Sexual orientation, I’d like to propose, is not succinct nor definable by coordinates. Our desires are not based on a static self or a static ideal object/subject. It’s a typically Western and individualistic way of thinking that says, “this is me”, and “this is who I want”. Now, I love individualistic thinking for many things. It’s just off-base when it comes to sexual desire.
 
It bugs me when sexual health workshops (and magazine quizzes) (and dating sites) (and friends) ask, “what’s most important to you in a partner?”. It’s a setup for people to list off “communication”, “trust”, “sense of humour”, “attractive”, “tall”, “smart”, and things like that. When we keep imagining relationships as a shopping list, relationships will keep failing us. Because that attractive, communicative, comedian doesn’t have two-way conversations; or that tall, smart, trustworthy friend of a friend isn’t smart in ways you care about.
 
Desire shopping-lists assume that the success of a relationship is based on distinct qualities in each individual involved. This fuels annoying and common talk like, “Oh, so-and-so is a total 10”. That 10 might be a 10 to many people, but certainly not to everyone. That random number is not a fact of the person. How many times do I wish that the trembling, self-doubting teens in Grade 12 could understand that! The scoring system is entirely baseless and inept, and needlessly make turn-ons and turn-offs into universal mythologies. So much that, many people will then orient their desires towards the mythological 10, at the expense of tuning into their own unique desires, as well as their sense of who they are and how they want to inhabit their bodies.
 
Since romantic love has been a thing, people have not only been disappointed by 10s, they have also found gold with unexpected counterparts. Often, the best matches between people contain surprises. We fall in love with others outside our “types”, find ourselves happy with people quite opposite to us, and, as queer realities become more imaginable in many places, we end up with people of genders we weren’t looking for.
 
You can project all you want into an object of desire if you’re satisfied with its one-way nature. It’s a thrilling experience for many going through puberty, where the fun is all in the yearning. But if you want that desire to be requited or to manifest into connection, something has to be created in the relational Between, as Martin Buber elegantly put forward.
 
What I mean is, actual sexual connection is something that happens between people, not at them. It’s the feeling of connecting in a particular way, it’s who you become when you’re with them, who they become with you. It’s how you’re seen by them and them by you. Relationships surface certain parts of us and also change us. People who have lots of relationship experience know that, even if you are always you, you are different in every relationship.
 
So it’s not actually accurate to want someone who is “communicative”. What we want in that case is someone who communicates in a way that works for us, someone we feel on the same page with. And there’s no way to really know how it is until we are in relation to them.
 
Talking about sexual orientation as relational instead of individual might be a small, insignificant shift for many people, and maybe it’s as inane as trying to map sexual orientation into metric space. But, trust me, it’s going to make everything better.
 
Imagine when things are difficult in a relationship, when desire wanes, or when chemistry just isn’t there with your Tinder date who’s a 9.5. If we see successful relationships as the result of the coming together of high quality individuals, then when things go wrong it can seem as if it’s one or both individual’s shortcoming. He’s too jealous. She’s too much of an intellectual. They’re not political. When we are rejected in this individualistic framework, it’s always personal.

​Even if we, during the moment of rejection, try to pull back and rationalize that it was “bad timing”, or “I’m just not their type”, or “we’ve grown apart”, everything else in the organization of the social world says it’s about us. It skews our perception: Incompatibilities are felt (and responded to) as personal attacks. More on this another time, but let me just make a plug here for increasing our ability to tolerate and feel rejection as important parts of building a strong consent culture.

​­This post continues some of my reflections about pleasure. It started with “#1 Rafe Biggs orgasms through his thumbs” which talks about the flexibility of the brain when it comes to pleasure. This entry talks about how sexual violence sometimes brings about sexual arousal. Please take care of yourself – some of the content may be hard to read or engage with.
 
     2.   Sexual assault is often accompanied by sexual arousal.
 
This is a difficult topic to talk about, and so it is all the more important that we do. The basic truth is this: A significant amount of nonconsensual sexual experiences is coupled with a physiological experience of arousal on the part of the survivor. By arousal I mean anything from hardened nipples, vaginal secretion, and erection (of the clitoris or the penis), to ejaculation and orgasm.
 
