Sensation

by Isabel Losada

  Nothing feels ‘normal’ yet for T or me. The evening contains two 15-minute OMs. Some couples practise exclusively with their partners. But the majority are OMing with different people to learn.

  ‘How many of the people here are single, Mary?’ I ask, looking around at a room of men who were, it has to be said, of above-average good looks.

  ‘Some are, some are married, and some are in polyamorous relationships.’

  Polyamorous relationships? Oh, good grief.

  One Wednesday evening, Rachel – who now runs the Europe branch of OneTaste – asks me casually, ‘Would you like to OM?’

  OH MY GOD!

  Would I like to have a woman stroke my clitoris?

  Everything in me screams ‘NO!’ Can I just run away now?

  The week this happened T was away and I was there alone for the first time. I’m so straight I’m boring. My skin is very happy next to a man’s skin and I’ve never had any particular desire to put any of it next to a woman’s. But there is something about the OM practice that is strangely un-sexual. Although it certainly sounds sexual doesn’t it?

  A woman stroking your clitoris?

  Here they are so matter of fact about it. They do this practice every day, and so my reasons to say, ‘No, thank you,’ would be what? Fear? Of what exactly? I teach that exploring what makes you afraid is expansive. Am I to be one of those people who doesn’t practise what I preach? Sheesh, I’m not bored. I’m as way outside any zone of comfort as I could imagine. Yet perfectly safe in the container of a room full of OM practitioners.

  ‘I’m a very experienced stroker,’ she adds – as a masseuse might if they saw you hesitate before accepting a shoulder massage. There’s no hook. It isn’t a come-on. She’s straight and wants nothing – except maybe to demonstrate to me some sensation that I may not have had before … to follow the musical analogy – some new notes.

  The only reason to say ‘no’ would be fear, conditioning and habitual preference. A reason to say ‘yes’ is that it may enrich my practice and, once again, teach me. I’m not sure how T would feel about it but he’s on holiday. The choice is mine. I take a deep breath. ‘OK, Rachel.’ I can’t believe I just said that. I really can’t.

  ‘And how was it?’ I hear you asking. Well, it was different. Rachel managed ‘grindy’ and ‘intense’ and ‘gentle’ all in the same OM. And she certainly hit some notes that I hadn’t experienced before. Notes of a different pitch that made me feel like a different instrument. But sheesh – I’ll be very glad to go back to men at the next OM Circle. Men will always be my preference. I’m just made that way.

  In the sharing afterwards I blush. ‘I just had my first-ever

  OM with a woman. I can’t believe I did that.’

  Twenty-five people applaud. Another boundary bites the dust. I’m learning to be a little more open. I guess this is all part of this journey. I notice that the world goes on turning just the same but maybe I just became one fraction less inhibited than I was yesterday, one fraction less narrowminded even. Sheesh, this is hard.

  Orgasmic Meditation Training Day – with Live Demonstration

  Meanwhile I haven’t forgotten tantra or other aspects of my sexuality. And I’m still reading.

  The last truly comprehensive study of female orgasm was in the Masters and Johnson classics from 1966 and 1970. Both these concluded that penile thrusting during intercourse should be enough to bring a woman to orgasm. Shere Hite’s Report on Female Sexuality in 1976 told us that only 33% of women reached orgasm through intercourse alone. So, was it their conclusion that there was something wrong with all the rest of us? Yes – somehow that was implied. No one, even now, seems to make it really clear that male and female response is very different. It throws me into a little rage. As recently as 1998, an Australian urologist, Helen O’Connell, wrote that the unerect clitoris (which is mostly internal) can be up to nine centimetres long and yet is considered co-incidental by many men as the centre for women’s sexual pleasure. In 2013 the artist Sophia Wallace started her ‘Cliteracy’ campaign, and slogans started to appear in New York street art and dotted across Facebook and Twitter that said things like, ‘A man would never be expected to get off through sex acts that ignored his primary sexual organ.’13 And ‘Terrorism is having sex your entire adult life, giving birth to six children and never experiencing an orgasm.’ But Sophia wasn’t blaming men – women also have to take some responsibility for this with a slogan, ‘Tell the truth. Women will never be equal to men so long as they are having bad sex and lying about it.’ The message is clear – the reality out there is dire – both for men and for women and the only thing I can do is keep going. Keep taking responsibility.

