(not) in the words of David Bowie, it ain't easy

I thought I had already told more than you ever wanted to know about my orgasms, but apparently I was wrong. It seems that I have yet more to tell, if reactions to my recent post “pokin’ in the boys’ room” is indication. In that post I said that I could never see myself masturbating in a public bathroom because, as I said, “It takes me far too long to come. I’m not an easy orgasmer; I’m not one of those females who comes at the drop of a g-string; I come neither early nor often. My orgasms must be cajoled. They’re more like a timid animal who requires much patience and a big handful of raw meat to be petted than a domestic animal,” and therefore, for me a “public restroom onanistic orgasm is pretty much impossible.” I should have added that probably a public restroom orgasm of any variety is pretty much unachievable. I’d probably have to fake it.

A few of you commented in a recent post how grateful you were that I admitted that I don’t come easily—one woman even said she was “coming out of the closet” as one who has “finicky orgasms.” What struck me in all these comments was this overwhelming sense of relief, as if everyone were looking around the room and recognizing that she was not alone and exhaled a conjoined and gut-deep sigh.

So let me tell you how it isn’t always easy for me to come. Let me tell you that I spent much of my early twenties absolutely faking it. Let me tell you that it has taken almost thirty years of having sex with men, with women, with men and women, for me to realize that I can come relatively reliably, if indeed that is something I want to do. Let me tell you that I am no major goddess in the orgasm department, nor am I a minor deity. I am probably pretty much just like you, or if you’re a dude, like your girlfriend or wife, or at least the majority of women that you’ve fucked and who neither never came nor who came like all the time. I am, let’s face it, average.

In the interest of backing up my assertions of total orgasmic mediocrity, I want to give you some facts, some figures and some evidence. My boyfriend and I see each other at the most three times a week and at the least one. I’d say we have sex about 1.5 times per week. Often we are too tired to fuck. We hold hands and watch television or we go out and eat, and by the time we get to thinking about sex, we can’t. We do make time to do it when we can, but we don’t always. I’m not particularly happy with how often we have sex; I’d like to more often, say maybe three or four times a week. I will not ever be the kind of woman who needs to have sex every day, nor for that matter will I ever be the kind of woman who wants to.

Often, because we only have sex 1.5 times per week, my boyfriend and I have really long and baroque sessions of sex. There are lots of toys and he ties me up or we switch positions and rooms and holes and whatnot. Other times, we can be really very efficient. I do offer to give my boyfriend head or a hand job frequently just because he’s very stressed and I like to do what I can. Plus, it’s fun. But, frankly, if I’m not in the mood, I won’t. I think I’ve turned Donny down about three times in our relationship. It’s rare, but it happens.

My masturbatory habits run a gamut. Some weeks I’ll do it nearly every day. Other weeks will go by and the thought will cross my mind, but then I think about something I’d really rather research, like what Masi Oka said on Conan, and I’ll get diverted. I’d say that on an average, I masturbate 2.6 times a week. I often get bored with it and my toys. All of them. I feel like, what, orgasm? Again? Do I have to? Lately, I’ve taken to keeping my Hitachi magic wand plugged into the socket next to my bed because if I really, really want to come, I can do it relatively quickly, if not particularly pleasurably, with the wand. Recently, however, the wand has lost its magic.

I used to masturbate with all kinds of toys and lavish, long fantasies and lots of attenuated self-loving. I’ve currently put that rococo onanism on a shelf. It just ended up being a lot to wash. And so many batteries to buy. I do admit, however, that I do continue my search for the holy grail of sex toys, something that will keep me interested in self-loving, something that will never lose the luster, something that will be bright and shiny and resplendent forever. I have yet to find it. I’m taking suggestions.

I do tend to have very powerful and long-lasting orgasms. I really enjoy my orgasms. They are definitely a bit of all right. I can’t complain about the quality control of my coming, because whoever it is that is in charge of that department has a five-star crash rating. However good the ‘gasm, I almost always come only once when I have sex. Occasionally, I can sneak in a second orgasm if I come early (which is unusual) and the sex last a while (which is not). Even more uncommon, I have multiple orgasms. They tend to go pop! pop! pop! like the flashbulbs in a 1950’s paparazzo’s camera. To be honest, while I do enjoy the variety, they are less satisfying as a whole. They are akin to having spinach dip for dinner. I like spinach dip. It’s creamy goodness on a cracker. But it’s not a meal. My multiples feel like that.

While it is a rare occurrence, I do squirt. It does feel awfully neat. It doesn’t happen very often and it usually catches me by surprise. I’d say my squirting is more like a meteor shower than a comet’s flight. It happens with some kind of regularity, but not so much that it isn’t a charming surprise when it does.

Squirting is a perfect segue into my own feelings of sexual inadequacy. As I’ve written before, both my mother and my grandmother were members of this streak of the white tiger of human sexuality, the female ejaculator. For a long time, I felt completely dejected that I did not belong. I felt inadequate, especially raised as I was by a mom who flaunted her sexuality and who had loud, screaming orgasms in small houses while I cowered in bed in another room.

