Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (53 page)

Elizabeth, a forty-seven-year-old accountant who was beginning to go through menopause, came in for a checkup and told me the following: “Over Thanksgiving vacation, I met a wonderful man through a mutual friend. We were immediately attracted to each other and began a relationship. When he made love to me for the first time, it was such a beautiful thing. But at one point, when he was stimulating me deep in my vagina, I had a flashback to my sexual abuse. I began to shake and to cry. I couldn’t seem to help it, and I was worried that he’d think he’d done something wrong. But he just held me and told me that everything was all right and that he was there for me. Now when we make love, I still sometimes find myself getting upset, but it doesn’t last nearly as long and I feel safer each time. My pleasure also increases. I had no idea that being with a man could be this wonderful. He was gentle and caring and took his time. I am so grateful.” The sexual at tentions of a caring man often go a very long way toward helping a woman achieve her true sexual potential.

T
HE
G-S
POT

To find your G-spot, it’s best to start after you’re fairly aroused because this tissue deep in the vaginal wall is easier to find if it is already swollen, which happens with sexual stimulation. Use plenty of lubricant, and you also might want to trim your nails so you won’t scratch yourself. (By the way, diaphragm users may find the diaphragm can interfere with this sensation in some women, so you might want to experiment before you insert the diaphragm.)

If you’re exploring on your own, it’s easier if you’re upright (on your knees is ideal) rather than lying down. If you and your partner are exploring, you can lie on your belly with your hips slightly elevated or on your back. Insert one or two fingers or have your partner insert his fingers about two inches (usually up to the knuckles) into your vagina, palm facing up. The fingers should then press lightly on the front wall of the vagina, looking for a slightly swollen spot. Experiment with a few different ways of stroking and different amounts of pressure. Some women prefer a tapping motion. Others prefer pulling the fingers in and out of the vagina, while curving them as if making the “come here” gesture during the out motion. Keep up the stimulation. The area will continue to swell (to about the size of a walnut) and become spongy. It may feel slightly ribbed, sort of like corduroy.

Because the G-spot is located along the urethra and near the neck of the bladder, women often feel the urge to urinate when this spot is stimulated. If you’re worried about leaking as you are exploring, know that you probably won’t and that the urge will pass. (You can urinate before you start, if you want to reassure yourself that your bladder is empty.)

The most important thing is to relax and take your time. Maintain a curious attitude, rather than being performance-oriented. Don’t have any goal other than to feel and see what happens. Some experts believe that women in their forties and beyond get more pleasure from G-spot stimulation than younger women because their lower estrogen levels make the vaginal lining thinner, which makes the G-spot more prominent when stimulated. Have fun with this.

H
OW TO
S
TRENGTHEN
Y
OUR
P
ELVIC
F
LOOR FOR
B
ETTER
S
EX

Kegel exercises involve strengthening and toning the pelvic floor muscles, particularly the pubococcygeous (PC) muscle (the same muscle you use to stop the stream of urine). They should be done sensually, as a way to consciously connect to and wake up your erotic anatomy. A few PC contractions done pleasurably are far more effective than twenty-five reps done with a clenched jaw! That said, here are some guidelines for Kegel exercises (also see
chapter 9
).

Slow clenches:
Squeeze your PC muscle and hold it for a slow count of three. Relax for a count of five, then repeat. Over a few weeks, gradually work up to holding for a count of ten. Make sure you keep your belly and thighs relaxed.

Quick contractions/flutters:
Squeeze your PC muscle quickly and release—one contraction per second. Work up to ten flutters. Do five of these sets three to five times per day, with ten repetitions per set. After a week, add five reps to each exercise, for a total of fifteen reps per set. Add five the following week until you are doing twenty reps per set, three to five sets per day. Results are noticeable in six to eight weeks—and those results include better sex with stronger orgasms and better lubrication. The exercises need to be performed regularly to keep up the beneficial effect. Other methods are available to strengthen the pelvic floor including vaginal weights as well as the jade egg exercises from Saida Désilets, Ph.D. (see page 245). For more on pelvic floor strengthening, see
chapter 9
, pages 317–318.

The Brain Is the Biggest Sex Organ in the Body

Although the clitoral system is clearly the most obvious erogenous area of the female body, female sexuality is not limited simply to the genitalia. Daniel Amen, M.D., author of
Sex on the Brain
(Harmony Books, 2007), writes, “Even though it feels genital, the vast majority of love and sex occurs in the brain. Your brain decides who is attractive to you, how to get a date, how well you do on the date, what to do with the feelings that develop. How long those feelings last, when to commit, and how well you do as a mate and a parent.” The brain is also the seat of orgasms, which is why women with spinal cord injuries who can’t feel anything below the waist can still have orgasms— and why a friend of mine had her first orgasm when she first heard the Beatles sing “Michelle.” Sex researcher Gina Ogden, Ph.D., has found that some women can reach orgasm just from thinking about things that are erotically stimulating to them.
⁷
This is why Isabel Allende quipped, “For women, the best aphrodisiacs are words. The G-spot is in the ears. He who looks for it below there is wasting his time.”

OUR CULTURAL INHERITANCE

The functioning of our sexual organs and our sexual response are determined in large part by our cultural conditioning concerning sexuality, usually programmed in childhood. To understand female sexual response and the workings of the organs in volved in it, we must also understand women’s cultural inheritance. In this society, sexuality is closely linked with body image and self-esteem. There’s a saying, “Men and women will never be equal until a woman can be bald and have a potbelly and still be considered good-looking.” Women are brought up to feel that they deserve sexual pleasure only if they look a certain way or weigh a certain amount. Not only that, there’s also the fear of getting pregnant. There is reason to believe that in ancient prepatriarchal times, women knew how to control their fertility naturally and under stood the importance of sexual pleasure as a natural part of human expe rience. Many couples who follow natural family planning as a method of birth control become acutely attuned to each other’s fertility and sexual cycles. Not only does this method afford them the means to plan or avoid conception when they desire, they often find that their intimacy and pleasure increase as well.

