"Women love sex, we’re ravenous for it, in fact — but only if the men we’re with are good at it."
So goes the warning shot Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s new director of communications Jennifer Gearey sends in a sex advice column she wrote in a past life, before taking on a job in the minister's office last month.
Gearey oversees MacKay's announcements and is ultimately responsible for getting the minister's message across in the media.
She previously worked for the defence department as a civilian, taking a leave of absence to run for the Tories during the 2011 federal election. Before working in the public sector, however, Gearey worked as a freelance journalist.
Two sex advice columns she wrote in 2007 caught our eye.
That year, she also wrote "Rubbing Your Man the Right Way." The piece, which was published in Bobbi magazine, includes tips on how to "blow your partner away", including enjoying "enjoy your man like a damn good ice cream cone with a mouth watering cherry that you keep going back for more of."
When it comes to advice for men, though, Gearey, a mother of three who is now married to MacKay’s former chief of staff, John MacDonell, shares tips on:
– Masturbation: "If you really want to spoil her, treat your hunney to a special new sex toy — and don’t feel threatened, these playthings will never replace your studly self."
– Talking dirty: "During the course of a day, call or email your partner and tell her all the things you want to do to her when you get home. Build up her sexual expectations and when you finally see her there will be little time for anything other than her warm jeans pressed up against you and her nails running eagerly down your back."
– Touching your woman: "Be gentle, start with her erogenous zones — kiss her neck, nibble at her thigh, or take a shower together and put some kink under the water by offering a shave à la Brazilian perhaps."
– And what to do post-sex: “Most girls don’t need to be cradled after a romp in the hay, that’s a misconception. Like you, we could probably go for a three-tower falafel sandwich and perhaps even a snooze.”
Gearey told HuffPost that, as a journalist, she wrote articles from "Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, North Korea and covered various topics, including the threat of nuclear weapons in Asia, Canadian Armed Forces members serving in the Middle East, Quebec language rights, human interest stories as well as healthy, safe sexual relations."
"I’m now focused on delivering on the mandate of Minister MacKay and supporting the communications of the Department of National Defence," she said, refusing to answer other questions.
Gearey previously worked for Treasury Board President Tony Clement and served as a communications adviser with the National Defence department’s assistant deputy minister’s office for public affairs.
She ran for the Conservative Party of Canada in Gatineau, a Quebec riding just north of Ottawa, in 2011. At Gearey’s launch event, 15 days after the election call, former Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon praised her as a "dedicated, professional (woman) who has and shares the same values that we share, the same values about the family, the upright values."
Gearey lost the election, coming in fourth behind the winning NDP candidate, the Bloc Québécois and the Liberal candidate. She received 7.9 per cent of the vote.
Still, she told a local paper she had an incredible adventure and might be ready to do it all over again.
"I literally fell in love with Gatineau," she told La Revue.
Before joining DND, Gearey worked as a freelance writer. On her LinkedIn profile, she notes that she spent five years, from 2004 to 2009, writing "sexy articles" for UMM. This spring, according to her Twitter account, she wrote a piece for UMM on celebrities’ strange collections, for example Johnny Depp's insects and Angelina Jolie’s knives. Gearey has also blogged for HuffPost and written pieces for Peace Magazine, among other publications.
It was an article in The Globe and Mail, however, that seems to have caused the most controversy.
A column titled "Conflict isn't pretty. But you can be" received stinging criticism from Don Martin, then a National Post columnist and now a CTV personality.
In the Globe piece, Gearey offered grooming tips for female reporters working in Afghanistan, complete with product suggestions. Among her advice: "Wear foundation because it's kinder to your skin than the air;" "You'll also need a mud mask to cleanse your pores;" "A pair of stud earrings will make you feel feminine even when you're filthy;" and "paint your toenails; that way you won't see all the dirt underneath."
Martin was particularly incensed that Gearey would suggest women get custom bulletproof vests to accommodate their breasts and wear "mascara, because batting your long lashes will get you across many checkpoints."
He said her "drivel" portrayed female war correspondents as sex objects for soldiers. He wrote that CBC reporter Mellissa Fung, who was later kidnapped in Afghanistan, had sarcastically noted when reading the Gearey’s story that "the 50 C heat would quickly sweat off the makeup and turn melting mascara into rivers of black, even if women were inclined to coat themselves in the stuff, as the story recommended."
Martin concluded his column by offering Gearey some unsolicited advice: "Stick to writing about tattoo removals, and know that serious women reporters leave the beauty tips at home so they can cover the front line in their uniquely professional fashion."
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