This physiological phenomenon of arousal can happen to survivors of any gender, any age, and under varying circumstances: The sexual violence may be physically aggressive or not, a single occurrence or ongoing. And the survivor can have all kinds of different relationships to the perpetrator(s): They may be partners, strangers, family, friends – anyone.
 
What arousal is and what it isn’t
 
Arousal is a physiological response and not always a cognitive one. Even though you can bring about an arousal response in your body through cognitive paths (like thinking, fantasizing, reminiscing), there are many other paths to sexual arousal.
 
Sexual arousal can happen when you’re asleep, when you’re unconscious, and even when you’re in a coma. It can happen when you’re watching porn you find distasteful. It can happen when you hear a recount of something you find vile and violent. It can happen when you recall a sexual experience you disliked or regretted. It can happen for no reason at all. In all of these cases there might be sexual arousal. But in none of these cases is there necessarily the experience of pleasure.
 
That’s because pleasure is a cognitive, meaning-making phenomenon. It happens when we ascribe a positive value to an experience. Pleasure is often very simple, and can be reduced to “feeling good”. But pleasure is also complex. For instance, pleasure can be physically painful (like getting the tattoo you’ve always wanted, being spanked consensually, or running a marathon). And pleasure can be emotionally difficult (like feeling a sad and satisfying smallness in contrast to the universe, being terrified in a well-executed Hallowe’en haunted house, or taking revenge on an archenemy). Pleasure is highly personalized: what is powerfully pleasurable for one person may be awful or negligible for another. And pleasure is contextual: A cold beer might be heavenly on a hot day but not when you’re hung-over, and the same sex act can feel good or bad depending on... well, everything.
 
In other words, pleasure belongs in the world of meaning. It’s the story we tell about the facts. There’s no such thing as a universal pleasure. Even love is not always pleasurable: Many of us, many times, have to push it away with disdain, fear, or exhaustion.
 
Arousal, on the other hand, is an automatic response. It follows stimulation. Often, sexual arousal is brought about by stimuli that you also deem pleasurable. In the case of sexual violence, however, the stimuli are shock, distress, intense fear, and/or pain.
 
Arousal during violation is a response to shock, distress, fear, and pain
 
It’s scientific fact that shock, distress, fear, and pain all heighten sympathetic nervous system response. Studies have shown that the anxiety from threat of electric shock increases penile erections, and that sexual arousal is similar to other automatic responses like sweating, increased heart rate, and heightened alertness.
 
If you have an arousal response during sexual assault, it means your body launched a fight or flight response under stress. It does not mean you liked it, wanted it, accepted it, caused it, asked for it, brought it on, encouraged it, or deserved it. The basic tenet about sexual assault remains no matter how big or small of an arousal response your body reacted with: It was assault. So while you can will yourself to arousal, your body in arousal does not tell you much about your will or consent.
 
Arousal is not consent
 
The conflation of arousal with pleasure is not only inaccurate, it does further harm to survivors of sexual violence. The conflation is both a cause and effect of rape culture: if sexual violence is arousing, and arousal equals pleasure, survivors can be (erroneously) blamed for wanting or causing it.
 
So, we must make it a point to distinguish between arousal and pleasure (feeling good), between arousal and desire (wanting it), between arousal and consent (deciding to participate). And in order to make these distinctions, we must start talking about how arousal responses can come from sexual violence, which has mostly remained taboo. We must normalize it so that those who experience(d) it can make sense of their experience. We must normalize it so that our collective imagination can better understand how bodies work. And we must normalize it so that survivors are not repeatedly re-victimized when this phenomenon is used against them.

These are basically my speaking notes from a pleasure workshop I did in April at a cool art conference in Pittsburgh called Open Engagement. A number of people have asked for them, so here they are! It’ll take me some time to put them into sentences though. But here’s my commitment: To be less finicky about my sentences so that I can actually show them to you.

