Pleasure Techniques

Learn four techniques women use to increase pleasure during vaginal penetration. OMGyes, in partnership with Indiana University School of Medicine, conducted a nationally representative study of over 3000 women, and I share their results in this episode. Hear about shallowing, pairing, rocking, and angling - along with practical tips for each one. I also discuss how faking orgasm can undermine your pleasure and give conversation starters to open a discussion about it with a partner.

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Learn more about these topics
OMGyes
Pairing demo
Shallowing demo
Rocking demo
The clitoris - it’s a network!
Questions about orgasm
The key to female pleasure
Maude use code CINDY10
Dame
Communication, Couples & Sex
Talking with a partner about sex
Talking About Sex (When Things Aren't Great)

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to Permission for Pleasure. I'm Cindy Sharkey, your host, and I'm delighted you joined me for this educational episode about pleasure. Specifically, I'm going to talk about four techniques to use along with penetration to increase your pleasure, as well as how faking orgasm can decrease your pleasure. Before we get started, I want to invite you to sign up for my newsletter if you want more education, if you want to know when I drop a new blog, what's happening on the podcast. The link to sign up for that is in the show notes. Also, there is the question line, which are where you can text or call in your questions for the podcast. So check the show notes for both those links. One question that came in recently was Do you really like UberLoube? I started laughing because the truth is, yes, I actually tell you only about products that align with my standards. And there are some real reasons I like Uberlube. It's slippery, not sticky, it's long-lasting, and it stays where you put it. And it comes in a pretty glass bottle with a metered pump. There you have it. That's the truth about Uberlobe. And you can try it and give it a go with my 15% off discount code at the link in the show notes. So let's start with some of these practical tips and techniques to increase your pleasure and possible orgasms with penetration. To clarify, when I say penetration, I mean a penis, toy, fingers, any and all of that. So giving language to what works for you, maybe what you're already doing, can be really helpful. Helpful for yourself in understanding your body and helpful in communicating with a partner. What brings you pleasure? What you need for pleasure, what you desire and want to try for pleasure. So I want to share these four ways that women report experiencing more pleasure from vaginal penetration. And these were found in a study conducted by OMGS, a research company and website devoted to women's sexual pleasure, alongside Indiana University School of Medicine. Over 4,000 women ages 18 to 93 were studied. So let me be super clear. These techniques were reported through the study, named, and then published in a scientific journal, PLOS 1. So I'm trying to spell out the research in a simple way to help you help yourself. You may hear one or two of these things and think, oh, huh, I do that. Or you may listen and think, I want to try that. That seems like that is something that would be helpful for me. So let's jump in. The first one is called shallowing. Shallowing is used by 84% of women. And this is touch that stays just inside the entrance of the vagina. I'm talking about slower and more gentle motions. You would definitely need good arousal and warm-up time. Lube is your friend here again. A dry vagina of dry vulva is not pleasurable for touch. The perineum, that tissue between the vagina and the rectum, is very sensitive and it will want lubrication. So be sure and use your uber lube here to decrease that friction, but not sensation. Okay? This technique may bring you to orgasm on its own, or it's great along with other activities and stimulation. So again, gentle, shallow thrusts or like a curling motion that's repeated over and over. OMG Yes described it as quick repeated fluttering or knocking at the door. Maybe those are words or language that might be helpful for you as you describe it to a partner. The second one is pairing. 70% of women report that they use pairing. This is basically including stimulation to the clitoris along with penetration at the same time, either by the woman or by her partner. Remember, super important, only 18% of women have orgasms with penetration alone. That's a small percent. The big majority of women need and desire stimulation to the clitoris alongside penetration if they want to orgasm with penetration. So pairing is just the word to use for this technique. And you can learn more about why this is so important and why the clitoris is the key to women's pleasure. In episode one of the podcast or over on the blog, I will link you to the clitoral network blog in the show notes. So you can reach down and stimulate that glands clitoris that you can see and feel on the outside with your finger or a toy during penetration. Again, lube is your friend here. Keep your Uber lube handy. Rubbing and friction on that area if it's dry is not pleasurable. Choose positions that allow for this kind of reach to the clitoris and have a conversation about it if you're having partnered sex. You could place your own hand there, you could place your partner's hand there, you could guide your partner's hand there, you could place show and tell. Use a position where you can use your own fingers or a toy and they can see how you like it and what stimulation you enjoy there and what works for you. Several good companies have small vibes that either fit on your finger, like Dame has a finger vibe, or Maud has a small drop vibe, fits right in the palm of your hand. These kind of tools can be really helpful in the pairing technique. The third thing is rocking. 76% of women say that they use rocking with penetration. This means basically the penetration stays inside rather than thrusting, stays in the vagina all the way in so that the clitoris is in constant contact without being interrupted. So the stimulation is not interrupted. You could do this a couple of different ways, perhaps wrapping your legs around your partner, or you could wrap your legs around to help remind them not to thrust, or also allow you more ability to kind of grind and rock and use motions that you're comfortable doing or that bring the best sensations to you, whether you're on the top or on the bottom. Doesn't matter. The last one is angling. 