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I'm going to take some time here to discuss some very personal details about my sex life. I'm going to do this for 3 reasons:
1) I am apparently paradoxical about some things so I want to clarify them. I've had many conversations over the years that have, apparently, confused lots of guys, regarding whether or not I like sex. So I'm taking this opportunity to try and explain some seemingly-paradoxical claims I make, and possibly refer to this in the future.
2) My personal tastes and preferences are not like other women's. We are all very individual people, and I'm royally sick of books and movies like "What Women Want" and stupid OKC forum users making broad generalizations about "all women are [fill in the blank]". Men and women are individuals. We have individual wants, needs, desires, dislikes, preferences, tastes, goals, and lifestyles and the sooner we, as a society, understand that, the easier it will be for us to find, keep, and appreciate partners.
3) At the same time, we all have *some things* in common with other people. I have spent an enormous amount of my life being embarrassed about certain aspects of my personality or my likes, because I felt (or was told) that I was "weird" or "different". So I think it would be helpful for me to spotlight some of those parts of myself so that other women who share them can know that they're not alone, whether they speak up here or not. Knowing that one is not alone is a very powerful tool for building one's self-esteem and self-confidence. And being confident in oneself leads to a much more fulfilling and satisfactory sex life.
So today, I want to talk about why I love sex and why I make statements that indicate that I do not like sex.
I have said before that I don't put sex as a high priority in my relationships. I have said that I don't particularly enjoy receiving oral sex and that I don't get off on penetration. I have said that my nipples are extremely sensitive and can bring me to the brink of orgasm alone but I often dodge or knock hands away when people go to touch them. I have said that I would rather give up sex for the rest of my life than give up dancing.
Yet, I have![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tacit's banner on the sidebar that says "I love sex and I vote", I've had more than 30 partners that include intercourse (and that's not counting all the guys I've just messed around with or aggressively flirted with, or just kissed), I'm polyamorous and currently have multiple sexual partners, I'm a huge flirt, and I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about sex.
So that's a little contradictory. Let me take these one at a time.
I don't put sex as a high priority.
What this means is that I believe my relationships are, or should be, multi-dimensional. I'm not horribly unattractive and I'm female, so if I want just-sex, I can pretty much walk out my front door and get it. This has absolutely nothing to do with *me* or *who I am*, it has to do with the fact that I was born with a certain set of organs and our society is set up (possibly due to biological pressures, but that's another debate) for people with my set of organs to be highly prized and sought after by people with the other set of organs. And, if nothing else, sex is a commodity that I can pay for if I really wanted to.
So, when it comes to sexual activity, yes, I enjoy it very much, but it is not why my relationships are important because, in my experiences with this society, sexual partners can be more or less interchangable and I do not like that. I like my partners to be irreplaceable, and I like the idea that I am irreplaceable. But in order for that to be true, I have to have multi-dimensional interactions with someone as a whole person. All of my relating to another person is valuable, and is what makes that relationship unique and special, not just whether or not we are having sex. If I lose any aspect of that relationship, I feel it as a loss no less than losing the sexuality (and in some cases, more).
Although it is true that part of who a person is can come through their sexual activity, the participants have to be open to being in an intimate setting, as opposed to just a sexual one. I definitely agree that sexual activity can be a vehicle for intimacy, but it has been my personal experience that many people do not use it as such, so I have learned not to use it as such very often. I find there are many different ways to develop an intimate connection with a person and sexual activity is merely one of them, and a neglected one at that.
I also have a fluctuating sex drive, and so oftentimes I can go for periods of disinterest in sex, and I really need for my relationships to be able to withstand those periods, otherwise, I can conclude that my partner values sex higher than I do, and possibly values our relationship for the sexual content to the point that all the other aspects of it that are so important to me are not actually important to my partner. The disinterested periods of sex have always gone away, so I believe it is reasonable to claim that any future period of disinterest will also go away. Any partner who is not willing to relate to me during one of these periods of disinterest indicates to me that he values the sexual activity over all other aspects of the relationship, and that I am not worth hanging around if I'm not also putting out; he is not committed to a relationship with me as a person, he's here because he's getting laid; he is not interested in simply being with *me* as a person, because I am made up of so much more than a body who has sex.
I'm not saying that losing the sexual aspect of a relationship, even temporarily, isn't painful, hurtful, or a real loss. But I am saying that I believe sexuality to be not the most important part of a relationship with another human being. So when I say that I do not put a high priority on sex in a romantic relationship, this does NOT mean that I do not place any priority on sex at all, it means that there are MANY elements in a relationship that are valuable to me, including sex, and, if I am forced to make choices due to circumstances, some of them are more valuable than others. If I lose the element of sex in a relationship, is that more or less important than losing the element of conversation? If someone has an injury and can't have sex, does that inherently destroy the fabric of my relationship or can it exist in a fulfilling manner without it? If my partners have sex with someone else, is my relationship weakened or hurt for the sharing of that activity with someone other than me or is our relationship built on more than saving a single act to represent the specialness of our entire relationship?
