Dear Natasha,
I am 37 years old, married and my sex life is not bad but my orgasms for the past 4 years are very quick. I’d like very much to extend the play and also to enjoy of the clímax more in each sexual act like I used to. I think the change in my orgasms is due to my last delivery as I failed to achieve a natural birth and ended up in cesarean attempt. My vagina tore and it cost me 2 years of penetrative sex. I was so afraid when we started having sex again that I felt I should orgasm as soon as possible so I wouldn’t tear again. Since then my orgasms are very quick and brief.
My question is: How can I control the sexual energy accumulated in my genitals so that it will not ” explode ” as quickly and thus feel better in every sexual act. Thank you!
R.
* question paraphrased slightly to make more sense to the reader as the author is ESL
Dear R.,
Thanks so much for your question! There are two things that need to be mentioned here.
First of all what’s happening to you makes complete sense and is to be expected following the circumstances of your painful birth experience. Our orgasms and response to pleasure are connected to and affected by the health of other parts of ourselves – emotions, relationships, trauma we experience, physical health etc. It sounds like you’re experiencing some anxiety around pleasure and orgasm because you’ve associated it with pain. Anxiety during sex is extremely common and even if you aren’t worried about your vagina tearing now ( or maybe you still are) the association is there and it sounds like you’re responding to it by orgasming as soon as possible.
The problem with orgasming quickly is exactly what you mentioned in your email – you aren’t enjoying the climax as much. This is because orgasms are the release of accumulated sexual energy in your body. If you haven’t built much energy the release is bound to be smaller.
Another problem is that anytime we place expectations on our orgasms to be a certain way we are bound to be disappointed. Expectations create a sort of “performance anxiety” in that we’re hoping and waiting for a specific result and when it doesn’t happen (often because we aren’t relaxed and present enough to just be in the experience and not try to create it) we get disappointed. This disappointment carries into our next sexual experience and so on and so on until we are completely disconnected from fully experiencing arousal and pleasure in our body. The easiest and clearest example of this is when a man experiences some sort of anxiety during sex and loses his erection. The next time he goes to have sex the stress of this happening again will often make it happen and this cycle continues until he can learn to get out of his head and back into his body.
My advice for you is to slow everything down. First of all explain to your husband (if you haven’t already) what’s going on, how you’re feeling and how you miss the more intense orgasms you had before the birth of your child. I know it’s difficult to make yourself slow down but you can do it. There is a practice called “edging’ where you decrease the stimulation as you get closer to orgasm and also use your breath to level out the build up. Then when it’s levelled you can begin stimulation again. This means that you build to the edge of orgasm over and over and when you finally let go, it’ll be much stronger than usual due to the built up tension in your body. Edging is best practiced alone as there is often less performance anxiety and worry that way. So masturbate, masturbate, masturbate!
I also encourage you to touch yourself or invite your partner to touch you without hoping for orgasm. Try your best to stay present in the feelings of pleasure in your body and out of the thoughts in your head. When you touch, do so with the feeling and intent you’d have when touching a lover. Your body has been through a great deal and brought your child into the world. Touch yourself with appreciation for that so that you can help the emotional wounds heal. This also takes time – like any kind of practice – but you have everything in you necessary to do it! I’m closing with a link about edging/orgasm control. Please let me know how it all works out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgasm_control
Love Natasha