“The Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most temporal part of time–for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.” — C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
It’s hard to be in the present. We spend most of our time worrying about the future or re-living the past, but the present is hard to grasp. We’ve written before about the importance of making time and energy for sex, but do you ever get distracted when you’re actually doing it? Are you able to be wholly present in the experience with your spouse?
If you’d like to be more present and mindful during sex then you might want to try orgasmic meditation (or “OM”). This post will focus on wives and their orgasms, like most research into OM, but there’s no reason that similar techniques can’t be applied to husbands also.
To get started, you may want to check out this 15-minute TEDx presentation by Nicole Daedone. Her tagline for a woman who feels empty or disconnected from her husband is: “try orgasm”. Take a few minutes to watch it with your spouse.
(It’s worth noting that OneTaste, Daedone’s company, doesn’t have a great reputation. For this post we’re going to discuss the practice of OM, and hope that none of our readers are foolish enough to join a sex cult or pay anyone for sexual services.)
For the uninitiated, it’s a partnered experience of stroking around the clitoris for 15 minutes, with only one goal: let go and feel.
The stroking is meant to happen in an incredibly specific way — on the upper-left quadrant of the clitoris in an up-and-down motion, no firmer than you would stroke an eyelid.
[Anjuli Ayer, CEO of Institute of OM] also considers OM a goal-less practice. “The intention is not to serve as foreplay or to get the participants to orgasm.” That’s right, while the practice has orgasm in the name, orgasming isn’t the goal. Rather, it’s to bring your attention to the present moment and experience pleasure.
The Institute of OM charges almost $200 for a single class, but Christian wives have a more affordable alternative: their husband. Here are the basic steps:
Prepare your space. OM requires 15 minutes with no interruptions, so lock your door and tell the kids not to bother you. Your bed is a great place for OM, but you could use a couch or other comfortable place. You should also get some lube and a minute timer.
Prepare yourselves. The wife should take off her clothes, lie down, and spread her legs with her knees up and her feet down. The husband is recommended to position himself in a very specific way: he should sit on his wife’s right side, with his left leg over her tummy and his right leg under her knees. This position should prop the wife’s knees up and give the husband easy access to her clitoris. Finally, both spouses should commit themselves to the experience and to each other for the duration of the meditation, and focus on the experience at hand (ahem). Pray for intimacy and pleasure.
Begin stroking. Set the timer for 13 minutes and start it. The husband should put lube on his fingers, specifically on his right thumb and left index finger. Next, the husband should insert his right thumb slightly into the wife’s vagina. Then the husband should use his left index finger to begin gently stroking the upper-left of the wife’s clitoris, pulling back the clitoral hood if necessary. The stroke should be light and slow, and approximately half-an-inch in length. (Related: zoom technique and how to rub a clitoris.)
Guide your husband. The wife should tell her husband if she wants him to change his stroking pattern: faster, slower, harder, softer, etc. Despite the name, orgasmic meditation doesn’t have the goal of orgasm. Like Ayer said in the quote above, the purpose of OM is to help you focus on the present and on intimacy with your spouse. If the wife wants to have an orgasm during OM then go for it, but wives, don’t decline OM just because you don’t want an orgasm. Does that make sense?
Grounding. When the timer goes off (after 13 minutes) you should take some time to ground yourselves before separating or continuing on to sex. The husband should change his stroking pattern to a downward motion for a minute or so, and then use both hands embrace his wife’s vulva. This “hug” should continue until the wife releases and deep breath and is ready to be done. Pray and thank God for the intimacy and pleasure you just experienced together.
It’s important to note that OM isn’t intended to be foreplay. You can certainly have sex afterwards if you want to, but the purpose of OM is to promote awareness and intimacy.
In order to reverse this experience and focus on the husband, use the same basic instructions as above but substitute his frenulum for the wife’s clitoris. The wife can use a lubed finger or her tongue to stimulate her husband’s frenulum, or even take the head of his penis into her mouth. The key is the soft repetitive motion, so the approach is going to be very different than a hand job or a blowjob.