Pleasure is a funny thing to talk about. By definition, pleasure is desirable. Pleasure is sensation that is wanted; pleasure feels good. But if you say “sexual pleasure”, it doesn’t conjure up wanted, good feelings for every person because sexual pleasure is complicated. It’s a world of stories and meanings and associations in a very private realm. At least for most people.

Here are a few stories that complicate things for me. Some of them blow my mind. All of them make sexual pleasure more interesting to think and feel about.

1.     Rafe Biggs orgasms through his thumbs

Rafe Biggs is an American who, after falling off a roof in 2004 and becoming quadriplegic, began having orgasms through his thumbs. It started with some fooling around post-accident and since then he has kept refining and crafting his experience. Reportedly, he has different orgasms in different thumbs.

And Rafe, he is a sex educator, speaker, and coach. He also founded Sexability.org, an organization in the US dedicated to empowering people with disabilities to expand and experience their sexuality.

What I love about Rafe’s experience – and why I relate this story – isn’t that it’s a spectacle or a miracle. Despite being portrayed as strange and weird news, this news isn’t weird at all. “Transfer orgasms” are not a new evolutionary artefact. They are evidence of how our brains have always worked: Altering and responding to stimuli, experience, and physiological change. “Empathic orgasms” are also a thing. People who are empathetic have enhanced orgasms – something in the brain adds and gives meaning to the physical experience. In other words, my softball coach (who doubled as the health teacher) was right: the biggest sex organ in the body really is the brain.

What does that mean for you? I’m not sure. Maybe that weird thing you enjoy isn’t so weird? Maybe it’s something you could teach to your envious friends, instead of hiding it from them? Maybe there’s a kind of pleasure that’s been complicated for you, and you could circumvent it instead of feeling blocked? Maybe your body can do and feel things you can’t even imagine? Maybe if you don’t seem to love sex as much as the next duck, it’s ok and it’s still worthwhile? Maybe it’s not just a saccharine cliché that trauma and struggle are opportunity? Maybe it’s not broken, it just has to be used differently?

So often, when it comes to sex, the brain is assigned only the role of the culprit – of thinking too much, of second-guessing instincts, of shame and disgust, of “honey, I have a headache”. It’s the classic (and untrue) story about the mind-body split, the one that puts sex into the animalistic body realm and the brain in sober opposition. What I gratefully learn from Rafe Biggs is that our brains are and can be on our team.

The trouble is, the brain is a player we may not yet know how to best utilize. As per the rules of creativity, an obstacle can sometimes trigger innovation (like when your star player is injured). My question is, how do we activate that creativity voluntarily?

Ok. I have to end it here for now. Next installment: #2. Sexual assault is often accompanied by sexual arousal. The topic is a little heavier, but there is a lot to learn about pleasure there. We’ll tread carefully.

Margaret Cho says in “Yes Means Yes” (one of my favourite reads), “So these days, I say yes only when I mean it”. I like it. I liked it on tumblr when someone posted it. I even love it. It harmonizes with “my politics”. It’s the kind of world I work towards and want to live in.

But, it’s also too much (pressure) (for me). This is hard to say in the enthusiastic consent / sexual empowerment communities that I travel in. To be clear, I wouldn’t choose unwanted sex or grey-area sex for myself or anyone else. But, at the same time, I want to be able to roll with it when I don't do exactly the thing I feel, or don't know what I feel. I don't want the burden of being flawless in my self-advocacy; I want to be as courageous against injustice as I am loving to my humanness. I want to be OK being scared, or intimidated, or lazy, or tired, or indifferent sometimes. I want to be those things and still be alright in your books. You would be, in mine.

'Cause as a woman, when I tell stories about the unwanted sex and grey-area sex I have had or may have again, I want some say (actually, all the say) about what it means for me. Some of it is devastating and I denounce it fully. But while I still denounce it fully, some of it was OK: I made some choices, I lost some agency, I walked away from it afterwards, and I tossed it onto the I-did-not-like-that pile. Many people may read that and feel alarmed. Does it sound like I support coercive or non-consensual sex? Does it feel dangerously like an excuse for rape? I realize it might. And that’s exactly why I have to say this.

