Slow Sex: The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm (5 page)

Dedicate the next two dates to your artistic desires; first yours, then his. Invite the sensory details you described to come alive between you. Again, write down your experience in your journal. What did you feel? What turned you on? What had you feeling connected to your partner? Make time to share your thoughts and feelings with your partner. Remember to have fun—it’s just sex, after all!

Sex Problems? No Such Thing

So now my students are becoming more relaxed and comfortable. They’re on board that the way they’ve been handling the problem of sex is not working. Sex should be an art, not a science. Check. So now they’re ready for me to start talking about how the “sex artist” solves the problem of sex.

Which is the first problem. It can’t be done, I tell them. Simply put,
there is no solving the problem of sex.

And with that, the relaxation gets sucked right back out of the room again. If there’s no solving the problem of sex, then why on earth are they here? They want
solutions
. They were promised a
technique
. They want to know how any woman can be orgasmic in fifteen minutes—did I not read my own marketing materials? Throats begin to tighten; I think I see the guy in the corner turning blue. Life-saving measures are needed, stat.

“Problems are for scientists!” I blurt out. “Sex is an art,
remember? Therefore…?” I look around expectantly, waiting for someone to make the connection.

I’m getting crickets.

“
Therefore
,” I fill in, “sex is not a problem.”

We’ve been living with the paradigm of “wrong” for so long—with the mind-set that what is not flowing quote-unquote “smoothly,” what is not unfolding as it “should” be, is wrong, a problem. But if I may say so, the paradigm of wrong is itself wrong! All you need to do in order to see that things don’t always go the way you expect is to look at the world around you. Life is an all-inclusive package. You might think you paid only for joy/success/perfection, but like it or not, sadness/failure/inconsistency comes with the purchase price. “Wrong” is sometimes just part of the deal. Until we accept that fact—which holds up in the bedroom as well as everywhere else in life, BTW—we’ll be running around like chickens with our heads cut off, chasing the good experiences and trying to avoid the bad ones. (A futile effort if I’ve ever seen one.) The irony is that the more we try to hang on to our best-ever sexual experiences for dear life, the more the not-so-good ones stick out. And the more we resist our sex problems, the more irritating/frustrating/painful they become. They start to take up a lot of energy—energy we might otherwise be putting toward other things.

Like, say, more orgasmic, more connected, more pleasurable sex. Yes?

No wonder we start to think that there’s such a thing as “sex problems.”

So the question is not how can we solve the
problems
that come along with sex, but instead, how can we extend and increase the pleasurable experiences we love, while
coming to terms with all the other stuff, too? How do we at least make a truce with things like disappointment and failure and a sense of disconnection, so we can spend our time enjoying orgasmic bliss and deep connection and everything else that sex has to offer us?

The answer is Slow Sex, and the practice of Orgasmic Meditation. OM
does
offer a solution, and technically it
is
a technique. But what it’s not is a recipe. It makes no promises about solving so-called sex problems, because in OM, there are no such things as problems, no such thing as hiding from the difficulties or clinging to the good times like a life preserver. By stripping away any expectations we have about what sex should or shouldn’t be, teaching us how to pay attention to our own sensation, and encouraging honest and frequent communication with our partner, OM teaches us how to enjoy
all
the facets of our sexuality.

Unlike a science, when you decide to OM you’re not getting any guarantees about the outcome. The only thing guaranteed is that, if you follow the instructions and really approach it with an open mind, you will end up an artist. You will become reacquainted with your own personal muse: your own genuine orgasm. Your tools will be your partner, your own body, and your desire. Your only job is to pay attention. There, in that moment of listening, of using your desire as a compass, you go from experiencing sex as a science to sex as an art. That is the switch that turns the lights on. It’s what your sex life is asking for.

The result—the reward you will get for this radical act of relaxation—is freedom. Freedom from all the pressure that usually accompanies sex. Men, especially, are freed from the constant pressure that sex, and particularly their partner’s orgasm, needs to be “figured out.” The sheer
simplicity of the OM practice, and the fact that no particular outcome is expected, relegates their fixing mind to the back burner. Women, for our part, are freed from the narrow definition of “orgasmic” that we’ve been confined to ever since we learned what sex was about. Instead of forging ahead toward a climax as it is traditionally defined, our every experience, our every sensation, becomes part of our orgasm. This last point cannot be overstated. For re-envisioning our definition of “orgasm”—modeling it on the nuance of female orgasm, rather than the goal orientation of male orgasm—allows all of us, men and women alike, to draw more complete nourishment from our sex.

After starting to practice OM, you can’t help but have a completely different definition of orgasm. Whereas once we thought of orgasm as an “intensely pleasurable moment in time, which, if done right, provides satisfaction and release,” suddenly it can also be an “intensely pleasurable period of time, which, regardless of outcome, offers the opportunity for revolutionary connection and transformational enjoyment.” (Catchy, no?) The former definition is the more straightforward male model of orgasm—which we still love. But when we OM, we also get to know the more female model. It may not look as glamorous at first, but it gives us a whole lot of something else—something we’ve been looking for.

