The Whole Lesbian Sex Book (15 page)

How-To’s of Orgasm

Masturbation is a good way to learn how to orgasm—and all the experts from Lonnie Barbach to Betty Dodson will tell you it’s much easier to learn how to give yourself an orgasm than to learn to come with a partner.

To summarize the best of the advice:

•
Give yourself permission.
Pleasure is important—as important as food or air. You’re no less deserving of sustenance than any other living being.

•
Experiment.
Touch yourself in a variety of ways. Find out what feels good to you. “If you don’t orgasm, that’s OK—what’s important is your discovery of what feels good. You can build on this the next time you masturbate,” Cathy Winks and Anne Semans advise.
⁵

•
Take your time.
It may take you an hour or longer to reach a level of arousal that can take you over the edge.

•
Breathe.
Breathing will oxygenate your blood and move energy through your entire body.

•
Make noise.
You can’t hold your breath when you’re moaning.

•
Move.
Rock your pelvis, move your legs. Notice the energy building as you move.

•
Use a vibrator.
Many women find the intense, reliable sensations of the vibrator necessary for reaching orgasm.

•
Use lube.
Put some water-based lube on the head of the vibrator, on your finger, and on your clit. Spread the lube around so that it coats your entire vulva.

•
Stop and start.
If you get frustrated, back off and let your sexual sensation slowly build up again. “Try not to get too fixated on the orgasm or else ‘trying too hard’ might kill your arousal,” Winks and Semans write.
⁶

•
Don’t tense up.
Play with the tension in your body. Contract and relax.

•
Practice.
Lonnie Barbach recommends that you set aside an hour a day, every day, for up to six weeks.
⁷

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Do your Kegels.
Annie Sprinkle writes: “Squeeze the pubococcygeus muscles (the muscles you squeeze to stop the flow of urine) on the exhale. These squeezes can actually stimulate the clitoris and G-spot, while pumping up energy throughout your entire body. In other words, inhale while filling your belly like a balloon, exhale and flatten your back while contracting the PC muscles.”
⁸

•
Feel your feelings.
Sexual feelings can stir up grief, anger, or fear. Backing off from sexual stimulation may make sense in the moment—but the cost is dear.

•
Get help.
There are many ways to approach your sexual healing. You can try somatic healing practices designed to help you heal trauma in your body. You can see a therapist to explore why you have a problem reaching orgasm. You can work with a sex therapist or surrogate. Or arrange a session with an orgasm coach.

•
Read a sex guide.
Aphrodite, the savvy online advice columnist at A Woman’s Touch boutique, reveals that
she
learned to masturbate by reading
Our Bodies, Ourselves.
⁹
Even sex goddesses had to learn somewhere. Investigate videos, DVDs, books, and workshops. See the resources section for details.

Masturbating with a Partner

I absolutely love to be a witness to a lover enjoying her own body; it is such a beautiful personal intimacy. I’ve used masturbating to turn my partner on, too, which is really fun. It is very empowering to be openly appreciated and acknowledged and not shamed for masturbating.

You might find nothing is more tantalizing than your partner parading her arousal in front of you, working herself up to a colossal orgasm as you sit helplessly stewing in your own juices. When you masturbate in front of your partner, you’re inviting her to witness you pouring loving energy into yourself. You give her evidence that you value your sexual pleasure. It’s a sign of trust to allow someone to witness you in such an unguarded moment.

Masturbating to orgasm in front of my partner brings up a lot of my issues around self-acceptance. I feel self-conscious because the spotlight’s entirely on me—I’m being watched. I worry that I look funny when I come.

Not only do you get to revel in your partner’s gaze, you won’t have to cope with the problem of the well-meaning (but clueless) partner who has no idea how you like your clitoris stroked. If the idea of explaining your preferences leaves you tongue-tied, you can rely on your freshman English teacher’s favorite rule: Show, don’t tell.

I don’t think twice about having a wank in front of my partner. Especially if she’s tied up.

Phone sex turns your awareness to aural stimulation. As you touch yourself, the sounds of your partner touching herself intensify your experience. Cybersex, most of all in the form of chatroom sex, is a great tool for becoming adept at using words to describe your erotic experiences. With the advent of devices like Apple’s iSight, you can answer an online personal ad and then have real-time online sex, regardless of where you live.

Illustration 4. Masturbating with a Partner

You may discover the exhibitionist in you; and your partner may discover her inner voyeur. Every time you take a sexual risk, the possibility exists that you may widen and enhance your sexuality.

You can also touch yourself during partner sex. Sometimes it’s just easier to take care of your own orgasm and leave your partner free to concentrate on other things—reaming your butt, filling your vagina with her fingers, wielding the G-Spotter, or sucking your nipples. Many women discover that they can come more reliably, more intensely, more easily when they touch themselves during partner sex. And when your partner is relieved of the job of “making” you come, she may be more creative, more assertive, more confident in pleasuring you.

If you come by your own hand (or vibrator), it still “counts.” I discovered this sexual truth while watching a gay porn video at a queer film festival. As the star was being anally penetrated by his well-hung partner, he stimulated his penis. I was struck by the similarity to lesbian sex and the practice of touching one’s clitoris while being penetrated by a woman partner. That the star brought himself to orgasm during partner sex was depicted as totally hot. The theater (packed to overflowing with gay men) was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop—or a zipper.

