SexyPrime, a blog by Susan Crain Bakos

THE ORGASM MANIFESTO: Learn The Orgasm Loop--and Claim Your Pleasure

 
Photo Credit:  "Orchid" on Photobucket

 

“When a woman sees a strong sexual image, her body is primed for sex before the mind has a chance to talk her out of arousal.  If she loses the image before she feels aroused, the sex-negative mind has won," Dr. Ellen Laan, University of Amsterdam sex researcher as quoted in The Orgasm Loop.

 

Men know when they are aroused; women, often not—and our arousal is more easily short-circuited, our minds more likely to be governed by “thou shalt nots” and “what will they thinks” turning us off anywhere along the way.  The arousal differential explains in part why sex “takes longer” for women than it does for men. 

The other part:  Men move on a fairly predictable response cycle path to high excitation and ejaculation/orgasm.  A woman’s path may vary considerably from one lovemaking incident to another.

The Orgasm Loop—a revolutionary sex technique that I created—addresses these issues and brings her response cycle in line with his so that she can reach orgasm any time, every time, including in quickies.

 

Why does this matter?

Women and men want it.

• For 25 years, the readers of Cosmopolitan magazine have asked the same #1 question:

How can I cum during intercourse alone?

• Women have told survey takers and sex journalists and sex therapists and coaches that they want to reach orgasm faster, more easily, and reliably so.
• Overworked, over-scheduled, time-challenged men, women, men and couples ask sex advice columnists for intercourse quickie positions and advice on how to make them work for women too.

Yet sex gurus, authors and other “experts” frequently champion “new” sexual theories that downplay the importance of quickies.  Slow Sex is the latest one.  The leading proponent is Nicole Dardone, founder of One Taste, a cult-like organization devoted to female orgasm.  Her message:  Sex must be long and slow for women to reach orgasm.

Long, luxurious lovemaking is delicious.  But women will enjoy it more when they have time if they have been orgasmic in their quickie encounters.  Slow Sex should not be their One Path to pleasure. 

 

THE ORGASM LOOP

Created over a four year period and tested on five hundred women, The Orgasm Loop helped 95% of women reach orgasm.  Like riding a bike, it takes a bit of practice to master—but then you have it for life, an orgasm whenever you want one or more.  Why shouldn’t it be as easy for a woman to have an orgasm as it is for a man?

The Components  of The Orgasm Loop

• Mental arousal (based on cognitive loop) 

She chooses a mental arousal image and focuses on it to create and sustain arousal.  When her arousal flags, she re-focuses on the image.

• Tantric Fire-breathing

She imagines a fiery ring of air pulled in through her nose and pushed out through her vagina.  The fire increases and sustains her sexual excitement.

• PC Muscle Flexing

The PC muscle, well-toned from regular Kegels, can sustain arousal and escalate excitement.  To take it even higher, she flexes her PC in time with the fire breathing.

• Energy Focus

Using martial arts techniques, she moves all the energy in her body into her genitals.  You’ve seen a martial artist break boards and bricks with the flat of the hand?  S/he does that through energy focus.  It’s real.

You can learn all about the Orgasm Loop in these books:  The Sex Bible, The Orgasm Bible, The Sex Bible for Women, The Little Book of Big Orgasm—and The Orgasm Loop, a small book devoted entirely to this subject. You can find them all at Quiver books.

The Science Behind The Orgasm Loop

Female science of orgasm differs from male—in that his is almost inevitable (unless he trains himself not to come very time) while hers is problematic.  But she has greater potential for prolonged orgasm, multiple orgasm, whole body orgasm and more.  The short explanation:

• The clitoris is the only organ on either gender entirely devoted to pleasure; and it is far more extensive than the visible little pink shaft and crown.  An extensive network of nerve endings can reach far into the vagina and also create a gaggle behind the G spot.
• The vagus nerve runs through the body, including genitals, and goes directly into the brain—explaining why some women with spinal cord injuries still experience orgasm in the brain.  (Proven in fMRI machines in The Orgasm Lab at Rutgers.)
• There is virtually no refractory period for women—and the potential for multiples is tremendous.

What gets in her way?  Sex negative attitudes including shame and the repressive influence of judgmental prudish women, be they therapists or religious zealots; lack of good sex education; poor technique, his and hers; embarrassment about touching herself or using a vibe.

How to tap into all that potential?

THE ORGASM LOOP!

