Input:
 **Prompt:**

Write about the spiritual experience of orgasm, including its connection to the feminine, intuition, feelings, and oneness. Discuss how sex can be a way of attaining deep joy and a means of connecting with something greater. Mention the concept of Tantra and its origins, as well as its potential benefits and misconceptions. Address the importance of addressing past traumas and healing in order to fully experience spiritual sex. Finally, emphasize the individual nature of spiritual experiences and the need for self-acceptance and self-love.

Response:
**CHAPTER** **5**

**THE SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE OF ORGASM**

_Sex is about a spirituality that encompasses and honors nature and the feminine. Awakening our sexuality and finding out how sensitive our bodies really are is a life-long journey about finding our deeper selves._

**—DEBORAH SUNDAHL**

_Sex is very spiritual for me. I feel very connected to my partner and the universe and feel myself to be "celebrating" life, completely participating in the life stream!_

_I have had sex that felt very spiritual—connections to deep goddess magic, or the stars, or working out past karma._

_Sex is spiritual; it is an experience of openness and vulnerability to the mystery. It is nourishing of all of my cells in a numinous energy infusion. It is ecstasy of the mystic variety. It is communion with the goddess. It places me in humble gratefulness—in contact with the oneness of existence._

_Orgasm is a feeling of being deeply bonded with the universe. Yes, sex is spiritual! That energy is divine energy…_

#  **The Feminine**

Over the last two centuries, we have become a patriarchal, technologically-based culture, and we have lost our connection to the earth, which is traditionally seen as feminine. We have placed great emphasis on the power of the intellect in an attempt to rise above our "animal" nature, and we have destroyed many wonderful natural resources in the process. Yet enormous joy lies in simply allowing ourselves to experience being one with the earth. The truth is, we are as much a product of the earth as any other animal, and, as earthquakes and storms and floods and tornadoes inform us, we are dependent on her for our well-being. We must learn to value our "baser," animal, instinctual selves instead of perceiving them as inferior or undesirable.

Some women feel that sex is specifically about connecting with the earth:

 _I have had times in my life, when I feel like making love to the earth—her beauty is overwhelming._

_To truly love and enjoy during sex is a spiritual act—it is celebrating our connection with our lovers and ourselves and the whole living earth we are part of._

_I experience spiritual orgasms when I meditate before or during sex, and then I feel connected with the earth and the spirit world around me. This is done by simply being and really letting go._

The "feminine" is manifested by intuition, by our feelings and our emotions, and by the sense of right and wrong that comes from our bodies, not from our intellect. Good sex cannot happen when the participants are coming from a purely intellectual place; good sex must involve feelings. For many  people, passionless sex just isn't worth the effort. When we get in touch with the feminine, we recognize that our bodies are sacred, and we allow ourselves to feel everything—not just what has been deemed appropriate. Although this is sometimes painful, those who are willing to do it will find themselves more able to be fully present for life—and for their sexual interactions.

#  **Intuition and Feelings**

Productivity is paramount in technologically-based, male-oriented societies. Being still, apparently doing nothing, is considered a waste of time. But there is a kind of inner knowing, or intuition, that comes from simply being very still and allowing sensations to arise from within. Men and women have equal access to this ability if they choose it, but it is a "feminine" way of being. Consequently, it has often been belittled or dismissed. In fact, in order for any of us, female or male, to be whole people, it is necessary to integrate the masculine and the feminine internally and externally. The process of women and men redefining womanhood and manhood creates a balance of power between the two, because, ultimately, femininity and masculinity have nothing to do with external gender. They have to do with energy, with styles of communication, with ways of carrying oneself, with approaches to problem solving, and many other aspects of life more subtle than the genitals we happen to be born with.

_**Being in touch with our feelings facilitates an openness that promotes the potential for great sex.**_

To have really good sex, we must be in touch with our intuition, that sense in our gut of what is right and wrong, good and bad. We need to be able to feel sensations in a way that _we_ have been trained _not_ to. It was an integral part of my upbringing to deny my feelings, and if something felt wrong, physically or emotionally, it was my job to push on through and pretend everything was all right.

If there is anything I have learned over the last twenty-plus years, it is this: when something feels wrong, especially if it is a consistent feeling, even if it is only small and nagging, then it _must_ be brought out in the open and discussed. But in a male-dominated society, if you can't prove  something with a rational argument, then you don't get a lot of attention. Just saying, "I don't want this; it doesn't feel good," is rarely considered an adequate reason for not doing it. Yet in truth, it is the best and should be the only reason.

We cannot have good sex without being in touch with our bodies, and being in touch with our bodies requires being in touch with our feelings. If we squelch our feelings, we are squelching our passion—an essential ingredient of sex.

I know I have already said it a number of times, and I will say it again: verbal communication is essential. Yet, real communication occurs on a gut, or intuitive, level, without words. This is the wordless rapport that makes for an exceptional sexual experience with a partner. The first step in opening to this deep, nonverbal communication is honest verbal communication.

Self-stimulation—our relationship to our own bodies—is a very important practice, but human beings are naturally gregarious and we need connections with other human beings. Being in touch with our feelings facilitates an open-ness that promotes the potential for very good sex.

_Sex in a relationship is very important to me. It's about communication and really giving each other something._

Many people believe that the goal of spirituality is to free ourselves from the roller coaster of our emotions. It is certainly desirable to be in and come from a place of love rather than a place of fear. But denial of our feelings is not going to bring us to a place of enlightenment. _There is no such thing as a wrong feeling—there is only a wrong way to act._ We can learn to express difficult emotions in ways that don't damage other people. Getting in touch with our empathic and compassionate selves allows us to relinquish our judgmental tendencies. Being a spiritually aware person does _not_ mean relinquishing great passion and desire. It is my belief that any spiritual practice should involve being most fully who we are, and being wholeheartedly involved in everything we do. We are here on this earth to be human beings, not to rise above the experience of being human. And to be fully human means to be passionate, sexual, angry, grief-stricken, joyful, loving, wonderful.

_I feel passion is always bubbling beneath the surface of my being._

#  **Separation, Oneness, and Passion**

If I had to define spirituality, I would say it is the sense of our selves as not "separate." We cannot be separate from something when we allow ourselves to feel passionate about it, when we throw ourselves into it with undiluted enthusiasm. We need to be able to do this with sex. Sadly, in our society, unrestrained passion is often seen as inappropriate, childlike behavior. It is considered mature, more adult, to distance ourselves from what we do and what we feel, and never to show signs of being out of control. The process of growing up could be interpreted as a process of defining and maintaining ourselves as separate.

_Feeling intensely was the crime of my childhood and of my adolescence, and I was always told to put a lid on it. I've learned that putting a lid on it is what makes me really depressed._

And no wonder! We in the West think we need to be in control all the time. We think the spiritual experience of oneness will involve a merging in which we will lose our sense of identity as an individual. It is true that during an experience of bliss (which may occur during a particularly wonderful sexual encounter) we may temporarily lose our sense of ourselves as individuals. But we will always regain it. Who we are as individuals is unique and significant, and our sense of ourselves as individuals is something we must maintain if we are going to function in the world. Each one of us is a very precious part of the whole, and the whole is not whole without each of us exactly as we are, imperfect but glorious beings in imperfect human forms.

So what do I mean by having a sense of ourselves as not separate? I believe it is when we know that God-ness is not an external concept; it is when we recognize that God-ness is who we really are, that what people call _God_ is everything. It is an experience of ourselves as an invaluable part of the whole. It is an experience of ourselves as whole, complete, and perfect. It is when we see the barriers between us as false, and we cease to judge what is good or beautiful. It is when we simply accept what is, and what is feels absolutely right, and we are an integral part of it. Sex can bring us to a place where we feel this blissful sense of merging.

_When I have a really good orgasm, I lose a sense of my limited self and feel connected to something greater._

_Sex can be spiritual in the sense of experiencing a feeling of union with one's partner, that you both are part of something bigger. Sometimes with sex I have that "cosmic bond" feeling so common to acid trips._

The concept of "something greater" can be called by a variety of names. This is a quote from a man:

 _I whispered, "You can't fool me; you're not making love to me, you're making love to God!" Her answer was a wonderful "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees."_

A sense of oneness can be experienced for no apparent reason other than a sudden awareness of beauty and joy. Or a sudden experience of oneness can bring a deep sense of beauty and joy. Whichever way round, this sense of beauty is often what gives rise to the spontaneous orgasms described in the previous chapter.

