Permission for Pleasure
A podcast to educate and equip women with the information and confidence they need to express, experience and enjoy their sexuality. Cindy Scharkey RN, BSN, brings her 35+ years of experience as a healthcare professional to open the doors to healthy conversations about sex. This is a community where you can listen and learn to give yourself permission for pleasure. Visit www.cindyscharkey.com for educational blogs and newsletter.
Permission for Pleasure
Can Men Be Multi-Orgasmic?
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Sex coach Cam Fraser returns for part two of our conversation about men and sex. We cover erections, ejaculation, and how men can experience multiple orgasms. Find out Cam's communication tip for women partnered with men, and why men need more permission to explore their bodies for pleasure and fulfilling intimacy.
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There's other ways of touching your body. Maybe include some oil. Maybe give yourself a massage. Maybe take a bath. They have resistance to doing these things because they feel like it means something about their sexuality.
SPEAKER_01Hello and welcome to Permission for Pleasure. I'm Cindy Sharkey, your host, and you're joining me for part two of my discussion with Cam Fraser. Cam's a certified sexologist and Australia's leading men's sex coach. I do hope you'll go back and listen to part one if you missed it, because you'll be able to hear Cam's story and our really good discussion about masculine myths, stereotypes, and narratives around sexuality. It is worth your time. And it leads us to this episode, which is more specific about erections, orgasms, multi-orgasmic men, ejaculation, pleasure for men, and prostate stimulation. And speaking of prostate stimulation, which can be done through anal penetration, I want to emphasize again that the anus does not self-lubricate. And added lubrication is an absolute must. The perfect loop for that is Uberloop, my favorite silicone lube. Why? Well, Uberlube is a formula that is silky smooth and stays where you put it. It's not easily absorbed. It makes it perfect for anal play or anal penetration of any kind. You can find the link to Uberloop in the show notes and my discount code Cindy to try it today. I'm delighted you tuned in. And if you are learning here on the podcast with me, will you please take a moment to rate the show on your platform and follow the show? You can also write a review if you listen on Apple. That really does help people to find the podcast. And I would appreciate you taking a moment to do one or all of those things. Let's help the podcast to grow together. Now we are going to jump right back in with Cam and where our conversation left off in part one. Thanks for listening. I've heard you speak to non-concordance and within erections. I'd love for you to just flesh that out a little bit for ones listening because I think it's an important point based on a lot of other things that we've talked about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so this like is the one thing that you need to know that'll just like bust this whole idea of like getting an erection straight away. And it's called arousal non-concordance, and it's you know, everyone gets it. Doesn't you don't have to have a penis to get this, but it's essentially this idea or this phenomenon, this experience that you can have an erection but not be turned on in the same way that you can be turned on but not have an erection. The two don't 100% match up all the time. And so guys that are listening to this, hopefully they'll have an experience where maybe they've you know got an erection in the morning. Morning Wood is a perfect example, right? And you wake up with an erection, that doesn't mean you're ready to go, doesn't mean you're ready to have sex, doesn't mean that you're turned on. In fact, a lot of guys I know that wake up in the morning are not wanting to have sex, that they don't have desire to have sex in those instances, but they have a physiological erection, right? Similarly, hopefully a lot of guys will relate to this. They've been in an instance where they're desiring to have sex with a partner. Maybe they're in the moment with their partner being like, yeah, I want to have sex, I'm really horny, I'm really turned on, I want to go through with this, and their erection isn't there. Maybe they don't have an erect penis. Very common experiences, and what that is known as is arousal non-concordance, it just means that your physical response of arousal and your psychological or subjective, your mental response of arousal just haven't lined up. And typically, you know, this I mean, there's a few ways to navigate this, but the most straightforward way is give yourself a bit of time. Give yourself a bit of time for those two things to line up. Keep the momentum going, keep the pleasure going. Try not to get too in your head of like, oh god, I don't have an erection, this is going to like ruin the experience. Because it's not. You've got tongues, you've got hands, you've got feet, you've got toys, you've got other parts of your body that you can still experience pleasure with. Hell, your soft penis can still experience the same amount of pleasure as your erect penis can. They've got the same number of nerve endings