  The OM community does workshops. One-day workshops where they teach groups of people how to OM. Nicole comes to London about twice a year and runs them. T tells me, ‘They do a live demonstration of the OM.’

  ‘They do what?’

  ‘On stage. A woman lies on stage and Nicole demonstrates. As part of the workshop. Then in the afternoon they teach and then they end the day and anyone who wants to can stay and OM.’

  ‘These things happen in London?’

  T and I want to learn. We cancel everything and sign up. It’s only a day after all. The workshop is at London’s beautiful Asia House which makes me smile. The last time I’d been there was to hear William Dalrymple. This is a little different. I think William would enjoy it.

  • • •

  Nicole is punctual and dressed, quite consciously, in a dropdead gorgeous figure-hugging red dress that screams ‘sex’ at all the men in the audience. I swear she sits on a high stool to present with her legs ever so slightly apart quite deliberately. This event is called ‘Turn On’ and she makes sure that the day lives up to expectations.

  ‘Is she wearing anything under that dress?’ I whisper to T.

  ‘There is no visible panty line. Not that I’ve looked. Of course.’

  Then Nicole starts to speak in a mixture of stand-up comedy, motivational talk, neuro-linguistic programming and sex lecture rolled into one. She’s funny and my pen can’t write fast enough to take all the notes I want.

  ‘When I first started the OM practice I basically cried for three years.’

  Hmm, she has to be exaggerating right? But saying this gives permission to all the women that get emotional during the practice – which I don’t. She says in the book that for the first six months she didn’t feel anything at all. So we learn that if I, or any other women, feel very little, we know not to worry.

  Then, in a seamless flow, she says to the men, ‘If a woman is not turned on you can do no right. You can be stroking with the utmost precision and nothing will happen. If she is turned on, touch her knee and she’ll love it.’

  So now all the men would be feeling better. I scribble notes furiously.

  ‘I’ve never seen anyone who is beyond redemption,’ she says. Hooray. Listen to that, Mr Freud. Listen to that everyone who has been sexually abused or knows anyone who has been. Listen to that any woman who has some kind of sexual problem. I think of a woman I know who has vaginismus, and others who experience pain on penetration or who are frustrated because they simply don’t like sex. In saying ‘no’ to bad sex they have thrown away pleasure too.

  ‘I’ve never seen anyone who is beyond redemption.’ I write the words in my notebook in block capitals. Good for Nicole.

  ‘Women, we want men who are strong but also somehow intuitively able to read our minds. When men can’t see a way to move forward then their minds go into paralysis and then we complain that our men are not engaged.’

  Yes – women I know complain that their men are checked out.

  ‘Don’t apply the rules of production to orgasm. It requires a lot more feeling around in the dark than having a formula. It’s nuanced; a state of nuance in which all of you is required. Orgasm is an involuntary state. It’s about flow. Flow isn’t self-conscious.’

  She jumps around – delibera
tely I’m sure – from subject to subject. It’s more like entertainment than a lecture.

  ‘Play around with yearning. Play with tension in the body. Don’t have sex with her, men, until it’s irresistible. Give her a chance to show off for you in bed. Play with power dynamics that you are not normally comfortable with. Break rules in the bedroom. You are consenting adults and you may discover unbelievable pleasure when you break the rules. No one wants sex that is reliable, punctual sex.’

  Ha ha ha. Punctual sex. Oh dear. I remember a friend who complained to me that she felt her man scheduled in the sex, in the diary, along with his other obligations.

  ‘And don’t be “nice”,’ she said. ‘We can nice each other to death.’ Hmm, T and I are nice to each other. Perhaps too nice.