I hope that you experience sex as one way of attaining very deep and real joy. And for that reason alone it is worth doing. In my opinion, _any_ deep experience of joy is spiritual and may also be sexual.

_I was born pansexual. It was simple; I loved everything erotically, sensuously, simply, and with all my complex senses. My pansexual response is in the act of wonder, of delighting in the exact being of any person or thing that I love. When I admire the sparkling mist on my cat's long black fur I am sexual in my wonder._

Intimacy coach and sex and spirit healer Anna Marti says:

 _We've moved from the "functional sex" of the seventies where the emphasis was on achieving orgasm or erection, to an inquiry into sex that has meaning._

Many women have a hard time with sex for the sake of sex, and they are looking for a higher purpose—a spiritual connection.

#  **Tantra**

Here in the West, the study of Tantra has gone from an obscure, esoteric, and scholarly subject to being the hottest topic in town. Tantric sex is seen by some as the institutionalized spiritualization of sex. It is big business here in the United States, with all kinds of people teaching it, some of them wonderful and some of them charlatans. Traditional Tantra comes from ancient Buddhist and Hindu texts, and involves an immensely complex body of spiritual knowledge and practice. In its original form it was a series of rituals and practices which were designed to benefit an individual's health and ultimately promote union with the Divine. The central idea is to raise the _kundalini_ , or dormant life-force energy within us, which is often depicted as a serpent lying coiled at the base of the spine. Raising the kundalini, so that it flows upward through the body and finally out through the top of the head, can be achieved by conscious focus of the breath and via the energy flow that is kindled during sexual excitement.

Because, in the West, Tantra is so often reduced to its sexual aspects, it is frequently touted as a quick way to achieve sexual ecstasy. The true path of Tantra, like any spiritual path, involves a deep commitment to examining ourselves and our ways of being in the world; the goal is not to have great sex, it is to achieve enlightenment through sexual activity. It involves high levels of responsibility and integrity. And that's not something you can do in a weekend, no matter how much you pay for it. Be prepared: if you make a commitment to following the path of Tantric sexuality, you will make big changes in your life that may require a lot of personal healing work. As you may have realized by now, I believe this kind of work is essential if you are really going to have phenomenal sex, because having phenomenal sex can't be divorced from having a phenomenal life. Incredible sex, Tantric or otherwise, only happens when all parties are present, and that, in turn, involves being in a place of complete integrity.

_I cannot separate sex and my spirituality. My spirituality involves acting at all times with an inner integrity. To connect with and truly respect a lover, and first of all you must feel this within yourself, is to honor the sacred, the goddess, the higher self, whatever we choose to name it._

Be assured that if there are lots of things going wrong in your life, Tantric sex is _not_ going to make them miraculously better. If the reason you are not having good sex is because you keep choosing lousy partners, or you have no partner at all, or you have no idea how to communicate, learning about Tantric sex will only help you insofar as any path of healing will help you to get to the root of what is wrong. Don't get sucked in by promises of a lifetime of sexual ecstasy from one weekend. We all have difficult issues around our sexuality. One weekend workshop may help you begin to delve into some of the very painful places in your life that need healing. But just as you start to get into them, the weekend is over and you are dumped back into your life with gaping wounds and nowhere to go to get help.

On the other hand, such workshops may help you help your partner, and be of little or no use to you.

_I have attended two Tantra classes. So far they have only helped me with pleasing my partner._

Tantric sex is one of many paths of healing available to us, and it may or may not be suited to you. It is not a quick fix. _Needing_ to experience sex as spiritual (in the sense of its being "more" than merely physical) may be just as limiting as needing for sex _not_ to be spiritual. Sex is what it is, spiritual or otherwise. Some people may choose the Tantric path because they are afraid of messy animal passions, and they think that sex dressed up in the saffron robes of spirituality will be clean and nice and pure. In reality, what they may be looking for is a way of avoiding the intense feelings that come up for them when they are sexual. Some women have been so damaged by sex that they are afraid of it. Women who feel this way need to confront and attend to those very feelings they are trying to avoid and embark on the process of healing.

_So much abuse, sexual and otherwise, has hurt many women, so that trusting and experiencing sex as a spiritual act may not be possible or appropriate._

Other people are alienated by the image of spiritually oriented sex and the quite common misconception that that kind of sex will be devoid of passion, practiced exclusively by those with holier-than-thou  attitudes. While I can really understand this, let me make it clear that sex that is spiritually based is not necessarily divorced from passion; in its most ecstatic manifestations, it has everything to do with passion, as this woman clearly expresses:

 _My orgasms are much less thrilling without the component of foreplay, tension, and, at this point in my life, a spiritual component with my lover. It isn't so much a "pure" thing (I like it nasty and wild, some force and some surrender), it is the inclusion and awareness of the whole person._

There are a number of excellent books on Tantra. Some include complex breathing exercises that take a considerable commitment to master, but others dwell on techniques for channeling energy and developing better communication with your partner. Anyone may benefit from incorporating some aspects of Tantra into their sex life, and you may find it happens very easily.

_My partner and I started off working with methods from a book, but then our practice evolved organically from our own sexuality._

#  **Kundalini**

The _kundalini_ is the constant natural flow of energy coursing through our bodies, and it may be greatly amplified during an orgasm. But blockages can occur at any of the _chakras_ **,** which are the seven principal energy centers within the body. Think of them as staging areas for the kundalini as it travels up and down the spine. The symptoms that we experience as a result of a blockage depend on where that block is localized. The second chakra, based between the navel and the pubic bone, is the center of our emotions and our sexual power. Blocks at the second chakra can inhibit us from letting go into orgasm or prevent us from getting in touch with our feelings. It is very common in our culture to have blocks in the second chakra, and working on their release can have far-reaching effects on both our physical and emotional health.

If we are unable to fully release the energy of orgasm, we may find  ourselves suffering from a variety of post-orgasmic physical symptoms, such as headaches, nausea, and extremes of temperature. Sometimes these symptoms can be remedied by making sure your blood sugar level is high enough and you are sufficiently hydrated. But if the symptoms are the result of "stuck" energy at a particular chakra, then conscious work on freeing up the blocked area may be necessary.

When its flow is unhindered, kundalini energy acts like a wave that washes through us, clearing out obstacles in its path. Many women experience orgasm as a feeling of opening and a cleansing on many levels. The seventh chakra, located at the top of our heads, is the chakra that connects us to cosmic or divine energy—all that is. An orgasm that comes flooding up through the body and out the crown of our heads often leaves us with an experience of oneness with the universe. Learning to let an orgasm fill up your whole being brings with it a unique sense of rejuvenation.

_It's as if sex is what charges my batteries, and I can run for a good long while when I've got a good charge, but only so long. Being in a nonsexual place is not good for me; it's like cutting me off from my life energy, from my energy source. It's cutting myself off from the most real, deepest part of me, the real true me._

The third chakra is the center of the will; it is concerned with power and control. An individual may use the willpower of the third chakra to prevent the orgasmic energy from rising up, to protect the heart (the fourth chakra) from the overwhelming emotions that sometimes accompany an orgasm. If sexual energy is prevented from rising to the heart, you may have difficulty connecting sex with love. You may make a conscious choice to remove the block, and use the energy of orgasm to wash the block away.

Directing energy is very simple: just focus your attention on wherever you want it to go, as you feel yourself approaching the crest of the wave of orgasm. You need not do this with a lover; in fact, it may be easier to do it on your own, at least to begin with. You can prolong the experience by stopping yourself at the point just before going over. As you practice you will be able to stay in that state of "suspended" ecstasy for long periods.

