Great Sex Secret (12 page)

Report
described it in passing. Only one book in the vast sex literature goes into any detail: Betty Dodson’s
Orgasms for Two: the Joy of Partnersex
. But this book has received very little attention, and the man-stimulates-clitoris-during-intercourse technique is one that many couples may never have heard about or considered.

This is unfortunate, because this approach—we might call it the great sex secret—can work wonderfully well.

The invisibility of this seemingly obvious mutual-orgasm technique is baffling. In the highly explicit pages of
The Joy of Sex
and other pictorial guides to lovemaking, and in countless sex scenes in movies and instructional videos, we virtually never see a man touching a woman’s clitoris during penis-in-vagina intercourse. Even Chakrasamvara, a late-fourteenth-century Buddhist deity who is often portrayed making love in a sitting position with his twelve arms entwining his consort, doesn’t use
one
of his hands to touch his partner’s clitoris.

Is there a silent taboo at work here? It’s as if men are responding to a powerful, unspoken prohibition and are programmed to keep their elbows on the mattress and their hands on the woman’s shoulders or face or head or buttocks—anywhere but the clitoris. Okay, it’s partly a matter of female geography—it would be a lot easier to stimulate the clitoris during intercourse if it were located, say, on one of her earlobes. But it 1 2 2

T h e G r e a t S e x S e c r e t
may also be the result of the stubbornly resilient penetration-produces-female-orgasm paradigm: clitoral stimulation is reserved for
foreplay
and should not be necessary during intercourse.

But it
is
necessary. For couples who want to have orgasms together (and don’t like the no-hands approaches described in Chapter 5 or the woman-touches-her-clitoris technique suggested by Shere Hite), having the man stimulate the clitoris while his penis is in the vagina is a reliable, straightforward way to bring a woman to orgasm. It’s also a way to orchestrate simultaneous orgasms. Here’s a step-by-step description of how it works:

• Foreplay proceeds as usual, with selections from the menu of kissing, touching, short-of-orgasm oral sex by one or both partners, and other positions and activities that allow the lovers to express affection, enjoy each others’ bodies, and get thoroughly aroused.

• The man puts his penis into the vagina and does some gentle thrusting (not to orgasm) while continuing to kiss and caress.

• Then the man, with his penis still in the vagina, shifts his weight to one side, reaches down, and begins to caress the clitoris with his fingers. Staying tuned to his partner’s level of arousal (communicated by her words, her sighs, her breathing, and
T h r e e A p p r o a c h e s t o M u t u a l S a t i s f a c t i o n
1 2 3

her body’s response), and moving his penis just enough to keep himself on a plateau of arousal short of orgasm, he brings her closer and closer to her own. Depending on the time available and the lovers’ energy level, they may want to approach orgasm one or more times and then back off and enjoy more mutual pleasuring before the finale.

• As the woman’s orgasm begins, the man starts thrusting in earnest and flattens his hand against her belly, bearing down and continuing to rub the clitoris in a slower rhythm, following his own movements and hers, bringing her orgasm to its crescendo at about the same moment he reaches his own. Since a man’s orgasm is usually shorter in duration than a woman’s (about five seconds versus about twenty), it is possible for his to be entirely enveloped by hers, or it may happen just as hers finishes (allowing him to take his hand away for his final spasms), or it may arrive a few seconds after hers. The definition of “simultaneous” is somewhat loose; orgasms that occur within a minute of each other are close enough to reap the rewards.

• The couple lies back, one leg perhaps draped over the other’s leg, a hand on a thigh, endorphins coursing their bodies, loving the mutual glow—

and loving each other.

1 2 4

T h e G r e a t S e x S e c r e t
This little-known approach to mutual satisfaction during intercourse raises a number of questions:
Does making love this way require unusual skill?
For it to work, four elements need to be present, none of which is out of reach for most mature, loving couples: 1. The man has to be willing to defer the primal thrusting of standard-issue intercourse and engage in a more restrained and nuanced approach choreographed with his partner’s pleasure.

