“Ditch your vibrators!” they say. “Clitoral orgasms and high stimulation are ruining your pleasure.”
It’s true, that when we slow down we are more sensitive to sensation. This can be a total game changer for both sex and self-pleasure. However, the benefits of slow pleasure don’t, in fact, replace the healthy enjoyment of high arousal and more intense stimulation.
This message to slow down was born of the people worldwide recovering from a culture of sex influenced by pornography. Whether you watched porn or engaged sexually with people who had watched porn, you were likely subjected to some aspect of performance-based culture during sex.
These performances have caused many to think pleasure looks fast, feels hard, sounds loud, and leads to explosive orgasms.
But when met with the reality of normal sexual experiences, many have experienced feelings of disassociation, dissatisfaction, and confusion.
Thank goddess that we now have sexual educators and practitioners determined to teach embodied pleasure. With anatomically correct medical books, non-battery operated toys like Crystal Wands, and ancient tantric teachings (to name a few tools), the understanding of pleasure of orgasm has expanded tenfold.
But what if you don’t experience pleasure that way every time? What if a 3 minute clitoral session before bed is all you have energy for? What if you’ve never experienced squirting? What if you prefer fast and hard sex?
Well, then you are like many other humans and probably right where you need to be!
Just because you’ve discovered the truth about slow pleasure, doesn’t mean you must abandon other types of pleasure. In fact, some believe that like a love language, each person has a unique sexual blueprint and preference for how they like to experience pleasure. It’s possible that we experience different desires & preferences throughout the unfolding of our life, or with different people.
Below we highlight the benefits of both slow and fast models of pleasure and arousal...
The Benefits of Slow Pleasure
- Encourages a window of 20-45 minutes of time to build arousal, which is required for a woman’s yoni to become fully engorged, allowing for maximum pleasure as well as blood flow (which contribute to hormone distribution among other things).
- Increases the possibility of experiencing internal orgasms and squirting
- Promotes deeper and more subtle sensation and awareness
- Keeps the nervous system regulated and can allow for easier listening to the body
- Can extend the time of pleasure for both people, creating deeper intimacy
- Promotes safety in the nervous system, thus dissolving protective mechanisms in the body and allowing for healing
The Benefits of Fast Pleasure
- Can take a person to new edges of their sexual experience, particularly surrender
- Allows for more sensation when the body is seeking more stimuli
- Can promote the release of more oxytocin and endorphins, and create excitability
- Can help to reactivate and soothe traumas held in the nervous system
There is no one size fits all for pleasure, as every body is different and there is no “right” way to enjoy yourself. The main message of the embodied pleasure movement is to listen to your body and refrain from judging your sexual character.
Let the pull towards each type of pleasure be an intuitive journey of curiosity and self-exploration.
Written by Megan Bloom
Instagram @bloomingwombs
Instagram @bloomingwombs