How to Improve Your Orgasms

about orgasm. I get so many questions about orgasm, but these two are specifically about surrendering to sensation, letting go, and I mean that in two ways. I do mean it in terms of letting go of judgment, letting go of worrying about your body or worrying about your orgasm

while you're trying to have an orgasm. But I also mean it in terms of surrendering to sensation, turning toward the physiological process of orgasm in your body and just noticing it, allowing it to happen, paying attention with curiosity and patience. Here to bring me today's questions is my producer mo Hi mo Hi. Emily, how are you feeling. I'm still recovering from COVID. I'm so sorry. Do you have COVID? Yeah, we're cutting out all your COVID coughs

from this episode. Just yes. For the listeners at home, I'm doing great. I love answering these questions. You've gotten a lot of listener questions in the past few weeks, and one of the most common topics we get questions about is orgasm. And one thing I noticed is just like, there are a lot of misconceptions about it that I'm hearing in questions. Yes, this is something I encounter all the time as a sex educator, even when I'm training

medical professionals and therapists. Sometimes people approach orgasm like art. They know what it feels like, but there's no way to define it. There is a physiological process of orgasm that is helpful to know, and there is a brain function of orgasm that might even be more important. Oh my god, Yes, did you learn any of that in school ever? Like, are you kidding me? No, I went to public school in North Carolina that no one said the word orgasm. You'd be suspended for saying the word.

That makes my education from romance novels seem actually pretty good, which what I learned about was spiraling and a cloud enveloped in ecstasy. Okay, yeah, there's a really big mismatch and like fiction and descriptions of orgasm and how it actually feels before we get into the questions, there is just so much misinformation and bad media representation out there about orgasms, like what they look like, what they feel like, and how they work. So what science do we need

to know about orgasms before we get into these questions? Okay, first, let us begin with the mind blower. Orgasm happens in the brain. Orgasm is a brain process. It's really not about what's happening in the genitals. That means all the difficulties that people may have with orgasm, whether it's having orgasms faster than they want to or slower than they want to, or not having them, all of that is happening in the brain. And we can train our brains.

We can change our experience of orgasm through a process of practice and learning. Okay, first, fucking wow, And second, can you just tell me your definition of what an orgasm is from a physiological perspective? Yes, I sort of invented my own definition, going back to the classic American sex researchers Masters and Johnson and Kinsey. From their work, I developed the very simple basic definition that orgasm is the spontaneous, involuntary release of tension generated in response to

sex related stimuli. The spontaneous involuntary release of tension. That's physical tension in your muscles that was generated in response to sex related stimuli. Notice I don't say anything about what body parts are involved. I don't say anything about how it feels, whether it feels good or not, because the perception of any sensation is dependent on the context

in which we experience in it. And let's just make sure we say for the record that yes, this episode is about orgasm, but orgasm is not the most important thing about sex. Orgasm is only as important as you decide it is. The Only thing that matters about your orgasm is whether or not you wanted and liked it. And again, orcasm isn't actually the point of partner sex or masturbation. Pleasure is the point. Okay, Emily, are you ready to hear the first question? Yes, I can't wait.

This one's from el her pronouncers she her, and she accidentally gave us her real name in the question, So I cut it out, and we're just going to refer to her as l I. Emily. I have been struggling with an inability to orgasm with anyone else around. Is always I'm by myself. I always need porn to get turned on. Mentally, I can do it with a vibrator or with my fingers, but it's like the presence of

another person. It takes me right out of the game mentally, even though I'm enjoying myself and I'm very much in love and secure with my partner. It's something that's been stumping me for a very long time. I've never been able to come with another person in the room, just mentally completely like not there any in sight. It would be great, very strange problem, Thank you bye. This is one of the most common orgasm difficulties that people experience,

