Slow Sex: The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm (17 page)

Each day during the Starter Program I’m prescribing:

• two 15-minute sessions of OMing, plus sharing frames with your partner after each
  
• ten minutes of journaling
  

What time of day you do the OMing sessions is your choice. In an ideal world, I would suggest bookending your day—a session as soon as you and your partner are up in the morning, and another one before you go to bed at night. This is, of course, practical only for those couples who are currently co-habitating. If you are planning to practice with your boyfriend who lives twenty-four minutes away except in morning rush hour when it’s thirty-six minutes, I’m going to take a flyer and say you might want to consider doing both sessions back to back. There is nothing wrong with two back-to-back sessions of OM, by the way. In fact, it’s one of my favorite ways to practice because it gives you the chance to see how different one session can be from the next. Sometimes the first session will be spectacular—over-the-top-orgasmic like nothing you’ve ever felt before. Your stroker is a genius! A wizard of the forefinger! The connection was so rich and
nourishing you wonder why the two of you even ever have regular sex anymore, since the true experience you’ve been looking for all your life is clearly only to be found here, in Slow Sex. Life can’t get much better than this.

And then comes session two. Which is sort of… so-so.

As you’ll soon discover during the ten-day program, there’s a lot of room for “meh” in OM practice. Luckily, there’s a lot of room for “spectacular,” too. The key is not to judge yourself or your partner too harshly for the so-so session or lavish too much praise for the awesome one. We’re just riding the waves here.

“The best OM we’ve ever had came right after one of the most boring OMs we’ve ever had. In the first session it felt like unremarkable sex. It felt fine, but nothing special. I thought, ‘Well, some days it’s just like that.’ But as soon as we got up, he suggested we try again. I said okay, and from the minute he put his finger down it was like my body filled up with sparkly light. I think of that feeling as the ‘sunshine orgasm.’ It was incredibly intense and pleasurable for both of us. We kept saying, ‘Whoa! This is crazy!’ At one point we both just started laughing out loud because it was just too weird that we could have two such different OMs right in a row.”

—Ellie, 38

The second step—journaling—gives us the chance to record the experiences we’ve just had, be they spectacular or
meh
, so we don’t forget them. There is no need to overdo it here; I suggest taking a minimalistic approach to the journaling component, at least at first. There’s a way that we can freak ourselves out a little bit if we overachieve
on the first day—when we feel so inspired we decide to do four sessions of OM instead of two and write eighteen pages of commentary afterward. There’s kind of no place to go after that, my friends. More New Year’s resolutions die each year from such early flameout. Be the tortoise, not the hare. Be the tortoise.

In other words, set your bar low and raise it from there if you feel inspired to do so. At the beginning, keep it to

• two 15-minute OM sessions
  
• a few minutes to share frames with your partner
  
• ten minutes of journaling
  

Focusing

Each day of the Ten-Day OM Starter Program includes one basic OM session—the technique as it was laid out in the previous chapter—and one “focus” OM designed to help you nail (so to speak) a particular aspect of OMing. Though on one level OM is simply stroking, on another level there are many nuances within each stroke—things like direction, pressure, speed, communication, and more. By isolating just one of these different facets of OM and focusing on it for a fifteen-minute session, we should be able to see how it affects the overall practice. Some practitioners end up loving these focused OMs—the “One-Stroke” OM becomes a favorite for many women, for example—so feel free to incorporate them in your ongoing practice. (The ongoing practice I’m really not pressuring you to commit to at this time but which I secretly hope you’ll decide to take up once you see how much happier and more satisfied you
and your partner become after you graduate from OMing bootcamp.) (Or not.)

Journaling

I’m not sure why, but some people who take to the OM practice get performance anxiety when it comes to journaling. The inner editor comes and sits on their lap, commenting on the positive or negative nature of every single word that goes onto the page. The way to get around this nefarious voice of evil doom is to never lift the pen off the page for the entire ten minutes you will be writing. (If you’re all twenty-first century and prefer to use a computer, this means trying not to pause while your fingers fly across the keyboard. Leave the spell-check for later. For now, just write.) Make your primary goal to write down as many words as possible before the end of the ten minute-session. And remember: nobody else will be reading this journal. It is simply a way for you to further integrate the experiences you’ve had during your OMs, and then—this is the fun part—to watch your own progress over the course of the ten-day program (and/or beyond).

