The orgasm is the icing on the cake of sex and, although it is not essential to feel pleasure, we all aspire to experience it in relationships, especially if it can be synchronous.
The orgasm that is faked to please others or to deceive oneself.
The orgasm that is not achieved, as if the body denied joy but not pain.
The orgasm that is sometimes scary, which prevents one from abandoning oneself to the
petite mort
, to the unknown, to what escapes control.
In a way, orgasm is like freedom.
Everyone seeks it, it is painted as the supreme happiness;
But it is not always easy to sign that contract or accept the terms that it implies.
We long to be free, but we are afraid of the steps that lead us to that freedom that we often trade for security.
Something similar happens with orgasm.
For various reasons, not everyone dares to invite their idol home.
What if he likes me?
What if I'm not up to par?
What if, suddenly, I am in a situation that I cannot control or handle?
There are people who cannot reach orgasm, who have never experienced it and cannot achieve it;
and there are those who, for different reasons, interrupt the stimuli and, in a certain way,
abort
the orgasm for fear of losing control or because they confuse their symptoms with something negative.
In an episode of the series
Desperate Housewives,
a girl interprets her climax as a heart attack.
More information
Sitophilia, the union of the two great pleasures: sex and food
Not being able to reach orgasm and being afraid to reach it are different things.
“But the result is the same,” says gynecologist and sexologist Francisca Molero, also director of the Ibero-American Institute of Sexology and president of the Spanish Federation of Sexology Societies.
“Orgasm is a very vulnerable moment, in which reasoning is not present for a few seconds and there is a feeling of abandonment.
That's why many people are scared of those emotions and sensations, that necessary loss of control."
Identifying the orgasm
As strange as it may seem, the notion of orgasm is not always clear.
In fact, we have all heard of those women who do not know how to answer if they have reached climax or not, if they have ever experienced that little death.
“Before, when this happened it was always understood that if they doubted it was because they didn't;
because it is a sensation intense enough to know if it has been experienced,” says Molero.
However, it can happen: “There are people who easily identify and experience the physiological changes of orgasm (arousal, changes in the genitals, accelerated breathing, contractions), but these sensations remain in the body and the mind does not interpret them as an orgasm. .
There is no such body-mind connection, which is why in sexology we have the term
orgasm
, which refers to when the threshold of sexual excitement and tension required for orgasm is reached mechanically, but emotion and cognition are missing.”
Orgasm is a very vulnerable moment, in which reasoning is not present for a few seconds and there is a feeling of abandonment.
That's why many people are scared of those emotions and sensations, that necessary loss of control.oleg66 (Getty Images)
There is a term in psychology called “cognitive attributions,” which refers to the explanations we make about things that happen to us relatively unconsciously.
"Orgasm also requires a cognitive attribution, because one can be very excited, but if you do not attribute these symptoms to sexual arousal, you will not feel it that way," emphasizes Miren Larrazabal, clinical psychologist, sexologist and president of SISEX (Society International of Specialists in Sexology).
For example, panic attacks are nothing more than a misinterpretation of physical symptoms due to anxiety, as the expert explains: “The person labels these signals as alarm, they think they are going to die, fear comes and That's when the panic attack sets in, the fear of fear.
In fact, some people who have had this experience may later interpret intense sexual arousal as the beginning of a panic attack;
That's why they cancel it and, then, they don't reach the climax."
Orgasm is a subjective perception, which may also require learning.
“Pleasure is constructed and we all have the need to know what our pleasure is like,” says Molero.
On the other hand, he assures, there are people who have unrealistic perspectives of what climax is and, when it comes to them, they do not identify it as such.
These false ideas, perceptions or fears about supreme pleasure are not only exclusive to women.
Man also falls into this trap, typical of times in which instinct can have inappropriate reminiscences.
The body is the object of study of
sexcorporel
, a sexological approach created by Jean-Yves Desjardins (1931-2011) that is based on the premise that everything that happens in our physiology has its correlation in the emotions of cognitions.
Claude Roux-Deslandes is a doctor, sexologist and disciple of Desjardins and lives in France, where she puts into practice and teaches the principles of this discipline.
“I have the case of a male patient who avoids orgasm because he is afraid of its strength and fears that, by losing control, he could hurt his partner or do something to her that she does not consent to,” says Roux-Deslandes.
“Others with health problems may fear a heart attack;
while for many women their worst nightmare is urinating when they have an orgasm.
Deep down, all these fears always refer to the fear of losing control.
In these cases, we must work on the lack of knowledge and train erotic and cognitive skills.
There can be no tension-pleasure if there is bodily tension first.
We must also learn that to reach orgasm it does not require as much effort as people believe.
It's more about letting go,” argues this sexologist.
“I have the case of a male patient who avoids orgasm because he is afraid of its strength and fears that, by losing control, he could hurt his partner or do something to her that she does not consent to,” comments sexologist Claude Roux-Deslandes. Prostock-Studio (Getty Images/iStockphoto)
The areas of the brain that register pleasure and pain are connected and, as Roux-Deslandes points out, sometimes it happens like trains, which take a detour and change route.
“In fact, the rise in sexual tension can, in some cases, give the impression of pain without being so;
and the orgasmic discharge can also be a discharge of emotions.
There may be a feeling of emptiness, sadness, self-absorption, crying or frustration that the pleasure lasts so short,” he comments.
Bad times to lose control
Without a doubt, the social situation, culture or trends of each moment influence sexual and emotional behavior.
“I see many people who find it difficult to let go, to abandon themselves to physical sensations, because we are all the time in the mind, in the ideas, in the ideology and because the world we are building is a world in which we will have to be every time. more alert,” says the French sexologist.
“There are many women who have mechanical orgasms, but without the emotional part;
because the emotional is already scary.
No one wants to get deeply involved, which is also why the clitoral sucker trend is on, because more external and not so deep sensations are sought,” she adds.
Many women have mechanical orgasms, but without the emotional part.
Nobody wants to get deeply involved, which is why clitoral suckers are also in fashion. Vershinin (Getty Images/iStockphoto)
If control is at the antipodes of pleasure, instinct also seems to experience its lowest hours.
“Human sexuality is becoming less and less instinctive,” Molero observes, “and I would say that we lose instinct at all levels, perhaps because we feel less physically threatened and because we look for solutions in drugs (anxiolytics, antidepressants), rather than in our emotions. skills".
Perhaps the answer to this problem would be to devolve, to return to our essence, to simplify everything?
In Molero's opinion, we need to focus on sensations.
It is essential to recover body and mental awareness, to enter the plane of feeling.
“To help them loosen up, we subject people to different controlled and gradual exposures, first individually and then as a couple,” he says.
For Miren Larrazabal, it is essential to change certain etched notions, such as that losing control is undesirable.
“You have to banish that negative idea, abandoning yourself can also be an adaptive resource, because it involves relaxation and acceptance.
For people who do not reach orgasm, for whatever reason, the fundamental exercise is to learn to let go, to stop controlling, through successive approaches.”
In that sense, they propose different behavioral experiments to lose control, such as screaming in the field, dancing as if there were no tomorrow or letting themselves be carried away by the rhythm of breathing.
Rita Abundancia
is a journalist, sexologist and author of the website RitaReport.net.