Orgasm Interviews - my basic intro (can skip if you've already read one of these)
Welcome back to this new series in SSL where a women answers questions about her orgasm, masturbation, and sexual experiences. I'm super excited about this because I think women sharing their orgasm experience with fo-realness is powerful as fuck.
At the same time, I think women speaking about their orgasm experiences before they have grounded understanding of orgasm or before they have learned how to have an honest relationship with their sexual bodies, can be misleading at best to the women they speak to and damaging at worst. To be frank and blunt about what I mean here, let me say it this way; I strongly suspect there are lots of women that lie about their orgasms - about how they happen, when they have them and if they have them. I don't think it's a mean or intentional thing. I don't even think I'd really call it lying most of the time because I don't think it's a conscious lie. It's more about not understanding what an orgasm physiologically is before speaking about it with an undeserved authority. I just think we women are so mislead and confused about our bodies, about the physiology of orgasm, and about how we should obtain, express, and speak about our orgasm that we often twist our understanding of our own experiences to fit into how we think things should be, and then we speak about them from that twisted, non-scientifically based view and other people take it to heart.
I say that all to let you know that I will be hand-picking all the women I ask to take this survey. I am choosing women I believe have a grounded understanding of orgasm, have exhibited what I believe is an honest relationship with their sexual bodies, and have shown they are able and at least somewhat interested in expressing their feelings and experiences. So, these are also women I have already had the chance to speak to about their orgasms. This series, clearly, is no scientific-based investigation, but I still would like to make it clear to all of you that this is the bias with which I am coming at this.
What I ultimately hope is that these women's stories and insights bring comfort or insight to the other women reading this.
ANNA
This is the 2nd in her 3 part installment.
Find her PART 1 HERE.
Find her PART 2 HERE.
The following is also the description I have in Part 1 and 2, so if you've already read it, you can move onto the questions.
The first brave lady I have chosen for this is Anna. I met her online because she wrote me with some worry and criticism about a post I had written. Her insight, openness, and thoughts intrigued me, and we began a really lovely discussion. She graciously accepted the offer to do this, and put a lot of time and effort into being as honest as possible. In an email asking me what format to send it to me in, she said,
"I've been spending a lot of time on your survey, trying to be as honest and thorough as possible. It brought back memories and helped me put into words some vague thoughts I have had. Maybe I was too thorough: I wrote more than ten pages. I couldn't separate orgasms from sex in general. I kept adding context. The answers didn't seem to make sense otherwise."This will be the second of 3 post from her survey. She did, much to my happiness, write a lot - more than 1 post's worth. Please read her interview in detail. Anna is an extraordinary woman, I think, and although her orgasmic life might have taken a slightly different route from many of you, there is
soooo much to relate to and a lot to learn from. I asked a few follow-up questions that I will include as well. The ability to ask follow-up questions I think is an important perk to this kind of direct questioning.
4. Faking, Orgasm Education, and Partner Education
4a. How often do you fake orgasms now and also in your past? Under what circumstance(s) has this happened?
As far as I recall, I have never faked an orgasm. I have faked enthusiastic participation during intercourse though. It is possible that a partner may have misinterpreted that as me having an orgasm, but I don't think so. I have never said that I came if I didn't (when asked).
4b. Have you ever been confused or incorrect about where your sexual body parts were or how they functioned? If so, please describe what you were wrong about and how you discovered that. Are there still things you are confused about?
Yes. Even before I started school I had access to children's books with titles like "How My Parents Made Me". With diagrams and photos. I knew all about eggs and sperm and penises and vaginas. How the sperm got to the egg was less clear, but it involved pleasure and being naked in a bed, so I assumed the sperm snaked their way across the sheets into the vagina. I was chocked when we had sexual education in the first grade and it dawned on me that the penis was supposed to go INTO the vagina. How??? I knew babies came out there, but I didn't perceive there was any opening in my own child body. The biology book said that the first intercourse could be painful for the woman. That I could believe!
The diagrams of what women look like weren't very clear, so I got the impression that the urethra was the clitoris and the clitoris was the clitoral hood. The book said that some women liked to masturbate by rubbing their clitoris or their clitoral hood. I just assumed I was in the latter group. I realized my mistake sometime in my early teens, when I took a mirror and looked for myself.
4c. Have you ever been confused about how to orgasm or about whether you were orgasming? Please describe in what ways you were confused and how you later became more clear about it (if you have become more clear about it).
Never.
4d. Have you ever assumed you were orgasming in a particular situation(s) and then later came to realize you may not have been? Please describe in what situations you thought you were orgasming and how you realized you may not have been.
Never.
4e. Have you had to 'teach' partners how to help bring you to orgasm? What kinds of things have you needed to teach? How quick did they 'catch on'? How receptive have your partners been to adapting sexual activity to physically make it easier (or possible) for you to orgasm?
This is a big topic. In a way, new partners always have to teach and discover each other's ways to pleasure.
In my experience, men want women to orgasm. I would say that every single partner I have had knew the clitoris exists, and that a gentleman is supposed to stimulate it at some point during sex.
Not all of them knew where it was - those diagrams misled more people than me! None of them knew that it is the ONLY way to female orgasm. (To be fair, I didn't either. I thought it was just me.)
Some partners have thought me a bit odd for insisting on getting clitoral stimulation, but most have tried to give it to me. Most have followed my instructions, more or less successfully. Even the casual ones. Even the one who thought my orgasm was somehow for his benefit and assured me it wasn't necessary. He said it would be really hot if I did, but not to worry, he would be happy either way! (Yes. Really. He thought he was doing me a favor by not requiring me to orgasm. I blame porn.)