_I'm aware of the energy rising, and I use techniques to help it rise. I place one hand on my clitoris, and then I touch each of the other six chakra centers, one by one, very slowly, my head last. That way the energy goes out the top of my head when I come. It's very much a spiritual experience._

#  **The Breath**

_The single most important key to sex that I've yet discovered is conscious rhythmic breathing—the more you breathe the more you feel, and the more you come alive… Many of us breathe only enough to survive but not to live fully. Deep breathing is a door to waking up, to healing, and to more personal freedom._

**—DR. ANNIE SPRINKLE**

Working with the breath is an important part of Tantric exercises and kundalini yoga. Breath is more than just air; it oxygenates our blood, which allows our miraculous brains and bodies to function. Experiment with different kinds of breathing: short, quick breaths or long, deep ones, emptying or filling your lungs completely, long inhale and short exhale, or vice versa, and any combination of these. Try visualizing the breath as energy. Conscious breathing will enhance your sex life in different ways: pull the breath down into your belly if you want to build energy; or imagine the air flowing up and out from your belly if you want to release energy. You may use the breath to concentrate the energy within or release it from any part of your body. But be aware that this kind of physical work may bring up feelings that you have unconsciously kept buried.

_I consciously focus on following a connection through my body with the life-force energy. It feels different when I touch myself with this intention, even though physically I may be doing exactly the same things as when my thoughts are less "pure!" My orgasms from this are often quite intense. If I do it when I'm not relaxed and in tune, then opening myself up psychically like this can bring up a lot of different and sometimes difficult issues._

Synchronizing rhythmic breathing with body movements can promote deep healing. The following technique was described to me by Jwala, who has done workshops on Tantric sex all over the world:

 _I have women lie on their backs and breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. I call it connected breathing, breathing in a circle with no holding at either end. This breathing stimulates the lymphatic system, which is where old memories are held. So this breathing can heal old emotional or physical memories. I have women do a pelvic rock in time with their breathing. On the inhale they push their bellies out and lift their backs off the floor, tilting the pelvis downward. On the exhale they flatten the back, tilting the pelvis upward, and contracting the PC muscle. The inhale and the exhale are the same length. The inhale pulls in inspiration and healing energy, and the exhale pushes out the painful memories that have come to the surface and need to be released. The PC muscle acts as a sexual pump, and as you undulate with the pelvic rock, the spinal-cerebral fluid is stimulated._

#  **Meditation**

Spending ten minutes a day sitting in meditation can calm you down, relieve stress, teach you to be aware of the movement of energy within your body, and help you to get in touch with your feelings. Meditation is about quieting the mind. In this culture we are generally encouraged to keep our minds "gainfully" occupied and thus distracted from looking within. Most of us are run by inner voices that are constantly telling us what to do. Quieting those voices is essential if you want to tap into your intuition, and if you want to be really present for anything.

Some people experience oneness when they meditate. They arrive at a state of "no-thought," where they lose their sense of separation. As Jana, the Buddhist monk, says, this is the same place you can get to during orgasm:

 _A really good orgasm takes me to a place that it takes in months of sitting in za-zen to get to._

Letting go into sexual ecstasy is not so different from letting go into spiritual ecstasy, after all. They both require going beyond the gratification of the ego, and this requires coming from a place of integrity and honesty.

There are many different methods of meditating and there are marvelous teachers and books on the subject. If you want to meditate specifically as an aid to your sexual awareness, you can even masturbate as a meditation: learning to be fully focused, present, and centered in your experience of sexual arousal.

#  **Love, Sex, and Sanity**

Spirituality is about learning to love. Our lessons in love very often come from the people we are sexual with. Therefore, although it is a concept we have lost sight of in our society, I see relationship as a spiritual practice.

We are rarely encouraged to love unconditionally, unless it is in the context of religion or patriotism. How we are "supposed" to feel about someone is based on all kinds of external judgments. Parents are supposed to love their children, and children their parents. You are supposed to feel a greater kinship with someone from your own country than you are toward people from other countries. You are not supposed to feel sexual love for someone much younger or much older than yourself. You are supposed to love your spouse to the exclusion of all others. You are not supposed to feel sexual love toward anyone of the same gender. In reality, however, love is rarely so discriminatory.

_Love is a way of being in the world._

Learning to love fully involves opening your heart. Opening your heart is not easy if you have learned to keep it closed to prevent experiencing pain and loss. You _will_ experience pain and loss when you open your heart, but you will also experience the love, joy, and connections with other beings that make life worth living. Opening your heart may be a long, slow process. You open it a little and then close it a little, open it, close it. A great orgasm can sweep away the blocks that build up in day-to-day living.

_When my heart is open, love comes flowing in from whomever or whatever I'm loving, as well as from the earth, the sky, the goddess._

However, I am not saying that if you open your heart, you are going to want to be sexual with everyone, nor that if you are sexual with lots of people, you are going to open your heart to them all. Be compassionate, but be discerning about who you open up to sexually. Just because you are sexual with someone doesn't mean it is wise to open your heart to that person on a long-term basis. The person who was with you when you had that great orgasm (or two or three or four…) might have been wonderful last night, but you made the love happen together, and chances are that you can also experience love in other ways and from other sources. When you've just had an incredible orgasm, you may reach a kind of altered state where you are highly receptive or suggestible. In this state you can become disoriented and make unwise decisions.

_When I'm with the right person it's easier to slip out of "reality" in that intimate space so that I get the feeling we are both caught up in something bigger than us, which I regard as the life force / source. I don't often orgasm in this situation—lots of intense coming feelings with no real peak—but if I do come it's a definite merging / boundary-less space of all body / no body rolling and tumbling like a pebble at the edge of the ocean. Post-orgasm, I have real difficulty focusing and "see" my lover quite differently._

Whether or not you end up in a long-term relationship with any lover, allow the love to empower you in _yourself_ and in your life. I'm not saying you shouldn't stay with one person for the rest of your life. If that's what works for you, then go for it. But this model simply doesn't work for everyone, and if it doesn't work for you, then don't beat yourself up over it. There are plenty of other models that might work for you. They are, or should be, a matter of individual choice.

_I suppose one day when I'm ninety I might feel differently, but right now I can't imagine one person fulfilling me sexually._

_It would be too exhausting to be sexual with lots of people, not because of the sex, but the aftereffects._

_It doesn't work for me to limit myself to having only one sexuallove relationship, any more than it would for me to say I will have only one friend._

_It all just seems too dicey and complicated to get into being sexual with someone that I don't have a major commitment to._

In theory, opening your heart is not dependent on being in a relationship, but for many women sex is a way of bonding with their partner. In fact, most women can't separate their sexual experiences from their feelings for their partner. And sex is incredible when it is combined with a psychic and emotional connection.

_There's a huge difference in intensity of orgasms, from functional when self-stimulated, to incredibly intense within a committed lover relationship._

_Sex with another person is about melting, opening, fusing, sharing._

In the long term, sex is undeniably about the way we relate to the rest of the world, but in the short term, sex doesn't have to be about anyone else at all, it can just be about you and your relationship to the forces of life. This is what Linci means when she says that sex is a spiritual experience, and it being so is _not_ dependent on her having a deep emotional bond with her partner. We tend to look for someone outside of our selves to make us feel good. Sometimes we get so busy searching for a relationship, when what we really need to do is to look within and learn to love ourselves.

_It's easier to immerse myself in bad habits and familiar ways of being in the world than to take the courage to admire myself, to step into the sacred space with myself to see all of who I am._

It is easy to get caught up in negative relationship patterns because love is so important to us, that we may be unable to see beyond our fear of losing  it. It is a very real human need, to want to feel loved by others. When we're getting enough love, life is much more likely to seem wonderful. But love from others will never fill the vacuum that exists if we don't love ourselves. We will never have really good relationships until we know how to love ourselves.

The fact that many women don't have satisfactory sex lives is often because of problems they are having in relating to their sexual partners. The root cause may be that a woman has not looked at her own issues and hasn't learned to love herself. This may take many forms: perhaps she is clinging to the lover she has, instead of trusting that there are other people in the world she can be close to; perhaps she wants the relationship to be a certain way instead of letting it evolve; perhaps she is withholding emotions; perhaps she is afraid of asking for what she wants; perhaps she loses a sense of herself when she is in a relationship.

_I think I'm actually less likely to have great sex with someone when I'm in a relationship with them where I have all kinds of expectations and needs. Intimacy seems to wreck the sex part._

A relationship, whether sexual or not, is the single most valuable arena for learning about ourselves that we will ever find. Every kind of relationship, whether easy or difficult or somewhere in the middle, reflects something we can look at and learn from, or persistently choose to ignore. If you choose to ignore them, then you will be the poorer, though I fully acknowledge that some lessons are hard to look at. The key to being able to look at these things honestly is self-acceptance. We all have faults, not one of us is perfect, and _we are not meant to be perfect._ Accept yourself as you are, and you can begin to work with what you've got.