One of my favorite reviews of O Loop (because the writer began as a skeptic):

http://www.lemondrop.com/2008/09/24/the-orgasm-loop-self-help-that-really-helps/2

 

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

WILL AMERICAN WOMEN PAY FOR SEX--THE WAY FRENCH WOMEN DO?

Photo Credit:  "Red Heel" by katiepants on Photobucket 

 

Would you pay for sex? 

I asked that question in the Taboo Sex Survey—and very few women said that they would.  (Men would, will, and have.)

Several recent studies have reported the not surprising news that French women over forty have more sex than their British or American counterparts.  For example, a survey by France's Regional Health Observatory found that just 15 per cent of French women in their fifties and 27 per cent in their sixties said they hadn't had sex in the past year.  By contrast, a British survey showed 34 per cent of Britons in their fifties and 54 per cent in their sixties hadn't had sex in the past year. (The figures are similar in American studies.)

Partly, that can be explained by cultural attitudes.  French women are still considered desirable into older age (just as American men are.)  The French don’t see love and sex in such limited all-or-nothing—monogamy/celibacy—terms.   They don’t seem to fall prey to the Prude ‘Tude, the anti-sexual  and judgmental attitude adopted by so many aging American and British women once they have all but given up on sex.

But there is another factor boosting the older Frenchwoman’s sexual frequency statistics:  She will pay for sex.

Reflecting on cultural value variations, Pamela Druckerman, author of one of my favorite books, Lust In Translation:  The Rules of Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee, (Penguin Group) concludes:  People everywhere lie about sex, buying sex doesn’t constitute as cheating in many countries—and no Western society takes adultery more seriously than Americans.

 

She believes that Anglo women voluntarily quit sex; French women don’t.  “They are willing to embrace experiences that will not lead to marriage and are not even long-lasting.”

Another interesting book on French women:  What French Women Know: About Love, Sex and Other Matters of the Heart and Mind (Putnam, USA) by Debra Olliver.

 

And two French films that will give you some insight into the gigolo experience:  “Heading South” featuring the incomparable Charlotte Rampling and “Cliente” in which the heroine buys nights with boys off the internet.

 

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

WHY BAD SEX IS A BAD THING FOR YOUR VULVA

Photo Credit:  "Linda's Sexy Red Heels on Top" on Photobucket

 

“I am not the first woman under the impression that her magical vagina will inspire a man to change,” Julie Klausner, I Don’t Care About Your Band:  Lessons Learned From Romantic Disappointments (Gotham Books, on sale January 2010).

 

This is one of many great lines from a book that is both hilariously funny and shockingly true.  (I will write more about it in the weeks ahead and hope to get a 7 Questions interview with the author.)  Ever wasted your pussy power on an unworthy and inept lover?  Had cringe-inducing sexual experiences?  Woke up surprised to discover that sex hasn’t changed/improved the guy but has given you a cold sore or bed bug bites?  Julie has stories—

Bad sex, crazy sex, mediocre sex, desperate sex and sex with unattractive men in filthy apartments that leave you asking, “Why?”

Be single long enough and you will have one of those experiences.  But many attractive, successful and amazing alpha women have TOO MANY of them.   Are women subverting their pussy power?  And why?

I’ve had conversations (live and online) lately with close to fifty young women, under 35.  Over half of them say they don’t have orgasms or have them occasionally, they don’t masturbate or do so rarely—and more than half are dating, sleeping or living with men they describe as “passive” or “passive/aggressive”—the new beta males.

I explored the alpha women/beta men territory with Zola before his banishment to Arizona.  He briefly attempted to style himself as The Spanking Man and “the kink provider” to women—and saw himself as a beta with sexual prowess.  As our conversations wore on, I realized that many men--Zola or no?--are misogynists with a mean streak which makes it not likely rhey are skilled tops.  The shameless disparaging of their sex partners is troublesome.  

I was struck by the similarity to some of my women interviewees' comments and a passage from Julie’s book:

“…what was, at the time, I thought, a rough, kinky, exciting crazy SM relationship with a masterful pervert, was, in fact, just bad sex with a misogynist who had no idea what he was doing.”

Read “A fine line between lust and hate.”  Do you need this in your bed—even in near proximity to your power pussy? 

Babes, claim your power and your pleasure.   Tell me your stories.  What can you say to the women who aren’t having orgasms and are having bad sex to help them turn that around? 

Let's put on those sexy red heels and get on top. 