If you find yourself stuck, unable to think of anything at all to write, use your ten minutes of writing to answer these three questions:

1. What frames did you share with your partner from today’s practice?
   
2. How was the first OM session today different from the second? Compare and contrast, as your ninth-grade English teacher might say.
   
3. What sensations can you feel in your body right now?
   

Day One of the OM Starter Program: Basic OM Practice

Today’s focus is simply to practice the basic OMing technique so it becomes second nature. Use the basic OM outlined in the previous chapter (refer to the OM checklist
here
for a reminder) for two fifteen-minute sessions. Be sure to share a frame with your partner after each session.

Day One Practice

Session 1: Basic OM practice, 15 minutes + sharing frames

Session 2: Basic OM practice, 15 minutes + sharing frames

Journaling: Set a timer for ten minutes, and journal about today’s OM sessions. What did it feel like to have two sessions in one day? Did you feel more confident during the second session, or less? How were they different from one another? What did you feel during the OMs? Any other thoughts today, your first day of the Starter Program?

Day Two: Location, Location, Location (aka Clitoral Mapping)

Now that you and your partner are comfortable with basic OMing, we’re ready to start exploring. Day two’s focus is all about location—or what is more technically referred to as “Clitoral Mapping.” The idea is for both partners to get to know her clit—up, down, and sideways. How it works, where her best “spot” is, and the different sensations that arise depending on where she is stroked. The idea is that
once both of you know how she’s wired, so to speak, you can use the location of the stroke to help draw out the most possible sensation during your OMing.

The process of Clitoral Mapping is simple. Over the course of the fifteen-minute session, the stroker will stroke at different points around his partner’s clit. Each time he strokes a different region, he will tell her where he’s stroking and ask her what sensations she feels. Depending on how sensitive and precise the stroker chooses to be, there would be an infinite number of different locations where he might stroke. So to simplify things for the purpose of today’s focus, imagine that her clit is the face of a clock, with “twelve o’clock” signifying the top of the clit (from her perspective) and “six o’clock” signifying the bottom. Try to stroke each of the “hours” on the clock at some point during the OM. Feel free to try them in order or, if you’re feeling intrepid, jump from one side of the clock to the other. The idea, again, is to stroke a little bit, tell her where you’re stroking, and then ask her what sensations it produces in her. “I’m stroking at about seven o’clock. What do you feel when I stroke here?” Together, the two of you will be exploring heretofore uncharted territory—the territory of her clit, her sensations, and her orgasm.

Day Two Practice

Session 1: Basic OM practice, 15 minutes + sharing frames

Session 2: Clitoral Mapping, 15 minutes + sharing frames

Journaling: Set a timer and write for ten minutes about the Clitoral Mapping session. What about it surprised or spoke to you? What were your favorite stroking locations? Your least favorite? Why? How was the Clitoral Mapping OM different from the “basic” OM you did today? How are you feeling about the Starter Program in general, from the vantage point of day two?

“There is a spot on my partner’s clit that we jokingly call the ‘love spot.’ When I stroke her there, we’re both flooded with these intense feelings of love. We figured it out through Clitoral Mapping. If we’d simply experienced an occasional welling up of those feelings in our OMs, we may have wondered (or mistaken) the meaning. Now we know, “Oh, it’s just the ‘love spot.’ ”

—Joe, 44

Day Three: Speaking Sensations

During yesterday’s Clitoral Mapping exercise, the receiving partner got some practice speaking her sensations. Today, the stroker gets to join in. In the Speaking Sensations OM, you will take turns naming the sensations you feel in your body as the session unfolds. You should be talking continuously throughout the OM, alternating between the stroker and the receiver. This kind of communication keeps us present, connected to the sensation, and calibrated to one another’s body. It also helps flex the muscles of communication that are so important in OM—and in intimacy in general.