and it's highly treatable. Okay, so how do you do that? So to begin with, people love it when stuff has names and the diagnostic name for this. I'm not a clinician, but this does meet the diagnostic criteria for secondary an orgasmia. So an orgasmia just means lack of orgasm, and secondary means that it's a person who has orgasms under some circumstances but not under other circumstances, as opposed to primary in orgasmia, which is where a person has not yet

ever experienced an orgasm to their knowledge. So l is off to a great start. She can have orgasms in at least two different ways, both with a vibrator and with her fingers, which is spectacular. That means there's more than one context where her brain has access to the right stimulation in order to get to orgasm. Hooray. What that tells me also is that she knows how to search for and find more and more kinds of context

that grant her brain access to orgasm. So let's start with like the basics of how arousal and orgasm work. The mechanism in your brain. Many people are already reciting this with me. The mechanism in your brain that governs sexual response is called the dual control mechanism. If it's called the dual control mechanism, how many parts does it have? Two? And if I tell you the first part is the breaks, then the other part must be the accelerator gas pedal

the accelerator. I'm cheating because I've heard you say that's a few times. Yes, of course, because this is this is the thing I say so the accelerator or gas pedal, it's technically called the sexual excitation system. It notices all

the sex related information in the environment. Right that's everything that you can see, everything you hear, everything you smell, touch or taste, and everything that you think, believe or imagine that your brain interprets as sex related and it sends the turn on signal that many of us are familiar with. Right. That is the accelerator. That's the beginning of the arousal process, and it's functioning all the time subconsciously, including right now here we are talking about sex. That's

just a tiny little bit of sex related stimuli. And so you're experiencing just a tiny little bit of activation of your accelerator. So you're saying, it would make sense if listeners are feeling just a bit turned on just hearing about orchasms right now, I mean, you are receiving this tiny little bit of sex related stimuli. So yes, but fortunately, at the same time, in parallel, you have breaks that are noticing all the good reasons not to

be turned on. Right now, everything that you see here, smell, touch, or taste and everything that you think, believe or imagine that your brain codes as a potential threat when it notices any of that stuff, your breaks and to turn off signal. So the process of becoming aroused is a dual process of turning on those ons, receiving that sex related input, and also turning off the offs, getting rid of all those potential threat stimuli. Does that make sense

so far? Yes? Absolutely, So you had the accelerator in the breaks, and what's going on with l in this circumstance with her accelerator and braakes, do you think right? So, when she's by herself, either with her hand or with her vibrator, she can sufficiently activate the accelerator to get to really very high level of sexual arousal such that she crosses a threshold generating all this tension in her body or this physical tension in your body. Anyone who's

had an orgasm might recognize. And that happens because she's got plenty abundant stimulation to the accelerator and not too much stuff activating the brakes. Now we take this same brain, the same body, the same kind of stimulation even and we change the context. We put another person in the room. Her brain is interpreting that other person as something that

hits the brakes. And even though this is a person she loves and feels really confident with, still somewhere in her life her brain got trained to interpret the presence of another person as something that hits the brakes, even a person she loves and trusts. Right. So I reached out to l to hear more about her situation, and she is aware that it's the presence of another person that's the barrier for her, but she's just struggling to

figure out how to move past it. So let me tell you a few of the things she has tried so far. Oh. Sure, she has tried using vibrators during sex with her boyfriend. She has tried him giving her oral sex, him masturbating her like manually. Ye are there more? Yeah? So, she says that when she's by herself, she uses porn. She watches porn, and that always does the trick. So porn is a great example of a stimulation that activates the accelerator. Mmmmmmm. So she tried watching it with her boyfriend,

but she said that backfired. That really did not work, and she thinks the opposite. I'm helpful, totally, the opposite of helpful. All the shame and embarrassment from growing up in the Catholic church kicked in and she was like, that did not work. That was a solo that's a solo activity for me. And so those are the things that she has tried with her boyfriend, and none of those things have helped her that she even orgasm with