 

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

 

CLAIMING PLEASURE: Saved By The Vibe

I wrote about women claiming pleasure six months ago--and said I would report more stories.  As so often happens in developing a blog, I let that slide as I created new segments, like "Ask Auntie Sue", my Monday advice column wherein I reprise the role i once played as "Dear Superlady of Sex" for the Penthouse magazines.  I folded the stories that women sent into the column and other posts.  This morning my pal Steve Otero at  Sexy Spirits said, "I just discovered this post on women claiming pleasure and it's great!  It would make a good topic for my show."

"Claiming Pleasure" grew out of the stories women tell me on how finding their sexual pleasure changed their lives in other ways.  In discovering orgasm, for example, they found their self-confidence and became more effective at work and in all their relationships.  After finally asserting their needs and desires to longtime partners, they knocked down the barricades standing between themselves and their partners--and found the intimacy they craved.  Or, they realized they would never find it there but they did have the courage to move on.  No woman is truly empowered unless she is sexually empowered.

Steven, thank you for reminding me of that story file and why sharing it matters.

You can listen to his Mondo Eros show every Thursday night and also, of course, access the archives online. Steve has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things sexual.  He can recall what guests said on Bob Berkowitz's shows "Real Personal" and "Naked New York", knows all the players in sex world, past and present, and keeps up with the latest sex research.  Nearly everyone writing books and blogging about sex today has turned to Steve for research help.  Many of the posts you read here and on other blogs (where, sadly, he is rarely credited) are inspired by something he e-mailed.  Steve is the unsung hero of our sex information industry.

Steve, once again you have inspired me.  Here is another reader story on Claiming Pleasure:

"I had my first orgasm--and it not only rocked my body, it changed my world," Caitlin, 28.

"I lost my virginity and faked my first orgasm when I was 15.  I knew how to fake an orgasm from watching movies, not even porn.  It didn't occur to me that the women probably had to fake because they weren't getting clitoral stimulation.  I thought she was supposed to come from what her lover did to her, especially intercourse.  I didn't have skilled lovers; I was playing with boys and whatever they did to me, oral or manual, wasn't enough.  

"I thought the problem was me and I kept it to myself.  You may find this hard to believe, but I didn't really masturbate!  I stroked myself a little bit, sometimes in the shower or alone in bed.  But I never carried the stimulation on long enough to come.  I could get excited squeezing my breasts and pinching my nipples and rubbing my labia lips--but I didn't focus on the clitoris, which was an anatomically descriptive word to me, like pancreas, not a real place I could see and touch and manipulate to pleasure.

"In college, I had one boyfriend for two years, then another for two years.  It was just like high school except I learned how to give a better blow job--or at least I think I did.  After graduation, I moved to New York City, shared a tiny apartment with two other girls, spent all my money on shoes and clothes.  My sexlife was what you call 'drunken hook-ups.'  I went out with the girls, got drunk, met a boy and gave him a blow job at the club or his place or ours.  Sometimes there was intercourse.  Occasionally I had dates with guys that didn't lead to sex or other dates.  It sounds crazy, but I thought I was wild and free because I was on my knees blowing strangers in rest room stalls.  I read the sex tips in Glamour and Cosmopolitan, but I didn't really get the underlying message:  Girls are supposed to come too.

"Honestly, I think I would have experimented with masturbation at that point if I'd lived alone.  Three girls in two little rooms?  No privacy.  

"My roommates bought me a copy of your book The Sex Bible for Women on my 27th birthday.  It was an impulse buy, something naughty to have on our coffee table when we had a party.  One Friday night, they went out and I stayed home.  I started reading the book.  I was mesmerized.  Nobody ever talked to me like this about sex.  I went online and ordered a vibrator from Babeland.   When the package came, I said it was a gag gift for my best high school girlfriend's wedding shower.

"Two weeks later, I had the opportunity to use it.  Omigod, I came and I came and I came.  Multiple orgasms the first time out, at the flip of a switch.  My whole body felt changed.  Everything shifted inside me.  I haven't had drunken hook-up sex since then because I know what I have inside me, what is possible with this body.  I've dated a few guys, had sex with orgasms.  I'm not worried about finding Mr. Right.  He will find me.  I have that inner glow."

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

CLAIMING PLEASURE: How Women Are Re-Inventing Themselves Through Sex

 

In the past months, I have heard from women who experienced first orgasms at 35, 40, 50 and beyond--women who discovered their inner doms or subs after years, sometimes decades, of vanilla sex--women having affairs or leaving their husbands for younger men or other women--women taking off in any number of new sexual directions, including masturbating with vibes.