If you’re up for an intimacy challenge, consider performing OM together every day for a week, or even a month. At 15 minutes per session, you and your spouse can both OM in the same amount of time it takes to watch a TV show!
Have you ever tried OM before, or anything like it? Leave a comment and let us know what you think.
Here’s an easy foreplay idea that can pay off all day long.
Get a non-toxic marker.
Husband, get an erection.
Wife, take your husband as deep into your mouth as you can.
Husband, use the marker to draw a line on your penis to mark the depth.
The husband will remember the experience for as long as the mark lasts on his penis. The mark from a non-toxic watercolor marker will probably wash off in the shower, but that’s ok, it’s easy enough to measure and mark again.
If you want to make a game of it, the wife can challenge herself to keep beating her record over the course of the day, leaving a series of memorable stripes for her husband to enjoy. At the end of the day, consider using henna to make a long-lasting mark to commemorate the wife’s accomplishment. And, of course, make sure the wife is suitably rewarded for her effort and determination!
Buddy the Elf said “First we’ll make snow angels for two hours, then we’ll go ice skating, then we’ll eat a whole roll of Tollhouse Cookie Dough as fast as we can and then we’ll snuggle“. There are few pleasures in life that are greater than snuggling. However, in our busy lives, how often do we take time to snuggle? Buddy was onto something with scheduling time to snuggle. Put snuggling on your calendar — or set an alarm to snuggle.
Snuggling has a lot of health benefits. When you snuggle, you release oxytocin, which does all sorts of wonderful things. Oxytocin can make you feel all lovey, can boost your immune system, relieve pain, lower stress, and help you sleep better. It’s the chemical that is released in nursing mothers that deepens the bond between the mother and child. Human touch can also release dopamine, which can increase intimacy and enhance your lovemaking experience.
There are a variety of ways to snuggle:
Spooning: El Fury and I have a ‘Snuggle Alarm’ that goes off 10 minutes before we actually want to get up. Actually, it goes off 10 minutes before we have sex… and then we get up. I love that 10 minutes in the morning. I roll to my side and El Fury nestles up behind me for spooning. We lay there in a sleepy state, sometimes talking about how we slept, sometimes lucid dreaming. If I’m going to have sexy dreams, those usually take place during this 10 minutes of snuggling. We also spoon for a few minutes before we fall asleep.
Snuggle Classic: There are times that my body craves sidling up to El Fury, laying my head on his chest and draping a leg casually over one of his. This is a great position right before bed, especially if El Fury is still reading and I’m drifting off to sleep.
Sexy Snuggling: My favorite foreplay position! I can stay in this position forever, it is so delightful. El Fury and I face each other, I prop my leg up on top of his and nuzzle my face into his neck. He plays with my lady bits while I lay there and bask in comfort, and eventually I start to play with him. Time disappears. At some point I’m motivated by the thought of the kids waking up and we switch to a more aggressive foreplay position.
Sit next to each other: This seems simple, but even sitting close to each other while watching a show or parallel playing can still give you the benefits of snuggling.
Spontaneous Snuggle: Sometimes a quick hug or snuggle does the trick! Be mindful to make intentional touch-points throughout your day. If El Fury is sitting at his computer and I come in to ask him a question, he opens up his arms and I hop on his lap for a minute.
Do you and your spouse
snuggle? What are your favorite ways to snuggle? I hope you enjoy each
other in this way. Marriage is a blessing, and the presence of someone
you love is one of God’s greatest gifts. Don’t let the time slip by
without enjoying the simple pleasure of snuggling.
Research confirms that people will say just about anything to get laid and the linked article frames this phenomenon as a form of deception, but I think it’s more useful to view it as enhanced agreeableness and openness.
