I Love Female Orgasm: An Extraordinary Orgasm Guide (11 page)

fiddling the bean

finger dancing

flicking the switch

flitting my clit

getting to know myself

going pearl diving

going on a finger ride

having sex with someone I love

jilling off

letting my fingers do the walking

ménage à moi

mistressbating

paddling the pink canoe

parting the petals

petting the bunny

petting the pussy cat

plunging the happy hole

polishing the pearl

pushing the button

rowing the little man in the boat

rowing the little lady in the boat

rubbin’ the nubbin

tiptoeing through the two-lips

two-finger tango

waxing the flesh taco

diddling for donations

FED UP WITH masturbation being relegated to the shadows, a group of women who owned sex toy stores wanted a way to build masturbation pride. In 1998 they announced a National Masturbate-a-Thon. As in a charity walk-a-thon or bike-a-thon, participants invited their friends and coworkers to pledge a dollar amount for each minute they masturbated during the designated day (in May, National Masturbation Month). The money was donated to women’s health and HIV-related nonprofits. The pledge sheet proclaimed merrily, “I came for a cause.”

sex tips for partners

○If your partner masturbates, become this activity’s number one fan. (Encourage her to be your solo-sex supporter, too; this should go both ways.) Let her know that you think it’s great for a woman to be good friends with her clit.

Until I was in a relationship, I hadn’t discussed masturbation, aside from dirty jokes. My boyfriend considered masturbation (mine, at any rate) to be a positive thing, and was eager to hear about what I liked. He provided me with enough encouragement to accept the practice of it, and do it more frequently.

○Encourage her to touch herself while you’re being sexual together, if she’s comfortable with this. (If she’s not, she may warm up to the idea over time if you consistently let her know that
you’re
comfortable with it.)

○If your partner doesn’t masturbate, buy her one of the books (see page 62) as a gift, and encourage her to read it. Or, read it together! (Of course, if she doesn’t want to masturbate or share her masturbatory adventures with you, you should respect her decision about something so personal.)

some first orgasm stories

WE TREASURE THE thousands of stories women have shared with us about their first time having a big O. Here are some of our favorites.

I had seen those TV commercials that showed women shampooing their hair in a tropical waterfall. It looked so sexy! One day when I was ten or twelve I acted it out in the shower. I imagined the tropical fruit and the waterfall. As I soaped up my body, I imagined a man in the bushes watching me. As the water ran over me, I rubbed myself between my legs
—
and I had my first orgasm.

I was a freshman in high school, and I was at a sleepover party with a bunch of friends. Someone had a magazine with an article about how to masturbate. We were all like, “Let’s try it!” There were a lot of first orgasms that night.

Several women, and one mother of a toddler daughter, have told us they (or their daughter) had this experience:

When I was a little kid I was riding in the car with my parents. I was sitting in the back seat in a car seat
—
I don’t know how old I was, but I was little enough that I still rode in a car seat. The car seat had this plastic safety bar that ran between my legs, and one day I discovered that if I squirmed against the bar it felt really good. I was a really happy little girl on long car rides.

When I was nineteen, I had my first boyfriend. After we’d been dating for a while, masturbation came up in conversation, and I told him I had never masturbated. He was totally horrified
—
he had trouble believing me, but I convinced him I was telling the truth. He said, “I’m going to give you a lesson.” He sat me down and taught me how to masturbate. I had my first orgasm then and there!

At least three different women have separately told us experiences nearly identical to this one:

I was in high school, and this was when they had the Presidential Physical Fitness Program [which required that all public school students practice and compete at certain exercises]. I was doing that exercise where you pull yourself into a chin-up and hold it as long as you can. And while I held myself in this chin-up I had my first orgasm. At first I didn’t know what was happening, but it was incredible.

Apparently when President Kennedy instituted this national physical fitness program for schoolchildren, he had no idea how many first orgasms he would facilitate.
We’ve heard similar stories of girls having orgasms from having all their muscles tensed while holding themselves up between two bars on a jungle gym.

When I was a little kid I had a Raggedy Ann doll I used to rub against and have orgasms. I remember one day I asked my mom if what I was doing was okay, and she said, “Of course, dear, it’s perfectly normal. You go right on dancing with Raggedy Ann.”

The first time I got close to having an orgasm my heart was pounding so hard I was worried that I was going to have a heart attack or something, so I almost stopped. After a while I decided that maybe I didn’t care and I should just go ahead. Turned out it wasn’t a heart attack.

My first orgasm happened accidentally in the pool. I moved against the jet that shoots from the side of the pool underwater, and got a really great feeling. So I stayed there until I got a rolling feeling in my stomach and my privates started throbbing. I didn’t really think about what it meant, I just liked the feeling. I did that every summer.

