Orgasm in Translation

We've gone pink...and German!

The Orgasm and The Brain

Barry Komisaruk, a neuroscientist at Rutgers, is studying orgasm in the hopes of finding the roots of human consciousness. He selects women to orgasm in fMRI machines so that he can see what's going on in their brains. I volunteered to be a participant in one such study. The Pleasure Lab is what resulted. Enjoy!

Happy Anniversary

Today is the 1st anniversary of the publishing of Thanks for Coming. Thanks for all the reading, supporting and orgasm awareness.

They grow up so fast. It seems like just a couple months ago that TFC was a clean-shaven broad.

Mara Altman is currently working on her second book - a novel - which is due out when Procrastination Junction meets the end of Vibrator Battery Life Avenue.

Kalanchoe's Addiction

I received my succulents via mail last friday (thanks, Mom!). But a big surprise happened when I opened the box. I'd unintentionally picked out a smoker.

Kalanchoe luciae aka Flapjacks McGee huffs on the things as if they were soil laced with a heavy dosage of sunshine. I'm trying to help her quit. I told her that the nicotine was an inferior substitute for what she really craved: Propagation.

I'm yet to convince her. She thinks she looks groovy (succulents prefer 'groovy' to 'rad' or 'awesome') with the cigarette hanging off her leaf and she swears that it makes her roots tingle like no form of nitrogen enriched substrate or commercially produced fertilizer has ever done. I told her it was the tingle of gangrene. Then she cursed me for anthropomorphizing her.

As for now, I'm hoping she doesn't spread her bad habit to her sill companions. I'm planning on buying her the patch. She didn't do well with the gum; she couldn't absorb carbon dioxide and chew at the same time. When I threatened to withhold water, she just laughed and chanted "I'm drought tolerant, bitch!"

Pussy Doldrums

Yes, you heard it. I'm kinda sick of pussy. Okay, not sick of pussy, but sick of writing about it... for the moment. I just need a twattle break.

You know how it is when you say any word over and over again really fast it starts to not even sound like the thing or action it refers to. It just sounds like a string of sounds, a string so long that you could double Dutch with it and still have some leftover to tie up a pork loin and floss your teeth. That's what pussy sounds like to me right now.

I want to expand the topics on this blog, because there are no rules here (and I don't want to think of flossing my teeth when I think of pussy). If there are no rules, I don't know why I feel the need to explain myself, but I do. So I will, because there are no rules.

I might end up writing about my newfound love for succulents, which my family (parents and two brothers) grow for a living and I thought I'd always loathed. It actually turns out that I didn't like that weird words like Pachyphytum oviferum and Glottiphyllum linguiforme received more attention than the neato smiley faces I'd form from my pasta. Now I am beginning to appreciate those words and the plants they refer to (some succulents can live more than four years without water and have root systems that look similar to a potato. Come on, that's crazy!) Just look at them in the upper left hand corner. If flowers could have online personalities, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd appoint succulents as their avatars (and I mean flower in a purely flower way; no vulva insinuation).

I also might write about eating, dancing, music, tropical fish, how my landlady kicked me out of my apartment today, pizza making and my long quest to make the hem of my pants (which are always too long) molded to the right length via the interminable dragging of the extra five inches on New York's crusty streets. I will not pay to get them hemmed. It's just wrong and unjust, like not legalizing gay marriage. I was born this way.

After all that talk not about pussy, I kind of miss talking about pussy.

'pussy'

okay, I'm over it again.

Vulva Interview: with Cactus Blossom

This is a recurring interview that the TFC blog conducts with random women. The idea is to show how varied and unique each woman's sexual experience can be. To protect the interviewee's privacy, she will be identified as her favorite flower.

TFC: Age?

CB: 29

TFC: When is the last time you looked at your vulva?

CB: Hmmm...in the last six to 12 months. I don't remember exactly.

TFC: What does it look like to you?

CB: It looks like...well, it makes me think of a cabbage. A fruit or a vegetable with many layers, and the layers inside are the tenderest.

TFC: Age at first orgasm and how did you achieve it?

CB: I had just turned 12. I had received my second or third issue of Seventeen, and there was a column called "Sex and Your Body," and that particular month, the title of the column was "Is This Normal?", and it was about masturbation. In the bathroom, I fished around (ha) to see if I, too, had this mysterious clitoris they talked about, and voila! There it was! I guess that was my first orgasm, or maybe first arousal - the first orgasm may have been when I realized we had a detachable shower head. Then it was like, daily.

TFC: What does an orgasm feel like to you? Do you have a definition for orgasm?

CB: It feels like...a wave. Like being a wave. It builds, it crests, it breaks, it recedes, it builds up again.

TFC: When was your most recent orgasm and what were the circumstances?

CB: Yesterday. Oral sex with boyfriend. Sofa in the living room.

TFC: Have you ever had trouble reaching orgasm? if so, how did it make you feel?

CB: Oh, God, yes. I've never achieved a vaginal orgasm from intercourse. It feels good, it just doesn't make me come. When I think about it, it kinda makes me feel disordered and inadequate.

TFC: What did you do to overcome?

