Pleasure Mechanics

We humans are capable of a wide range of sexual arousal and pleasurable climaxes. Some people like to have one intense climax, others enjoy having a series of orgasms. Some people struggle to have an orgasm at all, while others want to learn to sustain arousal and delay orgasm or ejaculation. With so many possible ways to feel sexual pleasure, it is important to explore a wide range of pleasure responses and be able to experience the kind of arousal and climax you most desire.

People have different sexual goals. Men are often more concerned about trying to prolong arousal and even not ejaculate during arousal, while women are often interested in becoming orgasmic or multi-orgasmic. we can all experience both, and here are some tools to help you experience a wider range of arousal and climax.

To begin paying more attention to your arousal patterns and develop an ability to author your own arousal experiences, it is good to begin with your masturbation practice. This is like a laboratory for your sexual expression. Then you can begin experimenting with a partner. 

The "Nubby G" vibrator from Babeland is a classic g-spot vibrator, with a small bend at the tip to reach the top wall of the vaginal canal where the g-spot is located. In addition, this toy has a ring of bumpy nubs that add a little texture to the sensations as you press it into your body. The vibration is powered by two AA batteries and offers variable speed, ranging from a very gentle purr to a moderate buzz. Folks who like very strong vibrations will be left wanting more, while those who prefer a more delicate sensation may be happy with the range this toy offers.

At $25, this is a solid investment in your pleasure - a good "starter" g-spot vibe for those just beginning to explore this area. The material is a soft "Thermoplastic Rubber" and is phthalate-free, an essential quality to look for in any soft-rubber vibrator. It washes up easily between uses and is a pretty satisfying texture, not too soft but not too firm.

Ultimately, we believe that your hands are your best sex toys. For full g-spot exploration and those women who want to explore female ejaculation, we think hands are the best way to explore the g-spot and create maximum pleasure. Simply put, no toy can match the dexterity and sensitivity of your lover's (or your own) hands. The erotic touch techniques covered in our Guide to Fingering include g-spot stimulation techniques that are time tested to wake up and arouse this essential area of female sexual anatomy. But if you want to add a little vibration to the mix, or simply want to diversify your sex life with a new toy, the Nubby G from Babeland is a safe place to start. Babeland also has a fabulous site dedicated to information about g-spot play, so if you are curious about the subject, visit the G-Spot Center and read up!

* Our friends at Babeland offer Pleasure Mechanics readers an exclusive 10% discount - just use  the discount code PLEASE11 at checkout.

Sexologists and sex educators often draw the cycle of an orgasm as a line chart - making sexual pleasure look more like a financial report than an erotic experience. While arousal and sensations are by no means a linear path - these charts can be useful to draw your attention to the patterns of your arousal. 

Conventional wisdom says that women need a longer warm-up stage, a smooth and gradual uphill climb towards arousal and orgasm. Once there, women might have several orgasms, the top of their chart looking like a mountain range. Then, a nice downhill descent towards afterglow. Men, it is traditionally believed, have a sharp uphill climb - turned on by just about anything, one dramatic climactic peak and then a sharp fall downhill towards a soft penis and sleep. We've all seen these charts and perhaps experienced a similar arousal pattern.
   
If your arousal and orgasm are indeed a terrain of peaks and valleys - and if you were indeed able to chart your actual arousal, what would that chart look like? Would it be the same time after time, or dramatically different each time?
  
We propose a two-tooled system of exploring your own unique terrain of arousal. First, make a map. Getting to know a familiar path of arousal and climax is an excellent idea. It is a powerful thing to know what turns you on, what kind of touch stimulates you, how to reach climax most reliably, and what kind of afterglow you like best. Once you have it, you can show your map to your lover and give them the confidence to arouse you and satisfy you.
   
Arousal is a journey, an adventure - not a trip to the grocery store. Once you know your "sure thing" orgasm and have your map in your pocket, go off trail. Explore. But bring a GPS! With a GPS, you always know where you are and how to get where you want to go. This allows highway and byway exploring and spontaneous adventure.

For sex, your GPS is your awareness and attention. By choosing to pay attention to your arousal, mapping it into new terrain, you can play with new sensations and still know that you can find your way back to arousal and orgasm. You can begin learning new sexual techniques and skills, without the risk of giving up what already works for you.  If your lover tries something totally new - like scratching your inner thighs, giving you a foot massage, or (gasp!) suggesting something like prostate massage - you can try something new and simply pay attention. Do you like it? Does it take you closer or further away from climax? Or into another realm all together? Harder or lighter? What if they lightly stroked your thigh instead? What gets you off? What do you NEVER need to try again? Exploring is only fun when you are confident about how to get back home - to your trusted pleasures - when you need to.

As you approach orgasm, you can become aware of your own peaks and valleys - are you about to orgasm, what if you back away a bit, breathe deeply, and then begin building sensation again? With awareness and attention, you can explore the infinite variety of arousal and sensation available to you - and never get bored of traveling the same path to orgasm again and again. That map is always there for you should you want a clear and direct route - but for those days you want to travel and see the sites, simply pay attention and begin pioneering the unmapped terrains of your own sexuality.

