who calls herself "Mama Gena." She's not a professional sex therapist, but her clients seem to blossom.

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Mama Gena's real name is Regena Thomashauer. She came to New York City 25 years ago to pursue an acting career. She says she noticed that even her successful friends had unhappy relationships. "You walk around New York City — you walk around anywhere — you see women without their lights on. There's a lovely woman, but it's blank. There's no vibe or voom."

So she decided she could do something about it. She changed her name to Mama Gena and opened her School of Womanly Arts. For $650, she gives her students — who range in age from 18 to 80 — six weekly, three-hour classes in the fundamentals of sensuality.

To learn more about Mama Gena and her classes, visit her Web site www.mamagenas.com

Mama Gena's students are pretty embarrassed at the beginning of the class. "The first night, I come in here — it's little stone faces. It takes so much to enter this building and to say yes to your pleasure."

Most of her students are young and single — a few are married. She says she teaches women "how to create things not through hard work or suffering, but using their appetite, their desire, what they want, what they long for, what their dreams are."

Putting Your Own Desires First

According to Mama Gena, women have a tendency to neglect their own desires by putting other people's needs before their own. She says women will gain more control in all areas of their lives if they get a handle on their sexual life. "When a woman is willing to own herself sensually she owns her life … When a woman really adores herself then playing with guys is a joy," she said.

The women who enroll in her class talk about the mixed messages culture sends them about their sexuality. "It's like, 'Be sexy, but don't be too sexy,'" said Elizabeth, a 24-year-old bartender.

"I really needed to get in touch with what I wanted," she said.

Christina, 27, says she was confused about what was acceptable sexual behavior. She said, "I was taught to be a really proper lady. And certain topics were not talked about."

In one class, Mama Gena teaches her students how to touch. "Your hands are like a sex organ," she says, "and when you touch somebody and you want to create the greatest sensation in you partner's body. It's very simple. How you do it is take your pleasure."

In other words, she says, women will please their partners much more when they themselves are enjoying sensual touching.

Overcoming Inhibitions

She gives the class exercises intended to break through the women's sexual inhibitions. "I hand out big sheets of paper, and the participants paint or draw their vulvas with glitter glue and sparkles and feathers and pens," she said, "and then I make them sign it and hang it on their wall." She says this exercise really changes a woman's attitude. "If a woman walks around town and she has the thought, 'I have a vulva.' It changes her posture. It changes her voice. It changes the way she carries herself."

Mama Gena says women neglect their most sensitive parts. "We were gifted with 8,000 nerve endings dedicated to pleasure. Do you know how many nerve endings men have dedicated to pleasure? 4,000. And most of us were taught to ignore that side of ourselves."

She gives the women homework, telling them to practice touching themselves to see what they like. "I want them to understand where the most sensitive area of their clitoris is," she said.

And once her students have learned the techniques, Mama Gena advises them on how to teach their men. She's written a manual: Mama Gena's Owners and Operator's Guide to Men. She says women need to learn how to tell men what they want, rather than getting angry with them after they feel let down.

"Most women will wait until a guy totally blows it, and then they'll say something like, 'You forgot my birthday!' That's not training. That's punishing. Training would be dropping a little hint, saying, 'Oh you know what, my birthday's next week, where do you want to go for dinner?' "

Likewise, she says, women need to learn inviting ways to tell their men what they want sexually. "Show him the most sensitive part of your body. Say, 'I found this amazing spot on my clitoris. And if you just take your finger, and move it just like that, I think I could have a very good time. Would you be up for that?'"

‘Turn That Baby On!’

At the end of the six-week course, the women are filled with excitement. On graduation night at a local nightclub, they seemed transformed. "What these women have learned is that there is only one way to own and operate a man and that is to be willing to own yourself sensually."

And some of the women had breakthroughs in other areas of their lives, too. Blanca was surprised that the class even changed the way she talked to her mother. "For the first time ever," she said, "I started talking to her like she was a woman and she was telling me she likes to dance and I have never known that. It was just so beautiful."

Elizabeth, who commented on the mixed messages on female sexuality, said, "I've gotten to that place where my passion is my life and I've made my own excitement. I am getting everything that I want because I'm giving it to myself and it's such a wonderful place to be. And I'm so happy that you guys are part of it."

Mama Gena said, "Every one of these women has been willing to put her own key in her ignition. Turn that baby on! And drive it down the highway."