in it. Just keep the momentum going, keep the pleasure going, stay in your body, stay in those physical experiences that are enjoyable to you and your partner. And lo and behold, give yourself five, ten minutes. Usually the erection comes along because you're not in your head, you're not anxious, you're not in your sympathetic nervous system, you're relaxed, you're experiencing pleasure, you're connecting with your partner, all those good, juicy things, and usually those things start to line up. So that's something to be really mindful of, especially for women as well. So something that I do notice that women will tell themselves if their male partner doesn't have an erection is oh god, he's not attracted to me anymore. Oh god, he's not turned on by me right now, or I'm not attractive enough, I'm not sexy enough for him, I'm not doing the things that he likes. A lot of women really personalize their male partner's lack of erection or or their erection, right? If he has an erection, oh he wants sex right now. Like they might do it in a negative way. Oh, I can't believe he's got another erection. Can't believe, you know, he's waking up in the morning, he wants to have sex straight away. Again, conflating erection with arousal when that's not the case. Or, you know, they put a lot of stock in whether he's got an erection, oh, he he must still be attracted to me, he must still find me you know hot. I might still be, you know, doing it for him, and vice versa, if that erection's not there, then God, what does that mean about me as his partner? Like he doesn't like me anymore. So again, decentering the penis can be really helpful for that story as well. That I know a lot of women tell themselves because that's what they've kind of been conditioned to believe.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and that's a big conversation for anyone who has children is trying to be the sex educator in their home. These kinds of things that Cam and I are talking about are just good, solid sex ed that your kids need in your home so that they don't believe in these narratives and scripts that are not healthy. Oh, this is just awesome. You talked about erections, and let's talk about orgasm and ejaculation because there is so much mixed and wrong information about this, Cam, and you speak to it so beautifully. So I'm gonna give you a chance to start in and then I'll jump in.
SPEAKER_00Sure. So the biggest myth that I hear uh of about orgasm and ejaculation is that they're the same thing, that orgasm equals ejaculation, when really they're actually two separate physiological processes. Now I won't go into the in-depth describing of how we came to that understanding, but there's like a rich sexological history of how we came to recognize and understand that ejaculation and orgasm are actually two separate physiological processes. And even today they still get conflated in the literature, even though there's been academic people calling for the specific, clear distinction between those two, it's still conflated in the literature. So, you know, if academics are still getting it wrong and they're studying this stuff, then it doesn't surprise me that the lay people, us, are also getting it wrong as well, that we're saying that they're both the same. So that might be a bit of a revelation for some people listening. But what that essentially means is that you can have an orgasm that doesn't involve an ejaculation, and you can have an ejaculation that doesn't involve an orgasm. And it's the ejaculation that triggers the refractory period, that period of time after an ejaculation where you kind of feel quite satiated and subdued and maybe struggle to feel a bit aroused after that, or you struggle to get an erection after that. That's ejaculation. Orgasm is responsible for that euphoric pleasure, the climactic experience that buildup of arousal that heightens that arousal. It's not to say the experience of ejaculation can't feel pleasurable, like the actual physiological sensations of the ejaculation being expelled from the body, but the orgasm is what you're experiencing a lot of pleasure from. And oftentimes they happen simultaneously, or if you're really tuned in, if you're really paying attention, orgasm happens just a millisecond before your ejaculation. So if you're really paying attention, and this is actually what I encourage, it's like the first step to recognizing this is like slow down your self-pleasure or slow down your sex, whatever it is that's bringing you to ejaculation and orgasm. And when you get to that climactic point, really try and take your time, really lengthen out that experience as much as you can by slowing your touchdown, slowing your breathing down, and you'll hopefully notice that the orgasm starts, and then it's from the orgasm that the ejaculation begins after that. And there's already a slight, slight separation, maybe a second or so distinguishing between those two experiences. And so essentially the practice of separating the two is lengthening that time in between those two experiences, and that requires breathing and slowing down, relaxing, uh, releasing tension from your body, things like that, stimulating other parts of your body. It's a whole thing. It's something that I really love teaching and giving you know practical advice to men about.
