She Comes First (7 page)

O
UR PRINCIPLES
being established let us now discuss the proper structure of the Plot, since this is the first and most important thing.”

Twenty-five hundred years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle delineated in his timeless work
Poetics
the fundamental elements of Greek tragedy and much of what we understand today to be the essence of narrative storytelling.

Like a great work of dramatic literature, there’s a structure to the process of arousal; a narrative that encompasses a beginning, middle, and end, with each element taking its natural place in the overall sequence of events. The parts of the clitoral network that we met in the preceding chapters are like actors in a drama that interact and make their entrances and exits according to the cues of the larger script.

Aristotle emphasized the importance of plot: the call to action
that sets into motion a series of events that unfold over time in a unified, organic manner; the driving force that defies chaos and governs the arrangement of scenes; the structure that confers order and reason upon the various parts and weaves them together into an organized whole—“that which has a beginning, middle, and an end. Most important of all is the structure of the incidents. If any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed.”

In the drama of arousal, body and mind are called to action, sexual tension develops and builds to a peak, climax occurs, and then relaxation ensues. Masters and Johnson called this sequence the “sexual response cycle,” while sex researchers Beverly Whipple and Barry Komisaruk called it the “orgasmic process”; each described the unfolding of an almost procedural series of events, with each successive step dependent on the satisfactory completion of the one that comes before it. Masters and Johnson broke down the process of sexual response into four stages: Excitement, Plateau, Orgasm, and Resolution. With the application of steady, rhythmic stimulation, each phase builds upon the last in the creation and release of sexual tension.

In Part II, the section of this book dedicated to specific techniques, we will refer to the journey through sexual response as the “play process,” one that encompasses three distinct stages: foreplay, coreplay, and moreplay.

With that in mind, let’s move on to a synopsis of sexual response.

I
N ACT I,
foreplay galvanizes the mind and body toward sexual response.

• Dozens of chemicals and hormones are released into the bloodstream, causing a woman to become “emotionally stoned,” according to Theresa Crenshaw, M.D., author of
The Alchemy of Love and Lust.

• The flow of blood is redirected toward the pelvic area; nerve fibers in the genital area become excited, and erectile tissue begins to engorge.

• Across the body, the skin becomes extra sensitive to touch.

• The breasts swell in size, and stimulation of the nipples initiates
the production of oxytocin, a hormone that creates pleasurable sensations throughout the genital area.

• As blood vessels force fluid through the walls of the vagina, the vulvovaginal glands produce a small amount of thick fluid that acts as a lubricant.

• The clitoral head emerges from its hood.

• Muscle tension builds throughout the body; respiration increases, blood pressure goes up, and the heart beats faster.

• The entrance to the vagina narrows while its inner depths widen and increase at least two inches in length.

• The clitoral body (the shaft, legs, and bulb) stiffens, stretches, and elongates.

• The spongy tissue of the clitoral cluster swells and its ridges can be clearly felt protruding from the vaginal ceiling.

• The suspensory ligament tightens and causes the highly sensitized clitoral head to retract beneath its hood, where it will remain until orgasm.

• The round ligament, positioned between the uterus and the inner lips, tugs on both ends, involving the uterus in the process of sexual response and climax.

As coreplay continues:

• The skin flushes; breathing deepens.

• The heart rate soars, everything tightens in a final clench.

• Her inner labia change color, darkening with the engorgement of blood.

Finally, all the muscular tension that has been building explodes in orgasm—a series of quick, rhythmic contractions.

• The vagina walls and the pelvic floor muscles contract rhythmically in approximately 0.8-second intervals.

• The sphincter muscles in the rectum also contract spasmodically in sync with genital contractions. In addition, the uterus contracts because of an influx of oxytocin.

• These contractions produce waves of pleasure, and with some women the orgasm is accompanied by the ejaculation of a small amount of clear, alkaline fluid.

The number of orgasmic contractions varies, anywhere from three to fifteen on average, although Masters and Johnson observed a woman who experienced a forty-three-second orgasm consisting of more than twenty-five successive contractions. Additionally, it’s been observed that pregnant women sometimes experience prolonged orgasms because of the persistent engorgement of their genitals.

While the orgasm originates from the genital area, it is often experienced and felt throughout the body. Every woman’s orgasm is
different and highly individualized. Sex researchers often refer to this sense of uniqueness as “orgasmic fingerprinting.”

There’s a wonderful passage in Norman Rush’s novel
Mortals
in which the central character recounts his wife’s description of an orgasm, or rather, in her words, “what it feels like when you come really hard”:

After orgasm is the resolution phase, a return to calm and the prearoused state. Men and women differ strikingly in this phase, with the former losing their erections quickly and entering into what’s known as a refractory period, an interval of time that needs to pass before he can get an erection again.

With women, it takes longer for the genitals to return to their normal state, at least five to ten minutes. Women tend not to get sleepy, their genitals don’t become hypersensitive (except the clitoral head), and they don’t experience a refractory period—with a little stimulation they’re ready to begin the process all over again.

The difference between how and men and women experience the resolution phase is what I call the “snuggle gap”: women want more interaction; men want to roll over and go to sleep. While much literature has been devoted to the “insensitivity” of men and the “neediness” of women in this respect, it’s far more effective to understand that the snuggle gap is largely the result of biology (men crash quickly after sex, women come down slowly), so don’t overanalyze,
or get angry and pick a fight; instead, respect each other’s differences and compromise: fall asleep
while
holding her in your arms.