My preference in relationships is for the answer to those types of questions to always be in favor of the non-sexual answer . If the answer is ever postive for the sexual aspect being a priority, then I feel that my relationship with that person is not strong, is not multi-dimensional, is not a complex connection with a whole person. I feel as though my relationship is defined by and dependent on a single aspect ... one that many view as easily replaceable with another partner.
Personally, I view my sexual interactions with my partners as unique and individual too, just like all the other aspects of who they are. I can tell my partners apart in bed, for example, and my memories of all my past partners are specific to that individual. Everyone has qualities and traits that made a sexual encounter with them identifiably unique to other people. But that's not how many people I know view sex, and getting another sex partner is much easier for me than getting another dancing partner, or getting another partner who enjoys my sarcasm and cynicsm, or getting another partner who shares my views on personhood and gender issues.
So when it comes time for me to identify my relationships, the elements of that relationship that I use to do so is not whether we are having sex or not. It's whether he's a "buddy" that I'm not that emotionally close to, or a life-partner with whom I share my most intimate secrets, or someone I can count on to lighten my mood, or someone I can enjoy Ethiopian food with, or someone who really understands who I am at work and how important my work is to me, or someone who views me as his mentor of sorts and comes to me for help and discussion to understand who *he* is. I may or may not want or have a sexual relationship with any number of these kinds of people, but that's not how I define the relationship. It's an *important* aspect of the relationship (both the presence and absence of a sexual element), but it's not the *defining* aspect of the relationship, and there are some aspects that would hurt me more to lose than the sex. But that doesn't mean that the sex isn't *also* important.
I don't enjoy receiving oral sex.
Just like when I say "sex isn't a priority", this statement is not intended to be stand-alone. It's meant to be relative to other statements. See, it's not that I *don't* like oral sex, it's that it feels good similarly to the way a backrub feels good to me - pleasurable, but not usually orgasmic and sometimes not even sexually pleasurable (for the record, a backrub is *never* sexual for me, and trying to turn it sexual or erotic is highly irritating). I *do* like oral sex, but when one of the goals of the activity is to have an orgasm, oral sex won't get me there, just as I really, REALLY enjoy backrubs, but producing an orgasm it does not.
I have had 1 partner, ever, who consistently brought me to orgasm through oral sex (too bad we had nothing else going for our relationship). One, uno, a single partner, out of my several dozens of partners who have tried it. I've had maybe 2 or 3 others who have brought me to orgasm a handful of times, but not for a majority of the encounters with that person. Mostly, oral sex is kind of a warm up. It helps me to relax a little, and provides some lubrication when I'm not naturally producing much (usually because I'm not quite turned on yet). It's nice. It's just not generally orgasmic, nor does it get me close to orgasm. But it's still nice. And if you combine it with one of my other fetishes (such as having sex in public places), it's *damn* nice.
I don't get off on penetration.
This is actually fairly common, from what I understand. Many women are far more sensitive in the clitoral region than in the vaginal canal, and not many men have sex in a manner that stimulates that region (I blame porn for this). I know where the G-spot is on me, I've found it years ago. But it is not an orgasmic center for me. It is usually an uncomfortable pressure on my bladder. I've been told that, if a woman can ride through that pressure, instead of stopping it, the orgasm is on the other side, but usually not for me. The feeling that I have to go to the bathroom doesn't abate, and the orgasm doesn't follow (of course, I have health issues with my excretory system, so that may contribute). And that's just the way it is for me and I'm fine with that.
But my clit is extremely sensitive. As I've written before, it's so sensitive that direct stimulation is usually uncomfortable. A much more satisfying strategy is to cup the entire mons area with the full hand and use a wide band of pressure outside clothing or to press on the vaginal lips to rub the clit. Only after I've produced enough lubrication to reduce the friction between the roughness of the fingers and the sensitivity of the clit, can direct contact be pleasurable, but even then, most of the time I prefer indirect contact or general pressure to direct finger-to-clit contact. A penis rubbing the clit, however, that almost *always* feels good and is much more likely to bring me to orgasm than a penis in my vagina because it's much less rough than hands.