  ‘You need a little dissonance in the relationship,’ Nicole advises. ‘Experiment. If you’re in a cosy relationship, try doing something deliberately to piss the other one off. You’ll discover that a little dissonance has advantages.’

  I have heard this before – couples that tell me those rows are good for their sex lives. I’m convinced that it’s not necessary and not very enlightened. On the other hand, couples that never row can end up not communicating honestly or in depth. Can you disagree fiercely and not row? And if you don’t row, can you still have ‘dissonance’? Hmmm. Discuss.

  Then she talks about ‘vigilance’, one of the keys to women having a good sexual experience.

  ‘Your brain’s vigilance centre is like a meerkat on a mound looking all around and screaming.’ Both the man and the woman have to calm down the vigilance centres so that you can be completely focused on sensations. Once the vigilance centre is relaxed you can explore the ten different spots on the clitoris and the natural point of highest sensitivity, which, as you now know, is the upper left hand quadrant.

  ‘The 8,000 nerve endings there begin to unwind and the sensation is enough to draw you out of your personal narrative.’

  Only sometimes, I say to myself.

  ‘And then the spot that no one can find – grows.’

  Oh, I hope so.

  Then she describes the possible feeling that comes from four different types of stroke. T and I haven’t explored this so I’m paying attention.

  ‘A very fast stroke creates a feeling of reverence and of reaching out. An upstroke feels like rising – literally like going up – like a balloon. A downstroke is the exhale – it can feel low and kind of gritty. Stroking the back of the clit makes the strokee feel, “Oh, I love you. I’ll do anything for you.” And how does the stroker learn to play to get a pitchperfect response?’

  Good question.

  ‘It’s to do with watching the channels of feedback. Don’t trust the sounds that she makes, as women are prone either to exaggerating with sound or they don’t give any feedback at all. It can be difficult for the woman being stroked. I remember when I started I couldn’t say whether I was receiving an upstroke or a downstroke and everything felt as though the sensation was more in the reservoir on the left than on the clit itself.’

  ‘So how does the man tell what’s really a good sensation and what isn’t if she isn’t giving clear feedback?’ a young man asked, pen in hand.

  ‘That’s why you have your right thumb at the base of the introitus, just slightly inside so that you can feel muscle contractions. Also, if you have a good stroke she will produce more liquid, which is involuntary and can’t be faked. Those are your guides.’

  Very good.

  ‘It sounds difficult and there’s a lot to learn,’ complains a man in the front row.

  ‘Don’t forget that it’s a goal-less practice. For the woman the only goal is to feel every stroke. For the stroker all you have to do is make your finger feel good.’

  ‘So it’s easy?’ asks a young woman. The audience is totally engaged.

  ‘It’s as easy as meditation where all you do is focus on the breath. It takes a second to learn but many people have spent years in caves focusing on the breath so there must be some benefit.’

  ‘I don’t get it. I thought this was about how to have an orgasm?’ asks a woman.

  ‘What you are calling orgasm we call “climax”. I like to sneeze too but it’s really not what we are after here. We are going for an experience that is much deeper, much longer and there is no comparison. But you don’t have to take my word for it. We invite you to give it a go.’

  ‘Are you constantly thinking about sex, Nicole?’ asks an attractive older man.

  She laughs.

  ‘No, I’m constantly thinking about sensation.’

  ‘What about masturbation? Can’t you do this for yourself?’ asks a man rather charmingly.

  ‘No. Masturbation increases your vigilance centre. You can’t relax completely and be in control of yourself. But someone else can. We have this need for another person programmed into us.’ That’s why it feels so much better when someone else does it, because we can relax more.

  There’s something very inviting in all these words. Later I found that I had written in my notebook, ‘There is a space in me for what you are saying.’ But when I read it I didn’t know whether it was something that Nicole had said to the person who introduced this to her, or whether it was something I’d said. It summed up what I felt pretty well.