T
here we have it in a nutshell: the narrative process of arousal. Even though the structure is universal, every story is unique. How it plays out has everything to do with the characters involved. Sometimes the story might unfold in a matter of minutes; other times it may take hours. In the
Poetics,
the only rule is that the action must occur “in a manner uninterrupted,” and take place within a twenty-four hour period. As Aristotle observed, “A beautiful object, whether it be a living organism or any whole composed of parts, must not only have an orderly arrangement of parts, but must also be of a certain magnitude; for beauty depends on magnitude and order.”

C
UNNILINGUS,
perhaps more than any other expression of sexuality, falls prey to the “yes, but” syndrome: YES, both men and women appear on balance to enjoy giving and receiving respectively, BUT not, it seems, without reservation. As noted in the
Hite Report on Male Sexuality,
almost half of all men who said they enjoyed cunnilingus were nonetheless preoccupied with issues of cleanliness and hygiene; and closely associated with those concerns were comments that women’s genitals smelled bad. A smaller percentage of men did not share these concerns, and an even smaller group of aficionados claimed to love the taste and smell. But such enthusiasts are in the minority.

Rare is the man who can share Napoleon’s steadfast ardor in savoring a woman’s
cassolette
(the French word for perfume box and used colloquially to describe a woman’s unique scent; the sum total
of her effluvia; her aromatic signature) and exult, free of prejudice, in the powerful rush of pheromones.

But what about all of the women who—whether bombarded with media messages stressing the importance of feminine “freshness,” or worn down by “fish” jokes, or simply unacquainted with their own genitalia—share these preoccupations and approach their bodies with fear, shame, or even self-loathing? And cunnilingus, with its elimination of distance and its unavoidable intimacy, is often a lightning rod for unleashing anxiety.

All this fuss and hullabaloo over hygiene; and yet, in reality, a woman’s genitals are a self-cleaning system—
more sanitary than many other parts of the body, including the mouth.
One of the reasons a woman is often lubricated, even when she’s not aroused, is that these secretions are part of the vagina’s natural way of keeping it bacteria-free. As science writer Natalie Angier has written: “The vagina is its own ecosystem, a land of unsung symbiosis and tart vigor. Sure, the traditional concept of a vagina is ‘It’s a swamp down there!’ but tidal pool would be more accurate: aqueous, stable, yet in perpetual flux.”

At the core of this ecosystem is a sophisticated process of symbiosis, one in which healthy bacteria protect and ward off the unhealthy. It’s been said that a woman’s genitals are as clean as a fresh carton of yogurt, and this comparison is often made because the kind of bacteria found in yogurt, lactobacilli, are also found in a woman’s vaginal secretions. In fact, if symbiosis is compromised and unhealthy, anaerobic bacteria gain an advantage, eating yogurt can often help to stave off infection and restore balance.

If there is a bad smell in the genital area, the first thing worth paying attention to is personal hygiene. Like men, women sweat down there and, more often than not, showering or bathing, or even engaging
in what the French refer to as a “tart-wash” (a quick freshening of the underarms and genital area) can usually help to rid oneself of any unwanted odors. Later, in Part II, we’ll discuss how to eroticize these activities and incorporate hygiene into the excitement.

However, if personal hygiene has been attended to, and an off-putting odor still persists, it’s probably time to go to the doctor: she could be suffering from an infection, bacterial vaginosis, in which a lack of lactobacilli creates an imbalance and allows anaerobic bacteria to accumulate. This, according to Natalie Angier, is where the comparison to fish often comes into play, as these microbes produce trimethylamine, the same substance that gives day-old fish its odor.

Gertrude Stein, a cunnilinguist in her own right, may have been mistaken: a rose is a rose is
not always
a rose. Some women are born with imbalances, and might have a predisposition toward vaginosis and a stronger odor. In addition to eating yogurt, there are also antibiotic treatments that can help restore balance.

Every woman smells and tastes different. Some are sweeter than others, some are a bit more pungent, still others are more neutral and nondescript. Sometimes the differences are subtle, other times they’re stark. Nor will the same woman always consistently smell or taste the same. Lots of factors can affect smell and taste, including: diet, vitamin deficiencies, medication, her cycle (some women produce vaginal secretions that contain compounds called aliphatic acid chains, and may cause her scent to vary with the phase of her menstrual cycle), infection, hydration, alcohol, drugs, tobacco. Unprotected sex can also affect a woman’s smell, in that sperm is highly alkaline and raises the pH level of the vaginal ecosystem.

When it comes to taste and smell, and overall concerns about hygiene, watch out for anxiety brought about by excessive “fearamone” activity. It’s contagious, if not downright viral. Know that a healthy vagina is a clean vagina. Don’t let your anxiety trigger a vicious cycle; instead transform that nervous energy into enthusiasm. Enjoy and savor her unique
cassolette
—now there’s an idea worth raising a glass to and toasting!

“In fact, the idea of pairing wine and women isn’t a bad one, as the acidity of the vagina in health is just about that of a glass of red wine. This is the vagina that sings; this is the vagina with a bouquet…” (Natalie Angier)

Cheers.