Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (55 page)

The ocean and waves are erotic images for many people. Before patriarchal societies became dominant, fertility, sexuality, and nature were celebrated together as aspects of the same energy and the same phenomena. The pagan festival of Beltane in the spring celebrated hu man sexuality and the earth’s fertility at the same time. (This festival is beautifully described in the book
The Mists of Avalon,
by Marion Zimmer Bradley.) Most of the Christian holidays were originally earth-based festivals, celebrating the cycles of the earth’s fertility. Just knowing this information is empowering.

5.
Know thyself. Get to know your body, including your clitoral system. The clitoris is the key to sexual satisfaction for the vast majority of women, though there are many other areas of the body that are eroge nous, such as the lips and the nipples. In general, the part of the clitoris that is on the upper left quadrant is the most sensitive. Using a lubricant such as K-Y Jelly, try stroking this area, noticing the pleasurable sensations. The opening of the vagina has many pleasurable areas as well. You can’t take another person where you yourself have never been. And you can’t expect another person to know how to please you if you can’t please yourself. So commit to self-pleasuring (which the Taoists call self-cultivation) twice per week in order to learn exactly what kinds of strokes you like. Then you can teach your partner.

In her book
Five Minutes to Orgasm Every Time You Make Love: Female
Orgasm Made Simple
(JPS Publications, 2000), author D. Claire Hutchins makes the point that the most sexually satisfied women are those who know what to do to please themselves—and then do it even with a partner, including stimulating their own clitorises so that they reach orgasms every time. Taking responsibility for one’s own pleasure takes the onus off the man to “make it happen” for his partner. It’s as much of a burden for a guy to feel that it’s his job to bring a woman to orgasm as it would be for a woman to believe that it is her job to bring a guy to orgasm. (Can you imagine the pressure of that?)

Noting that both men and women take about the same amount of time to reach orgasm through self-pleasuring (about four minutes), Hutchins explodes the myth that it always takes women much longer than men. The reason it takes longer for women during sex (thirty minutes as opposed to about ten minutes for men) is because women are socialized to be more inhibited in bed than males. We worry far more about how we look. And if we don’t look like
Playboy
centerfolds, we’re not sure we deserve sexual pleasure or attention. Note that most men who have potbellies or who are bald don’t worry at all about deserving a good sex life! Hutchins also points out that a missing link for many women is using some good fantasies to turn them on. Interestingly, studies have shown that women are as aroused by visually erotic material as men are. But we’ve been led to believe that we’re not supposed to be. Remember, a fantasy doesn’t hurt anyone. It doesn’t have to be about something you would actually do. But if the thought of having sex with a gorgeous stranger in an elevator (or whatever does it for you) works, then use it! The range of sexual desires and fantasies that satisfy people are as varied as our fingerprints. You shouldn’t be ashamed of asking for what turns you on from a partner, including acting out a fantasy, as long as the activity is consensual and doesn’t involve the degradation or harming of another. Sometimes what a woman desires sexually may be far removed from what our society considers “normal,” but as long as no one gets hurt, that’s fine.

When you use your imagination to turn yourself on, your body will respond in kind because of the power of the mind-body connection. Frankly, one of the very best fantasies for every woman is to imagine herself as sexy and irresistible. Here’s a fantasy affirmation that really helps: “I love the pleasure that my body gives me and I always experience orgasm quickly and easily.”

In addition to fantasy, I also recommend using the woman-on-top position for intercourse so that the clitoris is maximally stimulated. Just as a man knows exactly how to move during intercourse to get maximal pleasure from the sensations, a woman on top can do exactly the same thing. And if she needs help, she can also use her finger (or a vibrator) to give her clitoris extra stimulation while in the on-top position.

