December 7, 2022 • 37 mins
Emily answers calls from listeners who are struggling with their orgasms, and debunks several myths about where orgasm happens in the body. She also explains how we can train our brains to change our experience of orgasm with some practice… and a little dismantling of the patriarchy.
If you have a question for Emily, call the Come As You Are hotline at (646) 397-8557 or send a voice memo to emily@pushkin.fm. Tell us your pronouns and pseudonym (pick a name, any name!) Your question might be answered on the show.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin him and I'm going in. I have a question
for you. I have been struggling with an inability to
orgasm with anyone else around. This is one of the
(00:40):
most common orgasm difficulties that people experience, and it's highly treatable.
I'm Emilinagaski and this is the Come as You Are
podcast where I answer questions about sex with science. In
this episode, I'm going to be answering to listener questions
(01:02):
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
(01:23):
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
(01:46):
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
(02:07):
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
(02:29):
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
(02:51):
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
(03:14):
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,
(03:37):
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
(03:59):
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
(04:20):
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
(04:44):
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
(05:04):
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
(05:25):
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
(05:46):
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
(06:10):
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
(06:32):
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
(06:55):
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.
(07:17):
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
(07:39):
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
(08:02):
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
(08:24):
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,
(08:48):
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
(09:11):
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
(09:31):
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
(09:53):
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
(10:13):
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
(10:36):
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
(10:56):
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.
(11:21):
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
(11:44):
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
(12:06):
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
(12:28):
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,
(12:50):
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
(13:11):
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
(13:32):
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,
(13:55):
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,
(14:17):
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
(14:40):
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,
(15:03):
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
(15:26):
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
(15:47):
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
(16:08):
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
(16:31):
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,
(16:54):
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
(17:15):
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
(17:36):
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,
(17:57):
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
(18:19):
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
(18:42):
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
(19:03):
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
(19:27):
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
(19:47):
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
(20:09):
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
(20:30):
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
(20:51):
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
(21:13):
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
(21:35):
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
(21:56):
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
(22:19):
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
(22:41):
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
(23:04):
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
(23:25):
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,
(23:47):
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,
(24:11):
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
(24:31):
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
(24:54):
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
(25:16):
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
(25:37):
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.
(25:57):
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
(26:19):
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
(26:44):
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
(27:07):
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.
(27:31):
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
(27:51):
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.
(28:13):
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
(28:37):
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
(28:58):
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
(29:19):
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
(29:43):
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
(30:05):
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
(30:25):
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.
(30:46):
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,
(31:07):
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.
(31:32):
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.
(31:55):
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.
(32:17):
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
(32:41):
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
(33:10):
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.
(33:33):
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
(33:56):
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,
(34:20):
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
(34:44):
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
(35:10):
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
(35:32):
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.
(35:52):
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
(36:18):
Rich Stevens, Lindsay Edgecombe Frolic Media, and Peter Acker at
Armadillo Audio Group. Original music for this series was composed
by Ameliagowski and arranged and recorded by Alexandra Kalinovsky. Additional
music from Epidemic Sound. You can find Pushkin on all
(36:39):
social platforms at pushkin Pods, and you can sign up
for our newsletter at pushkin dot Fm. If you love
this show and others from Pushkin Industries, consider subscribing to
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(36:59):
a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions
or at pushkin dot Fm. If you subscribe to pushkin Plus,
you can hear Come as You Are and other Pushkin shows.
Add free, very nice and you'll get episodes a week.
Early sign up on the come as you are show
page in Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm. To
(37:20):
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
(37:42):
out fluid. I don't know why I made that sound.
That is not the sound makes That doesn't make a sound.
Pushkin him and I'm going in. I have a question
for you. I have been struggling with an inability to
orgasm with anyone else around. This is one of the
(00:40):
most common orgasm difficulties that people experience, and it's highly treatable.
I'm Emilinagaski and this is the Come as You Are
podcast where I answer questions about sex with science. In
this episode, I'm going to be answering to listener questions
(01:02):
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
(01:23):
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
(01:46):
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
(02:07):
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
(02:29):
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
(02:51):
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
(03:14):
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,
(03:37):
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
(03:59):
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
(04:20):
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
(04:44):
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
(05:04):
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
(05:25):
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
(05:46):
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
(06:10):
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
(06:32):
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
(06:55):
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.
(07:17):
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
(07:39):
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
(08:02):
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
(08:24):
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,
(08:48):
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
(09:11):
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
(09:31):
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
(09:53):
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
(10:13):
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
(10:36):
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
(10:56):
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.
(11:21):
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
(11:44):
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
(12:06):
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
(12:28):
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,
(12:50):
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
(13:11):
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
(13:32):
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,
(13:55):
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,
(14:17):
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
(14:40):
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,
(15:03):
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
(15:26):
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
(15:47):
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
(16:08):
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
(16:31):
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,
(16:54):
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
(17:15):
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
(17:36):
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,
(17:57):
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
(18:19):
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
(18:42):
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
(19:03):
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
(19:27):
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
(19:47):
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
(20:09):
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
(20:30):
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
(20:51):
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
(21:13):
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
(21:35):
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
(21:56):
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
(22:19):
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
(22:41):
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
(23:04):
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
(23:25):
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,
(23:47):
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,
(24:11):
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
(24:31):
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
(24:54):
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
(25:16):
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
(25:37):
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.
(25:57):
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
(26:19):
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
(26:44):
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
(27:07):
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.
(27:31):
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
(27:51):
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.
(28:13):
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
(28:37):
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
(28:58):
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
(29:19):
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
(29:43):
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
(30:05):
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
(30:25):
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.
(30:46):
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,
(31:07):
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.
(31:32):
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.
(31:55):
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.
(32:17):
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
(32:41):
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
(33:10):
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.
(33:33):
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
(33:56):
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,
(34:20):
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
(34:44):
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
(35:10):
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
(35:32):
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.
(35:52):
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
(36:18):
Rich Stevens, Lindsay Edgecombe Frolic Media, and Peter Acker at
Armadillo Audio Group. Original music for this series was composed
by Ameliagowski and arranged and recorded by Alexandra Kalinovsky. Additional
music from Epidemic Sound. You can find Pushkin on all
(36:39):
social platforms at pushkin Pods, and you can sign up
for our newsletter at pushkin dot Fm. If you love
this show and others from Pushkin Industries, consider subscribing to
Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers
bonus content and uninterrupted listening for only four ninety nine
(36:59):
a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions
or at pushkin dot Fm. If you subscribe to pushkin Plus,
you can hear Come as You Are and other Pushkin shows.
Add free, very nice and you'll get episodes a week.
Early sign up on the come as you are show
page in Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm. To
(37:20):
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
(37:42):
out fluid. I don't know why I made that sound.
That is not the sound makes That doesn't make a sound.
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