The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex (48 page)

Several fingers engaged in very specific ways (up under the bone) is really enjoyable.

A woman’s fingers (a woman who knows my G-spot) do lead me to orgasm. But a lot of friction vaginally without G-spot stimulation is more annoying and painful than enjoyable.

Most women find the experience of penetration enhanced when their whole bodies are involved. You can both enjoy several kinds of stimulation at once—try rubbing your bodies together, sucking her nipples, licking her clitoris, fingering her anus, switching on a vibrator, or kissing. And remember, latex gloves make it easy to move between vaginal and anal play. You can simply change your gloves rather than hopping up to wash your hands.

I like a tongue in my ear and on my neck; a hand lightly touching the small of my back; and clitoral and anal stimulation. In fact, in a perfect world, I could have all of that at the same time. Might overload my system, though.

Fingers that stroke my G-spot firmly are great, especially when accompanied by a tongue licking my clit.

I really like to kiss and do things orally while I’m being penetrated. I definitely like the rest of my body touched at the same time.

Vaginal Fisting

WHAT IS IT AND WHY DO IT: “Fisting” is the term used for inserting an entire hand in someone’s vagina or anus. Although the word “fisting” sounds vaguely menacing and seems to suggest that the fister slams his or her clenched fist into the fistee’s vagina, fisting is a downright tender sexual activity that requires great patience and trust on the part of its practitioners. With your hand planted deep inside your partner’s body, you can expect to feel simultaneously humbled and all-powerful. With a hand filling your vagina, you can expect to feel sensations ranging from profound passion to meditative tranquility. For some practitioners, fisting is an almost spiritual experience of union.

I call it “wearing the gauntlet” because fisting sounds so rough and my partner is very slow and solicitous of me when we play like that.

If your first reaction to the idea of fisting is to reject it as violent, painful, and potentially dangerous, you might want to stop and review a few truths about female anatomy. The vagina is made of muscle, and nature has designed it so that it can expand to let a ten-pound baby come through. It is certainly physiologically possible to get a human hand into a vagina without causing damage.

We’re not suggesting that every woman try fisting simply because she’s physically capable of it. But if you’re someone who particularly fancies the sensation of being filled up vaginally, or if you’ve always enjoyed the subtleties of finger-fucking, you may be curious about what your partner’s entire hand might feel like. What follows are some tips for exploring fisting safely. The only women who should never attempt vaginal fisting are male-to-female transsexuals, because a surgically created vagina is far less elastic than a biological vagina. Women who have had total hysterectomies—in which the cervix or the upper part of the vagina has been removed—may experience a loss of vaginal elasticity, which could make fisting painful and unappealing. The same is true for postmenopausal women.

Please do not ever embark on a fisting session if either you or your partner is drunk or in any chemically induced, altered state. Fisting demands attentiveness and concentration on the part of both participants, and you would be foolish to choose this time to dull any of your senses. The first rule of penetration is: If it hurts, you’re doing something wrong. Alcohol and drugs can raise your pain threshold to the point where you’re unaware you’re causing damage until after the fact.

FISTING HOW-TO’S: First things first: Take off all your rings and bracelets and put on a latex glove. For safer sex, you might want to wear a glove on each hand, as you’ll be reapplying lube to your fisting hand at regular intervals. A well-lubricated glove not only protects your skin and your partner’s vagina, it also transforms your hand into a sleek and slippery surface. Furthermore, fisting is an activity that demands a slow buildup, and both you and your partner may discover unexpected benefits to instituting some preparatory rituals.

Vaginal fisting

Before being fisted, watching my partner put on the glove and put lubricant all over it, very slowly and methodically, drives me insane.

The fistee will probably want to lie either on her back with her knees bent or face-down propped on her elbows and knees. The fister will want to have both hands free and to be sitting or kneeling in a comfortable position. Take your time coaxing her vagina into a relaxed, receptive state and incorporate plenty of whatever additional stimulation she finds most arousing. Insert one finger at a time until you’re up to four. Your palm should be facing her stomach, and your knuckles should be pressing in the direction of her perineum, rather than grinding painfully against her pubic bone. Your partner may find it helpful to coordinate her breathing with your movements: inhaling as you withdraw your fingers and exhaling as you insert your fingers. If she bears down with her vaginal muscles as she exhales, she’ll slide further and further onto your fingers. Take regular breaks to relubricate your entire hand and wrist. There are no Olympic medals for speed-fisting, and if you tease her to the point that she’s begging for more, so much the better for both of you.

As you’re working more and more of your fingers into her vagina, you’ll probably find yourself instinctively adopting the hand position referred to as either the “duck” or the “swan.” In this crucial fisting position, you tuck your thumb across your palm and narrow all four fingers together in a shape that resembles a beak (hence the bird names). The goal is to make your hand as narrow as possible, to sneak it through the tight ring of muscle around the vaginal opening:

I like being fisted, if they listen to my instructions to make the little duck thing before jamming their whole hand up my cunt.

You may find it helpful to incorporate a twisting motion as you gradually work more and more of your hand into her vagina. If she’s sufficiently aroused and your hand is sufficiently lubricated, the moment will arrive when the widest point of your hand across your third knuckles slips inexorably into her vagina. When your hand has pushed past the muscles ringing the vaginal opening, it will naturally fold up into a fist, snugly surrounded by the strong, hot walls of her vagina.

