The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex (12 page)

I leave everything. I’m conscious only of ecstatic sensation, a universal sensation, warmth and vibrance coursing through me. Freedom from everything mundane rips through me, and I float on the breath of god—so to speak.

I experience orgasm as a minideath, approaching blackout. Psychologically, I have an approach/avoidance conflict. The closer I get, the more afraid I am. My partner has to reassure me.

My orgasms aren’t completely reliable, and I often feel like I need more. Maybe I’m afraid of them. Afraid of the intensity or of being so far away from myself.

Before you read any further in this book, you might want to take the time to consider your own internalized expectations of orgasm. Do you share either of the following viewpoints?

Orgasm is always the ultimate point of any sexual experience. Sex without orgasm is like a cheeseburger without the cheese…missing something.

I enjoy having orgasms, but they’re not my goal of sexual activity.

We propose that you consider treating orgasm as a possible, even probable, outcome of any sexual experience, but that you try to avoid focusing on it as a goal. When you focus on the end result of any sexual experience, you run the risk of rushing past or even denying yourself some of the more subtle pleasures to be enjoyed along the way. If you’re reluctant to embark on a sexual experience unless satisfaction is guaranteed, you’re cheating yourself out of the joys of the unexpected. New toys and techniques may not set you on a tried-and-true path to orgasm, but they will open up entirely new horizons of sensation. We hope that you’ll approach the techniques described in this book with pleasure, rather than orgasm, as your goal.

Orgasm leaves me feeling energized, refreshed, and beautiful. Sometimes it’s a very quick experience, and other times the build-up is so great that it becomes almost like an orgasm itself.

I like reveling in the last minute or two before surrender to orgasm. Often I will tense up all over my body, rise up, and let my partner know how good I feel.

Although orgasm is amazingly pleasurable to me it’s the thirty seconds or so before it that are my favorite. My mind disappears and I feel my entire existence has been shifted into my clitoris…like it’s a mountain and I’m floating towards its peak, floating around in that blissful place. The actual orgasm itself is frenetic and convulsive and violent for me. There is nothing peaceful about it.

Your expectations of orgasm may manifest as anxiety about what type of physiological response truly “counts” as orgasm. This is more of an issue for women than men, as women are more likely than men to have never experienced an orgasm or to feel a discrepancy between their own physiological experiences and a hazy, romantic ideal of orgasm as an earth-shaking event:

I was around 10 or 12, and would lie in bed and rub myself until I shook. I read my mom’s
Cosmo
magazines and—because I didn’t understand what was happening—kept thinking that if I only could get past these spasms, I’d find out what an orgasm was.

I mostly am not quite sure if I’ve had an orgasm. My current partner once told me, “Well, you’re certainly having some kind of climactic experience!” and described several things I didn’t remember doing, so it seems like there’s some sort of perception error.

However, orgasm envy is not limited to women:

I don’t think I’ve ever had an orgasm the way my wife has. I have come very strongly, but not to the extent that I think I should.

If you are someone who’s never experienced an orgasm, many of the toys and techniques described in this book may be of use to you in exploring your sexual responses. Vibrators, which provide sustained, consistent stimulation, are particularly helpful for those women who have not yet been able to move beyond arousal to orgasm. If you’re someone who’s not sure if she has experienced orgasm, take note of the range of sensations described throughout this book. Do any of the experiences you read about echo your own?

Solo or Partnered

It’s quite possible you’ll find that your experience of orgasm shifts, depending on whether you’re alone or with a partner. You may find more freedom in solitude:

I enjoy coming by myself best because I can float uninterrupted from intensely screeching pleasure into blissful relaxation without worrying about pleasuring my partner.

Orgasm is pretty hard to come by for me. It’s easily attainable when I’m alone, but a lot harder with a partner. When I’m alone I can go as fast or slow as I want—I guess I don’t feel as much pressure to come right away. I can spend as much time on myself as I want.

Or you may find the presence of a companion gives you more satisfaction:

Orgasm with a partner rocks my whole body, and then there’s a wonderful release. By myself, it builds to a height of pleasure and then release, not as intense as with a partner.

In the best of sexual relationships, you’ll each feel secure in your unique responses, and you can honestly share each other’s pleasure, however it’s taken:

I find that since I have been with my husband these past five years I can slow down and truly enjoy orgasm. We like to share each other’s orgasm, watching the other person come. Coming together is not a necessity, and it’s also okay that I do not choose to come during intercourse. Because of this I feel more free about my orgasm. I use a vibrator, dildo and vibrator, my hands, his hand or mouth—and sometimes I do come during intercourse.

Multiple Orgasm

This term is used to describe the experience of having more than one orgasm in quick succession. We do hope you won’t translate the fact that some folks experience multiple orgasms into a performance hoop to jump through in bed. However, if you’re intrigued by the idea of expanding the parameters of your sexual responses, read on. Whether or not you experience more than one orgasm in a single session, you can certainly have a good time practicing!

MEN: Multiple orgasms are more common in women than in men, as men tend to experience what’s known as a “refractory period” after ejaculation, during which they’re temporarily unable to achieve another erection. This refractory period can last anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. There are, however, men who have reported experiences of consecutive ejaculatory orgasms with only brief refractory periods between each ejaculation. You may have experienced this yourself in adolescence—it occurs fairly infrequently in men over 30. More commonly, men who achieve multiple orgasms have trained themselves to orgasm without ejaculating, thereby sidestepping the “draining” effects of ejaculation and the need for a refractory period.

As noted above, ejaculation and orgasm are two distinct physiological phenomena, and it’s possible to train yourself to experience the latter separately from the former. You might undertake this training in the spirit of Taoist sexual practitioners, with the goal of preserving the “vital energy” of your semen. Or you might just want to experiment with new sensations.

