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.