him present. So what could she tried next? Yeah, So the next step, from my point of view, is to focus not on activating the accelerator more, but on getting rid of the stuff that's hitting the brakes. And because her situation is so specific, I mean you looking at the question, you can tell what's hitting the brakes, right, Yeah, absolutely, and she knows too. It's her partner. The living, breathing

is the partner. Yeah, that's there with her. Yeah. So what a sex therapist would probably recommend is a process of graded exposure where she very gradually increases the presence of her partner in the room with her. So the therapist would probably have her maybe make index cards on a scale of zero to ten. So ten is definitely going to be living, breathing human in the room with me, for sure. Zero is going to be other human being, isn't even in my home, doors locked, no chance of

being interrupted. That's a zero, no chance of my breaks being hit by this particular stimulus. And then graded between zero and ten are going to be things like having a photograph of my partner visible while I'm masturbating in the way that I masturbate. It would probably make sense, given that she's not likely to be interested in masturbating with porn with her partner to practice these exercises without porn.

So step one, let's say it's a photograph of her partner, so that the eyeballs are there to be seen, but there's no physical human in the room. Okay, so we're going full nineteen forty five Sears catalog style masturbating to a picture I would never have boughtowed that, and then maybe they decide that around like a six. Once she's able to orgasm at level one, level two, level three, maybe somewhere in the middle is going to be masturbating with him on the other side of the door, knowing

that he's there and could potentially hear what's happening. Right, So that's definitely an increase in exposure. Right. Eventually, you get to a point where not only is the partner present, but they also could potentially be hearing what's going on. And then maybe you get to masturbating to orgasm without porn, with your partner in the room, but completely in the dark so you can't see the person. This is a very intense challenge, right because this means that the living,

breathing human is in the room. You can't see them, but you know for sure they're there. And what's happening is you're gradually building up your breaks comfort with the presence of another person. So you are training your breaks not to interpret the presence of your partner as something that it needs to respond to. Right now, ELL's breaks treat her partner as like slam on the breaks, emergency stop.

What will happen gradually is that it responds less and less to that stimulus, until eventually her partner can be present and her breaks don't even notice. Okay, so that's the science of what's happening. But like, why are those breaks even coming on at all culturally personally, especially with someone that you really love and trust. How did that happen?

The answer is the patriarchy. So many people, especially those of us who are raised as girls are taught to shift all of our attention to the other persons wants and needs when that other person is present. Even if you know how to orgasm independently, once that other person shows up, you just block off everything about your own pleasure because you're too busy worrying about their wants and needs, making sure their expectations are met. You're worrying that you're

taking too long. You're wondering if they're bored. You're wondering, you're feeling self critical, like you should have been able to come by now, and that self criticism is just more stuff hitting the break. So you're gradually training your brain not to activate all that ancient stuff that you absorbed about gender roles at some early part in your life. Does that make sense? That makes a lot of sense.

I'm telling you the patriarchy interferes with our orgasms. If we want to have great orgasms, if our partners want us to have great orgasms, we all got to collaborate to dismantle the patriarchy because it is super messing with our orgasms. We really need to get that written into the feminist agenda. Can you talk a little bit more about what else, like culturally, socially or culturally could be hitting the breaks. Is that even possible. I'm just gonna say,

body image, body image, mic drop. So there's a lot of cultural stuff that could be hitting anyone's breaks. Yeah, so many other kinds of things. She said she was raised Catholic, which I think a lot of people who are raised Catholic have told me that they were taught to feel ashamed even of the fact that they were experienced curiosity about sex, never mind sexual pleasure, arousal orgasm.

