Two Secret Sex Hacks!
Very recently a group of the late, great Betty Dodson’s friends gathered online to celebrate her on what would have been her 92nd birthday. Everyone whose life Betty touched learned so much from her—but I’m thinking today about two very specific insights and techniques that Betty shared in her Bodysex workshops that everyone should know about.
Plenty of people have trouble getting turned on enough to fully enjoy sex, much less to reliably have orgasms. This is probably especially true of the people who come out on the short end in studies of what we’ve come to call “the orgasm gap”: cis women who rarely or never orgasm during intercourse or other penetrative play. (There are cis men who don’t orgasm in this context either, but there are far fewer of them.) I’m not sure if these two hacks, if widely adopted, would close the orgasm gap. BUT I am pretty certain they’d help a lot of people enjoy sex a lot more. And both of these can help us live more fully in our bodies. That’s excellent too!
One involves the breath and the voice. Many people are quiet as mice during sex—never speaking, never moaning, barely breathing hard. Betty wants you to breathe deeply and let that breath out with some sound! It’s much like yoga breathing, which many people have experienced, though not always in a sexual content. Also, as I discuss in Exhibitionism for the Shy, expressing emotion and erotic feeling (and hearing it from your partner, too) is sexy! Breathing in deeply feeds your body the number one thing it needs to exist and thrive: oxygen. Letting it out with an audible sigh—or a moan, a yell, or a few erotic words—connects you to your desire and can be an antidote to shame, one of the forces that keep us quiet in the first place.
And if you are shy? Try just one simple word: Yes. Or even a simple Ohhhh. It’s an ingenious hack that brings you further into the erotic experience. (Not feeling it? Make sure you do want to be having the sex you’re having!)
And the mighty Betty Dodson insight that connects you with your bodily ability to feel aroused is this: Move your hips. It’s possible to have intercourse (especially if you are receiving) without moving. But when you stay still, one of your powerful engines of turn-on barely revs. Thrusting your hips helps sexual feelings circulate—through your pelvis, and through your entire body. It’s one reason why the so-called “woman on top” position (though of course many folks who do not ID as women enjoy it too) is well-known as a position it can be easier to orgasm in.
Move your hips. Make some noise. See what it does for your erotic energy!
Thanks, Betty, and happy birthday. (In case you haven’t read Betty’s important book Sex for One, it is waiting for you with unique insights about sexuality, especially self-love and masturbation.)
