Emily Nagoski has an interesting post up in relation to this Jezebel article on female pleasure and the emphasis put on the orgasm. The writing is in the context of vanilla sexual relationships rather than kinky ones, but it got me thinking about how the ideas related to more unconventional sexual interactions.
For men, orgasm and pleasure are closely linked. They’re practically the same thing. They can enjoy arousal without orgasm, sure, but basically they can tell if they had a good sexual experience by whether or not they’ve had an orgasm.
And they apply that standard – THEIR standard, the male/masculine standard – to their women partners. As though women are men, and as though to be anything else is to be broken.
So even if a guy wants his female partner to have orgasms because he wants to make her feel good, which is lovely and very nice, why can’t he just MAKE HER FEEL GOOD because he wants to make her feel good, without the performance demands of orgasm?
Orgasm is often slower and more effortful for women than for men; it’s more variable from woman to women, more variable from day to day in an individual woman. Sometimes orgasm just isn’t there for her; she can still experience truckloads of pleasure, though.
Emily Nagoski
It’s tempting at this point to start getting pedantic about the definition of sexual experience. I’ve had some amazingly enjoyable experiences being bound, beaten and burnt that I’d consider as very sexual but that didn’t feature orgasms. However, for the sake of argument lets just consider sexual experiences as they’re more commonly defined, where genitals and stimulation of some sort is involved. In that scenario I think it’s still incorrect to say that an orgasm is necessary for a kinky man to have a good sexual experience. But I do think that the idea of an orgasm is a key part of the experience. Chastity play and tease and denial all concentrate on the removal of the orgasm. Edging is all about repeatedly approaching the point of orgasm without tipping over it. Ruining an orgasm is about spoiling the moment itself. These different type of orgasm control may or may not feature an actual physical orgasm, but they do put the idea of it right at their heart.
In contrast some women (and it’s impossible to avoid stereotyping here as Emily acknowledges) are not wired in that way. Lack of orgasm isn’t necessarily a sign of total failure in bed, in the same way that your partner achieving orgasm doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a fantastic lover. To quote Emily once again – “pleasure is a destination, not a journey; if you feel good, you have already arrived.”
Where I think this gets particularly interesting in the kinky domain is how it relates to lifestyle male chastity arrangements. I have to tread a little carefully here, as I’m not speaking from first hand knowledge of that specific type of play. However, I’ve never let lack of knowledge get in the way of my opinions before, and I don’t see any reason to start now.
I browse and read a variety of kinky blogs (not all of them linked to from here) and one of the subtexts I observe in a lot of male chastity blogs is a type of transference of sexual expectation. It often seems that simple denial or control over the male orgasm isn’t enough. To be truly satisfying their has to be frequent orgasmic sexual experiences for their female keyholder. There are no doubt a lot of complex reasons behind that, but a key factor seems to be avoiding turning a deliberate denial of sexual pleasure into a total absence of sex. From the male perspective sex involves orgasms, and if he’s not having them, then it’s necessary (or at least highly desirable) that she is.
That of course then runs directly into the issues Emily is addressing above. Male expectations around sex and orgasms can’t automatically be projected onto women. And yet long term chastity play seems to encourage that very projection, with the resulting conflicts you’d expect from that.
I’m afraid I have zero answers for how to resolve this issue. Other than perhaps being aware of its existence and using that knowledge to think creatively around the conflict. In the meantime, while I brace myself for a flood of comments from men in chastity telling me I’m full of crap, here’s a nice shot of a steelwerks chastity device. It’s from their blog and was supplied by one of their clients.
I’m afraid Emily is a rather rare female in not wanting orgasms whenever she can get them.
I honestly have not had any Female partners, including lifestyle Dominas or Women who, realizing I would be sexually submissive, took control, who did not fail to avail themselves of as many orgasms as they desired.
Now, I will grant that none went for as many as I’d like to have provided. From my own sample, I’d observe that Women become overwhelmed by the intensity of too much Clitoral stimulation and orgasmic feeling.
I’ve rarely, if ever, been allowed as much time tonguing my Female’s Pussy as I’d have liked. She typically becomes too sensitive and pulls my head away.
But only after several orgasms, or a long wave of several minutes of continuous orgasmic pleasure.
-saratoga
I think you misread Emily’s post and/or the Jezebel article. I don’t think Emily is at all saying orgasms aren’t a great thing and good to get when possible. It’s hard not to make sweeping generalizations here, but to distill the articles just to a few main points:
1. A lot of women can’t fire off orgasms as easily as men can. As she says “Orgasm is often slower and more effortful for women than for men; it’s more variable from woman to women, more variable from day to day”
2. Men equate orgasm = success. And measure their performance by their ability to provide orgasms to their partner.
3. The idea of success or failure sets up a performance issue, which is counter-productive. Women may feel pressured and that there partner may be upset if they don’t orgasm, so they’d rather not indulge in any sexual interaction.
4. Given that there’s a lot of pleasure available outside the orgasm itself, it makes sense to concentrate on that. That removes a success/fail idea from the interaction and as a side-effect may make orgasms more likely for everyone!
In your case point (1) isn’t really relevant because it so happened that the number of desired orgasms was >0 (even if the final number wasn’t what you wanted). The question here is what happens when the number (due to multiple factors on a specific day or days) is 0, but the desire for sexual pleasure isn’t 0.
I thought it was an interesting discussion in itself, but seemed to relate a lot to a subtext I observed in some male chastity blogs (or even general femdom lifestyle blogs). Service guys like to think of themselves as delivering lots of pleasure (which for guy=orgasm). And guys in chastity are naturally focused on the idea of orgasm (since they can’t have it), which may get projected to their partner. Plus of course, it’s particularly hot for a woman to have an orgasm while she’s simultaneously denying it from you. It emphasizes the discrepency.
-paltego
No, I don’t think I misread it at all.
-s
Well you’ve certainly confused me if nothing else 🙂
I don’t really see anything in her posts that aligns with “I’m afraid Emily is a rather rare female in not wanting orgasms whenever she can get them.”
As far as I can see she’s saying focus on the pleasure, on the sensation. That certainly doesn’t preclude orgasms or say to avoid them. It just says don’t see sex as a goal to get there however possible and you fail if you don’t.
I’m also going to assume as a professional sex educator (with a phd in health focusing on human sexuality), as the author of a book on the female orgasm and as a woman, she’s probably pretty qualified on this subject!