Sensation

by Isabel Losada

  Now don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that I always want control over my partner’s breathing and movement in bed. But it is one more amazing area to experiment with. I hope T won’t mind me telling you, because he is anonymous after all, that when his self-imposed 25-day challenge was over and we continued to explore this without the prohibition on ejaculation he experienced a ‘totally new kind of orgasm’. One in which he was able to use the breath to slowly draw the sensation up from his genitals and through his body rather than having a genitally-centred orgasm.

  I’m not yet at a place where I can pull sensation through my body using the breath. But I can use it for focus on sensation in different areas, and I do notice that if you put your mental focus on an area of your body and then you breathe in and think of bringing your energy to that area, for some reason you do feel more sensation in that area. Just don’t ask me why or how this works, OK?

  I wanted to check that my intuition about the breath was accurate even though no one seemed to be talking about it. So I phoned Sue Newsome of Shakti Tantra who had taken the couple’s workshop that T and I had so much enjoyed. I simply said, ‘Can you talk to me about the breath a bit, Sue?’ ‘Breathing is absolutely fundamental to our enjoyment of sexual pleasure,’ she said. Ah. Very good.

  ‘Say more please?’

  ‘What can go wrong for some people in sex is that they are in their heads.’ Again we hear this. No irrelevant thoughts, folks. No past, no future.

  ‘By focusing on our breathing we are in our bodies rather than in our thoughts. We can use our breath to promote our arousal. The arousal can be harnessed using a combination of breath and muscle management.’ (Those pelvic floor muscles again.) ‘The breath is what takes the sensation through the whole body.’

  ‘Imagine you can breathe in through your sex,’ (for ‘sex’ here, read ‘yoni’, ‘vulva’ or ‘perineum’ as an option for men and women). ‘Experiment with squeezing your pelvic floor muscles on the in-breath and relaxing them on the out-breath.’

  Sheesh – we can have fun exploring the potential results of strong pelvic floor muscles and breathing deeply? You’re really getting quite good value from this book. Explore though and find what works for you because advice differs. Alexey says, ‘Don’t focus on the breath, focus on the sensation, the breath will look after itself.’ Some teachers advise, ‘Don’t worry about the breath, it will look after itself.’ But almost everyone speaks of using the breath to draw sensation from your genitals up into the rest of the body.

  From all the different types of orgasm that I haven’t had – it’s the one they call a ‘Breath Orgasm’ that I’d like to explore because the breath is our energy, our health, our sexuality, our spirituality. And there is a workshop that I could go to, and it doesn’t involve taking my clothes off or touching strangers.

  Just look at this. Go to your computer later and type these words in the search bar, ‘How to have a breath and energy orgasm.’ Or, if you’re on an E-reader that can connect you just look here.30 If you don’t have a computer handy, this is a clip of a woman called Barbara Carrellas who, right there on camera, with no other person or object involved, breathes herself to this kind of orgasm in two minutes and ten seconds. So what on earth is going on here? How can she breathe herself to a kind of orgasm with no erotic stimulation of any kind?

  I showed the clip to one of my German friends.

  ‘Oh yes, this is an old tantric practice that we call “The Big Draw”. I’ve done this in workshops in Germany.’ Of course she has.

  I find Barbara’s website and scan the dates to find there is a one-day workshop that is four days after the wedding of a friend in New York. Just the excuse I’m looking for. The friend will give me air miles, I can stay for free and there is the wedding too. This makes it possible.

  So, I shall go and learn how to breathe the body into some kind of weird climax. And I’ll teach you in case you are bored one night and want to explore how breathing may impact on whatever you do with the person that you love.

  The Big Squeeze: Pelvic Floor II

  You notice that we are running several themes at once here. Before we fly off to the US for the coldest winter on record we have an appointment with the NHS. I said I’d get back to you on the pelvic floor muscles exercise progress. If you are a female reader, are you doing them? Daily? Between my first and second meetings with Clare, I was disappointed with myself because, despite my best intentions, I didn’t keep up the exercises with the five-times-a-day regularity that I had intended. I confessed this to her sorrowfully. Some days I had missed totally, intending to make up the pelvic floor squeezes on the following day. But, like any form of exercise, it doesn’t work like that.

  ‘Don’t despair,’ said Clare. ‘Do you have a smart phone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s an NHS app. It’s a little controversial because, despite coming from the NHS, you have to pay for it.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘£2.99.’

  ‘Sold.’

  We downloaded the app and Clare went through the exercises on it with me. It’s called ‘Squeezy’. Ha ha. And it has a selection of fast and slow squeezes along with the very important ‘relax’ section in which you need to make sure that you can also relax the muscles fully.

  ‘We can set it for five times a day if you like?’ said Clare cheerfully. ‘It will send you reminders.’