CB: I haven't. Either I'll figure it out, somehow, or I'll accept that other orgasms are enough. I like having a clitoral orgasm (from clit stimulation) during sex - that's like the best of both worlds.

TFC: Have any nicknames for your vulva?

CB: None that I feel like sharing. :-)

TFC: What is the best piece of sex advice you've ever received?

CB: When I was 23, my wise, bold friend M___ told me that I should never, ever feel like I "owe" it to a partner in a casual encounter to do a particular thing, like give them a blow job. "You're a queen," she told me. "Do what you want, and nothing else. You don't owe anyone anything." I think generosity is important in sex, but I had
been operating from the assumption (without realizing it) that my main purpose was satisfying the other person and fulfilling some kind of duty, even if it was a one-night stand.

(TFC is always looking for more women's vulva perspectives. If you're interested in sharing yours, please send an email to info@maraaltman.com)

Vulva Interview: with Sunflower

This is a recurring interview that the TFC blog conducts with random women. The idea is to show how varied and unique each woman's sexual experience can be. To protect the interviewee's privacy, she will be identified as her favorite flower.

TFC: Age?

S: 18

TFC: When is the last time you looked at your vulva?

S: Hm...about 4 days ago. Usually I check up on it (yes, I call my vulva an it, more on that later) every few weeks or so, to make sure everything looks in-check - so far, so good!

TFC: What does it look like to you?

S: The first thing that comes to mind are those dark velvet curtains you see at old-timey theaters, all dark and drapey and billowy. The color is really hard to describe, it's quite a dark purple-brown, which sounds gross, but it's nice - it's quite a contrast to my otherwise light skin, but it looks unique and natural. Oddly enough, maybe that's why I tend to like purplish lipsticks for my face....hm, something else to think about.....

TFC: Age at first orgasm and how did you achieve it?

S: 17, and it was at home with myself. I had just started masturbating, and it took me about a month to figure out a technique that worked.

TFC: What does an orgasm feel like to you? Do you have a definition for orgasm?

S: Every orgasm is so different. Sometimes it feels like I shuffled my feet on carpet and am getting shocked all over (but mostly down my legs). Sometimes it's like warm honey is flowing through me. Sometimes I feel like I'm nearly having a seizure. One time I came and had no other sensation except for the fact that my body simply relaxed so fully, quickly, and completely that I couldn't move a muscle for a good 5 minutes. To define orgasm - hmm. Well, for a metaphor, it's usually a feeling like a balloon just popped from being over-filled, you can't really say how it happens, but one second you're climbing, climbing, and then just - pow - you're not, and all these different feelings flow through you (usually not as explosive as a balloon popping, I guess that more describes the climb up and then sudden arrival). I have found that I get different orgasms depending on if I'm with myself or if I'm with my boyfriend - by myself, my whole body seems to react and whatever feeling I have goes through me. When I'm with him, I just suddenly am overcome by the need to relax and lay down. Different techniques get you to different destinations, apparently.

TFC: When was your most recent orgasm and what were the circumstances?

S: Hmm...last night. I was in bed, and felt like I hadn't really given myself enough "attention" lately, and that I really wanted to take some time actually making masturbation last for once, rather than just rushing through it trying to get to the end - so I did, and it was quite nice (and I fell asleep right away :p )

TFC: Have you ever had trouble reaching orgasm? if so, how did it make you feel?

S: With my boyfriend, we would be messing around, and he would obviously be trying to see what would make me come, and nothing was working - whenever that happened, I always felt bad, like there was something wrong with me or him or both of us, or something. And one time, I was masturbating, and simply COULD NOT reach climax. Half an hour of almost-there-just-not-quite and I was about ready to tear my hair out.

TFC: What did you do to overcome?

S: With my boyfriend, I just learned to relax and enjoy what was going on, orgasm or no, and things got to be much more fun (And I actually came more often, weirdly enough. Apparently all that advice about "think about it and it won't happen" is true.) When I was by myself, I gave the self-love a few days rest, and everything worked out. I think I had just overdone the masturbation in the few days around the incident of no-orgasming, and my body needed a break, and wasn't going to go any further without some time off. Lesson learned.

TFC: Have any nicknames for your vulva?

S: No. I mean, if it need be referenced, pussy, but that's not so much a nickname as a slang term. I've never felt comfortable with personally naming my vulva - I think that'd make me feel split 2 people, like my vulva and the rest of me couldn't do things together anymore without arranging an appointment. I don't even like calling my vulva anything other than "it" for the same reason. If I started naming, masturbating would feel like the main part of me was doing service to the vulva part of me - it would totally take away from the whole unity part of sex, the combo head-heart-body aspect. Not to mention that any sex with someone else would automatically feel like a threesome if I named my vulva. (Besides, that would seem unfair to other fun body parts, like breasts and elbows, if they didn't get names.) The few times I have considered naming my vulva I feel this weird tug to give a male name, or at least a gender-neutral name - I guess even my vulva wants to assert her feminist side.

TFC: What is the best piece of sex advice you've ever received?

S: Don't be scared of something just because you've never done it - and have fun with whatever does happen.

(TFC is always looking for more women's vulva perspectives. If you're interested in sharing yours, please send an email to info@maraaltman.com)