Dr. Natasha Janina Valdez - Vitamin O: why orgasms are vital to your health and happiness and how to have them every time!

So what exactly is an orgasm? In the most basic terms, its a release of sexual tension. Orgasm in men is marked by the release of semennot exactly something easy to fake. For women, orgasm is a mostly internal process of pleasant muscle contractions that take place in rapid succession, some less than a second apart, in the pelvic region. (By the way, ladies: The female orgasm is also not exactly something thats as easy to fake as you think it might bebut well get into why people do fake orgasms, why you really actually cant, and in fact never should a bit later.)

Now theres been some debate on whether or not orgasms are felt the same way in both women and men, and the short answer is that they are indeed similarthough not the same. In each, an orgasm is a quick series of pelvic contractions, in the genital and anal regions, about an eighth of a second apart. The good news for women is that ours can be much more intense as our uteruses may also contract (and in a pleasant way), which means more areas affected and deeper within us. Of course, for both sexes, orgasms are pretty much triggered the same way: through stimulation, sometimes physical, sometimes not.

In her book, The Case of the Female Orgasm , Dr. Elizabeth Lloyd says women are less likely than men to be tired after orgasm. Which explains why your partner pretty much passes out afterward, and you feel ready to pop out of bed and paint the bedroom!

So orgasms are never exactly the same. They can be felt differently, by both women and men, in terms of how powerful they are, how long they last, and how intense they are. This all has to do with a number of factors, including excitement level, how much time has passed between orgasms, how much energy the one being pleasured has at the time of stimulationand how little energy. So theres a lot past the mood that goes into having orgasmsand having good orgasms.

Of course, the orgasm is just the grand finale. To take full advantage of Vitamin O, we also have to look at how to get to that final destination. The parts of the equation are as important as the sum because if the parts dont add up correctly, the equation just wont work.

Okay, so what are the parts? For the purposes of this chapter, were just going to talk about parts of your body that are important to orgasm and how it all comes togetherin other words, the physiology of the orgasm. Well get into the emotional componentand the actual doing it as we move through the book.