Orgasmic surrender cannot really be separated from surrender to life and spontaneity in general, surrender to our selves. We are also well aware that much of people's unconscious anxiety and tension has a specifically sexual content. Orgasm in the sense of surrender to the involuntary is something rather different from simple mechanical spasm or heavy breathing. Many people influenced by Reich's ideas have made something of a fetish out of the 'Total Orgasm', treating it as a specific goal, something you either 'get' or 'don't get'. This is unrealistic, and very much at odds with Reich's central point about letting go and saying yes to our pleasure wherever it takes us.
Sexual release is a primary form of discharge, a way to stay soft and sweet.
So our therapy doesn't simply work on sexuality as such, or on tension in the pelvic area alone. It seeks to encourage an overall loosening of the armour, a release of anxiety which will make it possible to give in to our own impulse for genital pleasure. Breathing is an accessible yardstick of openness and spontanei- ty, and Reich noticed that when a person is relaxed and breathing freely and fully, the movement of her body is similar, in a gentle and unchanged way, to the movement of orgasm. As we breathe out, lying on our backs, the pelvic rocks forward and up , while at the same time our throat comes forward as if to meet our pelvis. Our head and shoulders fall back and open in a vulnerable gesture of surrender.