6.
Consciously increase your capacity for pleasure. Understand that we humans are capable of far more pleasure than we’ve been led to believe. It’s now common knowledge, for example, that many women are mul-tiorgasmic. What most people don’t know is that men can be, too. It is possible to learn how to reprogram your central nervous systems so that you literally feel more and more with less and less stimulation. You can train your body to become multiorgasmic simply by learning how to relax and “wake up” to more erotic feeling throughout your body. Sex educator Jack Johnston has put together a very effective process to teach you how to retrain the nervous system to experience more pleasure through the use of deep relaxation and a very specific sound (see
www.multiples.com
). I’ve tried it. It works. You can also learn how to extend your orgasms. This is done by relaxing fully, opening your throat, and making a high-pitched singing sound the moment an orgasm begins. (Caroline Muir and Joan Heartfield, Ph.D., teach this at the Divine Feminine–Awakened Masculine Institute.) And men can learn how to have an orgasm without ejaculating (these two reflexes are actually separate). All of these approaches also increase nitric oxide throughout the body.

There is a quiet revolution going on as women discover sexual pleasure on their own terms and then teach it to the men in their lives. I heard the following story from one of my newsletter subscribers. “For years my sex life has been influenced by my belief that men’s sexual needs come first. Though I can reach orgasm most of the time, I have really focused on my husband, not myself. To tell you the truth, sex had become pretty ordinary in my marriage. I used to joke that my husband and I were in a same-sex marriage—the same sex over and over again. Then a friend gave me the book
It’s My Plea
sure
by Maria and Maya Rodale and I started to think more and more about the importance of adding more pleasure to my life. I was also drawn to the book
Extended Massive Orgasm: How You Can Give and Receive Intense
Sexual Pleasure
(Hunter House, 2000) by Steve Bodansky, Ph.D., and Vera Bodansky, Ph.D. (See pages 243–244.) I know from my work as a biofeedback therapist that we have the capacity to change our perception of pain simply by focusing on our bodies differently. Well, the same thing is true with pleasure. I followed the directions in the Bodanskys’ book about learning how to take the time to turn myself on. I started to feel my body differently— not just my genitals, my entire body. The deliberate pursuit of pleasure has revolutionized my entire life, both in the bedroom and out.”

In their book, the Bodanskys describe a technique called Extended Sexual Orgasm (ESO), which is designed to enhance orgasmic pleasure and make it last far longer than the usual sixty seconds. This book has the best instructions I’ve ever read for getting out of your head and feeling more sensations in your body. So it’s helpful even for those who don’t have partners yet. (I also like
The Passion Prescription: 10 Weeks to Your Best Sex—Ever!
[Hyperion, 2006] by Laura Berman, Ph.D.) Learning ESO requires time and commitment to giving and receiving pleasure. Pleasure is given with the hands (which makes this technique ideal for men with erection problems). You have to practice. But the health-giving benefits of sexual pleasure are well worth the time and effort.

A W
ORD
A
BOUT
V
IBRATORS

In her book,
The Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria,” the Vibrator,
and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), historian Rachel Maines, Ph.D., documents the amazing fact that the first steam-powered vibrators were used in the 1860s by doctors to bring women to orgasm in their offices. This method was faster and required less skill than the manual method that doctors had previously employed for the treatment for all kinds of female problems including hysteria, depression, and listlessness. When electric vibrators showed up in blue movies in the early 1900s, the respectability of this treatment fell from grace. Dr. Maines and her colleagues also made a very entertaining and eye-opening movie about this called
Passion and Power
(
www.passionandpowerthemovie.com
), which is women’s history at its finest.

Nowadays, vibrators are available everywhere, and many women enjoy using them. Dr. Ruth Westheimer has endorsed a particularly interesting device known as the Eroscillator, with all kinds of different attachments. Some women require vibrators to reach orgasm. I have a caveat about their use, however. We have the ability to train our nervous systems to experience more and more pleasure with less and less stimulation. I have already discussed the nitricoxide-increasing health benefits of this approach. Vibrators, by contrast, provide so much stimulation that they reduce sensation over time, so eventually you may find yourself requiring more and more stimulation to feel less and less. This can become addictive. That said, enjoy your vibrator. But also experiment with other ways of feeling more with less.

