Hi hello and welcome back to part two of this orgasm bonanza!! In the last two weeks it has been so incredibly affirming to read all the kindness and love that came from part one. I've felt gooey, so held as I have been by the community that reads my words. My orgasm feels genuinely celebratory. I can't really express how extraordinary this fact alone is. When I wrote post nine back in 2021 and first shared about my anorgasmia, I was petrified that nobody would ever read my words again. How on earth could I speak so constantly and passionately about sex if I hadn't orgasmed? My fear of being perceived as fraudulent was consuming, terrifying. And yet, at all points of this journey towards pleasure I have been held without judgement and with great curiosity. The very things that I hoped to achieve by writing this blog, were offered back to me. How magic. Overly sentimental reflections aside, part two remains as decidedly joyful as part one, but touches on the filtering in of some slight complications and a brain that over analyses as constantly as I breathe.
With the discovery of my orgasm, in line with the exuberant dedication to never quite being content I seem to possess, I instantly wanted to learn every possible way to do it. I first attempted to transition from the internal/external womanizer to the external only womanizer and found some major success here. Tick. Next, I tried using the external womanizer in combination with the most divine pink glass wand my darling friend had bought for me. It is shaped like a tongue, with ribbed bumps dotted along the surface (will link below) and is so directly g spot targeted that it nearly instantly felt amazing when I tried it. Huge success!! Diversifying my orgasm feels incredibly important, so loud is the discourse around different ways to orgasm. Have you seen any movies recently where the female character uses a toy to orgasm during sex? Even though I know the orgasm hierarchy serves only one thing (ahem patriarchy), of course part of me does still want the convenience and shared experience of orgasming with someone, and without using a toy. I would ADORE to be able to orgasm with just hands/mouth. The people around me with vulvas who can do this blow my mind. What queens. If my body has shown me anything in this last year, It's that it is truly a home of love, pleasure and possibility. Far more than I could have imagined. I'm so hopeful that I could orgasm without a toy, but also trying to remind myself to just celebrate the massive achievement that orgasming at all has been. I don't need to immediately tear it down. If I orgasm using a toy alone for the rest of my life, that will still be extraordinary.
Next in my series of orgasm experiments, was the one I felt most unprepared and apprehensive for: with another person present. My whole adult life I've envisioned what it must be like to orgasm with a partner. I have watched so many people orgasm with me and always tried to extrapolate the edges of their feelings so I could get a trace of what it might be like. I have always been so turned on by someone else's orgasm, and riddled with feelings of inadequacy that I could not offer that in return. Whilst all of me knows that the point of sex is pleasure not orgasming, my lack of orgasm had clouded every sexual space I've been in. But when I masturbate, I feel flooded with power and sensuality in a way that feels reserved for me. So I was thoroughly uncertain if I'd be able to soften myself into the level of relaxation and connectedness needed to orgasm with another person present.
When I announced my newly found orgasm to a beautiful person I've been seeing, he both completely championed me, and couldn't have been more eager to try it out. Even though I knew he would be incredibly supportive, I have always struggled to ask to use sex toys during partnered sex (see resolutions post!!). My fear of receiving a negative or even just nonchalant response has always overshadowed asking for what I want. So when he was the one to initiate using the womanzier, it put me completely at ease to ask myself and was truly representative of the vulnerability characteristic of our sex. The first time we used it I asked him just to kiss me. By immersing himself in my body in a way that meant I could still have my eyes shut and escape into my safe world, orgasm happened shockingly easily. As it built and cascaded, I curled myself around his body and dug my fingers into his back, another person's body an outlet for the consuming contractions. As with realising I had orgasmed alone, realising I had orgasmed with someone else present, was nearly unfathomable. I fell into complete silence, his body holding mine. How could it have been that easy when it has always been impossible? I wonder how much of an impact it had combining my own sexual learnings with how turned on my body is during our sex? Or in the curated safety we have? How can something untouchable for all these years suddenly have become attainable? In part, I had never really allowed myself enough space in a sexual situation to use a toy without feeling gluttonous and boringly selfish. It had always felt like there was no point in even trying, because it wouldn't happen. Now, knowing there is a chance it might happen, I desperately wanted to ask for the space to try.