SPEAKER_01This is what men, I'd love men to hear because they do have the capacity to be multi-orgasmic. So even though you have never thought of that in your life, probably, because I bump up against this, women will say, Well, I just feel bad. He only gets to come once, you know, and I can just have orgasm after orgasm after orgasm. And I'm like, well, actually, you know, but there's just no knowledge or understanding or education around this. And so there's just a big wall that comes up. Oh, no, no, no, no, right.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And I thank you for bringing that up because one of the benefits that people might ask, well, why the why the hell would I want to separate these two? Well, it's because if you have an orgasm that doesn't involve an ejaculation, it means that you're not entering that refractory period. So it means you can have another orgasm and another one and another one until you either get tired or until you choose to stop, or until you choose to ejaculate, and that's what I call ejaculation choice. And so, yeah, being multi-orgasmic is something that is available to men in general. And one of the ways, uh this is slightly off topic, but hopefully relevant here, one of the ways that I personally believe is the easiest to learn how to have multiple orgasms or an orgasm that doesn't involve an ejaculation, which you might call a non-ejaculatory orgasm, is to learn how to have prostate orgasms because very often the prostate, when it's being stimulated in the right way and to the point where you have an orgasm through that stimulation, doesn't involve an ejaculation because it bypasses that part of the nervous system, that being the pedendal nerve, which is part of the sympathetic nervous system. So if you are game and you're interested, then I recommend exploring prostate orgasms and prostate stimulation because not only is it really beneficial for that, but it's also really helpful for unpacking and letting go of the fear that a lot of men have of being gay. Yeah, it's a very powerful and profound somatic way of coming up against that resistance to being penetrated and what it means to be penetrated, and the internalized homophobia that a lot of men have. Some men might have overt externalized homophobia, but a lot of men are really conscious of that and they try to mitigate it. Uh, but there's a lot of internalized homophobia. So, like, what if I put something up my ass? What that would make me gay, though, wouldn't it? And firstly, there's nothing wrong with being gay, so it doesn't fucking matter. Secondly, that's not how your anatomy works. There isn't a switch up your bum that you press that's going to just change your sexual orientation. And thirdly, being gay is about who you're attracted to, is about who you want to have sex with, it's about who you want to be in a romantic relationship with. It's orientation. The things that you engage in, your sex acts, don't determine your orientation. It doesn't work like that. So you could be having, and I say this to guys that are really afraid. It's like, if you're if you're getting pegged by your missus, like that by definition is heterosexual sex. Regardless of what it is that you and a woman are doing together, that is by definition heterosexual sex. So there's no, like it doesn't mean anything about your orientation. And so you can extrapolate that you know from there. I share this because there's a lot of trepidation that that cisgender heterosexual men have about exploring their anus. And I find that there's so much transformative impacts on their sex life and on their masculinity and on their experiences of like sexual pleasure and sexual expression from doing that particular type of work. One in particular is learning how sensitive and how attuned you need to be to the person who you are then going to penetrate. So if you learn experientially what it's like to be penetrated and how much lube there needs to be, and how careful your partner who's penetrating you needs to be, or you know, the toy that you're using, and how comfortable you need to be in that position in order for it to not be painful. If you learn all those things experientially because you're exploring what it's like to be penetrated, it makes you a better penetrator. It makes you more attuned to the things that your partner might need from you in terms of how wet they need to be, or how comfortable they need to be, or how relaxed they need to be, or how slow they need to be breathing, or how ready they are to be penetrated, right? It gives you that understanding that you possibly wouldn't have had if you hadn't explored that penetration. So that's another reason why I highly recommend it. I digress. We were talking about multiple orgasms, and yeah, one of the ways is to learn how prostate orgasms.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think one of the questions that came in from my community in several different ways, actually, from different people, is this around this idea of either men they work with in, you know, physiotherapy, pelvic floor, or whether it's the partners who aren't open to exploring anything other than penis and vagina, PIV, you know, in intercourse because of all the indoctrinated narratives around these things you're talking about and around sexual exploration. And so they have a lot of shame. And so often I'll meet with women who are saying, How do I I can't get him to try anything different or something new. I'm I'm ready for some variety, or this isn't actually what brings me pleasure. As we know, many women don't orgasm. The majority of women don't orgasm with penetration alone. So these kinds of questions come up over and over. I can't he he's not open to sensory play. He he's not open to toys, you know. All of these things are a bigger picture of the narrative you're talking about, but I'm kind of overarching it with these questions that came in because it all kind of m mixes together, you know, it all sort of filters in from the narratives and scripts we took in, yes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and to like give it a a name that I shared before, it's fear, right? A lot of men are afraid of if they don't have penetrative sex, that it means something about their sexuality. That means they're less of a man, or it means that they're not able to satisfy their partner just from their cock alone. You know, it it's fear at the end of the day. And I realize that's like oversimplifying it because there's probably a lot of other emotions that go on there, but I feel like one of the core emotions is this fear, is this this fear of not being enough, or this fear of not being man enough, or this fear of being outside of that man box because you see on porn all these men that are able to give their female co-stars so many orgasms just from sticking their penis in their vagina and not doing anything else, right? And and you know, so porn literacy is something I'm really passionate