“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.