2. The man has to have the self-awareness and self-control to move his penis in the vagina just enough to keep himself aroused, but not so much that he has an orgasm before his partner (this is no small feat, especially for young, highly aroused lovers).

3. The man has to be able to stimulate the clitoris in a way that brings his partner to orgasm. There’s no one right way to do this, and his skill depends entirely on feedback from his partner on what feels good and what doesn’t.

4. Finally, the woman has to give
honest
feedback (usually nonverbal) on where she is on the road to orgasm so that her partner can match his own level of arousal to hers and join her when she comes.

Not all people are willing and/or able to exercise this level of empathy, communication, and restraint.

The novelist Paul Coelho once wrote, “The art of sex is the art of controlled abandon,” and not all couples
T h r e e A p p r o a c h e s t o M u t u a l S a t i s f a c t i o n
1 2 5

are willing to exercise this type of control in the middle of sexual abandon. Couples who aren’t—and those who don’t find this approach appealing—will choose a different one.

Even if all four ingredients are solidly in place, the man-stimulates-clitoris-during-intercourse approach doesn’t work 100 percent of the time. There are days when the man’s timing is off and he has his orgasm before the woman reaches hers. And there are days when one partner is less easily aroused, has a muted climax, or is unable to have an orgasm at all (this, of course, is true for any approach to lovemaking). But most of the time, the man-stimulates-clitoris-during-intercourse approach is highly reliable.

Isn’t it difficult for the man to reach the clitoris during
intercourse?
The main barrier is attitudinal, not physical.

Once a couple has decided that touching the clitoris is an alright thing to do during intercourse, the body positions can be figured out. A man does not need to be a contortionist to pull this off; in fact, he can reach the clitoris in virtually all lovemaking positions—man on top, woman on top, sitting, entering the vagina from behind, even standing up—and he can reach it from the front or by reaching around from behind.

How about the problem of pacing—not feeling rushed
or held back?
The man-stimulates-clitoris-during-intercourse approach basically gets the man up onto a 1 2 6

T h e G r e a t S e x S e c r e t
pleasant plateau of arousal, poised for orgasm, while the woman is brought toward orgasm at her own pace.

There’s no hurry (in fact, prolonging this phase can heighten the eventual orgasms), so she doesn’t need to feel rushed and he (provided he has good self-control) can enjoy his plateau as he brings her along.

How about being distracted by the other person’s
orgasm?
The man-stimulates-clitoris-during-intercourse approach is less of an awkward juggling of tasks than lovers experience in “69”: the positions are more conventional, and only the man is doing two things, both of which connect him to mutual pleasure: his fingers keep him in touch with his partner’s arousal while the walls of her vagina keep his penis in touch with his own arousal. The woman can relax and focus on her increasing arousal and the feeling of her partner’s penis inside her, and her hands are free to hold and caress his back, buttocks, thighs, testicles, and penis. When the moment comes, it’s possible for both partners to revel in their own orgasms, enjoy their partner’s pleasure, and have their own pleasure enhanced by their partner’s. Synergy is a definite possibility, as it is with the Hite approach.

Might some women feel this approach is too male-orchestrated?
Women who want to be in control of their own pleasure are likely to have this reaction, in which case they’ll want to use the Hite self-stimulation
T h r e e A p p r o a c h e s t o M u t u a l S a t i s f a c t i o n
1 2 7

approach. But other women have no problem with their partner choreographing both orgasms. In fact, many women might find it a refreshing change for the man to take such an active role in giving her satisfaction, while at the same time her vagina is pleasuring him and bringing him to orgasm. This “division of labor” is as equal as the separate-orgasms approach; it avoids the resentment that comes when one partner feels that he or she is doing more “work” than the other, or has to concentrate on the partner’s pleasure at a time when it would be nice to bask in the orgasmic afterglow.