about. But like that's that's not real, that's fake, you know, and so something that I talk to couples about, and particularly women, you know, when women ask me, is like you're creating a safe space for him to be vulnerable, for him to talk about his insecurities. There's a lot of conversations around like how men can do that for their female partners, how men can help their women open up or you know, their female partners surrender a bit more and be more sexually empowered. And I think that's a two-way street. I think it's really important for that to be a couples practice essentially, and for you know, the partners of men to also create spaces where these guys can be vulnerable and can open up about their insecurities and share about what it is that they're concerned about or what their fears are with regards to like their sexual performance or their masculinity and things like that. Yeah, I'll stop there because there's I'm mindful of time and there's a few other things in there that I could possibly say, but just want to just keep it concise.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a big conversation. I think the whole idea uh that you brought up at the beginning about intimacy for men and how there's so much programming for intimacy to look like intercourse for men, and there's so much more to intimacy. I mean, look at Kleinplatt's research, the studies of extraordinary sex, people who describe having extraordinary sex. It's not so much about the intercourse, it's a lot about other forms of sexual expression, intimacy, vulnerability. And there's so often not a lot of language around that for men.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm a big believer in giving men some words to describe their experiences. I often use like feelings wheels or feeling sensation wheels with men to help them talk about, oh, I notice this, you know, tension in my chest, uh, that you know, it makes me feel anxious or it makes me feel frustrated or it makes me feel agitated, right? And giving them some more language around what they're noticing in their body and how to communicate that with their partner. But then also, you know, just giving them permission, I suppose. That's a big part of what I do is giving men permission to explore their bodies, to be shame-free with regards to their sexual experiences, you know, something we haven't really talked about, but it's pornography. And I see a lot of shaming of men that use porn. There's like a big campaign from the anti-porn crusaders of being like, you're a terrible man if you watch porn. I'm not anti-porn, but I'm not pro-porn by any means. But I think there are ways that men can engage with pornography in healthy ways that are beneficial to themselves and beneficial to the performers. A lot of that includes, you know, engaging with ethical pornography and being a bit more diverse and varied in their porn use, not just sitting in front of a computer screen going through the motions. That's a whole nother conversation. But like I see a lot of shame around that. I see a lot of shame around men like exploring their pleasure. There's a lot of rhetoric around like men not needing pleasure, they should just be like hustling and grinding and they don't need to take time for themselves. You know, that's effeminate, that's womanly. Like, guys need to be like kicking goals and hustling and achieving things, and so you know, time for self-pleasure is seen as a waste of time. And then when I get the guys that work with me, I kind of say that you're allowed to explore your body, you're allowed to touch yourself in you know, in ways other than just stroking your penis up and down like a jackhammer, right? There's other ways of touching your body. Maybe include some oil, maybe give yourself a massage, maybe take a bath, you know, do these things that they have resistance to doing because they feel like it means something about their sexuality, or they're they're weird because they don't just jerk off like all the other guys that they know, or they're too effeminate because they're you know massaging their body and breathing and slowing down. They just need to get it done. You know, it's that story about what it means to be a man, right? And that being in that man box, it is pervasive. It shows up in a bunch of different ways that you wouldn't expect.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, it does. And you speaking out loud about it and giving language to men is so important, Cam. I'm really cheering you on. I wonder as we wrap up. I I know you have a course for women, and I'm and for the women listening, I wonder as we wrap up if you might share one thing that you always tell women in your workshops, or one suggestion, or one tip, or how they can be better partners to the men in their lives in relation to sex and intimacy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, cool. Uh so the the course is Man Myths, uh, Understanding Male Sexuality. And something that I offer in there, I think it's right at the beginning, is um, you know, I encourage initiating conversations with your partner. And one of the things that it's important to be mindful of is not if you ask him a question, try not to have the answer that you want to that question in the back of your mind, hoping that he says that, right? Because a lot of the times if you ask a guy about his experiences and you haven't really done that before, he'll probably surprise you and say something that might be a little bit controversial, it might be a little bit shocking, maybe it's even a little bit, maybe a little bit hurtful as well. So having the desired response in your head as you go to answer that question can be a recipe for being upset with your partner. And if that happens and you do get upset at the response that he has, even though you've asked the question, what that'll do is that'll shut him down more and he'll be reluctant to talk about it even more. He'll be reluctant to answer the next question that you have. It sounds so easy, but it's it's actually very hard to do because we all have the answers in our head pre-prepared of what we want this person to say, right? The ideal response that our partner could have. Very often we go into conversations going like, cool, I think this is what they're gonna say. Maybe we've even played that conversation out a few times in our head. It's something we do a lot. And so I'm not saying, you know, to just like turn it off, but be mindful of that, to be open to receiving a response from him that may surprise you, that may be a little bit hurtful, that may be a little bit like controversial. You know, the openness to that can really foster his sense of safety in order to be able to share more with you because ultimately that's the goal, right? It's to get him to open up more. Yeah. Inadvertently, a lot of women can shut men down in those couple contexts because they do have a response that they would like to hear that they don't hear from him.
