• Too difficult and not worth striving for. In 1990, the Kinsey Institute changed its position, declaring that simultaneous orgasms were not an important part of marital happiness—or even a desirable goal.
Why frustrate people, the Institute argued, when men can’t control their orgasms and women can’t either? Around the same time, Masters and Johnson wrote that a simultaneous orgasm is a lovely thing when it happens, but to try for it deliberately would be an “imposition of technique.” Lou Paget, a sex book author, has this advice for men: “So, gentlemen, do not feel inadequate if simultaneous orgasm is not part of your repertoire.”
• Too limiting. In his sexual autobiography, Richard Rhodes wrote: “Single-mindedly pursuing orgasm, particularly a will-o’-the-wisp like mutual simultaneous orgasms, narrow[s] and limit[s] pleasure.”
• A bad thing. Most recent sex literature is flat-out critical of the idea of simultaneous orgasms. Here is a sampler:
• Helen Singer Kaplan says “the myth of the mutual orgasm is the most destructive heterosexual myth in American society.”
• Stefan Betchell and his colleagues believe that striving to synchronize orgasms is a
S i m u l t a n e o u s O r g a s m s : A r e T h e y Po s s i b l e ?
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turn-off because it constantly pressures the woman to hurry up and the man to slow down.
• Michael Castleman says that trying to have orgasms together is like asking all the people at a banquet to eat their last bite at exactly the same moment.
• Dr. Clifford and Joyce Penner approvingly quote a woman who said, “I wouldn’t want to orgasm when he does because then I would miss out on his.”
• Perhaps the most dismissive attack is in
The
Big Bang
, a comprehensive sex advice book by Emma Taylor and Lorelei Sharkey: “
How
to Achieve Simultaneous Orgasms During
Penetration Every Time:
We have no idea.”
The critics of simultaneous orgasms have what seems like an airtight case. The challenge of simultaneous orgasms is similar to the difficulty of the “69” position—
fellatio and cunnilingus performed simultaneously. In
“69”, each person is stimulating the other’s genitals in a way that should produce an orgasm, but each is proceeding at a different pace, and both partners have to communicate (without being able to speak very easily!) and coordinate their timing (usually by slowing down the man’s pace) so they can reach orgasm at the same 1 0 4
T h e G r e a t S e x S e c r e t
moment. It’s easy for a
Despite occasional attempts
sixty-niner to get caught
to revive the idea, the prevail-
up in his or her own
ing wisdom in today’s sex
orgasm and stop stimu-
literature is that simultaneous
lating their partner—or
orgasms are neither possible
lose their own place while
nor desirable.
concentrating on pleasur-
ing their partner. The dif-
ficulty of getting the
timing right is the reason that “69” is talked about more than it’s practiced. Too complicated! Too much like juggling!
Achieving a simultaneous orgasm during penis-in-vagina intercourse would seem to pose equally daunting challenges:
• It’s not a simple matter to sensitively stimulate a woman’s clitoris during actual intercourse.
• It’s not easy for two people to synchronize the pacing; if the woman feels pressured to rush her orgasm and the man feels he must put on the brakes, intercourse is less enjoyable.
• It’s difficult to do two things at once—kind of like trying to rub your tummy and pat your head simultaneously.
• Because both the penis and the clitoris become very sensitive to touch right after orgasm, there is a narrow window of time (less than a minute) within
S i m u l t a n e o u s O r g a s m s : A r e T h e y Po s s i b l e ?
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which simultaneous orgasms must occur to get the full benefit; after that, most people don’t want their most sensitive spot touched for a while.
• The intensity of your partner’s orgasm can distract you from enjoying your own, and grooving on your own orgasm can distract you from enjoying your partner’s.
Because of these hurdles, it certainly seems that the idea of simultaneous orgasms during intercourse, once thought to be essential to procreation and the essence of successful lovemaking, is not a winner.