88% of women report using angling. This is rotating or raising or lowering the hips to adjust where the penis or the toy rubs. Now you need to remember that every single woman is different. Meaning the distance between her glands clitoris that you can see or feel on the outside, the part of the clitoris, and the vagina entrance, the vaginal opening, varies from woman to woman. So what works for one woman may not work for another, and so forth. But you're thinking about what angle does the penetration give you the best sensations, the most pleasurable sensations. You might want to consider using a pillow under your buttocks if you're on your back. You could experiment here too with height and firmness. You can try rounding your back to tuck your pelvis, maybe putting one leg up. See how these different positions would give you a different angle. You know, your partner could tilt too, as long as the position allows for that constant, great touching of your clitoris. Okay, or the areas inside the vaginal wall at which angle feel the best to you. So these four techniques identified by OMG Yes can really help you talk out loud about the things you want to try or the positions you want to use. Because, as always, friends, communication is absolutely key. Let's talk a little bit now about faking orgasms and how this can possibly be decreasing your pleasure. You know, women fake orgasm for many reasons. And frankly, I'm not here to judge or make anyone feel badly because they fake now and again or they have faked in the past. But what I am here to tell you is that your pleasure matters. So, what's the truth about faking? How often and how much are women really doing that? Well, in a national study done at the Kinsey Institute a few years ago, 60% of women will say that on numerous occasions they've faked. And in this study that the Kinsey Institute did, what do you think is the number one reported reason that women fake? You're right. It's to please a partner. Wow, this is such a common theme that I hear from women. But friends, when we fake orgasm, what happens is our partner downloads information to their brain about what we find pleasurable, which in fact is not working for us to reach orgasm. So in the end, we are limiting our own pleasure. Another big factor with faking orgasm is that, you know, we're directing our focus on performing instead of enjoying. And for sure, performance-based sex is going to decrease your pleasure. This is something worth exploring. There are a lot of reasons women fake, but as the research showed, it often comes down to expectation or pressure from a partner or from ourselves to please a partner. So let's talk a little bit about this expectation andor pressure that is there. And I want to offer some healthy questions to ask yourself around this topic. Is this coming from yourself, this pressure or expectation, or from your partner, or both? Is it around your own concern that your partner feels successful or you don't want them to feel badly? Is it because you're tired and you want sex to be done and over? Is it due to the fact that you feel like you're quote taking too long to get there? Is it you or your partner's expectation that you orgasm every time? And lastly, is there an expectation or pressure to orgasm with intercourse alone? Which we just talked about, is a very small percentage of women. I encourage you to spend some time thinking about these questions and your answers if you are in the habit of faking orgasm. And I want to offer some ideas to start an honest conversation with a partner. So if you are with a newer partner, it could sound like this. Touch me right here, even be more specific. Take your partner's hand and guide it to where you want to be touched. We just talked about this again with the pairing technique. It could also sound like could we do fill in the blank? If you know what you want, get specific and ask for it. Or demonstrate it. Perhaps you could say, I'm really enjoying myself, but I'm not going to orgasm. This communicates your pleasure as well as taking off the pressure of orgasm. Because orgasm does not have to happen every sexual encounter for the encounter to be pleasurable. If you're with a longtime partner, obviously this may look a little more complicated. Coming clean or talking honestly about it is up to you whether you want to just move forward handling this a different way or if you want to open the conversation. Because if you've been faking for a long time with a longtime partner, it can feel really scary and overwhelming. And I understand that. But certainly, this is a conversation that, while requiring care, can be done as you approach a partner with honesty and the why. I mean, they may be really surprised, especially if you've been really good at faking it and they've been really good at believing it, and they'll have some emotion about it, and it's okay for them to have some emotion about it. But take some time to really consider the reasons why you've been faking and how and if you can and will to communicate some of this to your partner. I want to give you just a couple ideas if you choose to start a conversation with a longtime partner. It could sound like I'm understanding more and more about myself sexually, and I would really like to have an honest conversation about it with you, what I'm learning about myself. Or I've learned some new things about my body and how I orgasm. And I really would like to share that with you. Or if that's a little bit too intimidating, say, hey, I was listening to this nurse talk on her podcast about female orgasm, and I want to talk about what I learned with you. Lastly, maybe I'm changing in how I view our sex life. I found that I don't need to orgasm every time for it to be pleasurable. Starting these kinds of conversations around pleasure and orgasm, and certainly using I statements will help your partner receive the information with less defensive feelings and also help you to offer the information. Oh wow, we have several good episodes about communication with partners with Megan Caston. I'm going to link those in the show notes that just dawned on me. And I have a blog about talking to a partner about sex with some basic strategies and conversation starters, and I'll link that as well. If this conversation feels too, well, too overwhelming to you on your own, consider having a good therapist or counselor navigate the conversation, or sex therapists are well trained for these kinds of conversations and helping you and assisting you to work through it. But first, always open the conversation with yourself, coming to a better understanding about your own relationship with sex, orgasm, and pleasure before you move into conversation with your partner. I'm cheering you on. And a big thank you to Uberlobe for sponsoring this episode and supporting the podcast. I've shared a little bit about why I love their product. Again, remember you can try it with a discount. Use my code in the show notes. Perhaps ask your primary care provider if they have professional samples that you could try. I recently shared samples with my own primary care provider, the lube fairies at work all the time, friends. So I want to leave you today before we wrap up with a little pleasure practice. Just pause, take a deep breath if you can, and think about experiencing more pleasure by giving your mind a timeout. In the sense that your body can venture into a pleasure journey and let go of focusing on a goal. Release yourself from an end result. Simply intentionally immerse yourself in the pleasure journey. Giving yourself permission for pleasure.