But I refuse to, for the sake of defending what’s right (e.g., unequivocal consent), paint everything else catastrophically. That is just not accurate. And those are not exclusive categories: I have more than two options beyond A (consensual sex) and B (rape of the spirit) and I want it acknowledged.

Rape and sexual violence of all kinds are inexcusable because they are violations – of bodies, rights, laws, and tacit agreements of respect. They cross boundaries we explicitly or implicitly uphold for each other. And they don’t have to cause me great emotional, physical, or spiritual trauma to be regarded as wrong, or to be stopped. The insistence on consent doesn’t need any justification.

In a world where sexual violence is normalized by rape culture, rampant misogyny, and a generalized numbness towards any kind of violence, I can understand the urge to fight invisibility with visibility, and to emphasize the impact of how we are hurt. But, to really have choice and autonomy about this whole thing, I would argue that I also need to have the choice to brush the hurt off. Not out of self-denial or minimalizing (although, maybe that’s OK too, we all have to cope somehow, and bodies are wise to timing and safety), but out of resilience and choice.

From my perspective, the urge to frame any unwanted sexual contact as catastrophic (and the survival of it as necessarily a huge ordeal) is more an indicator that we are not being listened to enough, than proof that we are actually having catastrophe after catastrophe.

This is not to minimize trauma we survive (and sometimes don’t) that is devastating, life-altering, irreparable, and unforgiveable. If anything, I want to honour them with conscious gravity. In a widened spectrum of experience, where there are infinite options to feel and know and be, catastrophic pain, and hurt, and rage, have their rightful place.

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Misogyny and sexism already deprive me of the ease I want when I'm saying no, or changing my mind, or wanting better. I don’t want to be further stripped of my hardiness, my spirit, my ability to dust myself off. I don’t want it written out of my script that I can go through shit and emerge just fine. I don’t need to be told that unwanted sex necessarily comes with a high price to pay, for my body, my heart, or my spirit. I want the whole full-spectrum truth of experience for myself and for everyone else. I work hard for “the cause” but I don’t want to be its poster child.

Telling me that my body is sacred and precious is telling me that every unwanted interaction (that I didn’t stop) ruins or stains me somehow. It is to charge me with protecting and maintaining my body (and my integrity?) in some kind of imaginary original state. It makes me think of that scratchy little white lace dress that, when I was a child, my mom put on me for weddings and things. I wasn’t to sit anywhere that was potentially dirty. I wasn’t to run, jump, fall, or get it caught on anything. For some, that would have been delicious, to play lady for a day. For me, it sucked, and was the furthest thing from a good time.

And, that’s what I want to have – a good time, in and with my body. I want to be able to scrape my proverbial knees, over and over. I want to tell the story of every scar and keep on playing. And in all the playing I do I expect that sometimes I will get hurt (which doesn’t excuse the jerk who pushed or tripped me). Sometimes I must go and set things right. Other times I need a good cry, a pat on the back, or an excuse to go home for the rest of the day. I want to be cared for when I need it, and I want to be taken seriously when I say I’m fine. And always I want to know that I deserve respect even though I have been disrespected, that my humanity is intact and nothing can render me ruined, ever, that I am more tenacious than precious, and that I am vulnerable at all because I choose to remain open.

Ok – onwards with wooing the clitoris!

So far, we’ve gone over getting to know each other, conversation, various kinds of touch, active verbs, and getting comfortable being bored. Here are 3 more ideas for date night with the clitoris.

11. Use a vibrator (for the first time/again/differently). “Vibrator” is either a good word or a bad word, depending on the circles you travel in. I know vibrator lovers who talk about their toys the way they talk about other deliberate pleasures (chocolate, massages, vacations, bad TV, sleep). And I know folks who think of clutching a buzzing machine against their genitals to be just about the most embarrassing thing ever. Which is not to say they don’t love it too. 

Many things we have to unlearn over a long time, but some things are just decisions. I think this could be one of these decisions: Let’s permanently make “vibrator” a good word, and the pleasure that comes from it acceptable in all kinds of company. I don’t know; it can happen.

