Having regular orgasms will extend your life and provide the basis for more long lasting relationships. Recent studies have confirmed the link between longevity and orgasm frequency. We know that people who enjoy a regular, satisfying sex life (ie. regular orgasms) are less stressed, less depressed and generally more well physically, mentally and emotionally. This level of satisfaction and well being is reflected in the partnerships in which they are shared. The depth of connection and the bonds of trust that shared orgasmic experiences builds into a relationship is a visceral insurance policy for long term commitments.
The majority of people who leave their relationships site sexual incompatibility as a primary impetus to leave. It is so common as to be cliché, that many people in long term relationships reach an impasse of sorts about their individual and connected sex drives. The pulley of sexual attraction and arousal is not static, the swing between feeling desirable and connected in a relationship is in continuous flux and reflects the health of the entire relationship, not just it’s sexual side. Overcoming the initiation argument begins when both people stop keeping score. Agreeing to harness the frustration and apply it towards building solutions is much more likely to move you towards shared pleasure.
One of the most common blocks to a shared orgasmic experience is the strangely common practice of faking orgasm. Studies site as many as 60% of women have faked an orgasm and this practice is not limited only to women. The reasons for faking orgasm are complex. Whether it is because you feel like you can’t perform, or that you can’t open up to that level of vulnerability or that by faking you feel like you can end the intimacy, what results is the most serious of breaches in trust. Faking orgasm is a lie and it leads the person who is trying to love you and bring you pleasure to feeling like s/he cannot trust the messages s/he is hearing. Breaching trust at this deeply naked level of vulnerability cannot help but seep into the other aspects of the relationship.
Many women mistakenly believe that their pleasure doesn’t matter, or they don’t want to burden their partner in their own frustrated search for that mysterious and powerful orgasmic release. Real conversation about these issues is sexy. It communicates that you are invested and trust your partner enough to be vulnerable about this most deeply held desire. Just for the record, most men get more pleasure and sense of mastery from helping a woman they love to orgasm than their own climax. Working together to find the path to individual orgasm is the most intimate sharing that exists. It changes everything in a relationship.
Finding a language to talk about your sexuality for most people is the stumbling block. It is one area in life where taking responsibility for the problem is shaming, so we often go into a default mode of blaming. With that slip, it is easy to believe that change is impossible and to feel caught in a no-win situation. As in any other area of personal development, clarity is everything. Take the time to think about or write down your own personal sexual history including orgasmic experience. Share these notes with your partner and often even unwilling partners will often begin to open up. Set a couple of shared goals, mysterious as our sexual selves may be, they respond to dialogue as any other part of our life. For many couples making efforts to de-stress their lives can have remarkable effects on their ability to be intimate.
Discovering pleasure together is like pouring cement into a foundation. Physical touch that leads to ecstatic release not only releases hormones and endorphins that promote health and longevity, but also serve as the basis of biological bonding. Knowing that you have the ability to reach someone in this most intimate of ways is one of the most significant sources of self esteem that relationships afford. There is a strange coincidence between the percentages of people who don’t orgasm and the percentage of people who divorce. While, sharing orgasm is not enough to keep a relationship alive, the inability to move towards it, is enough to kill it. There is no other single work in life that will repay you so profoundly each and every time you share it.
