I think I have orgasms, but I’m not sure. What does an orgasm feel like? My husband doesn’t think I’ve ever had one.
So maybe you’ve never had an orgasm, you’re not sure if you’ve been orgasmic, you haven’t been able to have an orgasm in some way that you wish you could, or you used to be orgasmic but now you aren’t. Or maybe, as a man, your orgasm comes too quickly. You are confused about what is really going on in your body.
WHAT HAPPENS FOR WOMEN
Because what happens for a woman during an orgasm is so internal, there has been much confusion about the woman’s orgasm. Women have more difficulty allowing release than men. This, too, has caused more focus on the woman’s orgasm than on the man’s.
You know if you have had an orgasm by understanding what happens during an orgasm. An orgasm is a reflex response that is triggered when there is enough buildup of sexual tension from effective stimulation and the freedom to pursue it without inhibition or fear of being out of control. Arousal builds to a certain intensity, causing engorgement or a building of sexual tension in the genitals, specifically, but generally throughout the entire body. This engorgement triggers the reflex of the orgasm.
An example of a reflex response is the jerk of your foot when the doctor taps your knee with a rubber hammer. The tap (the sensory input) occurs at one point of the body, the knee. The jerk (the muscular response) occurs at another point of the body, the lower leg. Similarly, the clitoris, breasts, inner thighs, vaginal wall, or other parts of the body may be stimulated (the sensory input), and the vaginal muscles and uterus contract (the muscular response).
Our sexual arousal and release (orgasm) are controlled by our involuntary or autonomic nervous system. Arousal, getting turned-on or sexually excited, is controlled by the passive branch of our involuntary nervous system. Arousal happens early in sexual play, in our sleep, and even throughout the day. Nipple erections and vaginal lubrications are indications of arousal. To get aroused, we have to be relaxed and soaking in pleasure, because the passive or relaxed branch of our involuntary nervous system has to be dominant. However, orgasm is controlled by the active branch of the involuntary nervous system. As arousal builds to the point where we are just about to go over the hill, our body shifts from parasympathetic (relaxed) nervous system dominance to sympathetic (active) nervous system dominance. So to have an orgasm, we have to get active and go for it. Many women who struggle to be orgasmic tend to remain passive during their sexual experiences, so they don’t help their bodies make the shift from the passive to the active nervous system control.
Even though we cannot will an orgasm, it is possible to encourage it or resist it. We can condition our responses.
Involuntary sexual responses are similar to falling asleep. For example, I had difficulty sleeping as an infant, so my parents would take me for a ride in the car to get me to sleep. Even today, I tend to fall asleep when riding in a car. Likewise, if as a child or young adolescent you learned to block intense sexual feelings that would have moved you toward orgasm, you will as an adult continue to unknowingly stop your arousal before it leads to orgasm. Or if you innocently ran across pornography or had your first orgasm in response to a negative stimulus, you may now have to picture that same stimulus in order to have an orgasm. You are left in a lose-lose dilemma: to have an orgasm and feel guilty about the pictures in your mind or not to have an orgasm and feel sexually unsatisfied. Or you may have learned to be orgasmic by rocking on your pillow to help you fall asleep as a child and now you have no clue how to transfer that form of stimulation into sex with your husband. Fortunately, even if we have learned to respond or not to respond in a certain way, we can retrain our bodies to respond differently.
The woman’s orgasm begins with an initial spasm (the muscle response) in the orgasmic platform (the lower third of the vagina) accompanied by an intense, genitally centered sensual awareness that occurs two to four seconds before the actual orgasm. This sensation is comparable to the man’s warning that he is about to have an orgasm. This is the point at which many women stop their orgasmic response or feel that they’re stuck and can’t get over the hill.
The intense, genitally centered pelvic awareness associated with the initial spasms of the woman’s orgasm is followed by a flow of warmth spreading from the pelvis to the rest of her body. This sequence is just the opposite of what men describe as happening to them. We might picture the difference with a diagram:
The flow of warmth for the man starts with the general pleasure and flows to the genitals. The woman’s release might look like the following diagram:
WOMAN’S RELEASE
One woman describes her feelings of letting go: “It is beautiful! It’s as though my being withdraws from my extremities and is compacted in the clitoris. Everything recedes—there is nothing but this intense buildup of pleasure—nothing else exists. Then there is this tremendous explosive release that radiates outward in waves. I breathe in rhythm with the waves and my muscles contract . . .”