So as the difficulty of mutual orgasms during intercourse has sunk in over the years, and as women have increasingly spoken up about being shortchanged by intercourse (“Honey, you were great, but I haven’t come yet”), there’s been a grudging acceptance (at least by some) that penetration doesn’t produce female orgasms—and that simultaneous orgasms are virtually impossible.
If this is true, what are lovers who want to share sexual satisfaction during lovemaking supposed to do? The next chapter tackles this question head-on.
Chapter Six
Three Approaches to
Mutual Satisfaction
By trial and error and good communication, some couples have found their way to three quite different approaches to mutual satisfaction. Each has advantages and disadvantages, all require compromises from the conventional paradigm for intercourse, and none is perfect for everyone. But all three have the virtue of successfully clearing the hurdles to mutual gratification and giving both lovers orgasms
within a lovemaking
session. For the second
With little or no help from
and third approaches,
sex-advice literature, some
the orgasms can be vir-
couples have found their way
tually simultaneous.
to three effective techniques
This chapter describes
that allow both partners to
these approaches in
have orgasms during a love-
some detail.
making session.
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T h e G r e a t S e x S e c r e t
1. Separate Orgasms
The first approach seems obvious, yet is almost never mentioned explicitly in the historical or contemporary sex literature: the woman has her orgasm
before or after
the penis-in-vagina part of lovemaking. Couples who take this approach to mutual satisfaction have faced reality and defied the strong cultural expectation that female orgasms should happen
during
intercourse. They have created a new protocol for making love: first you, then me. With an ironic tip of the hat to the Civil Rights struggle, one commentator dubbed this the “separate but equal” approach to orgasms, giving it a contemporary ring, but it has almost certainly been used by some couples through the ages.
For some couples, having separate orgasms becomes a mainstay, and it can work wonderfully well. Each person is able to concentrate on the pleasure of his or her own orgasm and then revel vicariously in the partner’s orgasm (or orgasms) a few minutes later. In the words of one man who swears by this approach: I love—LOVE—to have an orgasm that is all my own. I also love having my wife come all on her own—and she loves it, too—in a way that is full of abandon and completely focused on her own pleasure, and on my making her pleasure.
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For lovers who have separate orgasms, the man’s is usually—but not always—in his partner’s vagina. The woman’s orgasms can be triggered in a variety of ways—
oral stimulation (a favorite for some women but not for others), manual stimulation, vibrators, or other sex toys.
There’s an array of choices, and some couples vary their selections from one lovemaking session to another.
Others settle down to a regular routine once they have found what works for them.
Afterward, the lovers might hold each other, nuzzle, cuddle, lie back (still touching), and bask in the post-coital afterglow, perhaps dozing off together. After-play can be the most sweetly affectionate part of sex, and is accentuated when both partners are genuinely satisfied and have the same mellow, sexy, bonded feeling. In the words of Richard Rhodes:
Is there anything on this earth finer than two human beings turned to each other in a comfortable bed, one’s leg thrown over the other’s hip, looking into each other’s eyes, sharing the dawning day?
Couples who have separate orgasms often develop a protocol for taking turns. There are advantages to each possible sequence: if it’s “ladies first,” there’s a gentlemanly feel to it and plenty of lubrication when it’s time for him to enter the vagina. (In
She Comes First: A Thinking Man’s
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T h e G r e a t S e x S e c r e t
Guide to Pleasuring a Woman
, Ian Kerner explores the full potential for oral sex to bring the woman to orgasm before her partner.) For women who are capable of multiple orgasms (about 10 percent are believed to be in this category), the heightened arousal of having just had an orgasm may trigger additional orgasms during or after penetration. If the man comes first, there’s some added lubrication from his semen (provided the couple is not relying on condoms for birth control and disease preven-tion) and a less rushed feel-
ing for the woman. Either
Having separate orgasms
way can be great.
