The quest for the elusive! collective! extraordinary! continuous! orgasm is a hot button topic that triggers so many curiosities, not least of which is “Why can’t I….?”, “How do I….?” “Wait, did I…?”
While I often encourage the pursuit of pleasure for the purpose of well… pleasure, it’s not unreasonable to also want to experience orgasm.
Of course, there are reasons to set our sights on the big O. Besides being part of the “in” club, the obvious number one reason to orgasm is that orgasms are orgasmic. Yes, I too learned that you never describe a word with that word, but if you describe something as “orgasmic” you know exactly how good it can be.
In addition to that delightful feeling (and if your orgasms aren’t delightful, and might even be described as painful, please get yourself to a medical professional, including a pelvic pain therapist), orgasms also release oxytocin and prolactin, two hormones that help promote pair bonding, which can lead to higher relationship quality.
And orgasms are often interpreted as a sign of sexual satisfaction (except when they are not, i.e. nonconsensual sexual relations) and can send a message that our bodies feel good to the touch. And that message gets transmitted to our partners, telling them that they know how to make our bodies feel good too. Orgasms can also be the harbinger of all things sleep, which, when the desired goal, is another understandable reason to seek them out. And yes, they are a good stress reliever.
All these benefits are, for many of us, worth making it happen, but this brings me to my other point, a far less popular one, when it comes to orgasms. What if we could do better at focusing less on them?
If we didn’t care as much if we had them, and instead focused more on investing in our pleasure –in both the giving and receiving sort of ways– we could have a sex life that keeps going and going. We would be able to focus more on the sensations in our bodies. This would help eliminate aspects of spectatoring, which is what happens when we start focusing on the thinking (and get in our heads) instead of the feeling (in our bodies). We could spend more time edging and building up tension and touch. We could get into a flow state where we would hold on to experiencing longer, and possibly more intense, periods of pleasure without it having to end so abruptly.
I’m not saying don’t have orgasms. I’m just saying that maybe if we thought less about having them, we could have more fun and more sexual satisfaction. We could find reasons to love sex and not to get it over with. We might even eliminate this idea that having them makes us more sexually evolved, and instead focus on the importance of connection. We could enjoy them when they happen and still enjoy sex when they don’t. I know that changing our attitude could help reduce anxiety and create more quality sexual experiences. Are you willing to let go?