I was doing sit-ups in gym class and I felt this sensation building in my crotch, but I got scared and stopped. The next time I was doing sit-ups it started again, and I let it come on, and I had my first orgasm. It felt really, really good, but it’s sort of a problem when this happens to me because I’m in a public place and I can’t let people know what’s going on.

not only for the young

ACTRESS GLORIA STUART, who played 101-year-old Rose in the movie
Titanic,
wrote in her autobiography, “I am devoted to masturbation. I think it’s probably one of the most pleasurable things in my life. . . . I had, and have, no guilt whatsoever when it comes to pleasuring myself.”

When an audience member told us this story, another woman in the same audience raised her hand to share the same exact experience. These orgasms are probably the result of muscle tension, perhaps combined with movements and breathing. Some women have told us similar stories of having orgasms while using the gym’s weight machine where you repeatedly lift your legs up and swing them back. Most women aren’t able to come this way, but those who can have extra incentive to stay in shape!

become a self-loving connoisseur

ARE YOU A woman who’s ready to stroke herself to new levels of ecstasy? Haven’t spent much time “jilling off” (that’s Jill instead of Jack, of course), and want to learn more about it? Any of these books will teach you more, and all are inclusive of straight, lesbian, and bi readers:

• 
Sex for One: The Joy of Self-Loving,
by Betty Dodson
A classic book from the country’s leading female masturbation activist,
Sex for One
is full of stories of Dodson’s own adventures and insights, as well as those of the women (and men) she’s helped over the years.

• 
Tickle Your Fancy: A Woman’s Guide to Sexual Self-Pleasure,
by Sadie Allison
A slim little book full of friendly how-to advice about female self-loving techniques and fun. Especially ideal for beginners.

• 
The Big Book of Masturbation: From Angst to Zeal,
by Martha Cornog
Not a how-to guide, but a really fun read that covers everything you’d ever want to know about its subject.

In college I’ve had a few male friends who used to constantly pester me about whether I masturbated. I would always say no, which was true, but they didn’t believe me and they were always badgering me about it. It was a topic of conversation a lot. One day it was winter break and I was finally alone. There weren’t a lot of people on campus and I didn’t have much to do, so I thought, I’ll try it. I did
—
and I had an orgasm. It was great. I picked up my cell phone right away and called my guy friends, and said, “I tried it, and it worked!” I was thrilled.

3

So You Want to Have an Orgasm?

You’ve never had
an orgasm, but you want to? Not sure if you’ve had a big O? You’ve come to the right place! (If you and/or your female partner already have orgasms, and you’re happy with them, you might want to skip to the next chapter.) There are more women who haven’t had orgasms than you might think: About half of women have their first orgasm after age sixteen. It’s
very
common for women not to learn how to come until they’re in college or in their twenties. And we’ve met plenty of women who had their first orgasm in their thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, or beyond. This chapter may also be useful for women who find it’s more challenging to reach those lightning bolts of orgasm than they’d like, and for supportive partners trying to help.

not sure

IN THE FIRST couple years that we taught about female orgasm at a center for adult education, we’d frequently distribute pre-class surveys to our students, who ranged in age from their twenties to their seventies. The first versions of our surveys asked women if they’d ever had an orgasm, and provided two options as
answers: yes or no. Surprised by the number of question marks and “don’t know” written in the margins, we quickly learned to add a “not sure” box whenever we asked the question.

In our online survey, 7 percent of female respondents said they didn’t know if they’d had an orgasm. Some believe, “If you don’t know if you’ve had an orgasm, you haven’t”—but we disagree. Our work, and our conversations with others like Betty Dodson who have helped countless women have their first orgasms, leads us to believe there are two possible explanations for women not being sure if they’ve come:

1. They’ve felt intense pleasure, but not an orgasm.
They feel unclear because typical arousal involves surges of pleasure, sometimes quite intense. These surges are usually shorter than orgasms, typically don’t involve the same kind of repeated muscular contractions, may not have the same kind of full-body involvement as an orgasm, and while they feel good, aren’t
as
good as an orgasm. But how could you know that unless you’ve had both?

2. They’ve been having small orgasms.
Sometimes women see porn orgasms, or read descriptions of orgasms, and imagine the experience to be much bigger and more earth-shattering than the little orgasms they’re experiencing. They know they’re feeling
something,
but they’re not convinced it’s an orgasm. These women may be able to “grow” their orgasms with Kegel exercises or by building up to higher levels of arousal before they allow themselves to come. Or, they may begin to appreciate what they have, and recognize that porn-gasms are like porn breasts: bigger (and faker) than most of what you’ll find in the real world.