For someone to see you, it's like getting caught. Many people who are raised religious, especially in a religion like Catholicism, with this idea that God can see everything that you do. Actually, I don't know for sure if that is a Catholic thing. I would have to Catholic I was okay. Also, yeah,

many people with that background experience even masturbation. They're like, God can see me doing this, and that alone can make it complicated and difficult, and they've had to overcome that level of being observed while they're with their body, and they might even develop a slightly unhelpful masturbation patterns because they just want to do it fast. They want to get it over with so that they have as

little shame as possible. So for that last bit of advice for L, I would say, do that graded exposure activity. Even if you don't have access to a therapist, you can try it on your own. But also try masturbating without orgasm. Allow your body to experience sensation without any destination in mind, with no particular time limit. Just allow the pleasure to be what it is, let it grow as much as it wants to, and just notice what that feels like. No judgment. Ah, sounds like best Sunday

afternoon ever. Right. Oh, this is so fun. I can't believe this is my job. Okay, after the break, I'm going to bring you another question about orgasm, and this one is about that sensation of needing to pee, and I'm very curious what you have to say. We're back with our second question about orgasm. Emily, are you ready? I'm ready? Okay, Hi Emily, my name is Meg. I go about to pronounce to her. I have a question regarding orgasm and the sensation of feeling like needing tom pee.

I've heard a lot of different answers about this, and some people say to just if you feel like you need to pe, just like let the feeling go, or maybe it's not pa it's worked, And I'm getting very confused and I don't want it to be on my partner. So I'm just a little confused on that and what I maybe I should be doing in that case, if there is anything that someone should be doing, if that makes sense. So I would love your thoughts on that.

Thank you have a good day. You know. Now I want to make sure that my assumption is correct that we're talking about penis and vagina sex or manual X that involves vaginal penetration. Well, I also assumed we were talking about vaginal penetration because to be straight up, that is the time that I experienced that sensation of feeling like I need to pee. Yeah, that is that is the most typical time, and the mechanism is really clear.

But I followed up with Meg and she said she mostly experiences this sensation when she is masturbating with clatoral stimulation. And then she said, you know, thinking about this question a little bit more, I've only ever had one orgasm with partnered sex, and it's hard for me to know if that's a normal number for me, or if the sensation of needing to pee is part of the problem

of holding back, you know, having an orgasm with a partner. Sure, so this might be another example of funny and more difficult to have an orgasm when there's another person present. Might be having trouble having an orgasm during penis and vagina sex, which is one hundred percent normal. Probably only about a quarter of six gender women are reliably orgasmic from what the researchers call unassisted intercourse, and the rest

are sometimes rarely or never orgasmic that way. The simple explanation being that the vagina is very far away from the clitterests, and a lot of people if you've got a clitterist, that's really sort of the hokey pokey it's what it's all about, not for everybody. I have absolutely had people say to me like, my clitterest is not the thing for me, I really and the vaginant is not the thing for me. It's external anal stimulation that really gets me there. Am I normally yes, yes, absolutely.

People vary. So even though a lot of sex educators, including me, generalize to be like the clitterest, it's what it's all about suit turn tables and a microphone. That's not the case for everybody, but this is someone who's masturbating with stimulation of the clip. So that's the kind of stimulation that increases her arousal level to near organ So why would it ever feel like you have to pee?

The reason you and I kind of make that assumption that it's about vaginal stimulation is because there's an obvious mechanism for that. When there's something in your vagina, there's not necessarily anything particularly close to your clutteris, but there is something really close to your wrethra and your bladder and your yourreth real opening, or as I learned it when I was eighteen years old, your yourrethral meatis you remember, because you got a hole in your meat, your eth meatis.

Had to memorize. It was said to me one time, and all these years later, it's still the thing I am teaching how to remember what the urethral opening is called. Technically. Oh great, now I'm gonna remember that forever and everyone

else who hears this. You're a welcome world. So when there's something in your vagina, you have stimulation that is very close to your bladder, your wreath, and your urethromiatis, and back when you were a little baby and learning how to be potty trained, your brain gradually learned that particular sensations from particular parts of your body were predictive of certain needs. A certain pressure around your bladder or

around your urethra meant oh, you have to pee. So now you get to a time when you're on purpose having people put stuff in your vagina, your brain is like, oh, yeah, anything in that general area means need to pee, and it's just overinterpreting the sensations of your body is like, that's in the vicinity of the peace sensations, So I'm just going to decide that's peace sensation. Like you can pee and empty your bladder before you start having sex.