I am much more likely to orgasm by grinding against someone while we're both fully clothed, than I am during penetration, especially if I can get a full-body contact during the rubbing. If I can find the right angle during penetration to get this rubbing, that's when I orgasm during sex. The easiest way for me to find that angle is to be on top, so I'd say about 99% of the time that I orgasm during sex, it's becuse I'm on top. Which is a shame, because it's not my favorite position. In fact, if it weren't for the orgasm, I wouldn't like that position at all (although it wouldn't be my *least* favorite either). My two favorite positions, the ones that make me feel the most fulfilled and emotionally connected, are incredibly difficult for me to acheive that proper angle.
I have had 2 partners ever who brought me to orgasm while I was on bottom, one of whom was a pre-arranged-one-time deal (the one-time encounter was pre-arranged, not the orgasm in missionary), so I consider it mostly a fluke. The other partner just somehow found the right angle for proper clit stimulation, and he usually did it after his own orgasm, which resulted in at least half of my orgasms happening when he was soft and/or already slipping out of me which eliminated the occasional discomfort that comes with penetration.
My other favorite position resembles the position I masturbate in, so that can often bring me close to orgasm simply by associative memory, but my hips are tilted the wrong way during PIV sex in that position and I can't quite get the right angle for stimulation of the clit that way. I have yet to try using a vibrator in this position, although I've indicated to pretty much every partner I've ever had that I'd like to try. I'm still hesitant to insist on things during sex, or to ask, specifically "this time, I'd like to do X", and that's something I really need to get over. It's much easier for me to write these things in a public livejournal than to say "honey, can we have sex while you use a vibrator on me tonight?".
But, for me, orgasm is almost never the goal to sexual activity. I think a lot of women have been put in the position of having uncomfortable or painful first-times and/or providing sex to their partners for reasons other than orgasm. I know that I, at least, am in that situation. My early experiences with sex have set the way I view sex in general. Some of those constructs I have managed to deconstruct, but not all. One of them is that sex does not equal orgasm and I'm not seeing any benefit to deconstructing that, although I *have* learned the benefit of deconstructing the idea that sex is something I "provide" to my partners as part of my role as his girlfriend.
In spite of the fact that I do not easily orgasm through PIV sex, I am still biologically driven to want to have sex. I like sex because I'm designed to like sex. I continue to seek sexual partners because I'm programmed to do so. But, because PIV sex does not bring me to orgasm, I have the freedom to learn a variety of pleasures associated with a variety of activities. And I view it as a freedom and a luxury that I can enjoy so much more about sex, rather than a limitation of how much pleasure PIV sex can bring. I think sex would be much more pleasurable for everyone if they didn't view it as a race to the Orgasm Finish Line and everything leading up to it as merely preliminary to the goal.
PIV sex doesn't usually equal orgasm for me, but the feeling of being filled is pleasurable in its own right. Bringing pleasure to my partner is a pleasure in its own right. Foreplay and afterplay are pleasures in their own right. Flirtation, kissing, making out, BDSM, these are all activities that are pleasurable all on their own and worth experiencing all by themselves. They do not have to lead up to The Big Finish (meaning PIV sex and/or orgasm) because they are not preludes for me. They are pleasurable ALL ON THEIR OWN.
So even when I say that penetration and oral sex don't give me orgasms, that does not negate all the good things they *do* provide, nor does it negate all the pleasure I get from other activities, some of which are orgasmic and some are just physically pleasurable without the orgasm, and some of which are emotionally pleasurable even if they contain some element of discomfort (and, hell, sometimes the discomfort *is* its own form of pleasure).
So, it's true that penetration and receiving oral sex do not generally provide me with orgasms. But orgasms, while extremely enjoyable, are not the main reason I have sex, and sex is enjoyable on so many different levels that, even with this particular qualification, I still like sex very much.
Don't touch my nipples.
My nipples are extremely sensitive. Sometimes that's a good thing, but most of the time, it's not. The good part is that I can be brought right to the edge of orgasm by nipple stimulation alone. Another good part is that, when I'm trying to orgasm but not quite reaching it, nipple stimulation can take me over the edge to orgasm.
But the bad part is that when I'm not turned on, aroused, sexually receptive, horny, whatever, that sensitivity is downright painful. I have to wear padded or lined bras just to keep the movement of my shirts from distracting me and causing pain throughout the day. When I'm not physically or mentally ready for sexual activity, touching or tweaking my nipples just fucking hurts.
So, when someone reaches out, sort of randomly, to touch my breasts, if I haven't had some amount of foreplay involved, it's kind of like ramming in a penis before I've had time to get wet. Even when I've been flirtatious, or if I'm in a good mood, touching the nipples should not be the first step, because I just need that extra bit of activity to switch over from painfully-stimulating to pleasurably-stimulating.