The next time we tried, me desperate to continue this orgasming streak, it took considerably longer. I wanted more involvement from him this time, for him to touch me. I could sense my own frustration building when it wasn't happening, my concern that I was taking too long to be enjoyable for him. I was running out of generosity tokens. While half of my brain said honestly fuck that, he's wonderful and actively telling me he is happy doing only this; the other half was growing impatient of my own body. What an awful place to come from, searching for an orgasm in the midst of berating your body. There is no way that was going to work. I paused, inhaling completely, and let the words drop into my body that I am overflowing with pleasure and orgasming is not a challenge for me anymore (affirmations, affirmations, affirmations). And you best believe it happened! Yay! Since then, I've also been able to orgasm while his fingers were inside me (plus womanizer), catharsis soaking my skin.
The ability to orgasm with this person touching me and present is blowing my mind. And so is the blissful return of squirting. Where this was happening a few years ago, it randomly vanished one day and hadn't returned until recently. Now, I'm a waterfall. I can't stop. It's chaotic and means my bed sheets have to be washed a frustrating amount but feels symbolic of the literal pleasure gushing from me at the moment. Can we take a moment to take that in! There's no space for nonchalance in this extended celebration post!! I am squirting again!! I haven't masturbated without orgasming since it began happening!! How on earth is that possible?! Where has this container of pleasure been for the last ten years?! What a whirlwind I am living in at the moment. Is this how it will always feel to be orgasmic? I have never felt more in my feminine power.
Of course, the ease at which I orgasmed with this person the first couple of times, didn't quite last. As I learn about the way orgasming sits in my body, I have been realising that what is going on inside my brain will be highly influential. A few weeks ago I had a particularly hard mental health period hit me suddenly. I was floored with sadness. All the ease of existing in my brain was temporarily rotated out and in its place came panic, anguish, melancholy. A couple of days into this heaviness, I tried to orgasm with this person present again. While in that precise moment, I didn't feel inundated with anxiety, the disillusionment with my body that had developed in the days prior had seemingly dislodged my receptivity to pleasure. We tried for such a long time, but feeling and sensitivity had seemingly vanished. Of course this only compounded my sadness and tainted my orgasm with complexity and fear that it would never really be easy because my body is not cooperative or accessible. I was riddled with panic that once again, I could not orgasm.
But it came back. Despite my negative self-talk and disempowerment, it came back. I didn't try to masturbate at all in this time when I felt the lowest. I didn't want any potential linking of my orgasm with sadness. I considered the possibility that masturbating could improve my disconnect, but it somehow felt like a betrayal to try to overshadow my sadness with pleasure that I want to remain pure. The liminal space between pleasure and pain was one I did not want to occupy any more than I already have. And so the relief I felt at the return of orgasming after the worst of the sadness had passed, has been interesting to observe. Perhaps the only fear I had greater than never orgasming, was experiencing it and promptly having it vanish from my body's vocabulary. It still feels fragile. Like I can't announce it for fear of it withering into immediate nothingness. I don't feel in control of it, but that my hope for it controls me. It feels like someone or something controls my brain and will only randomly and without explanation, allow me to orgasm at chaotic intervals. And yet it has happened alone every single time I've tried. And so perhaps, the safety I curated with myself, needs to expand and travel to my partners. What I would like to move towards though, is a truthful peace with my pleasure. Orgasm, or no orgasm. I would like to be curious and exploratory, without the pressure or need to orgasm to feel that my pleasure was objectively enough. What is your relationship like with your orgasm?
If my years of sex therapy with Clarke has taught me anything, it's that pleasure is so wondrously expansive. Pleasure melts into all avenues of your life if you let it. Pleasure can be the tiny greeting with the barista who makes your coffee every day, or the first moment your hot body slides into a pool on a 30 degree day. Pleasure can be the sensation of soap running down your legs in the shower, or of arriving home to the washing done. Pleasure can be orgasming, or listening to your friend's voice message and hearing their joy radiate through their tone. My fear that I won't orgasm again, or will only have a limited experience of orgasm, relies on me failing to remember that I have always lived a pleasurable life even when it didn't include orgasming. It will evolve, because I will not stay the same. My body will change, my relationships will change, my sense of self will change. I have to catch my fear in its tracks and remind myself that I am both more than my orgasm, and entirely able to experience that.