I too feel inadequate when I read stories of women who can come easily—indeed, I’ve felt inadequate when I’ve fucked women who come easily. I feel as if my prodigious sexuality shines a cheap sham in the thick creamy beam of these women’s florid sexualities. I feel inadequate when erotica and porn shows women coming more frequently and presumably better than I. I feel inadequate and I feel jealous and I feel angry. Which is really just a pity.

I know that while I have some kind of psychological control over my orgasming—I learned a while ago that if I really, really decided I wanted an orgasm, I would have one—I don’t believe I’m made to be the woman who comes in sheaves of orgasms. I will never be the kind of chick who has, and forgive me for recycling this metaphor, packs of orgasms fat as Godard’s Gauloise. It’s not going to happen. Maybe it won’t happen because I don’t believe it, but maybe it won’t happen because I’m not built that way.

I know too that my sexuality is not limned by how often, or how rarely, I come. Human sexuality is like the Yukon River in April—it’s always changing, and it moves fast. The one sexual thing I can be certain of is that I will change. I don’t know how or when (and I have only the slimmest understanding of why), but I know it will. I know too that I can choose not to feel intimidated by or inadequate to or inferior to or belittled by other women’s sexualities. There are no measuring sticks but the ones I choose to put up against myself. I prefer to measure myself against greater things than orgasms.

I know that regardless of how often I come, or if I come, or when, or where, or how, I’m as sexy as I want to be. When I orgasms, I’m not thinking, Oh, god, oh god, this is greatttt—butitwouldbesomuchbetterifitwerelikehers. I’m hardly thinking at all. I’m just down and gutter-happy, my hips dancing that primal hootchi-kootchie dance, singing praises in ancient tongues and swell-riding that sweet hot crimson wave until it fades into nothing and I along with it.

And when I can’t come, there’s always David Bowie's cover:

It ain't easy, it ain't easy
It ain't easy to get to heaven when you're going down

Well all the people have got their problems
That ain't nothing new
With the help of the good Lord
We can all pull on through
We can all pull on through
Get there in the end
Sometimes it'll take you right up and sometimes down again

Satisfaction, satisfaction
Keep me satisfied
I've got the love of a Hoochie Koochie woman
She calling from inside
She's a-calling from inside
Trying to get to you
All the woman really wants you can give her something
too

Comments

[RoriG]

Good thing that great sex doesn't *have* to include an orgasm. That's just the cherry on top in my opinion, and an ice cream sundae is still REALLY good even without the cherry!

[The Fury]

Being a man that does not reach climax easily, I definitely feel some kinship with you. I've been with a few women who took a relatively longer time to cum and each and every time they have been more shocked that I hadn't popped before them. Often with depressed inadequate feelings on their part, but alas, it can be mental. However when they finally see my explosion they are way more appreciative of their own determination to please.

[Rich]

It's slipping away for me, a little at a time. I can feel it going. When I was in my twenties, I could have three in a row before being satiated. And, of course, I think a lot less about sex because the urge isn't as urgent these days.

Sex drive is related to hormone levels, especially free testosterone levels, so I use supplements. That keeps it from slipping away completely. I know that eventually my hormone levels will drop off to the extent that I probably won't be able to do it without some prescription drugs. Testosterone, of course, requires a prescription, but I use variants of avena sativa, which keeps the free testosterone levels up. (The receptors are only sensitive to a small fraction of testosterone that isn't bound to proteins, so the more that's free, the freer you feel.) I also use DHEA, which is a precursor to testosterone, and saw palmetto (which keeps some testosterone from converting to DHT).

In some ways, it's an advantage not to have too much libido. It's kind of shocking how much of what we think of as thoughts are really somehow responses wired into the brain awash with testosterone. Girls look curvier when I have enough T. Watching them is more pleasant. It's harder not to thing about having sex with them. I'm quite sure it's the same for women, except that it appears that other hormones play a bigger part. Progesterone, in particular, seems to be a major one. But, boy, T is big. (And don't discount T for females, either. It's a big factor in female libido, and it's produced by both the ovaries and the adrenals. It's just that on average women have 1/10 the amount of free testosterone as men. Think about when you were really, really horny and then do the math. It's pretty frightening, isn't is.)

Apparently, oxytocin is a major factor in how long it takes to orgasm. I guess my ocytocin level has gotten a little low, too, because it takes a long time for me to come these days. "Long time" might be relative, since I can remember going from flaccid to ejaculation in about one minute when I was young. Let's say its more like 0 to E in 1 hour now.

So, here's the good news about the modern world: Better living through chemistry.

But will it make for a one-minute orgasm? I don't think so.

[chelsea g.]

Rori G, I beg to differ. Good sex doesn't have to include an orgasm. Great sex does.

And, Rich, as a forty-something chick, I'm way friskier than I ever used to be. I also come more easily, and from my understanding, my experience is fairly exemplary of maturing women. I guess we have some compensation for the rest of it.

cheers,
chelsea g

[Anonymous]

Those aren't really "the words of David Bowie" considering it's a cover tune.

[chelsea g.]

Whoops. My bad. Sorry.

cheers,
chelsea g.

