Tell me about your orgasms and I'll tell you who you are

do you want in, or do you want out?

Two lovers in the hot throes of passion, desperate to blow each other's minds, land upon a tool that "guarantees” a trip to the moon. Enter: 12 girthy inches of shiny white plastic adorned with veins of baby blue and a 2.5 inch smooth rubber head, attached to the wall with a generously lengthy power cord. 

Click. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz bzzzzzzzzzz bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. The trip begins. 

At once, her body vibrates with such severity she can’t tell her pussy from her forehead. 10 seconds pass…  30… can she make it to 60 without losing her shi— aaaaurrrrghhhhhh omygod ohmygod ohmygodddddddddd FUCK i’m coming i’m coming iiiiiiii’m cominggggggggg! 

Done so fast, huh? Well. That was a bit anticlimactic.

The thing is, and of course, this is my well-informed opinion (yes, I had a Hitachi phase) orgasms derived from the over enthusiastic buzz of the magic wand are like the exclamation points of the world of climax: emphatic, but without nuance. So what’s the point? Are they truly satisfying, or merely a way to get to the end of the act, ASAP? 

Let me be clear: I’m not here to yuck anybody’s yum, but to present a case that sure, 1+1=2, but maybe there’s a more profound calculus to the climax equation.

If you’re a woman who's used a Hitachi, you know it can basically burn your clit off. If you’ve witnessed a woman come from this hyped up device, perhaps you thought, “wow, that must’ve been incredible. She came so hard she couldn’t stop screaming…” Oh, but I’ve got news. Those orgasms may be more akin to a desperate plea for someone, anyone, to PLEASE for the LOVE of GOD, turn off the poorly produced, incessantly trebly electronica blasting from speakers on the verge of blowing out, lest her ears begin bleeding. 

When the wand is involved, the harsh reality is if you want to retain any modicum of sensation in that precious pink button, forget enjoying the experience. You must be done, and quick. 

And herein lies the predicament. Common discourse says if a woman comes, the job is done. She must be satisfied, right? I mean, it’s far rarer for women to come than men, so if she gets there, things must've been amazing. But was it amazing if she just wanted the torture to end? Was it all that incredible if she became a passive participant in the act to avoid further discomfort? Does coming = satisfaction, actually? And further, what’s the fun in fucking if your motivation for doing it to get to the end as quickly as you can?

Here’s what I think. A poorly produced orgasm is mostly about getting the fuck out (which might be totally subconscious) at the expense of the sort of physical, and, because they are inextricably linked, metaphysical connection that could lead to a deeper relationship with oneself, one’s partner, and — if we wanna get really wild — all of life. This is a dangerous game. In the absence of nuanced physical connection, a lot of poorly produced orgasms happen. 

Why the lack of connection? A million reasons. Maybe it’s fear of intimacy, or fear of the body’s ability, or of doing it “wrong.” Or maybe, it’s that big one we all face regularly: fear of the unknown. You see, to connect with the body is to directly enter the mystery— the wiggly abyss — that wide open space in which you may or may not orgasm reliably. Of course, orgasm isn’t the point. It’s a point in the journey. So we need to get our priorities straight. We’re putting exclamation points in all the wrong places. 

There is no “point” to fucking… and that’s the point. As famed psychotherapist and erotic magician Esther Perel says, “the erotic is profoundly unproductive.”  That’s what makes it special. In stark contrast to much of our lives, the erotic is where things can just play out. Where we can let go of the pressure to perform, to produce, to be any way other than the way we are. Yet if we are disconnected from the playful, curious aspects of ourselves, we tend to allow productivity to penetrate the bedroom, too. 

Let me ask you this. Have you ever felt deeply connected with busy work? 

Yeah. Didn’t think so.

Connection is an orgasmic characteristic I’ll argue is far more fulfilling and transformative than those quick fixes produced by the power tool variety, that by their very nature dismiss the subtle cues, slow burns, and deep desires of the body. 

Sure, the nuanced orgasm takes more work, but it’s the kind of work that’s worth it. It’s the kind of work that transcends the climactic moment and travels with you, transforming the rest of your days. Transforming your perspective entirely. 