My nipples can be treated a lot like my clit - they certainly seem to be linked, at any rate. I need to get warmed up first before someone can go for the direct contact. Cupping my breasts can be a good way to start, just like cupping the entire mons area - it puts sort of a general pressure on the surrounding area that can increase my arousal. But kissing, full-body contact and pressure, teasing by touching nearby yet not directly, those activities need to be done first, to change the sensitivity from painful to arousal.
In fact, I often find it an incredibly secure and fulfilling way to sleep with someone's hand cupping my breast and/or my pubic region. But it seems to be almost universally impossible for a man to resist the urge to tweak the absolute most sensitive areas on my body while I'm trying to sleep, if I give him license to leave his hands in the general vicinity. According to one past lover, I actually fell asleep (and remained so for some time) with his hand, not just between my legs, but with a finger inside. As long as he held still and as long as he didn't directly touch the clit, I found this a very comforting position to sleep in. I've had several partners sleep spooned against my back with a hand on my breast and that has always been comforting, with flashes of irritation when they tweaked the nipple, only to fade back into sleep when they stopped.
So, yes, immediately grabbing for my clit or my nipples before I've had time to warm up is irritating, annoying, and sometimes painful. A lot of things I enjoy sexually, when taken out of context, are this way. I don't particularly enjoy being slapped, either, but being spanked in the context of a scene is great fun. Really, it's all about context, and about switching gears and having my body move into a state of arousal in order for these actions to change from uncomfortable to pleasurable. So when I dodge someone's hand who is grabbing for my breast, it doesn't mean I lied when I said I like nipple stimulation, it means that in this context, it is uncomfortable, but in another context, it's pleasurable, and that person has simply chosen the wrong context for the desired response. But there are plenty of things that can be done to change my response to the desired response.
I would rather give up sex.
Again, this needs to be taken relative to other details. This does not mean that I want to give up sex. If that were true, I simply would. As I've said earlier, I prefer for my relationships to be multi-dimensional and there are a lot of activities and shared experiences that I enjoy in relating to other people. Plus, as I've also said before, there are times that I just can't physically enjoy sex, and I expect that to happen more and more often as I get older, if certain trends are to be believed. I don't actually like that I sometimes don't want sex. I have been absolutely thrilled that my sex drive has increased since about age 28 or so, and I am eagerly anticipating the release of the first real aphrodisiac that is currently being researched. But the fact is that there are times when I simply do not want sex. For as often as I think about it, physically, I just don't want to do it all the time. And I've made myself come to terms with the reality of these things.
I may, one day, lose interest in sex permanently (of course, I also may not). And with that possibility in mind, I have taken a look at my life and decided that there is so much to enjoy about life and about relationships that sex is only one aspect among many. I will survive if my sex drive ever fails permanently, and not only will I survive, but there are so many things in life to appreciate and take pleasure from, that I feel my quality of life will not drop significantly if my interest in sex drops. I have, in the past, been physically uninterested or incapable of enjoying sex, and most of the time I did not feel as though I was deprived of very much, as long as I was able to experience all the other things in life that bring me pleasure.
I have, however, been injured enough that I couldn't dance, and I greatly mourned that loss. After certain breakups, I have mourned the loss of sharing certain activities much more than I mourned the loss of the sex. This doesn't mean that I don't miss the sex, or that I am not unhappy at the thought of not enjoying sex again. I said earlier that I am looking forward to that aphrodisiac and that I am relieved and grateful for the increased sex drive that came with this stage of life. I only mean that, in the grand scheme of things, if I play thought experiments with either/or scenarios, there are some things that I would miss more or be more upset at losing, than sex. But it most definitely does not mean that I wouldn't miss sex at all, or that it's on the bottom of the list.
So, hopefully that helps make my contradictory statements about my enjoyment of sex less contradictory, and hopefully that gives some people a better idea of just how vast the variety of sexual interest and expression are among women, and hopefully this can give even a single woman who has ever felt weird or alone that she is not, in fact, alone. Even if she doesn't share *any* of my preferences, I want people to understand that everyone is different and that's nothing to be afraid or ashamed of, nor is it any reason to ridicule or hurt people for being different because we all are.
1) I am apparently paradoxical about some things so I want to clarify them. I've had many conversations over the years that have, apparently, confused lots of guys, regarding whether or not I like sex. So I'm taking this opportunity to try and explain some seemingly-paradoxical claims I make, and possibly refer to this in the future.
2) My personal tastes and preferences are not like other women's. We are all very individual people, and I'm royally sick of books and movies like "What Women Want" and stupid OKC forum users making broad generalizations about "all women are [fill in the blank]". Men and women are individuals. We have individual wants, needs, desires, dislikes, preferences, tastes, goals, and lifestyles and the sooner we, as a society, understand that, the easier it will be for us to find, keep, and appreciate partners.
