Indulge yourself, Mama Gena tells women

A 15-minute conversation with Regena Thomashauer, known in New York circles for her instructional classes on sex and relationships, is more likely a script for a "Sex and the City" episode than a topic for the dinner table.

But that's her point: Instead of confining themselves to what society finds acceptable, women should indulge themselves.

"As women, most of us have been taught to serve, to take care of people, and we don't spend as much time putting attention on what we want," said Thomashauer, who goes by "Mama Gena."

Her first book is "Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts: Using the Power of Pleasure to Have Your Way with the World" (Simon & Schuster, $20).

As a 45-year-old New Yorker with a 5-year-old daughter, Thomashauer lives her own words of advice. Her king-size bed is adorned in white satin sheets and hot-pink pillows (maybe to match the color of her book cover?). She listens to Alicia Keys, Ja Rule or Boy George — music more fit for teenagers and Generation X than a baby boomer.

"I think that a woman needs to do at least one pleasurable thing a day," she said. Put flowers on your desk at work, drink a cup of your favorite tea, slip on a pair of red high heels, or wake up five minutes early to put lotion all over your body, she suggested.

"That's an investment that will pay off big-time," she said.

The 181-page book walks readers through her eight womanly arts. The most important, she said, is "whetting your appetite" and identifying what you want. For Thomashauer that means thinking about a pint of Häagen-Dazs chocolate ice cream long enough that it's like she's actually tasting it. "We've had a chocolate vacation, and all we did is talk about it," she said.

Other womanly arts include having fun, flirting and "owning and operating men."

"I look at woman as the greatest untapped resource on the planet," Thomashauer said. "When woman's voices are really heard, first by themselves, and then the world, everything gets better."

Tricia Duryee can be reached at 206-464-3283 or tduryee@seattletimes.com.