Come As You Are
by Mui

Feb. 10 - (MSNBC)  "More than four in 10 women and three in 10 men in the United States suffer from low libido, inability to achieve orgasm or other forms of sexual dysfunction, according to what is being called the first comprehensive, nationwide study on the topic. While the numbers are much higher than they expected, the researchers say the findings could offer hope to millions of Americans who previously thought they were alone in their suffering."

I have an opinion about this sort of report.  It seems to have a very narrow view of what sex is.  For one thing, sexual satisfaction is almost always understood to mean genital orgasm.  These days, at least, that is considered clitoral for a woman, although the g-spot can work too.  For a man, his penis, of course. Then there is a certain time frame this should occur within, and a certain amount of times per month.  If all conditions are met, someone can consider themselves to be sexually satisfied.  Otherwise, sorry!

Now really, does this make any sense at all?  No wonder people just opt out.  Especially on the subject of orgasm, in my experience, there are way too many people judging themselves, and each other, for how fast or slow or from what stimulation or what kind of orgasm was experienced or should be experienced.

Sex is not a test, and thinking of what should or shouldn't happen can really get in the way of enjoying it fully.  There is a big world out there.  Focusing on the genitals is not a bad thing.  It's just not the only thing, not by a long shot.

When you really relax
while making love
and don't make the usual orgasm your goal
you become available
to a grand new brand of
sexual peak experiences...

...perhaps you have experienced such climaxes

if you have
you know
how elegant and beautiful
this whole new range of sexual opportunities is

in other words
there are other kinds of orgasms or climaxes
not yet the subject of scientific investigation

they are not just a head trip
or somebody's fantasy

they are as substantial and real as
the orgasms studied in laboratories today
only different, of course

their main features are the feeling of unity
between you and your lover
that lasts and lasts
the rushes of powerful energies and wonderful feelings
the expansion and elevation of awareness...

(From the poem titled "Tantric Orgasm" in the book Sexual Energy Ecstasy by David and Ellen Ramsdale)

I have always liked sex, but this new world of vast sex began to appear in my life about two and a half years ago, when I had sex with someone with whom I felt a strong connection that had to do with that vague but impressive word "energy."  Over the course of a few days, I felt myself open up with him in some big way, and it wasn't really a genital kind of thing.  I didn't have words for it yet, but it was something Big, that I was sure of.

After that I began to build the energy and really catch on to what was happening.  I had instinctively followed this same energy when with my clients, just as a way to keep the work interesting over time.  I played with the energy and was very comfortable with it, as long as it was not focused on me.  I liked to stay somewhat apart from it.  I felt vulnerable, I guess. So after that first experience, it took a tantra class, and a weekend at Body Electric (read about that place on my web page) for me to really dive deeply into my own well and start swimming for real.

And swim I did!  Now I have ecstatic experiences like the ones described above, regularly.  The first time Bob, my partner, saw me in the throes of this kind of energy, he just waited until it subsided, which took awhile, and then he looked me close in the eye and said, what the hell was that?  I could talk by then, and so I sort of told him, although it was kind of hard to describe, but he got it.

Orgasm is, for me, a continuum of emotion and sensation that is hard to put brackets around sometimes and say that this is this and that is that.  Sometimes I have a genital orgasm while in the middle of this wider experience, and it is like pouring water into a waterfall.  It's hard to describe, how my awareness and physical sensations are so expanded at times like this, and that a genital orgasm is sort of beside the point.

Still, I wondered if other people would understand this sort of thing.  I love oral sex.  I love getting licked for hours.  But I have usually found it annoying when people try to make me come.  It makes me think I have to, which makes it much less likely that I will, because I can't relax.  I got very possessive of my clit for this reason for a long time, and I've loosened up a lot over the past few years, but still, it turns me off if someone acts like I'm supposed to come now. Like, ok, I've done this thing here just right for ten minutes now.  Ready, set, come!

That kind of thing doesn't do it for me.  It does for some people though!  And that's my point here, that we are not all the same.  And that's a good thing!

I think of sex as music.  We have our favorite musical styles.  If we so desire, we can be educated in another style, but it isn't considered crucial, usually, to appreciate certain types of music over other types.  Some people adore Chopin, and some people worship Marilyn Manson.  A lot of people are eclectic in their tastes and love to look through the bins at the record store for hours, while others never look beyond their one beloved radio station for years.  It's all a big soup of tastes.  Well, maybe sex is the same.

Here is one other tidbit regarding the focus on genital orgasm.  Did you know that the vibrator was invented to help doctors in their treatment of so-called hysterical women?  The doctor treated the woman by stimulating her clitoris manually and bringing her to orgasm that way.  The women who were in need of such release were considered unhealthy, for a healthy mature woman received all the orgasmic release she needed through the act of intercourse with her husband.

Usually this treatment took about an hour, and then she would come back again later in the week to have it done to her again.  Doctors did not enjoy this task! With the wonderful new vibrator, the time went down to ten minutes, which meant doctors could see more patients and make more money and give their poor hand a rest.

My, how times do change!

So if you, man or woman, are making someone work away at you in order for you to come so that you can both have a deep and meaningful sexual experience, maybe you might rethink your approach.  For one thing, if you do it yourself, you can probably cut the time way down and the enjoyment way up. Also, play around with skipping it altogether, if it's a lot of effort.  Some of the most memorable sexual sessions I ever had have lacked genital orgasm.  I even have clients who pay me... not to come... but to be borne into ecstasy.

This variety of experience and style is much more real than you'd ever know from reading about sex in the popular press.  There are things that I never would have known in a million years, except that I have watched a whole heck of a lot of people have orgasms, and had a lot of people, men and women, confide in me their secret insecurities about sex.  Do you know that a lot of men don't come from blow jobs?  Oh, almost all men love them, in my experience, but a rather significant percentage of men does not come to orgasm through oral sex, or not easily, no matter how good the sucker
is.

That does not mean that either the blow job, or the recipient of the blow job, failed.  Achieving an orgasm is not the same as having great sex.  They can go together, but they don't have to.  I've had very fine clitoral orgasms in so-so sex, and great sex without them.  To me, they are not the same thing, and so I often wonder why there is such an absolute correlation between the two.

In vast sex, you can forget to achieve anything.  Maybe that's why tantra has become popular these days.  People need to let go of all the achieving they're running around doing, or not doing.

And how about the recently well-known ability of women to have mulitple orgasms?  Did you know that men are capable of them too?  I've even seen it. But you know what?  Just because it's possible doesn't mean we all have to rush out and do it now. If someone is sufficiently motivated to learn a new sexual skill, then that's great.  If not, then why should anyone care?

Besides, this non-focus on orgasm makes it possible to pretty much have sex all the time.  I like that.  I like sex to be frequent, and I like it to be really, really easy.

Following is a wonderful quote from The Ethical Slut (by Dossie Easton and
Catherine A. Liszt):

"We like to use an expanded definition of sex, including more than genitals, more than intercourse, more than the stimulations that lead to orgasms (and we definitely wouldn't exclude them either!).  We like to think that all sensual stimulation is sexual, from a shared emotion to a shared orgasm...

"When we expand our concept of what sex is, and let that be whatever pleases us today, we free ourselves from the tyranny of his hydraulics, the chore of getting her off, perhaps even birth control and barriers if we decide that outercourse is perfectly good sex in and of itself...

"Pleasure is good for you.  So do what pleases you, and don't let anybody else tell you what you ought to like, and you can't go wrong.  Stay with what feels good and sex becomes easy, easy for yourself and incredibly easy to share with another."

All I can say to that is... Amen!

Easy, easy, easy.  Roll off a log, and fall into sex.