3) At the same time, we all have *some things* in common with other people. I have spent an enormous amount of my life being embarrassed about certain aspects of my personality or my likes, because I felt (or was told) that I was "weird" or "different". So I think it would be helpful for me to spotlight some of those parts of myself so that other women who share them can know that they're not alone, whether they speak up here or not. Knowing that one is not alone is a very powerful tool for building one's self-esteem and self-confidence. And being confident in oneself leads to a much more fulfilling and satisfactory sex life.
So today, I want to talk about why I love sex and why I make statements that indicate that I do not like sex.
I have said before that I don't put sex as a high priority in my relationships. I have said that I don't particularly enjoy receiving oral sex and that I don't get off on penetration. I have said that my nipples are extremely sensitive and can bring me to the brink of orgasm alone but I often dodge or knock hands away when people go to touch them. I have said that I would rather give up sex for the rest of my life than give up dancing.
Yet, I have
tacit's banner on the sidebar that says "I love sex and I vote", I've had more than 30 partners that include intercourse (and that's not counting all the guys I've just messed around with or aggressively flirted with, or just kissed), I'm polyamorous and currently have multiple sexual partners, I'm a huge flirt, and I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about sex.So that's a little contradictory. Let me take these one at a time.
I don't put sex as a high priority.
What this means is that I believe my relationships are, or should be, multi-dimensional. I'm not horribly unattractive and I'm female, so if I want just-sex, I can pretty much walk out my front door and get it. This has absolutely nothing to do with *me* or *who I am*, it has to do with the fact that I was born with a certain set of organs and our society is set up (possibly due to biological pressures, but that's another debate) for people with my set of organs to be highly prized and sought after by people with the other set of organs. And, if nothing else, sex is a commodity that I can pay for if I really wanted to.
So, when it comes to sexual activity, yes, I enjoy it very much, but it is not why my relationships are important because, in my experiences with this society, sexual partners can be more or less interchangable and I do not like that. I like my partners to be irreplaceable, and I like the idea that I am irreplaceable. But in order for that to be true, I have to have multi-dimensional interactions with someone as a whole person. All of my relating to another person is valuable, and is what makes that relationship unique and special, not just whether or not we are having sex. If I lose any aspect of that relationship, I feel it as a loss no less than losing the sexuality (and in some cases, more).
Although it is true that part of who a person is can come through their sexual activity, the participants have to be open to being in an intimate setting, as opposed to just a sexual one. I definitely agree that sexual activity can be a vehicle for intimacy, but it has been my personal experience that many people do not use it as such, so I have learned not to use it as such very often. I find there are many different ways to develop an intimate connection with a person and sexual activity is merely one of them, and a neglected one at that.
I also have a fluctuating sex drive, and so oftentimes I can go for periods of disinterest in sex, and I really need for my relationships to be able to withstand those periods, otherwise, I can conclude that my partner values sex higher than I do, and possibly values our relationship for the sexual content to the point that all the other aspects of it that are so important to me are not actually important to my partner. The disinterested periods of sex have always gone away, so I believe it is reasonable to claim that any future period of disinterest will also go away. Any partner who is not willing to relate to me during one of these periods of disinterest indicates to me that he values the sexual activity over all other aspects of the relationship, and that I am not worth hanging around if I'm not also putting out; he is not committed to a relationship with me as a person, he's here because he's getting laid; he is not interested in simply being with *me* as a person, because I am made up of so much more than a body who has sex.
I'm not saying that losing the sexual aspect of a relationship, even temporarily, isn't painful, hurtful, or a real loss. But I am saying that I believe sexuality to be not the most important part of a relationship with another human being. So when I say that I do not put a high priority on sex in a romantic relationship, this does NOT mean that I do not place any priority on sex at all, it means that there are MANY elements in a relationship that are valuable to me, including sex, and, if I am forced to make choices due to circumstances, some of them are more valuable than others. If I lose the element of sex in a relationship, is that more or less important than losing the element of conversation? If someone has an injury and can't have sex, does that inherently destroy the fabric of my relationship or can it exist in a fulfilling manner without it? If my partners have sex with someone else, is my relationship weakened or hurt for the sharing of that activity with someone other than me or is our relationship built on more than saving a single act to represent the specialness of our entire relationship?
My preference in relationships is for the answer to those types of questions to always be in favor of the non-sexual answer . If the answer is ever postive for the sexual aspect being a priority, then I feel that my relationship with that person is not strong, is not multi-dimensional, is not a complex connection with a whole person. I feel as though my relationship is defined by and dependent on a single aspect ... one that many view as easily replaceable with another partner.
