When I began my journey of sexual awakening thirteen and a half years ago, I viewed and experienced sex as a way to please partners’ and feel loved. I had never orgasmed during partner sex or from anyone pleasuring me and, until then, it hadn’t really occurred to me that sex could be for my pleasure too. I knew I was supposed to look like I was enjoying it, but I didn’t know that I could actually enjoy it. I masturbated a lot growing up and experienced orgasm through that, but in all the sex education I received, no one had told me that what I experienced masturbating could be experienced in sex. In fact, I had no idea that pleasure had anything to do with sex at all.
At the age of 32 I realized that I was living my life for others, and my own unacknowledged needs (apart from making others happy) were suppressed so deep that I didn’t know where to even begin finding them. Wanting to connect to myself, I began a daily practice of touching my body and feeling through my fingertips to discover what I needed. In time, with this touch, I upgraded my childhood masturbation method to a more full body experience of pleasure and orgasm. Inspired by the legacy of Betty Dodson©, I decided to incorporate masturbation into partner sex and in doing so, “owned my right to pleasure” as she put it. It took a bit to become unapologetic in this, but once I did, I orgasmed every single time I had sex with my husband. If It happened that he came first, I made sure that our sexual encounter didn’t end until I orgasmed as well. I was embodying what Betty taught me and, through this lens, everything changed.
Now that I was getting something from sex as well, it became something I wanted to do often — not only for him, but to meet my own sexual needs. Knowing what worked for me and not waiting for him to step up and offer me that, I never had to worry about not orgasming. It was up to me. Once I had achieved a high level of proficiency in this area, I felt resourced enough to step back and assess the quality of my sexual experiences. I wondered what other needs I had in intimacy now that this baseline one was filled. With this new level of discernment, I realized that I was “well fed” with orgasms so to speak, and now wanted to focus on the quality of my intimacy. I longed for things I was afraid to ask for — sensuality, slowing down, deeper emotional connection, touching and extended pleasure states. As I began stating my needs and asking for these things, I realized that they all involved a more willing partner.
Nearly fourteen years later, I’ve gone through divorce and built a successful business supporting individuals and couples in all aspects surrounding intimacy. Remarried now, my own sexual intimacy is centered around shared touch, extended states of pleasure, connection and taking time – I know orgasm will always be a part of it — so I focus more on expanding and savoring the journey.
I often hear women who aren’t orgasming in sex, dismiss it as “unimportant” and talk themselves out of it by maintaining that they’re “fine” having sex to feel connected and to keep their partner happy. Ironically these same women often come to me for help with “low libido” (as I once had). I remind them that having sex for someone else’s needs, or as another task on the to do list gets old quickly and it’s no surprise they don’t feel a libido for it. At the same time I often read articles written by sex educators or women proficient in orgasming with partners’, talking down to women who are focused on orgasm. They speak as if orgasm as a goal is for “basic” people and they’re somehow missing the whole point. When I hear this I’m reminded of a quote by Kahlil Gibran I discovered over twenty years ago that has stuck with me since:
“How bravely the glutton counsels the famished to bear the pangs of hunger.”
It’s easy to say orgasm doesn’t matter when you know you can have one whenever you want. It’s easy to focus on the quality of an experience when you feel you have choice in how the experience goes. Many women were raised with so much shame around pleasure that they haven’t learned to orgasm or don’t feel comfortable seeking it out as a right to expect as part of their intimacy.
It is absolutely okay to want to orgasm each and every time you experience sexual intimacy with your partner or yourself. If the narrative was reversed and men were told it didn’t matter if they orgasmed, they’d be rioting in the streets – and rightly so! There is nothing wrong with wanting orgasm for yourself and being committed to that as a baseline in your sexual intimacy. Orgasms feel great, are good for us, release tension, stress and give us amazing feel good chemicals. Why wouldn’t we want them? And, if orgasm is easy for you, it is also okay to want to feel even more satiated in experiences that are less goal-oriented and more savory — like a slow cooked meal vs. fast food. Speaking as a woman who didn’t know how to orgasm in sex for most of my life, or understand it to be an equal right for all, I now know it as such. If orgasming isn’t a part of your proficiency yet, it is well within your right to seek it out as something important, meaningful and fundamental to being human. It is okay to explore your own body to discover what works best for you, incorporate that with partners, acknowledge time needed for it to happen and ask for help achieving it. You have that right. And, if orgasmic people (partners or otherwise) suggest to you it’s not important, you’re welcome to tell them to kindly fuck off. 🙂