We get a lot of great questions from men and women around the world about how to improve their sexual experience. One of the most common questions from men is about how they can learn to control their ejaculations and stay hard longer during sexual experiences.

We have worked with hundreds of men on this issue, and have developed proven strategies for delaying ejaculation, last longer in bed, and experiencing more pleasure. These strategies are the key to experiencing male multiple orgasms, and men are always shocked to discover just how much arousal they are capable of experiencing.

All men deserve the chance to optimize their sexual experience and become the lover they want to be. That is why we have gathered all of our information, techniques and strategies for mastering ejaculation control into our first Pleasure Mechanics Handbook. It is now available to download as a pdf or for your Kindle or Kindle enabled device from Amazon.com.

As we read through the newly-released sexual survey by Indiana University's Center for Sexual Health Promotion, we are finding many statistics that make us even more committed to sharing our techniques of sexual pleasure. It is clear from the data that while Americans are enjoying a more varied sex life than we were just 20 years ago, there is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to sexual pleasure and fulfillment.

Here is one data set that we have a lot to say about: "in all age cohorts, the largest proportion of men and women reported having engaged solely in PVI [Penis-Vaginal Intercourse] (32.9% men, 39.0% women). Contrast that with only about 6% of participants reporting that they combined "partnered masturbation" (what we affectionately refer to as Handjobs and Fingering) with intercourse.  To add insult to injury, the study reports that "for women and men, the presence or absence of partnered masturbation was not associated with orgasm."

We are dismayed that nearly 40% of women reported intercourse alone with no warm-up or foreplay activities. Solo masturbation, oral sex or stimulation with fingers is an essential part of lovemaking. Intercourse without warm-up can lead to pain during intercourse, lack of lubrication, lack of arousal and inability for the woman to experience an orgasm during intercourse. Most women want and crave more foreplay - so why are all of these couples having intercourse alone with no other arousing activities?

We know that, with skill and confidence, stimulation with hands is one of the most reliable ways to bring a woman to orgasm. With your hands, you can stimulate every part of a woman's sexual anatomy, fine-tune your stimulation to match her arousal, create a wide range of sensations and bring women to powerful and multiple orgasms. The hands are the most dexterous and sensitive tools we have to stimulate our lover. Skipping ahead to intercourse without warming up with pleasurable touch is a wasted opportunity - women are much more likely to have orgasms during intercourse if they have already climaxed, or brought very close to climax, before being penetrated. Oral sex is great - but it is even better when it is combined with touch and penetration with skilled fingers.

So why does this massive study of 5,865 men and women not reflect the pleasurable potential of the hands? Why are men and women skipping stimulation with their hands all together? How is it that being touched by your lover is not a predictor of orgasm during a sexual encounter? Perhaps it is because our culture has lost the sexual skills of erotic touch. We do not learn how to use our hands to touch our lover, how to bring our lover to multiple orgasms with our hands and fingers. Unless you dedicate thousands of dollars and months of your life to go to massage school, there are few options to learn how to touch with skill. Our video guides are dedicated to sharing what we learned in professional massage training and our somatic sexology certification with men and women all around the world. We believe hands can be powerful tools of pleasure, opening up new realms of arousal and orgasm, if we learn how to use them. We hope that as our erotic techniques spread across the country, more men and women will include erotic touch as part of foreplay and lovemaking - and perhaps the next national survey will have new data to report on the orgasmic potential of Americans.

4/15/11 Update: For an extensive guide on edging techniques and ejaculation control, check out our new ebook! Handbook On Ejaculation Control

One common technique to prolong arousal and increase sexual pleasure is called "edging." Edging involves paying attention to your level of arousal, and developing your ability to know when you are getting close to orgasm. When you approach orgasm, you tone down stimulation or stop touching yourself and practice riding that edge - staying just under the threshold of orgasm.  If you want to prolong your arousal and delay ejaculation, edging is a technique to explore.

Some people find this technique to be both effective and pleasurable, prolonging arousal and building up sensation towards a more intense orgasm. Other people get frustrated and don't like the sensation of constantly "holding back" orgasm. Try it for yourself and see how it feels. Our video guide on handjob techniques will guide you through the strokes and strategies to create maximum pleasure while exploring the edging technique.

In masturbation, edging can be a really useful exploration, bringing your awareness to your arousal and experimenting with what it feels like to ride that edge of climax. You can experiment with different rhythms of stimulation, breathing techniques and body movements and learn about your arousal cycle.

All of this self-knowledge can then be brought to your lover and contribute to a richer partnered sex life. Explore edging with a partner if you want in-depth practice of communication. As your partner stimulates you towards climax, both of you then must become aware of your body and arousal - communicate about how close you are feeling and explore the sensation of staying just on the edge of orgasm.

Can your partner feel the tiny contractions of the pelvic muscles that precede orgasm? Can your partner hear your breath changing, notice the shift in your moans, or detect other signs of climax in your body? Explore ways to keep your arousal high, while incorporating more full body touch. Playing with maintaining arousal with a partner can be a great way to learn about one another, discover new techniques and learn to pay attention and communicate with both precision and passion.