Personally, I view my sexual interactions with my partners as unique and individual too, just like all the other aspects of who they are. I can tell my partners apart in bed, for example, and my memories of all my past partners are specific to that individual. Everyone has qualities and traits that made a sexual encounter with them identifiably unique to other people. But that's not how many people I know view sex, and getting another sex partner is much easier for me than getting another dancing partner, or getting another partner who enjoys my sarcasm and cynicsm, or getting another partner who shares my views on personhood and gender issues.
So when it comes time for me to identify my relationships, the elements of that relationship that I use to do so is not whether we are having sex or not. It's whether he's a "buddy" that I'm not that emotionally close to, or a life-partner with whom I share my most intimate secrets, or someone I can count on to lighten my mood, or someone I can enjoy Ethiopian food with, or someone who really understands who I am at work and how important my work is to me, or someone who views me as his mentor of sorts and comes to me for help and discussion to understand who *he* is. I may or may not want or have a sexual relationship with any number of these kinds of people, but that's not how I define the relationship. It's an *important* aspect of the relationship (both the presence and absence of a sexual element), but it's not the *defining* aspect of the relationship, and there are some aspects that would hurt me more to lose than the sex. But that doesn't mean that the sex isn't *also* important.
I don't enjoy receiving oral sex.
Just like when I say "sex isn't a priority", this statement is not intended to be stand-alone. It's meant to be relative to other statements. See, it's not that I *don't* like oral sex, it's that it feels good similarly to the way a backrub feels good to me - pleasurable, but not usually orgasmic and sometimes not even sexually pleasurable (for the record, a backrub is *never* sexual for me, and trying to turn it sexual or erotic is highly irritating). I *do* like oral sex, but when one of the goals of the activity is to have an orgasm, oral sex won't get me there, just as I really, REALLY enjoy backrubs, but producing an orgasm it does not.
I have had 1 partner, ever, who consistently brought me to orgasm through oral sex (too bad we had nothing else going for our relationship). One, uno, a single partner, out of my several dozens of partners who have tried it. I've had maybe 2 or 3 others who have brought me to orgasm a handful of times, but not for a majority of the encounters with that person. Mostly, oral sex is kind of a warm up. It helps me to relax a little, and provides some lubrication when I'm not naturally producing much (usually because I'm not quite turned on yet). It's nice. It's just not generally orgasmic, nor does it get me close to orgasm. But it's still nice. And if you combine it with one of my other fetishes (such as having sex in public places), it's *damn* nice.
I don't get off on penetration.
This is actually fairly common, from what I understand. Many women are far more sensitive in the clitoral region than in the vaginal canal, and not many men have sex in a manner that stimulates that region (I blame porn for this). I know where the G-spot is on me, I've found it years ago. But it is not an orgasmic center for me. It is usually an uncomfortable pressure on my bladder. I've been told that, if a woman can ride through that pressure, instead of stopping it, the orgasm is on the other side, but usually not for me. The feeling that I have to go to the bathroom doesn't abate, and the orgasm doesn't follow (of course, I have health issues with my excretory system, so that may contribute). And that's just the way it is for me and I'm fine with that.
But my clit is extremely sensitive. As I've written before, it's so sensitive that direct stimulation is usually uncomfortable. A much more satisfying strategy is to cup the entire mons area with the full hand and use a wide band of pressure outside clothing or to press on the vaginal lips to rub the clit. Only after I've produced enough lubrication to reduce the friction between the roughness of the fingers and the sensitivity of the clit, can direct contact be pleasurable, but even then, most of the time I prefer indirect contact or general pressure to direct finger-to-clit contact. A penis rubbing the clit, however, that almost *always* feels good and is much more likely to bring me to orgasm than a penis in my vagina because it's much less rough than hands.
I am much more likely to orgasm by grinding against someone while we're both fully clothed, than I am during penetration, especially if I can get a full-body contact during the rubbing. If I can find the right angle during penetration to get this rubbing, that's when I orgasm during sex. The easiest way for me to find that angle is to be on top, so I'd say about 99% of the time that I orgasm during sex, it's becuse I'm on top. Which is a shame, because it's not my favorite position. In fact, if it weren't for the orgasm, I wouldn't like that position at all (although it wouldn't be my *least* favorite either). My two favorite positions, the ones that make me feel the most fulfilled and emotionally connected, are incredibly difficult for me to acheive that proper angle.
