The Whole Lesbian Sex Book (7 page)

So why would it be useful to have a model of sexual response? Well, knowing generally how human sexual response works can help you understand your own experience. You can learn to notice your own sexual rhythms. Then you can decide what aspects of your sexual response you might like to develop more. Models such as these can give you a language to help you describe your experience, one that others may understand. However, if theories bore you—or, worse, make you feel inadequate—just skip them. You don’t have to be a sexologist to have a fabulous sex life.

Understanding your own sexual response, however,
will
help you create the sex life you want. Try masturbating in front of a full-length mirror, or with a hand mirror between your legs. As you stimulate yourself, you’ll get to see your particular sexual responses in action. You can become acquainted with the visual cues of your sexual arousal. (You can even insert a speculum—available from
www.The-Clitoris.com
, women’s health centers, and some sex toy stores, such as Toys in Babeland (see chapter 20, Resources)—and grab a flashlight to see what you look like on the inside when you’re turned on.)

During
arousal
, your heart rate and blood pressure increase. You may feel warm. A sexual flush may appear over your face and chest. The breasts enlarge. Your nipples become erect; later in arousal, your areolas swell and your nipples may seem to retract. The clitoris engorges with blood and becomes erect, growing bigger. The inner labia swell and darken in color. You get wet. Your vaginal walls lubricate and the whole vagina expands. The uterus engorges and lifts, expanding up to twice its normal (not pregnant) size. Your vagina opens. Your sphincter muscles may relax or contract.

A friend told me that women once wore lipstick to symbolize the sexual engorgement of their labia during arousal—a reasonable explanation of why women who wore bright red lipstick were said to be “loose.” Whether or not the story is true, my friend (happily) now can’t look at a woman’s freshly painted lips without thinking of the engorgement—and resulting darkening and deepening of color—during arousal.

The
plateau
stage is the state of peak excitement right before orgasm. The vagina opens up and balloons out. The clitoral glans is tucked inside its hood. The areolas continue to swell. You may notice that you can take more nipple stimulation. Muscle tension increases all throughout the body, as the heart rate continues to climb. You find yourself breathing faster and deeper. The sex flush becomes more pronounced. The labia minor may turn a deep red or wine color. The vagina opens into what’s called the orgasmic platform. The outer one-third of the vagina further congests with blood.

Orgasm
is a series of involuntary muscle contractions in the vagina, uterus, and anus, releasing the blood that’s been stored in the erectile tissues of the genitals. Most sources report that the contractions occur at a rate of slightly more than one per second; generally an orgasm will involve anywhere from just a few contractions to 10 or 15 of them. Of course, the intensity and duration of the orgasm will vary greatly. During orgasm the heart rate peaks. Breathing is faster. (More on orgasm in the next chapter.)

Resolution
is the stage in which the body returns to its nonaroused state. You experience a release of tension. The heart rate and breathing return to normal. Sex flush disappears, nipple erection fades, the glans of the clit once again protrudes from its hood. The labia return to their nonaroused color and size.

Do women get “blue balls”—that painful state of unresolved arousal that men talk about? Yes—if after reaching a very high degree of arousal you don’t come, it takes a longer time for the vascular congestion to ease, which can be uncomfortable—or exciting!

Sexual Response over a Lifetime

Just as your experience of arousal and orgasm does not necessarily follow Masters and Johnson’s four-stage model, your experience of sexuality over the course of your lifetime will not necessarily follow the linear model we’ve been given.

And what linear model is that? As children we are supposed to be asexual. Then we hit puberty and get interested in boys. (If we get interested in girls, we must be confused.) Our sexuality matures: we like dick—but not
too
much and only when we feel an emotional connection to it. Then we hit menopause and the sexual portion of our lives ends with the cessation of reproductive functioning. Gender development is supposed to follow an equally linear path.

Of course, this model bears little resemblance to anyone’s real experience. (In fact, if you’re reading this book, you’ve already strayed far from the path.)
Real
sexual response develops individually (and messily!) over a lifetime—it doesn’t ratchet through one neat stage after another.

I had a rough time trying to figure out who I was during my adolescence…. I’m just glad that an eating disorder, shagging some guys, and some experimentation with drugs helped me figure it all out. As I am only 25, I still have a few major life changes to go…. But the main one was the realization that I am not heterosexual. My sex life increased a zillion percent after that.

You’ll likely go through many subtle and not so subtle evolutions in sexual response and desire throughout your life. If you’ve come out as lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, queer, or kinky—or all of the above—you’ve already experienced the process of developing your sexuality and gender expression from the inside, rather than from others’ expectations.

I am very proud of the fact that since I stopped fucking men, I went from a girl who spreads her legs and waits for it to someone very active and very top!

Many women say sex gets better and better as they come to know and accept themselves. The more you explore your sexuality—without judgment—the richer your sense of yourself as a sexual being.

MTF Prostate = G-Spot

My partner and I recently started reading
The Whole Lesbian Sex Book
together and find it interesting and useful so far. One sentence caught my attention and got me to make a connection I hadn’t thought of so I decided to pass it along.

As almost an aside you wrote that male-to-female transsexuals (pre- and post-op) can enjoy prostate stimulation.
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Having always thought of myself as female, the fact that the prostate is not removed during gender reassignment surgery always seemed somehow unfair (like some vestigial male anatomy left there to taunt me). But as I looked again at the little sentence in the book, I realized there was something wrong.

After surgery I read a lot about anatomy. I remembered reading that, while I still do have a prostate,the vagina is now
between
the prostate and the rectal wall.This is important because if my doctor ever does a prostate exam, she won’t find anything using the usual procedure. She will actually need to find my prostate by feeling through the vaginal wall.