Even my second boyfriend wanted to be a good, attentive, creative lover. He was happy to adjust how he did things. He loved seeing me orgasm. Too bad he wasn't willing to NOT do what he wanted, when he wanted to. "Do you want missionary or doggy style? You don't want to have sex at all? Well, I want doggy style, so get on your hands and knees." He actually thought he was compromising, and that I was being selfish and unreasonable for refusing to meet him half way. As for his more "exotic" practices, he was sure I would learn to like them eventually, so no need to stop just because it hadn't happened yet. Hurting me was unfortunate but unavoidable.
And that's just the thing. What I say doesn't really count. Most of my partners have been happy to give me what I want, as they perceive it, but they are humoring me. Maybe I need clitoral stimulation to orgasm, but everybody knows that intercourse is what counts. I'm the exception that proves the rule. My current boyfriend is still convinced that most women can't come unless the man is super skilled and willing to work, and also has rock hard erections for hours - and he has had many, many girlfriends and casual partners through the years. He is unshakably certain that his very first girlfriend (at age 15) used to orgasm as soon as he put it in, with no clitoral stimulation at all. She said she did, and who am I to say she didn't? He was there, I wasn't. All the science in the world is nothing against his deeply held convictions. At the same time he says that he has never had another partner who orgasmed so easily and consistently until he met me, nearly 40 years later. It couldn't possibly be because he was working from a faulty premise. We must both be truly exceptional women! 5.
Additional Information
5a. Does the physical and/or mental aspects of your orgasm vary at all from one instance to another? Please describe. Do you notice patterns about when it feels one way versus another?
It varies a lot, as I described, but I don't see any obvious patterns except two:
- it's much harder to orgasm when I am on my period, and the orgasms don't feel as good. The need to orgasm doesn't diminish, just my ability.
- the orgasm is usually stronger if I have been refraining for a few days.
5b. Anything else you'd like to say about your relationship to your orgasm over the years?
I have had so much shame around sex and orgasms. Like I said above, is it really ok for a woman to want sex? To enjoy it for my own pleasure? To be curious about different sexual practices? My experience told me it wasn't. Good girls don't, and I was a very good girl.
I was with my husband for 23 years. I had orgasms practically every time we had sex, but there was no sense of fun after the first few years. Any attempt to mix things up was met with disapproval. We were still happy and had a lot of fun outside the bedroom, even as sex got more and more rare. I would wait until he fell asleep and masturbate without moving or making a sound. I thought this was what life as a mature adult was like.
Our marriage ended badly. My husband had an affair with a much younger woman. It had been going on for years when I found out a few weeks before Christmas 2014. He said he didn't want a divorce, but it turned out he had no intention of ending the affair either. He told me he needed her for sex because I was "too old, too fat and too tall". I believed him, so I left in spring 2015. I was resigned to being alone forever. Despite this, I promised myself that if pigs ever started flying and I had another chance at partnered sex, I would ask for what I wanted, no matter how ashamed I was.
Two months later, to the day, an acquaintance introduced me to my current boyfriend. He was not my type at all! He was a conservative, I'm progressive! He had bought into the trope that feminists are pathetic man-haters, I'm a feminist. I prefer to be at home with my computer, he spends as much time as he can outdoors. He had dated a lot, but lived alone (with his son 50%) since 1994, and I had just gotten free. He stated up front that he was sick of being single and wanted to find someone to grow old with. I made it perfectly clear that I was not interested in a serious relationship, thank you very much. And yet... We talked, and had sex, and talked some more. We kept seeing each other every chance we got.
One night I worked up my courage, hid my face and told him about my fantasies of humiliation and coercion. I whispered that I would like to try some of what was done to me, to reclaim a piece of myself, to see what it was like when it wasn't rape. He said sorry, such things didn't feel right and were a huge turn off for him. I was mortified, but he held me close and said "There is nothing wrong with you. You are not the first woman to ask me, and there was nothing wrong with those women either. People like different things. To each their own, as long as everyone is happy and no one gets hurt." And I could tell he meant it! My mind was blown.
Another night I told him of my shame for wanting too much sex and being too demanding. He actually laughed. "Are you kidding? So what if you want more sex than I do. It doesn't diminish you in any way. You take sex seriously, not like something that just happens. We are both the richer for it." He was right - sex is a hobby for me, a field of study.
My boyfriend's openness gradually unlocked something in me. A lot of my shame dissipated. I no longer feel the need to try my fantasies IRL. I would still like to, if the circumstances were right, but I no longer feel like something is lacking in my sex life.
The one thing I DO need above all else in partnered sex is to feel secure about being attractive to my partner. I'm in reasonably good shape for someone who is nearly fifty, has borne two children and has varied wildly in size. I enjoy dressing up in sexy lingerie etc, but in the back of my mind is always a little voice telling me that I'm pathetic. ("too old, too fat and too tall")
My boyfriend is very enthusiastic about my body, especially when I dress up, but I know his porn features mostly skinny, large-breasted women in their twenties or early thirties. He says that he loves my body, but who I am as a person is more important than what I look like - but it would have been an added bonus if I had looked more like them. He thinks I would have been more attracted to him too, if he were younger and fitter, and he frets about his discrete wrinkles and his slight beer belly. Is he settling for me because he thinks he's too old for someone younger and hotter? He talks scornfully of men his age who try to pick up women half their age. He feels sorry for a couple of his friends who left their wives and are now unhappy with much younger women. Sour grapes? Most of the time none of this bothers me, but these thoughts intrude when I'm feeling low. They make my sexual confidence evaporate.
Maybe that is the key to orgasms in general. Knowledge is necessary, but confidence is also essential. I have complete confidence in my body's ability to orgasm, but not so much in other areas. Without confidence, I feel less desire. Even when I have had partnered sex anyway, it's difficult let go and have an orgasm.
