O is for orgasm
I had no idea what an orgasm was, even when I had one. My first orgasm (I think) was in a movie theatre with the boy that I lost my virginity to, and I was shocked by it. I say “I think” because as a child, I had weird behaviors for things that felt good with my body. Humping random objects and slowly rubbing items across my clitoris (over the pants) was pretty typical. I had no idea what I was doing or that it even related to sex, but it felt interesting and different, so I just kept doing it. I don’t think I ever made it to completion, though.
This wasn’t limited to my vaginal area. When my boobs were coming in, I had this flat chest with these two chiclet gum pieces under my areolas and any time they were bumped or touched, my body screamed in pain. But, I learned that when I pressed my chest against a wall, it turned into a good hurt that actually created some relief. So, you’d see me just smushing myself in the back of the room like a fucking weirdo.
Recently, I saw a story on social media about a girl who presented herself masturbating to her family as some kind of childhood skit. She gathered everyone around to show off this new, cool thing that she discovered. With everyone circling her, she began rubbing her crotch on the corner of the table and stated that everyone should do this because it feels so good! Thankfully, the things I did that “felt so good” didn’t have an audience like this, but I share that same, naive sentiment that she had. It was a discovery with no background information, and since she described it as an embarrassing memory she has, I imagine the event ended in shame and guilt.
As a young girl, I was very interested in my body (how can one not be? Genitals are so fascinating! Depending on the biological sex, you have various holes, dangling pieces, secretions, folds, color tones, etc.) and I explored my vagina without any sense of shame or privacy, because no one said anything to me.
I didn’t realize anything was “bad” about my vagina until my mom yelled at me for curiously touching and exploring my labia while sitting in the middle of the hallway one morning as a child. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” she screamed as I looked up at her confused. Does she know how interesting this is?
She ran to me, pulled my arms up, and said, “You don’t do that! Those are your privates and you keep them covered and you don’t touch them!” I was taken aback by the response and immediately ashamed. I didn’t mean to do something to upset my mom so much.
But is this something to reprimand? I think my mom was more shocked than anything and that led her to react the way that she did, but regardless, I learned that day that my vagina was not something to be curious about, ask about, or even think about. So I didn’t. Except when things happened that felt good. And then I did them but kept them secret and didn’t understand anything about what was happening.
America wants to think that children are not sexual, but we are. We get these sensations and we are not allowed to understand them until “we’re older”, but how does that make sense?
Not that there’s a lot of conversation around masturbation, especially for children, but when there is, it’s very much geared toward boys. They have to do it to relieve pressure, tension. They need the release. Their hormones are CRAZY and it’s up to little girls to cover their bodies and not tempt them into doing anything.
Girls are going through puberty too. Girls are feeling things that they don’t understand too. Girls have wild hormones too. But no one is saying that it’s normal or okay. We’re just taught to stay chaste and to not tempt. How the fuck can a small girl tempt? We don’t even know what we’re tempting since no one actually tells us anything.
So when I say my first orgasm was in the movie theatre, I say that with the asterisk that I may have had them when I was younger but I really didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand it much either when it happened later, but it was while a boy was fingering me, so I at least understood that it was linked to sex.
Having an orgasm when you don’t know that that is gonna happen or what it’s gonna feel like is an … experience. And mine was in public.
The first one
It was ninth grade, I was 14, bordering on 15 years old. My two best friends and I went to the local movie theatre to see “Along Came Polly.” Now, the Krikorian on a weekend night during those years was the place to be, especially for teenagers. Parents felt safe dropping off the kids without supervision and we were able to flex our independence alongside our peers.
While in the lobby of the theatre, I saw my crush, Jordan with his friend and his friend’s girlfriend also milling around, waiting to enter their specific screening room. My girlfriends pushed me to talk to him, making me turn bright red in the process. He was a quiet boy and I was in a mortified embarrassment, so mostly it was our friends who organized us to go into the movie together rather than our original plans. So I joined him to watch “Big Fish.”
We sat in the very back row corner, me on the end next to Jordan, who was next to his friends. The theatre was packed. As soon as the lights dimmed, Jordan’s friends immediately started making out. I was familiar with this tradition of teens in movie theatres, having done it once before myself, but this was uncomfortable because it mostly acted as a foil to us sitting there, hands staunchly to ourselves.
I actually really enjoy the movie, “Big Fish”, but I couldn’t tell you one thing about it that night. Even when we were watching the screen, my entire being was focused on his hand placement, his closeness to my own body, how any sort of twitch from me could ruin everything. About halfway through, he finally made a move.
He looked at me and I looked back. He smiled slightly and then leaned forward and kissed me. Immediately, I was surprised by his tongue in my mouth, but I went with it, matching his style. After a few minutes of making out, he slipped his hands down my pants and began rubbing my clit.
