I Love Female Orgasm: An Extraordinary Orgasm Guide (14 page)

JETS OF WATER can be a great way to discover your orgasmic potential. If you have a handheld showerhead, try pointing it at your clit. You can also play with the jets in a Jacuzzi or the tub faucet (finding a position that works is the challenge there). We’ve heard from scores of women who owe their first orgasm (and their 101st) to a well-aimed stream of water.

I was taking a shower one day and pointed the water jet toward my vagina to rinse off soap. Luckily for me, it hit my clitoris and I discovered that I could achieve an orgasm that way. Each time I took a shower, I placed the jet on my clitoris until I couldn’t stand it anymore; I wanted to take it off because the feelings were so overwhelming and unfamiliar, but it felt so good.

Running water on the clit is awesome! I like to do it lying down in the bathtub. There are no tools and you don’t have to touch yourself if you’re uncomfortable with that.

In order to have an orgasm, I had to learn to stimulate my other erogenous zones to get wet before trying to stimulate my clitoris.

things that can work against you

IF YOU’RE FINDING it hard to have an orgasm, check out this assortment of things that can work against you or slow you down. Do they ring true for you?

○
Fear
. We always ask female audience members for their tips for other women in the room who want to have an orgasm but haven’t yet. “Don’t be afraid!” is one of the most common answers. It’s not unusual for a woman to feel apprehensive about the unknowns of orgasm, the intensity of the sensation, the sounds she’ll make, what she’ll look like, whether she’ll feel embarrassed in front of her partner, or the possibility that she won’t be able to have one. For women with a history of sexual trauma, the sensations of touch on their genitals, or of becoming aroused, may bring up powerfully negative memories or emotions. A sex therapist or the book
The Survivor’s Guide to Sex
can be enormously helpful in working through these triggers.

Indeed, orgasms do involve a short loss of control and the vulnerability that comes with that. Most orgasmic women agree that an orgasm’s deliciousness easily makes up for the things they used to worry about. Be bold and tap into that fearless part of yourself until your confidence comes more easily.

troubleshooting:

the never-ending plateau phase

Help! I’ve been trying to have an orgasm, and I masturbate, but my plateau phase goes on so long I get bored and eventually give up. What can I do?

IF YOUR PLATEAU phase (for a definition, see page 20) seems to stretch to Neptune and back, stop trying so hard. Don’t worry about having an orgasm, but instead focus on the sensations you’re feeling throughout your body. Use fantasy and get lost in the hottest storyline you can invent, or find some inspiration in great erotica. Relax and enjoy the process. Once it starts working, it won’t always take so long.

○
Negative body image
. Some women walk around all day saying to their own body, “I hate you! You’re fat, you’re ugly, I hate everything about you!” and then turn around and say, “Okay, body, give me an orgasm.” A woman like this shouldn’t be surprised when her body says, “Um, I don’t think so. You hate me!” If your body hatred is intense, it can be difficult or impossible to allow yourself to experience physical pleasure. In an online
Queendom.com
survey of 15,000 people, 46 percent of women said self-consciousness about their body or hair was often what prevented them from having orgasms. A research study found that women and men who were anxious about their bodies tended to have lower sexual desire and enjoy sex less.

Body image is an issue facing some—though certainly not all—people with physical disabilities. The cultural assumptions that people with disabilities don’t, can’t, or shouldn’t have sex compounds the problem. Some people living with disabilities face additional challenges, from limitations on what they’re physically able to do, to the need for assistance or privacy from a care attendant, to pain or fatigue that can make sex difficult.

Whatever your relationship with your body, befriending it isn’t always easy. It’s possible, however, to take steps toward negotiating a peace treaty. This may involve working with a therapist, joining a body image support group, journaling, or reading positive websites or books about body image (see our suggestions on the next page).

One of the cool things about sex is that for the most part, it works fine regardless of how you look. Having thinner thighs doesn’t make you a better kisser. People with zits or limp hair can orgasm just as well as anybody else. In some ways, sex (including, or perhaps especially, sex with yourself) is your chance to take a break from criticizing your body, and instead experience how great it can feel.

speed comes with practice

YOUR FIRST ORGASM may take a long time to work up to, but rest easy. Most women find they climax faster and more easily the more they practice. Not that the fastest orgasm is always the best, of course. But sometimes it is nice to be able to come before your fingertips are wrinkled prunes and you’ve developed a repetitive strain injury.

love your body

IN A WORLD obsessed with skinny, perfect bodies, loving your body isn’t easy to do. Here are some juicy books and sites to help, though:

Big Big Love: A Sourcebook on Sex for People of Size and Those Who Love Them,
by Hanne Blank

A fantastic resource about sex for those with more “bounce to the ounce”—full of smart, honest attitude and down-to-earth advice. Inclusive of straight, lesbian, and bi readers.

The Body Image Workbook: An 8-Step Program for Learning to Like Your Looks,
by Thomas F. Cash, PhD

A highly interactive, well-respected book that leads readers dissatisfied with any aspect of their appearance through a process to modify their self-image.

The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability: For All of Us Who Live with Disabilities, Chronic Pain and Illness,
by Cory Silverberg, Miriam Kaufman, Fran Odette

By far the best book on the market about sex for people with a wide variety of disabilities. Supportive, encouraging, and loaded with resources, and inclusive of straight, lesbian, and bi readers.

About-Face

www.about-face.org

Chock-full of facts, stories, best and worst ads, and “what you can do” ideas to tackle negative and distorted images of women’s bodies.

I think the best advice I’ve ever heard about being self-conscious in sexual situations was, “Women are thinking, ‘Oh, no, I smell weird, my thighs are huge, I should have gotten some sun last weekend, and crap, I need to do a touch-up shave.’ Men are thinking, ‘Woo-hoo! There’s a naked lady in front of me!’”