Orgasming is somehow both entirely as transcendental and nowhere near as extraordinary as I imagined it would be. It is as good as I hoped and not at all. It is a bizarre notion holding an experience hostage in your brain for more than ten years and finally being able to feel it run through your nerves. I suppose my point in expressing this is that orgasming has changed my life, but it's something I feel in my body for a second or two at a time compared to experiences of pleasure that expands across hours, days. The acute intensity of that second or two, is a feeling I know I'll keep chasing for the rest of my life, but it will never be the most pleasurable thing I will know in my body. The feeling of knowing you are truly loved, far outweighs the moment of orgasm in my mind. Orgasming doesn't look at all like I thought it would for me, either. I enter an absolute zone of silence, barely breathing, all body functions focused entirely on catching the moment that becomes an orgasm. In movies, women orgasm loudly and in communication. I don't know if this is something that will change for me as I feel more confident and easeful, but for now, I can't even open my eyes without feeling the sensation escaping as if out the cracks of an open window. In a way, I adore the safe haven I have created for my orgasm. The brain that has previously banished and gate kept pleasure within an intellectual space, is now the space in which pleasure brews and is shared with my body. Opening space for another person in that space is tricky but happening, by treading carefully and with great tenderness.
Perhaps one of the most special parts of this last month, was sharing with my sexologist that I had orgasmed. I've rarely had such a clear therapeutic goal achieved. I wanted to orgasm, I have orgasmed. The last couple of years of working with Clarke have completely opened me up to an expansive notion of pleasure, and revitalised my attitude to masturbation generally. She (and my other incredible therapist) has supported me endlessly through the pain of last year, helped me find the bursting joy that feels reminiscent of me, connected me with the versions of Sarah still embodying trauma and shame, and supported me to both find my worth and celebrate my wholeness outside of sex and relationships. Working with Clarke has completely enforced my already established knowledge that therapy is necessary, life changing, and transformative. Some things we cannot manage on our own. The accessibility of therapy is an issue I feel frustratingly impassioned about, and I know it is simply not an option for every person who would benefit from it. I was incredibly fortunate to have intensive eating disorder therapy for years when that was necessary, and as an adult to have sex therapy. Clarke told me very early on that the way we have sex is intrinsically linked to the way we live our lives, and I couldn't agree more.
The last thing I want to say on this mammoth two part orgasm bonanza (although I know I'll be writing about orgasms for years to come), is that I hold both truths in my heart that I could have been fulfilled, powerful, connected, and sexy without ever orgasming, and that it is also one of greatest things I have ever been able to achieve for myself. There is enough pressure on women to orgasm from the media we consume (ahem thank you mainstream porn) without women speaking to each other and ourselves with the same pressure. The real victory of my orgasm, is in the embodiment and shedding of shame it represents. But I could also have had those things without ever orgasming. Anorgasmia is complex, and is both an individual and collective experience. There has been endless mind blowing content written about the orgasm gap, and the impact of trauma, body image, stress, health, shame etc. Orgasms are effortless for some, and a feat for others. Women sleeping with men disproportionately don't experience orgasming, and I'll die on the well-trodden hill that this has got to change. The answers are shrouded in generations of sexual and epistemological patterns. The education and knowledge basis about sexuality we were provided as young people was deeply gendered, lacking intersectionality and demoralising. But I do truly believe that is changing. My Instagram is full of awe inspiring sex educators. I am incredibly hopeful that teenagers now are being surrounded by feminist and pleasure centric narratives of sex. I will talk about sex until the day I die. The way we have sex is the way we live our lives.
Lastly, thank you for being on this orgasm journey with me for the last three years. This blog was formed in part to navigate my paradoxical experience of being obsessed with everything about sex and yet feeling entirely disconnected from the act. In these 29 posts (so far!), you have witnessed me ever so slowly moving towards a new understanding of both. I am so deeply grateful to be able to bring you all the corners of my heart: my anguish, my love, my sex, and my growth. Thank you for witnessing all of me with such tenderness and pervasive care. What a gift it has been to share this path with you.
All the images above are from Pinterest. The only one with a listed artist is the last one, photographed by Mikael Aldo <3
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