No one has ever touched me there before, not even me. I knew the vagina was a major player in sex, but I had no idea the surrounding areas were a part of the game too. We continued to make out and his hands moved back and forth in a very pleasing manner. Suddenly, my whole body started convulsing.
I let out an uncontrolled moan and immediately clapped my hands to my mouth. He chuckled quietly, removed his hand from my pants, and put his arm around me. I watched the remainder of the movie with my head in the crook of his shoulder. It was a great night, but I felt confused and embarrassed by what my body did.
Afterwards, I spoke about it to my friends, one being more sexually advanced than me, and she explained what occurred with a very vague, “Yeah that happens. But it’s good” kinda statement. I was still a little embarrassed by the situation, but she made me feel like it was okay because that’s what men want us to do. Great, I succeeded.
Making it a habit
I have been known to fake an orgasm with men. Sometimes it’s to make him feel good, sometimes it’s to end the encounter, and sometimes it’s to ensure my safety. Though I enjoyed the feeling of sex, because I have been there as a tool for men to get off, orgasming hasn’t always been a priority in my history. And, based on how this country and many of its men talk about women, I would say a lot of us feel this way. I know faking it only makes men think that they’re good at sex, but sometimes it’s just easier or the better route to take.
There are times when I can finish in seconds, and other times when it takes nearly half an hour. I get very self-conscious about how long it takes me in some instances that I get too much in my head to where it never happens. So faking it at least provides some kind of reward for their hard work. This is my rationality based on responses and experiences I’ve had in the past, but I understand that it is not the best way to move forward.
If a man is bitching about how long you take, then that’s on him, not you. I know that now, but I still get in my head about the whole thing. I worry about how I am behaving during the acts. Porn has taught us that women should be SCREAMING, and I played that part for a long time (sorry, roommates), but truthfully, I am pretty silent when I’m enjoying myself. But does he think I’m not enjoying myself because I’m not making any sounds? So I throw in a sound here and there, but then I’m thinking about it too much and taking myself out of the actual moment where I’m feeling pleasure. It’s fucking annoying.
I learned to orgasm alone through various means. The use of the shower / water was completely accidental, yet effective. I was having terrible period cramps, so I went into the hot shower, laid on my back, and just let the water fall down onto my lower stomach. It eventually made its way to my clit and I ended up orgasming. What a wild discovery! As an adult, I got into toys. I’m honestly too lazy and too distracted to use my own hands, so I need third-party tools to help. Once you figure out that you can make yourself orgasm, sex becomes less important in finding physical pleasure. I don’t know if that’s a good thing necessarily, but it did slow down my need and habits for one-night-stands (not that I was really orgasming there much anyway).
The weird one
My most surprising orgasm came in the shower, but not from the water fall. One day, my thigh was SO ITCHY — that kind of itch that is so uncomfortable that you can’t fucking stand it. So I went into the shower and just started intensely itching my inner thigh and even though it was turning red, it felt so relieving. I kept itching and suddenly the sensation moved to my vagina. Interesting …
I kept scratching because it was helping my discomfort but it was also blowing my mind with its weirdness. And then I came without ever touching anything other than my thigh. Who fucking knew?
The intimate ones
For most of my sexual life, I have felt guilty, shamed, and unsatisfied from the concept of my orgasms. Through this, I was conditioned to concern myself only with my partner’s pleasure rather than my own. And as we know, once the man finishes, the sex usually stops, so if you don’t beat that clock, then you’re out of luck. I was usually out of luck and I accepted this as my role as a woman in heterosexual sex.
But this is not how it should be. Sex is between two people and each partner should strive to make the other person feel good in addition to getting themselves off. And we shouldn’t be making each other feel bad about how their body reacts to the stimulation. I still can’t get out of my own head when I have sex (in any form) and I still have to tell myself that we are equally prioritized, because that’s just not how I learned.
Yes, I can orgasm alone and it lessens the expectation of sexual relations with others, but there is something to say about how much intimacy can add to the pleasure of an experience, even if you don’t end up coming. And intimacy was very absent from most of my sexual history. So, figuring out how to intertwine them more successfully is what I work on now with my husband.
My husband is a very generous and patient lover. He has been shocked to hear from my writing how little men focus on women’s pleasure during sex (he’s really in a league of his own), and it’s helped him to understand why I behave the way that I do in our relationship. I knew that writing and sharing my stories would aid me in my processing and my ability to move forward, and I had hoped that it would help at least another woman or person who has experienced similar situations feel less alone or ashamed of what they did because we all go through similar shit; but I am pleasantly surprised and happy to know that it has also worked to improve my own intimacy with my husband and our relationship.
Communication and honesty is good?! WHAT?! Just kidding, we all know this, but it’s very hard to practice. Keep working at it — it definitely has its benefits.
