Stories#

Are there true stories?#

Throughout the book, you’ll follow the stories of four women—Olivia, Merritt, Camilla, and Laurie. These women don’t exist as individuals; they’re composites, integrating the real stories of the many women I’ve taught, talked with, emailed, and supported in my two decades as a sex educator. You can imagine each woman as a collage of snapshots—the face from one photograph, the arms from another, the feet from a third… each part represents someone real, and the collection hangs together meaningfully, but I’ve invented the relationships that the parts have to each other.

Reality check#

Is this the rigth goal for me?#

In chapter 5, when Laurie decided to stop trying to want sex with Johnny and just allowed herself not to, she closed the gap between where she was and where she wanted to be, which opened the door to affection without performance demand.

She allowed herself to be a woman who doesn’t want sex to release the pressure she was under. This way she was capable of enjoying sex without pressure.

Am Im putting in the right amount of the rigth kind of effort?#

In chapter 8, when Olivia meditated her way to an extended orgasm, she was practicing being present as she was, rather than pushing forward to some goal. She kept the same goal—ecstasy—but she changed the kind of effort she was investing.

From quick sex to reach orgasm to slow sex for enjoyment and ecstasy, achieving longer-lasting and better orgasms.

And in chapter 7, when Merritt, instead of trying on the aspirational identity of a woman who loves sex, embraced the identity of a woman who did not want sex, she was changing the kind of effort she invested, to attain her goal of trusting herself. The result was not sinking down forever into a state of not wanting sex—on the contrary! Allowing herself to be where she was opened the door to where she wanted to go.

From striving to want to be a woman who likes sex to striving to trust herself.

Are my expectations of how much effort this particular goal requires realistic?#

Since Ms. B. entered her mid-40s, she says, sex has been more about smoke and mirrors than thunder and lightning. She is rarely if ever interested enough to initiate it with her partner of 10 years, and she does not reach climax during the act. She wishes it were otherwise.

Having gotten this far in the book, you’ll recognize that Ms. B.’s desire style may be responsive rather than spontaneous, and it sounds like she’s not reliably orgasmic with intercourse. Both of these put her squarely in the majority.

The expectations she had about how much effort it takes to reach orgasm by intercourse without clitoral stimulation was unrealistic.

Chasing dynamic#

What says, “You are awesome in bed!” more clearly than your partner’s orgasm?
 Your partner not being able to stop themselves from having an orgasm—especially if that partner has a slightly stubborn accelerator.
 Camilla thought through the “If I make you a pizza and you only eat one slice, how does that make me feel?” problem logically and came to a smart conclusion:
 They made a rule against her having orgasm.
 They could do anything else they wanted, but Camilla wasn’t allowed to have any orgasms. It’s a reverse psychology trick that you’d never expect to work in real life—“You don’t want to have an orgasm? Fine. You’re not allowed to have an orgasm!”—but it actually does.
 | The rule did two things. First, it genuinely took away performance pressure from Camilla and frustrated expectations from Henry. They could both relax and forget about it, which made them both feel better.
 It had another impact, too. Henry had already shifted the way he thought about foreplay and was thinking of their entire relationship as an opportunity to tease Camilla’s ticking pilot light. The new rule took that to  another level.
 See, taking orgasm off the table put Camilla’s little monitor in a puzzling situation. If Henry was, say, going down on her, and she felt so aroused that she thought she might have an orgasm, she’d remember that she wasn’t supposed to have an orgasm, and then the little monitor would keep checking her arousal level and comparing it with her goal state of not having an orgasm, which means her monitor would keep thinking about orgasm and how close she was to it.
 Embedded in the thought “Don’t have an orgasm” is “… have an orgasm.”” And if I say to you, “Don’t think about a bear,” what’s the first thing that happens?
 Orgasms aren’t as automatic as thoughts, but in the right, sex-positive context, if you make orgasm against the rules and then give the person a lot of time to try not to have an orgasm… I’ll just say it’s a fun game and you might want to try it sometime.
 Which brings me to the orgasm your partner can’t stop themselves from having.
 Henry is just about as smart as Camilla. I know this because one day she called me and said that he had stuck to their agreement better than she had—he was using a vibrator on her and she had been close and actually wanted to have an orgasm, but he stopped before she got there.
 She was frustrated. And even a little pissed. But hey, the rule was her idea. He was being a gentleman.
 He did this two more times—got her close, then backed off.
 Because he is such a gentleman.
 And eventually he got her so close that she genuinely couldn’t stop herself from having an orgasm. Which is a neat trick—women don’t have a “point of no return” for orgasm the way men do for ejaculation. To get a woman to be unable to stop herself from coming takes a high level of persistent arousal.
 And yes, again, being a sex educator is the best job in the world when people tell you stories like this.

Pleasure#

Some one said:

“It doesn’t seem right to feel good when so much of the world is such a mess”.

Solution: Pleasure is not a sin.

Habits#

Laurie and Johnny lived happily ever after—or most of the time ever after. Life is complicated and Laurie still has times when she gets sucked into exhaustion and overwhelm, times when her body seems to shut out all potential sources of pleasure. But three things changed permanently.
 First, she practiced paying nonjudgmental attention to sensations, which taught her to be as kind and generous with herself as she was with everyone else she loved. She learned to notice and celebrate pleasure and joy, granting herself permission to feel good.
 Second, though there wasn’t much she could do to reduce the actualstressors in her life, she reduced her stress by taking more deliberate effort to decompress and complete the stress response cycles that life activated. She let herself cry. She slowed down her showers, paid attention to the sensation of the water on her skin, and instead of slapping on body lotion like she was greasing a loaf pan, she paid attention to how nice it felt and how healthy her skin was. As she exercised, she visualized her stress as that orange monster in the Bugs Bunny cartoon—the one Bugs gives a manicure—and imagines herself running away from the monster, through her front door, and into Johnny’s arms. She started experiencing the discharge of stress as pleasurable—or at least not a source of suffering.
 And finally, she became much gentler with herself when she noticed herself being self-critical about her body or feeling guilty about pleasure. She didn’t say to herself, “Stop it!” She just thought, “Yup. There are the self- critical thoughts again.” She practiced nonjudgment.

Habits: