I Love Female Orgasm: An Extraordinary Orgasm Guide (5 page)

What does this all mean? First, it means a woman’s potential for sexual pleasure is quite expansive—far more than the little “button” of a clitoris many of us learned about. Yet the clit doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. Students’ health textbooks sometimes neglect to include or label the clitoris in their female anatomy diagrams. (Can you imagine a diagram of male sexual anatomy omitting the penis?) In a 2005 study of heterosexual college students, 29 percent of women
and 25 percent of men weren’t able to locate the clitoris correctly on a diagram of female genitalia.

The word “vagina” regularly steals some of the clit’s limelight. When parents try to teach their children the correct anatomical words, they often tell their son he has a penis, and tell their daughter she has a vagina. While that’s true, these words are not equivalent! Many girls grow up with no idea that they have a clitoris (and rarely learn the word “vulva,” the actual word for the collection of external organs they see when they look between their legs). Thanks in part to Eve Ensler’s wildly successful
The Vagina Monologues,
now averaging over 2,000 performances each year, the word “vagina” has come out from the shadows. It’s a major step forward, given that not long ago, the part called “hoo hoo,” “coochie,” or just “down there” couldn’t be named in polite company, and certainly not written about in newspapers. Perhaps some day, the lusty, trusty clitoris will get her own day to shine. Women interested in getting better acquainted with their girl parts might want to check out pages 69 to 72.

does (clitoral) size matter?

WHEN IT COMES to the clitoris, size definitely does
not
matter. As far back as 1933, sex researchers found that despite considerable variation in the length and diameter of women’s clits, the size and shape have no impact on a woman’s orgasm. Many studies since then have come to the same conclusion: Whether your clit is dainty or voluptuous doesn’t predict whether your orgasms are fast or slow, intense or gentle, challenging to coax along or easy to come by.

female arousal: how does it work?

MASTERS AND JOHNSON, the pioneering sex researcher couple of the 1950s and ’60s, studied sexual arousal in their laboratory back when hooking women up to machines and watching them masturbate or have sex was pretty radical. (Okay, so it still is!) Based on what they learned from their observations, they described what they called the “human sexual response cycle.” Some contemporary experts criticize various aspects of Masters and Johnson’s work, including the way it’s overly simplistic, as if sex always flowed directly from arousal to orgasm without variation. Despite their shortcomings, many women find Masters and Johnson’s concepts helpful in understanding their own sexual response.

what’s between
your
legs?

OUR SURVEY ASKED women what words their parents used for female sexual parts while they were growing up. While most parents used words like “vagina,” and many didn’t ever discuss those parts of the body, some parents got pretty creative. Here are some of the words women told us their parents used instead of vulva or vagina:

area

between-the-legs birdie

birdie

book (“Keep your book closed so no one else can read it.”)

choo-choo

coochie

coochie coo

cookie

cookie jar

coolie

coos

crotch

down there

flower

fluffy

giny (rhymes with “shiny”)

girl parts

hoo-hoo

hoosie

king-king

muffin

mutzie

nunu

papaya

pat-a-cake

pee pee

pee pee area

pee pee hole

pee-tu

pizza (This family called a boy’s private parts a “sausage.”)

pom-pom

poo

poo-poo

potty

private area

private parts

privates

putterpat

snuffleupagus

special area

thing

tinkle

tinkler

tu-tu

tulip

tweeter

twittle

wee wee

The classic Masters and Johnson cycle begins with the excitement phase (though newer theories of arousal point out that sexual desire typically comes before excitement). In the excitement phase, the fun begins! Typically, a woman’s heart starts beating faster, her breathing and blood pressure increase, blood flows to her genitals, and her vagina lubricates. Her clitoris gets bigger and harder as she gets turned on, just as a man’s penis gets bigger and harder during arousal. A woman may experience a “sex flush” of pink or darker skin on her neck, chest, or other parts of her body. Her nipples may become erect, and her inner and outer vaginal lips may swell. Most of the time, the woman isn’t thinking about or even aware of the changes in her body. She’s just thinking, “Yeah, this feels
good
!”

Then, said Masters and Johnson, there’s a plateau phase. The woman is at a higher level of arousal than she normally is, but she may feel like she got stuck, like she’s no longer making progress. While some later theorists of sexual response omit this phase from their models of arousal, many women we speak with say it describes their experience perfectly. Before Dorian had ever had an orgasm, she’d get aroused, and then get frustrated when it seemed like nothing was happening. So she’d just give up trying, disappointed, and conclude, “I must be broken.” Reading about the plateau phase was her number one breakthrough to having an orgasm; she was stunned to learn that
most
women experience a plateau phase. If that’s the case, she concluded, it meant her going-nowhere arousal wasn’t a sign she was broken—it was a sign she was
normal.
Some days a woman may slip directly from excitement to orgasm with barely a plateau phase at all, while other days she might feel like she’s stuck in plateauland forever.

tick, tick, tick, BOOM!