(first you, then me) is a
Compared to one-sided
breakthrough for many
3-2-1 sex and female fak-
couples, introducing an
ing, the separate-orgasms
unhurried, mutually
approach is a huge step for-
satisfying dynamic to their
ward. Both partners are
sexual relationship.
having orgasms within a
single lovemaking episode,
there’s much more of a feel-
ing of sharing and mutuality, and there’s real equality between the lovers. Women are the biggest beneficiaries: if they are getting genuine fulfillment from making love, they are much more likely to be happy with the sexual relationship (no more faking, no more resentment, and little need for masturbation).
Men are winners, too: consciously or unconsciously,
T h r e e A p p r o a c h e s t o M u t u a l S a t i s f a c t i o n
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most of them know that lovemaking is better for their partners and get deeper satisfaction and enjoyment as a result. These feelings can
ripple out into other
parts of the relationship,
Shere Hite reported that
contributing to a more
some women reach down and
good-natured, sharing
touch their own clitoris
dynamic. Mutual satis-
during penis-in-vagina
faction in bed is no cure-
intercourse, but this approach
all if a relationship has
is rarely mentioned in today’s
deep problems, but for
sex literature.
people who have a solid
love relationship, it defi-
nitely helps with everyday stresses—in addition to adding measurably to the enjoyment of life.
For a woman sizing up a man, there is one additional advantage in the separate-orgasms approach. A man reveals a lot about himself in bed, and the asymmetrical design of men’s and women’s bodies poses a test that self-centered, insensitive, and unscrupulous men are likely to flunk. Looking back on a lovemaking encounter, a woman can ask herself: Is he gentle and passionate? Does he care about my sexual needs? Is he willing to take the time to learn how my body works? Does he listen to me when I tell him what I like, or does he follow a set script (probably the same one he uses with every other woman he sleeps with)? Does he use a condom and protect me 1 1 2
T h e G r e a t S e x S e c r e t
from pregnancy and disease? And does he make the extra effort and exercise the mature restraint to make sure I’m satisfied before he goes to sleep? In short, is he a good potential mate—or is he a jerk?
For some couples, separate orgasms are wonderful—
even sublime—and taking turns is their top choice of any possible lovemaking approach (including the other two in this chapter). But other lovers are less enthusiastic. They can’t get the penetration-produces-female-orgasm model out of their heads and aren’t willing to make the compromises involved in having separate orgasms. A man in this category may have a grudging attitude as he gives his partner her orgasm. One angry
guy quoted in
Our Bodies,
The least-mentioned
Ourselves
exclaimed, “I do
approach to mutual orgasms
half the housework, half
is the man caressing his
the child care, and now
partner’s clitoris during
half of this. This is going
intercourse and holding off
too far!”
his own orgasm until she
The Hite Report
also
begins hers.
picked up on this under-
current of impatience and
resentment: it was clear
that some men felt it was a burden and a chore and wished the woman could have her orgasms vaginally without all the extra
work
. Sex researcher Alexander Lowen’s book
Love
and Orgasm
further documented this male grumbling:
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Most men feel that the need to bring a woman to climax through clitoral stimulation is a burden. If it is done before intercourse but after the man is excited and ready to penetrate, it imposes a restraint upon his natural desire for closeness and intimacy. Not only does he lose some of his excitation through this delay, but the subsequent act of coitus is deprived of its mutual quality…The need to bring a woman to climax through clitoral stimulation after the act of intercourse has been completed and the man has reached climax is burden-some since it prevents him from enjoying the relaxation and peace which are the rewards of sexuality. Most men to whom I have spoken who engaged in this process resented it.
And it’s not just men who are ambivalent about separate orgasms. Here is the way a young woman put it in
Our Bodies, Ourselves
:
I have trouble asking that Jonathan continue to stimulate me after he has had an orgasm. It’s hard for me to stay excited. I can’t explain why because I haven’t figured it out yet. Maybe I’m too self-conscious and not able to lose myself in my feelings. Also, part of what I find exciting is Jonathan’s excitement and that is gone at that point…Sometimes we make love so that I have an orgasm before he enters my vagina. That’s not bad, 1 1 4
T h e G r e a t S e x S e c r e t
though I wish I could have one more with his penis inside me. The other way is a lot like masturbation and I feel I can do it better myself.
