Against Simultaneity: The Blowfish Blog

Please note: The piece that this post links to includes references to my personal sex life. Family members and others who don’t want to read about that stuff may want to skip this one.

Simultaneous orgasm

I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. It’s about the ideal of sexual simultaneity, the idea that both partners in sex should get aroused and satisfied on more or less the same timeline… and how this ideal can screw up sex.

It’s titled Against Simultaneity, and here’s the teaser:

My first problem: Women and men tend not to have the same patterns and timetables of arousal and satisfaction. Women generally take longer: to get aroused in the first place, as well as to reach orgasm. We have our compensations, of course, in the form of multiple orgasm — but even that means that we take more time.

So if you’re a hetero couple trying to ride the “arousal and climax” train together, one of two things is likely to happen. The man has to try to rein in his pleasure so he doesn’t arrive before his partner. Or the woman never arrives at all.

Or, in the worst case scenario, both.

And while holding off on climax can certainly increase your own pleasure as well as your partner’s, there’s a point at which it stops being a deliciously prolonged tease that works you up into a frenzy… and starts becoming a chore, a mental exercise that detaches you from your body and your partner and the pleasures of the here and now.

Fuck that noise.

(And yes, for the purposes of this piece, I am assuming heterosexuality… for reasons I explain in the post.)

To find out what my other problems are with the ideal of simultaneity — and what I propose as an alternative — read the rest of the piece. Enjoy!

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Against Simultaneity: The Blowfish Blog
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2 thoughts on “Against Simultaneity: The Blowfish Blog

  1. 1

    My husband and I…..we stopped worrying about “getting there/off” at the same time years ago. Cause, even when we were able to do so, it didn’t make the orgasm more intense…..It made no difference at all.
    Now, at 54 (him) and 49 (me), we don’t concern ourselves w/ whom gets where first. We both enjoy being in charge of our our orgasm..and we like to decide when to get there. (After all, I’ve been getting there all on my own since I was five.)
    But, we are “courteous” lovers/partners. If he gets there first, he hangs around to help me get there (maybe talks filthy to me). If I get there first, I make sure I don’t just get up and head for the clean-up wipes. I encourage him and just enjoy watching his face get all screwed up before he “gets there”.
    And, sometimes, one of us may not get there at all and really (believe me when I say this), it does not matter. Maybe I’ve had one drink too many or maybe he’s been working too many hours and he’s exhausted. But, once again, we are courteous lovers/partners and make every effort to be present for each other (in and out of the bedroom).

  2. 2

    Right again,Greta! I just did a Guide on this very topic, and, while I give some tips for playing around with the notion, I made sure to drive home the point that any goal oriented sex play gets old very fast. It’s about play, not work.
    Ernest and I are big turn takers, too. SInce I’m the one more likely to conk out after I come, we have his first and then mine. Very nice.

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