7
. Understand the sexuality-spirituality connection. The human experiences that provide us with the greatest ecstasy and the greatest pain are sex, love, and religion. In her book
Sacred Pleasure,
Riane Eisler writes, “Candles, music, flowers, and wine—these we all know are the stuff of romance, of sex, and of love. But candles, flowers, music, and wine are also the stuff of religious ritual, of our most sacred rites. Why is there this striking, though seldom noted, commonality? Is it just accidental that passion is the word we use for both sexual and mystical experiences? Or is there here some long-forgotten but still powerful connection? Could it be that the yearning of so many women and men for sex as something beautiful and magical is our long-repressed impulse toward a more spiritual, and at the same time more intensely passionate, way of expressing sex and love?”
²¹

It is important to understand that the human capacity for ecstasy is a normal part of who we are and that the ecstatic sensual experience can be a spiritual one. We can experience the uplifting ecstatic energy through art, through intense feelings of love, and during experiences such as religious worship or meditation in which we partake of an ecstatic energy that can be erotic in nature. Only by recognizing that ecstasy and spirituality are part of human na ture can we generate ways to provide and experience ecstasy and con nections with one another that are nondestructive and nonaddictive. We must feed our souls as well as our bodies.

8.
Create community. It’s challenging to embrace pleasure as a lifestyle in a community that is addicted to suffering. That’s why it’s crucial to have support for the shift you are making. For those who are able to do so, I highly recommend doing the Mastery Program at Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts in New York City (see
www.mamagenas.com
) or a training with the Divine Feminine–Awakened Masculine Institute, based in Hawaii (see
www.divine-feminine.com
). Of course you can also form a book club and go through the chapters of Regena Thomashauer’s
Mama Gena’s School of
Womanly Arts
(Simon & Schuster, 2002) or
Mama Gena’s Owner’s and Operator’s
Guide to Men
(Simon & Schuster, 2003). Both books are very practical, funny, and helpful. The website for the sound and relaxation program for multiple orgasms,
www.multiples.com
, also has a chat room that assists individuals who are learning the technique. To use the chat room, you have to buy the course first.

9.
Expect resistance. One reason sex, love, and religion cause so much pain is that our dominator culture has brainwashed us into believing that it is holy to suffer and sinful to experience pleasure. We’ve been taught that if we get “too happy” or feel “too good,” the boom will drop! That’s why we have phrases such as “No good deed goes unpunished.” And because our beliefs shape our reality, that’s exactly what happens. But it’s natural for humans to seek out joy and pleasure. We’re born that way and then get talked out of it. And so many seek the experience of ecstasy through addictive means such as food, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, or even degrading sexual practices, which over time actually serve to further numb us. Bringing more joy and pleasure into your life is guaranteed to push your upper limits. Expect this. One of my colleagues did some one-on-one work with the Bodan-skys a couple of years ago. During her time there, as she was learning how to experience more pleasure, she got the worst cold and sore throat of her life. She knew that this was simply resistance. And she didn’t let it stop her. She says that her experience was a turning point in enjoying life (and sex) more than ever.

10
. Help your partner become a good lover. Neither men nor women (nor mon keys, for that matter) are born knowing how to be good lovers. You have to learn. Men are often under a great deal of pressure to perform. They’ve been taught that it’s their job to bring a woman to orgasm. But this is difficult if a woman doesn’t know what pleases her and can’t talk about what she wants. Please remember that his ability to really please a woman makes a man feel really good about himself. Most men will want to please you if you continually give them feedback about what they’re doing right. Make an effort to learn more about sex. Get videos (for a very thorough couples’ guide to erotic videos, visit
www.clitical.com
/sensual-senses/porn-for-couples); read books. Talk about sexy things—this can be very erotic. Notice how your clitoris responds. I love Olivia St. Claire’s book
227 Ways to Unleash
the Sex Goddess Within
(Harmony Books, 1996).