Let’s talk about that sort of experience, where there may be a peak, but the point is the journey. Where the delivery of sensation leaves you full and brimming with wanting. Where the exclamation speaks itself and each moment is punctuated by the intensity of consciousness. Where the choke leaves you wanting more breath; the thrust provokes desire’s aggression; the movement rides a mercurial edge of unknowable length until time itself erases and you are here in the wake of walls collapsing and space expanding and more and more and more and please, more, and you no longer know what pain means because it’s been transformed through your wanting body and everything— the world — opens; the realm of possibility which seemed, before, some narrow thing, is an amorphous portal of hot breath and imagination you never want to leave.

What follows may seem unrelated, but stick with me. You’ll see.

Sam Harris said something that really pisses me off, because he is a “mindfulness teacher,” but only shows part of the equation. Or, and I can only assume based on what he’s shared, he’s not having great sex. Either way, here it is:

“If you’ve ever been swimming in the ocean, or surfing, you know there’s an enormous difference between being in what is called the strike zone, where the waves are actually breaking, and being just beyond that point where the waves are beginning to peak. Out there, a wave of any size just passes under you. And the important thing to realize for this analogy is that it’s the same wave. The only difference is in one’s relationship to it. The freedom that comes with real mindfulness is never a matter of stopping the waves of thought or emotion or experience generally. It’s a matter of getting out of the strike zone so that the next wave of anger or regret or fear just passes harmlessly beneath you.” 

Sounds convincing, doesn’t it? Yet from where I stand, there is a gaping hole in this as an analogy for a way of freedom through mindfulness. 

I’m not a surfer, but I am a lover and a mover, and every muscle and bone and neuron in my body knows that the feeling, and therefore experience, of freedom comes through riding the wave, physically. Becoming part of the conversation. Dancing with the feeling. Fucking. Feeling the friction between you and your lover, revealing desire, letting your body respond through movement the way a surfer responds to the moving edge of water beneath their feet.  

Surfers don't want the force of nature to pass “harmlessly” beneath them; they sit back and observe, but only until their wave of choice starts peaking. Then, they paddle like hell in an all out attempt to thrust themselves into the stream of power. Sometimes they don’t catch it, and that’s fine - they stay in the ocean, awake, aware, awaiting the next chance to ride. Other times, they drop in and it’s smooth sailing; they ride the edge until the wave lets them through the other side. Still others, they enter the wave only to find themselves tangled and mangled and chewed up in the reef below. And that’s like time-collapsing orgasms. And living. 

If this force of power is all around us all the time, waiting for our participation, why not practice getting into the thick, murky chaos of its magnetism? Why sequester “mindfulness” to the realm of calm, unaffected stillness? Is becoming effectively unreceptive to life’s swells a fulfilling way of living? Is it living at all? Or is it becoming passive, letting life happen with no skin in the game?

Life can be a lot, I know. And it can be tempting to go all monk in a cave and sit it out. But that’s not enough for me. And I mean hell, if we can practice for life’s inevitable wipeouts by learning to experience pleasure in the unknown — through the act of fucking — well, why the fuck not? Why sit back and watch it all go by? Sure, maybe it’s more “comfortable,” maybe it’s easier… but it's also boring, and more dangerous than it seems. Like the Hitachi, ya know? Misguided. Passive. Predictable. 

Okay. Back to the ocean analogy. In my view, the misguided belief is that culmination is “the point.” What if a point of culmination is just one crest in an endless stream of waves that we always have the freedom to drop into? When we zoom out, we can see the doorway to a game of lingering in sensation and feeling changes moment to moment, until some specific feeling piques our curiosity. The masterful surfer doesn’t paddle into every wave that peaks in their vicinity; they’re discerning. They notice subtle differences in each swell of the ocean. They experiment and learn which ones suit their style and taste. They decide which are worth the danger inherent to becoming alive with something bigger than their body.

I’m not saying it's a good idea to dive, without discrimination, into every chaotic or exciting or intriguing moment. There is always a choice: paddle in and create some friction, or retreat and wait for the next. Choosing wisely has much to do with trusting the body, which can only be accomplished through the experimentation process. This is what we call fucking around and finding out. 

To know you’re here, living, is to feel yourself rubbing up against experience. And I don’t know about you, but I enjoy the rough edges. The contrast. The duality. The friction between you and me, in and out, up and down. That’s really why we like to fuck, isn’t it? To feel what it’s like to pour our hearts out, to swallow and be swallowed? To dive into  all manner of things enthralling and horrifying. To be vulnerable — hated. loved, feared, cherished — seen. It’s how we know our own power. And where we can, if we let ourselves, share it. Unbridled, unencumbered, unashamed.

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