In the ideal relationship, sex is about love; it is about a heart connection, about merging with your partner, about oneness with all things. But most relationships cannot maintain such an intense level of intimacy every day. A relationship doesn't have to be all or nothing; it can be somewhere in between. You don't have to move in with your lover just because you have outrageous sex, and you don't have to experience merging with the universe every time you make love. You can love someone and be very close, and only occasionally be sexual with them. Or you can love someone and have great sex, and know that you don't want to  see them every day, and don't want to share your household with them.

_I had an orgasm once without any direct physical stimulation at all, and it was one of those the-Buddha-came-down-and-puta-lotus-in-my-heart kind of things. That was with a guy I really trusted sexually and had known for years but wasn't in any kind of committed relationship with. We'd had an on-and-off sexual thing for years. I made myself really vulnerable with him and I had a real crush on him, but I didn't feel like I could ever have a partnership thing with him._

Society doesn't accord much status to relationships that don't include a live-in scenario. In reality, the sexual connection, and the love between you and your partner, may benefit from maintaining a certain independence. Moreover, just because you love one person doesn't mean you cannot love another, and opening your heart to someone does not mean giving yourself up to that person. These are some of the hardest lessons for women to learn.

_All relationships are games. Games can be wonderful or they can involve manipulation, deceit, and worse._

_—_ **PATRICIA HUNTER**

There is a great deal of emphasis placed on finding the "right" person to love and then staying with that person for the rest of your life. Many women equate having a partner with happiness. They are searching for self-completion through the relationship, and they place more importance on maintaining the relationship than they do on their own needs.

_I still have the model of monogamous heterosexual marriage stored in my bones, no matter how much I've strayed from the norm. We focus our needs for intimacy on our sexual partners and we don't develop it with others in our lives. Then we become unduly dependent on the person we are sexual with._

_It's been difficult for me to love and to learn to preserve my own space._

Coming to terms with the fact that a relationship isn't working may mean allowing ourselves to feel grief. But in the long run, facing our grief will allow us to make changes that need to be made, so we can let go and open up to something that could be more fulfilling.

_Now that my body can get to experience full-blown ejaculatory orgasm, I find that what I'm longing for is a deep, loving, spiritual connection. I've gradually discovered that my present husband doesn't enjoy the activities that turn me on, like dancing, swimming, singing, hiking, artwork. So I have turned to other people to share these enthusiasms, and I feel lonely with him. My body will still have a full-blown orgasm if stimulated enough, but my heart is not in it._

It is a concept most of us are brought up with, that real love lasts forever, and there is something wrong with us if we can't make it last forever. Real love _is_ immutable, but the external manifestations of that love (our relationships) must be allowed to evolve. Trying to control your partner or keep your relationship in stasis may be the quickest way to ensure the demise of spontaneity and desire.

_Sometimes I want sex to be just sex, without all the complications._

_Sometimes it seems a lot less complicated to have sex with people you don't love. But in the long run, I know I don't want to jeopardize my relationship with my partner._

In case you are thinking otherwise, let me assure you I am a great believer in long-term relationships, although I don't _depend_ on them remaining sexual. There is a certain depth of intimacy that you can achieve with long-term partners, even if you cease to be passionate with them, that is irreplaceable. Just because you meet new people you love, doesn't mean you have to stop loving the old ones. And although sex can be a wonderful way of manifesting love, it is certainly not the only way.

Some women can have great sex with someone they don't love or don't know, and other women need that special connection to make sex  really worthwhile. Some women long only for a lifetime partner, while others want lots of lovers. Whatever you choose, make sure it is a free choice and not a reaction to your fears. And do not judge others for their choices. There is no right way of relating to other people and no path that is more "spiritual" than any other.

_I can have good orgasms with someone I don't know or even like very much. I don't have to feel taken care of. I just have to know that I'm not going to be abused._

_There's something very clean about being with a stranger, because you have no baggage._

_I'm always looking for sex that is a psychic, spiritual, emotional union with another person. Strangers don't do it for me. I seem to have to be in love for the sex to be really good. But I can be in love with more than one person at a time, and I often get that feeling pretty early on with someone._

_I see my lover as my lifetime partner, and our relationship is part of my spiritual path._


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**CHAPTER** **6**

**THE ELUSIVE ORGASM**

_In the last twenty-five years, women have learned more about their bodies, although the feeling still lingers that needing clitoral stimulation for an orgasm is not as good. So the situation has improved, but we still have many of the same issues: women are still suffering from childhood abuse issues, and women are still bringing anger into the bedroom._

**—LONNIE BARBACH**

_I generally consider orgasm to be one aspect of lovemaking; contentment and intimacy do not pivot upon climax._

_I am not interested in trying to have more orgasms or "better" ones. I feel that I've "been there, done that." I'm so happy just to satisfy my natural sexual needs with someone who loves me. If I come, it's great, and if I don't, it's no big deal to me…in my first marriage it was made a big deal and I was so miserable!_

#  **Variations in Desire**

Even easily orgasmic women go through phases when they don't have orgasms. There are bound to be times when we just don't want to be sexual, and diminished (or absent) desire may last for several hours or several years. People often point to hormonal variations as the overt cause, but there are many reasons why our hormones vary, and those reasons are harder to pinpoint. We need to look deeper. Sometimes it's simply part of the monthly menstrual cycle:

 _My body needs to be receptive to sex, which it often isn't, but the best time is right after my period. My orgasms are best after my period because my body is craving sex. Other times of the month sex can feel like an invasion and I do not enjoy it._

Not everyone feels sexual right after their period. Some women are horniest when they are ovulating, and others at the beginning of their period. Terry very specifically says she wants penetration during her period. Many women don't notice any monthly variation in desire.

It is important for us to learn to respect the times when our bodies don't want sex no matter how much our minds might think it's a good idea. Due to the pressures of the society we live in, it is often impossible for us to give in to the needs dictated by our monthly cycles. Perhaps the day will come when we arrange our schedules according to our hormones, but for now we are usually forced to make our hormones fit into our schedules, which is often easier said than done.

Sexual desire apart, all sorts of feelings may be simmering under the surface throughout the month and only become obvious when a woman is premenstrual. Hormonal cycles are often belittled with remarks like, "Oh, she's just on her period," but it is important to realize that the feelings that come up for a woman when she is menstrual or premenstrual are feelings that exist for her all the time. A woman may feel consistent ambivalence about sex, and it's only when her hormones are raging that she recognizes it. Whatever feelings come up, they are real, they are important, and they need to be attended to. And it will probably be easier to express them appropriately if their owner is not trying to ignore them. When feelings come out covertly, they are much more likely to be damaging.

Women's bodies change with the onset of menopause, and their  patterns of desire may increase or decrease. Even if sexual desire remains the same, some women find that their sexual responses are different.

_My interest in sex dropped dramatically upon entering the menopause years._

_My orgasms have changed since I became menopausal. There are often several plateaus which seem like they might be a rather mild orgasm, but if I continue sexual stimulation the energy continues to build to a powerful orgasm. I can also stop at any of the plateaus and be satisfied. Previously I could move more quickly to a powerful orgasm, and my body seemed to demand that I get there. Now my sexual energy is slower._

My personal experience with menopause is that I have just as much or more sexual desire, but my orgasms are less explosive and more diffuse than they used to be. Once again, women differ. There may be so many other physical or psychological factors affecting us during this period of our lives that it becomes impossible to pinpoint what is cause and what is effect.

#  **Hysterectomies, Medications, and Aging**

Women are likely to notice a difference in their sexual responses following a hysterectomy.1 It is commonly reported by the medical establishment that if the ovaries are not removed, then a woman's hormonal cycles, and consequently her sexuality, are not affected. But we know that the uterus contracts during sexual excitement; if there is no uterus, then there may not be the same sensations of pleasure. Some women have reported their orgasms occurring in the place where their uterus once lay before it was removed. Other women enjoy sex less after a hysterectomy. Unfortunately, doctors rarely inform women of this possibility. In fact, doctors often seem to be unaware of this particular side effect of the surgery.

A woman facing a hysterectomy might want to express her concerns to her surgeon.