When our oldest daughter was twelve years old, we attended a sex education program with her. Following the class for parents and their junior highers, we talked with her about what she had learned. She explained what she had learned from the evening and then asked a question: “When the doctor was answering our questions, he used regular language except for answering the questions about masturbation and ‘organism’—or whatever you call that. Then he changed to using big words I couldn’t understand.” She wanted to know what those words really meant. We went on to explain and then had her feed back to us what she understood. Her description of an orgasm was delightful and may help you.
“You get all good feelings down here (holding her hands on her pelvis). Then you get all jazzed (panting). Then you let it all out (sigh), and then you just sit there feeling good all over.”
What better way could there be to describe it!
WHAT HAPPENS FOR MEN
For most men the orgasmic response is rather obvious because of the ejaculation of seminal fluid. The orgasm is an external happening. There are also internal feelings that accompany the obvious external release.
When we took you through the physiological responses of the sexual experience, we talked about the male orgasm having two stages. The first stage occurs between the time of warning that the man is approaching the point of no return and the point of ejaculatory inevitability (see Sexual Response Pattern graph, Chapter 8). The second phase starts with the point of ejaculatory inevitability or the actual point of no return. Each stage for the man has distinctive physical sensations. There are anticipatory tingling sensations that warn the man he is approaching the point of no return. These might be described as pleasurable burning sensations. There is the sense of wanting those feelings to last forever, and yet the urge to rush on with intense thrusting. Along with this, there is a feeling that warmth from the total body is being drawn into the genitals; the sensation becomes primarily genitally centered. As the man moves from this first stage to the second stage, he experiences a momentary sensation of being held in suspension. This is followed by the letting go—the rush of the ejaculation and a warm, flowing feeling inside the penis.
WHEN DOES IT HAPPEN?
Letting go can be allowed during love play before entry, after entry with the penis in the vagina, or after withdrawal of the penis from the vagina. Let us talk about each of these possibilities.
People’s responses to release before entry vary. Sometimes both spouses desire it. Perhaps intercourse has become a demand. Entry is associated with many negative feelings. One means of relieving those pressures is for the couple to become comfortable with letting go without entry.
Some women find they are freer to respond before entry. Once entry occurs, they feel more demand. Or they might start to worry that their husbands will ejaculate before they have a chance to let go. These feelings interfere with their natural sexual responses. They soon develop a style of being unable to let go when the penis is in the vagina, so release before entry can be a valuable alternative.
On the other hand, when a man accidentally experiences release before entry, he usually feels like a failure and leaves his partner frustrated. Neither one of them planned for him to “come” that quickly. This is called premature ejaculation. We will deal thoroughly with this dilemma in Chapter 28.
The source of stimulation (the sensory input or knee tap) for the release that occurs before entry can vary. It may be manual stimulation around the clitoris for the woman and on the shaft of the penis for the man. There could be oral-genital contact—the woman sucking or licking the man’s penis or the man using his mouth and tongue around the woman’s clitoris and into the vagina. There might be a release during general body and/or breast caressing. Or there may be no direct physical stimulation. Some women experience orgasms while reading romance novels. Some men ejaculate in response to visual input. Sometimes men ejaculate and women have orgasms during their sleep. Therefore, letting go before entry has many possible sources of origin.
Letting go after entry with the penis in the vagina has traditionally been accepted as the ideal time. Indeed, many couples prefer this. The woman may enjoy the feeling of the man’s penis in her vagina during the contractions of her orgasm. However, when a man insists that both his and his wife’s release happen during intercourse, this demand is usually associated with false expectations and concerns about his masculinity. He may believe that a “real man” brings his wife to orgasm during intercourse. But for the woman who has difficulty letting go when the penis is in the vagina, this belief puts incredible pressure on her. It lays on her the responsibility to have an orgasm at a certain time so he can feel good about himself. This is a sure way to prevent her from freely letting go when having intercourse. This is true whether the demand is, in fact, imposed on her from her husband or is felt from within herself.
A question often asked is, “Doesn’t an orgasm during intercourse feel different from an orgasm as a result of external stimulation?” We talked about the fact that there is no physical difference between orgasms (see the Vaginal vs. Clitoral Orgasm section in Chapter 8). In terms of what happens to the body, an orgasm is an orgasm. Women do report differences in feeling, however.