As young as 25, as old as 65, they are re-inventing themselves through sex.

Traditionally, women have explored self re-invention through cosmetic surgery, exercise, a new career path, adult education, spirituality/religiosity, the pursuit of travel or immersion in the arts--while men got a new car and a hot new, younger babe to put in it.  (Or, begged their wives to go to swing parties.)  The male path to self re-invention:  Recapture youth.

Sexuality has long been a somewhat acceptable vehicle for self re-invention—as long as the "self" was a man.  Now the midlife man leaving his wife for a much younger woman, for example, is a cultural cliché.  The big story is women leaving men for other women.  (I wrote about O magazine in "So....That Bi-Girl Things Is More Than A Phase".)  Women are, in fact, pushing the relationship envelope in many ways.

 

Swingers, the polyamorous, adulterous lovers, BDSM players, men and women who leave their long-term marriages—they are all in search of a more intensely realized self through sexuality.  Increasingly, women are the catalysts of this change in long-term monogamous relationships. She's the one with nipple clamps in hand saying, "Hey, let's try something new."

Why search for the sexual "new?"

 

Sex is that important.  Many people don't acknowledge that it is in this sex-negative culture where the quest for "hot monogamy"inevitably leads to disappointment--and too often eventually to the Prude Attitude.  (You know that attitude:  "I'm not enjoying sex so I don't see why anyone should.")  

 

The hardest task is re-inventing yourself in a long-term monogamous marriage.  That dynamic has been our paradigm, the ideal of Western and Eastern societies, hyped to the extreme in books like Hot Monogamy.  (Lifetime hot monogamy is a lie.  If you can't accept that lust will wax and wane, you're doomed to unhappiness.)  Therapist/authors deal with reality in an unreal way by exhorting us to “get emotionally naked” in our "intimacy."  Oh, yeah, yammer on endlessly about your feelings.  Strip away every vestige of mystery.  That will turn up the heat in the bedroom.

Our sexuality is intrinsic to our identity and not just a youthful pleasure.  Sexual adventurers know that.  They push the envelope, one way or another.

They claim pleasure as if their lives depended on it--because, really, they do.

Tell me your stories about claiming pleasure.  I know that your sharing them will inspire and encourage other women.

Here's a story to start:

Married at 21, a mother at 23, Patti, now 30, has been thinking about divorce since she brought her baby home from the hospital.

"The marriage was a mistake, not one of those big, awful 'He beats me' mistakes, but a small, quiet one.  Once the lust subsided, we were strangers ill-suited to one another, about to become parents together.  I looked at my parents and his parents and realized they must have started out like we did and that's how they ended up being such sexless, boring people old before their time."

Patti went back to school last year to finish her bachelors degree in psychology--and ended up in bed with one of her professors, twenty years her senior and long married.

"Omigiod, the sex was transformational!"  she says.  "Nobody had ever gone down on me like that.  His mouth and tongue did things I didn't know could be done.  I had my first oral orgasm lying on my back in a cheap hotel in Philly.  A thousand butterflies swarmed my clit and I came and came and came."

Briefly, she thought she was in love with him, he thought he was in love with her, they talked about leaving their spouses for one another.

"That didn't happen, of course.  He came to his senses first; and I cried for a few days.  My best friend talked me back to reality.  But the sex changed my life.  I bought vibes; I masturbate.  Sex with my husband is better because I keep pushing for more.

"I don't know what will happen to us but I have found my orgasm power."

A little note on Patti's story:

While I have no intention of offering "advice" at the end of these stories, I do want to point out that the lack of desire she experienced a few years into the relationship with her husband happens to all of us.  Read about The Desire Curve in The Sex Bible for Women:  Desire spikes in new relationships, remains high for 18 months to three years, then goes back down.

Babes, that is life.  You can learn how to manipulate The Desire Curve (read the book and the posts under "Sexual Desire")--but you can't live on a permanent life-time high.

 [Note:  i have not followed the plan to do more of these stories.  They seem to fold into the other blog segments.]

 

 

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime 

Why Are Sex Advisors So Often Older White Women?

Dr. Barbara Keesling is a smart and beautiful babe, a sex advisor who's been on the scene for twenty years.  She and I often have sex books out at the same time, but I don't really feel competitive with other sexperts.  I know she doesn't either.  She is unfailingly generous with quotes for magazine articles and puts real thought into her answers (vs. using every opportunity to say, 'As I said in my latest book....')  There's room for many of us in the bookstores and online.  Each brings her own kind of expertise (and opinions) to the learning space.

