Climax, what’s that?
Q.
I have been married for five years and have a child. I love my husband and we get along, but I have not experienced an orgasm when we are intimate. I get aroused but I have never reached this thing people keep talking about. I have never masturbated because I feel ashamed and now, I am worried that I will never be able to experience climax. I think there is something wrong with me. Please help.
Ans: According to statistics around 20% of women globally have never reached orgasm and only around 30% reach it with intercourse. There is nothing wrong with you. What you are experiencing is common and connected to the relationship you have with pleasure and your body. Many women don’t orgasm because they have negative body image and feel that they don’t deserve pleasure. Many have also been socialised to believe that pleasure, sex and masturbation are bad.
This is common if the upbringing was set in a patriarchal, austere or religious environment, where desire and pleasure had negative connotation, especially when experienced women. Many others don’t reach orgasm because they don’t know yet what turns them on and are just following their inexperienced partners or generic YouTube advice. If you have not yet masturbated, start preparing for the experience but slowly.
Focus on pleasure instead of climax. Body love and masturbation are some doors to pleasure but there is more. Once you will know how to give yourself pleasure, you will be able to teach your husband how to give it to you as well. You will have to simultaneously address the feeling of shame around physical pleasure. We all deserve pleasure, like we all deserve love. Pleasure rebalances our nervous systems from stress, sends all the happy hormones to the right places and heals emotional hurt. Start slow, by building awareness and making time and space to enjoy pleasurable sensations, this could be sun on your skin, the scent of your body lotion, a taste you are fond of, a song you like, or touching yourself in a quiet place for 30 minutes. Once you reach your body, explore everything and notice how each part feels when one of your senses hits pleasure.
After you feel comfortable with all your body parts, identify the ones that arouse you. Observe how your body reacts to each movement and touch. Slowly discover the pace and type of touch that turn you on. Share your journey with your husband only after you get to know your pleasure triggers. He will not be able to do anything magical without your help.
The writer is an Intimacy & Relationship Coach, Founder of The Intimacy Curator, an organisation promoting self-discovery through emotional and sexual wellbeing (www.theintimacycurator.com). (Have a query? Send it on fpjcandidcorner@gmail.com)