Uncut Jems: My Hour-Long Orgasm

by Taylor Neal

It is very common during sex, especially hetero sex, that once one or both parties cum the sex is mutually understood to be over. 

Pat on the back, wipe the hands, job well done, see ya later. 

How often then does our pleasure actually get limited by our orgasm? 

Sensuality and sexual wellness enthusiast that I am, I find it beautiful to see the growing normalization of discussion around pleasure-based sex – that is, sex that is not fixated on specific outcomes, like the orgasm, and is instead focused on the pleasure you feel along the way. 

Sex that’s about the journey, not the destination. 

It is vital to our sexual wellness and sexual relationships to experience sex outside of the pressures and expectations of results-based sexual practices. Without the ability to simply be in our bodies – to slow down, engage the senses and feel into our sexual body without oppressive pressures and expectations influencing us – the harder it is to decipher the messages our body is sending us about our experience. And suppose we’re unable to decipher the way things feel in our bodies because we’re so focused on what we think we’re supposed to be doing or how it is supposed to be feeling? In that case, we are actually stepping further away from pleasure – further away from that big, beautiful orgasm we’ve been obsessing about in the first place. 

So, we’re starting to recognize this together. We’re starting to get a little more exploratory and playful along the journey. And we’re starting to release the expectation and unpack what it means to be in our sensual body. Together, in dialogue, in community, we’re starting to not only have sex but be in sex.

However, I want to be clear that there is nothing wrong with having orgasms! In saying, “It’s not about the orgasm,” we do not mean, “Don’t cum,” or “You’re less woke if you’re having orgasms.” 

There is no right or wrong way to experience pleasure. 

Just as all bodies experience pleasure differently, all bodies have different capacities for experiencing orgasm. Some bodies get there extremely quickly. Some luxuriate in taking time. Some don’t experience orgasm in the conventional way at all. How we experience pleasure is simply a part of our sexual selves, like all of our other little kinks and quirks.

In exploring the idea of pleasure not being limited by orgasm (i.e. sex doesn’t necessarily have to result in orgasm) I have started to explore the idea that my pleasure may actually be getting limited by my body’s ability to orgasm. Very rarely, both in partnered sex and sex with myself, have I ventured past the precipice of my orgasm, to see what lives beyond that initial release. Sure, there have been times when I have had multiple orgasms during a sexual experience, but this has often been an unintentional result of sex continuing after my orgasm for the purpose of my partner achieving an orgasm.  

Very rarely have I intentionally given myself the space, or been given the space, to focus solely on my own pleasure beyond my orgasm – to take as much time and space as my body desires and really sink into, expand and indulge my pleasure.

Recently, I had a partner that would go down on me for ages. Now, when I say “ages,” I don’t mean a crazy length of time, only that it felt like ages because no one had ever given my pleasure this time and commitment before. I came to the realization that I am conditioned to believe:

• I am only allotted a certain amount of pleasure;
• I get to access X amount of pleasure and then my time is up and I must serve my partner;
• I must “repay” them for the pleasure they gave me;
• That sex is transactional and pleasure must be equally distributed every time. 

But with this partner, I would be laid back, told to relax and they would pleasure me with no intention of stopping. I would cum, they’d slow down, move softly, let my body ride out the sensation and then slowly start building things once again in a different way or in a different spot, and my body would be climbing right back up that beautiful hill to orgasm once again.

Fully relaxed, fully surrendered to the pleasure, I would drop into a sort of meditative state, riding the highs and lows and waves of pleasure as orgasm after orgasm flooded my body, entirely at the mercy of my partner’s hands and completely absorbed by the sensation. This is what pleasure can feel like when it does not exist in a container. 

And because the pleasure didn’t stop or get interrupted, it was as though I never fully came out of orgasm for what felt like hours. 

To be honest, it was not easy at first to access this state of being – this complete surrender. At first, after moving through one or two orgasms, I felt immense guilt when my partner would continue pleasuring me without anything in return. Several times I would pop up after the first orgasm and feel the need to return the favour. 

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being a “bad partner” for occupying the receiving role for so long, for taking up so much space, for taking up so much time, for taking so much pleasure. 

It caused me such discomfort that I had to share how I was feeling with my partner. I told them how uncomfortable it made me to simply receive for such a prolonged period and that I couldn’t understand how they enjoyed giving me that experience without wanting anything in return. It was off-putting. It went against everything previous partners had shown me and all of my sexual conditioning; something I call pleasure rationing – the idea that a certain amount of pleasure is allotted per person per experience. 

This tension I was holding was limiting me from exploring the vastness and potential of my pleasure, both with partners and in my solo sex life. It took practice to release these ideas, the urgency and need “to finish” when pleasured. 

It took practice to be pleasured. 

I learned that if we start to view our pleasure as non-linear and infinitely expansive, we can really start to get explorative in our sensuality and sexuality. If we can focus on the journey and not the destination and be okay with sex not concluding in orgasm, then we can also be open to the possibility that the orgasm itself is a journey.