Here is my Q and A with Barbara:

SCB: You and I have been writing about sex for the same period of time (too long!)  Where do you see your niche in the larger group of female sexperts?  (And aren't sexperts mostly women?)

BARBARA:
One of my students said to me, (African American guy), "My girlfriend was watching a sex show and this women was talking about the G spot."  And I said, "Who was the host?"  And he said, "I don't know-some old white lady.  How come all of the sex experts on TV are old white ladies?"  And I said, "I guess because we're the only people who have time to think about sex, talk about sex, and write about sex, because we're the people who aren't getting any!" 

My niche is (as Betty Dodson once said to me) -"You're the only sex expert who ever admits she has sex!"  You know, I wouldn't take sex advice from a 25-year-old and I wouldn't take it from an 80-year-old.  I'm the perfect age to be dishing it out.

SCB: Well, I beg to differ with Betty.  I too have admitted to having sex.  But I don't think I was taken seriously by the sex advice establishment for years because I wrote for Penthouse Forum.  Among other things, I had a column chronicling my orgasms.  I took a lot of heat about that-especially from other women sex advisors.
You were a sex surrogate while working on your PhD.  Did you get grief over that?

BARBARA:
Yeah, I once didn't get a job at the Claremont colleges because of that.  (And they found out because I told them).  They didn't even give me a rejection letter.  How tacky is that?  When I applied at Cal State Fullerton in 1995, the department chair knew I was in Playboy, and asked, "How come you didn't mention that you went here in the magazine?"  The surrogate thing has not gone against me.  My Ph.D. advisor back from the 80's is still taking credit for my academic work.

SCB: My pet peeve with therapist/authors is the overuse of the word "intimacy."  It's that catch-all term signifying almost nothing in my mind.  For example, having sex with someone isn't even "intimate" if you aren't locked in a "soul mate" embrace.  Bleah.  To me, this is Puritanism in modern guise.  We always find a way in this society to pass judgment on sexuality.  I suspect a lot of people agree with me, because "intimacy" books aren't selling very well these days in the bookstores.

BARBARA:
Why do you not like the concept or word intimacy?  I just wish I could find it, but I am not hopeful that this will happen.  I think people need to be more careful about how they define it-it's not liking the same movies or something.  It's when the other person accepts everything about you unconditionally-good luck!  That takes years, in my experience.

SCB: What changes in sexual behavior have you seen in the two decades you've been researching and writing about sex?

BARBARA:
I feel so bad for my students, because they don't know what it's like to have sex without the specter of death (AIDS) over their heads.  Really, when you think about it, we grew up in such an innocent era, able to have sex with whoever we wanted, with no lasting consequences.  I wish it was like that again.  I have had my students write anonymous things about their sex lives and they sound clueless-they don't sound like they're having any fun.  When I was their age, my sex life was GREAT.

SCB: What is the best sex advice you ever got?  Ever gave?

BARBARA:
The best sex advice I ever got-from The Sensuous Woman-run hot water on your clit, I'm serious.

What's the best sex advice I've ever given-To women-embrace the inner slut, don't be afraid to seem like a slut, if you're horny, go for it.  To men, if you talk to a woman and are genuinely interested in what she says, you will have no problem getting laid.

SCB: What is your favorite (or favorites) of the books you've written?

BARBARA:
I really think my most recent book, Men in Bed, is the culmination of a lot of experience.  I also like Sexual Healing for that reason.  But How to Make Love All Night has been my biggest seller and probably will continue to be.

SCB: Can you recommend an erotic literary novel to my readers?  Several have e-mailed me asking for an erotica reading list.

BARBARA:
Literary erotic novel-whoa!  You never know what's going to hit you that way.  I read a lot, and I haven't really read a novel with a good sex scene in years.!  Very sad!  I'll tell you, I liked a book called Three Rivers by Roberta Latow (probably a fake name, maybe you wrote it!)  But this was back from the 70's.  You tell me, where can I get a good sexy book with a plot that isn't total trash?  I guess everybody's so into porn that nobody is writing sexy books.  I don't like what is generally billed as your standard erotica.  Take me back to D.H. Lawrence.  Now that you mention it, this is what has been missing from my life-I can't find anything sexy to read that is not totally moronic!  It seemed much easier to find 30 years ago, or did my tastes change?  I remember when The Thornbirds did it for me!

 

copyright 2008-2011, www.sexyprime.typepad.com; PARTIAL reposts only permitted with link back to original article on SexyPrime