Let’s face it! Orgasms are fun. They are connecting and life affirming. And they are powerful – some of the time!
In Babygirl, a film characterized as an “erotic thriller”, Nicole Kidman plays Romy Mathis, a married, high powered CEO who has an affair with Samuel, a much younger intern at her company. The film begins with Romy faking an orgasm with her husband Jacob and then going into the bathroom to masterbate afterwards. In contrast to married sex, her sexual encounters with Samuel are characterized by intense orgasms. I won’t reveal the remainder of the plot but let me say it follows a conventional arc.
This film has touched off a tsunami of discussion among women nationwide who are coming out of the shadows to discuss their private sexual lives with each other. Topics of discussion: How often do they fake orgasms? How do they cope with the boredom that may come from having the same partner for many years? How can they have more powerful orgasms? What tools do they use to stimulate orgasms while masturbating?
Times have certainly changed since Sigmond Freud erroneously made a distinction between clitoral and vaginal orgasms. We simply know a lot more. For example, only about ⅓ of women are able to climax through intercourse alone. And women take an average of 14 minutes to climax with their male partners who are able to orgasm much more quickly.
A recent study reported in Psychology Today found that women are more likely to orgasm during intercourse if the following things occur:
- An extended period of non-genital caressing
- Breast and nipple play
- Woman on top or doggie style
- Caressing of the clitoris
- Anal play and light spanking
So, what does the movie Babygirl teach us about committed couples: Here are a few themes:
- Women have caught up to men in terms of rates of infidelity (affairs occur in about 35% of marriages).
- Most affairs begin in the office setting.
- Women are usually just as interested in sex as men and sometimes have higher libidos than their male partners.
- Couples who have been married a long time do see a diminution of the frequency of intercourse but this is often replaced by more tender love making.
What is the secret to having more powerful orgasms with your partner without resorting to an affair? The two elements that make affairs so sexually potent are: novelty and illicitness. In addition to the previous suggestions, here are some additional tips for making monogamous sex more mind-blowing:
- Shift locations, even sometimes daring to be in a public place (safely, though).
- Shift positions.
- Role play. Perhaps you can pretend to pick up your mate in a bar. Or one of you dresses up as a nurse or doctor.
- Bring new “toys” into the bedroom.
- Use a sex deck to randomly assign sexual acts. I recommend the book Sex Deck: Playful Positions to Spice Up Your Sex Life by Dawn Harper. There are also books that illustrate ways to vary your positions with a same sex partner – one is called Lesbian Sex Positions by Shanna Katz and for gay men try Gay Man’s Kama Sutra by Terry Sanderson