  And, oh my goodness, it does. It starts nagging at me at 9am and if I don’t do it I get two messages saying ‘Time for your 9am session.’ Then it starts on me again at 11 and so on through the day. If I get behind it will say, ‘You are three sessions overdue.’ So now every time I get on a bus or a train or find myself waiting or sitting or even being driven in a car, I’ll be sitting catching up on my daily Kegel muscles exercises. It’s become like a good mixture of exercise and mediation as I concentrate on relaxing the breath and breathing slowly and steadily and pulling the pelvic floor muscles up and forward as much as I can. The first is slowly ten times, the second is fast ten times and the third is a more interesting ‘half squeeze’ that enables you to really feel what’s going on.

  If I’m still alive and have health problems in my 80s, then at least incontinence won’t be one of them. Is it giving me more sensation during sex? Well apparently it’s too early to say. I have to do these for at least eight weeks before I can expect to feel any change. But I’m becoming familiar with that part of my body. If this is ‘The Ultimate Sex Secret Every Woman Should Know’, I know it. Five times a day.

  Sign up, girls. Get the app. Squeeze those sex muscles. And know how to relax and release them. For £2.99 you can look upon it as a contribution to the NHS. This, and links to other pelvic floor apps, are after the reading list at the end.

  • • •

  Those strange evenings in church halls and basements hearing a range of tantric and other sexuality teachers talking had raised questions that were still nagging at me. Does stimulation of the clitoris desensitize the vagina in any way or make other forms of orgasm apart from the clitoral orgasm less available? I think this question will be of considerable interest to a lot of us. It’s difficult to answer the question definitively because, firstly, we know that the clitoris extends inside the vagina, so any study would have to be specific and limited to only the external clitoris. And then there is the vexed question of when is a clitoral orgasm a clitoral orgasm? Do we just mean that a nonclitoral orgasm is one in which the clitoris has not been touched? This makes no sense since the penis in penetration is obviously touching the clitoris – if not directly, then indirectly. Even the pressure of one body against another stimulates the clitoris through pressure against the hood. Gentle stroking with a very light touch has a different result on nerve endings from pushing a vibrator up against them. Bearing in mind the number of women who use vibrators – and mainly by stimulating the clitoris externally – this is an important question.

  I write to Naomi Wolf (who spent yea
rs researching and writing a book called Vagina) and she writes back that she has never heard this and it makes no sense to her at all.

  I wrote to Mike Lousada and he writes back with a fuller response,

  ‘I’m not aware of any scientific evidence that points out that rubbing the clitoris desensitizes it (which doesn’t mean that evidence doesn’t exist, but I’ve not seen any and I’ve been doing this job a long time). I’d say that it’s a matter of common sense.’

  As a parallel, men who have circumcision have significantly less sensitivity around the head of the penis because it is unprotected, and constantly receives stimulation through friction. It follows therefore that overstimulating a clitoris may have the same impact. It would also depend on the type of stimulation. If it is gentle stroking, then my experience is that this opens up the nerve endings and creates greater sensitivity in a clitoris which may have become desensitized.

  If the stimulation is intense and habitual, as in those women who only self-pleasure using a powerful vibrator, this can lead to desensitization of the area. Strong vibrators such as the Hitachi Wand should never be used directly on the skin. Women should place a wet flannel, folded over, between the vibrator and the genitals to ensure they don’t overstimulate the sensitive area of the clitoris.

  ‘Where I do sometimes recommend a vibrator is for women who have yet to experience orgasm and for whom regular touch does not seem to offer enough stimulation. In these cases I think of the vibrator like trainer-wheels on a bike – they give confidence when we’re learning but should be disposed of as soon as possible.’

  This is not the first time I’ve heard this. As that independent sex shop owner told T and me, women end up going back to sex shops to buy stronger vibrators. So if you have a clitoris and this is happening to you – stop. Put it away and stroke gently. Or go to an OM class.

  Then I thought I’d ask Drew Lawson, who has studied with many of the different schools out there. He says,

  ‘There seems to be a lot of conflict in the sex and intimacy world about “to clit or not to clit”. There are some schools that focus entirely on clitoral stimulation, and others teach avoiding the clitoris altogether. However, as we know that the clitoral body is spread throughout the vagina, it’s not just the small head under the clitoral hood. What seems to me to be more pertinent is which nerves are primarily activated by the different stimulations, and the effects those nerves have on the rest of the body and the endocrine system. The pudendal nerve inserts into the clitoris and when activated seems to create the pleasurable, spasmodic contractions that most of us associate with orgasm, along with the spike and crash in dopamine and oxytocin, and the release of prolactin. There are at least three other nerves that insert into the pelvic region including the vagus nerve, which is directly related to the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. It’s my supposition that orgasms that primarily stimulate the vagal nerve are associated with the more tidal, full body orgasmic experience, and have a gentler and more sustained endocrine profile.’

  The different hormones produced by different kinds of orgasm is another area that none of the schools teaching sexuality seem to agree on. To ejaculate or not to ejaculate? What are the different influences on your health and energy levels of more sex or less sex or different types of sex? I’d need another three books to answer these questions even half satisfactorily.