SPEAKER_01Well, and I'm wondering in those kind of situations, what I usually encourage people to do is say, ask one more question, such as tell me why you feel that way, or tell me what made you answer in that way, or tell me a little bit more. Yeah, tell me more about that, and get a little more context, you know, to allow you to process their answer. You know, we know communication is the key to really having beautiful connected sex with a partner, and um, so that's a Great tip. I appreciate you sharing that.
SPEAKER_00No worries. And then thank you for adding on those extra questions. Something that I always encourage as well is like asking yourself, what am I making this mean? Right. So if he shares something and you get really activated by it, or it is it or it is hurtful, you know, and it does make you feel hurt. Okay, what am I making this mean? Did he actually mean it to hurt me? Did I just take it as it being hurtful to me? Like, you know, just what did I make this mean? That's something that I have to do quite a lot of, especially if my partner tells me to do something around the house. What did I make this mean? Am I a terrible husband? That's my, you know, that thought that I mentioned right at the beginning, right? That you know sticks up in the back of my head. Am I being a terrible dad because my partner has asked me to take my son to the park? You know, like what am I making this mean? Oh no, she just needs a bit of time. She just had him the whole morning. She wants a bit of a break. No worries, I can do up. I can show I can show up that way. You know, so that's something I'm mindful of when I start to you know have that communication piece with my wife.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, let's talk about that with ourselves. What story are we telling ourselves in our minds, right? And boy, it's easy to do that, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, we're really good at that.
SPEAKER_01It is easy to do that. And so take that one step further and say, well, the story I'm telling myself is that you think I'm a bad husband because I didn't offer to do that chore or that. I didn't see it needed to be done, right? Instead of, you know, instead of going on and on thinking my husband and I have learned how to communicate after, you know, 35 plus years together. And we're still learning, but these kind of tools are so helpful, you know, so helpful what now we can say to one another, well, what story are you telling yourself? Because where I really was coming from was I came off this meeting and I was stressed, and yeah, or what have you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, amazing. Anyway, yeah, appreciate you. I appreciate you bringing that up. Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_01Good tips. So what we'd like to share, Cam, as we end episodes, is something that delights you. This podcast is about giving ourselves permission for pleasure. And I find that when we pay attention to pleasure day to day, it helps us have pleasure everywhere in our lives. So I wonder if you have something that just delights you, lights you up every day or day-to-day that you might share.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, my son lights me up. So playing with my son, uh, like I said before, he's he's almost two, and you know, I'm a big proponent that pleasure isn't limited to sexual pleasure. Um, I get so I get a lot of pleasure from playing. He's in he's into trains right now. He's a big train boy at the moment. So uh playing trains with him. He loves giving me certain trains to play with, and I follow him around the playground and you know, makes his choo-choo noises, and it's just like everything melts away when I get to be with my son in that space and just play with him and and not worry about what responsibilities I have at work or you know what I'm gonna cook for dinner, I can just be present with him in those moments. It fills me up so much just being in those spaces with him. So that gives me a lot of joy, a lot of pleasure, and a lot of the reason why I'm doing this work is so that he is you know gonna grow up to have a good role model, I suppose, in in terms of like a man in his life. So that's yeah, something that I get a lot of pleasure from.
SPEAKER_01Lovely. Thanks for sharing that. And tell people how they can find you, Cam.
SPEAKER_00Easiest ways would be on social media. So I'm at the Cam Fraser, F-R-A-S-E-R, on social media, all social media platforms. You can find me. Instagram is probably the best one. And I'm also on my website, which is cam-fraser.com. I've got a podcast called the Men's Sex and Pleasure Podcast, where I have conversations like this and kind of really try and center you know male sexuality and really kind of emphasize that. And that's about it, really.
SPEAKER_01Great. We'll link to all that in the show notes. Thanks so much for coming on the show, sharing your own story, Cam, and your expertise in this area. We're glad to hear from you.
SPEAKER_00Well, thanks so much for having me and for using your platform to have these types of conversations. I really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01And community, as we wrap up, remember what Cam said about putting ourselves in a box. If you find that there's things in the box for anyone listening that no longer hold true for you, let's give ourselves permission to change what's in the box, throwing out, keeping in, so that we can give ourselves more permission for pleasure.