Many women talk about an orgasm from external stimulation as being more intense but not as emotionally satisfying. There are possible explanations for each of these differences. As we understand it, the vaginal contractions during an orgasm are more intense when there is no penis in the vagina. The muscle has nothing to restrict its contractions. Therefore, its range of expansion and contraction is greater, yet the lack of emotional satisfaction may relate to the empty feeling connected with a woman’s sensation of readiness for entry that we described in Chapter 16. When the outer lips are out of the way and the inner lips are engorged and have formed a funnel into the vagina, many women experience an intense desire to have their husbands inside them, rather than to move to orgasm. Having an orgasm before entry leaves the emotional urge for entry unfulfilled.
Even after intercourse, a woman may want more sexual stimulation, perhaps because her husband does not have control of ejaculation. He cannot remain in the vagina long enough without ejaculating for her to let go of her built-up sexual excitement. This may be true whether or not she has had a previous release. If she had an orgasm before entry and became rearoused during intercourse, she may need to let go again. Or maybe she did not have a release before entry, she could not have one during, and so this is the first time in the experience that she is ready to pursue an orgasm.
For the man who has already ejaculated, the woman’s need for continued stimulation after intercourse may be experienced as a demand. He is so relaxed, it is difficult for him to summon the energy to pursue his wife’s body. The tendency is for him to fall asleep. This is a natural reaction. If this is a regular conflict for the two of you, talk about it at some time when you are not engaged in sexual activity. Explore all possible ways for the woman to get satisfaction without that being a demand for the man. Maybe learning ejaculatory control is the answer. Maybe she can be fulfilled with her husband’s body close to her, his arms around her, and his hand available for her to use to bring herself a release. You might decide that you will take turns having sex his way sometimes and her way other times. Discover your own options to resolve your differences.
It is important to mention that some men experience retarded or inhibited ejaculation. Sometimes this can occur after drinking alcoholic beverages. Or it can happen when a man is very tired. A small percentage of men need a long time to be able to let go. If there has been extended thrusting with the penis in the vagina, the woman may be getting tired and sore so she needs the man to withdraw. He may still want a release. Sometimes manual or oral stimulation may be used to bring about his release. If this is not possible and the pattern continues, professional help is necessary.
If withdrawing to ejaculate is being used as a means of birth control, we would say, forget it. As we mentioned in describing the four phases of the sexual response (Chapter 8), some seminal fluid with sperm will often be secreted before the total ejaculate is expelled. These sperm can impregnate the woman just as easily as the sperm in the remaining ejaculate.
HOW MANY?
What are the possibilities for letting go? Men are usually limited to one release per experience. This is due to their need to have a rest period of at least twenty to thirty minutes (probably more like several hours) before they can become rearoused.
Men who experience release without ejaculation are an exception to this pattern. They report being able to maintain their erections after release and continue lovemaking with repeated releases.
Women are different from most men in this regard. Physically, women have the potential for many orgasms within one event. These may occur in rapid sequence without any relaxation of sexual excitement. They may also occur after a brief letdown followed by more stimulation.
It is important to recognize that although repeated orgasms are a physical potential for women, this should not be the goal. When orgasms become a goal rather than a reflex response, they are less likely to happen.
This same principle applies to couples who desire simultaneous orgasms. By that we mean the husband and wife letting go at the same time. Even though it is a delightful experience if your sexual activity can flow that way, simultaneous orgasms are far from necessary for a fully satisfying sexual relationship. They must remain an exciting option and not become a demanding goal.
Letting go is an important feeling in the whole sexual process. It is the most individual aspect and the part of sex when the partners are least aware of being together. A person becomes totally caught up in his or her own being. It reminds us of soaring. Letting go requires being able to take a risk—to let yourself be totally you in the presence of another person.
We started skiing in our mid-thirties. When we skied downhill for the first time, Joyce’s experience was similar to the sensation of an orgasm. “There was one moment that particularly captured that ‘letting go’ experience for me. I was at the top of one big, rolling hill with a flat area below and then an incline beginning another hill. There was a feeling of building excitement as I got my skis parallel and flat, flexed my knees and pushed off with my poles, ready to let my skis take me as fast as the momentum could build on the decline. The ride down was a beautiful, risky feeling of flying through the air, totally letting out all the stops. The flat place felt like soaring across open territory. I had already taken the risk, but there was still more speed to enjoy. The incline felt like the satisfied sigh; I made it and it felt good.”
What experiences have you had in life where you have risked, soared, and had the satisfaction of releasing yourself to that situation? Capture these. Enjoy them. And, hopefully, have many such experiences with each other during sex.