You know that your bladder is empty, and yet your brain is still going to receive that sensation and be like, as far where as I know, anything in that general area means pay. But you have to teach your brain there's the urge to p and then there's this other thing which is right next door kind of literally, but is actually a really different sensation. And over time, with practice, your brain will learn not to interpret that sensation as a need to p. Just allow yourself to relax into

that sensation. Don't worry about it, because we know that worrying about things just hits the breaks and makes it more difficult to experience pleasure and access orgasm. You know you're not going to pee because you know your bladder is empty, and you're gradually exposing your brain to this actually really specific sensation of having something in your vagina.

It's rarer to hear of a person whose brain interprets clitteral stimulation as a need to p, but it could easily be the same sort of phenomenon where anything down there is interpreted by the brain as a need to pee. Another thing that's happening is that the big internal structures of the clitteress are swelling with arousal. And everyone's body is laid out differently and uniquely, and it may be

that the big internal swollen parts of her clitterus. We know that they straddle the urethra and the urethra sponge and all of that tissue. So maybe the internal structures of the clitteress are actually creating sensations around the urethra and so same thing where through this internal stimulation. She's actually getting urethral signals. Does that make sense, Yeah, it

does make sense. I think though, that we're assuming that the sensation of meaning to pee, if she were to release it, would actually cause her to p And then that gets to the second part of her because if a person's bladder is empty before they start sex, the odds of them needing to pee again mere minutes later, even twenty minutes an hour later, you just don't need to pee that badly unless you've been like hyperhydrating or are in the middle of dehydrating from having been retaining fluids.

It's just not that likely. Okay, So if she empties her bladder before she starts either masturbation or sex, and is not drinking, not super hydrating in between, then anything that comes out is not going to be pee. Okay, let's talk about it. Then what would it be? Well, it could be well, oh man, now we have to get into scorting, which is like a whole thing in and of itself real quick. It could be that she's experiencing sensations around the glands at the mouth of the

urethral opening. These glands are the source of the comparatively small volume of external ejaculate that can sometimes beep squirting. It's what happens with intense pressure around the genitals, often accompanied by orgasm, though not always, but it could very well be that if something comes out, it's just this little bit of fluid tablespoon or so from the skens glands around the urethra. Can I just say that is the sensation of having your skens glands swallow up? Is

that similar to the sensation needing to pe? It can be again because your brain, because it's sort of new when you first begin having mashibatory or partnered stimulation of the genitals, it's this new kind of sensation. Your brain has to learn how to understand those sensations. So as your brain gets practice, it will differentiate that sensation from the general urge to p or pressure from the bladder specifically,

And what would practice look like. It sounds like she's not really interested in having this happen with a partner, So practice is definitely going to mean on your own experiencing that sensation of pressure of the bladder, the sensation that your brain is interpreting as urgency to pee, relaxing into it, allowing your arousal to increase, like softening your body into that sensation, not worrying about it. You allow the pressure to build. It will grow and grow, and

you allow it. You relax into that sensation. We're not even going to call it pleasure because right now it's just a sensation. It's just a thing your body is doing, and it's you can be curious about it. Well, this is fascinating. I wonder what happens if I keep going. You're practicing having that do I have to pee kind of sensation without letting it hit the brakes. It's actually really similar to Elle's question, where you're doing this kind

of graded exposure. You're aware of it and you're still safe. So session after session, you move closer and closer to a higher intensity of stimulation and you allow it to grow. You notice that your brain is now fretting and worrying what if it's p and you just set that thought aside. You put it on the back burner, and you return your attention to the sensations that are happening in your body.