Anyway, the nitty gritty is: Vibrators come in all shapes, sizes, materials, vibration strength, waterproofness, and contact possibilities. They can be used all different ways, not just on the clitoris, and not just in and out of openings. Really, you can always do something new with a vibrator.

You can vary anything and everything. Just like messing around with different kinds of touch, you can navigate a vibrator with your non-dominant hand or through different materials. If the vibration is too intense, slip a finger between the buzz and the goods (or turn it down). Use it lightly, press it hard, pulse it, hover it, change the rhythm. Put it, too, on the outside of the anus (use a vibrator with a nice wide base if you’re going inside the rectum). August is Anal Pleasure Month, so don’t say the universe didn’t give you a reminder.

If you’ve had your vibe(s) for a long time, if you didn’t love vibrators when you last tried 5 years ago, or if you’ve never understood why people love them, consider trying a new/different one every so often. Products change, and so does your body.

You can get vibrators from sex toy stores, in-person or online. More and more, condom and lube companies are pushing cheaper options (billed as “intimate massagers”) through drugstores. If your wallet allows,  my vote is definitely to support independent sex stores. But if it’s between no vibrator and one from an evil corporation – I say vibrator!

Worth a mention and a round of applause is sex toy recycling – melting down old silicone friends and making new ones. The concept is quite challenging for our time; it messes with so many ideas about privacy and hygiene. But the practice is radical (and safe), and allows us to walk our talk – of both environmental conservation and busting taboos about sex.

12. Choose your words. Way back in the first post, one of the wooing ways was to talk about the clitoris and tell stories. This adds to that.

Do you have all the words you need to talk about your body in a way that feels good? If not, you could look for some (more). This pocket guide is more facetious than helpful (and wrong about “Yoni”), but you get the idea: There is room to grow.

The thing is, I have met countless people who have no comfortable way of referring to their vagina and vulva. Client after client in sexual health clinics say, My... uh... pussy – god I hate that word – it’s... [fill in issue here].

Sure, plenty of people love "pussy" as a word. They know in their hearts that what’s between their legs is their pussy and it feels oh so right. But if you’re not one of them, or if whatever word you use for your stuff makes you cringe, cry, wince, whisper, or hide, you might want to open up your options. I can’t imagine the psychic damage we sustain from not being able to call our genitals something that feels not only comfortable, but downright good and true.

Many sex educators rely on scientific terms. Words like vulva, perineum, and labia majora let us talk matter-of-factly and leak little emotion. They’re standardized, precise, and reliable. Plus, you can easily distinguish between the vulva and the vagina, which makes not only a semantic point but a political one too (though sometimes it’s just funny to lump them). So that’s one choice.

But there are many others ways to own and operate a vagina/vulva/clitoris, and just as many ways to talk about it.  Junk, stuff, cunt, sex, clitty, vadge/vag, glory hole, piece, cockpit, lady parts, dicklet, vajayjay, treasure box. All of these are options. 

And let me just beat this horse dead and hit the message home: Not every vagina is a vagina, and not every person who has one is a goddess with a secret garden. Your privates may be a honey pot, a daisy patch, a manhole, or junky jam. Nobody can tell you what it feels like but you. But it’s important, in my sincere opinion, that we tell ourselves something. Something deliberate. Not for pedantry but because naming is a fundamental way we call something into being. 

13. Complicate things. After all this focused attention on the clitoris, the final suggestion I have is to scatter that attention. Instead of honing in on the sensations, do the opposite. Send confusing, competing, and divergent pleasure messages elsewhere, at the same time as you send pleasure through the clitoris. This can obscure sensual input and take your brain for a cognitive joyride.

The other stimulation(s) can take any form. Touch various parts of the body (nipples, lips, face, neck, inner thighs) with various parts of the body (hands, mouth, eyelashes, crotch). Play with all of the senses through flooding or deprivation (like music piped through headphones, blindfolds, breath control play). Stimulate other parts of the vulva or anus. Apply pain strategically. Create opposing sensations (hot and cold, harsh and soft, fast and slow). Move your body, against someone or something else. Get upside down and let blood rush to your head. Get more comfortable or purposefully uncomfortable.