I have had 2 partners ever who brought me to orgasm while I was on bottom, one of whom was a pre-arranged-one-time deal (the one-time encounter was pre-arranged, not the orgasm in missionary), so I consider it mostly a fluke. The other partner just somehow found the right angle for proper clit stimulation, and he usually did it after his own orgasm, which resulted in at least half of my orgasms happening when he was soft and/or already slipping out of me which eliminated the occasional discomfort that comes with penetration.
My other favorite position resembles the position I masturbate in, so that can often bring me close to orgasm simply by associative memory, but my hips are tilted the wrong way during PIV sex in that position and I can't quite get the right angle for stimulation of the clit that way. I have yet to try using a vibrator in this position, although I've indicated to pretty much every partner I've ever had that I'd like to try. I'm still hesitant to insist on things during sex, or to ask, specifically "this time, I'd like to do X", and that's something I really need to get over. It's much easier for me to write these things in a public livejournal than to say "honey, can we have sex while you use a vibrator on me tonight?".
But, for me, orgasm is almost never the goal to sexual activity. I think a lot of women have been put in the position of having uncomfortable or painful first-times and/or providing sex to their partners for reasons other than orgasm. I know that I, at least, am in that situation. My early experiences with sex have set the way I view sex in general. Some of those constructs I have managed to deconstruct, but not all. One of them is that sex does not equal orgasm and I'm not seeing any benefit to deconstructing that, although I *have* learned the benefit of deconstructing the idea that sex is something I "provide" to my partners as part of my role as his girlfriend.
In spite of the fact that I do not easily orgasm through PIV sex, I am still biologically driven to want to have sex. I like sex because I'm designed to like sex. I continue to seek sexual partners because I'm programmed to do so. But, because PIV sex does not bring me to orgasm, I have the freedom to learn a variety of pleasures associated with a variety of activities. And I view it as a freedom and a luxury that I can enjoy so much more about sex, rather than a limitation of how much pleasure PIV sex can bring. I think sex would be much more pleasurable for everyone if they didn't view it as a race to the Orgasm Finish Line and everything leading up to it as merely preliminary to the goal.
PIV sex doesn't usually equal orgasm for me, but the feeling of being filled is pleasurable in its own right. Bringing pleasure to my partner is a pleasure in its own right. Foreplay and afterplay are pleasures in their own right. Flirtation, kissing, making out, BDSM, these are all activities that are pleasurable all on their own and worth experiencing all by themselves. They do not have to lead up to The Big Finish (meaning PIV sex and/or orgasm) because they are not preludes for me. They are pleasurable ALL ON THEIR OWN.
So even when I say that penetration and oral sex don't give me orgasms, that does not negate all the good things they *do* provide, nor does it negate all the pleasure I get from other activities, some of which are orgasmic and some are just physically pleasurable without the orgasm, and some of which are emotionally pleasurable even if they contain some element of discomfort (and, hell, sometimes the discomfort *is* its own form of pleasure).
So, it's true that penetration and receiving oral sex do not generally provide me with orgasms. But orgasms, while extremely enjoyable, are not the main reason I have sex, and sex is enjoyable on so many different levels that, even with this particular qualification, I still like sex very much.
Don't touch my nipples.
My nipples are extremely sensitive. Sometimes that's a good thing, but most of the time, it's not. The good part is that I can be brought right to the edge of orgasm by nipple stimulation alone. Another good part is that, when I'm trying to orgasm but not quite reaching it, nipple stimulation can take me over the edge to orgasm.
But the bad part is that when I'm not turned on, aroused, sexually receptive, horny, whatever, that sensitivity is downright painful. I have to wear padded or lined bras just to keep the movement of my shirts from distracting me and causing pain throughout the day. When I'm not physically or mentally ready for sexual activity, touching or tweaking my nipples just fucking hurts.
So, when someone reaches out, sort of randomly, to touch my breasts, if I haven't had some amount of foreplay involved, it's kind of like ramming in a penis before I've had time to get wet. Even when I've been flirtatious, or if I'm in a good mood, touching the nipples should not be the first step, because I just need that extra bit of activity to switch over from painfully-stimulating to pleasurably-stimulating.
My nipples can be treated a lot like my clit - they certainly seem to be linked, at any rate. I need to get warmed up first before someone can go for the direct contact. Cupping my breasts can be a good way to start, just like cupping the entire mons area - it puts sort of a general pressure on the surrounding area that can increase my arousal. But kissing, full-body contact and pressure, teasing by touching nearby yet not directly, those activities need to be done first, to change the sensitivity from painful to arousal.