The first experiment asked pairings of men and women to debate a fictitious situation face-to-face, with each participant being assigned a specific stance to take. The results revealed that students who were exposed to sexual stimuli beforehand were much more likely to openly express agreement with the member of the opposite sex they were supposed to be debating with compared to the control group that did not view any sexual stimuli before interacting.
The second experiment set out to determine if participants would flat out contradict a stance or opinion they had literally written out all to appease a sexually attractive individual’s ideals. First, each student was asked to fill out a questionnaire regarding some of their dating preferences, for example, “To what extent does it bother you to date someone who is messy?”
Then, they were exposed to either a subliminal sexual picture or a neutral image. Next, each participant was told they would be engaging in an online chat with an attractive individual, and were given a profile of their chat partner that included some of their supposed opinions and preferences. Sure enough, participants who had been exposed to a momentary sexual image were much more likely to conform their tastes to that of the individual they were about to chat with, and in many scenarios those tastes directly contradicted what they had originally recorded in the initial questionnaire.
Were the students “lying” when they openly expressed agreement or conformed their tastes? I doubt their initial self-reported preferences were so strongly held that merely being socially agreeable should count as “lying”. In fact, what seems to be happening is that the students are making a completely reasonable effort to get along with their partner, catalyzed by the sexual stimuli.
So then, what can we married couples learn from this experiment on students? How about this: if you want to experience more agreeableness and openness in your marriage, then promote sexual stimulation in your relationship. Initiate and respond to sexual talk, touch, jokes, teasing, games, planning, and anticipation. View yourself and your spouse as “potential sexual partners” to be impressed, rather than roommates!
This page generates random sexual “truths” and “dares” written for married couples. Reload the page for new options! (Note: Some dares are specifically for a husband or wife, so reload if you get a mismatch.)
Are you looking for a fun gift idea for your spouse? Surprise them with a sexy scavenger hunt! I recently created this for El Fury’s Christmas present, but it can work for birthdays or any other occasion you want to make your spouse feel loved. I will describe what I did, but there are endless variations, so make it your own and tailor it to your spouse’s interests.
The preparation required three steps. First, I ordered a three gifts to make the scavenger hunt an experience — Bailey’s Irish Cream, lingerie, and a book of sexy games. Second, I wrote some riddles whose solutions would direct El Fury around the house looking for these gifts. Third, on the day of the hunt I hid the gifts and the clues around the house while El Fury was distracted. At the last moment before we left for dinner I set the first clue on the counter so he would see it right away when we got home.
The first clue explained the rules and directed El Fury to the first present, the bottle of Bailey’s. He took the hint and we poured ourselves a tasty beverage to enjoy for the rest of the hunt. I made sure to alternate gifts with sexy acts, and the second riddle led El Fury to remove his pants so I could perform oral on him for a few minutes while he sipped his Bailey’s. The third riddle led him to the sexy lingerie, and he enjoyed watching me put it on right away. Make sure that you’re building arousal as your sexy scavenger hunt proceeds! The fourth clue directed us to engage in three minutes of foreplay, which was pretty easy since I was wearing lingerie and he had no pants on. Riddle number five led us upstairs where El Fury (eventually) found the book of sex games. We picked a game to play, made love, and then finished off the scavenger hunt with a special dessert.
El Fury was very excited to go on a sexy scavenger hunt, and felt loved that I had put thought into creating a sexy experience for us. He especially loves when I pre-meditate our intimate times together because he knows that I’m thinking about him in that way. Has anyone else tried a sexy scavenger hunt? Do you have have ideas to add?
Husbands, I’ll be very direct: if you wife isn’t having regular orgasms then she isn’t going to love having sex. She might enjoy the intimacy of sex, she might like to give you pleasure, she might do it out of obligation, but she isn’t going to love it.