Depending on the person, cognitive distraction can be fun too: Explain a complicated theory, solve a math problem, remember 40 random words, sing on key, find Waldo. And all the while, stay steady on the clitoris. Does this sound like torture or delight? If you’re not convinced it’s the hottest thing ever, this series (of conventionally attractive women reading their favourite erotica while being vibrator-ed to orgasm under the table) might change your mind.

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“Sex tips” are welcomed currency in sex ed. People want to know what they should do or not do. At the least, they start conversations. But for the most part, folks don’t remember the specifics. You’re not supposed to. Yes, after all that, you're supposed to remember anything.

One of my favourite sayings about sex ed is that it is like hearing a song on the radio: You may not catch or remember the words, but if you liked it enough you’ll be humming the melody all week. Which brings me to:

13 + 1. Forget everything & fall in. Being a great lover – with others or by yourself – is not (just) about having great “technique”. Presence, responsiveness, and the willingness to be moved by the experience are much more important to having the kind of sex that doesn’t just get you off. Incidentally, there exists a great little video that talks about sex as a jam session that I highly recommend you watch ;).

One of my self-elected mentors is Ruth Zaporah (it’s a completely one-sided relationship), who developed a dance improvisation method called Action Theatre. Apparently, novice improvisers often break their concentration out of self-consciousness, over-thinking, trying to do the “right” thing, and boredom. Zaporah’s take is that technique and vocabulary can help, but only as tools for staying inside curiosity. In other words, the moves are not the dance; the experience is the dance.

I'd like to approach sex the same way: Develop vocabulary, cultivate curiosity, and then – let it all go and fall in. That way I can actually be there when it all goes down.

Continued from last time: A few more ways to woo the clitoris.

7. Move it all about. The vulva is not just a threshold to other places – it’s an active, complex, and variable sensory situation. Like the muscular vagina, the parts of the vulva (namely, labia, clitoris, perineum, and anus) are all parts you can move. You can pull in, push out, bear down, cinch up, go left, go right. You can flatten, pulse, clench, and open. Doing any of these things will likely affect the clitoris, sometimes directly, other times by being adjacent. You may get the urge to pee, you may become aroused, or relaxed, or all of the above. As with any motor skill: you get better with practice. (So there’s no reason you’re not moving it around right now if you’ve got a clitoris).

The hidden agenda behind this directive? The clitoris has agency. It doesn’t just get stuff done to it, it does stuff. Imagine the implications: If we “know” our sex organs to be passive, only as holes or vestibules or limp guileless flesh that have things done to them; if we don’t use active verbs for them (like push, pull, jump, backflip, kick ass); if they await their fate and the best we can do is to say “yes” or “no” when the time comes – how does that shape our sexual being, period?

Well, I don’t want none of that. Especially not when penises get all active verbs, all the time. Not when I know that perspective can change the experience of the perceived thing (thank you Wayne Dyer, and whoever you paraphrased). And definitely not when over and over I see clitorises and vulvas and vaginas do and feel amazing things.

So, if we know differently – if we know that we are powerful beings, full of the potential to experience deep pleasure, bliss, awe, ecstasy, peace, and transcendence – then I think we have the responsibility to try. Why else would we be here?

Which brings me back to moving the clitoris (I hope you went for that logic leap and that you're still with me).

So while each one is different, vulvas are generally very resilient. Which means that it may be pleasurable to tug or pull on the parts around the clitoris. You can tug on the labia (pinch a small area or grab a handful; take one or all of the folds), or pull up on the skin above the vulva (to anchor the clitoris onto the pelvic bone). If there is enough of a hold, inner labia can be tugged too – up, down, away from the body, in circles. You can gather flesh around the clitoris to squish it. You can spread the same flesh flat and away to expose it more. And of course, your vulva/labia/parts can tug back! There’s an active verb for ya.

8. Play with hot and cold. Warmth and chill can be fantastic sensations. They heighten and dampen some sensitivities, which in turn dampen or heighten others.