ON AVERAGE, IT takes a woman twenty minutes of direct clitoral stimulation to have an orgasm. The average guy takes two to five minutes. It’s definitely not fair!

Keep in mind that twenty minutes is an
average.
Potentially half of women take longer than twenty minutes to have an orgasm. Thirty minutes, forty minutes, or more is not unusual.

Of course, the reverse can also be true. Some women come very quickly, and some men take a long time. People require varying amounts of stimulation, too. We can’t say it any better than
The Guide to Getting It On
by Paul Joannides: “Some people have orgasms when a lover kisses them on the back of the neck; others need a stick or two of dynamite between the legs. The amount of stimulation needed to generate an orgasm has nothing to do with how much a person enjoys sex.” As with everything related to sex, normal is fantastically diverse.

Masters and Johnson drew the plateau phase like this . . .

. . . but if it takes a woman a long time to have an orgasm, sometimes it can feel more like this.

Most of the time, if the stimulation continues that got the woman to the plateau phase in the first place, eventually she’ll have an orgasm. YAY! The woman’s breathing and heart rate double. Interestingly, a woman’s brain waves during an intense orgasm resemble the brain waves of a person in deep meditation. Women usually like to have the stimulation continue straight through the length of their orgasm. So if it’s your finger, tongue, or penis she’s riding, keep it going until she signals you to stop or moves away!

After the climax, the woman has a resolution phase, during which her body slowly returns to its nonaroused state. Unless she’s having a multiple orgasm day—more on that on page 25.

clitoral troubleshooting:
what to do about a too-sensitive clit?

HERE’S ANOTHER FREQUENTLY asked question: “Sometimes my clit (or my partner’s clit) gets so sensitive, it hurts to be touched. It’s as if it skipped over the orgasm and reached the kind of sensitivity I’d expect
after
I have an orgasm. What can I do?” Others describe having their clitoris become numb, rather than overly sensitive. If you’ve had either experience, or your girlfriend or wife has, here are some things you can try:

○Try more indirect touching. For many women, the head (glans) of the clitoris is too sensitive to touch, or may quickly become oversensitive. Try focusing stimulation only on the shaft (that’s often the main part women
like touched), or other nearby parts of her vulva that might tug or vibrate the skin around the clitoris gently without touching it directly. For some women, the nerves in the clit are so sensitive that it’s best to stimulate it through her fleshy outer lips (fingers on the outside of her outer lips, clit on the inside).

how do women get wet?

AS WOMEN GET turned on, their vaginas usually lubricate, creating sometimes considerable quantities (sometimes not so much) of slippery wetness that can help make touch and penetration feel great. Women’s bodies have the capability to start getting wet within just seconds of the beginning of mental or physical stimulation. Where does this lovely liquid magically appear from? In early arousal, extra blood rushes to the genitals. The lubricating fluid, or transudate, is actually a colorless component of blood. It contains water, pyridine, squalene, urea, acetic acid, lactic acid, complex alcohols and glycols, ketones, and aldehydes. You can’t just cook this stuff up with a chemistry set! It’s squeezed through the vaginal walls, making the walls of a woman’s vagina so nice and slippery.

Adding store-bought lube can also be a wonderful thing; see page 133 for more on this.

Sometimes I find it’s necessary to rub to the side or above or below the clit, rather than directly on top of it. It often feels better than the painful sensation that can happen as a result of rubbing directly on the clit.

○Take lots of mini-breaks. Some clits respond best to an approach that’s a bit like, “Two steps forward, take a break, allow arousal to slide back a step, then start up again.” Try lots of on-again, off-again clitoral attention, with periods of a few seconds or a few minutes without any clitoral stimulation, until you reach the orgasmic home stretch. (At that point, you’ll probably want to stay with it.)

○Keep it really wet. If you’re touching your (or her) clit with your fingers, keep rewetting with saliva or lube, or “dip into the honeypot” frequently (dip your fingers into your/her vagina, if it’s quite wet).

○Partners can study what the woman does when she masturbates (if she does and is comfortable sharing the experience with you). Pay particular attention to how direct or indirect her stimulation is, what kind of motion she’s using (up and down, back and forth, circles, most of the focus on one side or the other, etc.), how gentle or hard her pressure is, and how frequently she adds wetness.

○Be gentle. This is especially true early on. If you’re the partner, ask her for feedback about whether a lighter touch might help or if she’d prefer more focus on other parts of her body.