“How often should we have sex?” There isn’t one right answer, but here’s what we say: each spouse should have as many orgasms as he or she wants. Often that means that the husband will have more orgasms than the wife does, and we think that’s fine as long as the wife has as many orgasms as she wants. In our marriage, I have an orgasm every day and Sexy Corte has an orgasm about twice a week on average. Her orgasm frequency can be pretty bursty though — sometimes she’ll have an orgasm four days in a row and get exhausted, and sometimes she won’t have an orgasm for a week and get really angsty. (It’s hot when she’s angsty).
This formula is pretty simple to follow as long as everything is going smoothly, but from experience and reader emails we’ve noticed two common problems that lead to wives not having all the orgasms they want:
Some wives give up because they feel self-conscious about the effort required.
Some wives give up because their husbands don’t put in the effort required.
When a wife gives up on having the orgasms she wants it’s very easy for her to become disillusioned with sex and resentful towards her husband. It’s a fact of biology and relationships that men tend to orgasm more easily than women, and husbands and wives should both be sensitive to this reality.
“Why are male orgasms so easy and female orgasms so hard?!” I don’t know, but get over it! Wife, you don’t need to feel guilty or selfish for wanting an orgasm even if it’s difficult. Some women we’ve heard from didn’t think they could have orgasms at all, but it turned out they only needed a little coaching and openness. It isn’t “noble” or “selfless” for a wife to talk herself out of a satisfying sex life, so don’t make yourself a martyr. Take ownership of your needs, talk with your husband, and be open to trying new things. Get the orgasms you want!
Solving problem #2 starts with a question for husbands: Does your wife know that you’ll do whatever it takes to give her an orgasm? Maybe you’ve given her signs that make her think her orgasms as too much work and she’s pulled back from what she really wants. Maybe you’ve been too quick to accept her hesitation when she does want an orgasm but isn’t sure you’re willing to put in the work. Maybe you haven’t been creative or skillful enough. A wife who is self-conscious or reluctant to speak up for herself might interpret these kinds of behaviors as a lack of desire on your part to give her pleasure. She might think that you think her orgasms are too much trouble.
Husband: be direct and explicit. Tell your wife frequently that you want to pleasure her and you’ll do whatever it takes.
“If Mama Ain’t Happy, Ain’t Nobody Happy.” Husbands: if you want to maximize your sex life you need to do whatever it takes to give your wife as many orgasms as she wants. Wives: if you aren’t getting the orgasms you really want then you need to speak up and be a little more selfish!
Leave a comment and let us know if you are putting in the effort in your marriage to give you spouse all the orgasms he or she wants.
Desire for a woman ebbs and flows in tune with her cycle. It can be hard enough for a woman to know what sort of “mood” she is in, let alone for her husband to be able to determine if she wants an orgasm or not. Here are some ways that I figure it out:
During ovulation I am ready to go. I know I want an orgasm and I can feel that desire all day long. There is usually not a lot of guess-work on these days. Husbands and wives, pay attention to her cycle so you can capitalize on these days. Plan ahead and reserve time to devote to having sex.
It’s amazing that one week later PMS can hit. Again, not a lot of guess-work: I most definitely do not want an orgasm. Usually I want extra space and minimal touching.
Then there are the times in between. When we start to have sex El Fury often asks me “what are you in the mood for?” and I’m not sure how to answer. Many nights I don’t know how my body is going to respond. We have learned to give it a little time to let my body tell me what I want. If I don’t feel aroused after a little foreplay, we have sex and I don’t have an orgasm. Other times, a few minutes of foreplay can get me turned on and I’ll have a great orgasm. It can take some cuddling, kissing, and touching to get in the mood. If you jump right into sex you may be missing some opportunities.
Pay attention to yourself. It’s helpful to know how often you need to orgasm to feel sexually satisfied. For me it’s two or three times a week. For El Fury, it’s more frequent. Don’t deny yourself orgasms just because you aren’t immediately aroused and haven’t taken the time to let yourself get in the mood. Our bodies are complicated!
Tonight, don’t be rushed, take some time and make out for a little while!