  What Nicole is offering, and with huge positive energy, is possibility. Somehow it’s a way forward that’s honest. Not easy, but honest and requiring a new kind of courage. It feels like wide space opening up, a new horizon; new possibilities. And I feel proud. Proud of them for the new hope they are bringing to so many couples and the new hope of intimacy and connection for those that aren’t in couples. Proud for the fact that they have come from the US to teach us inhibited Brits to ask for what we want a bit more. Proud that this audience is sitting here, outside the social norms. After all, where have the social norms got us? Divorce – one in three? Or is it one in two these days? Happy marriages? Happy people? Sexually blissed-out and loved-up couples? Not a lot of it about is there? So I’m proud that we’re in the room.

  And for you too. And I’m proud of you – still reading. Still exploring.

  • • •

  Now it’s the demonstration. I’m scared that they’ll have a close-up camera that will show all-singing all-dancing vagina muscles vibrating with pleasure – the Olympic Gold Medal for fitness and mega-skilled pussy that would show mine up to be more like a floppy old pair of slippers. I’m scared of her experience too – that she’ll have a massive climax after about seven minutes and another one after the next three and I’ll be scarred for life by the trauma of watching. I’ll have nightmares in which I’ll see her muscles, forever in close up, taunting me with their brilliance. And T was similarly scared that after watching what could be done he would feel inadequate and unworthy to be allowed anywhere near one of these astounding miracles of the natural world.

  We’re certainly both nervous.

  ‘No. I was excited,’ says T later. OK. So, I’m nervous and T is excited.

  There’s no close-up camera. But we’re in the second row so we have a completely clear view.

  The room starts to fill with an almost electric energy before they begin. The excitement is welcome but the comparisons are not. Nicole diffuses that part of the experience before she starts. ‘Now, before we do the demo I’m going to give you the rules. There is only one rule, OK? You are not allowed to judge yourselves during the OM. This is an incremental process and we have both being doing this a long time and have become more and more free. Even if you are OMing now no one would expect you to be at this level. So you have to promise not to compare and judge yourselves, OK? If you don’t promise I won’t let you stay,’ Nicole jokes. We raise our hands and promise not to judge ourselves. No eternal scarring for me then.

  ‘You can’t OM wrong but you can OM with greater resonance and there is a point where giving and receiving become one.’

  To go back to the analogy of a musician, we’re abo
ut to watch a concert standard performance. Nicole is a player of the clitoris who has been playing every day for 20 years and has played, as she said, thousands of different instruments.

  ‘This is just to show you what is possible. It’s not for you to compare. It’s for your inspiration.’

  If everyone who saw a master cellist decided that they may as well give up as they’d never be able to play that well – we’d have very few good musicians. Most musicians watch a maestro and go home to practise. Or, in this case, be practised on.

  The room buzzes with nervous tension. It feels as you’d feel before an important date or a job interview for a job that you really want, people are barely breathing and we aren’t even participating – we’re just watching.

  Then Justine comes forward. Oh my God – Justine is the woman who’s going to get on to the table and be played by Nicole? Sweet, lovely, warm Justine who had been so kind when T and I went for our private session. What courage. On the other hand, I suppose she is the head of ‘Turn On UK’ (the UK part of OneTaste) so she has to lead by example. But still … I hold my breath for her even though she seems completely relaxed.

  She takes off her underwear, climbs on the table and butterflies her legs so that all the room can see. I’m guessing that this was the first time that many people had seen between a woman’s legs for some years, or ever. Nicole explains in an almost medical way what she’s going to do. ‘I measure what I’m doing by the involuntary contractions of the introitus. I never trust the sounds a woman makes. I hear them but I don’t allow them to guide me.’ Then she turns to Justine.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  Justine’s completely OK. She’s completely calm. I guess this isn’t the first demo that she’s ever done in front of a large audience.

  Nicole takes off her heels and puts on the super-fine gloves. I know how super-fine as my number two man at the OM Circle wore them and I couldn’t feel them.

  Nicole asks the audience, ‘During the OM if you could call out any sensations you are feeling, it helps release them into the room.’ Someone says ‘tense tummy’ before she starts.