Our Bodies, Ourselves (35 page)

The Asexual Visibility and Education Network, known as AVEN (asexuality.org), offers asexual people a place to connect and learn. The website identifies several aspects of asexuality:

• Unlike celibacy, which is a choice, asexuality is a sexual orientation.

• Asexuality is not a dysfunction, and there is no need to find a “cause” or a “cure.”

• Asexual people have the same emotional needs as everybody else and are just as capable of forming intimate relationships.

• Asexuals are generally very different from one another: some experience romantic attraction, some don't. Some experience arousal, some don't.

• Many asexuals talk about having a “romance drive.” They need to be intimate with another special person; it's just that the intimacy they desire isn't sexual.

• It may be more difficult to find someone who is willing to enter into a conventional relationship with the knowledge that sex will not be involved, but remember, there are other people with low or no sex drive out there and many people who care more about love and companionship than they do about sex.

CHAPTER 7
Sexual Pleasure and Enthusiastic Consent

W
hen I'm feeling turned on, either alone or with someone I'm attracted to, my heart beats faster, my face gets red, my eyes are bright. My whole vulva feels wet and full. My breasts hum. When I'm standing up, I feel a rush of weakness in my thighs. When I'm lying down, I may feel like doing a big stretch, arching my back, feeling the sensations go out to my fingers and toes.

When we are aroused by sexual stimulation, from whatever source—fantasies, a certain image or scent, a partner's word or touch—it's common to go through a series of physical, mental, and emotional changes. These changes are often referred to
as “sexual response,” though it's probably more accurate to refer to sexual responses, plural.

Although there are some commonalities in how women experience arousal, there are also wide variations. Our responses vary not only from person to person but also at different times in our lives and from one sexual experience to the next. There is no one right pattern of sexual response.

This chapter reviews different models of sexual response, followed by a closer look at how we experience sexual pleasure—both with a partner and on our own. Since pleasure is tied to engaging in positive sexual experiences, the voices of women who are at the forefront of building a movement for enthusiastic consent are included here, along with stories from women who have found safe and supportive ways to express their sexual desires. Practical information, including a comprehensive section on lubricants, is also featured.

You may want to refer to the description of sexual
anatomy starting
as you read the following information.

Various sex researchers have developed models that attempt to describe women's sexual responses. In the 1960s, William Masters and Virginia Johnson observed and measured women and men engaging in sexual activities in a laboratory setting, and reported their research in
Human Sexual Response
(1966). The Masters and Johnson model outlined four stages of physiological arousal: excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution.

It can be helpful to understand the Masters and Johnson model, not because it fits all women or is a standard you should try to follow, but because aspects of it may fit your experience and because so many clinicians still use it. Here's a breakdown of the four stages.

• Excitement.
During the first stage of arousal, the whole pelvic area may feel full, as erectile tissue in the pelvis, vulva, and clitoris swells with blood, and nerves in that area become more sensitive to stimulation and pressure.
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In the vagina, this increased blood circulation produces the fluid (transudate) that makes the vaginal walls and inner lips wet—often an early sign of sexual excitement. Women produce different amounts of lubrication; for some, there may not be much lubrication, or it may come later, after sufficient sexual stimulation. Sexual tension affects the whole body as muscles begin to contract. Women may breathe more quickly or experience little shivers. Nipples may become erect and hard, and a flush or rash may appear on the skin.

• Plateau.
If stimulation continues, one moves into the plateau stage. The responses may continue to intensify as the vagina becomes more sensitive and the glans of the clitoris retracts under the hood.

• Orgasm.
With enough stimulation of or around the clitoris—and, for some women, pressure on the cervix or other sensitive areas such as the G-spot—a woman may build up to a peak, or orgasm. This is the point at which all the tension suddenly releases in a series of involuntary and pleasurable muscular contractions. Contractions may be felt in the vagina, uterus, and rectum. Many women experience orgasm as a total-body contraction and release.

