Photo by Flickr user photoprodigy. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Mary Roach, in a chapter titled (with signature drollery) The Princess** And Her Pea; the woman who moved her clitoris and other ruminations on intercourse orgasms, in Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, draws a number of lines of research into women’s orgasmic “capacity,” both ancient and modern, with the entirely sensible point that orgasmic “capacity” for women (and, incidentally, for men) is almost entirely a function of who’s in control of what’s going on.

She sites Alfred Kinsey who agreed that clitoral location can make a difference, and so can position, but what matters most is “one’s level of engagement in the proceedings.” He suggested that it’s no so much that “women on top” positions are anatomically superior as “...it is the person on top who’s in control — making the movements and controlling their speed and depth and direction.”

She cites a modern researcher, Kim Wallen, who says “Women who routinely have orgasm in intercourse without explicit clitoral stimulation all say that it makes little difference what the guy does, as long as he doesn’t come too soon.” To which Roach adds “Meaning, it’s the women’s own movement that matters most.”

Wallen also says “In fact it is sometimes preferred that he just lie there and anchor the woman’s pelvis to him. The movie image of wild abandoned thrusting seems to have exactly the opposite of the intended effect on these women.”

Roach politely added that wild abandon can be nice. “Later, you know, toward the end.”

I mention this because heterosexual orgasmic “dysfunctions” are so linked to the “no-sex” class paradigm that insists women are disinclined to sex and, therefore, that women who are orgasmic during sex are atypical. Which means that men who (as befits us as members of the “sex” class) “manage” to get women in to bed with them and then “manage” to “give” them orgasms through androcentric, he-does-all-the-thrusting*** sex gets all kinds of “worthiness” points. If he bothers at all because, after all, women’s orgasms being atypical and all he might just feel like going for his orgasms figuring he can compensate her some other material-transfer-y sort of way. Which in turn fits perfectly into… the “no-sex” class paradigm wherein women would rather get stuff than have sex!

Oh, and can I just point out yet again how just the simple steps of turning intercourse over to her at least often enough for her to become accomplished, and then defining the end of sex as when she has her orgasm would force a rewrite of virtually**** every bit of mainstream heterosexual sex advice written in the last 400 (and maybe the last 4,000) years.

[** The princess in question was Marie Bonaparte, great-grand-niece of Napoleon, who, it turns out, helped pioneer inquiries into women’s orgasms during intercourse in the 1920s. —fl]

[*** And maybe in addition to all the thrusting he “masterfully” “warms her up” with cunnilingus or other forms of “foreplay.” And perhaps later “finishes her off,” multitasking with a finger or vibrator during intercourse. —fl]

[**** And just to be clear? I’m not saying “you’re not doing it right” to anybody, not at all at all. First because that would just be tossing the dysfunctionality ball back in. Second because everybody’s mileage varies. And finally because everybody’s mileage varies! Some people (maybe 15% of women and a nearly equal number of men) are simply not orgasmic no matter what they try. —fl]

Here’s a consolidated mass of random TMI Tuesday answers. I nicked the questions from Vixen at Secrets of a Blue-eyed Vixen.

2. Which super power (ability to turn invisible, ability to read people’s thoughts, or invulnerability) would you take and why?
The virtuous superpower of my dreams would be to make people understand perfectly their opponent’s point of view. Not so we could get all lovey-dovey (although that might be one possible outcome) but instead so that we’d have fewer stupid arguments about inessential details. (Smarter ones would be ok.)

The salacious superpower? Plastic Man / Reed Richards / Elastagirl thing where you can radically change the way your body’s shaped. And no, not just so I could do the cliché things with cock or tongue. I’m thinking always being able to have my head in the right spot for full-on kisses regardless of position… which, I guess could have some bearing on the usual cock/tongue cliché. :-) But that and being able to just endlessly surge and pour against a partner’s body till her body fluttered against mine.