Notice how generously you treat yourself. Do you bring as much creativity to your own arousal as you would to your partners’? If you masturbate once a week, is that OK? Once a day? Three times a day? How much pleasure are you worth?

Suggested Web Links

BETTY DODSON’S HOME PAGE

www.bettydodson.com

VULVA UNIVERSITY MASTURBATION CLASS

www.houseochicks.com/vulvauniversity/masturbate/masturbation.html

SOURCE OF QUOTE

Stephanie Dowrick,
Intimacy and Solitude
(W. W. Norton, 1995), 5.

chapter seven

Communication and Finding Sex Partners

Where do I find sex partners? I go after them.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND SEX PARTNERS? Well, just about anywhere. At school, in sessions of academic conferences, at work, at a bar, at a dance club, at the gym, on the subway, at a sex party, in a women’s studies class, in your queer youth group, at a 12-step meeting, at church or synagogue, while doing community activism, through introductions from friends, via ex-lovers (and even the occasional ex-husband), and of course on the Internet.

Where did I find her? She responded to an ad I placed. We went out a couple of times, but the timing just wasn’t right. Four years later, she was working in my department. Soon we were flirting, teasing, and trading little notes. I felt like a teenager again. Finally, I left her a note that said, “I would really like to kiss you.”

Gyms are good places to meet women…. Praise the lycra!

More specifically, you can meet sex partners while shopping for sex toys, at a Dyke March planning meeting, in line at the queer film festival, at the women’s basketball playoffs, on parent/teacher night at your child’s preschool, while marching in your local Pride parade, at the International Ms. Leather competition, at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, at Novice Night at your local S/M group, in your neighborhood queer bookstore, through your polyamorous lovers, and in the park while walking your dog.

Geography, Not Destiny

Whether you live in Louisville or London, the basics of meeting potential sex partners are the same. Sure, finding lovers becomes difficult when you can count the lesbians on your campus on your fingers—and still have a couple left over to vent your frustration. If your town boasts few queer social resources, you’ll have to muster all your creativity (and self-confidence) to find sex partners. But even in cities with bustling queer communities—New York, London, Berlin, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sydney—the well seems to run dry at times.

You can fly to San Francisco for the annual Pride parade, line up on Market Street with the cheering crowd half a million strong, and overhear an adorable pierced-and-tattooed dyke complain that she can’t find a lover. Deprivation thinking will keep you, well, deprived. Honestly, if you think negatively enough, you’ll discover a dyke shortage in Provincetown at the height of summer.

Want to find a girlfriend, trick, fuck buddy, or summer fling? Indulge yourself in every erotic delight at your disposal—especially your own erotic imagination and capacity for self-pleasure. Shine on yourself.

And in the meantime, here are a few pointers for finding sex partners:

• Know who you are and what you want.

• Take risks. So maybe you’re not a party girl—but how many invitations have you turned down lately?

• Get out of your shell. Never been to a club? Dust off those dancing shoes.

• Throw a party.

• Get involved in your community. You’ll meet women who care about the same things you do.

• Let your friends know you’re looking.

• Go to a sex party—even if you don’t have a date. Take a friend.

• Place a personal ad in your local queer press, alternative weekly, or online.

• Learn how to talk about sex. There’s more to finding sex partners than moving to a city with favorable demographics or buying a new black leather miniskirt—though you will look irresistible in the East Village. Before you rent the U-Haul or spend next week’s paycheck, learn some basic communication skills. You’ll be a more confident and competent partner—and you’ll learn about yourself in the process.

Talk Talk Talk

I like it when she squeezes my nipples and talks dirty to me while I beat off. Very hot.

Many women enjoy talking about sex. It can be thrilling to be told in scrumptious detail how much a lover wants you—and to tell her exactly what you plan to do once you get your hands on her.

Desire—communicated in no uncertain terms—is a gift we give each other. Think of your tongue as a sex toy (not just for oral sex) and of sex talk as foreplay. Your words can stoke the fires as effectively as kisses and caresses.

Some of us love to talk dirty. We whisper sensual promises into eager ears. We send salacious emails in the middle of the workday. We leave outrageously graphic notes in gym lockers, patent leather purses, billfolds, underwear drawers, and peeking out from the floor mat in the Honda—on the driver’s side, of course. We have long, wet phone conversations. We spend days online cruising chatrooms for eloquent lovers. We make home movies. We tape ourselves having sex, and, as one woman relates, we hit the playback button again and again and again.

My lover and I recorded ourselves making love and we played it back one day, attempting to follow along with the rhythms of that particular “session.” It started with my lover going down on me. I could hear myself in the recording wiggling around, the sheets crinkling underneath me, and the wetness my lover caused between my legs. I could hear her licking me, in the tape and in the moment, as if in stereo. Her moans were echoing through my head, my moans were echoing through my head. As my breath became quicker in the recording, so did it in real time. My lover was so wet that when she rose to kiss me, all of my fingers entered easily, and she rode my hand. I had just barely gotten my fist inside her when she came. I could hear myself beginning to climax in the tape. I was tight, waiting for her to come inside me with her cock. When she did, I felt my entire body shudder, sucking her in. I lost track of what was happening in the tape. All I could do was feel her inside me and listen to our breath. I have never come so hard as I did that night. It was beautiful.