In fact, I often find it an incredibly secure and fulfilling way to sleep with someone's hand cupping my breast and/or my pubic region. But it seems to be almost universally impossible for a man to resist the urge to tweak the absolute most sensitive areas on my body while I'm trying to sleep, if I give him license to leave his hands in the general vicinity. According to one past lover, I actually fell asleep (and remained so for some time) with his hand, not just between my legs, but with a finger inside. As long as he held still and as long as he didn't directly touch the clit, I found this a very comforting position to sleep in. I've had several partners sleep spooned against my back with a hand on my breast and that has always been comforting, with flashes of irritation when they tweaked the nipple, only to fade back into sleep when they stopped.
So, yes, immediately grabbing for my clit or my nipples before I've had time to warm up is irritating, annoying, and sometimes painful. A lot of things I enjoy sexually, when taken out of context, are this way. I don't particularly enjoy being slapped, either, but being spanked in the context of a scene is great fun. Really, it's all about context, and about switching gears and having my body move into a state of arousal in order for these actions to change from uncomfortable to pleasurable. So when I dodge someone's hand who is grabbing for my breast, it doesn't mean I lied when I said I like nipple stimulation, it means that in this context, it is uncomfortable, but in another context, it's pleasurable, and that person has simply chosen the wrong context for the desired response. But there are plenty of things that can be done to change my response to the desired response.
I would rather give up sex.
Again, this needs to be taken relative to other details. This does not mean that I want to give up sex. If that were true, I simply would. As I've said earlier, I prefer for my relationships to be multi-dimensional and there are a lot of activities and shared experiences that I enjoy in relating to other people. Plus, as I've also said before, there are times that I just can't physically enjoy sex, and I expect that to happen more and more often as I get older, if certain trends are to be believed. I don't actually like that I sometimes don't want sex. I have been absolutely thrilled that my sex drive has increased since about age 28 or so, and I am eagerly anticipating the release of the first real aphrodisiac that is currently being researched. But the fact is that there are times when I simply do not want sex. For as often as I think about it, physically, I just don't want to do it all the time. And I've made myself come to terms with the reality of these things.
I may, one day, lose interest in sex permanently (of course, I also may not). And with that possibility in mind, I have taken a look at my life and decided that there is so much to enjoy about life and about relationships that sex is only one aspect among many. I will survive if my sex drive ever fails permanently, and not only will I survive, but there are so many things in life to appreciate and take pleasure from, that I feel my quality of life will not drop significantly if my interest in sex drops. I have, in the past, been physically uninterested or incapable of enjoying sex, and most of the time I did not feel as though I was deprived of very much, as long as I was able to experience all the other things in life that bring me pleasure.
I have, however, been injured enough that I couldn't dance, and I greatly mourned that loss. After certain breakups, I have mourned the loss of sharing certain activities much more than I mourned the loss of the sex. This doesn't mean that I don't miss the sex, or that I am not unhappy at the thought of not enjoying sex again. I said earlier that I am looking forward to that aphrodisiac and that I am relieved and grateful for the increased sex drive that came with this stage of life. I only mean that, in the grand scheme of things, if I play thought experiments with either/or scenarios, there are some things that I would miss more or be more upset at losing, than sex. But it most definitely does not mean that I wouldn't miss sex at all, or that it's on the bottom of the list.
So, hopefully that helps make my contradictory statements about my enjoyment of sex less contradictory, and hopefully that gives some people a better idea of just how vast the variety of sexual interest and expression are among women, and hopefully this can give even a single woman who has ever felt weird or alone that she is not, in fact, alone. Even if she doesn't share *any* of my preferences, I want people to understand that everyone is different and that's nothing to be afraid or ashamed of, nor is it any reason to ridicule or hurt people for being different because we all are.
Re: nipples
Date: 5/30/09 06:20 pm (UTC)From:And no, not every single guy is this way, that's why I said "almost universal", but out of 40+ partners, I have yet to be with a guy who knows that he shouldn't grab for the nipples as the *first* step.
If I were to just say "don't ever touch my nipples", then pretty much every guy I know would stop. But when I tell someone that touching the nipples can bring me almost to orgasm without any other stimuli and touching the nipples can bring me over to orgasm when I'm on the edge, then they (rightly) assume I like nipple stimulation.
What they don't understand is that I do not like nipple stimulation right out of the starting gate. Lots of guys don't seem to understand that I need to be turned on first, and when I start making out with someone, I'm not necessarily turned on yet, even if I'm ready and willing to make out with someone.
And a lot of guys treat tweaking the nipples like a swat on the bottom - as in, a casual, playful gesture that isn't even intended to start a make-out or sexual encounter, but something to do when their girlfriends happen to walk by and are within arms' reach. I know some girls who like that. I happen to not be one of them. I think this may be because many guys' nipples are not as sensitive as many women's nipples and/or their sensitivity might instantly translate to arousal and they might like that sensation, whereas mine does not.