Begin with the stroker. Name a sensation you’re feeling in your body. Do your insides feel like maple syrup, velvet, an electric current? Is it more like the color red or the
color blue? Is it steely or watery? Sharp like the blade of a knife or soft and diffuse, like silk? Is it misty like fog or crisp, like bright sunlight? Once you’ve named your sensation, ask your partner what she’s feeling. She may answer right away or she may feel free to pause and really make contact with her sensations before speaking. There is no rush, but stay in verbal contact near-continuously throughout the OM.

At first, my students find the idea of the stroker naming his sensations to be perplexing. How could he be feeling anything orgasm-relevant, given that he’s not the one having the orgasm? All I can say is that this is your assignment and I’m sticking to it. Both partners will speak what they are feeling throughout the practice. The experience will serve you later.

Don’t be surprised if you—and I’m talking to you strokers especially—have a hard time nailing down a particular sensation. As discussed in chapter 2, we don’t have much practice at feeling our bodies deeply enough to be able to locate, investigate, and then name a sensation. But practice makes perfect, and you have many chances to practice right here in this very OM. When in doubt, start with the stroke. What are you feeling in your finger as you stroke? Does your finger feel warm or cool? Dense or feather-light? Does it seem to be rising or falling? Then, pull back the lens until you are able to ask the same questions of your body as a whole. What is happening in your back, your neck, your heart? Do you feel a tingling in your feet, a tightness in your chest, a reservoir of warm liquid pooling in your lower back? Whatever you’re feeling say it—and then ask your partner what she is feeling.

Day Three Practice

Session 1: Basic OM practice, 15 minutes + sharing frames

Session 2: Speaking Sensations OM, 15 minutes + sharing frames

Journaling: Set a timer for ten minutes and write about today’s sessions. How did speaking your sensations change your experience? Did you find it easy or hard? Comfortable or uncomfortable? Natural or forced? Did you like hearing so many of your partner’s sensations? Why or why not? Did you feel more or less connected to your partner when you were speaking sensations than during the “basic” OM session? How would your “regular” sex life change if you were to bring more communication into the mix?

Day Four: Up, Up, Up (aka the All-Upstroke OM)

One of the most fun and powerful aspects of stroking we can work with is the direction of the stroke, as you’ll see through today’s focus. The directions we work with in OM are up and down (sorry, no side-to-side here) and direction is determined both by the pressure of the stroke and by the intention of the stroker. If you are meaning to stroke primarily upward, you will use slightly more pressure on the upstroke than on the downstroke. You’ll find that if you set your intention to stroke upward, the pressure adjustment will happen naturally: your upstrokes will naturally get more pronounced, and your downstrokes will fade to the background. Decide you want to use downstrokes, and the opposite will take place. When I
talk about “pressure,” note that I’m not talking about digging deep. Think subtle. You’d be surprised how much difference even a slight change of pressure can make.

Direction has an almost magical effect on the way we feel in our bodies when we’re being stroked. As mentioned previously, today’s focus will show you just how fun it can be to play with direction. I said this because upstrokes tend to generate sensations of buoyancy and uplift in the body. (Those are fancy words for “fun.”) Upstrokes have the ability to make us feel like we, ourselves, are going up, up, up. It’s as if each stroke fills us up with a little more helium, carrying us higher into the clouds, the stratosphere, and even right to the moon. Sounds pretty great, no? Might make you wonder why we don’t make every OM an “All-Upstroke OM.” Our first inkling might be to go straight up as fast and high as possible, every time. But what you may discover through today’s focus is that although a quick ascent can be thrilling, the descent comes just as quickly. Like any quick, impromptu fuck, stroking quickly to the heights offers intense sensation—followed by a long slide back down. It has its place, for sure. But over the long haul there is more energy, enjoyment, and nourishment available if we go more slowly. So the point of test-driving the All-Upstroke OM today is both to experience the power of direction firsthand, and also to start the process of discovery that can lead to what I call the “art of continuous ascent.” Because there is a sweet spot to be found, a pace at which we can keep stroking upward for fifteen minutes or an hour or even a lifetime without ever hitting the peak. This is what we call “stroking for sustainable up.” Try to catch the place where the thrill sensation is starting to crest and wane, and change the stroke momentarily to allow
breathing room before continuing upward. Over time, we learn to anticipate that the peak is coming and vary the stroke so we can keep going up.