A Note to My Same-Sex Friends

My Slow Sex workshops are full of students from all walks of life, including—and perhaps especially—all sexual orientations. Regardless of whether you sleep with men, women, or some combination of both, the principles of Slow Sex are the same. For reasons that I will discuss later, however, beginning OM practice focuses primarily on a man stroking a woman. For this reason, the language in this book will be primarily hetero-focused. That said, for my gay male readers, there
is
a male stroking practice, which you’ll start hearing about in chapter 3. For my lesbian friends, the traditional OM practice is still perfectly applicable, though contrary to my instruction for hetero couples, you may consider trading off stroking duties. That way you both receive the benefits of being stroked, which, as women, is the key to uncovering our own unique orgasm.

The transition from traditional sex toward Slow Sex is similar to other transformations that are happening all around us. Take exercise, for example. You might say that OM is to “conventional sex” what yoga is to more conventional exercise, like aerobics. With aerobics—or running, or most other forms of exercise—there is often (but not always) some sort of quantitative goal involved. You might work out to build strength and stamina, lose weight, or just clear your head. The stated goal of yoga, however, is simply to stay with your breath. The practice itself is to let go of any expectations about outcome. Falling out of the posture is just as much a part of the experience as nailing an arm balance for the first time. That’s what makes yoga an art form. It’s different every time you try it. And every time you learn something new, get a new appreciation for who you are and what you’re capable of.

This is not to say that you can’t still enjoy a good, hard
workout on its own merit. Exercise for the benefit of exercise will always have its place. But through yoga, a different possibility has entered the mix—the possibility of strengthening body and mind while also contacting something deeper inside of ourselves.

In the same way, OM is not intended to be a replacement for sex. On the contrary, most people practice Slow Sex because of how much it improves their “regular” sex lives. But like yoga, OM shows us a whole different world is available. A world where there are no such things as “sex problems.” Where what matters is not the outcome, but the pleasure you receive along the way. The best news? The skills we develop through Slow Sex act like rocket fuel when we apply them to traditional sex.

The benefits of OM only make themselves known, however, when we approach the practice like art instead of science. Anyone who has unrolled her yoga mat with the idea that she’s going to nail a particular posture knows that approaching your yoga practice with a goal in mind is just asking for a piece of humble pie. Demand of yourself that you’re going to nail side plank and watch yourself fall out of position before you even get there. In fact, in yoga they say that success is just getting to the mat in the first place. OM is the same way. Deciding you want to practice
is
the practice. Feeling the first stroke is the practice. Everything else is like icing on the cake. Like any art form, the path will be different every time. Sometimes it’s boring, frustrating, irritating. Other times it’s mind-blowing, heart-opening, and hot. The former is just as much a victory as the latter. What you will learn is how to stay open for both.

This is not to say you can’t spend time investigating the possibility of sex as a science. Hey, if that’s what you
want to do, I say go for it. There are plenty of sex manuals out there that will teach you positioning, technique, etiquette, and how to have and give a conventional climax every time. But these books are like the recipes I learned in Home Ec class. They explain sex from the outside in, rather than teaching you how to experience sex from the inside out. This book, and the practice of OM, is about the art. You’ll get a core technique, but in this world, technique will only take you so far. I’ll let you in on a bunch of sex secrets I’ve learned over the years, but after that the ball is in your court. It’s what
you
put into it that counts.

The good news is that Slow Sex simplifies things. It throws out all expectation about what her orgasm should look like and how he is going to give it to her. It takes the pressure off, for both men and women. It makes room for everyone and every possibility. Whether you’ve ever had a traditional climax or not, orgasm awaits you.

One more confession, which you’ve probably already surmised. This book is about sex, sure. But on a different level, this book is actually about
your life
. It’s about learning a new way of operating in the world, which in turn allows for new ways of relating to other people and your life as a whole. It’s about putting down roots. Learning how to feel your own body. Learning how to connect with other people. And it’s about letting go of expectations and instead making room for every possibility. In a nutshell, this book is about turning your life into a work of art. It just so happens that the medium we’re going to be using—the magic potion that will get you there—is sex. Because if there’s one thing I’ve discovered on my own journey, it’s that sex is like New York: if you can make it there, you can make it
anywhere
.

“With the OMing practice I’m able to really feel what’s inside of me. I love what’s inside of me, and I want to feel more and more and more. My orgasm really comes out during OM. Then, when I’m having sex, I’m feeling more all the time. Which is a relief, because my biggest fear was that I wouldn’t ever be able to feel sex again.”

—Annika, 37

Now, don’t get me wrong. If straight-up
better sex
is what you’re looking for, Slow Sex offers that, too. It’s one of the side effects of coming back into your body and into relationship with your world. When you strip sex down, pay attention to sensation, and ask for what you desire, you can expect richer, more satisfying orgasms; a deeper, more nourishing connection with your partner; and improved relationships with everyone in your life. In just a few minutes a day, you can learn how to live—how to make the most of your one and precious life! How you can get inside it, be a part of it, feel intimate with the world in a whole new way. It’s a promise I’ve seen come to fruition in the lives of too many students to count. I know the same is available here for you, too, no matter who you are or why you’re here.