How do you train yourself to orgasm without ejaculating? The key is to consciously play with your level of arousal, to learn that responses you may have experienced as “inevitable” do fall under your control. Stimulate yourself until you reach the point where you feel an impending orgasm, then stop for up to twenty seconds and wait for the urge to ebb. It’s helpful to hold still, breathe slowly and deeply, and relax your pelvic muscles. Then start up again. Continue to tease yourself, backing off from the verge of orgasm several times.

My technique is partial orgasms. This is when I jack off for a while, and then when it’s getting so good that I have to come, I let go of the pressure from my hand, and just let my cum drip out. This gives me about 90 percent of the pleasure of a complete orgasm, but since there isn’t a full release of energy, I can continue this cycle of jacking off endlessly.

I sometimes come without orgasm, and often orgasm without coming. The longer intercourse lasts for me before ejaculation, the greater the chance of orgasm without ejaculation.

Experts on male multiple orgasm fall into two slightly different camps when it comes to coming. Both emphasize the importance of cultivating PC muscle tone and awareness. One school of thought advises men to contract the PC muscle at moments of high arousal as a way of “putting on the brakes” to prevent ejaculation—this squeezing should be followed by holding still, breathing deeply, and relaxing all the muscles of the pelvis and butt to back off from orgasm. In this school, men are taught to gradually build arousal until reaching the brink of orgasm, at which point, if they squeeze the PC muscle long and hard, they can launch themselves into orgasm without ejaculation.

The second school of thought holds that contracting the PC muscle will cause, rather than delay, ejaculation, and that the trick to orgasm without ejaculation is to keep the PC muscle completely relaxed. Whichever technique you employ, the bottom line is that voluntary control of the PC muscle can be a great sexual enhancer, so start doing your Kegel exercises today.

Ready for a few final tips? Taoist sexual teachers advocate pressing an acupuncture point located in your perineum when you feel yourself close to ejaculating. This is supposed to halt the passage of prostatic and seminal fluids to the urethra, and to allow you to experience orgasm without any expulsion of fluids. If you’re having intercourse with a partner, you may also find it useful to adopt a position that reduces muscular tension in your body (such as partner on top)—so that you can focus on and control your pelvic muscles more easily. Whichever of these tips you adopt, if you take the time to build your level of arousal, you’ll doubtlessly be rewarded with at least one powerful orgasm—and maybe many more.

When I was about to climax, my girlfriend took her middle finger and placed the tip of it on my anus, with the rest of her finger resting behind my scrotum, pressed hard against the skin, while she cupped my balls in her hand. I don’t know what she did but it took me forever to cum! I remember jumping out of bed and screaming, “What the hell did you do to me, and can we do it again!!!”

Orgasm without ejaculation is tough to achieve for me, but well worth the extra effort. I have nearly the same feelings as orgasm with ejaculation, but all the sensitivity remains, and I remain horny. This makes sex last longer.

WOMEN: Some researchers have suggested that women are more likely to experience multiple orgasm than men because of differences in genital blood flow. Blood is propelled out of an erect penis during the spasms of orgasm via a concentrated network of veins. There is no such single concentrated vein pathway from a woman’s erect clitoris and labia, so blood flows in and out of her erectile tissues more readily, facilitating repeated orgasms. Although every woman theoretically has the physiological capacity to experience multiple orgasms, not every woman will particularly want to have or will enjoy having more than one orgasm at a time:

Usually I feel satisfied and very relaxed after my one orgasm.

I’m lucky if I can manage two orgasms in twenty-four hours, let alone in a row. Never had multiple orgasms happen. After I’ve come once, it’s just too sensitive, and I’m not interested enough.

I experience multiple orgasms. They eventually decrease in intensity for me, and rubbing myself raw isn’t really that pleasurable. Quality is more important than quantity.

Of course, if your curiosity is piqued, there’s no reason not to explore the possibility of having more than one orgasm in a sex session. The three basic rules of multiple orgasm are: back off, breathe, and move. After your first orgasm, your clitoris may be too sensitive to take any more direct stimulation. Continue stimulating yourself indirectly—switch to a lighter touch. If you’re using a vibrator, you might want to move the vibrator to another part of your genitals, or to the back of your hand, while you continue to touch yourself with your hand. Take deep, panting breaths, and rock your pelvis in time with your breathing. Let the energy build back up in your genitals. Within a few minutes, excruciating overstimulation may well give way to excruciating pleasure and you’ll find yourself sailing off into another orgasm. Some people find that their second or third orgasms feel more powerful than the first, and some find that their orgasms become progressively less intense:

Multiple orgasms are fantastic, but sometimes I feel my body doesn’t know when to quit!

During masturbation, I generally enjoy four to five orgasms—though they diminish in intensity after that. Several times, more out of curiosity than anything else, I have gone out for marathon sessions—between one to two hours long—and continued to orgasm (stopped counting at fifteen to twenty). Hands and fingers finally worn out, but clit still obliging.

When I do have a second orgasm, it is more intense than the first, though a lot harder to achieve. In these cases, my partner brings me off the first time, and I bring myself off the second time (usually manually). When I am alone and masturbating, I normally stop after just one orgasm.

Some people who practice breath work and meditative techniques report experiences of orgasm that last for five or more minutes. One explanation is that these individuals are riding an extended, intense plateau of arousal and subjectively interpreting this experience as extended orgasm. Then again, maybe they’re simply having five-minute orgasms. There’s no scientific study on the topic as yet, and really no need to demand an explanation. Orgasm is a blissfully subjective response.