Warmth and chill are also full of meaning and memories: some that are entirely visceral, many very pleasurable. For example, warm and moist sensations spreading from your crotch are eerily reminiscent of having peed yourself. Which can bring up shame, guilt, fear, being cared for, being in trouble, being in diapers, being carefree. All of which can be pleasurable or not. (Don’t knock a turn-on unless you really have to). 

A cold breeze in the crotch? Rich fodder for remembering running bare-bummed as a child. Or going commando in a summer dress. Or, walking home smugly the morning after a wild night with what’s-their-name.

In practical application, try a range of temperatures: A cold or warm pack on the vulva (wrap it in a towel or sheet for a clean surface and/or to control the intensity). Chilled fingers and warmed fingers, or some of each. A tongue or lips just after drinking iced or warm water (go easy on sugary drinks and beer – they are feasts for yeast). Ice itself if you can take it. Warm breath close-up. Soft cooling breath from further away. And, if you can manage it: Lie naked in the sun and let the rays warm up your bits.

Whatever you do, start moderately and take care of yourself/each other. Hot and cold can both burn if too extreme or done for too long.

9. Pat it. I looked for a different word but I really can’t find a better one. Something about the word just makes me wince. Alas, patting is what I mean.

A derivative of last week’s #4 “Touch it all different ways”, patting is specifically staccato. It involves impact – big or small is up to you. At the right time and with measured intensity, it can be totally exciting. As per usual, how and when and how hard all depend on the clitoris in question. Also as usual is that good, open communication is a given here, especially if the clit is not your own.

With patting, we’re talking a spectrum of possibilities. It could be a teeny weeny tap with a fingertip (or, if it’s too much, place one finger on the clit, and tap another on top), a constant patting over the entire vulva with several forefingers, or even a sure-handed smack (when you’re sure all is good). Remember that most of the clitoris is actually internal, and patting can surprise the nerves below. Many clitorises love it, especially in the context of other sexual goings-on.

10. Engage in exploratory head. The difference between this and “regular” cunnilingus is that, if there was any expectation of the giver to be “good” or the getter to be thrilled, in exploratory oral sex these pressures are off. To really take the stress out, paradoxically, set an alarm. My vote is for 20 minutes minimum, and depending on your attention span, 2 hours can be very nice. The rule is: Anyone can pause or stop things at any time for any reason (there can be many: Chafing, orgasms, over-sensitivity, emotional triggers; the need to pee, catch your breath, arch your neck differently, shift that leg that’s fallen asleep). But generally, try to keep going.

Exploration assumes that we don’t know. It’s investigative, fuelled by curiosity and shared discovery. You can do this with partners new or old. Even with your love of 5 decades you can muster wonder. Start with things that you think are less stimulating and intensify.

Lick, flick, suck (start gentle), nibble (start very gentle), glide, stroke, press, graze, and pulse. Cover the whole vulva not just the clitoris. Use the tongue’s tip, use its flatness, use lips and teeth and noses and fingers. Vary the speed, pressure, area of contact, direction, movement, and stillness. Go through the excellent though cliché “alphabet trick”. Say the letters out loud if you like, it’s a joint investigation after all, not a trick to deploy on the unsuspecting.

And, what else is new? Communicate. Rate sensations on scales of 10. Change one variable and compare before vs. after. Propose what-ifs and evaluate the experience. Contrast X to Y. Take notes (spoken, mental, written, video, etc.). Don’t aim to orgasm at all. And pee afterwards (it kicks out the bacteria that may have gotten mushed into the urethra during your session).

As if this wasn’t educative enough, you also get to practice asking for consent and giving feedback. No matter how deeply we believe that consent is sexy, which it is, it’s hard to operationalize sometimes. So practice is good.

I was going to finish all 7 points this week but I got long-winded. The last 3 are for next week then!

“The clitoris is not a button it’s an iceberg”. That’s one of my favourite statements from artist Sophia Wallace's Cliteracy series that reads like a manifesto. In celebration of that, as well as the raucous ClitRodeo I wish I could have attended, I thought I'd start this blog off with the big C. 

Over the next 2 weeks: 13 ways to woo your clitoris (or someone else’s). In the style and spirit of curiosity, personal agency, and feeling OK about self.