And then the worry comes along again and you're like, hello, worry, We're just going to set you over to the side, and I'm just going to pay attention to what the sensation is. It is, in fact a mindfulness practice of being able to experience something without being worried about it, like noting, yes, I don't have an opinion about it. I just that's a thing that's happening and that's not

what I'm paying attention to right now. And if it helps to have a waterproof blanket on your bed, have a waterproof We have a lot in my house because we have dogs, and aging dogs have a lot of incontinences, so we have a lot of waterfrool. Like it's a very normal, ordinary thing to go buy is a waterproof sheet and put it under you and if anything comes out, that's fascinating, I wonder what that could be, because it's

definitely not p because I emptied my bladder. And it's important for me to say that if you're squirting, even if it is urine, the only measure of whether it's right or wrong is whether or not you like it. And if you don't like it, then okay, don't do that. And if you do like it, who cares if it's p. Literally we're trained to control our bladders very early in our lives and often a lot of us are trained to associate a feeling of shame and failure when we

don't control our bladders. And that's all just learned. Like p is not dangerous, it is sterile, it's okay, sort of. The radical way to approach us is to say, I am not ashamed of my bodily functions, and my body can do what it wants to do. It can release fluids, it can make them mess especially for women, were taught not to be messy and not to take up space. So nothing to be ashamed of happening here. It's difficult. I'm not saying that's easy. So hard, but it can be.

It can be powerful and rewarding to recognize that everything that you're experiencing is completely normal, and there is no sensation that your body can produce that is in and of itself dangerous. No genital sensation that isn't pain is indicative of the medical problem. You can allow it to be what it is and be safe. All right, Let's take a quick break, and when we get back, I want you to tie up this episode and everything we've learned about orgasms. All right, we're back. Let's wrap this

puppy up. We have learned so much about orgasm as a brain process, and I've learned for the first time that anyone can learn to have orgasm, or change their orgasms, or improve their orgasms by basically turning off the office, turning on the ons, and relaxing into sensation. Yeah, great questions.

Orgasm questions tend to be great. And going back to what I was saying at the beginning of this episode about like letting go and surrendering to pleasure, that's the first step kind of no matter what struggle you're having with orgasm, because again, orgasm is a brain process, and

so interventions are brain interventions. So whether you're trying to really enjoy the orgasms you already have, or you would like your orgasms to last longer, you'd like to have orgasms more easily, or you want to have your first orgasm, wherever you're at, Step one is allowing your body to surrender to the sensations, whatever is happening in this moment, and while you're doing that, let go of all the stress and worry and fear or shame about whether or

not you're doing it right, or whether or not it's supposed to be functioning. Differently, or are you even having orgasms? Is this an orgasm right now? When you can allow your body to surrender to the sensation and to let go of the fear. When you do that pretty difficult mental work, that's how you get to kind of orgasms you don't even know exist until you have them. Your whole body is like a bell that's ringing. Commas You Are is a production of Pushkin Industries and Madison Wells.

It's hosted by Emily Nagosky. You can find Emily on Instagram at e Nagowsky and on Twitter at Emily Nagosky. You can also sign up for her newsletter at Emily Nagosky dot com, where she writes about everything from the clitterest in your mind to orgasm after having hysterectom. It's an incredible newsletter. Highly recommended. This show is co hosted and lead produced by me Mola Board. You can find me online at Molaboard and on TikTok at podcast dot slut Sorry mom. My co producer on this show is

the fabulous Brittany Brown. Our editor is Kate Parkinson Morgan. Sound design and mix by Anne Pope. Executive producers are Mia LaBelle and leetal Malade at Pushkin thanks to Heather Fane, Carly Migliori, Sophie Crane, Courtney Guarino, Jason Gambrel, Julia Barton, John Schnars, and Jacob Weisberg. At Madison Wells thanks to Kylie Williams, Elizabeth Goodstein and Gg Pritzker. Additional thanks to Rich Stevens, Lindsay Edgecombe Frolic Media, and Peter Acker at

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page in Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. If there's just a small volume, the most likely story is that it was increased pressure in your skins glands and they just squirted out fluid. I don't know why I made that sound. That is not the sound makes That doesn't make a sound.