Once inside, there are a variety of ways to move your hand. You can rock it slightly back and forth; circle it slowly; clench and unclench your fist; tap the inner walls of the vagina; or even thrust deep into her vagina. Many women have sensitive cervixes, so unless your partner specifically likes this kind of stimulation, you should refrain from pummeling her cervix.

Fisting—opening and closing my hand while it is inside—is great. Touching her cervix is a charge. Needless to say, I love having it done to me, too.

Vaginally, I enjoy a whole hand or rapid, vigorous hand thrusts.

While your partner’s vagina may feel like the center of the universe to you during fisting, that’s no reason to neglect the rest of her body:

My partner’s best orgasms are when I have one finger up her ass, my whole other hand in her vagina, and my mouth on her clit.

I like to be gently stroked somewhere else (feet, ass, face) while being forcefully penetrated. I also like her to use her tongue to penetrate my mouth in the same hard rhythm as she is fucking me.

Your partner may or may not orgasm during fisting. Some women find the sensations of being fisted so transcendentally intense that orgasm seems irrelevant. Whether or not she comes, you’ll eventually find yourself at the point where you need to remove your hand. If she has just orgasmed, her vagina may feel a lot smaller all of a sudden. Don’t be alarmed. What went in must come out. Ask her to bear down with her vaginal muscles as you slide your hand slowly out, unfolding it as you go. If her vagina feels suctioned shut, you can break the seal by slipping another finger into her vaginal opening.

Fisting is a powerful experience for both parties involved. Both you and your partner may experience an altered state of consciousness. Allow yourselves plenty of time to come down from your high. Your partner will probably feel conscious of her vagina for several days thereafter. It’s conceivable she could spot a little blood, but unless the bleeding is heavy, there’s nothing to worry about.

Vaginal Intercourse

We’re purposefully allotting neither more nor less space to vaginal intercourse than to any of the other sexual activities and playthings addressed in this book. The myth that intercourse is the be-all and end-all of sexual experience, and that most other activities are “foreplay” to the main event, is one that has something of a stranglehold on our collective libido. In reality, intercourse need only be the “main event” when procreation is the goal (and in today’s world of reproductive technology, even this is not always the case). An emphasis on the primacy of penis-vagina intercourse devalues not just the experience of gay and lesbian couples, but also the experience of bisexual and heterosexual couples who have learned that there’s more to sex than just sticking the proverbial plug in a socket. The negative results of this single-minded approach to sex are manifold: If the pleasures of “outercourse” were openly acknowledged, surely we’d see a decrease in the rate of teenage pregnancies, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, and the number of preorgasmic women.

I do think there is this standard (even in the lesbian/bi community) that penetration is the real thing—the ultimate thing—and that if you don’t like being fucked you are uptight or boring. We have to get over that. Life is too short to spend trying to conform to other people’s standards for pleasure. Claim your own desire!

With this disclaimer off our chests, we hasten to add that intercourse certainly deserves a place in the Sexual Activities Hall of Fame. Intercourse provides full-body contact, mutual stimulation, and an intermingling of flesh that is highly arousing on many levels, both physiological and emotional. The discussion of vaginal intercourse that follows is equally applicable both to opposite-sex and same-sex couples and to penis/vagina intercourse or dildo/vagina intercourse.

EXPECTATIONS: You and your partner should be clear about your respective expectations and assumptions around intercourse. If you’re in agreement that intercourse is just one facet of your sexual interaction, you’ll probably have fewer concerns about whether it will lead to orgasm. If you do have orgasm as your goal, you’ll need to bear in mind that anywhere from 50 to 75 percent of women do not achieve orgasm from penetration alone, as penetration does not provide enough of the clitoral stimulation that most women need to reach orgasm. Do yourselves a favor and don’t get stuck on the physiologically unlikely goal of a no-hands orgasm for both partners, for this will only limit your enjoyment of intercourse.

Sometimes it’s hard to get penetration and stimulation at the same time. Sometimes it’s too awkward (physically or because of my partner’s feelings) to do it myself.

I much prefer oral sex over fucking. I do love both, but the fucking part is mostly for my honey so he can come inside me. He’s a hard come and does it best inside me.

Another popular intercourse expectation is that of simultaneous orgasm. Marriage manuals of the fifties and sixties touted this as the summit of sexual bliss, thereby establishing a standard that is extremely difficult for most couples to live up to. Arousal patterns vary from person to person and from occasion to occasion. If you’re monitoring your partner’s level of arousal, you’re bound to be a bit distracted from your own. Simultaneous orgasm promotes an ideal of egalitarian reciprocity that doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the average Joe or Jane’s sexual responses. Of course, if you do experience simultaneous orgasm, that’s grand. Just don’t be surprised if it happens more by sheer accident than by design.

LUBRICATION: A key accompaniment to any type of penetration is lubricant, and intercourse is no exception. Unless your partner has a great deal of natural lubrication, consider adding some from a bottle—this will make intercourse more comfortable for both of you:

We use condoms with extra Astroglide even though I naturally lubricate a lot myself. We apply it periodically as we go, to stay nice and slippery at all times. It makes it feel better and allows us to go on for a long time.

We do occasionally hear from men and women who complain that “too much” lubrication makes it hard for them to get enough friction to reach orgasm. If this is the case, you can try adjusting your angle of penetration so that the penetrator is rubbing against the edge of the vaginal opening, rather than sliding straight in. Or you can wear condoms—latex tends to suck up lubrication and to add friction to the proceedings.