These are collected from near and far, experience and hearsay. They may work for the clit you have in mind, or they may not. And since human clitorises are, like, human: diversity, possibility, constant change, and exceptions rule. 

1.     Visit. Don’t just “find” it and stop there. Clitorises change. They swell and shrink. They grow over time. They poke out and they tuck in. They change colour, texture, smell, taste, sensitivity. You can know how yours varies, or you can not know. My bid is: Choose to know.

2.     Talk. With people who have and/or know clitorises. Clits are not talked about very much, so in the popular imagination they are relatively without character, depth, and plot. Which means that, many of us assume our experience is average, universal, and nothing worth talking about. In which case we miss out on other people's stories. Opposite to this but still missing out, some of us assume we are alone in our uniqueness and feel freaky, broken, perverted.  Neither of these scenarios is completely true (we are always both somehow different and unique), and the resulting isolation and anxiety are tragically unnecessary.

Good ways to start talking about the clitoris: When was the first time you heard the word? What was the first awareness of your clit (or someone else’s)? Go from there onto pleasure, preferences, funny stories, serious stories, hopes and dreams.

3.     Look at it. At your own, at other people’s (with consent), at photos of everyday vulvas (I’ll Show You Mine is a great book, and Vulva101 has photos online). Understand – really understand – that they are all over the map. This is not for extra credit, it’s remedial. Think of it as a regular dose of unlearning for all the crap we put up with. And for all the absences we don’t get to collectively mourn. 

Check out stuff like the Large Labia Project, especially if it’s not your usual MO to look at other people’s labia. Chances are, if you don’t see a lot of them, you really don’t know how varied they can be.

4.     Touch it all different ways. This can be expanded into, like, 800 points in itself. And I will, I promise. But to start: touch your clitoris with your fingers, through underwear, clothing, sheets, bed covers, anything. Many clitorises don’t like direct touch, or not until they’re aroused. So touch it light, touch it firm. Touch it dry, moist, or wet (both watery-wet, and slippery-wet – those can be very different). Do it facing up, facing down, standing up, sitting down. Do it through cotton, polyester, silk, terry cloth, sateen, velour. Touch it with a glove, with your non-dominant hand, in a house, with a mouse… you get the idea.

Every clit is different everyday. You can’t know how it’s gonna feel until you feel it. People with penises put them everywhere, for serious arousal or just for fun. We oughta learn from them. 

5.     Take it different places. It is said that 80% of people with vaginas don’t orgasm from vaginal penetration alone, and that 1 and 3 of us don’t orgasm, ever. We can draw many conclusions from these facts (some of them completely contradictory), but one thing is for sure: Many of us orgasm in ways that are not conventionally erotic or sexy. Put that together with the pressure to be sexy during sex, and you’ve got one of the likely causes of too-stressed-to-orgasm.

Of the many complaints I have about pop culture, a mainstay is the dearth of diversely realistic images of people doing 3 things: having sex, having orgasms, and falling in love. 

I’ve met many adults who feel terrible and twisted because they cum while grinding their vulvas against things – people, pelvises, legs, hands, faces… Pillows, blankets, stuffed animals… Chairs, stairs, railings, bicycle saddles, and an endless more. And the thrusting varies, from gentle rocking to being so hard that it bruises partners, from a few quick finishing strokes to a steady and strong hour-long ride. 

The point? Sex is human and messy, orgasms come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, and conventional sexiness is too narrow to contain us. For the sake of evolution I think we have a responsibility to break as many of those confines as we can. At the least we should push back firmly against them! Applying the clitoris creatively, and honouring all the places it likes to go, are good shows of resistance (and usually also good times).

6.     Get bored with it. While the clitoris can produce soul-shaking pleasure, it is also just a part of your body. Sometimes, touch will be underwhelming, un-stimulating, downright boring. Experience this so you can normalize that. Unrealistic expectations are the downer of downers; calibrate yours! This way you can avoid the panicked “oh my god my clit is broken” thoughts, and ease off on the pressure on partners to send you to the moon every time.

Ok. Next Monday: 7 more! Until then, check out the giant glorious thing that is the internal clitoris.