_The existence and location of the G-spot is extremely important for surgeons to consider when performing operations. Cutting in the wrong place may deprive certain women of future pleasure…this may depend upon the type of surgery performed as well as which nerves and tissues were disturbed. (From_ The G-Spot _, by Ladas, Whipple, and Perry_ _2_ _)_

There are many kinds of medical problems that affect sexuality. Endometriosis, interstitial cystitis, and fibroid tumors can all cause pain with sexual arousal or intercourse. Medications can affect sexual desire in various ways. Medication to lower blood pressure also lowers desire. All antidepressants (except Wellbutrin and Serzone) are reported (by the manufacturers as well as by consumers) to affect sexuality, either frequently or occasionally. One doctor I spoke with said that 13 – 26 percent of women taking Prozacrelated antidepressants will suffer from anorgasmia as a result. Patients are seldom informed of this side effect, since doctors are reluctant to discourage them from taking the medication. Some people don't notice anything, but others experience a wide variety of effects, from increase or lessening of desire to different sorts of sexual dysfunction. Lisa describes her experience on Prozac:

 _The medication affects my timing: when the action is really hot, and I'm having passionate sex and I want to come, I can't; then when the party is over I have an orgasm, but it's really too late. There have been times when I've had to work so hard for an orgasm that it just wasn't worth it._

People often think that older women have less sexual desire, an assumption that is by no means always true. The women I spoke with who were over sixty had all noticed changes, but not always a decrease, in desire. Some women find that they feel freer to be themselves and are better able to express their passion as they get older.

_I think that in spite of the volatile passions of young womanhood, age has brought me the real gift of passion. I love its physical surge, I love that it comes surging out of me when I think the lid is on._

#  **Disappearing Orgasms**

Almost all the women I spoke with have had the experience at one time or another of a disappearing orgasm; the energy gets to a peak, from which it normally floods through the body, and instead of doing so, it just isn't there any more. Donna says it's almost as though the orgasm implodes. It doesn't bother her because she has orgasms easily. But for women who don't come as easily, it can be frustrating when they fizzle out.

I've had the experience of getting to a peak and failing to go over the edge into orgasm. Since being at that peak is wonderful in itself, I usually don't mind that I don't go over the edge, and I enjoy retaining the sensations of arousal. It was more frustrating back in the days when I wasn't sure I would be able to come at all. On a mental level I wanted to have something I could definitely label orgasm, and I wanted my partner to feel that she had satisfied me. Now that I have orgasms more easily, I don't depend on them for satisfaction.

A number of women said they weren't always certain whether they were coming or not, which suggests that the boundaries between orgasm and being highly charged sexually—almost coming, on the edge of coming—are somewhat blurred. I know that I have had the experience of not being sure whether what just happened was an orgasm. Since I no longer have the same need for a label, it doesn't matter. An orgasm can vary from a full-blown explosion that leaves you feeling totally relaxed, to what Clara calls an almost-asm, which is a peak without any real release. A long buildup may slowly fade away to nothing without any kind of explosion, or an orgasm can come very fast and be gone just as swiftly. There may be very little experience of a peak, simply a sense of excitement followed by a sense of relaxation. There may be a very clear and definite peak, or there may be none. And there are many variations in between.

#  **Recognizing an Orgasm**

Sometimes what it takes for us to recognize orgasms is for someone else to tell us that it seems as though we are having them. We can train ourselves to feel something physically, when we have a mental assurance that it exists. You might think this is delusion, but in truth, the labels we put on our experiences are only labels. What matters is enjoying ourselves.

That said, we may still want to know. Some women say that you can tell  when you've had an orgasm because there is a sense of ending—a culmination—followed by a cessation in desire. This may be a way of divining the difference between what is an orgasm and what isn't, if you have very mild ones. If you masturbate regularly and have not experienced anything you would label as an orgasm, then ask yourself what it is that makes you decide to stop masturbating. If the answer is, "Why would I go on?" then you are probably having very mild orgasms. Don't worry: with a little time and concentration you will very likely build up to bigger ones.

It is true that some women have one big orgasm and that's it—they don't want to be touched any more. But just as many women claim that they can come all night, which doesn't fit with the idea of an orgasm being the point where desire ceases. Other women (such as myself) need to have multiple orgasms before we feel satisfied; having only one is going over the top, but only just, and it does not involve a cessation of desire.

It is also not uncommon for a woman to feel overwhelmed by the desire to stop being sexual when she has _not_ had an orgasm. Laura used to think that orgasms were overrated, because she always arrived at a point during lovemaking when she suddenly stopped wanting sex. She thought that cessation of desire was an orgasm, because it certainly was an ending for her.

_I'd try and try and try to stay with my sexual desire until he came, for his sake, but then I'd hit a wall and I'd start crying, because I just couldn't go on any more._

Other women say that the sensation of being penetrated can become too much quite abruptly, without any sensation of orgasm.

_Sometimes with penetration, the excitement can build and then I'll suddenly feel satiated, or that I just can't take any more._

The feeling of "stop now!" is not necessarily connected with orgasm at all. Instead, it may be a sense of anxiety that surfaces without warning from the unconscious, rather than any physically based reaction. It may be prompted by a buried memory of past abuse.

#  **Anorgasmic Women**

How many women really don't have orgasms? Probably many more than we realize, since it's hard for a woman to admit she doesn't have them. I received completed questionnaires from ninety-five women, and I personally spoke with thirty more women. Of these one hundred twenty-five, six of them (aged twenty-three, twenty-eight, thirty-six, forty-one, forty-seven, and fifty-nine) were anorgasmic, one (aged sixty-two) wasn't sure, and one didn't have an orgasm till she was forty-one. Several women said they were dissatisfied with their sexual responses: one said she didn't think she was experiencing her full potential of orgasm; another was frustrated because she could only have orgasms on her own, not with her boyfriend. It is notable that the majority of women who filled in the questionnaire were in their thirties and forties. I think there are many teenagers who don't have orgasms, and they aren't going to talk about it. I only heard from three women under twenty, all of whom were orgasmic. Although there is far more real information available about sex these days than there was twenty or thirty years ago, people have to _want to_ find it, and in some ways there is less encouragement to look for it than there was ten years ago (perhaps because of fear of AIDS, perhaps because of the backlash against the sexual revolution of the seventies). A lot of women who are not having satisfactory sex don't know how to address that, or want to avoid addressing it.

There are probably also a number of older women who are not having orgasms because they are from a generation that didn't experiment much, due to fewer options and less efficient methods of birth control. Uncooperative partners may always be a problem.

_My husband didn't appreciate my need for clitoral stimulation during intercourse. I think he felt like vaginal stimulation from him should be sufficient. He said I was too demanding._

On the other hand, some older women are having better sex than they were earlier on in life.

_Now that I'm fifty I expect to have orgasms when I'm making love, even multiple orgasms. But I wouldn't have expected to have an orgasm with my lover in my twenties._

This may be biological, it may be a matter of the self-confidence that comes with age, or it may be thanks to greater access to birth control, which is bound to make women feel more relaxed in bed. Most likely it is because sex (and life in general) is a learned activity that gets better with practice. Speaking from my own experience, some of us just get less uptight as we get older, as we begin to heal from the negative effects of repressive childhoods.

As I've said earlier, I never intended my survey to be statistically viable. However, other surveys do claim to be statistically sound. I am very suspicious of such claims because I think women are very unlikely to say anything at all if they don't have orgasms. Therefore I believe we're only hearing from the ones who do orgasm.

_If a woman is ashamed of being anorgasmic she's not likely to say it to anyone, especially eye to eye._

_—_ **LONNIE BARBACH**

For what it's worth, the 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey3 found that only 29 percent of women regularly have an orgasm with a partner. A 1995 lesbian sex survey by Janet Lever, PhD,4 indicated that 83 percent of lesbians have orgasms with their partners. Since the lesbian survey was concerned with a more specific population than the NHSLS study, the two surveys are not really comparable. But if lesbians are more likely to have orgasms than heterosexual women, it may be because female sex partners are more likely to have an intimate understanding of how another woman's body responds. And if the couple has a goal, that goal is more likely to be orgasm for both lovers in a lesbian exchange, whereas it might be intercourse, with or without the woman's orgasm, in a heterosexual exchange.