The culture also believes in the “big bang” theory of heterosexual pleasure, which holds that the thrusting of the penis into the vagina is the most important part of sexuality. Though this is true for some women, it is not true for others. It’s only one aspect of sexuality and pleasure, and women who do not enjoy it or who don’t reach orgasm through it need not feel abnormal in any way. For some women, penis-in-vagina intercourse—the kind that we’re taught is the “real” thing—is not particularly satisfying. Therefore, many women fake orgasm to make their male partners feel that they are good lovers. This is a shame and robs both members of the couple of true pleasure and intimacy. Research demonstrates that clitoral, vaginal, and uterine stimulation, or a combination of these, leads to orgasm—along with the proper mind-set, of course.
⁸
Only 25 percent of women regularly reach orgasm through intercourse.

Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for
frequency of intercourse
to be the sole measure by which the quality of a sexual relationship is judged— especially in medical circles.
⁹
It is clear, however, that many other factors determine actual relationship quality besides the number of times per week that a couple has intercourse.

The quality of a person’s sex life should also not be judged by number of sexual partners he or she has or has had. An unhealthy, potentially de structive sex life is one in which a woman medicates her fears of loneliness and abandonment by having sex with people she does not love or respect, using sex addictively. On the other hand, having multiple sex partners is not necessarily a bad thing, either, so long as neither of the partners in a given sexual relationship is using the other in a dishonest or hurtful way, and both partners are getting pleasure. But women who had childhoods associated with sexual abuse, either subtle or blatant, often have unhealthy, degrading sexual relationships that make them feel bad about themselves and do not give them pleasure.

The cultural imperative that judges a woman’s worth by her attachment to a man and by her sexual attractiveness to men—all men—runs very deep. And as a result, far too many women turn themselves into pretzels trying to become what they think men want. This is the basis for all those women’s magazine articles on “must-know techniques that will blow his mind!”

Clearly many women believe that it is their duty to fulfill their partner’s sexual desires and frequently ignore their own erotic or physical needs. The key to pleasurable sex for heterosexual couples is the knowledge that it takes the average woman about thirty minutes of lovemaking before reaching orgasm. The average man can have an orgasm only five to ten minutes after lovemaking begins. Women too often engage in sexual behavior from which they receive very little more than an unwanted pregnancy, discomfort, or various diseases. A study on dyspareunia (painful sexual intercourse), for example, found that of 324 women surveyed, only 39 percent had never had it, while 27.5 percent had suffered from it at some point in their lives. Fully 33.5 percent (105 women) still had painful intercourse at the time of the study at least some of the time, while 25 percent of them had the problem virtually all the time. Yet the frequency of intercourse among all of the groups of women was virtually the same. The study also found that most of the women had never discussed the problem with their health care practitioner. This means that a very large number of women are suffering during sex and not saying anything about it. Since the transmission of sexually acquired diseases in women is increased by any break in the integrity of the vaginal mucosa, dyspareunia is not only painful, it can also put a woman at risk from the trauma to her tissues.
¹⁰

H
OW TO
A
VOID
P
AINFUL
I
NTERCOURSE

Most women experience pain during intercourse if penetration occurs before their arousal has been sufficient to lift and move the uterus and cervix out of the way. In these cases, the ovaries may be hit during repeated thrusting, resulting in pain. This generally doesn’t occur when a couple allows enough time for full female sexual arousal prior to actual intercourse.

Women who have persistent painful intercourse should be checked for scar tissue from old infections or endometriosis. For those who do have adhesions from old infections, injury, or prior surgery, the Wurn technique improves sexual pleasure in over 80 percent of the women who use it to treat pelvic pain or infertility. (See
chapter 5
, page 134.)

In addition to enduring pain, some women put their very lives at risk when they have sex. In November 1991, when the news came out that Magic Johnson had AIDS, an article in
Time
magazine pointed out, “Sex and sports have almost become synonymous.” The article reported that “Wilt Chamberlain boasts having slept with 20,000 women—an average of 1.4 per day for 40 years.” It quoted another basketball player: “After I arrived in L.A. in 1979, I did my best to accommodate as many women as I could—most of them through unprotected sex.”
¹¹

In wondering what kind of woman would have a one-night stand with a man—even one who is famous—the article informed us that “for women, many of whom don’t have meaningful work, the only way to identify themselves is to say whom they have slept with.”
¹²
In their own eyes, these women weren’t
nobody
any longer: They had had sex with a sports star. Even though this man didn’t care for them at all or even remember them, they had achieved some perverse kind of status by letting their bodies be used in this way. One need only listen to the lyrics of popular rap songs to see that this attitude is still too common.

Women who have experienced rape and incest have even greater trouble than nonabused women in establishing fulfilling sexual relationships that are free of abusive elements and victimized behavior. Many of these women have never had a sexual encounter that was supportive and pleasurable. Given all this, it’s no surprise that in a 2008 study on female sexual dysfunction, Harvard researcher Jan Shifren, M.D., found that 43 percent of the 32,000 respondents, age eighteen and up, reported sexual problems. However, only 12 percent were upset by them.
¹³
I found that part particularly ironic because funding for this study came from Boehringer Ingelheim, maker of flibanserin, a drug for female sexual dysfunction (FSD). Drug companies have repeatedly tried to come up with the female Viagra. I hate to break the news, fellas, but female sexuality is simply too complex to be reduced to a quick pharmacologic fix. What we currently call FSD is simply a reaction to our cultural programming about sexuality.