Not all couples have these misgivings; many are perfectly content with the compromises needed to make separate orgasms work. A strong love relationship, maturity, patience, and good communication are key requirements. If lovers really care about mutual pleasure, if they can talk about what they like and don’t like, and if the other alternatives don’t satisfy their needs, they can find a way to make first you, then me work well.
2. The Woman Touches Herself during Intercourse
In
The Hite Report,
Shere Hite proposed a different approach—one that makes it possible for a couple to have simultaneous orgasms during intercourse. Based on the responses of almost two thousand women to her in-depth sex questionnaire, Hite concluded that the only reliable way for a woman to have an orgasm during penis-in-vagina intercourse is to take care of it herself. The most direct version of the Hite approach is for the woman to reach down during intercourse and stimulate her clitoris with her own fingers (or with a vibrator).
This approach made an appearance in a memorable lovemaking scene in John Updike’s 1968 novel,
Couples
:
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He lost himself to the hilt unresisted. The keenness of her chemistry made him whimper. Always the problem with their sex had been that he found her too rich to manipulate. She touched his matted chest,
wait
, and touched her own self, and mixed with her fluttering fingers, coming like a comet’s dribble, he waited until her hand flew to his buttocks and, urging him to kill her, she gasped and absolved herself from tension. He said, “My dear wife. What a nice surprise.” She shrugged, flat on her back on the sweated sheet, her bare shoulders pol-ished by starlight. “I get hot too.”
And from
The Hite Report
itself, here is a woman’s account of how she discovered this approach: I was not
ever
having any orgasms all through four years of college and was
mortified
and thought something was terribly wrong with me. I could masturbate to orgasm
very
easily but couldn’t feel a damned thing during intercourse. Well, I was with my long-standing boyfriend one day and we were making love and I got really pissed at my not having orgasms so, with him in me and moving, I just reached down, rubbed around my clitoris and decided that, by God, I was going to get off, and one to two minutes later, I sure did—I had a fantas-tic orgasm, and have been successful ever since,
every
time, by using this method!
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T h e G r e a t S e x S e c r e t
This approach seems to have been discovered independently by some couples over time, and some lovers (we don’t know how many) find it a wonderful way to make love. It puts the woman in the driver’s seat on the road to sexual satisfaction and deals successfully with the challenges of body geography and timing. A variation is for the woman to stimulate her clitoris while her partner’s penis is in her vagina, bring herself to the brink of orgasm, and then use the indirect stimulation of the man’s final thrusting, or bumping the clitoris against the man’s pubic bone, to put herself over the top. Hite endorses any approach in which women are the agents of their own orgasms—
although she is skeptical about how well some of these techniques work (recall her characterization of clitoral-hood tugging
as a “Rube Goldberg”
Any approach that brings
method).
both partners to orgasm has
Natalie Angier was
a huge payoff in the quality
thinking along the
of lovemaking, how lovers
same lines as Hite when
feel immediately afterward,
she tried to make sense
and the long-term viability of
of the design and place-
their sexual relationship.
ment of the clitoris:
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In my view, all the intricacies we’ve been mulling—the apparent fickleness and mulishness of the clitoris, its asynchronicity with male responsiveness, and the variety of its performance from one woman to the next—
can be explained by making a simple assumption: that the clitoris is designed to encourage its bearer to take control of her own sexuality.
Angier goes on to cite anthropologist Helen Fisher, who has found that women who have orgasms during intercourse “have one trait in common: they take responsibility for their pleasure. They don’t depend on the skillfulness or mind-reading abilities of their lovers to get what they want. They know which positions and angles work best for them, and they negotiate said positions verbally and kinesthetically.”