• Resolution.
Unless stimulation continues, the resolution stage occurs. During the half hour or more after orgasm, the muscles relax, and the clitoris, vagina, and uterus return to their usual positions (except in the rare disorder known as persistent genital arousal disorder).
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Masters and Johnson's work was valuable for women in exploring and asserting the role
of the clitoris in sexual response. But by focusing their study on people who were very experienced with orgasm during masturbation and intercourse, they reinforced a belief that orgasm and intercourse are necessary to women's sexual response and pleasure. And by offering only one model for human sexual response, Masters and Johnson missed the fact that women who do not orgasm with penetration, for example, also experience pleasure.

In the 1970s, the feminist researcher Shere Hite polled more than three thousand women and discovered that most of them did not experience orgasm through intercourse alone.
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In the 1970s and 1980s, several researchers and clinicians such as Harold Lief, Helen Singer Kaplan, Bernie Zilbergeld, and Carol Rinkleib Ellison expanded the Masters and Johnson model to include emotional aspects like desire and satisfaction.
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In 1997, Beverly Whipple and Karen Brash-McGreer developed a circular model of women's sexual responses, suggesting that if a sexual experience resulted in pleasure and satisfaction, then it could lead to another sexual experience. But if the experience was not pleasurable and satisfying, it might not lead to another sexual experience.
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In 2001, Rosemary Basson published
a nonlinear model of female sexual response that incorporated the importance of emotional intimacy, sexual stimuli, and relationship satisfaction. Basson argues that, contrary to what the linear model suggests, women have many reasons for engaging in sexual activity other than desire.
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The best part is the afterglow, when we're both limp and glowing with satisfaction, wrapped around each other. I love the way he knows my body, where to touch, how to touch. The feeling of being so full of him and so full of pleasure that I could explode. The climax of orgasm, whether it's an intense eruption of physical pleasure or an overwhelming emotional sense of being so completely in love with him, brings tears to my eyes.

Despite the limitations of even the revised Masters and Johnson model, psychiatric and medical clinicians, along with pharmaceutical companies, continue to use it to create definitions of sexual health and sexual problems. For instance, a key resource used by U.S. mental health professionals, the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM), bases its definitions of sexual dysfunction on the Masters and Johnson sexual response cycle. For a critical alternative, see NewViewCampaign.org and the book
A New View of Women's Sexual Problems
, edited by Ellyn Kaschak and Leonore Tiefer, which includes the relational aspects of women's sexuality and allows for a wide range of differences among women's experiences.

Important as sex research can be, there's no need to rely exclusively on experts for accurate information about sexuality. If the models don't fit you, then trust your own experiences. We can obtain powerful data by discussing our experiences with friends or in other groups. In some cases, this information can be enhanced by respectful research that attempts scientifically to record and measure what we experience.

An orgasm can be mild, like a hiccup or a peaceful sigh. It can be a sensuous experience, as the body glows with warmth. Or it can be intensely physical or even ecstatic, causing a loss of everyday awareness. An orgasm can be exclusively physical, or it can include subjective and psychological aspects. Feelings of intimacy can impact orgasms with a partner, and orgasms can enhance intimacy.

An orgasm may feel totally different at different times, depending on whether you are masturbating or with a partner, the type and amount of stimulation, and where you are in your menstrual cycle. Other factors include how you're feeling emotionally and physically; among these are your energy level and degree of excitement.

Masters and Johnson asserted that all female orgasms are physiologically the same (brought about through stimulation of the clitoris, with contractions occurring primarily in the outer
third of the vagina). Yet some women describe orgasms that don't fit this model. One orgasm that some women describe as feeling “deep” or “uterine” is brought on by penetration of the vagina. The buildup may involve a prolonged involuntary holding of breath, which is released explosively at orgasm, and there do not seem to be any contractions of the outer third of the vagina.

Women have the potential to respond to sexual arousal throughout the entire body and especially the pelvic region.

Some women find the cervix and uterus crucial to orgasm. Women who have had a total hysterectomy, in which the cervix and the uterus have been removed, may learn to focus on different kinds of sexual stimulation and feelings.

Women with spinal cord injuries who have no feeling in the pelvic area have reported experiencing orgasm and its sensations elsewhere in the body (see
“Sex, Disability, and Chronic Disease,”
). Women without physical disabilities may also experience such sensations. And some women experience orgasm from thought or imagery alone, without any physical touch.
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