Is this approach worth the trouble?
For couples who find they can make it work, absolutely. All the advantages of having simultaneous orgasms that were described with the Hite approach apply here as well.

Why isn’t the man-stimulates-clitoris-during-intercourse
approach out there in the literature?
That’s a good question. Some couples have figured it out on their own, and it’s probably been used by a small percentage of lovers going back hundreds or even thousands of years.

But in historical and contemporary sex literature, it’s truly the stealth approach to making love: the authors of countless books, articles, websites, and films do not mention it.

Why haven’t the couples who use this approach written articles or books? Maybe they chanced upon it with a lover and didn’t think of it as a sexual breakthrough.

1 2 8

T h e G r e a t S e x S e c r e t
(There’s anecdotal evidence that couples tend to stumble upon this approach several years into a sexual relationship.) Maybe they assume that everyone makes love this way, so what’s the big deal? Maybe they have a lingering feeling that this approach is a makeshift workaround and not the way intercourse is really
supposed
to work. Maybe they are shy and believe that the way people make love is a private matter that shouldn’t be discussed outside the bedroom. Maybe they are not the type of people who write about sex and don’t feel it’s their job to spread the method they discovered. Or maybe they feel they would come across as boastful and presumptuous if they wrote about a sex technique that was working for them.

Whatever the reason, it’s a shame that the man-stimulates-clitoris-during-intercourse approach is discussed so little. It is one of the very few ways to bring about mutual satisfaction during orgasm, and it can reliably produce simultaneous orgasms. As such, it deserves a place of honor on the sexual menu.

★

Each of the techniques described in this chapter solves the ancient riddle and brings mutual satisfaction within any couple’s grasp. For couples who may have concluded that orgasms for both partners during love-

T h r e e A p p r o a c h e s t o M u t u a l S a t i s f a c t i o n
1 2 9

making were impossible or just too complicated, these three approaches provide viable options. What we don’t know is how many couples are using them. Elisabeth Lloyd wrote that because researchers haven’t been asking the right questions, there is a dearth of information on how widespread “assisted” female orgasms during intercourse are across cultures.

Each technique has

advantages and disadvan-

It is baffling that three viable
tages. There are differ-mutual-orgasm techniques

ences in the male skill

are almost never discussed in

level required (the Hite

sex literature.

approach demands the

least); in couples’ desire

for separate or simultaneous orgasms; in whether partners prefer to be in control of their own and their partner’s orgasms; and in the compromises required by one or both partners from straightforward, way-it’s-supposed-to-be intercourse. The key is exploring the
full
range of options (perhaps including some from Chapter 5 and some that haven’t been written about yet), communicating honestly, speaking up if an approach is uncomfortable or a turn-off, and finding the one (or ones) that work best over time. Couples who make this journey and find what they’re looking for are on the road to sexual happiness.

Chapter Seven

What’s Technique Got to

Do with It?

So far we’ve focused almost exclusively on the physiology of intercourse—what is usually called sexual technique. All this begs the question of what even the best lovemaking methodology has to do with love and romance. This chapter will explore the interplay between the mechanics of sex and the emotional side of intimate relationships.

To help frame the issues, here is a point-counter-point presenting what seem to be opposing positions on this subject:

• True love is a catalyst for great sex.

• Great sex makes true love stronger and better.

• Love is the key to keeping one’s sex life alive through the years.

• Great sexual technique is important to keeping love alive over time.

1 3 2

T h e G r e a t S e x S e c r e t

• It’s possible for a couple to be in love despite mediocre or non-existent sex.

• It’s possible to have terrific sex without being in love.

• Good sex can’t cure serious problems a couple might have.

• Bad sex isn’t the source of most couple’s problems.

As you thought about each pair of statements, it may have struck you that perhaps it’s not a case of either-or: all of the statements can be true. Love and sex are constantly interacting within a romantic relationship in ways that can be synergistic.