your orgasms are all wrong, part 1

You know what's been pissing me off lately? The need to dictate how women should have orgasms. Specifically, I'm talking about the controversy over clitoral vs. vaginal orgasms.

For years, Stuart Brody has been doing research, purporting to show that vaginal orgasms are superior to clitoral orgasms. But, goddamn it, he can't even get his terminology right. He defines a vaginal orgasm as one that occurs during penis-in-vagina sex, without simultaneously 'masturbating' the clitoris. The problem is, this definition tells us nothing about whether the orgasm was triggered through clitoral stimulation or vaginal stimulation.

Here's how I know. A male friend told me about an ex-girlfriend who was amazing in bed, because she could have 'vaginal' orgasms. Of course, I wanted to know her secret. He said she had to be on top, and she would grind her clit against his pubic bone until she got off. How was this a vaginal orgasm? It wasn't. It was a penis-in-vagina orgasm, it was a NO HANDS orgasm, but it was obviously clitoral in origin. A true vaginal orgasm is not simply one that occurs during PIV sex. It needs to be triggered by something other than the clitoris.

Let's look at some female anatomy. What we call the clitoris is really just the head of the clitoris. Most of the clitoris is internal to the woman's body. The clitoris develops out of the same fetal tissue that forms the penis in males. The head of the clitoris is analogous to the head of the penis. The tissue that, in males, develops into the shaft of the penis, in females, develops into the shaft and legs of the clitoris. The clitoral shaft is inside the woman's body, and extends back from the head of the clitoris, splitting into two legs on either side of the vaginal opening.

When a woman has a  vaginal orgasm, meaning an orgasm that isn't triggered by stimulation of the head of the clitoris, it is actually triggered by stimulation of the root of the clitoris (which comes close to the front wall of the vagina) or stimulation of the legs of the clitoris (on either side of the vaginal opening). That's right, a vaginal orgasm is still brought on by parts of the clitoris.

Let's do a thought experiment (even better, if you are a man or if you have a man handy, you could try this experiment in real life). Can a man have an orgasm through stimulation of only the shaft of the penis, with no touching of the head of the penis? This would be equivalent to a vaginal orgasm.

My guess is that, yes, many men could have orgasms by stimulating only the penile shaft. In fact, I would venture to hypothesize that the percentage of men who could have orgasms in this way would be almost identical to the percentage of women who have vaginal orgasms! That is, about 25% of women have never had a vaginal orgasm, another 75% occasionally or sometimes have one, and 25% almost always have one.

So why don't we have any real data about men and their ability to have penile-shaft-only orgasms? Because men don't stand for this kind of crap, that's why! If anyone is telling men that their orgasms are 'wrong,' men aren't listening.

Next post, I'll summarize Brody's research on vaginal orgasms. It's actually quite interesting, even though the conclusions I would draw from his data are diametrically opposed to the conclusions he draws.  

Really fun erotica

I just finished reading Huddle, a new, super-fun, sexy erotic anthology. All five of the stories in it were great, but my favorite is Lucky Mascot, by Tamsin Flowers. It has a refreshing exuberance and style. Several times while I was reading it, I had to laugh out loud, not even out of humor, but because of the sheer delight in its originality and joyful spirit.

I have a couple of new pieces up too, on the Erotica Readers and Writer's Website. The Critics, is a super-short that pretends to be instructions for doing a strip-tease, but is really about writing, especially writers who critique other writers' work.

Flash fiction

A new super-short story of mine, The Wedding Night, is up on the Erotica Readers and Writers Association website. This one's about impotence.

It was inspired by reading responses to the question, Impotency: How do you handle it? Some men told of women's reactions that were insensitive, even hateful. I was shocked.

Why so cruel, ladies? If you're open to it, the times when sex goes 'wrong' can be the best times of all.

Mesmerized

My story "Mesmerized" has been accepted for an anthology called Shameless Behavior: Erotic Stories of Overcoming Shame. It's being published by Go Deeper Press in August. Check out the enticing cover . . .

I've read one anthology from these folks, called As the Bishop Said to the Actress. The stories in it are great--clever, sexy, original.

The problem? I need to send them a headshot and I hate having my picture taken.

At the Pirate's Booty

One of my erotic short stories got published in an anthology called Valentine's Day. It's available from Smashwords.

My story is called "At the Pirate's Booty," and it's about a husband and wife fulfilling each others' fantasies. The book has a lot of great stories in it, all different. Check it out.

This month, the Erotica Readers and Writers Association published a super-short story that I wrote. It's what they call a "flasher," meaning 200 words or less. It's called The Kindness of Strangers. You can find it here.

Kill your darlings

Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it – wholeheartedly – and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings. 

-          Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch

'Kill your darlings.' The phrase irked me the first time I read it. The relish with which other people repeat it has only annoyed me more.

I guess what he was getting at is that if a writer is particularly proud of a phrase, those words are likely to stick out, draw attention to themselves, and snap the reader out of her immersion in the story. That's likely enough, so it's good advice. But the smug self-satisfaction with which the advice is delivered really gets under my skin.

This morning I woke with a revelation – 'Murder your darlings' is a darling. It's exactly the sort of 'exceptionally fine writing' that should have been deleted before being sent to press. The smugness, the preciousness, the surprising and clever metaphor, are precisely the definition of a darling.

Oh, the delicious irony. The aphorism 'Kill your darlings' is a darling, so by rights Quiller-Couch should have killed it, but he didn't so it's beloved and repeated by thousands who don't recognize that it should have succumbed to its author's knife, gun or poison.

Here's a more in-depth analysis by Stephen Wright, who also despises the phrase.

http://overland.org.au/blogs/cruel-miracles/2012/07/dont-kill-your-darlings/