Rita is a twenty-three-year-old woman who doesn't have orgasms. When I interviewed Rita, what impressed me most about her was her willpower. She has a brain that doesn't quit. She thinks about and analyzes everything, and that is how she asserts herself in the world, how she makes herself feel safe and in control.

_It took me a really long time to acknowledge I had feelings at all, much less sexual feelings. I was just really shut down._

Like so many other people, when she was still very young Rita learned that it was necessary to stay in control of her body and her feelings at all times. And because she is very mentally agile, it wasn't hard for her to learn to control the physical manifestations of sexual desire. It may be harder for her to dismantle her belief system and unlearn that skill, but I have no doubt that she will be able to do it. She is clearly a sexual person; she has been interested in sex since she was ten, she enjoys sex, and she masturbates regularly. Rita is on a path of sexual exploration and is willing to take the time to learn how to let go into orgasm.

I asked her if she thought it was possible that she was having orgasms and just not allowing herself to feel them consciously.

_I suppose it's possible, although I think it's very unlikely. I know I'm not feeling a waterfall, or an earthquake, but I do reach these intense peaks. They're not satisfying, though. I feel that if I could just let go and go with this, then it would be satisfying. I never can let go._

Rita also talked about hitting a wall, which she has since learned to back away from.

_I've learned to stop before I get to that wall. Physically it's so intense, I just can't handle it. I don't know how to process that level of intensity. I don't know how to understand it. I have to be able to grasp it and intellectualize it, and I can't do that. It feels like I'm on the edge of this cliff and I can't fall, and I'm going to fall. I get all tense. I can't relax. It's very anticlimactic._

The brick wall phenomenon is reported by quite a few women who have trouble reaching an orgasm. There are various ways of working with it, such as giving it a voice, examining it, making friends with it, or finding a way around it. Whatever you choose to do, it is advisable to acknowledge its presence and try to discover the reason for its existence, rather than to try and smash your way through it.

Rita, with her strong will and analytical mind, is probably fairly typical of the kind of women who do not easily let go into orgasm. I believe that we may use the power of the conscious mind to prevent our bodies from  expression and feeling. We build a wall between what we think is "acceptable" or safe, and what our bodies desire, and from a very young age, we exert conscious control to maintain that wall. This conscious control becomes so habitual, it ceases to be conscious, and we then can't reverse it when we decide it's time to have an orgasm, or cry, or express anger, or do any of the other things we have consigned to the other side of the wall. It is only when our guard drops that we find ourselves expressing these aspects of ourselves.

_I once had a lover who could only come in her sleep, from an erotic dream. It would happen about once a month. If she woke up, the orgasm would stop, so she'd actively try not to surface into a waking state. Years later, she told me she did finally learn to come while she was awake._

People who have been having orgasms all their lives often imagine that women who don't have them live in a state of constant arousal with no way of getting any release. But our bodies are not stupid. If a woman doesn't have orgasms, then it may be that she has found other ways of getting release, or that she is not getting aroused and doesn't need any release. It may be that she can't handle having orgasms for reasons that are carefully buried in her unconscious.

_I can't say that I was often aware of a very specific frustration in my body, not having orgasms. It was in comparison to other people's orgasms that I felt inadequate. I suppose I was shutting off. I did have a sense that there was a door I just couldn't open, and the door was not the actual orgasm, but just the door to that possibility on a physiological level._

_Sex used to be this peculiar thing that other people did. And I never missed it because there was nothing to miss. I couldn't imagine sex being satisfying—it just wasn't a word I'd use of sex. There was nothing to satisfy._

Clara joined a self-help group for nonorgasmic women in the seventies. She masturbated regularly as part of her homework. The group made her  feel worse in some ways, because in spite of her efforts she still didn't reach orgasm, but she found that she was much more in touch with her body than some of the other women in the group:

 _Looking at her hand, one woman said, "I just wish I could feel this body was mine."_

Ambivalence about our bodies, and the sense that we don't have control over them, are very common feelings for women in this society, and are undoubtedly at the root of a great deal of dissatisfaction with sex. I suggest some ways of overcoming these problems in Chapter Eight. But it is important to remember that orgasms are not a static experience. For most people there is a continuum from not having them at all to having really huge ones—and no one has really huge ones every time.

_If I am mentally stressed, I cannot relax into lovemaking. If my lover is dominant and takes the time to wind me down, then I can have a huge orgasm—all the stress is released and I just explode—but this takes a lot of work!_

#  **Cultural Conditioning**

Much deeper forces may be at work, preventing us from claiming our sexual power. Since the beginning of Western culture, women have been seen as the caretakers and men as the providers. Being a caretaker meant putting the needs of others before her own. Being a provider entitled a man to her care. Despite changing gender roles, these expectations and assumptions continue to this day. If a woman's husband indicates that he needs sex, a woman may feel that she is failing in her role as caretaker if she denies it to him.

Although it certainly doesn't have to be this way, the act of penetration may require a woman to surrender to a vulnerability that she doesn't want to experience. Other forms of sexual play are not seen as requiring the same kind of surrender.

_Penetration is the exquisite "giving in" to someone, letting them in. Oral sex is the ultimate luxury._

One difference between penetration and having an orgasm is that the former can be forced and the latter cannot. This may be why some women's bodies are reluctant to orgasm; it is the one place where they are able to say, "This is _my_ body, and I'm not giving it up!"

A woman who doesn't really believe she has the right to refuse sex is going to consciously or unconsciously feel resentment toward her lovers, and she is not likely to want to surrender in the one area of her life where she knows she can't be forced, where she is still in control—letting go into orgasm. If she has been brought up to believe that she _has_ to give in to the wishes of her mate, and that sex is primarily, if not wholly, for a man's pleasure, then why would she want to surrender in the one situation where she doesn't have to?

I think one can see how a woman might, on an unconscious level, find _not_ having an orgasm preferable to having one, even if it means sacrificing her own pleasure. She might even experience it as personally empowering to thwart a man's enjoyment. And she might not see it as sacrificing her pleasure if she did not perceive sex being for her pleasure in the first place. Growing up in a society that devalues women, she might not even believe that it is possible for her to experience pleasure from sex. But human beings operate on many different levels of awareness, and on another level, the same woman may feel inadequate that she can't give herself to her partner in the way that she has been told she should. She might pretend to be aroused, and fake orgasm, in order to protect herself from being called frigid.

Does this sound far-fetched? I believe that the feelings that drive us may go unrecognized for a lifetime because they lie so deeply in our unconscious that they can easily be ignored.

_There is nothing worse than sharing sex with someone because we feel we should, or for someone else's sake, or because it's better than not having any at all. I've been there in the past and do not want to do so again._

#  **Learning to Come**

An orgasm does not usually arise abruptly out of nowhere. The process of facilitating the buildup of tension that most of us require before we can  let go into orgasm often has to be learned. It is a matter of focusing the energy. Engaging your brain in a repetitive activity can often help. Some women find "counting down" is particularly effective, but it doesn't have to involve numbers.

_I sometimes repeat a mantra over and over in my mind when I'm about to come. It intensifies the feelings. If I say the mantra out loud it helps even more; it might be as simple as "oh, yes, yes," or my lover's name._

_I used to know that I was approaching orgasm whenever I found myself counting._

One thing is definite: although women do masturbate without having orgasms, most women are far more likely to come while masturbating than with a partner. Other women simply cannot achieve orgasm without the special kind of stimulation supplied by a vibrator, and often only a very particular kind will do. Vibrators are not the answer for everyone, however. And using a vibrator may keep a woman from learning to love herself, because with a vibrator she doesn't have to touch herself; she can distance herself from her body, and thus prevent herself from being fully involved in sexual play. The real problem for many women is not so much that they don't have orgasms as that they don't like their bodies, and they are afraid of losing themselves in sexual desire. They want to maintain a distance from the act of being sexual. Vibrators can allow them to do this. So they may learn to have orgasms, but they haven't addressed the deeper issues.

And just because you learn to come on your own does not mean that you will be able to come with a lover. In fact this is fairly common: usually either the lover is not doing what's needed and the woman is afraid to ask for it, or she is inhibited when she's not alone.