  I write to Nicole about the fact that some other schools are teaching a programme where they ask women not to touch the clitoris for the first six months. She writes,

  ‘That’s a little crazy as the clitoris reaches all the way back into the pussy. My experience has been that my whole pussy swells with OMing. Having said that, I would go with whatever programme they are running and follow the instructions 100% before drawing any conclusions because they likely have a different entry point.’

  Nicole’s advice – whatever course you are doing, do that 100% – makes sense as hopefully these are just starting points leading to the same neural pathways. But it does amuse me that, of the different sexuality training schools, some say ‘stroke the external clitoris’ and others say ‘don’t stroke the external clitoris’. The second promises more profound experiences if we explore leaving the external clitoris alone. So choose your pleasure.

  So where does this leave us? To return again to my spiritual sources (with apologies to any of you that find the juxtaposition of matters of vibratory stimulation and classical texts just a little too immediate), the Buddhist Kãlãma Sutta advises us,

  ‘Don’t believe in anything simply because you have heard it.’ Or read it. Not here or even in a ‘scientific study’. Look at the nonsense that we, and particularly women, have been told about their sexuality by ‘scientific studies’ over the years. Also, as Naomi Wolf points out, women are different. Some have more nerve endings in one area and some others. So the only way to test all this for sure is to get horizontal and explore pleasure. You have a lifetime to play. Sure beats watching TV and most straight men, or if you prefer, most gay women, will be only too willing to support you in your research.

  Ecstasy on East 30th Street

  Now, finally, and with apologies for the delay – back to the breath. Hooray.

  I managed to go to New York in what was officially the coldest winter since they started the recording of weather temperatures in 1870. Stepping out of the apartment to a temperature of -7o degrees C was something that I’d never known. One day I stepped out with my hair still slightly wet from washing it and looked down only minutes later to see that it had frozen. The government had officially advised everyone to stay indoors and those that did venture out covered their faces giving you the curious impression that everyone was about to rob a bank. One day I stepped out and looked for a cab but after about ten minutes of waiting I understood that my body temperature was falling faster than I’d realized. I stepped into a hotel, ordered a coffee and asked them to call me a cab. The temperatures really were that dramatic. Niagara Falls froze. New York which, as you know, normally never stops, was curiously silent.

  But in the room where Barbara Carrellas was taking her ‘Breath and Energy Orgasm’ workshop at New York’s trendy centre for all things weird and wonderful, the ‘Open Centre’, heating was pumping out and layers of clothing were being shed. But hooray, not all the layers.

  ‘This workshop contains no nudity and you will not be asked to reveal anything about your sex lives,’ she said. How sweet are those words to my ears.

  Barbara looks just as quirky and adorable in real life as she does on YouTube. She’s a tiny five foot nothing, has bleached white hair dipped in bright pink; and is wearing a multi-coloured psychedelic dress. I suppose she’s actually just what you’d expect an American teacher of sexuality to look like.

  She is the author of several books, among them Urban Tantra and Ecstasy is Necessary and has been teaching sexuality since the 1980s.

  ‘This is a look at what erotic energy can do. It’s about the breath and the self, a heart-centred spiritual version of sex which re-defines what we mean by sexuality,’ she says.

  I settle down comfortably and examine my fellow attendees. There seemed to be about 17 men, 20 or so women and a few who (to steal a line from Kinky Boots) ‘haven’t yet made up their mind’). There’s a woman on my left who appears to be wearing a kind of tent, has a partiallyshaven head and gold-and-black ear-rings that go down to her breasts. Another woman has dreads down to her bum, which she seems to have difficulty managing.

  ‘I’m a dom,’ she says. I look blank.

  ‘A professional dominatrix.’ Of course. I knew that.

  ‘I’m exploring how I can combine my work with tantra.’

  As you do.

  Barbara starts her introduction.

  ‘If you’re terrified today and you showed up anyway – yayyyy for you. This is a difficult time of year. This kind of work is more popular in the spring.’

  She fills us in briefly on how she got into this.

&n
bsp; ‘In the 1980s a group of us were trying to meet the needs of those affected by AIDS. We formed a healing circle. We were looking for some spiritual relief but the question remained, “What are we going to do about sex?” We needed a way for people to express their sexuality that wasn’t going to expose them to the virus. So we started to explore Eastern forms of sexuality. We wanted to find a way that anyone could have sex safely, but this became a spiritual and erotic practice that saved my life. The power of the breath inside us can change just about everything.’

  She has my attention.

  ‘I am not an expert in ancient traditional tantra. I don’t pretend to be channeling any great mother spirit, and I’m not a guru so please don’t make me into one.’

  I love this.

  ‘Now, let’s go around the room and can you briefly tell us your intention today.’

  Different voices from the room.

  ‘My intention is simply to breathe and to be present with my breath.’

  ‘I’m fighting cancer and I want to learn about the breath as I want all the ammunition I can get.’

  ‘I’m here to have fun.’

  ‘I’m here to increase my awareness of energy.’

  ‘I want to expand my understanding of the healing nature of sexuality.’