The Hite approach has real advantages for both partners. Because a woman’s orgasm is powerfully arousing to a man when his penis is in his partner’s vagina, his orgasm is likely to explode at the same time or shortly after his partner’s. This means that couples who use the female-self-stimulation approach get all the benefits of simultaneous orgasms that have been written about (but seldom consummated) over the years. Some couples find that mutual orgasms are synergistic—the peak of pleasure and togetherness is equal to more than the sum of two separate orgasms.
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T h e G r e a t S e x S e c r e t
The biggest advantages are for the woman. The vagina is not without sensation, and combining clitoral and vaginal stimulation—and at the same time feeling and hearing her partner’s enjoyment and excitement so closely linked to her own—can accelerate a woman’s arousal and heighten the intensity of her orgasm. Having an orgasm together, her vagina hugging her lover’s penis, can make the climax more centered and more intense, literally giving her something to grab hold of. Since a woman’s orgasm is partly expressed in vaginal contractions, having the penis thrusting inside her during her orgasm can produce an added dimension of pleasure, setting off an empathetic ricocheting of feelings back and forth between the lovers. Deep penetration during intercourse can also stimulate other erogenous areas and make for a more intense climax.
And there is a payoff for the man, too. He hears his partner’s genuine enjoyment and may feel the strong vaginal contractions that accompany her orgasm. All this enhances the intensity of his own orgasm and can give him profound sexual and emotional gratification. If the man is having an off day and is having difficulty reaching orgasm, his partner’s climax can mentally and physically put him over the top.
These are significant advantages, and there are clearly couples who are enjoying them on a regular basis. But despite the fact that
The Hite Report
has sold millions of
T h r e e A p p r o a c h e s t o M u t u a l S a t i s f a c t i o n
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copies and is still available today, and despite Natalie Angier’s erudite support of Hite’s basic conclusion, the woman-stimulates-clitoris-during-intercourse approach is almost never mentioned in current sex-advice material or popular culture. There are a number of possible reasons:
• Some people continue to have hang-ups about masturbation, and the Hite approach may turn off one or both partners.
• Even among lovers who are comfortable with masturbation, there may be a feeling that intercourse is not the time or place for it (the penetration-produces-female-orgasm myth strikes again).
• Some men (perhaps chauvinistically, perhaps generously) want to be the one who makes the woman’s orgasm happen and think that if she is taking care of her own pleasure, he is not doing his job.
• Other men may believe that if the woman is doing her own clitoral stimulation, she is implicitly criti-cizing his efforts (which, if he is bumbling and inept, may in fact be true).
• There’s also the feeling among some men that if the woman is stimulating her clitoris, he’s no longer in touch with his partner’s orgasm, which deprives him of what can be a wonderful part of making love—
the pleasure of giving pleasure. When a man caresses his partner’s clitoris through to orgasm, it is a tangi-ble expression of love; it’s also powerfully arousing.
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T h e G r e a t S e x S e c r e t
• Finally, a couple using the Hite approach may feel that they are pleasuring themselves without
connecting
in a deeply mutual way. A
New Yorker
cartoon picked up on this feeling: a woman sits up in bed and says to her partner, “I feel we haven’t moved beyond parallel play.” (Of course this lonely feeling can occur with any approach where partners feel they are pursuing their own orgasms without a close emotional bond.)
For these reasons, the female self-stimulation approach seems to appeal to a fairly narrow demographic and has not made its way into the sexual mainstream. This is a shame, because it is one of the very few techniques that reliably gives a woman an orgasm during intercourse and can easily produce simultaneous orgasms.
3. The Man Stimulates the Clitoris during Intercourse
The Hite approach may lead some men to ask, “If she can do it, why can’t I?” This may be one way that a small number of couples have found their way to the third and least talked-about approach to mutual orgasms: the man stimulating the clitoris during actual intercourse.
Judith Silverstein mentioned this technique briefly in her 1978 book,
Sexual Enhancement for Women
, and several women who contributed to
The Hite
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