○The belief that someone else should give you an orgasm. Female orgasms are better and easier to come by for women who are willing to take charge of their own climax. Don’t assume an orgasm should be a gift one lover gives to another; most women play an active role in seducing their own orgasm, sometimes with a lover who helps, sometimes not.

It took me a while to learn that penetration alone wouldn’t induce an orgasm. Also, I couldn’t expect the guy to know what he was doing
—
if I wanted to have an orgasm, I had to know how to position myself so I would have one. I have to take control.

○Concern about unplanned pregnancy, HIV, and sexually transmitted infections. These are about the unsexiest things anyone could think about! Of course these aren’t risks during masturbation, but these issues can easily squelch an orgasm during partnered sex. When someone else’s bodily fluids are involved, there’s no such thing as sex with no risk at all (heck, there are risks to crossing the street, driving your car, and eating the leftovers in your fridge). But you
can
reduce the risks of sex—and allow yourself to relax and enjoy—with well-informed decisions about contraception and safer sex. To learn more, see
chapter 11
.

○Smoking, drinking, and medical conditions that affect circulation. Sexual arousal and orgasm rely on blood circulation to the genitals. You might say, “If the blood don’t flow, there ain’t no O.” Conditions like high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and coronary heart disease can have a negative impact on blood circulation, as can smoking, because it can cause blood vessels to constrict.

Drinking heavily has a numbing effect on nerve endings throughout your body, including down below (remember how they used to use
whiskey for surgery before the invention of modern anesthesia?). While some people find that a drink reduces sexual inhibitions, going overboard reduces your ability to feel sexual sensations. Numerous studies have found that with each additional alcoholic drink a woman drinks, the longer it takes her to have an orgasm, and the less intense the orgasm is. Our advice? Get so freaking comfortable with sexuality that your sober self can be as wild and crazy as you like.

○Some medications. Certain antidepressants (SSRIs) are the most common culprit here. One in ten women over age eighteen now takes antidepressants, and these drugs’ orgasm-inhibiting side effects pose a ballooning problem. Some women say the pharmaceuticals have no negative side effects for them, but others find they reduce their sex drive, make it more difficult or impossible to come, or make their orgasms less intense or less satisfying. These issues create tough decisions for people taking the medications: It can be a painful conundrum to be forced to choose between having orgasms but being severely depressed, and feeling good about life but never having an orgasm. Several women have told us they’d been suicidal before they found the right medication—they described their stark choice as nonorgasmic living versus death.

Hormonal methods of birth control (like the pill, the patch, the ring, and Depo-Provera) can also have a negative impact on arousal and orgasm for some women, although this varies depending on the woman and the method.

If your antidepressants, contraception, or other medications you take (antihypertensive, anticonvulsant, and anti-ulcer medication, as well as sedatives, neuroleptics, and antihistamines, can all have similar side effects) are affecting your orgasms and you’re frustrated by this, tell the doctor who prescribed them. Ask if there are alternative options. Some antidepressant medications and some methods of hormonal birth control are less likely to have these side effects than others (although unfortunately, some patients find that the antidepressants that work best for their depression are the ones with the negative sexual side effects).

For two years after she completed her primary cancer treatments, Dorian took a medication that reduced estrogen and testosterone
production, based on evidence that this could reduce the risk of a cancer recurrence. We hope it did, because it sure didn’t spice up our sex life. During this period of time and in our conversations with others on other medications, we’ve learned two tips for trying to have orgasms on libido-crushing medications.

First, if you have orgasms sometimes but not as reliably as you’d like, see what you learn from the pattern of times you
have
been able to come. Was it twenty-three hours after you took the last pill, when the drug load was lowest in your body? (Some people on SSRIs find it helps them to skip a dose, but this isn’t safe for everyone—something to talk to your provider about.) Did it happen at a time when you were particularly aroused—maybe an especially long foreplay session, or some dirty talk that got you really hot? Was it a certain time during your menstrual cycle? (This may not apply if you’re on hormonal contraception.) Finding and replicating the patterns won’t make orgasms come easily, but it may help you maximize your chances of having one at all.

The second approach involves identifying tiny increases in your sexual arousal on any given day. People’s sexual thoughts and interests naturally fluctuate over the course of each day. Let’s say a woman graphed her “normal” (nonmedicated) sexual interests in a twenty-four-hour period. She might wake up vaguely turned on by a sexual dream, then forget all about sex for a couple of hours, catch the eye of a cute store clerk as she buys her morning coffee and entertain a few brief seconds of sexy thoughts, go to work, have a long stretch of nothing sexy at all, until some sexual thoughts start flooding into her brain for no reason in the late afternoon and she gets quite horny. A couple of hours later she goes home, and that evening notices mild arousal as she watches a sex scene on HBO. At the end of the day she hasn’t had any sex or orgasms at all, but she could draw the lines on a graph, with small peaks (the coffee counter flirtation), high moments (that afternoon horniness with no explanation), and valleys (long morning at work).

could it be a medical problem?

IF YOU’VE TRIED the types of techniques discussed in this chapter and you’re still not having orgasms, it’s possible there’s a medical explanation. Ask your doctor for a pituitary function test (prolactin level) and a fasting blood sugar. These two blood tests can reveal medical issues that can impair a woman’s ability to have an orgasm, according to sex therapist Judith Seifer, PhD, professor of Sexual Health at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality.

For women who used to have orgasms but can’t anymore, Dr. Seifer finds that common physical causes include multiple sclerosis, lupus, Addison’s disease, adult-onset diabetes with neuropathy, and some collagen diseases. If you’re living with one of these diagnoses, a doctor or a sex therapist (see page 89) may be able to help you explore your options.