3. Would you rather be tied up or tie someone else up? Why?
Yeah, I keep saying I’d be willing to let someone tie me up and/or spank me, and/or otherwise top me. And I would be willing — I can be extraordinarily aroused by what floats a partner’s boat. And I know people who can switch easily tend to be a lot better balanced overall than those who stick firmly to one side or another (if, for no other reason, than — where’s that superpower again? — understanding how the other half lives can improve technique, not to mention creativity.) But… I have issues with being tied up that, come to think of it, have to do with being tied up by playmates as a kid, and… hmm… actually, as I mentioned a moment ago, while I strongly prefer tying to being tied that previous experience really did increase both my compassionate sensitivity and my wicked creativity so….

I gotta say, though, that there’s something really lovely about just crossing a partner’s hands over her head, pressing them down, and growling “keep them right there…” Not all bondage requires binding.

5. If they were naming new Dwarves beyond the seven what would your name be and why?

Blabby I’m afraid. I like to read non-fiction, ok, and I like to talk about what I read. At dinner many years ago a roommate, told my partner (only half-jokingly) “damn, you could just replace him with an encyclopedia and a vibrator, couldn’t you?”)

Bonus: What’s the most embarrassing thing you ever bought?
This might sound funny but the most embarrassing thing I’ve bought would probably be my first Macintosh. I was really, really into the Mac when it first came out, but way too broke to do much more than look at them in magazines… on the magazine racks, since, for that matter, I was too broke to afford magazines either! Then I wound up in technology, documentation, and IT, which was all PC-based. And so when I finally had the means, motive, and opportunity to actually buy an Apple I’m constantly pleased by how superficially pretty it is but also less patient with it’s underlying blind spots. That plus they (we now own three) crash way more often than the Windows boxes we replaced them with. Not sexy, I know, but hey, I’m a rebel. :-)

1. Where was the first place you ever had sex?
You gotta define sex, of course. First ever was probably when I was in kindergarten and a girl my age, who lived on the corner asked if I wanted to play something like doctor behind a building in our neighborhood. We just pulled off our pants but in that context it was powerfully erotic. First ever anything leading to an orgasm I was alone in bed sometime in maybe 7th grade, maybe 8th? I’m going to assume they mean first intercourse, and that would have been on a Valentine’s Day in the carpeted hallway of my first partner’s exuburban/suburban split level home (we did it there so we’d hear the garage door if her parents came home unexpectedly.)

2. Does size matter? (open to interpretation boys and girls)
Yes. Not so much for sexual sensation but woozie, would the economy ever collapse if we quit worrying about size and started worrying about health, happiness, and general well being. Not to mention that if people didn’t worry about size then everyone in both the spam-filtering and spam-generating industries would be out of work.

3. Have you ever had sex in your office or your place of employment?
Yes. Even when I didn’t work at home. :-)

4. Ever been skinny dipping?
Yes, but not until surprisingly late in life — about 26 or 27. I went, of all things, with a couple of teenage girls (it was a moonless night and none of us saw any of each other.) Anyway, I was one of the volunteer guides in a sort of outward bound program for “at-risk” youth. A couple of the girls wanted to go in and I wound up going in with them to make sure nothing untoward happened. Turns out all the boys, many of them theoretically tough as nails, were just totally shy and freaked out and wouldn’t go anywhere near undressing if there were girls nearby, naked or dressed.

5. Top or bottom?
As Vixen puts it in her answer to this question

Fuck. There is NO way to choose. Top means a guaranteed O. But bottom means optimum penetration…. And then there is everything in between… Lord!

See her other answers to last week’s TMI Tuesday entry here.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere that whoever (metaphorically) gets to be on top seems more likely to guaranteed an orgasm, but then when I’m on the bottom it seems like I’m almost always guaranteed I get to enjoy someone else’s orgasm. Or orgasms. But when it’s my turn for an orgasm I prefer being on top.

That’s enough for now I think. Off to bed with me.