_I can only come with oral stimulation. My partner is good at it and likes to do it, but I find myself somewhat inhibited when he does it. I am thinking too much and not relaxing and enjoying the stimulation._

_**Letting go of what other people think is the single most important thing you can do to improve the quality of your life in general and your sex life in particular.**_

We need to define the problem correctly; it is not that she doesn't come with her lover, that's just the symptom. The problem is that she is not communicating with her lover or that she is afraid to let go in the presence of another person.

Once again we arrive at the importance of communication. In this case, showing is often easier than telling. Show your lover what you do when you masturbate. Have him or her copy your movements. Place your lover's hand over yours as you touch yourself. And then use words to guide his or her movements. Approach this with the attitude that you are sharing your body with your lover, rather than teaching them something specific.

_I try to show my husband without explaining—explaining seems to make him try too hard, which I don't enjoy._

Taking the step to masturbate in front of your lover probably means that you have already let go of some of your self-consciousness. But the fear of exposing your vulnerability while in the throes of an orgasm is not so easily dismissed. It may take a great deal of practice and positive reinforcement before you feel safe enough to allow your body to express passion in front of another person. It's worth it; letting go of what other people think is the single most important thing you can do to improve the quality of your life in general and your sex life in particular.

Sometimes there is a specific fear of what will happen if you let go. Perhaps the most common is fear of urination.

_As good as it feels, I feel like I'm going to urinate painfully, and I have to push my lover away to stop the stimulation._

The desire to urinate when you are sexually aroused, particularly when very aroused, or when you are about to ejaculate, is common. If the fear is as clearly delineated as this, why not try working with it? What would happen if you did urinate during sex? Are you afraid of making a mess?

Give yourself permission to experiment: you could try stimulating yourself immediately after you have peed, while you are still sitting on the toilet, stopping to pee whenever you wish. Or you could put a plastic sheet down on the bed, so that you don't have to make a mess. Are you afraid of what your lover will think? You could be alone. If you are willing to examine your fears so that you can create a setting where you feel safe, and you can let yourself experiment without any expectations of the outcome, you may find that many of your fears are unfounded.

Occasionally, you may find your body behaving in an "inappropriate" way—jerking, shaking, trembling, even yawning. These are all ways that the body releases blocked energy, or prepares itself to let energy flow more freely. Allow your body to behave as it wishes; it knows what it needs. Trying to control it makes letting go into orgasm more difficult. Yawning is a particularly tricky one, since your partner may think you are bored. In fact, yawning is a way of adjusting the throat chakra.

The Women's Movement has brought us so many benefits, but above all it has given us the right to self-determination. During the seventies, consciousness-raising and self-help groups for women shot up like mushrooms, and out of these came a number specifically for women who didn't have orgasms. At first these women were referred to as nonorgasmic, then this was changed to preorgasmic, and nowadays it's anorgasmic. These support groups were marvelously empowering, but sadly, they have gone out of vogue. I recommend some excellent books in the Resources section. But books are not the answer for everyone. If it is human contact you need, then you might consider starting up your own local support group.

_I feel quite alone in my journey to try and find why I cannot be sexually fulfilled. I would love to have help in the form of counseling, workshops, or chatting—anything. I need guidance!_

#  **Great Expectations**

The importance placed on orgasm can be very distressing for women who don't have them. The underlying assumption that a woman is somehow lacking or defective if she doesn't climax can have a very negative effect. Rita articulates this well:

_I feel shame and guilt about not having orgasms. I've never discussed it with any of my friends, other than the women I've slept with. My friends inadvertently reinforce my shame and guilt. They make comments like, "I heard so and so doesn't have orgasms," "Oh, the poor woman!" The whole women's liberation thing—we own our own bodies, we can have as many orgasms as we want—that's a slap in the face for me, because it's an assumption that we all do._

Fear of being judged is more problematic for Rita than anything she feels she is missing by not having orgasms.

_I'm very open with my friends about everything else in my life. I talk about all kinds of things. But I never talk about what I'm really thinking or feeling when I'm having sex, and I never talk about orgasms. People don't realize there is a wall, and it's really thick._

Whether it is about having an orgasm, having an erection, having intercourse, or anything else, delineating a specific goal often interferes with free sexual play, because it's all too easy to feel like a failure when the stated goal isn't reached. Even the goal of having a good time can be problematic. For instance, if one partner gets very emotional, she may feel she's being a wet blanket and ruining her lover's fun. In every encounter, we need to experience the sensations for what they are: if they are good, we will hopefully be able to repeat them; if they are bad, we will not repeat them; and if they are somewhere in between, we should be able to improve on them.

There tends to be an unquestioned assumption that erections, intercourse, and orgasms are all necessary in order to have sex, yet it is perfectly possible to have glorious sex without them:

 _I've found sexual play without orgasm satisfying in other ways. Orgasms are not the end-all and be-all of making love._

One woman told me that she used to place a great deal of importance on having an orgasm during each and every sexual encounter, until she  fell in love with someone whom she could only meet in public situations where it was impossible for him to go down on her. Since she doesn't have orgasms except through oral stimulation, she didn't come with him. And yet, she said it was deeply satisfying just to be sexual with him.

Women who come easily can sometimes will an orgasm to occur, but the key is knowing that they can do so. If you are afraid of not coming, it is very unlikely you'll be able to will it to happen. As Dr. Joan Spiegel told me:

 _An orgasm is like a sneeze—it either happens or it doesn't._

So you can choose to tie yourself in knots trying to come, or let it be until such time as it happens of its own accord. And if your lover is the one getting stressed out, then address that as an issue of its own: why does your lover feel like she or he has to "give" you an orgasm?

_**Believe me, deep breathing and relaxation can do wonders for your sex life.**_

I know how it feels getting tied in knots: you tense everything up and hold your breath—and then there is no release. There you are, as tight as a bow, and nowhere to go. If you find this happening in your lovemaking, I would recommend stopping everything for a few moments and taking a few deep breaths. Relax all those tensed-up muscles, breathe into your abdomen, and then let all your breath out. Give yourself permission to stop and _breathe_ whenever you find yourself getting overly tense. Believe me, deep breathing and relaxation can do wonders for your sex life.

Despite her need to keep it from her friends, Rita says her lack of orgasm is no longer an issue with her lovers:

 _In my sexual relationships, recently I've been fine with it, because it's something that I've negotiated._

It's a good idea for any couple entering into a relationship to do some negotiation first, and it is especially appropriate for women who have difficulty coming. Make a deal with your partner: you don't try to make me come, and I won't feel bad because I haven't come. In other words, you  agree for your mutual benefit (to prevent either of you feeling like you've failed) that you will focus on other aspects of sexual play that give you enjoyment. Taking the focus off orgasm will considerably increase your chances of having a good time. And after all, isn't having a good time what a relationship is about, rather than having an orgasm? If you are not enjoying yourselves, then something needs to change. The simple fact of not having orgasms doesn't necessarily mean anything—unless you feel you are inadequate because you aren't having them. Where does this inadequacy come from? Is it there because your partner feels inadequate? Or because society says you ought to have orgasms? Does it really come from you? Or, like Rita, would you feel fine about not having orgasms if it weren't for everyone else's expectations?

#  **The Need to Please**

Wanting to please our partner is certainly one of the main reasons that we feel bad about not coming. Unfortunately, this is fairly realistic; an awful lot of us have our egos tied up in being good lovers, and we foolishly equate being a good lover with giving our partner an orgasm. This can be so damaging. Rita spoke about the negative effect it had in her first relationship, and other women recounted similar experiences:

 _Various lovers decided that they would be the one who would finally "give" me an orgasm. When they failed, the blow to their ego ended the relationship._

Both women and men suffer from this no-win syndrome. The effect of having a lover who really wants a woman to come shouldn't be underestimated. It may be that if her lover weren't so attached to the idea of her coming, the fear of not having an orgasm would lose its charge, and lo and behold, the orgasm would happen. It may also be that on a subconscious level, a woman may not want to feel vulnerable to someone who experiences her vulnerability as a boost to their ego, as an enhancement of their sense of power in the world.

It isn't always easy to persuade your lovers that you don't want them to try to give you an orgasm. I have had to be very firm about this, and even several weeks into a relationship, I have often had to reassure my lover that  not having a massive orgasm has nothing to do with whether I'm physically satisfied.

