Female Ejaculation (36 page)

First, let’s review the modern history of orgasm. Whether you know it or not, you’ve undoubtedly been conditioned by some of these myths and you’re certainly affected by these physiological facts.

We bet you know lots about Sigmund Freud who developed psychoanalysis in Vienna before World War II. Freud believed that all of our neuroses stem from sex. Whether you agree or not, at least he brought to the public’s attention that the mind is the most powerful sex organ. When it blocks pleasure, sex isn’t anywhere near as good as the original designer intended.

Freud believed that women could experience orgasm from clitoral or vaginal stimulation. Unfortunately, he had to go further and say that vaginal orgasms were better, in that they represented the orgasm of the emotionally mature woman. Therefore, he believed that clitoral orgasms were immature and somehow lesser.

Do you feel less mature when you experience great pleasure from stimulation of your clitoris? We hope not.

Many studies we’ve seen substantiate that 75% of women don’t experience vaginal orgasm. Was Freud telling the vast majority of women that they should feel less worthy because their clitoris pleasure is second class?

Of course, we believe all pleasure is a divine gift. Our personal and professional opinion is that clitoris and internal G-spot orgasms are simply different, not better or less evolved.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or member of the upper class to create and receive any kind of pleasure. Whatever feels good is good in your mind.

Freud’s orgasm theory wasn’t officially challenged until the pioneering behavioral work by Alfred Kinsey in the 1950s. His team interviewed thousands and thousands of people to uncover the realities of modern sexual play rather than just theory.

We have Alfred to thank for the first scientific validation of a wide range of erotic activities. Though Kinsey’s efforts did swing the pendulum away from the vaginal-only orgasm camp, his methods unfortunately contained a serious procedural error.

He didn’t want to be accused of “fiddling” with his research subjects, so his team of gynecologists tested female erogenous zones with a device similar to a Q-tip. Aside from the fact that this doesn’t sound very sexually arousing, we know something today that Alfred didn’t.

Yes, the clitoris responds to soft touch and friction like his Q-tip device could easily create. But the vagina doesn’t. Most of the deep recesses of the vagina only respond to pressure, something that Kinsey’s little Q-tip thingie wasn’t designed to produce (in contrast to men’s big thingies, which are designed to produce pressure.)

A decade later, Masters and Johnson did a great service to our sexual lives in their groundbreaking 1960s studies of people having sex in the laboratory. They more clearly defined orgasm and gave us the well-known four-stage model for sexual play: excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution.

It’s too bad that they based some of their research methods on Kinsey’s findings. One of their primary criteria for selecting lovers for their study was that the women had to be capable of masturbating to orgasm. So, they left out women who responded differently and concluded that the clitoris alone was responsible for orgasm in women.

Undoubtedly, they studied couples untrained in the ancient arts of love. Without knowing how to manage energy buildup, circulation, and exchange, they worked exclusively with a limited view of sexuality which, in Freud’s words, was immature.

All scientists are limited by their own world view. How can you ask questions about something that you know nothing about?

While all of this was going on, the G-spot was mostly ignored. More than two decades earlier, Ernst Gräfenberg, the German gynecologist, wrote his famous 1950 article about the highly erogenous zone on the upper wall of the vagina. He recognized the tissue was erectile and could produce powerful orgasms — even ejaculation.

Today, we know this is true for many women. We believe that most women can learn to enjoy these sensational sexual experiences through the practices in this book. But from what we’ve read, Kinsey, Masters, and Johnson, along with the great majority of modern sexologists, ignored Gräfenberg’s findings.

In 1982, Alice Kahn Ladas, Beverly Whipple, and John D. Perry published
The G-Spot and Other Discoveries About Human Sexuality.
Their still best-selling book and its media acclaim firmly established this erogenous zone as a “spot.”

In a recent email, John D. Perry discussed the use of the term “spot”:

Whatever you call the clitoris, the vagina, or the G-spot, we just hope you accept your and your lover’s body like the Star Trek movie, “The Undiscovered Country.” Play, explore, and titillate whatever turns you on. That’s our scientific position.

In the 1970s, sexologists Irving and Josephine Singer did their part to resolve (or add to) the orgasm controversy by identifying three types of female orgasm: clitoral, uterine, and blended (a blend of the other two.) They were the first to report on the deep vaginal orgasms presumably caused by the jostling of the cervix, the opening to the womb at the top of the vagina.

The Singers found that different muscles and feelings were involved. In response to this, Ladas, Whipple, and Perry developed the two-nerve theory, claiming that different nerves feeding the clitoris and the inner recesses of the vagina and the uterus account for the reports of different kinds of orgasms. We thank them all for identifying different physiological pathways and introducing the idea of blending various sources of sensation.

There are other theories of orgasm out there. The continuum proposal theorizes that there’s a spectrum of climaxes triggered by the
clitoris at one end and the uterus at the other. Some believe the truth is closer to a model of overlapping spheres, which counteracts the linear male-centric mindset of most sexuality research. Foremost among them are Jennifer and Laura Berman who wrote
For Women Only
.

We included the history of orgasm because we thought it might provoke some introspection and motivation to learn more. But, frankly, we’re not very interested in the scientific categorization of what brings us pleasure. These theories are just that — ideas that can only provide a vague approximation of what’s really going on inside our bodies, minds, and spirits.

The whole body and your most sensitive tissues are interconnected anyway. Different nerves feed the clitoris and the vagina, creating orgasms that sometimes feel different. Playing with different models can help you understand what’s happening inside yourself when you’re getting really juiced up. Then, you can take responsibility and guide your own pleasure. By knowing what the possibilities are, you can better guide your partner to reach higher realms of ecstasy.

Margot Anand is fond of saying: “There are as many kinds of orgasms as stars in the sky.”

We know there are a myriad of different orgasms. No doubt, different folks experience them in different ways. Instead of classifying them, we want to explore different physical pathways to orgasm with the clitoris, the vagina, the penis, and the G-spot. With many of these pathways, lovers can experience single, multiple, and extended orgasms and reach the continuous state of climax we call the O-Zone.

Imagine having your most powerful triggers creatively loved while you’re in the throes of extended peak pleasure. The long slow buildup and the rhythms of peaking and plateauing are well worth the trip.

While we’re on the subject, let’s not forget that many experience the same kind of climaxes in the heart, the head, or the other subtle energy centers we call chakras. Jeffre recently had her first thumb orgasm when her hand was being sucked after a long, full-body peaking experience.