[RoriG]

Hm...I don't know about that one, Chelsea G. I've had really intense orgasms during amazing sex, and I've also had amazing sex without the O. I guess it depends what you count as "great sex." Varies from person to person I gues

I'm glad we're all so wonderful different--that's want makes romping so much fun!

[Alana]

Hi CG,

Manymany thanks for the post. Once again, floored and inspired and so grateful for your candor. I know women who've never orgasmed, and they do admit to not masturbating. :-( Masturbating helps doesn't it, knowing what feels good and how long and how much? I've not ever squirted but would like to; however I imagine my body would have to be "built" that way, and alas she doesn't ejaculate. Damn.

Love,
A

[Marcelle Manhattan]

Unfortunately, one of the down sides to sex-positive politics and its emphasis on sex education is that it leaves us with a kind of "how-to" book for fucking, wherein some behaviors are correct and others are less so.

Highly problematic. There is no such thing as a "wrong" or "inferior" orgasm. If you think about it, it's a pretty absurd notion.

I, too, have these frustrations. Sure, my ex made me squirt buckets; but others have left me high and dry. In fact, not every guy can make even me come hard; most the time, it's like a mini-spasm that I don't notice til after he pulls out and I don't feel the dull ache of longing anymore. It goes by without notice, like driving through a one-stoplight town. And I have never once had an orgasm through oral sex. Not once.

I think it's a bit of the conservative mindset creeping in, that makes us want to evaluate our own pleasure; to survey that of others and take note of whether we, or they, are "normal." Let's all have "wrong" and "bad" and "inferior" orgasms all over the place, and give the finger to the panopticon of coming, thereby making it a little easier for us all.

[O]

Brilliant. One of the things I always admire most in your writing (all of it, actually) is that you write reality. That's very hard to do and it's almost nonexistent in writing that is about sex. I don't know why this happens. (I don't exclude myself from the category of romanticists. I have the minor excuse of having only written about affair-sex, which is always fake for the participants.)

I can give a few reasons. One is that women often internalize 'porn' standards or some other (male) standards about female sexuality, and so 'the ideal' is always a squirt-fest multiply-orgasmic bi-athalon. Women start coming as soon as they have a dick in their mouth and they really don't ever stop. The average (male-oriented) porn fantasy is that all women want it and are always ready, and they always love it, whatever "it" is.

The corresponding female fantasy is the zipless and consequence-free fuck; the clothing falls away like rose petals and so do all problems.

These narratives are fantastic (in every sense), and also don't leave space for even biological reality. Sometimes I can be really excited and yet I can tell in advance I am not going to have an orgasm. It's not going to happen. It's nothing to do with desire or want or anything else, it's nothing to do with the guy or our relationship or that moment's technique...I just know it isn't going to happen.
But almost no one who claims to write about sex ever mentions such things.

And apart from you, (and me) I don't know any other women who ever admitted "yeh, multiple orgasms...eh, I'd rather have that one big one". Why?

Why isn't this talked about more?

I think this post is really important and I know it helps me, although I have the benefit of knowing you and talking to you about these things too.

I have to believe it helps many others who read it as well. I know that if I still didn't know you at all this would be the kind of post where I'd just have to comment and tell you I'd felt the same, and most of all, that your writing helped me.

[Rachel]

Hey CG,

Very big fan of yours! Perhaps I can help in your quest for the glimmering sex toy which will never leave you in malcontent. http://www.conezone.org/
I wish I could say I'd tried it and it changed my life, but I can't afford it yet. Here's to hoping it's worth more than the novelty.

Cheers! Thanks for your words!

[aag]

I sometimes wish I could come less. Sort of consolidate all those littler orgasms into one big orgasm. That's how I used to come. Alas. You get what your body gives you, and it's all pretty much good.

[C.S. Lewiston]

"The corresponding female fantasy is the zipless and consequence-free fuck; the clothing falls away like rose petals and so do all problems."

Where can I meet some of these people!?! Seriously, it seems to this observer, whose dating experience is admittedly rather limited, that the one sex accessory that most single women crave the most is a wedding ring!

I think the song "It Ain't Easy" is originally by John Baldry.

[lydia]

This is a wonderful, honest post. I really appreciate seeing your perspective on orgasms this intimately, as it were. I have found that with each year that passes, I have better, more intense, and quicker orgasms. I think partly this is because for several years I was on the Pill, and I really think it shut down a huge amount of my responsiveness. But now at 28, I squirt frequently, can have my own version of a multiple orgasm (i don't seek these out, but they can be nice), and I come much quicker than ever before. I even had a little O on the dance floor the other night while grinding on a cute boy with a truly marvelous erection (-;. That one really surprised me, lol. Anyway, everyone is different, and a woman who orgasms quickly or ejaculates can never be said to be having more fun with sex than a woman for whom it takes time.

[Rich]

I suspect women tend to discover more and more ways to enjoy sex as they get older. For men, it can be pretty straightforward. You stroke it a certain way and it goes off. But women have more areas and touches that seem to work. As you discover these (or your partners do) it can get better and better. Also, we all tend to get a little less inhibited with age.

The good news is that you're feeling frisky. Enjoy!