Suddenly, it all came together—since my gender reassignment surgery, the prostate is in about the same position and should function very much like a G-spot.
Cool.

I’ve mentioned this to my partner, and I am looking forward to her helping me test my theory.

I love being who I am now as a sexual being—everything, all my 42 years—adds up to the moment. Tough-assed femme to the core who needs the tender as much as she needs the slam and fury. I own all aspects of me now in ways I never dreamed possible. And I feel like I’m gonna rock it that much more every year that I’m on the planet. I like to take long steps in tall heels. That’s my sexuality.

Gender Transition

How does the process of gender transition inform sexual response?

Trans-Health (“the online magazine of health and fitness for transsexual and transgendered people”) surveyed its readers on the subject of trans sexuality in 2001.
¹⁵
Only about 30 readers responded to the survey questions; yet even among this small group, there is a range of sexual interests and concerns. A few identified their gender as “other”; the rest were evenly split between male-to-female (MTF) and female-to-male (FTM) transsexuals. Half “expressed some degree of sexual fluidity; their interests had changed since transition, occasionally several times.” Nearly all the MTFs said they wanted to experience vaginal penetration. Nearly all the FTMs expressed a desire to “put their cocks in other boys’ bottoms.”

Many had transgendered partners. Some reported no sexual problems; some, problems related to coming out as trans; and others, problems related to their sexual physiology. Interestingly, many said that being able to view sexuality from more than one gender perspective benefited them.

Gender transition is a time of self-discovery. Some people liken it to a kind of adolescence for grown-ups. Ask a 30-year-old man appreciating his chest for the first time, or a 40-year-old woman caressing her own round hips and soft skin.

More on gender transition in chapter 14, Gender (Not Destiny).

Depression

Certain medications for depression flattened out my sex drive so that my lover had to do with no sex for months at a time while I wore my gray flannel bunny nightgown around the house and then slept in it. A far cry from my collection of very sexy lacy lingerie.

Nothing kills an otherwise healthy sex life like depression. Depression can severely diminish libido. It’s hard to muster much interest in sex when you’re barely getting through the day. Even more frustrating is that some medications available to treat depression often reduce sexual desire and functioning. Not all women experience sexual side effects while on antidepressants. Some notice no change whatsoever. For many, just not being depressed kick-starts their libido enough to overcome the effects of antidepressants. But for the huge number of women who do experience sexual side effects, they’re a real problem. It’s disheartening to finally come alive again—only to feel robbed of one’s capacity for erotic pleasure. You certainly cannot fault yourself for grieving over the loss of sexual pleasure.

It’s difficult to create a mood of openness and curiosity when you’ve just been through a major depression—but that is what’s called for. If ever there was a time for self-exploration, this is it.

Antidepressants can affect your sexual response in a number of ways. You might not be able to reach orgasm. You get really turned on, but can’t quite get over the edge, no matter how many vibrators you wear out. You might have disappointing orgasms—barely a ripple compared to what you used to enjoy. Your sensation may be muted. One woman described it as being touched though velvet. Finally, you may have no interest in sex whatsoever, even though your depression has lifted.

Quite often, anorgasmia (inability to reach orgasm) passes after a few weeks on an antidepressant. A temporary bout of anorgasmia may have an odd benefit. If you were previously goal-oriented in your approach toward orgasm (
wham bam come
), you probably have never experienced a sexual plateau stretching on indefinitely:

I’ve never been as turned on in my life as when I first went on Zoloft. Even though not being able to come was freaking me out, I was stunned by how wet and open I could get. I could practically fit my whole hand inside me.

Of course, after a month or more of arousal-without-orgasm, you may not be so impressed.

An antidepressant can interfere with your ability to feel sensation. You might touch yourself in your usual way and feel nothing. All systems are go—you engorge, you get wet, your muscles contract—but you don’t feel it. You can have an orgasm so muted and distant that it feels like it’s happening to someone else. This is not your imagination. Some neurotransmitters, like dopamine, facilitate sexual function while others, like serotonin, reduce it.

Here’s where an experimental attitude helps. If you can detach from your frustration and disappointment (I know, I know), you may be able to locate your pleasure as you experiment with touch and sensation. A completely different touch may produce some sensation. If you previously used a vibrator, try your own fingers. If you are used to light, indirect clitoral stimulation, go for something more direct. Never tried a vibrator? Time to go shopping.

If you can’t come—but you do find touch pleasurable—try focusing on sensation rather than orgasm. If sex doesn’t end with orgasm, how might it end? Rather than stop in failure (after exhausting every possible means to reaching orgasm), decide in advance that you’re going to engage in a session of touch and sensual awareness for, say, 20 minutes. When the need to come builds toward frustration, stop. Back off, relax all the muscles that have contracted in orgasmic tension, take a few deep breaths, and start again. Approach pleasure in a different way: notice what produces a yummy sensation rather than what you think will get you off.

Antidepressants or Orgasm Suppressants?

Most notorious for negative sexual side affects are the SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), the class of drugs most frequently prescribed for depression. While medications like Effexor, Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft, and others have helped many overcome debilitating depression (and no doubt saved lives), they have also been known to cause sexual problems for many who take them.

Psychiatrists and other physicians have come up with a few tricks, such as combining two different antidepressants—for instance, coupling an SSRI with another type of antidepressant, such as Wellbutrin, that doesn’t seem to adversely affect sexual functioning. Tianeptine, a French drug, seems to be as effective as other drugs in treating depression, but without the sexual side effects. It hasn’t been approved by the FDA for use in the U.S. yet.
¹⁶