Women after orgasm -- another unearthly assumption?
Magdelena of Myths and Metawhores has a confession to make: she doesn't have multiple orgasms. She has one big whopping one and then needs a refractory period before she can have another one. She wonders if other women are like this...
This is one of my questions by way of confession.
I come once and that's it. One stupendous orgasm followed by a soft, gentle resolution and a long refractory period. Apparently women don't have these.
This from a Harley Street Site:
“A difference from the male sexual response cycle is the absence in women of a refractory period after orgasm. This enables women to have several orgasms within a short period of time."
The absence of?
What, completely?
It has always been this way for me. As long as I can remember, be it self pleasure or any form of sexual exploration with another, I come once and once only. This has long struck me as a masculine crossover, some curious deviation in my sexual hard-wiring. I have tried to wank and work my way through it but as my accupunturist states:"you can't force pleasure". Bastard should know, with his penchant for needles to the bone pain.
Tonight, curiosity has a hold of my tail so I searched online and off for some worthy explanation and found....none. Zip. Jack. According to the sources I investigated, women don't have a refractory period of the kind I experience. Sure, they may relax, spin off the boil or need to slow down but nowhere in the literature does it document a comparable sexual downtime for the ladies.
So I called my friend and they said:
"Babe, where is the surprise? You're not like most women in most ways so why should this be any different?"
...
So my question is, how many other woman experience this refractory period?
The last time I checked many or most of the women who answered Lena said they too come once, in one big bang. Does that mean they're all "masculine crossovers" too? Or is it a clue to something "known but not discovered?"
In my experience about half of my partners who are orgasmic have been multiply orgasmic and half not. Some of them, like Lena, continue to feel horny and participatory afterwards even if they don't come. A lot of them are done. One or two even rolled over and fell asleep after a quick kiss. (I'd have felt distressed about that if they didn't do much the same thing when they were by themselves.)
How many other women worry that they're "more like a man that way?"
I've already suspected there's a lot of confusion about multiple orgasms for men. We associate our orgasms so closely to ejaculation that I think a lot of us overlook the paroxysms that overtake us when we get right to the brink but manage to stave off ejaculation. I enjoy those enough on their own merits that I try to do it, and when I'm masturbating I'll do it over and over. And while orgasm with ejaculation is often more intense it can irk me if I play too close and ejaculate before I'm done. Hmm. Come to think of it, when I'm playing with a partner I might have a refractory period but I'm perfectly happy to keep playing after, even though my erection usually goes away. Does any of that make me "more like a woman that way?" Am I the only man who does that?
I swear if I write a book about sex and relationships, people, there's going to be a chapter in it called "Women are from Earth, Men are from Earth." Not because we're really all alike -- we're often not, and Earth is still a pretty big place -- but because we overlap, and we overlap, and we overlap.
Me? As I've said before, everything I do is manly not because I'm macho, or because I always conform to stereotypical masculinity but because I'm a man. In fact I'm a helluvaman! Similarly I think if you're a woman you're womanly no matter how you come. In fact, Lena's a helluvawoman, and as far as I can tell so are all the women who say they come the same way she does.
None of this would be a problem, of course, if we didn't feel at least a little pressure to apologize when something we do seems insufficiently Venusian, or not as Martian as "the norm."
Earth man, meet Earth woman. Earth is a big planet. The maps say "here be dragons" but let's explore.
Update: This is a little bit off-topic but I just read a thought-provoking snippet of a quote on Sex is Funny: "...whereas the males much more basic ‘software’ causes him to ejaculate at the first orgasm, making his sex drive limited and short lived by comparison." Ejaculating at the *first* orgasm huh? That's a different and maybe even useful way to look at it.
Fig, hon... Why do you think there was such an upsurge in 'tantric' sex manuals a few years ago? A researcher somewhere said 'But men CAN have multiples, it's easy, all you have to do is this' and the books sold like hotcakes.
My answer to the ? of "Are you multiple or not?" is "I can be". I decide, unless who I'm with is just such a turn on I can't decide. I can also choose to NOT orgasm, which just befuddles who I am with. So ... It depends. :)
[Yep, there's Tantra on the one hand, the Taoist never-come theory, and all sorts in between. Pretty cool if you get to decide, by the way. Thanks, DN. --fl]
Heck, I got confused about what I thought I knew about multiple orgasms just reading this! Guess I haven't visited that subject in awhile and assumed that figuring out the distinction really didn't matter as long as I was having the pleasure of orgasming.
So I revisit - I orgasm but then I can orgasm again in a minute or so .. is that "multiple"? Since I was very small I thought multiple meant all continuous - if not, another childhood myth has exploded! (So to speak). I'll be interested to see what the other women have to say on this too.
[According to various textbooks (not to mention a lot of people's experience) they don't have to be continuous to count. In the terms Lena's talking about it's a question of whether or how long you have to wait before you can have another, or whether or how long before you want to do it again. Of course all that really matters is that you do what you do and you're happy with it. Thanks, Katy. --fl]
For me, at least, how many times I orgasm has to do with alot of factors. With the mood I'm in ... sometimes I just want sex to go on and on all night. And that could mean many orgasms. Sometimes I just want it hot and hard and right now ... and that means one big one, then I'm satisfied. Masturbating gives different pleasures ... depends on the fantasy. And the hubby has alot to do with it: his mood, his need. So many different facets ... I consider that I'm fortunate enough to have it both ways. Sometimes it's once with a long wait before I can come again. Sometimes I can have one after another with no wait in between. And I never know which way it's going to be!! How wonderful!!!
