Her vibrator—that she’s used since she was a teenager—is a large back massager which could lift asphalt if you attached a drill bit. I’m okay with her using it while we fuck if it helps her get off, but my questions are: Is it physiology that some women need a dose of heavy-duty direct stimulation in order to orgasm? Is it possible to desensitize the clit through too much use of something like an industrial vibrator? Could there be emotional/psychological issues too? Are there prospects of her finding other ways to achieve the same level of pleasure?
Dear Please,
Yep, this orgasm thing turns out to be a bit of a pig fuck, eh? Let’s start with some anecdotal evidence, my own. Despite the fact that I have thrashed away at my vulva with the tool shed worthy Magic Wand for a decade, once my second Wand kacked out a few months ago, I was inspired to expand my bedside selection and I’m now on great terms with a couple of smaller, rechargeable vibrators (more on that below). It doesn’t hurt that I get free sex toys, not an option for most women who grow trustful of one and generally buy the same again because they know it will get them to what can seem like an elusive place.
It seems the vibrator, regardless of its size and power, is very important to me as it’s an ally in both generating physical excitement and distracting from the things that hinder pleasure during intercourse (does my ass look like a giant, churning vat of cottage cheese, when will my tits finally get saggy enough to hit me in the face). For some women, this reassuring friend will be a pillow or some fingers or an asphalt lifter.
Orgasm itself is an elaborate combination of factors—including age, physiology and cerebral input—and science writer Mary Roach’s new book Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex confirms this. As Roach astutely notes, “A conclusion you will encounter many times in the course of these pages is that the sexual anatomy and response of the human female are as uniform and predictable as the weather.”
Many of the scientists Roach interviews, who have been studying sexuality all their professional lives, still marvel at the intricate diversity of orgasm, and many spend years simply debunking outrageous myths perpetuated in more morally restrictive times.
Every chapter holds its fascinations and Roach is exceptionally funny—though if you are easily distracted, you may get trampled under her gabby, incessant footnotes—but chapter 11, the Immaculate Orgasm, where Roach visits Marcalee Sipski, an expert on sexuality among people with spinal cord injuries and diseases, will be of particular interest to you. If a woman with no sensation from the waist down can come, just what the hell is an orgasm and where does it come from? Read Bonk, and while you’re at it, get a copy for your girlfriend too.
I’ve been curious for some time about rechargeable vibrators so I requested a couple from Lelo, a recent addition to the sex toy biz. Lelo is from Sweden and as such holds fast to that country’s apparent national policy for sleekness in design. Okay, so their advertising is a smidge pretentious: they are not a fake shlong company appealing to the typical depraved demographic, they are a “sex life accessory label” that aims to attract “modern women with high sexual integrity” but hey, if you can get more stressed out businesswomen jacking off for a relatively fair price, you’re doing us all a favour.
Despite the fact that I do not fit their target market, I have found a new girlfriend in Iris—we’re such a quirky pair, kind of like Dharma and Greg. Iris’s business end is medical grade silicone and is sculpted to look like a flower bud, she has not one but two powerful vibrator engines and a three-hour charge gets you four hours of fun.