There is still a fairly prevalent myth that women "should" come during vaginal penetration, and many heterosexual women still believe there is something wrong with them if they don't come during intercourse. Yet most women need direct clitoral stimulation to bring them to orgasm, and only a small percentage of women are built so that the clitoris will be stimulated during intercourse. Either God made a mistake or it was intended to be this way. Dr. Joan Spiegel says:

 _The way to deal with this is education. I tell them that 75 percent of women don't come during intercourse. I show them where the clitoris is, and they quickly realize that it's not going to be stimulated during intercourse._

Some of the women I spoke with said they had had difficult sexual encounters with women who didn't orgasm. Jana complained that all the attention of the lovemaking focused on the other woman, so that she ended up getting left out. Of course, she may not have asked for what she wanted. However, some partners are hard to negotiate with and may simply not value another person's needs.

_Women who are uptight sexually shut me down. I can't deal with another woman's resistance. It destroys my confidence, and I can't overcome my fear of failure._

It is very unfortunate that we tend to label someone who doesn't have an easily identifiable orgasmic response as sexually uptight. The two are certainly not synonymous.

#  **Faking Orgasm**

In view of this pressure on women to have orgasms, it should not be surprising that so many women fake it.

_Many men are threatened, in their own sense of self, if they feel they cannot make you come._

_I do it because I don't want to continue lovemaking, but I don't want to hurt my spouse._

_I did it when I was young, self-conscious, knew I wouldn't come, and wished they'd stop trying so hard._

_Sometimes I fake it to see if I can fool the other person, or to give my lover confidence._

_Many, many years ago when I was very young, I thought it was important not to hurt a man's feelings or be open about my desires._

_Fake it till you make it: "I can't think my way into right action but I can act my way into right thinking."_

_I used to fake it under most circumstances with unskilled but very sweet lovers, but under no circumstances any more in this lifetime!_

_I faked orgasm when I was tired of trying._

_I faked orgasm once to end a miserable one-night stand. If we'd been having an ongoing relationship obviously it wouldn't have been okay._

_I felt ashamed because I couldn't climax._

The last reason is perhaps the most common, though it is a little harder to admit to. Unlike her male counterpart, a woman can hide her lack of arousal (at least, from an insensitive or inattentive partner). Although this may mean she's less likely to be labeled inadequate, many women do feel deeply inadequate if they are not actually aroused when they think they ought to be. "Frigid" is a word that has frequently been used to denigrate women, when in fact the problem is that they are not getting the kind of stimulation they need. Fear of being called frigid is enough to make many women put on a show.

Women may also "fake it" as an effective ruse to end a bad situation and possibly even for their own self-preservation. People can become quite belligerent when their egos are tied up in making a woman come. Men and women need to stop seeing their partner's orgasms as proof positive of their own sexual prowess.

Years ago, I would have faked orgasms with men, if I had known what an orgasm was. Because I didn't, I couldn't. However, I did find that if I acted as though I was more into it than I actually felt, they would stop sooner, which was often a relief.

I never actively faked an orgasm with a woman; however, I admit there were times when I knew my lover assumed I had an orgasm. If she didn't mention it, neither did I. It was rarely a problem for me if I didn't come, and I didn't want it to be a problem for my lover. I think many women may simply fail to discuss sex with their partners, rather than consciously faking orgasm.

_A lot of the men I slept with may have thought I had come. I never faked it, or "lied," but I was probably economical with the truth._

Nowadays, I don't go to bed with people I can't talk with. I try to make it clear from the start that I am not someone who comes easily, and I don't want my partner to get trapped in trying. In the long run, when we pretend to be sexually aroused, we perpetuate dishonesty, which prevents true intimacy.

The real issue is not that women fake orgasm. Why do we ever feel the need to fake anything? We cover up all kinds of feelings, needs, and desires because we are afraid of other people's reactions. The bedroom might be a good place to begin the process of changing this pattern; we are unlikely to be freely ourselves out in the world until we have learned to be honest in our most intimate relationships, with the people we _say_ we trust.

#  **Do Men Know When We're Faking It?**

According to the NHSLS survey3 of sexual practices, only 29 percent of women come regularly with a partner, but men think that 44 percent of  their female partners come regularly. Does this mean that 15 percent of the time women are convincingly faking it? I admit I felt a bit doubtful about a couple of the questionnaires. A few men claimed that they had been with more than thirty women (in one case, fifty), all of whom had had orgasms, every time! Some men claimed that all their lovers came just from intercourse! In my opinion, either some of those women were faking it, or else their men assumed the women were having orgasms because they appeared to be enjoying themselves.

In spite of the delightful scene in _When Harry Met Sally,_ when Meg Ryan's character convincingly fakes an orgasm in a restaurant, most men are sure they would know when a woman is faking it. Let me debunk this myth once and for all: it is easy for a woman to consciously contract her vaginal muscles. If she has any acting skills at all, and any real desire to con her partner, that person, male or female, would very likely walk away from the encounter thinking she had an orgasm. If her partner does get suspicious, it may be because she wants him or her to notice that something is not right.

It is hardly surprising that most men really didn't like knowing or suspecting that a woman was faking it:

 _One woman I was with claimed to have these astronomical orgasms, but I was pretty inexperienced at the time, and when I think back to some of the things I did, I just shake my head. I doubt they really happened._

_One of my exes told me she had faked orgasm with me. I felt like it was too bad we couldn't have really tried together to bring her to that experience._

_I have suspected a woman of faking orgasm because of obvious theatrics or because her physical state suggested that she was not actually in an advanced state of passion. I cannot bear the thought of a woman giving herself to me without finding pleasure in the intimacy of lovemaking. I would much rather that she found pleasure than I. After loving a woman who I felt was faking it, I tend to feel inadequate I suppose. It leaves me empty inside._

_Once I suspected one of my lovers of faking orgasm, so I simply asked her and after trying to lie she finally admitted it was unusual for her to achieve orgasm, but she still enjoyed the intimacy._

_I felt as if I had been lied to. Loving is not a game, it is of the heart, of the soul, of the tenderness that wells up inside just from the nearness of your lover. To have her fake an orgasm is hurtful._

_After a long period of lovemaking, one girlfriend seemed to come really fast and then seemed to want it to be over, as if she thought I was still doing it waiting for her to come. I felt bad only because I wanted her to know I was being sexual with her because I enjoyed it._

I remember lying there (years ago) with a man heaving to and fro on top me, thinking, how can I gracefully end this? The fact that he was enjoying it when I wasn't made me feel more alienated, as though he was using my body only for his pleasure. And it never entered my head that he might not be enjoying himself. Like many women, I thought I was the only person in the world who didn't enjoy sex. And I thought all men enjoyed it _all_ the time.

But we also fake it because we are ashamed of not being able to come, or of being thought frigid, because we are afraid of talking about what we need, and ashamed of having to ask. If they choose to do so, men can help women to feel easier about acknowledging what is really going on.

Not all men seem to mind a woman faking orgasm:

 _My wife has faked it more than once. I found out by asking her. Frankly, it's flattering to me—it tells me that she wants me to feel as if I had done a good job._

I think he could have been flattered if she had talked to him about it, instead of faking it. He could have appreciated that she respected him enough to believe that he would be more concerned about their relationship than about his ego. And I would think that he would have respected her for being truthful with him. But then, my idea of intimacy does not  include being intimate with someone who thinks it's okay to lie to me, or for me to lie to them.

The bottom line is that faking anything is an attempt to live up to a model that isn't working for you, and if you acknowledge that it isn't working, you might be able to do something that does. As Eric says:

 _I hate it that she wasn't honest with me. If we could have talked about it maybe she would have had those orgasms for real._

#  _**Notes**_

1 The HysterSisters website (www.hystersisters.com) provides support and information for women about sexual intimacy after a hysterectomy.

2 Alice Khan Ladas, Beverly Whipple, and John D. Perry, _The G Spot: And Other Discoveries about Human Sexuality_ (Holt, 2004). Originally published in 1982.

3 The 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey was published in book form as _The Social Organization of Sexuality in the United States_ (Authors: Edward O. Laumann, John H. Gagnon, Robert T. Michael, and Stuart Michaels; University of Chicago Press, 1994).

4 Janet Lever, PhD, "Lesbian Sex Survey," _The Advocate_ , August 22, 1995.