[That is wonderful Rhia. Thanks. --fl]
I have many many multiples. Sometimes right on top of each other. I've tried to count but never could keep track since my mind is elsewhere.
[I think the "my mind is elsewhere" is the part sounds great. A lot of people try to keep score, but most people say it's better to be happy doing what you do than keeping score. :-) Thanks, Wench. --fl]
You know, i have never been a multiple kind of gal. And also have not ever been interested in experiencing said phenomenon. Maybe i'm woefully ignorant and missing out, but i've always thoroughly enjoyed my experiences, thankyouverymuch (-;. I mean, i can have an awesome clitoral orgasm from manual or mouth stimulation (in which Lydia goes off sounding like Dr. Kinsey, sheesh). And then immediately want to be fucked the hell out of, and experience a great g-spot orgasm of one kind or another. But, the multiple clitoral orgasms escape me. Which is fine by me... as you said, we're all different in that regard.
["Which is fine by me" is what you want no matter what. That's great. Thanks, Lydia. --fl]
Yes I have multiple orgasms. After an orgasm for a period of about an hour I am highly aroused and I can keep going and going like the energizer bunny. About an hour after my last orgasm it wears off a bit and I get back to my normal horny self. LOL. I'm almost always horny but that's another subject for another day eh?
Hugs
Des
[Thanks, Des. I'm usually energized like that too, after. And if my partner wants to keep playing too... --fl]
Actually, I can be multiple, too, but I usually don't push it. If I masturbate, one's good enough. It can happen, but doesn't usually.
[Thanks, Barelace. --fl]
Figleaf,
My thanks to you and Lena for playing this theme, like two musicians at improvisation. I read (once more) I don't know [how] you put up with me. There is so much insight in these posts. We are at this party called life for such a short time, and have the opportunity to give and receive such wondrous gifts, and what do we do? Worry about the wrapping paper.
Here's my thank you gift to you and Lena, from a poet who understands what you mean by real adult sex:
Kochanie
[It really means something when someone posts poetry in a comment. I enjoy but don't go ga-ga over poetry, and I'm not suggesting everyone do it, but it felt like that quotation came from your heart and that's pretty moving. Thank you, Kochanie. --fl]
I'm with the number who say they have one. I need a 'refractory' period, I've always been skeptical of the 'multiple' orgasm and yet, I also question the individual definition of orgasm. It may differ among women. It's like this 'squirt' ('male cum shot' equivalent') phenomenon that's largely seen in porn film. I'm 34, friends of mine are the same age as me, we've (between us all) have considerable sexual experience and yet we've never 'cum' like a man, and yet, throughout the 'blogosphere' it's the 'squirt' phenomenon. Makes me ask whether it's 'real' or created to emulate the pornographic ideal that's manufactured. In regard to G Spot stimulation, because stimulation (the firm stimulation required to stimulate the G Spot/area) presses against the bladder, the minor amount of liquid expelled can and has been argued to contain urine. No scientific study has shown a male equivalent of a 'money' shot in women, so yeah, makes me wonder where a small sector of women are getting their information from since they don't reference it in their posts.
[I've been with two partners who if they didn't forcibly squirt at least flowed copiously at orgasm with something that didn't smell at all like pee. And at least a handful of bloggers I have reason to trust say they've done it too. The authors of the book that introduced the g-spot to popular culture were entirely too earnest to have made it up. DTG, on the other hand, forcefully claimed last year that it really is pee. Me? I'm content to say *something* happens for some people and it doesn't matter exactly what. I *also* agree that a lot of the "squirting" depicted in industrial porn, and a lot of amateur porn doesn't fit the description. And finally, I feel strongly that it doesn't matter exactly how one and/or one's partner comes as long as you're enjoying yourselves. It's worth pointing out that the authors of The G-Spot themselves had more far more to say about the "search for the best drives out the good" reactions (several chapters) than they did about female ejaculation (several pages.) Thanks, Anastasia. --fl]
Count me in with squirting skeptics. I think it's porn's interpretation of natural female lubrication, which porn naturally carries to excess because that's what porn does. Except now it's becoming some kind of gold standard of female sexual performance. Puh-leeeze.
My orgasm feels sort of terraced, going from plateau to plateau with with ever-increasing energy until exhaustion. I don't really consider it multiple. It feels like one, stretched out over a long time, with breaks of varying duration.
DTG xxoo
[It's the "gold standard" part that gets me. Any kind of pressure (outside maybe BDSM, anyway) is a huge enjoyment killer. It's actually part of why I brought this post up to begin with -- if you're having wonderful orgasms but you think you "ought" to be having multiple ones, that's taking something away from your enjoyment. Same if you think you "ought" to be squirting (whatever it is that sometimes comes out.) The list of "ought to's" is probably longer than the things most people can actually *do,* including "real" assistance-free orgasms from intercourse, "prematurely" ejaculating before your partner's satisfied, "scoring" often enough... oh, it just goes on and on. It's not that you can't eventually do any of those things, it's just that it can kill a lot of joy in the process. Thank you so much, DTG. And happy Valentine's Day, sweetie. I didn't find you on Feb. 14th but you were one of my earliest blog buddies. --fl]