Table of Contents
I can lose myself completely in a powerful orgasm.
Its like being ripped out from inside.
Its like planets colliding.
Yes, the earth moves, but not before the Milky Way dissolves.
Acknowledgments
My heartfelt thanks to: Jesse Cougar, Caryn McClosky, Barbara Taylor, Joy Schulenburg, and Victoria Baker for their time, feedback, and support. Barbara, Bonnie, Bluejay, Catrayl, Carolyn, Chris, Cora, DArcy, Deborah, Devorah, Diane, Donna, Doris, Jacq, Jana, Judy, Kay, Laurie, Linci, Lisa Halse, Lisa Sacks, Maggie, Maluma, Maria, Marya, Molly, Nancy, Nora, Nyna, Pat, Robin, Sage, Sari, Tine, Tui, Vika, and all the other wonderful women who spent time talking with me or completed a questionnaire; also Bee, Dave, Rayner, and Wolfgang.
The following people had private conversations with me and are quoted in the text: Lonnie Barbach, PhD, is the author of For Yourself: The Fulfillment of Female Sexuality, among many other books. Author and sex educator Joani Blank founded Good Vibrations, the first womancentered sex toy store in the U.S. Jwala is a Tantra teacher and the author of Sacred Sex: Ecstatic Techniques for Empowering Relationships. Dorrie Lane is the creator of the Wondrous Vulva Puppet. Anna Marti is an intimacy coach and speaker on bridging esoteric tantric teaching and western psychotherapeutic and somatic practices. Some of her quotes appeared in an interview conducted by the Society for Human Sexuality. NightOwl is a pagan writer and sex activist. Some of her quotes appeared in an interview conducted by the Society for Human Sexuality. Dr. Annie Sprinkle is an artist, sexologist, ecosexual, author, lecturer, and educator. Some of her quotes are from her DVD Sluts and Goddesses. Dr. Joan Spiegel is a sex therapist, psychologist, and homeopath. David Steinberg is the author of Erotic by Nature: A Celebration of Life, of Love, and of Our Wonderful Bodies and Photo Sex: Fine Art Sexual Photography Comes of Age. Deborah Sundahl is the producer of many DVDs on female ejaculation. She is the author of Female Ejaculation and the G-Spot: Not Your Mothers Orgasm Book! Patricia Huntington Taylor is author of The Enchantment of Opposites: How to Create Great Relationships.
The following people are quoted in the text of the book: Carolyn Gage is a lesbian author and playwright. Janet W. Hardy is co-author of The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures. Alex Robboy, L.S.W., is a sex therapist and founder of the Center for Growth Inc. and How to Have Good Sex Inc. Beverly Whipple, PhD, co-author of The G Spot: And Other Discoveries About Human Sexuality, and Janet Lever, PhD, author of The Great Sex Weekend: A 48-Hour Guide to Rekindling Sparks for Bold, Busy, or Bored Lovers, were both very helpful.
FOREWORD
I really need help, the email read. I feel like a great big loser of a woman because I cant have an orgasm. Arriving in my inbox from a total stranger, the long email detailed a personal struggle with a very private issue, one she had not shared with anyone. But she shared it with me, and she was not the first, or the only one.
Not being able to have an orgasm, or what she thought was the right kind of orgasm, had pushed her to the point of desperation, made her feel frighteningly alone, like she was a loser, that she had somehow let down the sisterhood of all women, and that not only was she doing something wrong, but that she was also likely broken in some way that could never be fixed.
Like my email advice seeker, who signed off Frustrated in Seattle, many women have a lot riding on orgasm. It goes deeper than self-esteem. It gets to the very heart of what makes many of us feel like women. It validates our personhood in our gender and our bodies. Its something that represents our power, our true ownership of our bodies.
Take this away, or make it feel unattainable or wrong, and you take from a woman one of the things that is truly hers. Withhold it, and we somehow feel like were not complete.
I think you know what I mean. Growing up, I always had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that there was some orgasm ideal that I was not attaining, or should be very, very worried I would not be able to have.
While my experience was not as frustrating as Frustrated, I knew I was able to have themby myself. But for some weird reason, I believed that the only real way for me to have one was to have it with a partner, and from penis-vagina penetration.
Until I read the first edition of Mikaya Hearts book years ago, I had no idea how this notion had entered my brain. Nor especially how something so absolute and so negative and so personal had taken root so firmly. I dont remember anyone telling me as a young woman that any kind of orgasm was any more valid than another. Or that I would be incomplete if I did not come in a certain way, with a guy. Yet for some reason I really felt that way, and it wasnt until I started to ask myself where this idea came from that I realized that it was not a value of my own. It was someone elses.
Let me confess right now that I didnt know how, where, or when I had allowed my orgasms to be defined (or validated) by someone else. They just were.
This book changed everything for me: my orgasms, my relationship with sex, my relationship with my orgasms, and how I shared my orgasms (or not) with other people. Ive recommended this book to hundreds, thousands of women over the years. Like me, each woman has had her own ah ha! moment between these pages. You can probably guess that for me it began with learning that I had grown up with cultural values instilled in me that were actually over a hundred years old. Basically, Freud had said that women had immature orgasms with the clitoris, and only mature (read: real) orgasms from intercoursevaginalsex. And as a sex educator, I knew how many impossible standards this drivel, taken as gospel, had put into place.
It boggled my mind that my generation of women could be still living under social rules about womens orgasms from so long ago. But when I read about it, I realized I had found a definition for what my head had decided was a real orgasm or not. And the realization that it was not my definition at all, that it was from outside me, brought me a sense of relief. It also gave me the power to reject it.
Still. Its easy to read all of the popular sex-ed books and feel like youre somehow missing out. So-and-so porn star can have orgasms when she blinks. That trendy bestseller will tell you theres a magic button hidden somewhere inside of your ladyparts, and if you cant find it, well, were sorry. Good luck.
Theres always something lurking around the corner to bully your orgasm into not showing up, or when she does, to make her feel like shes wearing the same dress to the party as she did last year. And theres lipstick on her teeth. She felt great, but little did she realize there was something not-so-great about her the whole time.
You will always read these things and feel like you dont stack up. That youre missing out. That youll never reach the summit. So Id like to encourage you to think of these things like a glass door between you and your pleasure. And think of this book like a gentle brickor a key, if you prefer a more subtle metaphorto get you through to the other side.
