Maximize Your Sexual Pleasure

Sex is all about pleasure! The point is to have an embodied experience that feels really really good… like as good as you can possibly feel. Maximizing pleasure is where it’s at, and this happens when we embrace sexual pleasure as our birthright and kindly dismiss any voices telling us that it’s shameful or indulgent or too much or takes too long or that you’re selfish for pursuing pleasure… LOTS of pleasure. The human body’s capacity for feeling incredibly good is nothing short of miraculous, and I say that living life to the fullest includes feeling as much sexual pleasure as you can!

Women in particular need to hear these pleasure-positive messages. If you’ve been socialized as a woman in our culture, you’ve been taught to serve others, to put the needs of others before your own, to please other people and to make them feel comfortable–even at the expense of your own comfort, ease, and wellbeing. We have been conditioned to back-burner ourselves in so many ways, and sex is one place where this definitely shows up. Particularly when a woman is in a sexual relationship with a man, his sexual desires and gratification tend to be centered. 

For many people, heterosexual sex centers on penis-in-vagina intercourse, which is a very effective way to stimulate sexual pleasure in the person with the penis. It’s a much less effective way to stimulate sexual pleasure in the person with the clitoris. I could have said vagina rather than clitoris in that last sentence, but the vagina is not the primary pleasure organ for women. The clitoris is the source of most sexual pleasure. Interestingly, the penis and the clitoris originate from the same structures in very early fetal development. Men generally need to have their penises stimulated for sexual pleasure and release. Likewise, women generally need to have their clits stimulated… eventually, after you are aroused and your vulva is engorged and your clitoris wants stimulation. 

I’m a huge proponent of solo sex and self pleasure. Whether you’re single, partnered, or exploring with more than one other person, it’s always good to have a foundation of self pleasure. Solo sex sessions help you know what you most enjoy in your own body, without the distraction or complication of another person and their body in the scenario. When you pleasure yourself, you have an immediate feedback loop between touching yourself and feeling good… you immediately do what feels good. 

When playing with a partner, the feedback loop goes from their touch to your body, and then you have to communicate to your partner (verbally and/or nonverbally) what feels good. For good pleasure-centered partnered sex, communication is key, and knowing what you like from your solo sex sessions provides a great foundation for better partnered sex. One option for you and your partner is for you to both engage in self pleasure at the same time. Watching how your partner likes to touch themself can help you know how they might like you to touch them. Touching yourself while your partner also touches you can be another great pathway to pleasure. For example, if you have a vulva, your partner might provide vaginal penetration with their fingers, a dildo, or a penis while you stimulate your clitoris with your fingers or with a vibrator. This kind of collaborative approach can be highly effective! 

Touching yourself during sex with another person doesn’t always feel welcome. Sometimes it seems there’s an unspoken rule that all your pleasure during the sexual encounter will come from your partner. It may be enjoyable to intentionally hand over control of your pleasure and your body to your partner for a period of time while you’re having sex. However, if you aren’t intentionally and consensually ceding control to your partner, and there’s just an unspoken rule that you won’t touch yourself for pleasure during sex, this “rule” may be diminishing your access to pleasure–which is the opposite of what you’re looking for. 

Similarly, using toys like vibrators and dildos as part of your partnered sex may bring you a lot of pleasure. Sex is best when partners are collaborating to both enjoy as much pleasure as possible. Sex toys are great tools to help in your mutual pursuit of pleasure. They are definitely not competition, and using them does not mean that your sex is deficient without them. If you and your partner put pleasure at the center of your sexual encounter, and you use everything available to you to enhance your pleasure, you’re both going to experience more of it!

Whether your sex is solo or partnered, the process of arousal, the journey toward your sexual peak, is delicious. One way to maximize your sexual pleasure is to prolong your sensual play, to take your time and really focus in on the sensation of touch and how good it feels. This intense focus on your pleasure can let your worries and life responsibilities fall away. Sex becomes a therapeutic and stress-relieving meditation that feels better than anything. 

As you indulge in the sensations of touch, if you start to approach orgasm, you may choose to decrease the intensity in order to stay in the pleasure of touch longer. Intentionally delaying orgasm can be especially important for male-bodied people who want to maximize their pleasure. Each person has a different “refractory period” after orgasm--that is the amount of time it takes your body to reset and be ready for more sexual pleasure. People with penises tend to have a much longer refractory period than people with clitorises. The sexual pleasure when you’re close to orgasm feels great, so staying in that place for as long as you can is a fantastic way to experience more pleasure before the release of orgasm. Getting close to cumming and then backing off, and approaching orgasm again, perhaps a few or several times, can also increase the intensity of your orgasm when it happens. These pleasure-maximizing techniques are called edging, and there’s a world of delicious sexual gratification in this realm. 

If you’re a person with a very short refractory period (most likely you have a clitoris), you may find that you can have multiple orgasms, one after another, with fairly short breaks in between, or even heightened pleasure that blends one orgasm into the next, a sexual state sometimes called a plateau. You can experiment with this possibility by resuming sexual stimulation as soon after cumming as you can tolerate the sensation of touch. This can be one great way to maximize your sexual pleasure! 

For many people, allowing yourself to spend the time and attention needed to stimulate the sexual potential in your body is the key to unlocking untold fountains of pleasure that are possible for you. Your body is a miracle. Your pleasure is a divine gift. Pursuing and reveling in your sexual pleasure is a worthy use of your time and energy. 

Repeat after me: 
My body is a miracle. 
My pleasure is a divine gift. 
I am worthy of limitless sexual pleasure.

Now touch yourself how it feels best while repeating those words. I wish for you worlds of pleasure!